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She tarave She would erect no marker; the proper memorial would be made in due course Perhaps an hour passed; she possessed no sense of time, nor had the need to Her heart felt heavy and full As the sun touched the line of the hills, she pressed one palm to the freshly turned earth
"Goodbye,believed he would, on a suo, he had failed to return to the house This had happened before, when his wanderings took hiht But when he didn’t appear the next night, Amy went to look for hi on the east side of the ainst the rocks He was only partially conscious His breathing was quick and thin, his skin pallid, his hands dry and cold She wrapped hihtness of his body shocked her She carried him back to the house and upstairs to the bedroom She had already closed the shutters She laid hi hi, a presence Death had entered the house He see He did not regain awareness of his surroundings, or did not seem to The hours passed She would not leave hi slowed until it was barely perceptible Amy waited A moment came when she realized he had slipped away
Now, her task complete, she returned to the house and made a simple dinner for herself She tidied the kitchen and put her dishes away The quiet of eternity had settled over the rooms Darkness came on The stars wheeled above the silent land She had preparations toShe did not want to go upstairs--those days were over She bedded down on the sofa, curled beneath a blanket, and soon was fast asleep
Dawn’s soft glow in the akened her Standing on the porch, she took measure of the day, then returned to the house to prepare her supplies She had fashioned a simple pack with a wooden fras for her journey: a blanket, so, food for a couple of days, a plate and cup, a tarp, a coil of rope, a sharp knife, bottles of water That which she lacked or had failed to anticipate, she could find along the way Upstairs, she washed and dressed In the ed She ht have been a woray, al hair Crinkles fanned from the corners of her eyes; her lips had thinned and paled, becoo by before this face, her face, was observed by another living soul? Would this even happen, or would she pass fro roo she’d ever been able to account for; when she and Peter had arrived at the farift froht, Amy played it; theher hands above the keys, she waited for so her hands tell her where to go Bright notes filled the house Within the song’s phrases lay all that she felt It passed through her in waves, rising and falling, circling and returning, a language of pure erow tired of it, Peter always told her He would stand behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders with the gentlest touch to feel the music as she did, as a force that flowed from within I could listen to you play forever, A is for you
She came to the end Her hands stilled above the keys; the last notes hovered, faded, and were gone So, the ed in her throat She cast her eyes a final time about the roos, a hearth blackened with long use, candles on the tables, books--but itHere they had lived
She rose, put on her pack, and strode out the door, not looking back
--
She reached California in the fall First the deserts, scorched by the sun, then ing above the arid valley Two an to clireen woodlands waited at the top Beneath her, the valleys and h Mojave undulated in the haze The as fierce and dry on her face
At length, the Colony Wall appeared It was still towering in places, in others cruh the rubble Amy scrambled over the detritus and made her way to the center of town Great trees stood where none had grown before; one, collapsed into their foundations Yet a handful of the larger ones remained She came to the structure that had been known as the Sanctuary The roof had caved in; the building was a shell She h athat had, rime; she used a dampened cloth to lass Open to the sky, the interior had become a forest