CHAPTER SEVEN
That night, we sit in the kitchen together, silently fuming. I don’t think I could speak even if I wanted to.
Part of me burns from the hypocrisy of it all. Looking through her stuff? While she was sneaking around the bookstore for god knows how long looking through my belongings? She came to me because she needed shelter and then told me that I don’t understand what it’s like to be hungry. That I don’t understand what it’s like to be alone. But I do understand. I understand perfectly.
There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely. That much is true. Alone is a physical state. A state of separation from anything and everything that could possibly give you comfort. Alone is being proud of yourself and having no one around who loves you to say that they’re proud too. Alone is having nightmares and having absolutely no one to hold you close and tell you that it will all be okay. Alone is the complete and utter absence of the people who love you and the people whom you love back.
Loneliness is hunger. Loneliness is a hunger for something you can never have. Loneliness is a hunger for warmth, and compassion, and birthday songs, and love. When you haven’t had someone care about you for such a long time that you think you will fall apart completely.
People come and go, here for moments and then gone, but the hunger has inched closer and closer to eating me alive. Peacoat Man does not offer love. He doesn’t offer any sort of antidote to loneliness. He just exists. He is kind, and for a moment I am with someone else. Same with the other people who pass by and stop at the store. Sure, I have contact, I see people, and some of them are even friendly. But I am still lonely. There is a void in me that no person can fill by being around. There is a void in me that I don’t think will ever be filled. It grows by the day.
The knife sits on the kitchen counter. Maeve put it there as soon as we brought the last of her stuff upstairs. She placed it there and made sure I was looking, as if to say, See! I’m not going to kill you! I will put my artisanal knife on the counter so that I will have to walk all the way over here, in plain view, in order to kill you! Everything is all right. Still, I know that she could make it to this knife and stick it in my gut before I even have time to react. She glowers at me from the armchair. My armchair. The armchair that I have eaten in every single night for the past year.
I decide to let it slide. I stare at her from my spot on the floor, slurping up a cup of noodles. One useful thing Maeve had in that ridiculous cart of hers was a supersized box of matches. Even though it’s a huge fire hazard considering the amount of paper in this building, her rusted camp stove also made my dinner warm for the first time in a long time. For that, Maeve earned herself the armchair. I look back down at my noodles and swirl them, around and around and around with my fork until they’ve become a clump of noodles so large that I couldn’t possibly fit it in my mouth. I decide to try.
Maybe I’ll choke on them and die right here on the floor, Maeve not moving from the armchair due to pure stubbornness. I’ll die here and fossilize, and our ever-merciful alien overlords will find my body and say
!
Which roughly translates to Glutton!
Maeve pauses and points at a photo on the coffee table, Peacoat Man’s sister smiling up at us. She grins. “Who’s the photo of?”
Even though I know exactly what she’s talking about, my eyebrows arch. Why does she care? “Huh?”
“The lady in the photo. Is she family?”
“No.” The words leap out of my mouth before I can process why I’m feeling so defensive. But why should Maeve get to know anything about my family? Why should she get to know anything about me at all? “It’s a customer.”
Maeve scoffs. “A customer? So you’re telling me that this place is still in business? In this economy?”
“Something like that,” I grumble in response. “Some people actually value the lasting power of literature.” Unlike a certain someone in this room who likes to break into bookstores and probably can’t spell Nietzsche.
“Is this what your life is like?” Maeve asks. “Plenty of food, and an open door for visitors?” Her tone surprises me. It’s soft, not venomous like I thought it would be. I freeze, fork halfway to my lips.
“What?”
“Every day. Is this how you live?” Maeve repeats.
I place my fork back into my noodle cup and look up at her. “I mean, not exactly like this. Not every day. Some days are worse than others, I guess.” I pause and wait for the feeling in my chest to dissipate. “But yes.”
Maeve stares at me, slowly sipping her broth. “It must be nice.”
Her voice is monotone, like she’s reciting a well-known fact. Like it’s an uncontested truth that I’ve had it so much easier.
“Is that some sort of backhanded jab at me? Another one? Because after this morning, I can assure you that you’ve gotten your point across. You don’t know every—”
“I don’t mean it like that.” Her tone is biting, at first. But then it’s not. “It just must be nice to always have people.”
“I don’t have people. They never last long.”
And when they leave, I’m just as alone as everyone else, stuck thinking about the things I should have done. Stuck with that simmering feeling of guilt inside me.
“But at least those people exist. You have people in your life.”
“Yeah, well, I can never get them to stay.”
Maeve looks away, and my heart sinks. For a moment, I worry that I’ve ruined the conversation, not that it was a good conversation in the first place. Some part of my brain wants Maeve to like me, no matter how much I don’t like her. I’m such a kiss-ass that I can’t help wanting everyone to like me. I watch something flicker across her face as she processes what I said.
She nods slowly, looking down to take another sip of broth. “It’s hot.”
Not quite the gasp of understanding that I was waiting for. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
Maeve laughs at this, even though I don’t think what I said was that funny. I think it was a laugh of relief.
“I’m sorry, by the way,” she mutters, mouth half full of noodles. “For whatever you’ve been through.”
I look at her, trying to discern if she really means the things she’s saying. Nothing lurks behind her face. No bit of malice waits for me to take her bait.
“It’s okay.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
FEBRUARY 18: BEFORE THE FIRST STORM
It’s Chinese-food night, meaning that Mom is off in the city going to some fancy lawyer dinner for people in suits. This is my favorite type of night. The type of night when I don’t have to deal with her endless nagging and instead get to enjoy a nice big plate of sesame noodles.
Thea sits beside me, pushing General Tso’s chicken around with her chopsticks. Dad clears his throat.
“Can I talk to you girls about something?” he asks, setting down his utensils and taking a sip from his gin and tonic.
That’s probably the worst sentence you could ever hear from a parent at the beginning of a Friday-night dinner, except for maybe I got an interesting call from your principal today or I’ve been feeling rather queasy; I hope it’s not contagious.
I stop shoveling noodles into my mouth and look up, ready to give him my full attention. Unlike my mother, he’s not the type to be super melodramatic. When he’s serious, he’s serious. Thea, however, is unbothered.
“Sure,” I reply, nudging Thea’s ankle with my sneaker until she stops torturing her dinner.
“I’ve told you about your aunt Kathleen, right?” Dad says.
He has. Apparently we met her when we were little, at the age where you can’t form full memories yet, so my only mental image of her is a woman with a blob for a face.
“Yeah,” Thea murmurs. “The Alaskan one.”
Dad smiles. “Yes, that one.”
I pick up my chopsticks again and lift a bundle of noodles. “What about her?” I ask, before shoving them into my mouth.
“She’s invited us to stay with her, if we have to. Somewhere more remote. Off the grid.”
Thea coughs, eyes bulging out. Because it’s not like our dad isn’t…eccentric. But he’s Jesus Christ Superstar–reenactment-at-eleven-p.m.-on-a-Wednesday eccentric. He’s dress-up-as-an-escaped-mental-patient-and-create-an-elaborate-skit-for-trick-or-treaters eccentric. Not run-off-to-Alaska eccentric. And suddenly my Chinese food has adhered to the inside of my throat.
“Why would we do that?” she spits.
“It’s not happening immediately. The whole thing is a couple of months away, once things get bad enough that we have to—”
Thea holds up her hand. “For Christ’s sake, Dad. Please don’t start with this again. I’m trying to enjoy my food.”
She’s shifted over to Mom’s side in the past month. Too many newspaper articles and YouTube videos can make a person numb. And for Thea, she seems to believe that because it hasn’t happened yet, it won’t ever happen.
“Did you know that there was a tornado in Massachusetts yesterday? And not a small one either. There hasn’t been a tornado in Massachusetts in years! And the tsunami in Louisiana. Not to mention that pretty much all of Canada is on fire,” Dad says.
“There’s a first time for everything, right?” Thea replies.
I shake my head. Dad isn’t always right, but sometimes he is. “That doesn’t make it any less monumental.”
“Thank you, Liz,” Dad says. “I’m planning on leaving for Alaska in September after you girls head off to school. You could join me on breaks. Mail some of your stuff over.”
Thea laughs, the sound cold, before she pauses for dramatic effect. “Oh, you were serious? That’s actually insane, Dad. I mean, I understand being pessimistic. Hell, I’m pessimistic, but you’ve taken it to a whole other level.”
“Trust me, girls. Things are only going to get worse.”
“Things always get worse!”
I decide to give my input, even if it’s not required. “It doesn’t hurt to be prepared.” And that’s the truth. Sure, what if Dad’s wrong and just falling off the deep end, but…what if he’s right? I’ve seen the headlines, too; I’ve watched as my teachers have skirted around the more difficult topics. I understand what it’s like to have that feeling in the pit of your stomach, like everything’s about to go terribly wrong.
“This isn’t just prepared, Liz,” Thea says. “This is like doomsday-prepper-level shit. Next thing you know, he’s going to start wearing tinfoil hats and quoting Leviticus.”
“Don’t talk to me like that, Thea. I’m still your father.”
“I understand, Dad,” I say, looking up at him. He looks tired. Too tired. “I understand what you’re saying.”
“Don’t do it, Liz,” Thea warns. “Don’t join his little cult that he has going on.”
I look down at my plate before murmuring, “I have to think about it.”
Because maybe it would be nice to leave all of this behind and not have to worry about college or the future or whatever else comes with it. Maybe it would be better, easier, to leave the world behind. It wouldn’t matter that I’ve got no prom date, that I’ve never been kissed. It wouldn’t matter that I walk home every day for lunch because it’s better than staying at school, alone. Maybe, in that weird way, Dad is right.
I push my food away. I’m not quite hungry anymore.
“Okay,” Dad says. “That’s okay. Think about it. But don’t tell your mother.”
I reach for the container of fried rice at the other end of the table. The food has gone cold.
CHAPTER NINE
Clouds loom in the sky, a grim reminder of what’s to come. Maeve took it upon herself to create a countdown on the wall, even though neither of us has a real timeline of what’s to come. But a month was a nice round number, so she wrote it down anyway. I can feel its presence, like some cursed Mona Lisa, as Maeve flips the open sign on the front door. I told Maeve that it wasn’t helpful to have a reminder of impending doom in such a prominent place. Maeve retorted that she always works better under pressure. I can’t say I feel the same.
Maeve is sketching out a plan for window repair when a woman opens the front door. I put down the rag I was using to clean the shelves and smile. I feel like I’ve seen her before.
Two sandy braids hang down her back, bouncing against her slightly torn baseball tee. Her face is kind, with small smile lines appearing around her eyes. Maeve looks at me, seemingly shocked as the woman walks toward the counter.
“They just come in like that?” she asks, her voice a harsh whisper.
“Yeah,” I reply. They always have. I’ve thought of installing a bell above the door but have never gotten around to it. I’ve also never managed to find a bell. It doesn’t seem important.
“I didn’t.”
“Ha ha, very funny.” I decide to drop it there, rather than trying to explain the postapocalyptic rules of customer service. “Thank goodness the majority of the world isn’t like you.”
Maeve stares for a moment before leaning toward me once again. “Obviously you just haven’t met the right people.”
I can’t help but smile, and I watch as the corners of Maeve’s mouth rise. She grins back.
The woman finally makes it to the counter, shrugging a well-worn hiking bag off her shoulders. “Hi,” she manages, her voice low and gritty.
Maeve moves to the side, making room for me. “Can I help you find something?” The words are practically programmed into my brain at this point.
“Yeah,” the woman says, sighing. “My name is Sawyer. I think my brother left me something?”
She says it like a question. The people who come here always do, at least their first time. Can I come in? I’m looking for a book? I have something to trade you? Almost as if they’d told themselves that they weren’t allowed to be happy anymore. That there weren’t any good things left, let alone a random bookstore in the middle of suburban New Jersey.
“Yeah, of course,” I answer, turning to inspect the corkboard propped up behind the inoperable register. But then I remember the crumpled photo on the table upstairs and realize where I’ve seen Sawyer’s face before. “Wait! You’re Peacoat Man’s sister?”
Sawyer raises her eyebrows, her face perfectly matching Maeve’s. They both look at me, staring in silence.
Sawyer shakes her head slowly. “You mean Everton? Yeah, I’m his sister.” She chuckles for a moment, laughing at some secret joke. “He still wears that ragged old coat everywhere?”
“Of course. I’ve never seen him without it.”
Maeve watches from the sidelines, her eyes bouncing from me to Sawyer back to me. I understand the look on her face. It’s like we’re playing a game and she doesn’t know the rules.
I pluck the letter that Peacoat Man left from the bulletin board and hand it to Sawyer, who places it gently in the pocket of her pants. She lets her hiking pack fall from her shoulder and unzips it, rifling around for something inside. A few seconds later, she’s found it, sliding a book of matches onto the counter.
It’s one of those flimsy ones you get at the front desk of some fancy French bistro in the city, emblazoned with the faded logo of a once-exclusive restaurant. I begin to open my mouth to thank Sawyer when she adds a package of beef jerky, setting it down in front of us with a small thud. It’s a bigger package than I’m used to and probably more than she should be parting with, but when she looks toward me she has this childish gleam in her eyes.
“Don’t be polite,” she says, a smirk appearing on her lips. “I can spare it, and I want to give it to you.”
All I say in response is “Thank you.” That seems to suffice for Sawyer.
She gives me and Maeve a quick wave as she walks back toward the front door, reaching for the letter resting in her pocket.
As the door shuts behind her, Maeve turns toward me, eyebrows furrowed. “Are they always so…generous?”
“You’d be surprised,” I reply. I watch through the front window as Sawyer opens the yellowed envelope in her hands. She stands just across the street, leaning against the remains of a rusted mailbox as she reads. I watch as emotions flick across her face. First amusement, then admiration, then some small sliver of sadness before it morphs into a look of determination.
She turns, trying to orient herself in the center of the plaza as she consults the paper in her hands. Finally, she adjusts the straps of her bag and sets off, her figure growing smaller and smaller until she disappears around a set of hedges.
• • •
“This place is filthy,” Maeve mutters, wiping dust off the counter with the sleeve of her flannel. “Dust on the shelves, dust on the floor, cobwebs in the corner.”
“What?” I dog-ear my page in Changing My Mind and snap it shut.
“Do you ever clean in here?”
I turn around and pause, staring at her. She’s not even looking at me. She’s inspecting the floor behind the counter, which I already know could use some sweeping.
“What do you think?”
Maeve glares at me, unappreciative of my sarcasm. “I’m not here to be a maid.”
“Cleaning isn’t important,” I reply.
“Aren’t you running a business?”
I begin to walk toward Maeve, my sandals thudding across the floor. “It’s not like I have very much competition.”
Maeve huffs, glancing down at my to-do list on the counter. “No wonder this place is in shambles,” she mutters. “You don’t care enough.”
I want to tell her that I do, in fact, care enough. I care more than she can imagine. I care more about this place than she’s cared about anything in her entire life. But there are things that are more important than sweeping and dusting, like staying alive. And sometimes, things hurt too much for you to do anything at all. Sometimes, you feel like falling apart, and the only thing you can focus your energy on is making sure that you don’t. But Maeve doesn’t seem like she has any days like that. Maeve doesn’t seem like she feels anything at all.
Maeve exhales, tracing the to-do list with a thin finger. “Still, this is easy stuff.”
“What do you mean, this is easy stuff?” I retort.
“I don’t know. I don’t understand why you’ve put it off for so long.”
I can’t deal with her know-it-all attitude, or her coarseness, or her entitlement. I can’t deal with the way she weasels into things and refuses to acknowledge the inconvenience. I can’t deal with her ever-present scowl and her gravelly voice.
Maeve raps her finger against the hardwood counter. She stares at me expectantly, as if she’s waiting for me to argue and say, Shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about. That would be right. That’s what I want to say, but I can’t. Because if she’s going to stay here until her tent is fixed, no matter how long that might take, I’m going to force our interactions to be borderline pleasant.
“Whatever you say,” I manage eventually.
A small smile creeps onto Maeve’s face. “I can get this done in two or three weeks.”
“Yeah, totally. It’s just some late spring-cleaning to make sure I’m ready for winter.”
Maeve slowly rises from the stool she’s been sitting on, wiping her sweaty hands on her legs.
“Is there some sort of a faucet outside?” she asks, staring up at me. “I want to make sure that the whole water problem isn’t just a problem with the individual sink upstairs. Then I can figure out a game plan.”
I blink slowly, staring back at her. Now that Maeve has said it, I feel completely and utterly foolish. I’ll feel more foolish if she turns that spout and fresh water pours out. I can feel the heat rise to my cheeks as I nod, pointing toward the front door.
“Yeah, it’s right outside,” I manage. “It’s one of those hose things, if that works.”
Maeve doesn’t answer. She walks straight past me, leading the way out the front door. I don’t move. I watch her disappear around the corner of the building, no longer visible through the front windows. I revel in the quiet left by her absence before I finally decide to follow.
I make my way around the front counter and out the front door that needs a new lock and new hinges. Surely Maeve will tell me that I’ve been utterly idiotic and haven’t been twisting the knob in the right direction. The lock is perfectly fine; it just doesn’t like you.
I round the corner, walking along the path her boots made in the dirt.
When I find Maeve, she’s staring at the slightly rusted rectangle that sits just far enough from the side of the building that a soccer ball has managed to wedge itself into the gap. She moves her tongue from side to side in her mouth, lost in thought. Her eyes are narrowed as she peers at this unassuming box, tapping her foot impatiently like she’s waiting for it to do something.
“What?” I mutter after getting tired of waiting.
Maeve bites down on the corner of her bottom lip. “Do you know what this is?”
“A box.”
Maeve’s sharp, biting laugh rings out, and she grins. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
I want to slap her. I want to tell her that I am perfectly capable and have lasted this long without her. I don’t need her to save me or tell me that I don’t know anything at all. Because I do know things, right? I know a lot of things, and I know now that Maeve is a condescending asshole that I can’t wait to get out of my hair.
“Fine. Then what is it, if you’re so much smarter than me? Because it looks like a rusty box.” I pause, chewing on the inside of my cheek. “It looks like a normal metal box that has been here for decades and is about to crumble to dust.”
Maeve raises her eyebrows at me before pointing at a small sticker on the corner of the box. “What does that say?”
“I don’t really want to play detectives right now,” I say, but I look anyway. The letters have almost faded, but once I squint hard enough I can see the hazy outline of a shock warning. The mysterious box shouldn’t be touched by children. It can administer enough volts to knock you off your feet…and then some. I look back up at Maeve, who waits expectantly. “Okay, so it’s an electric box. Cool. If you haven’t noticed, the electricity is out. It has been for a while. I’m going to go test the hose, if you don’t mind.”
But Maeve does seem to mind, and she holds up her arm, blocking my path over to the spigot. “Liz, it’s not an electric box…whatever that might be. It’s a generator!” I watch as a smile erupts across her face. A genuine one, not one filled with spite. “You’ve been sitting on a generator for a year, and you haven’t noticed!”
I furrow my brow and stare back at her. “How was I supposed to know that this was a generator?”
“You weren’t. That’s why you’re so totally lucky that I’m here.”
“What would I do without you?” I manage sarcastically. But an image pops into my head. An image of a functioning light bulb. A CD player with real live music streaming out of its speakers. Hell, maybe even air-conditioning. An image of me and Maeve on the front of a newspaper, smiling because we brought electricity back to a ravaged world. We’d be in textbooks for centuries, and they’d have textbooks in the future because we brought electricity back to a ravaged world. And saved it. Of course, Maeve would probably alienate everyone with her crappy attitude, so in the end, I’d likely get credit for everything. I don’t mind that thought.
“C’mon. Let’s crack this bad boy open.”
I stare down at Maeve as she kneels, inspecting her bounty. As something sour blooms inside me, I realize that there’s absolutely no way in hell that I’m letting Maeve open this thing up. It’s my generator, for goodness’ sake.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”
Maeve immediately turns to face me.
“I do, in fact, know what I’m doing. You didn’t even know that this was a generator.”
“Fine. Fair enough. I’m an idiot. But I’m an idiot who’s going to get this thing running.” I watch as Maeve pauses, weighing her options. Either she stays with the generator and faces my wrath or she backs off and I don’t murder her in the night. Eventually she moves backward, leaning against the trunk of the dead tree. She pretends not to care, but I can see her eyes flicking back and forth, inspecting every inch of the generator. Every gear in her brain is turning at once.
“All yours.”
I move closer to the metal box, taking my sweaty finger and using it to slowly wipe the rust and dirt off the exterior. A crack appears in the outer shell, and then a pair of hinges. Slowly I uncover a door with a small plastic window, too cloudy to use. Without hesitating, I yank it open, and a cloud of dust erupts into the air, sending me into a coughing fit. Maeve doesn’t do a good job of hiding her laughter, and it takes everything in me to not turn around and stare her down. Not that that would work, anyway.
Inside the metal casing sits a gas tank, the type you’d expect to see inside fancy grills in the Hamptons. The kinds that used to be featured in Father’s Day commercials and Memorial Day sales at Home Depot. Those sorts of things. Beside it is a dark cylinder, attached to a small fan, both of which are supposed to be spinning, generating kinetic energy, but aren’t. I stare at them, not quite knowing what to do, before biting the bullet and facing Maeve.
“What do I do now?”
She grins at me from her place under the tree. “Well, these things normally run on gas, or propane in this case, I guess. You could start by checking to see if there’s anything left in the tank.”
“How do you know about this stuff? Aren’t you a city girl?” I ask. What makes you think you know so much more than I do?
“Like I said, my dad was a super, and my mom practically locked herself in her office. I either died of boredom or followed him around as he worked. Years of exploring my apartment building’s basement has led to me knowing my way around these sorts of things.” She smirks slightly as she flips her hair over to the other side of her head, revealing the shaved half. “What about you? Shouldn’t this be your deal, country mouse?”
Now it’s my turn to scoff. “The suburbs of New Jersey are hardly a self-sufficient place. My parents couldn’t even use the TV properly. I had to help them change inputs practically every night.”
Maeve shrugs. “Okay.”
“Okay.” I turn back toward the generator, searching the propane tank for some sort of meter. A black hose snakes through the inside, connecting itself to a nozzle at the tank’s top. Attached to it is a small metal disk with a red needle barely visible through a layer of dust. I wipe it clean with the tip of my thumb. It’s full. So why isn’t it working?
“It must be broken.” I sigh, tucking my hair behind my ears. I try my best to mirror Maeve’s horrible smile as I turn around. “You’re a lifesaver. Thanks so much for pointing out this useless piece of metal.”
“It was worth a try,” she mutters back. “But they wouldn’t have kept this thing here if it was broken. Right?”
“I think you’re forgetting about the apocalyptic disaster that blew through last year and destroyed basically everything.” I kick up a cloud of dust with the corner of my sandal. “And what exactly do we do with this generator if we somehow manage to fix it? No way the propane will last that long. Are you going to waste it on some light bulbs or something?”
“No, silly,” she replies. My stomach flips, an uncomfortable sensation that I don’t like. I run my tongue along my gums, stopping myself from saying something I might regret. It’s only a couple of days, right? I just have to bear her until then.
I’m transported back to high school, back to a game I used to play with myself after horrible social interactions, or after one of my jokes failed miserably. Faced with crushing humiliation, I’d repeat a mantra in my head: Only two more years and then you never have to see them again. It later became Stay friends with them so you won’t be alone at prom. It later became Hold your tongue just a little longer so that you have someone to talk to at graduation. And then graduation came and went, and shit hit the fan, and nothing really mattered in the end. Nothing really mattered at all. I was still alone. I am still alone.
I look at Maeve expectantly, waiting for her to educate me. “Think about the wonders an electric drill could do. Or a buzz saw,” she explains.
“I don’t do power tools.”
Maeve smirks at me again. “I do.” Of course she does. Maeve laughs, a low, raspy laugh that starts out small but soon boils over into a full-blown fit.
“What is so funny?” I ask, frustrated.
Maeve rolls her eyes. “I’m just imagining you using power tools. It doesn’t really fit your vibe.”
I might strangle her. I honestly think I might strangle this girl. And sure, she might strangle me first, but I’m starting to think that I don’t really care. My fingers are starting to itch when I see her point to something behind me and hear her laughter intensify.
I throw my hands up. “Jesus Christ, Maeve. Now what?”
“You might want to check the On switch,” she says, pointing her toe at something near the bottom of the generator. I can tell she wants to add the word idiot to the end of that sentence, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t have to. She can just pretend to be nice and helpful.
And sure enough, she is pointing to a small black knob that I, in my infinite wisdom, somehow missed. I notice slightly scratched letters next to the knob, forming a word that looks remarkably like Off. I don’t say anything in response as I reach out and turn the knob toward a tiny lightning bolt that I hope is supposed to mean On.
I wait for the motor to start moving, for this thing to hum to life. I wait to see some sign that this thing even functions, but nothing comes. I can feel Maeve behind me, getting restless. I bet she can barely stop herself from snapping at me and telling me exactly what I’ve done wrong. Then she’ll push me aside and fix something, and magic! It’ll work. Just like when you’re having computer problems that you can’t fix, but the second you ask someone else to help, they suddenly solve everything in an instant.
I stare at the motor. Maybe this has something to do with activation energy. I mean, I have a hazy understanding of what that means from my freshman-year biology class. Every reaction needs a certain amount of activation energy to get started. Once it reaches that point, the reaction starts and only an enzyme can bring that level of energy needed down. So I can be the enzyme, I think. Or at least my hand can, to get this busted-up thing running. I hate to say it, but I haven’t quite kept up with my studies.
I don’t ask Maeve for permission. “I’m just going to give it a little help,” I murmur. If she can’t hear me, she can’t tell me that I’m doing something wrong.
I slowly reach my hand in, feeling the cold metal on my fingertips. I can hear Maeve say something behind me, but I don’t listen. Her voice is harsh, rough. And I’m sure that if I turned around, I’d see that same spiteful grin on her face.
I feel the cold metal on my skin, and I push. All at once I hear a roar, and then I don’t feel anything at all.