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Lugh’s back together agin, we’re gonna be the same as we was before. The way we’ve always bin.
    Now I know that was jest the story I told myself. To keep goin. To spur me on to find him. To keep me fightin. To keep me alive.
    It’s a good story. I wish it was true. But it ain’t. Because this is the truth.
    What happens to you changes you. Fer good or ill, yer changed ferever. There ain’t no goin back. No matter how many tears you cry. It sounds simple, but it ain’t.
    It’s a truth that Hopetown nailed through my heart. The first time they put me in the Cage to fight.
    My whole life, Lugh’s bin my better self. The light to my dark. We shared a heartbeat in the womb. The blood an breath of our mother. We’re two halfs of one whole.
    Now he cain’t help me. I cain’t help him. An we sure as hell cain’t help ourselfs. No, fer the first time ever, Lugh ain’t the one I need.
    I need Jack.
    Jack.
    My longin fer him aches in my bones. His silver eyes, his crooked smile, the smell of his warm skin, sage an sun. But mostly I long fer, mostly I ache fer, his stillness. The stillness at the heart of him. Like calm water.
    Lugh’s wrong about him. Couldn’t be more wrong. If Jack says he’ll meet me at the Big Water, he will. He keeps his promises. All I need is to see him agin. To be with him, to talk with him. We’ll talk about it, we’ll talk about everythin, an he’ll listen an he’ll help me figger out how to fix things, how to make it all better. How to make me an Lugh better.
    He’ll banish the shadows. He’ll silence the whispers. An the wounds of my soul will heal.
    I jest need Jack.
    He’ll make everythin all right.

    We’re nearly back at camp. Suddenly, somethin catches Lugh’s eye. He squints east, into the distance. I do too. There’s a trail of dust slowly snakin this way.
    Throw me the looker, he says. The first words since we left the ridge. He lifts it to his eyes. Another wagon train, he says. How many’s that since we bin stopped here?
    Four – no, five, I says.
    A lotta people on the move these days, even in this hellhole. He watches fer a bit. Same as always, he says. Sick lookin. Old. Useless.
    Let’s talk to these ones, Lugh, I says. Maybe they could help us. We could travel with ’em.
    I bin takin care of this family since I was eight, he says. I think I know what’s best. You sayin I don’t?
    No, I says, no, I didn’t mean to—
    We don’t need nobody’s help, he says. Well, they better not come lookin fer water. We ain’t got none to spare.
    I’ll watch till they pass, I says.
    He nods. Tosses me the looker. Sing out if they head this way, he says.
    Hey, Lugh?
    Yeah?
    You an me, we’re . . . okay, ain’t we?
    His smile don’t reach his eyes. Of course we are, he says. He clicks at Rip an they disappear around the hill.
    Our camp’s set up in the lee of the best windbreak fer leagues around – a great carhill, made back in Wrecker times. We had one near us at Silverlake. Pa figgered that carhills must of bin some kinda tech worship thing the Wreckers did. The land took hold of this one a long time ago. Covered it with earth an grass all over, hid it away from view. But on the windward side, you can see bits of crushed, rusted car. A nose here, a tail end there. Around th’other side, there’s a grove of spindly scrub pine an a waterhole an that’s where we are. So close to the carhill, you’d esspeck the water to be rustwater, but this one ain’t. Still, it’s only a puddle, jest enough fer us an the horses.
    I git down from Hermes an scramble up the hill. I fix the looker on the dust trail. It ain’t long before the travellers come into plain view. There’s three wagons in this train. First comes a old woman on boarback, wild haired an bent. Next, a man an woman in a mule cart. She fans flies away from the limp child in her lap. Bringin up the rear, a girl about my age pedals a three-tyre trolley.
    I wait. They pass, too far away to see me an I’m well