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golden dreams.
    I love to tell the story, it did so much for me;
    And that is just the reason I tell it now to thee.
     
    Jack couldn’t help but join her.
     
    WILSON LEANED AGAINST the wall of the corridor. All he could hear from his mother’s room was the murmur of Reed’s voice.
    Badger pulled at her puffy crimson skirt with a loud rustle. “At least she stopped breaking things,” she whispered.
    “That doesn’t mean anything.”
    “I really need to wear something normal.”
    “Dear, you can go back to the party. We can handle this.”
    She kissed him and left. A few minutes later Reed came out of the room. He closed the door quietly.
    “How is she?”
    Reed shook his head. “I’ve probably made it worse, but you can go in.”
    Smashed wooden carvings and broken crockery covered the floor. His mother sat in a corner of the bedroom, hair over her face in a mess and eyes staring at the wall.
    Wilson found a broom. He picked up the larger pieces and swept the rest. When he finished, his mother was still in the same corner, with the same blank expression on her face.
    He sat on the floor beside her.    
    “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
    His mother shook her head. “I’m not mad at you, Cubbie. You didn’t speak bald-faced lies to me for nine years. You didn’t smile at me for nine years, all the time knowing how stupid I was.”
    “Some of the others knew too, it wasn’t just––”
    “That doesn’t matter. They’re not the leader of this village. They’re not the self-righteous Sunday preacher.”
    Wilson twisted his mouth grimly and nodded. “He lied to me, too, a few months ago when Badger was sick. I had to sneak into the database to find out the truth.”
    “There’s no truth anymore,” said his mother. “Since I was a little girl I was told things by my mother and the priests that were just made up. Now everyone knows the founders were normal people. Their rules and the reasons for living––all fake. Taking the names of founders and their implants, the stories about going to Heaven through the Tombs––all fairy tales for us, the ignorant, silly boys and girls. Is there a single part of my life that isn’t a lie?”
    “Don’t talk like that. We’re still trying to protect knowledge for the future. That hasn’t changed.”
    “Ha! The future.” She moved her empty gaze from the wall to Wilson. “Was your father happy? Out in the wilderness with those ... people?”
    “He saved lives. He knew how to avoid some of the diseases in the tribes and cure others. He helped to build a safe village for a tribe, the people at David. Of course I asked him why–”
    His mother bit her lip. “Don’t say he wished he’d never left. Don’t tell me about a good man who left his wife and son. Don’t tell me he died helping you. Don’t tell these things to me. Not now and maybe not ever.”
     

THREE
     
    H ausen spread his hands wide on the meeting room table. “Impossible. You can’t expect us to survive the winter without heat and a supply of water. The old fool under the mountain doesn’t understand that.”
    “Jack’s giving us time to prepare, he’s not abandoning us,” said Father Reed. “There’s no time to debate what he does or doesn’t understand. The part of him that’s still human won’t live forever. That is a singular, impossible outcome.”
    “Why not wait until the spring thaw?”
    Wilson cleared his throat. “If the reactor fails, we won’t have time to escape. Not five hundred people with everything they need to survive. The radiation––the ‘ghost-sickness’––will cover the valley and everything in it. It won’t leave for generations.”
    “It sounds to me that an orderly shutdown of the reactor will let us stay here,” said a tall, gray-haired hunter. “We’ll have to think about water supplies and wood stoves, but we’ll be safe.”
    “Simpson is right,” said Hausen. “The living areas are below the frost line and will stay