Aftertime. Sophie Littlefield

       Aftertime

      Sophie Littlefield

       www.mirabooks.co.uk

      For M, with love and regret

      There you are and always will be

       In your pretty coat

       Skating lazy eights

       on the frozen pond of my heart

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      The existence of this book is a testament to the tenacity and vision of two people: my agent, Barbara Poelle, who only accepts “no” when it suits her—and my editor Adam Wilson, who gets it and then some. In the moments when the story shines, it’s because of them.

      Thanks, too, to the entire Harlequin team, who made me feel welcome from day one.

      01

      THAT IT WAS SUMMER WAS NOT IN DOUBT. The nights were much too short and the days too long. Something about the color of the sky said August to Cass. Maybe the blue was bluer. Hadn’t autumn signaled itself that way Before, a gradual intensifying of colors as summer trailed into September?

      Once, Cass would have been able to tell from the wildflowers growing in the foothills where she ran. In August petals fell from the wild orange poppies, the stonecrop darkened to purplish brown, and butterweed puffs drifted in lazy breezes. Deer grew bold, drinking from the creek that ran along the road. The earth dried and cracked, and lizards and beetles stared out from their hiding places among the weeds.

      But that was two lives ago, so far back that it was like a story that had once been told to Cass, a story maybe whispered by a lover as she drifted off to sleep after one too many Jack and Cokes, ephemeral and hazy at the edges. She might not believe it at all, except for Ruthie. Ruthie had loved the way butterweed silk floated in the air when she blew on the puffs.

      Ruthie, who she couldn’t see or touch or hold in her arms. Ruthie, who screamed when the social workers dragged her away, her legs kicking desperately at nothing. Mim and Byrn wouldn’t even look at Cass as she collapsed to the dirty floor of the trailer and wished she was dead.

      Ruthie had been two.

      Cass pushed herself to go faster, her strides long and sure up over a gentle rise in the road. She was barely out of breath. This was nothing, less than nothing. She dug her hard, sharp nails into the calluses of her thumbs. Hard, harder, hardest. The skin there was built up against her abuse and refused to bleed. To break it she would need something sharper than her nail. Teeth might work, but Cass would not use her teeth. It was enough to use her nails until the pain found an opening into her mind. The pain was enough.

      She had covered a lot of ground this moon-bright night. Now it was almost dawn, the light from the rising sun creeping up over the black-blue forest skeletons, a crescent aura of orange glow in the sky. When the first slice of sun was visible she’d leave the road and melt into what was left of the trees. There was cover to be found—some of the native shrubs had survived. Greasewood and creosote still grew neck high in some places.

      And it was easy to spot them. You saw them before they saw you, and then you hid, and you prayed. If they saw you at all, if they came close enough to smell you, you were worse than dead.

      Cass stayed to the edge of the cracked pavement of what had been Highway 161, weaving around the occasional abandoned car, forcing herself not to look inside. You never knew what you would see. Often nothing, but … it was just better not to look. Chunks of the asphalt had been pushed aside by squat kaysev plants that had managed to root in the cracks. Past the shoulder great drifts of it grew, the dark glossy leaves hiding clusters of pods. The plants were smooth-stemmed without burrs or thorns. Walking among them was not difficult. But walking on pavement allowed Cass, now and then—and never when she was trying—to let her mind go back to another time … and when she was really lucky, to pretend all the way back two lifetimes ago.

       Taking Ruthie, barely walking, down the sidewalk to the 7-Eleven, buying her a blue raspberry Slurpee, because Ruthie loved to stick out her blue tongue and look at herself in the mirror. Cutting across the school parking lot on the way home, jumping over the yellow lines, lifting Ruthie’s slight body and swinging her, laughing, through the air.

      Yes, pavement was nice. Cass had good shoes, though she didn’t remember where she got them. They seemed like they might have been men’s shoes, plain brown lace-up walking shoes, but they fit her feet. A small man, then. How she’d got the shoes from him … it didn’t bear thinking about. The shoes were good, they were comfortable and hadn’t given her blisters or sores despite the many days of walking.

      A movement caught her eye, off in the spiky remains of the woods. Cass stopped abruptly and scanned the tree skeletons and shrubs. A flash of white, was it? Or was it only the way the light was rising in the sky, reflected off … what, though? There were only