I should probably be happy. We found new survivors, the houses on my street and filling up, and my little community is suddenly feeling attainable. Even if my grandmother doesn’t have as much faith in me. But I feel uneasy, as we all head back to our respective homes. For the first time, there’s no big plans for the day, since chasing surges won’t directly benefit us, and it seems everyone is happy to go their separate ways and do their own things.

  The thought of leaving Gigi alone and unprotected fills me with dread, the image of the caved-in bodies flashing in my mind, but clearly Portia and Pete, Gigi’s peers, have survived their first week as well. I keep telling myself that they’ll be fine.

  Nancy and Ryder head into the den and I follow absent-mindedly, only vaguely hearing a deck of cards being shuffled. They’re talking about how nice it is that Gigi found a house that she liked, that she has friends, that there are other neighbours who survived and who seem to be doing okay.

  They’re not wrong, but it doesn’t feel like enough.

  I just don’t know what would be enough.

  Maybe it’s just that I don’t know how to sit still. The last week has been nothing but nonstop momentum, grinding for magic and killing monsters and driving around town and struggling to just survive. Maybe the fact that we have an opportunity to relax, to take a day off and sit inside and play cards, is exactly the sort of success that I’ve been waiting for. Maybe I just don’t know how to sit still anymore. The part of me that could lose a whole day on the couch died with the rest of humanity.

  “Jane,” Nancy calls, and I stop to look over at her. “You’re pacing so hard you’re going to leave a track in the rug.”

  I look down impulsively. Obviously, there’s no sign on the old Persian rug my parents chose for the room. But I had been pacing, and I don’t think I fully realized that.

  “Seems crazy to just… rest,” I finally admit.

  After all, if I can’t trust my thoughts and feelings to these two, what was the point of any of it?

  Nancy smiles at me. “I know,” she admits.

  “Then let’s celebrate,” Ryder says. Both Nancy and I look at him, confused, and he goes on: “Happy one-week-anniversary since the world ended.” With a flourish, he pulls out a carton of ice cream from his inventory.

  Kawartha Dairy ice cream.

  The effect is instantaneous. Nancy is screeching about when and where and how did Ryder get it, and I’m already rushing into the kitchen for bowls and spoons. And as the three of us sit on the floor around the coffee table, heaping bowls of ice cream in hand, the cards forgotten on the table’s glass surface, I find that celebrating is definitely a good way to spend some time.

  ***

  When I wake up the next morning, my only intention for the day is tracking down the address that Sutherland Beverly gave me. I feel guilty that I haven’t gone yet, but I also keep reminding myself that I’ll get to the address exactly when I’m needed at the address. It’s a weird mind trick. The first step is getting back into Savannah and Beaker’s garage so I can use the car with the built-in navigation system to find the address again, because I’ve forgotten exactly where it is.

  I consider if I should go alone or bring my team; I consider if I should tell them where we’re going and why; I consider crawling back into bed. These are the moments when being a Party Leader kinda suck, when I have to make cognizant, logical decisions.

  When I get down to the kitchen, Savannah and Beaker are already there, though my housemates aren’t. “Good morning,” I tell them, grabbing a mug. “How was your day off?” And then I pause, because without Ryder to heat up my water, making my morning tea is a lot more difficult.

  “It was quite lovely, actually,” Savannah says with a bright smile.

  “I practiced a little with my crafting,” Beaker says. “Now that it’s up to a level 6, it can do quite a bit. Oh! I haven’t added today’s Token’s. Let’s get it to 9!”

  I listen to him, I swear I do, even though in my head I’m thinking about how to heat up my water. I can turn on one of our generators and plug in an electric kettle. Or I can boil water on the little propane stove.

  Savannah, without speaking, reaches over and takes the mug from my hands. It vanishes and, a moment later, reappears with steaming water. I take it from her with unabashed surprise.

  She grins at me knowingly. “You’re welcome.”

  I guess boiling water is a sort of cooking, so she can do it all in her inventory. I shake my head in wonder. “Thank you. Both of you. I can’t wait to see all we’re going to do.” I’m grinning, I can’t help it.

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  We make some small talk while I sip my tea and we snack on some fresh berries. Next Ryder comes trudging upstairs, still in pyjamas. And a moment after that, Nancy comes in already prepped and polished for the day. I give them all a true, but limited, version of my plans for the day: there’s someone from the Town Hall who I want to follow up with. As soon as I mention that my parents’ cars don’t have nav systems, Beaker and Savannah immediately offer the cars in their garage.

  I guess at some point over the last couple of days I managed to win them over. That’s nice.

  There’s a part of me that wants to go across the street and check on Gigi, but Nancy convinces me not to. “Give her a chance to settle in a little,” Nancy suggests. “Don’t smother.”

  “I just worry about her.”

  “I know, but you have to trust her, too.”

  Nancy’s right, so instead we get our directions, pile back into my dad’s Volvo, and off we go.

  It becomes very clear, very quickly, that the changes that Nancy noticed yesterday are not only accurate, but widespread. Trees’ growth has exploded, gaining height and girth that they didn’t have two days ago. There’s also new growth in places that there shouldn’t be: five-foot tall shrubs growing out of the cracks of sidewalks, trees knocking over traffic lights, abandoned cars from the Apocalypse Event that are covered in vines.

  The other thing we notice as we drive is that the number of monsters has increased, and they’re not afraid to roam. We see a small group of voles tumbling over each other, playing, but we also see a pair of donkeys just standing in the middle of a street, staring out at nothing, their tails lazily flopping behind them.

  We give them a wide berth.

  “It’s like the big surge the other day took the town from the world is actively ending to post-apocalyptic movie scene,” Savannah says.

  “Maybe there was another big one yesterday that we just missed,” Nancy suggests.

  “They’re getting bigger and weirder?” Beaker considers.

  “Maybe,” Nancy says. “The surges all need to coalesce into something, I’d think.”

  But none of us have any idea, so the topic slides away.

  As we get closer to the address, we start to notice that there are pedestrians. People walking along the sidewalks, dodging the monsters and the encroaching plantlife. They notice the driving car and side-eye us, but for the most part we’re ignored. They’re all heading in the same direction.

  It gives me a heavy, anxious feeling of foreboding.

  Until we turn on the street that Sutherland gave me, we find the unit number, and come to a stop in front of a… a very boring, average, quiet house.

  “Anticlimactic,” Beaker says.

  “You took the word right out of my mouth,” I say.

  “Is this the guy’s home, who you wanted to follow up with?” Savannah asks.

  “Um,” I start, biting my lip. “Well.”

  “Jesus, Jane,” Savannah says, though there isn’t too much malice in it. “No half-truths. What are we doing here?”

  Ryder points forward, his little hand thrust between the front seats. “And does it have anything to do with that?”

  We all stare off at the distance. We can see more pedestrians now, and a small crowd looks to be forming. I look back at the undisturbed house. “Let’s go for a walk,” I suggest.

  “Jane…” Savannah says.

  “I’ll tell you the whole thing on the way.”

  I’m met with reluctant agreements in the form of seatbelts being unbuckled. And then we’re off, the five of us leaving the car parked in front of Sutherland’s address to the growing crowd at the end of the street.

  “Sutherland’s magic is some degree of seeing the future,” I tell them. Quick, succinct, like pulling off a band-aid. “He left me this address in a note. The note also said ‘bon appetit,’ and I met you guys like a second later.”

  “Oh,” Beaker says. “Yeah, that’s… pretty telling.”

  “So you’ve been sitting on this note since the Town Hall?” Nancy asks.

  I nod. “I’ve been trying to find our way here, but we kept getting derailed.”

  “It kinda seems like we’re here exactly when we’re supposed to be here,” Ryder offers.

  “I guess if the guy’s truly precognitive, he’d have known that,” Beaker says.

  “Exactly my thought,” I say.

  “You should have told us the truth,” Nancy says from beside me, a little quieter.

  I nod again. “I know. I’m sorry. I thought precognition might be a little… too much.”

  Nancy throws a glance over at me, a smirk on her face. “In a world of apocalypses and systems in our brains?” She lets out a very un-Nancy-like scoff. “No such thing.”

  The conversation peters out at the shouts that reach our ears, but I can’t make out the words. Nancy and Savannah both look a little nervous, Ryder and Beaker striding ahead. Ryder’s hands are in little fists again, and I have a moment to think if that’s his nerves, or his way to resist conjuring a fireball too quickly. Another quick memory comes to me: on the farm field after the big battle, a question in his eyes and on his lips that died quickly when Savannah and Beaker interrupted.

  I need to spend some one-on-one time with him, make sure he’s okay. I’ve been a little negligent.

  The direction of my thoughts comes to a screeching, sudden halt when I realize I can make out the words that are being shouted.

  “Tie him up!”

  “Show him what’s what!”

  “That’ll teach him!”

  “Kill him!”

  I share quick glances with those around me, all of us coming to the same conclusion: this isn’t some happy crowd. Something nefarious is happening here. Sutherland sent us here for a reason. We all pick up our paces, and next thing I know I’m jogging, as I come to the end of the block into the parking lot of a small plaza. We’re standing at the edge of the crowd, and face the direction that they’re all looking at.

  There’s three people standing in the back of a pick-up truck. After a moment of shock, I realize I recognize them. One is a large man, round around the middle, with dark hair. He looks different in jeans and a crew neck sweatshirt than the pink shirt and paisley tie, but I clock him as Richard Maxwell, the man who tried—and failed—to lead the Town Hall.

  The second person up there is Marvin, our would-be gas station assailant. His burn scars are still stark, but he seems to have gotten a proper hair cut to hide the mess that Ryder’s fire caused. He still wears that same black-and-white button-down flannel open over a plain tee, but at least he’s changed out of those awful, hole-ridden sweatpants.

  The third person standing on the bed of the truck is Sutherland Beverly himself. I can tell that it’s him even with the brown paper bag he wears over his head and his arms tied up behind his back.

  “What the fuuuuuu—” I hear Beaker breathe beside me.

  “Oh no,” Nancy whispers on my other side. “Please tell me that’s not—”

  “That’s Sutherland,” I whisper back. “This just turned into a rescue mission.”