square, seemed tipped, one part of its foundation having collapsed beneath it; the door stood half open, angled on its hinges. He peered inside. Nothing, only snow and leaves, rivers of rot running down the walls.
He turned. “Amy, where—”
He saw her darting through the trees, away, and lumbered after her. Amy was moving more quickly now, practically running. Through the fog of his exhaustion and the trudge of his frozen feet, Peter had become aware that they had reached the end of their journey, or nearly. Something was leaving him; his strength, stripped away by the cold, was leaving him at last.
“Amy,” he called. “Stop.”
She seemed not to hear him.
“Amy, please.”
She turned to face him.
“What’s here?” he pleaded. “There’s nothing here.”
“There is, Peter.” Her face was lit with joy. “There is.”
“Then where is it?” he said, and heard the anger in his voice. His hands were on his knees; he was panting for breath. “Tell me where it is.”
She lifted her face to the darkening sky, letting her eyes fall shut. “It’s … everywhere,” she said. “Listen.”
He did his best; with every ounce of his remaining strength he sent his mind outward. But all he heard was the wind.
“There’s nothing,” he said again, and felt his hopes collapsing. “Amy, there’s nothing here.”
But then he heard it.
A voice. A human voice.
Somebody, somewhere, was singing.
• • •
They saw the beacon first, rising in the trees.
They had come into a clearing, the forest parting. All around them Peter could discern evidence of human habitation, the suggestive shapes of ruined buildings and abandoned vehicles under the snow. The antenna stood at the edge of a wide depression in the earth, full of debris—a foundation of some kind, for a building long since gone. The antenna was positioned to the side of it, a four-legged metal tower rising high above them, anchored in place by steel cables sunk in concrete. Affixed to its apex was a gray orb studded with spikes. Beneath the orb, encircling the tower and jutting from the sides like the petals of a flower, was a series of paddle-like objects. Perhaps these were solar panels; Peter didn’t know. He placed a hand on the cold metal. Something appeared to be written on one of the struts. He brushed the snow aside, revealing the words UNITED STATES ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS.
“Amy—”
But the place beside him was empty. He detected movement at the edge of the clearing and quickly followed her, into the underbrush. The sound of singing was stronger now. Not words but a wash of notes in phrased patterns, rising and falling. It seemed to be drifting toward them from all directions on the wind. They were close now, very close. He sensed the presence of something up ahead, an openness. The trees separating, the sky exposed. He reached the place where Amy stood, and then stopped.
It was a woman. She was facing away, standing in the dooryard of a small log house. The windows of the house were lighted, and curls of smoke coiled from the chimney. She was shaking out a blanket; more blankets sagged on a line that stretched between a pair of trees. The incredible thought reached him that this woman, whoever she was, was taking in her laundry. Taking in her laundry and singing. The woman was wearing a heavy woolen cloak; her hair, dense and dark with streaks of snowy white, flowed over her shoulders in a cloudlike mass. The lines of her bare legs descended from the edge of the cloak to her feet, on which she appeared to be wearing nothing more than a pair of rope sandals, her toes in the snow.
Peter and Amy moved toward her, the words of her song resolving as they approached. Her voice had a rich, full-throated sound to it, full of a mysterious contentment. She sang and went about her work, placing the blankets in a basket at her feet, apparently oblivious to their presence. The two of them were standing just a few meters behind her now. Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee, the woman sang,
All through the night.
Guardian angels God will send thee,
All through the night.
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping,
I my loved ones’ watch am keeping,
All through the night.
She halted, her hands poised over the line.
“Amy.”
The woman turned. She had a broad, handsome face and dark skin, like Auntie’s. But it was not an old woman he saw. Her skin was firm, her eyes clear and bright.