Now, half a year later, the man Gabe Curtis had once been was gone, replaced by a husk that clung to life by will alone. His face, once as full and richly hued as a ripe apple, had withered to a collection of lines and angles, like a hastily drawn sketch. Mar had trimmed his beard and nails; his cracked lips were glazed with glistening ointment from a wide-mouthed pot on the cart beside his bed-a small comfort, small and useless as the tea.

She sat awhile with Mar, the two of them not speaking. It was possible, Sara understood, for life to go on too long, as it was also possible for it to end too soon. Maybe it was his fear of leaving Mar alone that was keeping Gabe alive.

Eventually Sara rose, placing the mug on the cart. “If he wakes up, see if he’ll drink this,” she said.

Tears of exhaustion hung on the corners of Mar’s eyes. “I told him it’s all right, he can go.”

It took Sara a moment. “I’m glad you did,” she said. “Sometimes that’s what a person needs to hear.”

“It’s Jacob, you see. He doesn’t want to leave Jacob. I told him, We’ll be fine. You go now. That’s what I told him.”

“I know you will, Mar.” Her words felt small. “He knows it too.”

“He’s so damn stubborn. You hear that, Gabe? Why do you have to be so goddamn stubborn all the time?” Then she dropped her face to her hands and wept.

Sara waited a respectful time, knowing there was nothing she could do to ease the woman’s pain. Grief was a place, Sara understood, where a person went alone. It was like a room without doors, and what happened in that room, all the anger and the pain you felt, was meant to stay there, nobody’s business but yours.

“I’m sorry, Sara,” Mar said finally, shaking her head. “You shouldn’t have had to hear that.”

“It’s all right. I don’t mind.”

“If he wakes up, I’ll tell him you were here.” Through her tears, she managed a sad smile. “I know Gabe always liked you. You were his favorite nurse.”

It was half-night by the time Sara got to the Lighthouse. She quietly opened the door and stepped inside. Elton was alone, fast asleep at the panel, earphones clamped to his head.

He twitched awake as the door closed behind her on its springs. “Michael?”

“It’s Sara.”

He removed the earphones and turned in his chair, sniffing the air. “What’s that I smell?”

“Jack stew. It’s probably ice-cold by now, though.”

“Well, I’ll be.” He sat up straight in his chair. “Bring it here.”

She placed it before him. He took a dirty spoon from the counter that faced the panel. “Light the lamp if you want.”

“I like the dark. If you don’t mind.”

“It’s all the same to me.”

For a while she watched him eat in the glow of the panel. There was something almost hypnotic about the motions of Elton’s hands, guiding the spoon into the pot and then to his waiting mouth with smooth precision, not a single gesture wasted.

“You’re watching me,” Elton said.

She felt the heat rising to her cheeks. “Sorry.”

He polished off the last of the stew and wiped his mouth on a rag. “Nothing to be sorry about. You’re about the best thing that ever comes in here, as far as I’m concerned. Pretty girl like you, you watch me all you want.”

She laughed-out of embarrassment or disbelief, she didn’t know. “You’ve never seen me, Elton. How can you possibly know what I look like?”

Elton shrugged, his useless eyes rolling upward behind their drooping lids-as if, in the darkness of his mind, her image was there for him to see. “Your voice. How you speak to me, how you speak to Michael. How you look after him like you do. Pretty is as pretty does, I always say.”

She heard herself sigh. “I don’t feel like it.”

“Trust old Elton,” he said, and gave a quiet laugh. “Somebody’s going to love you.”

There was always something about being around Elton that made her feel better. He was a shameless flirt, for starters, but that wasn’t the real reason. He simply seemed happier than anyone she knew. It was true what Michael said about him: his blindness wasn’t something missing; it was simply something different.

“I just came back from the Infirmary.”

“Well, there you are,” he said, nodding along. “Always looking after folks. How’s Gabe doing?”

“Not so good. He looks really terrible, Elton. And Mar’s taking it hard. I wish there was more I could do for him.”

“Some things you can, and some things you can’t. It’s Gabe’s time now. You’ve done all you could.”

“It’s not enough.”

“It never is.” Elton turned to search the counter with his hands, locating the earphones, which he held out to her. “Now, since you’ve brought me a present, I’ve got one for you. A little something to cheer you up.”

“Elton, I wouldn’t have a clue what I was hearing. It’s all static to me.”

A cagey smile was on his face. “Just do like I say. Close your eyes, too.”

The phones were warm against her ears. She sensed Elton moving his hands over the panel, his fingers gliding here and there. Then she heard it: music. But not like any music she knew. It reached her first as a distant, hollow sound, like a breath of wind, and then, rising behind it, high birdlike notes that seemed to dance inside her head. The sound built and built, seeming to come from all directions, and she knew what she was hearing, that it was a storm. She could picture it in her mind, a great storm of music sweeping down. She had never heard anything so beautiful in her life. When the last notes died away, she pulled the headphones from her ears.

“I don’t get it,” she said, astounded. “This came through the radio?”

Elton chuckled. “Now, that would be something, wouldn’t it?”

He did something to the panel again. A small drawer opened, ejecting a silver disc: a CD. She’d never paid much attention to them; Michael told her they were just noise. She took the disc in her hand, holding it by the edges. Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf conducting.

“I just thought you should hear what you look like,” said Elton.

TWENTY-TWO

“The thing I don’t understand,” Theo was saying, “is why the three of you aren’t dead.”

The group was sitting at the long table in the control room, all except Finn and Rey, who had returned to the barracks to sleep. Peter’s daze of adrenaline had worn off, and the pain in his ankle, which did not seem to be broken, had settled to a low throb; someone had chipped a piece of ice off one of the condensers, and Peter was holding this, wrapped in a sodden rag, to the injured joint. The fact that he had just killed Zander Phillips, a man he had known, had yet to produce in him any emotion he could actually name. The information was simply too strange to process. But the station key had still been around Zander’s neck, so there could be no doubt who it was. There had been no choice, of course; Zander had been fully turned. Strictly speaking, the viral who had tried to force its way through the hatch hadn’t been Zander Phillips anymore. And yet Peter could not suppress the feeling that at the last instant before he’d squeezed the trigger, he’d detected a glimmer of recognition in the viral’s eyes-a look, even, of relief.

In the aftermath of the attack, Theo had questioned Caleb carefully. The boy’s story didn’t quite add up, but it was also clear that he was suffering from exhaustion and exposure. His lips were swollen and cracked, he had a big purple bruise on his forehead, and both of his feet were laced with cuts. The lost shoes seemed to pain him most of all; they were black Nike Push-Offs, he explained, brand-new in their box from the Foot Locker at the mall. They’d come off somehow in his race across the valley, but he’d been so scared he’d barely noticed.

“We’ll get you a new pair,” Theo had said. “Just tell me about Zander.”