So far, Dany has seen nothing on the road. Not one sign of life.
They haven’t passed another car or seen so much as a shadow behind a curtain. The only creature they’ve passed is a skinny dog, chained up outside an old farmhouse. The dog is too lazy or tired to raise its head and bark. Years from now, Dany worries, someone will find its bones chained in the grass.
She sits back down in the cargo hold and turns to Antoine.
“It’s weird,” Dany calls out. “I don’t see anybody. But I feel like we’re being watched.”
Antoine looks at his daughter sharply and nods. “I feel it too,” he says.
Ahead of them – somewhere on the far side of town – the sky is blossoming into a dark flower – all that smoke. Whole houses must be burning to produce so much smoke. On the wind, though only for a mome
