Now she took my hands in hers and said, “We came as soon as we heard the news. Are you all right, dear?”
Confused, I said, “I’m fine—what news? Has something happened?”
Harry and Harriet looked at each other. “You haven’t heard,” Harriet said. “Doesn’t anyone listen to the news anymore? It was on every channel.”
“There was an incident,” Harry said, overriding my reply. “In Berryton, Georgia. They’re calling it an unexplained phenomenon right now, but that won’t last.”
All around me, exclamations went up as people stared at their phones, reading about the incident. “So what happened?” I asked.
“Everyone in the town is dead. Illness, the government’s saying, but they’ve got the CDC involved, so I doubt they believe it’s as innocuous as simple illness,” Harriet said. “Not that they’ll figure out the true cause.”
“Invaders,” I said. “But how could they possibly destroy an entire town?”
“That’s a good question, but it’s the wrong one,” Harry said. “The real question is, how could they take out a named Neutrality?”
Now I was even more confused. “What are you talking about?”
Harry and Harriet again exchanged glances. “We thought you knew,” Harriet said. “Don’t all the named Neutralities talk to each other?”
“Of course.” There were five named Neutralities, of which Abernathy’s was one, and I was in touch with all their custodians via text or email. Claude in Switzerland, Diane in Georgia—
I put a hand on the counter to steady myself. “Diane,” I said. “She never said what town the Fountain of Youth is in. It’s not—”
“Berryton,” Harry said. “It is. Was.”
“What happened to Diane?”
Harriet took my hand again. “There are no survivors in Berryton,” she said. “Diane Lakin is dead. And the Fountain of Youth has been destroyed.”
2
“Destroyed?” I said. It was impossible. Diane had texted me just the other day with her recipe for buttermilk fried chicken. Nobody that down-home could be…
I realized Harriet was saying my name, sounding very far away even though she was standing right next to me. “I’m all right,” I said, though I wasn’t sure that was true. “It’s just…I can’t believe it. Even the invaders can’t destroy a Neutrality. Something else must have happened. How do you know it was invaders? That wouldn’t be on the news.”
“We have friends in the Southeast who told us,” Harry said. “Somebody went to Berryton early this morning to use the Fountain. They found bodies in the streets, crashed cars, looked like something out of The Andromeda Strain. And the trailer park where the Fountain is was wrecked like a hurricane had struck. The Fountain itself was drained and the basin was cracked. The woman got out of there immediately and contacted the Hampton Node—that’s the center of the Southeast area. They verified that the Fountain’s node was sucked dry.”
“But won’t it…regenerate, or something? Like the nodes the Mercy drained in South America?”
Harry rested his hand on my shoulder. “The invaders didn’t leave anything for the node to regenerate to. The Fountain is lost.”
I turned away from him, feeling as if I’d been punched in the stomach. “How?” I whispered. “And why now? They’ve never been that powerful before. If they could do something like that, why not years or even centuries ago?”
“We don’t know, Helena,” Harriet said. “But Lucia will. You don’t have to be afraid.”
“Why—” I shut my mouth. In my grief and confusion I’d missed a key point in this disaster. “You mean they might come here next.”
A murmur went up from the listening crowd. “If they do, Lucia will be ready for them,” one of my customers said. “They won’t catch us by surprise again.”
My phone rang. I knew who it was before I looked at the display. “Hi, Lucia.”
“You heard the news?” Lucia said, as abrupt as ever.
“The Kellers told me. How did it happen?”
“No idea yet. I’m in touch with Suzuhara at the Hampton Node. They’ll figure it out, and she’ll tell me. I’m sending someone over to strengthen the wards on the store. The alarm is still active?”
“I guess so. Campbell Security didn’t install anything to show whether it’s on or off.” That struck me as an oversight now. The alarm prevented an invader wearing a human suit from coming through the front door, and the wards blocked everything else. But if something went wrong with the door alarm, I wouldn’t know until it was too late. “I’ll call Malcolm and get someone to check it.”
“Do that. I’ll let you know if there’s anything else you need to do.” She hung up without saying goodbye, as usual.
I let out a deep breath and stuffed my phone into my pocket. I’d finally found a skirt with pockets deep enough to hold a phone. “Someone’s coming to check the wards,” I said. “Would you all wait while I make a quick call?”
I retreated to the office, where I found Judy mesmerized by the computer screen. “This is unbelievable,” she said. “The whole town of Berryton is dead. A whole town.”
“It was invaders,” I said, pulling out my phone again. “The Fountain of Youth has been destroyed, and Diane is dead.”
Judy swiveled around to stare at me, her eyes wide. “What?”
“I have to call Malcolm. Harry and Harriet told me. You can get the story from them.” I could have told her myself, but the idea of repeating it to Judy and then possibly to Malcolm, if he hadn’t heard yet, made me feel exhausted and sick. I was having trouble processing the tragedy myself. A whole named Neutrality destroyed by invaders.
I called Malcolm and got his voice mail. The universe was conspiring against me. I left him a message—call me immediately—and put my phone away. Then I leaned on the desk and tried to calm my whirling thoughts, which made a mad cycle from invaders to Diane’s death to the town’s destruction to the possibility that Abernathy’s might be next and around again. I felt dizzy and ill and I wished I could cry, relieve my worries that way, but my eyes ached too much for tears.
Finally I pushed away from the desk and went back to the front of the store. If invaders intended to destroy the oracle, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I had to carry on with my job and hope some of these auguries were part of the solution.
Harry and Harriet were still there, talking to Judy, when I returned. They looked at me with such concern I had to wonder whether my tumultuous emotions finally showed on my face. “Well, line up,” I said, at the last minute deciding against trying to sound cheerful. “Until we know more, there’s no sense speculating or being afraid.”
“That’s the spirit,” Harry said with a smile. “No sense letting them get to you.”
Harriet didn’t look nearly so cheerful, but she squeezed my hand and said, “Come for dinner sometime this week, you and Malcolm.”