Free Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

My arms are weak, and the metal handles dig painfully into my palms.
    “One more to go,” Raven says. She is watching me, arms crossed.
    The next one is slightly larger than the first, and more difficult to maneuver once it’s full. I have to carry it with both hands, half bent over, letting the bucket bang against my shins. I wade out of the stream and set it down with a sigh of relief. I have no idea how I’ll make it back to the homestead carrying both buckets at once. It’s impossible. It will take me hours.
    “Ready to go?” Raven asks.
    “Just give me a second,” I say, resting my hands on my knees. My arms are already trembling a little. I want to stay here for as long as possible, with the sun breaking through the trees, and the stream speaking its own, old language, and the birds zipping back and forth, dark shadows. Alex would love it here , I think without meaning to. I’ve been trying so hard not to think his name, not to even breathe the idea of him.
    On the far side of the bank there is a small bird with ink-blue feathers, preening at the edge of the water; and suddenly I have never wanted anything more than to strip down and swim, wash off all the layers of dirt and sweat and grime that I have not been able to scrub away at the homestead.
    “Will you turn around?” I ask Raven. She rolls her eyes, looking amused, but she does.
    I wiggle out of my pants and underwear, strip off my tank top and drop it on the grass. Wading back into the water is equal parts pain and pleasure—a cutting cold, a pure feeling that drives through my whole body. As I move toward the center of the stream, the stones underneath my feet get larger and flatter, and the current pushes at my legs more strongly. Even though the stream isn’t very wide, just beyond the miniature waterfall there’s a dark space where the streambed bottoms out, a natural swimming hole. I stand shivering with the water rushing around my knees, and at the last second can’t quite bring myself to do it. It’s so cold: The water looks so dark, and black, and deep.
    “I won’t wait for you forever,” Raven calls out, with her back to me.
    “Five minutes,” I call, and I spread my arms and dive forward into the deepness of the water. I am slammed—the cold is a wall, frigid and impenetrable, and tears at every nerve in my body—there’s a ringing in my ears, and a rushing, rushing all around me. The breath goes out of me and I come up gasping, breaking the surface, as above me the sun rises higher and the sky deepens, becomes solid, to hold it.
    And just as suddenly the cold is gone. I put my head under again, treading water, and let the stream push and pull at me. With my head underwater I can almost understand its accents, the babbling, gurgling sound. With my head underwater I hear it say the name I’ve tried so hard not to think— Alex, Alex, Alex —and hear it, too, carrying the name away. I come out of the stream shivering and laughing, and dress with my teeth chattering, my fingernails edged with blue.
    “I’ve never heard you laugh before,” Raven says, after I’ve pulled on my clothes. She’s right. I haven’t laughed since coming to the Wilds. It feels stupidly good. “Ready?”
    “Ready,” I say.
    That first day, I have to carry one bucket at a time, lugging with both hands, sloshing water as I go, sweating and cursing. A slow shuffle; set one bucket down, go back and get the other bucket. Forward a few feet. Then pause, rest, panting.
    Raven goes ahead of me. Every so often she stops, puts down her buckets, and strips willow bark from the trees, scattering it across the path so that I can find my way, even after I’ve lost sight of her. She comes back after half an hour, bringing a metal cup full of water, sanitized, for me to drink, and a small cotton cloth filled with almonds and dried raisins for me to eat. The sun is high and bright now, light cutting like blades between the trees.
    Raven stays with me, although