Free Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari Page B

always liked dandelions. They seemed like free spirits, growing wherever they wanted, and springing back no matter how often her mother dug them up. Lucy started walking toward the first crevasse.

CHAPTER FIVE
THE HELL GATE
    L ucy wiped her mouth. After three hours of steady hiking, climbing, and risking severe bodily injury crawling in and out of crevasses, she’d found a puddle of rainwater that tasted of tarmac but wasn’t too gritty. The water made her stomach cramp and she realized how hungry she was. The sun climbed in the sky. It looked huge and more orange than yellow. She guessed the time must be close to noon. She wanted to be off the ridge before night fell. She felt exposed and vulnerable with no foliage above her, and although the sky was cloudless, Lucy knew that a vicious storm could move in with unnatural speed. The day had become humid, still, as if the tsunami had driven out most of the oxygen when it took the trees. Her bangs hung in limp ringlets over her eyes, and she could tell by touch that her hair had frizzed up. She wished for an elastic band or a piece of string to tie it back with, but she had nothing. She touched the hilt of her knife, rubbing her thumb over the smooth bone. She could hack off the mass of hair, cutting it close to the nape of her neck, but then she’d have the same problem in another month or two, and in the meantime she would look like a freak, or a boy. She wasn’t sure which was worse, but she did know that she didn’t want Aidan to see her looking like a head-injury victim.
    Aidan was an uncomfortable thought. Lucy pushed it away. She wasn’t going to see Aidan. She was going to stock up, rest, and figure out where she would live now. Aidan was where people were, and where food was, that was all. She cupped her hands, scooped up more lukewarm water, and dribbled it over her head and neck, then smoothed her hair down as best she could. The road was flat for a few hundred yards. Beyond that it dropped off again, but she couldn’t tell how far. She walked, watching out for loose rubble. In places the mangled tarmac was marked with a broken white line, but it was no longer straight. It deviated from the middle and twisted suddenly and disappeared. She estimated that she was around Second Avenue and 92nd Street, although acres of road and earth had been shifted in the big quake, the landscape completely reconfigured. Sometimes she thought it looked as if a toddler had built a city out of blocks and then knocked them all down in a rage.
    Lucy had reached a gorge that was as big as a canyon. It went down about forty feet and then climbed back up nearly the same distance in a series of trenches like giant steps. There was no way around it—it crossed the entire width of the ridge. When she finally pulled herself up the last craggy slope, bruising her knees in the process, she found herself on top of a plateau. Straight ahead of her was a deep, wide ravine, and stretched across it, ridiculously fragile, a suspension bridge. It swung in a gentle rhythm, although there was no breeze. This must be the Grand Canal. For a minute or two Lucy looked across the chasm. She chewed on her lip. Sweat trickled down her back and her heart thumped painfully against her breast bone. It was so high. The bridge was anchored on her side by several loops of rough-looking braided rope attached to an outcrop of rock. Lucy tugged on it and then stepped onto the bridge, which dipped with her weight. Each step created vibrations that traveled the length of the bridge and then bounced back, throwing her off balance. She crept forward, holding on to the rope supports with both hands, her arms outstretched to their full length. She tried to keep her eyes on the far side, but she couldn’t control her gaze. It was drawn to the ground far below. The channel bed was almost completely dry. The two downpours they’d had at the beginning of the Long Wet were not enough to flood it yet. Sharp rocks and rubble