Free Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel Page A

performance.
    “Quickly,” the conductor said. “Harness the horses.”
    “I thought we were staying a few days,” Alexandra said, a little whiny.
    “It’s a doomsday cult.” The clarinet was unclipping the
Midsummer Night’s Dream
backdrop. “Weren’t you listening?”
    “But the last time we came here—”
    “This isn’t the town it was the last time we were here.” The painted forest collapsed into folds and fell soundlessly to the pavement. “This is one of those places where you don’t notice everyone’sdropping dead around you till you’ve already drunk the poisoned wine.” Kirsten knelt to help the clarinet roll the fabric. “You should maybe wash that dress,” the clarinet said.
    “He’s gone back into the gas station,” Sayid said. There were armed guards posted on either side of the gas station door now, indistinct in the twilight. A cooking fire flared by the motel.
    The Symphony was on their way within minutes, departing down a back road behind the Walmart that took them away from the center of town. A small fire flickered by the roadside ahead. They found a boy there, a sentry, roasting something that might have been a squirrel at the end of a stick. Most towns had sentries with whistles at the obvious points of entry, the idea being that it was nice to have a little warning if marauders were coming through, but the boy’s youth and inattention suggested that this wasn’t considered an especially dangerous post. He stood as they approached, holding his dinner away from the flames.
    “You have permission to leave?” he called out.
    The conductor motioned to the first flute, who was driving the lead caravan—keep moving—and went to speak with the boy. “Good evening,” she said. Kirsten stopped walking and lingered a few feet away, listening.
    “What’s your name?” he asked, suspicious.
    “People call me the conductor.”
    “And that’s your name?”
    “It’s the only name I use. Is that dinner?”
    “Did you get permission to leave?”
    “The last time we were here,” she said, “no permission was required.”
    “It’s different now.” The boy’s voice hadn’t broken yet. He sounded very young.
    “What if we didn’t have permission?”
    “Well,” the boy said, “when people leave without permission, we have funerals for them.”
    “What happens when they come back?”
    “If we’ve already had a funeral …,” the boy said, but seemed unable to finish the sentence.
    “This place,” the fourth guitar muttered. “This goddamned hellhole.” He touched Kirsten’s arm as he passed. “Better keep moving, Kiki.”
    “So you wouldn’t advise coming back here,” the conductor said. The last caravan was passing. Sayid, bringing up the rear, seized Kirsten’s shoulder and propelled her along the road.
    “How much danger do you want to put yourself in?” he hissed. “Keep walking.”
    “Don’t tell me what to do.”
    “Then don’t be an idiot.”
    “Will you take me with you?” Kirsten heard the boy ask. The conductor said something she couldn’t hear, and when she looked back the boy was staring after the departing Symphony, his squirrel forgotten at the end of the stick.
    The night cooled as they left St. Deborah by the Water. The only sounds were the clopping of horseshoes on cracked pavement, the creaking of the caravans, the footsteps of the Symphony as they walked, small rustlings from the night forest. A fragrance of pine and wildflowers and grass in the air, the stars so bright that the caravans cast lurching shadows on the road. They’d left so quickly that they were all still in their costumes, Kirsten holding up her Titania dress so as not to trip over it and Sayid a strange vision in his Oberon tuxedo, the white of his shirt flashing when he turned to look back. Kirsten passed him to speak with the conductor, who walked as always by the first caravan.
    “What did you tell the boy by the road?”
    “That we couldn’t risk the