Free Charlinder's Walk by Alyson Miers Page A

care one way or the other. I don't see why anyone gives a lamb's tail about what caused a disease that snuffed itself out almost a hundred-twenty years ago, when we have much more important things to do than argue over what might have happened. The Plague is in the past; it is history. We need to take care of the present, and if you have enough time on your hands to be quibbling about something that far in the past, then you're not doing enough to get this farm moving into the future."
     
    Phoebe looked extremely impressed with Miriam's rant, but Ruth was unfazed.

    "But what kind of future will we have if we just make the same mistakes that brought God's anger on our ancestors? How many of us will survive another Plague?"
     
    "And again I ask," Miriam continued, "Who are you to know what any supposed God wants us to do, any more than the rest of us? And have you ever found it a little strange how your whole argument for why we should love God, and worship Him, and build our lives around bending to His will and honoring His divine plan, is that He supposedly brought about a disease that killed over six and a half billion people in less than two years? Have you ever considered how that looks to those of us who aren't impressed with your reasoning for why God even exists in the first place? Any God who would do that to His creations for disobeying a moral code that He never even bothered to communicate to them is, as far as I care, not a God who deserves even our respect, much less our worship."

    This time, even Ruth was shocked. She finally blinked and recovered her voice enough to say, "There doesn't have to be any mystery in what God expects from us. It's a pity that none of our original survivors left a Bible in good enough condition to last this long, but all you have to do is pray, and listen to what He says."
     
    "Except I don't think you, or any of the other Faithful, want us to pray," Miriam told her. "You don't want us to listen to voices only we can hear, and you don't want us to discuss what we think may have happened over a hundred years ago. You want us to listen to you. And that's why the rest of us don't want to have this conversation. It doesn't matter why our ancestors saw all their family and friends die of the Plague, because at this point, there's nothing we can do to change the fact that it happened. Arguing about what they did to bring that disease on themselves isn't going to make our children's lives any easier or better. The only people who have any reason to care about why the Plague happened are long since dead."

    "I see I'm wasting my breath on you," said Ruth, with a slight expression of awe.
     
    "You've been wasting your breath on everyone who's been sitting here, honey," Miriam confirmed.

    Ruth speared her ball of yarn on the ends of her needles and stood up. Before she walked away, however, she looked at Charlinder. "She never could explain how she knew it was safe to go outside, could she?"
     
    "I don't think she was ever really concerned about that," Charlinder answered.

    "No, she may not have been concerned. But she still never managed to explain it, even after she described it in her diary," Ruth reminded him, and finally walked away.
     
    "What was that about? Who is 'she'?" asked Phoebe.

    There was no way it could be anyone else. "Eileen Woodlawn."

     

    The sky was getting dark and it was time to pack up the spinning wheels and go to dinner. Charlinder went to the meeting square with Roy, as always, with Ruth and Miriam's argument replaying in a loop through his mind. Soon after they sat down with their food, Kenny came over, but he wasn't there to talk to Charlinder. He tried to hold his face in a still expression, but he kept grinning ridiculously.
     
    "Roy, could you come with me for a few minutes?" he asked between stupid grins. "I want to tell you about something. Char, can I borrow your uncle?"

    "Sure, whatever," Charlinder said lamely as his uncle went off with