Her shoulders drooping wearily, she left the building. Yasna Looked as if she would like to follow her, but Josh stopped her with a frown and a shake of her head.

“What ?"

“Let her go. I don't know what's gotten into her, but something triggered an unhappy memory. Let her be for now. She'll talk about it when she's ready."

Althea walked around the back yard, Lost in her thoughts.

Gone. So many of them gone. Her father, Imriel. Her mother, Lilith.

Many of her own siblings as well, the only ones who could truly understand her. Either slain in their millenia-old battle against the denizens of the Pit, or Lost to their own despair as the years rolled unceasingly past.

She stood still, her fists clenched. What was the point anymore? What was...

What was that sound? Low and furtive, it had been intruding into her subconscious for the last several minutes, until small but significant portions of her brain were going crazy.

Frowning, she tracked it across the back yard, slowly walking away from the house. As she crossed the line of sugar maples, she finally discovered the source. Jeremy was crouched in a small plot of freshly-tilled earth, his back to her, wielding a trowel. By his side she could glimpse a bundle of seed packets. As she watched, he tore one open, pouring a tiny scattering of seeds across his palm, then bent to push them, one by one, into the dark, loamy ground.

She must have made a noise, because his head came up, turning to meet her eyes.

“Hey there,“ he smiled.

“Coming to help?"

She opened her mouth to give a polite refusal, then paused. She didn't want to go back into the workshed, crowded with reminders of death to come. And she had no desire to go into the house, packed full of people whose safety she was responsible for. Some time spent in the quiet of nature might be just the thing to sooth her jangling nerves.

So she smiled instead, and asked, "What are you planting?"

He grimaced. "Whatever was left, basically. Pickings were slim at the store. Most everyone has already put in their gardens, if they're going to, so most stores aren't carrying any seed stock. But I did get a few things. Lettuce, spinach, radishes, and carrots."

Althea sifted through the packages.

“Oh. Flowers?"

Jeremy shrugged. "Bought them on a whim, really. But I thought they'd make a nice border around the garden. And if we decide to put in beehives in the future, the bees would sure appreciate it."

“Beehives?" Her forehead furrowed in puzzlement.

“My father keeps a few hives. Nothing better than fresh honey to put on your oatmeal on a cold winter's morning.”

"You," she said, “are a very odd person.” Nevertheless, she took up the package. Reading the back, she saw it was made up of a mix of poppies, coneflowers, asters, alyssum, and forget-me-nots. As Jeremy worked with the vegetables, she slowly made her way around the boundary of the recently dug garden, Every few inches, she sowed another seed. Her conversation with Josh and Yasna the day before came back to her mind.

I wonder. Did the Almighty feel the same way I do, when She created the universe? When the stars were born and the planets cooled and life, primitive and clumsy, first emerged?

The warm morning sun felt like a benediction on her back. As she worked, a knot of tension she had not even been aware of loosened in her shoulders. She took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled, letting go of days of ratcheting fear and stress. The quiet was Like balm on the raw places in her soul. She shuffled forward on her knees, damp earth making dark stains on the pair of heavy, tough jeans she had worn outside today. A few paces away, Jeremy hummed softly, his broad back bent in solemn contemplation.

An hour passed quietly, and she went back to the pile of seeds several times. By the time she had finished her circuit around the garden, she was pleasantly tired, and she had gained a measure of calm which she had not felt for several days. To be truthfully honest with herself, she felt more at ease than she had at any point in the last three weeks. Ever since she had been torn out of her body, she and Rachel had lurched from one crisis to the next, with only the smallest chance to recover before the next urgent matter had reared its ugly head.

“Feeling better?" Jeremy asked from a few yards away. His hands were dirty, but behind him low rows stretched behind him with almost military precision. Small plastic tabs, denoting the plants which were planted there, rose from the earth like a line of alert sentries.