A few days later, Will returned. I could tell by the same commotion among the other people locked in with me, though this time the commotion did not move toward the gate, but gathered off to the left of our little storage cubicle. I couldn't see Will over the other people, but I heard him shout, "Truman, take Blue Eye to the gate while the rest of them are here!"

    I took Lucy's hand and we moved behind the others. Almost all of them were pressed against the fence and oblivious to us, focused only on Will, except a boy and a girl near the back of the throng, whom we had to push past to make our way to the gate. They growled at me, but Lucy growled back and they turned quiet and sullen. I didn't understand that other side of her, but I was always so happy she showed her beautiful side to me while all the others missed it.

    After a minute of shuffling, we were at the gate. As we waited, I looked down at Lucy. I hoped this was not a bad idea, going out with Will. She looked up at me, and her hand squeezed mine as she gave a low, throaty purr. I knew she approved and wanted to go outside, too, so my fears were gone; I was doing what she wanted, which was the only thing that mattered.

    After a couple minutes, Will ran around and let us out the gate. As he resecured it, he kept an eye on Lucy.

    Will was wearing his usual protective clothing. "I was in town for a couple days," he said. "I had to see some people and catch up on what's going on there. But now, let's go where you want. I think I've seen everything around here, since I'm usually out here every day, so you go ahead and take the lead. Why don't you just start walking down the road? There are a few buildings, then it's fields past that. Go ahead."

    We did as he suggested, walking down the cracked, overgrown macadam, the moaning of the other people fading behind us. I could hear birds singing, and I saw some fly by. Insects buzzed and flew everywhere. I even saw a deer before it bounded into some nearby trees. Lucy seemed enthralled by everything around us. When we had walked a little ways, Will came up alongside me and walked with us, though he still kept a little apart. I understood it was difficult for him to be near us since we were different, and I knew he still had to be cautious, as Lucy had attacked him before. But I was glad to be out, and I was very grateful he'd made the effort to help us and be nice to us.

    As Will had described, the storage facility was near other buildings, or what remained of other buildings. With so much pavement around it to keep plants from growing, and with buildings made of cinder blocks, brick, and aluminum, the storage facility had survived much better than others. Most of the other nearby buildings were made of wood, and more than half of these had collapsed in whole or part. A few seemed to have burned down, with dirty, cracked chimneys and skeletal, blackened spars of wood pointing up at the sky. But even these barely diminished the joyousness of this early summer day, as flowering vines had climbed up most of the structures, yearning for the sun. I felt sorry for all the people that had lived here, and I wondered what had happened to them, but I still had to feel grateful for the beauty all around us.

    Near the end of the little group of ruined buildings, we came to one that had been a gas station. It had suffered much worse violence than the others. All the windows had been smashed, and at some point the canopy that had been above the gas pumps had collapsed. There were several burned out, wrecked cars under the canopy and around the building. "Besides the gas, there probably was a convenience store in there," Will explained. "For a few hours, that would've been a battlefield, with people trying to get gas or food. But then it was all over. You all won." I wasn't exactly sure what he meant, nor did I know what to make of his tone, which seemed accusatory, sad, and resigned all at once, as it did most of the time.

    On part of the canopy's white sheet metal, which was now tilted down and visible from the road, someone had spray-painted "DRY" in bright orange paint. Will gestured to it. "When we get all the fuel from a station, we mark it, so people don't waste time on it later. That's partly why you all are here-we've gotten everything we can use out of this town, so no one will come to this area anymore. Now it'll all just sink into the ground and be covered over with plants. A whole town, just disappeared. And of course, they're all like that. Do you remember the town where you used to live, Truman?"

    I shook my head. I thought it was nice of him to ask, though.

    "That's funny, how you remember some stuff, but not things that relate just to you, like where you lived. What about you, Blue Eye?"

    She stopped and considered the buildings around us. She shook her head, then raised her arm with her hand bent and the palm down, as if indicating something taller than herself.

    I thought I knew what she meant-we had been able to communicate a little using similar pantomime-but I looked over to Will to see if he understood.

    "You lived in a city," he asked, "in a tall building?"

    Lucy nodded.

    "It must've been the really big city east of here. That's where we found you. That's where Milton has been clearing you all out for the last couple years, but there are so many there, I don't know when he'll ever finish."

    At the end of the little town, the road extended into the fields beyond, barely distinguishable beneath the plants. In the cracks and in the fields where the grass wasn't so high, I picked some dandelions and wanted to put one in Lucy's hair. Even after we'd been together and close for a while, sometimes she didn't like to be touched, and with someone else around I really wasn't sure how she'd react. I approached her carefully and showed her the flower. She smiled a little and I knew it was all right. Almost the same yellow as her scarf, the dandelion looked nice behind her ear. Out in the sun, she shone so beautifully, even more than at home, I thought.

    Will smiled too. He definitely still looked rather serious, alert, dangerous, but not at all mean or angry as he had on previous visits. "Those dry up so quick, Truman," he said. He picked one of the ones that had gone to seed and blew the little parachute seeds off to float over the grass. "I used to pick them for my mom all the time. They'd be all closed up by the end of the day. Funny isn't it? They grow so fast, and take over the whole yard and choke the grass, but when you pluck them, they don't last as long as other things. Funny."

    Among the tall grass in the field beyond the road, some lilies had grown. Their trumpet-like flowers were big and orange, with little black flecks, like brushstrokes. Will pointed them out to me. "Tiger lilies. At least, that's what I was told they're called. They'd last longer once you pick them. Go ahead. No reason for her not to have more than one flower." I did as Will suggested, and now a lovely pair of yellow and orange flowers peeked out from under her scarf, just above her blue eye, underlined by the pure, innocent white of her skin.

    "But you know, Truman, you may be right," Will continued as he considered her. "Maybe dandelions are a good choice too. You could grow some where you live in that little patch of ground by the office. Here, pick some of the seedy ones and put them in your pocket."

    All three of us started picking them until the two pockets of my shirt were stuffed. I could just barely tell that Will kept me between himself and Lucy, and I don't think she noticed. I appreciated his subtlety.

    "Come on," Will said, beckoning us farther into the field. "There's a river over here."

    There were some trees there as well. Lucy and I sat under one. Will jumped from rock to rock to cross the water and started gathering sticks and grass. "Guys, I'm really thirsty, but I need to boil the water before I drink it or it might make me sick. So I'll need to make a fire."

    Lucy nudged me and I realized we should help. We made a little pile of kindling on our bank, but neither of us was nimble enough to jump across the water like Will. He saw us and laughed. "Go ahead and take your shoes off and step in the water. I mean, I guess you all don't get hot like regular people, but it might feel nice. Go ahead, if you want." He had a nice laugh, I thought.

    I looked to Lucy, and we sat down under the tree. With her grace and dexterity, she untied her shoes quickly, almost as fast as I slipped off the ones I was wearing, which didn't have laces. Then we sat back down on the bank and let our feet touch the water. At first it felt too cold, like it would hurt us, but in just a second, it was delightful. Lucy gave the braying kind of hiccup that I knew was her laugh. To be honest, it was not the prettiest sound she made, but I accepted it the way she accepted my wrong-looking smile, for the emotion it contained, rather than its appearance. We sat there as Will gathered up all the grass and sticks into one pile, a little upstream from where we were. He sat next to it and raked a large knife across a dark piece of stone. Sparks flew out, and these startled me, but when the grass and tinder caught fire into a bright, orange blaze, I felt the heat and smelled the smoke, and I remembered how much flames frightened me. Lucy gave a little shriek and grabbed my arm.

    Will put his hands out in front of himself, in a calming gesture. "Hey, hey, you two. It's okay. It's way over here, and I won't let it get any bigger. Just sit still and enjoy the water." Lucy and I both calmed down and nodded.

    Will got out a large metal cup from a pocket of his jacket and dipped it into the river, then placed it at the edge of the fire. With a bigger stick he piled some embers around the base of the cup. As he waited for the water to boil enough, he took his boots off and put his feet in the stream. I moved my feet to splash Lucy with some water. She gave her odd laugh, and Will laughed some more, too.

    Using a piece of cloth as a pot-holder, he took the cup from the fire and blew on it till it was cool enough, then he drank the water. It took him a couple minutes, sipping it like tea. Then he dipped the cup back in the stream. He walked in the water towards us and offered me the cup. "I guess I've never seen you all drink, but would you like to try?"

    I took the cup. It felt nice in my hands-cold and smooth, calm and reassuring. It was a big measuring cup with a bent band of metal as a handle. The gradations were marked on the side with little indentations in the metal, and I ran my fingers over those, feeling them like Braille. I raised it and poured some water into my mouth. It didn't feel like when I'd tried to eat that horrible thing before, not at all. It felt like a part of me was a little bit more alive right then, like it had been deficient or wounded before, and now it was healed. I wanted the feeling to spread through me, but it didn't. I couldn't even master swallowing the water; most of it spilled out on my chin.

    "Try again," Will said with surprising patience. I had been afraid he'd laugh. "This time close your mouth when you try to swallow it."

    I did as he suggested, and managed to get some down. The sensation was not as intense as it had been in my mouth, but it definitely felt like something was more complete, less broken in me than it had been before, though the feeling was faint and it passed quickly. I handed the cup to Lucy. With her better control and coordination, she was much more successful than I had been. She looked surprised and elated, and she smiled at Will as she handed the cup back.

    We sat there a little longer, before Will stamped the fire out and we put our shoes back on. We slowly made our way back home.

    "I hope you two had fun," he said as we shuffled through our gate (Will had already led the other people to the opposite side of the enclosure). He looked happier than he had before, like he thought the outing quite enjoyable. I was glad.

    He locked up the gate. "You two seem all right, like real people. Better than some real people, even."

    I was always confused when he referred to us this way, but I was getting used to it.

    "I got something for you." He pulled out a glossy, colorful brochure and pushed it through a tiny gap in the fence. I took it and read the cover: "Stony Ridge College-Where Learning and Character Grow Together." I lowered my eyebrows a little, for the motto wasn't quite what I expected, even as high-minded as it seemed. I certainly hoped I had lived up to it when I had worked there, but it sounded so grand I wasn't sure if it were humanly possible to do such things for people, at least not at school.

    I looked back to Will.

    "I don't know if you can read, Truman, but it's your old college. I went out there the other day to check it out." He glanced at the other people as they moaned and approached. "Some of the buildings are falling apart, but I found one office where they had these brochures and they were all boxed up, so they were still readable. It's quite a ways, but we can go there next time if you want."

    As the first of the others began to push and jostle me out of the way, I nodded, touched by his thoughtfulness. Will nodded too as he stepped away from the fence.

    I moved back through the crowd, so I could get away from them. Lucy came with me, and we retreated to our little cubicle, where we sat together on our sofa. I opened the brochure to examine it. Inside there were pictures of ivy-covered, brick buildings and smiling, pretty young people of every race. None of them were bloody or missing parts, I noticed. None of them even had a deformity as minor as crooked teeth or scraggly hair.

    Looking at such perfect people, I wondered if any of their learning and character had grown because of me. I also wondered where they all were now, and if any of them still remembered anything I'd taught them-again, even assuming that I'd been a teacher there. I thought of all the other people in the storage area with us, who couldn't speak or read, who didn't seem to remember much of anything, and I wondered what difference I had ever made. I was grateful for how thoughtful Will had been, but I almost wished he hadn't brought the brochure.

    Lucy touched my arm and leaned over to look at what I was reading. She tilted her head up at me, and I pointed to the brochure, then at myself. She furrowed her brow and shook her head. I pointed to my pile of books near the sofa, then to a picture of books in the brochure, than back to myself. This time she nodded. She put her finger on my chest, then turned the finger back to touch her breast. I put down the brochure and took her hand; with one finger of my other hand, I touched her breast and then my own chest. She nodded and leaned her head against me.

    After a while, Lucy sat up and took up her violin. As she began to play, I thought of how some teacher must have taught her, probably many years ago. As I leaned back and again enjoyed the overwhelming beauty of Lucy's serenade, I knew that teacher's work had at least made my meager life more tolerable, even joyful, whatever else it might have accomplished. Perhaps some of my students were somewhere, doing something similarly beautiful or good. It was only a hope, I suppose, but that summer night it was enough that I felt good about the day's events and I could sit beside Lucy as happy and content as I had been on the previous nights.