The ridge farms were intact. That was the first thing Arrax noticed, and it was the only thing that made sense, because the ridge was high enough, because the slope was steep enough, because the water had not reached it, and the buildings were standing, and the fences were broken but the posts were upright, and the soil was muddy but not drowned, and the animals were skittish but alive. Arrax stood at the edge of the first farm and looked down at the valley, and the valley was a lake, and the lake was brown and still, and the ridge was green, and the contrast was so sharp it made his eyes ache.
The farmer was waiting for him at the gate. He was an old man, older than Toller, with a face like weathered stone and hands that had been broken and reset and broken again, and he did not speak when Arrax approached, because there was nothing to say, because the valley below was speaking for both of them, and the speech was in the language of mud and water and silence, and it was not a language either of them wanted to hear. Arrax nodded, and the farmer nodded back, and they walked together to the barn, where the cattle were standing in mud up to their bellies, lowing softly, and the farmer opened the gate and led them out, and Arrax helped him, and they drove the cattle up the slope, to higher ground, to a pasture that was dry and safe, and the farmer stood and watched them, and he did not say thank you, because gratitude was a feeling for later, for when the valley was dry again, for when the counting was done, for when the names had been spoken.
Heather arrived with the second group of survivors, the ones who had been at the school, the ones who had climbed out of the gymnasium windows and walked through the floodwater to the ridge, the ones who had carried the elderly and the children and the things that mattered, and they were cold and wet and hungry, and they were alive, and they were together, and Heather directed them to the farmhouse, where the farmer's wife had already begun to heat water and lay out blankets, and she stood at the edge of the group and she looked at the faces, and she recognized some of them, and she did not recognize others, and she thought about the list in her head, the one she had started the day before, the one that was still growing, and she added the new names to it, and she did not write them down, because writing them down made them real, and they were already real, and the reality was heavy enough.
Valerie came later, alone, with her notebook in her pocket and her rifle on her back, and she had been walking the perimeter, had found two more bodies, had marked them with sticks, had written their names in her book, and she sat down beside Arrax on the fence line, and she looked at him, and she looked at the valley, and she said, "Forty-nine."
Arrax turned to her. He did not ask what the number meant. He knew. "You should rest."
"I will. When I'm done."
Arrax did not argue. He knew what it was to count, to mark, to name, to carry the list in the head and the heart, and he knew that rest would come when it came, and it would not come from anyone else's hand. He stood and stretched, and his back ached, and his hands were dirty, and his boots were caked with mud, and he looked at the ridge, and he thought about the boundary markers, leaning on the north slope, and he thought about the slide, and he thought about the dam, and he thought about the earth, and he thought about the vibration that had been in the ground for days, and he thought about Coda's words, the thread that had become a chain, and he thought about what the chain was holding, and he was afraid, because he was a man who was supposed to be brave, and bravery did not mean not being afraid, it meant being afraid and doing the work anyway.
The soil on the ridge was wrong. Not dangerous — not yet — but wrong, as though the earth had been mixed with something it was not supposed to contain, as though the mud that had washed down from the slide had carried with it the residue of something that had been buried deep, something that had been released when the slope gave way, something that stained the ground a pale gray in patches, something that made the grass grow in a pattern that was not random, that was not the way grass grew, that was deliberate, or seemed deliberate, to eyes that had been watching the valley for a long time and knew the shape of its ordinary. Peony knelt in the mud and pressed her hands to the soil, and she felt the vibration there, faint and steady, and she smelled the iron and the deep water, and she stood and brushed the mud from her knees, and she said to no one in particular, "It's in the soil now."
Coda heard her, because Coda was sitting on a rock nearby, watching the water, and Coda nodded, and Coda said, "It was always in the soil. It just came up."
Peony looked at Coda. She did not ask what it was. She did not need to. She had felt it in her garden days before, the wetness that was not rain, the beaded water on her palm, the smell of iron and deep water that had been in the air, and she had known, then, that the soil was different, that the earth was open, that something had been released, and she had not named it, because naming was a human habit, and the thing that had been released did not have a human name, and it did not need one.
Senako arrived at the ridge at dusk, carrying a load of firewood on her back, her face streaked with ash and mud, her hands raw from the work. She had been at the forge site all day, sifting through the wreckage, pulling out what she could salvage, and she had found the anvil, buried in mud, and she had pulled it free, and she had carried it up the slope, and she had set it down on the grass, and she was standing beside it now, looking at it, and she did not touch it, because touching it meant acknowledging that it was the only thing she had left, and the acknowledgment was too painful, and Senako was a girl who worked with iron, and iron was hard, and Senako was hard, and the hardness was a kind of armor, and she wore it well.
The night came, and the fire was built, and the survivors huddled together, and the water was below them, and the moon rose, and the valley was dark, and the ridge was the only light, and the only warmth, and the only sound was the crackle of the fire and the wind and the breathing of people who were trying to sleep, who could not sleep, who would not sleep, who were watching the water, who were watching each other, who were watching the dark, and waiting for the morning, and the morning was a long time coming.