The Savage Horde

Chapter 7

Her own children—Michael and Annie—played with Millie, the daughter of the ill-fated Jenkins couple. She smiled at the word—what did "Ill-fated?" mean? Was she ill-fated? The children played with the Mulliner dog, they laughed and ran.

Ill-fated.

John—

She squeezed her thighs tight together, feeling self-conscious suddenly sitting there on the porch steps, smoothing the borrowed blue skirt over her knees and then hugging her knees up against her chest, almost but not quite resting her chin on them.

She studied her hands—the nails were short, shorter than she'd ever kept them.

But cycling the slide of a .—she seemed to remember cycling was the correct word—was hard on the nails. Hers had all but broken and she had filed them down.

But at least underneath the nails she was clean—it had been a long time before she'd been able to keep them clean.

She heard the humming of a song, realizing almost absently that she herself was humming it—a song she had danced to with John. At their wedding. The photo was waterstained, bent, almost unrecognizable. But it was smoothed now inside a Bible in Mary Mulliner's house, in the bedroom Sarah used. And Sarah opened the Bible

frequently—not for the words there which Mary Mulliner had told her would comfort her, but for the picture being pressed there. John in his tuxedo, herself in her wedding dress. She smiled—trying to remember how many yards of material had been in the skirt.

She hugged her knees again. It was still early enough in the day—perhaps Mary's son would return with news of successfully contacting U.S. II and finding her husband. How many days had she told herself that? '

Again, she contemplated the word "ill-fated"—she had thought of it a great deal.