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I hoist my bag of seeds back on to my shoulder and trudge over to the backyard, dragging the plow behind me. Once I make it back there, I am surprised. There are very few workers back here, only me with my plow and a twelve-ish year old Hispanic boy laying down pavers into a patio. But that isn’t even the most surprising thing. That would probably be the giant gaping hole, several feet across, that sits were a termite eaten shed once stood. The Hispanic boy must have caught me staring at the chasm, because he starts explaining what it is.
“That happened yesterday.” He starts. “One of the older boys was using a jack hammer to try and get up that last bit of the shed foundation and the ground just fell out from underneath him.”
“It just… fell?” I can’t wrap my head around it. He was just working and the ground… fell. The boy nods his head. I cautiously step over to the edge of the pit, and nudge a pebble down into the abyss. At first I wonder if the rock will ever reach bottom at all, but after several seconds I hear the faint echo of it clatter on the rocky floor.
From behind me I hear the splashing of water and the heavy footsteps of a little girl. “G, what are you looking at?” Dandy asks.
I whirl around to face her. “Nothing!” I cry, hoping to draw her attention away from the hole. “Just lost in thought.” Dandy can't get near the hole. It was big and menacing and Dandy was small and clumsy. One wrong step and the last of my makeshift family was gone. I nudge Dandy back up towards the front of the house, but she slips by me before I can grab her.
“What is that?” I haven’t heard that much curiosity in her voice in a long while. It makes me scared. Dandy may be a pretty melancholy kid, but she still has never grasped the concept of cautiousness in her short seven years. That’s kinda what the Apocalypse did to people; it stole their happiness, but not their recklessness. Probably why so many of them aren’t here anymore.
“It’s nothing, like I said. Just a sink hole from where someone was digging yesterday.” My explanation does not stop her from walking closer.
“Dandy, come back.” She stands as close to the edge as humanly possible.
“Dandy, stop!” I scream. Dandy turns around to look at me. Our commotion seems to have brought the attention of the Commanders, because I hear them rushing up behind me. Dandy scowls at me for ruining her fun, but trudges back over to my side. I hadn’t noticed the crowd that had gathered to watch the unfolding events, but they have started to go back to work, including the Commanders.
I look down at Dandy, who refuses to make eye contact and still scowls. “What were you thinking? You could have slipped and fallen into the hole and I would have never seen you again.” I grab her shoulders and make her look at me. “You can’t ever get that close to the hole again, you hear me?”
Dandy looks me square in the eyes, and I swear I see hers start to water. “You’re not my mom; you don’t get to tell me what to do.” She retorts before running off. I’m not… what? Dandy has never said anything like that to me before. She has called me all sorts of names and told me I was terrible at all sorts of things, but never has she denied that I was family. My eyes have started to water too.
The rest of the morning has gone much more smoothly. I got the whole backyard planted before lunch. The Commanders also went back and roped off the hole in the corner, to make sure no one else got any funny ideas about investigating it. Now that it is lunch break, I’m sitting with some of the other workers my age, munching on a roll and some jerky. They all chatter and laugh among themselves, talking about how some of the other Reconstructions sites are going, and how things were starting to come back. One boy said that he found daffodils growing in front of his house, bright yellow, delicate daffodils. He said that his mother had told him that they were a sign that spring was coming. Springtime, I wonder would it would be like for it to be warm outside all the time. It was always cold during the Apocalypse, and if it ever was warm, it was a sticky, muggy kind of warm that meant a storm was coming. Not the nice gentle sunlight warm that was springtime. But even with all their laughter, all their talk of hope, I still can’t bring myself to join in. I just pick at my lunch, all melancholy. I’m can’t stop thinking about Dandy, and what she said. I mean, it a hole in the dirt that probably leads to more dirt. Why would she get so mad at me for telling her not to look at it? It’s just a hole in the dirt, right? Peering behind me, I can look straight at the hole and the yellow caution tape surrounding it. But that’s not the only thing I see. Is that… a person, walking along the back fence right by the hole? It is. It’s a short person with short blond hair and a slouchy wrinkled frock… Dandy?
“Guys…” I whisper, slapping the person next to me on the shoulder, trying to get their attention. “Guys… there’s… Dandy!” I leap up from my seat and run over to the far corner, a couple other kids jumping up after me. Dandy has crossed the caution tape and is standing with her toes hanging off the edge. “Dandy, don’t move!” I holler.
I don’t know if my shouting startled her. Or if she jumped off the edge at her on will. But, one moment she was there, toes hanging on the edge, eyes peering down into the darkness, and the next minute… she wasn't. The only thing to take her place is the panicked screams of a little girl falling down the hole. And as we run closer to the hole, the little girl is quieter and quieter, until I am finally gripping the edge of the abyss and she is silent. I frantically stare down into the hole, looking for any sign of her. But the darkness has already consumed her.
And Dandy was gone.
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