Another thick wave of yeses greeted him in response.
“Okay.” Alex blew out a breath of relief. “That’s great. Thank you. When you come by, I’ll assign you a duty so that we can begin to take care of our most basic needs right away’water, shelter, that kind of stuff. People of Artimé, do you accept that challenge?”
“Yes!” came the reply. Each time they grew louder and louder.
Alex paused now and waited for the crowd to settle. He had one last important item to discuss.
“Finally, friends,” he said, “we need to talk about the gate. I’ve decided that despite the threat of attack from Quill, we need to leave our gate open for now.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “It was a really hard decision to make, but I have three reasons for making it.”
People remained quiet, straining to hear every word. “One, because Ms. Morning is missing, maybe even captured, but, basically, we just don’t know where she is. If she’s able to escape, we’d want her to get in. Also because of our injured, who are camping out in the home of a very generous Necessary. She’s hiding them and caring for them along with our nurses. If we close the gate, we risk locking everyone out until we’um . . . I mean until I’can figure out how to restore our world. And I’m not willing to write off anybody who wants or needs to get back in here.
“Two, because we need water, and frankly, there’s no other place to get it but Quill at the moment.” People looked at one another and nodded.
“And three, because someone, somewhere in Quill, has a key. And we don’t want any one person in Quill to hold that kind of power over us.” Alex looked at his people and said, “Are we in agreement?”
This time the agreement was quieter, but no less important. The truth was that the people of Artimé understood so much more than anyone about risk and safety, life and death, because of what they’d endured to this point. There was unity, mostly. Alex would soon find out if anyone stood against him. So far, everyone seemed to be willing to give Alex a chance.
“Excellent!” Alex said, trying to sound as upbeat and as competent as possible. “You can always come to me with your questions any time, and I promise you I will be going to work immediately to get Artimé back on its feet once again.” He surveyed them from his height once again, and then he said simply, “Thanks, everyone. Thanks for your loyalty. Together we can remain strong’strong hearts and strong wills, right? And we’ll get through it.” He made a fist and touched it to his chest, as Mr. Appleblossom had done earlier, trying to express his deepest and sincerest loyalty to Artimé. Several repeated the motion in return.
Alex stepped off the chair and soon an organized line had formed. As the members of Artimé approached, looked Alex in the eye, and said, “I’m with you, Alex,” Alex repeated the phrase back to them, “I’m with you, too.” He then created teams of workers. The most industrial and architecturally creative he appointed to clean out the shack. They needed to make as much room on the floors as possible, and to expand the little house by removing all the doors from the cupboards and rooms and making a sort of lean-to out the back door from the wood and paneling.
Alex sent the stealthiest and most robust Artiméans to sneak into the Quillitary Sector to steal barrels of water, and to collect food from the Favored Farm.
And Alex sent the most able-bodied to move the lifeless creatures out of the way of foot traffic, standing them against the wall or around the exterior of the shack like yard ornaments, so that the living could make prime use of the little space they had.
As the day wore on, Alex also set up a guard schedule for the gate, and a six-hour sleeping rotation for the shack. Finally, he sent a team of Artiméans out to see if they could find the boat and physically bring it to their little plot of land and tie it to shore.
It was exactly what Alex needed. Putting his mind to work and his body, too’it felt like he was doing something important. And indeed, he was. As he worked, his subconscious went to work too, trying to figure out how he was going to follow through on his promise to restore Artimé.
» » « «
It was nearly evening when someone approached him from behind and tapped his arm. It was the Silent girl. She’d been helping the team that cleared out the shack as best as she could, and she held what looked like a dollhouse sitting on a board. She held it out to Alex.
He sat up and squinted, looking at it. Then he wiped his hands on his pants and took it from her, peering at every detail. It was a miniature replica of the mansion, in all its glory. “Wow, cool,” he said, lifting up the roof to peer inside at the hallways, staircase, and adorable miniatures of Simber and Florence at the front entrance. His heart clutched when he thought of the cheetah. He swallowed hard and said, “Where did you find this?”
She pointed at the shack and beckoned him to come with her. Inside, she pointed to a cupboard under the kitchen counter.
“Huh. No kidding,” Alex said softly. He could picture Mr. Today standing at this counter years ago, dreaming about his future home, making plans, creating this replica, and then slowly re-creating it life-size with magic, bits at a time. It felt like Mr. Today was right here with them, in spirit at least. Something Mr. Today’s hand had actually created was now in Alex’s hand. There was a good deal of comfort in that.
He turned to the Silent girl and smiled, grateful she’d thought to bring it out to him. She must have known instinctively that it would be important, even though she knew so little about what was going on here’she barely knew Mr. Today at all, and she’d seen very little of the mansion except for the hospital wing where she stayed. “Thank you,” he said. He crouched down and slid the mansion back into place in the cupboard.