All Chapters of This Time I Keep the Keys : Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

Disaster day forty-five July 17At dawn, Nessa found her blanket still hanging where she'd left it.The damp corner felt cold against her fingers. She put it back on the drying line rather than folding it into the weather bag. The coat, trousers and gloves already checked for use went with her; the blanket would wait at Alder.Leila watched her fasten the bag.“Take the dry things you actually have.”“That sounds annoyingly familiar.”“I've said it to people with better excuses.”Nessa smiled, then went to the pantry with Tamsin.They packed the party's ordinary meal portions and a separate supply of biscuits and nuts for a delay. Nothing came from the eight packets already paid to Sela. Four one-liter drinking bottles were filled from general potable stock and deducted there, two for each vehicle. The joint eighteen-liter contingency remained in its marked loads at Alder.Tamsin pressed a bottle into Nessa's hand.“Call when the third load is out. Not when you think it will be.”Owen

Disaster day forty-five July 17On their second visit, Sela met them without the joke.One of her workers had moved an empty pallet toward the old loading side. She stopped him with a sharp word, then helped drag it back along the permitted route. Beyond them, the rail Nessa had seen that morning was lying at a different angle.The upper store and its present working approach had been checked again. The workers kept to them. Nessa waited where she was directed instead of stepping closer to the damage.The next six packs came out dry and sound.Rory and Iona checked their load before the cover was secured. Nessa read the group marks aloud for Gideon's page. Six were already at Sela's bay, six were aboard the utility, and six remained here.She could do that arithmetic. She couldn't stop looking at the last group.“Go,” Sela said. “I'd rather have twelve there than eighteen here.”They took the second load up the connection under the current directions. The worker at the turn had moved

Disaster day forty-five July 17Nessa could see only the top of the connection from the bay.It was enough to make waiting worse. Every movement below the bend seemed about to become the utility vehicle, then resolved into a worker's coat or rain in the roadside grass.She resisted calling Rory while he was driving.Sela gave the loading report instead. The same final six packs remained dry and sound. Her workers brought them along the permitted upper-store route; Rory and Iona checked the transfers into their vehicle. Six packs, twenty kilograms each including wrapping, made the familiar one-hundred-and-twenty-kilogram load.“All eighteen are off that floor,” Sela said.Nessa looked at the time. It was eleven thirty-five.“Tell me when they're through the connection.”She wanted to mark the job finished. Her pen stayed above the page.At Alder, Tamsin answered the promised call before the second ring. Nessa told her the last load had left the store, where the twelve retained packs we

Disaster day forty-five July 17They moved only after the road workers opened the assessed passage.Nessa drove through under their direction. Sawdust lay in pale patches on the wet road. She kept her attention on the usable track until the broken crown was behind her, then followed the utility toward the next staffed stopping point.There, the four of them finally stood together again.“We finish getting back,” Iona said. “Then we're done for today.” Rory agreed and put his phone away.Iona checked beneath the refolded cover. All six fuel packs remained dry and secured. Rory arranged permitted standing space while they waited for the next report toward Alder. They were late, tired and hungry again.The ordinary meal portions had been eaten at the bay. They still had biscuits and nuts, enough to keep eating while they waited. Nessa looked at them, then at the clear space in her van.“I'd like to open another reserve carton,” she told Gideon quietly.He glanced toward the utility. Rory

Disaster day forty-six July 18In the morning, Ada asked for paper that hadn't already been written on.Nessa found two clean sheets in her own supplies and gave her one. Ada went to the table with a pencil, leaving the second sheet beside Nessa's cup as though the arrangement might be useful to both of them.The room was cool again. Last night's heating had ended on schedule. Nine checked fuel packs remained in the dry store, and tonight's period was still planned within the same arrangement.It was enough improvement for Nessa to notice the taste of breakfast.Leila sat beside her while Ada drew.“I kissed Gideon,” Nessa said quietly.Leila stopped stirring her cup. Then she looked at Nessa rather than across the room for him.“Did you want to?”“Very much.”“And was it good?”Nessa felt herself smiling into her breakfast. “Yes.”Leila went back to stirring. “Then I'm glad you found five minutes.”“It wasn't five minutes.”“You don't have to give me a time sheet.”Nessa laughed, kee