The Scourge

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  I sat on a nearby rock and tried to absorb her words, but none of it felt real. In one moment, she had offered me more than I ever could have expected, then taken it away just as fast. With that sudden loss of hope came an even greater problem--the fact that my father was now in hiding, a fugitive from the law. Della was right. Sooner or later, the wardens would find him. I didn't know what his sentence would be, but I did understand the governor's cruelty now. She took me and would take my father too. My mother was now alone. How would she ever survive without us, even if she had the will to try?

  This news crushed me. But it must have been so much worse for Della. The only thing that had kept her alive in this place was the certainty that her father was coming to rescue her. He wasn't coming now, and she had to accept that.

  I considered telling her about Jonas, that we had found him and he was safe and healthy. But he also could not come out of the caves, and we had no permission to tell Della where he was, not yet. Until I knew that I could reunite her with Jonas, I couldn't say anything. But I did vow to ask tonight about bringing her to the caves. By now, Clement surely trusted me that much.

  So we only thanked her for the news, and then Weevil led me behind the prison, out of sight from everyone else still at the food tent. If he hadn't been there to help me, I barely could've made the walk, and not because of the pains in my bones. This pain went much deeper.

  "I'm sorry about your father," he said.

  Tears spilled onto my cheeks. "Is this how it felt for you, when the governor took your father away?"

  He looked down, scuffing his boot against the dirt. "Give it time. It won't always hurt like this."

  I doubted that. Weevil still ached for his father's loss. I understood that ache now, more than I ever had before.

  He tried again. "Listen, you helped me and my family. Once we're home, I'll help you and your mother too." Then he smiled, trying to cheer me up as well. "I don't have your gift for singing, but I'm thinking about taking up juggling. My plan is to throw balls at the townsfolk until they offer me a coin."

  I snorted. "That sounds like a crime, Weevil."

  "So is your singing, my friend." His smile was more sincere this time. "We'll work together, and our families will survive. I promise."

  "Thank you," I said as I brushed away my tears. "Thank you for believing we'll ever get back home."

  "Of course we will." He began digging in his pockets. "I found a spindlewill plant today. I don't know how it's used in the medicine, but if you chew on the leaf, I think it will be almost the same."

  He pulled out from his pocket a few leaves, which he pressed into my hand. I turned them over in my fingers. They looked very similar to the thrushweed leaf, which our people used all the time.

  "If it works," I said, "do you have any to share with Della? She needs this far more than I do."

  "They make me turn in everything I collect each day," he said. "You don't want to know how I snuck this past them, but since you ask, I do have enough for her."

  I grinned. No, I definitely did not want to know how he snuck these leaves past them.

  I put the leaf in my mouth and chewed on it, eager to get the juices flowing. The taste seemed familiar, something from my childhood.

  I swallowed a few times and then felt a pinch inside my heart. With that came the memory.

  When I was five years old, my mother had gone out with me to collect thrushweed for a stew. Like many of my people, we enjoyed the leaves to chew on as a way to pass the time. So when I found a patch of it, I'd thought nothing of chewing on a couple of leaves.

  Only seconds later, I was writhing on the ground, screaming for my mother to come. She ran to me and pulled the leaves from my mouth, then saw what I had thought was thrushweed.

  "This is the wrong plant!" she'd said to me.

  Immediately she found other leaves, which she forced down my throat. They caused me to vomit up everything I had swallowed, leaving a fierce burning sensation behind. But it also saved my life.

  We called the plant fifeberry, so rare in the river country I'd never seen it again. But now that I looked more carefully, the spindlewill leaf was very similar to fifeberry. No, not similar. It was exactly the same plant.

  Fifeberry leaves, also known as spindlewill, were poisonous.

  Spindlewill was poison.

  I spat out the leaves and nearly fell backward in the process.

  "What's wrong?" Weevil asked, grabbing on to my arms to balance me.

  "Are you sure?" I asked. "Are you sure that's what the wardens wanted you to get?"

  "Yes! They checked it very carefully before asking where I had found it. They said they needed more because of the medicine shortage."

  "Spindlewill is not medicine," I said. My head was swimming from what I had already ingested. I needed to get it out of me, but I didn't know how. Maybe diluted with other ingredients, it wasn't as strong, but I'd just chewed a full spindlewill leaf. "Weevil, it's poison! Why would the wardens want spindlewill?"

  "I know where there's some thrushweed," he cried. "It's not far away. Hold on!"

  He said other things, but I couldn't hear him anymore. Instead the world faded around me and turned to black.

  I woke up inside the caves. Others were sleeping around us, so I knew it must be night, but Weevil was seated beside me. He had a bowl of cold water in his lap and a wet rag, which he was brushing across my forehead.

  When he saw my eyes open, he whispered, "I just poisoned my best friend in the world. Can we agree now that I am the worse friend?"

  I coughed out a giggle, which hurt, and I winced. "Unless you want to be even worse, don't make me laugh right now."

  He wasn't laughing. "That leaf could have killed you," he said. "I shoved so much thrushweed down your throat after you collapsed, I'm surprised you didn't choke on it. I'm so sorry."

  "You didn't know about spindlewill. I didn't recognize the leaf either. I haven't seen it since I was five, but I should have remembered." I took his hand. "Weevil, the medicine is a poison."

  "All the time you've been asleep, I've been trying to figure this out. Why would the governor poison sick people? The Scourge will take them anyway, right?"

  I swallowed hard. Weevil noticed and offered me a sip of water from a cup he also had nearby, which I gladly accepted.

  "The medicine isn't meant to heal us," I said. "She never claimed that. Only that it would numb the symptoms."

  "But it's also poisoning the people who are taking it," he said. "Killing them faster."

  I nodded. That was why I had felt better after Della stole my medicine. I was stronger without it. I still had to recover from the Scourge, but the medicine only made the Scourge worse.

  "We have to tell Della," I said. "We have to tell everyone."

  "We'll tell Della. But think of what might happen if we try to tell the whole Colony at once."

  "They're poisoning themselves! In smaller quantities than what I got last night, but if the spindlewill is in the medicine, then it's in them, accumulating more and more each day!"

  "Everyone here has the Scourge. You know as well as anyone the kind of pain it can cause. For most of them, that medicine is all that gets them through each day. In small doses, it numbs the pain. Is it really better to take that away from them?"

  "We can do better than numbing the pain," I whispered. "Jonas said that after he first came to the caves, a woman gave him some herbs that healed him. I'd guess that included thrushweed."

  Weevil showed me a few other thrushweed leaves. "This is all that's left of the plant I found, and I haven't seen any others here. Even if you're right, there's not enough for everyone. We should tell Della, but for now, no one else."

  I took the leaves and shoved them into the pocket of my skirt. Maybe they'd be enough to start helping Della, but what about Marjorie, and Clement, and that woman too sick to leave her bed in the old prison? What about everyone here?

  "If Della improves after taking the thrushweed, th
en we must tell everyone," I said.

  "Agreed." Weevil set the bowl of water on the ground. "How are you feeling now?"

  My eyes were heavy. I took his hand and pulled him to lie down beside me. "You're as tired as I am."

  "No, I'm not," he whispered. Then, with a chuckle he couldn't keep back, he added, "You've been sleeping for hours. My tiredness is much worse."

  I elbowed him, and then did it a second time as a penalty for making me laugh. I fell asleep with Weevil beside me and a smile on my face.

  By morning meal, I still felt the effects of the poison, making the idea of food seem strangely similar to a medieval torture. Yet I forced myself to go to the food tent, partially because I hadn't eaten enough in the last few days and hunger was starting to take its toll on me. But mostly because I was desperate to try out the thrushweed on Della.

  We found her already in line, barely able to stand and clutching her flask of medicine while she waited. She appeared to be counting the minutes until she dared take more of it. Unless she had stolen again, I wondered how she could have any medicine left.

  Weevil signaled for her to join us once she had gotten her food. She looked so wobbly on her feet that I doubted whether she'd be able to carry a spoon, much less the rest of her meal.

  While the line edged forward, Warden Gossel walked past the people, stopping every now and then to say something to someone. He stopped and spoke to Della too, and when he did, her eyes widened. She shook her head and replied to him, but he spoke again to her and she only lowered her head and nodded.

  "What do you think he said?" I asked Weevil.

  "Nothing good." Weevil pointed down the line. "Look at everyone Gossel is speaking to. They all have that same expression."

  As soon as Della was through the line, Weevil jumped up from our place on the ground and hurried over to her, offering one arm to help balance her and carrying her food in his other arm. Della was such a pretty girl, or had been up until a few days ago. I wondered if she was the kind of girl Weevil could ever like. Not just in a friendly way, as he thought of me, but more than that, the way Jonas seemed to like Della.

  When she was seated, Weevil asked, "What did the warden say to you?"

  Della wiped a tear from her eye. "I'm going to the infirmary after morning meal. He said I'm too sick to contribute. I told him that I would be fine, but he said they have better medicines in there. Ones that can help me."

  "Nobody comes out of the infirmary," I said. "You can't let them take you."

  "What choice do I have?" Della wiped more tears away. "I'm not strong enough to fight them. If they want to take me, then I'll have to go."

  I held out my hand to her. "Give me your medicine flask."

  Della gripped it again. "Why?"

  "I want to smell it."

  She eyed me suspiciously. "Smell it?"

  "Please, Della, trust me."

  She removed the flask and placed it in my hands. I unscrewed the cap and sniffed it. I had hoped to detect a whiff of spindlewill in the medicine, but whatever gave the medicine its sweetness overpowered the spindlewill's scent. That was unfortunate, though I was still positive that my suspicions were right.

  Nearly positive.

  What if I was wrong, and this medicine was the only thing keeping Della and the other Colonists alive? I'd had no medicine in over two days and certainly felt plenty sick last night.

  If I was wrong, I would doom the entire Colony to suffer the full effects of this disease. It would be cruel. Even if I was right, I still couldn't save them from the Scourge. There was no way to win.

  "Well?" Della asked.

  I looked at her. "When I was younger, my mama used to make this char bean soup. Have you ever had char beans?"

  Della shook her head, obviously confused. So was Weevil, for that matter, which was odd. By now, I expected him to know where my thoughts were long before I'd opened my mouth.

  "Well, char beans taste a lot like the back-end business of a bat, and they don't look much different either. I wouldn't eat them, not ever. Nobody should have to eat anything that looks like it was left behind by another animal."

  Weevil giggled. "Or that left the behind of another animal."

  I rolled my eyes. Honestly, some days I wondered if he was permanently six years old.

  "Anyway," I said, "my mama and I used to fight about it all the time. She insisted char beans were healthy for me, that they would give me nutrition like nothing else could, and make me stronger if I ate them. I thought they were disgusting." Now I leaned in to Della. "Who was right, me or my mama?"

  Della shrugged. After a moment of consideration, she said, "If they really would make you healthier and stronger, then your mother was right. You should do what she wanted, even if you didn't like it."

  Gently, I placed a hand over Della's. "I agree. So please don't get upset." And I turned her flask over and dumped out all the medicine.

  Della screeched and lunged for me. Who'd have thought that as sick as she looked, she would still have so much energy? Weevil got between us and took Della by the shoulders.

  "It's poison," he said to her. "The medicine is poisoning you."

  "It's my medicine!" she screamed. "What have you done, Ani?"

  She screamed it loud enough that we now had the entire Colony looking. Wardens were on their feet and moving toward us. There was no choice now but to explain what I'd done.

  I scrambled to my feet and held up the flask high enough for everyone to see. "The medicine contains a plant called spindlewill. Townsfolk don't know the plant because it's rare in Keldan. Spindlewill is a poison. In small doses, it will numb you, but as the numbing effects start to fade, it leaves you feeling worse than before. So you think you need more medicine."

  "It's better than feeling the Scourge!" a woman shouted out.

  "No, what's better is if we try to cure it!" Now I held up the thrushweed leaves Weevil had given me last night. "This is a plant from the river country. I think it can help us!"

  "You think?" a man shouted. "What if you're wrong, grub?"

  Weevil pulled a few spindlewill leaves from his pocket. "I gave one of these to Ani last night, thinking it would help. Instead, it almost killed her. It would have, if I had not given her some thrushweed right away. We think there's a chance thrushweed will help with the Scourge."

  The wardens were eyeing one another, trying to figure out what to do. Would they pounce on me and Weevil at once, making the other Colonists wonder if there really was something to our claims? Or would they wait until we had finished speaking and then quietly drag us off? For now, they were motioning for other wardens to come up to the food tent. Something was about to happen--I just didn't know what.

  "These are lies!" a boy shouted. "I remember it was grubs who first brought the Scourge to Keldan hundreds of years ago."

  He remembered hundreds of years ago, really? If he was even a year older than Weevil and me, I'd be stunned.

  "Governor Felling wants us to take the medicine," an older man said. "If your grub leaves could help, she'd give us those instead."

  I held up the leaves again. "Maybe she doesn't know about thrushweed. Or maybe she doesn't know what's really in the medicine. But I will not take one more drink of it, and I don't think you should either."

  The wardens definitely didn't like that. They began closing in on me. I looked for Della too, but couldn't see her anymore.

  "You're a grub!" a woman yelled. "Why should we listen to you?"

  "There are no grubs here in the Colony," I said. "And no pinchworms. No River People, no townsfolk, and, for that matter, no victims. We are Colonists, all of us who have the Scourge. We are one people, me and you. And if we work together, we can defeat this." I pointed to the wardens. "We can defeat them!"

  Now the wardens moved forward, but the people had gotten to their feet around us and they were having trouble pushing through the crowd.

  "Just stop taking it for three days," Weevil said. "After three days, the
medicine should be out of your system. Then you can decide if you feel better or worse."

  One of the men who had been on the treadmills stood and held up his flask. "I can tell you right now what I'll do." And he poured his medicine out onto the ground.

  Another man next to him did the same thing. Then another woman across the tent did, and then several more people all at once.

  "You have just doomed yourselves!" Warden Gossel shouted. "Fools, the grubs have tricked you! You will be screaming with pain tonight! And there is nothing you can do about it! All of you will beg to go to the infirmary, just to be rid of the pain!"

  "Nobody needs to go to the infirmary again!" I held up the thrushweed again. "I have three leaves left. Will anyone try one, as a test?"

  "Don't you dare," Gossel warned me, raising his pistol.

  I backed farther from him and shouted, "Resist them! They have to break you first! But they will never break me!"

  Or maybe they would. A warden grabbed my waist and clubbed me across the back with his fist. Weevil yelled and reached for me, but a warden had him too.

  I struggled as best as I could, but I was still feeling the effects from last night and the warden was stronger than me anyway. The thrushweed leaves were pried from my hand and crushed beneath another warden's boot. Weevil said he had searched everywhere. There were no other plants on this island. No way to help the Colonists now.

  They were dragging us toward the yard, and I had a feeling that this time, my punishment wouldn't be as easy as being stuck in a cage.

  So you refuse to be broken?" Gossel snarled as we arrived in the yard, beneath the vinefruit tree. Weevil was beside me, and Gossel looked at us both. "This friendship was supposed to have ended!"

  "Sorry to disappoint you." Weevil looked at me, then back at the warden. "And by 'sorry,' I mean, we hope to disappoint you as often as possible."

  Unamused, Gossel pulled out his rod again. "Only one of you will take the hits," he said. "Which of you will it be?"

  "Me," both Weevil and I said at the same time.

  "I'm stronger," Weevil said.

  "You're healthier," I countered. "We're equally strong. Besides, this is my fault. You warned me not to say anything to the whole group and I did." I turned to Gossel. "What happened back there was my fault. It should be my punishment."