The Scourge

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

I felt my father's eyes on me, and Sir Willoughby's, but for now, I had to keep my focus on the governor and the audience around us.

  Before the governor could speak or attempt to stop me, I turned to the audience. "Many of you know me. You've seen me here in the square, singing."

  "Singing horribly," one man said.

  I curtsied to them. "Yes, that's me. Back then, I had no idea how bad the Scourge was, how easily it could spread from one person to the next. I'd never even spoken to a Scourge victim before I got the disease, but the governor assured me I had it, didn't you, Governor?"

  She nodded cautiously, confused as to why I would be agreeing with her. "Yes. This girl came from the river country. When she tested positive for the Scourge, I had to send her to the Colony."

  Now Della climbed onto the stage with me. "Everyone with the disease must go there, correct, Governor Felling? You cannot show preference to anyone, no matter what their background, or the influence of their family."

  "Of course not," Governor Felling replied. "That is the law."

  "And not just those who've tested for the disease," Weevil said, coming to the stage. "Even if a person had just come into contact with someone carrying the disease, like me, they'd have to go to the Colony too, correct?"

  "Y-y-yes," the governor stammered. "We cannot be too careful."

  "We want to thank you for saving us," I said, wrapping my hands around the governor's waist. Della and Weevil followed, hugging her from each side. Weevil even leaned on his tiptoes to give her cheek a kiss. Disgusting.

  Governor Felling squawked like an angry parrot and tried to get us off, and in the process of trying to peel our arms away from her, she scratched the old wound on my arm that Doctor Cresh had created when she first gave me the Scourge.

  "She's drawn blood!" a woman on the front row yelled. "The governor will have the Scourge now!"

  "I won't!" the governor yelled. "I don't!"

  "You said it yourself," a man cried. "If you are around people with the Scourge, you will get it too!"

  I stepped forward. "We ask you to follow the law--the governor's own law. We ask your permission to bring the governor back with us to the Scourge Colony, there to live out what little remains of her short, pathetic life."

  "No!" the governor yelled.

  But the crowd was no longer on her side. She had made them afraid of the Scourge, and if there was any chance she was sick, they were afraid of her too.

  "Any wardens who try to stop us must also come to the Colony," Weevil yelled. "Protect your families from them!"

  Led by those who had come with us from the ship, there were scuffles on the ground, bringing into control the few wardens that our men had not already taken down.

  The crowd parted while Della, Weevil, and I took the governor's arms and began pulling her off the platform. She was trying to fight us off, but the three of us were managing her just fine.

  "Take the doctor too!" a man from the crowd yelled. "If the governor has the Scourge, the doctor might also have it!"

  "No, wait!" Hoping to avoid the crowd, Doctor Cresh ran onto the platform with us, his eyes darting about in full panic. "Governor Felling does not have the Scourge. I do not have the Scourge. Neither of us will ever get the Scourge."

  "Are you sure?" I asked. "You were in the examination room and had to test me by cutting into my arm. You did this to me." I showed the audience where it had happened, with the wound now opened again. The crowd gasped in response.

  "Don't say anything," the governor said, still struggling against Weevil and Della's hold on her. "We can fix this later, when we're alone."

  "You won't be alone ever again," I said to Doctor Cresh. "We'll escort you all the way to the Colony. We want Keldan to be safe from you."

  "The governor has medicine--" Cresh's uncertain tone wouldn't earn him much sympathy.

  "Is it the same medicine we received at the Colony?" Della asked. "Or are there different medicines for the special people, like you?"

  The crowd grumbled at that, becoming increasingly angrier. Doctor Cresh was forced to admit, "We know a way to heal the Scourge, to completely cure a person."

  "So there is a cure?" I asked.

  "Yes," Doctor Cresh said. "I mean, no. I mean, for me, and the governor ..." He was giving up. He was breaking.

  "It's not enough to cure the disease," Weevil said. "We don't want anyone to get it in the first place. How can you guarantee that the governor did not just get the disease from us?"

  "Don't say anything else," the governor warned.

  "They'll take us both to the Colony if I don't say something!" Doctor Cresh shook his head, and then he faced the people. "Three hundred years ago, the Scourge passed through Keldan. It was terrible and real. Then almost two years ago, the governor got word that Dulan was planning an invasion of our country. What could she do? We had no defenses, no money to build an army. Our defeat was certain."

  "Stop talking, you fool!" the governor screeched. Then she brought her own appeal to the people. "I did it for you, for all of us. Dulan would've destroyed us, don't you understand? So to buy us some time, I told them we'd had an outbreak of the Scourge."

  "I started researching ways to create symptoms similar to what the Scourge had once been," Doctor Cresh said. "There is a plant called spindlewill that, when ingested, will do this, but it's hard to find in Keldan. We were running out."

  "We sent an exploration north," the governor said. "We hoped to discover more spindlewill, or something like it."

  Beside me, Weevil lowered his eyes, no doubt thinking of his father again.

  Silence fell across the audience, as if they couldn't quite absorb the shock of what they were hearing. Governor Felling seemed to take it as a sign that she had won. She glared back at me, then stepped forward, looking for her wardens, who by now were nowhere to be seen.

  Then a woman from the audience yelled, "People have died from what you've done!" The crowd grumbled in response, sending loud jeers forward.

  "But fewer people than if we had a war!" the governor countered. "Don't you see? I had to sacrifice a few to save everyone else."

  That plea fell on deaf ears. Sacrificing a few had quickly turned into sacrificing far too many of our people.

  With sweat beading on her brow, the governor went on. "Unfortunately, the exploration was captured by Dulanian soldiers. Our crew's captain confessed the nature of the exploration. Once Dulan knew the truth about the Scourge, I was sure an invasion was coming." Then oddly, she smiled, as if she believed whatever she had to say next would please the crowd. "Instead, Dulan came to me with an offer. They had a snake with venom that they believed could work even better than spindlewill, if we could find a way to deliver the venom. We made a bargain, one that has kept us at peace for a year, repaid our debts, and that will prolong the peace for many more years." Governor Felling pointed to me. "But we don't need to give them townsfolk, not anymore. We'll give them the grubs."

  She looked around as if expecting the audience to charge at me and Weevil, or at least to applaud her words. But nobody moved, and the crowd remained perfectly silent. Their anger rose in the air like a dark cloud.

  "The grubs were responsible for the first outbreak of Scourge," she said, her voice rising eerily higher in pitch. "They should pay now for this outbreak!"

  "But there is no outbreak," Weevil said. "Only one person is responsible for the Scourge this time, and that is you."

  The governor blinked hard and swallowed something. Possibly her tongue.

  "From now on, River People and townsfolk are one people," Della said, stepping forward. "Keldan belongs to us all!"

  The audience didn't cheer, exactly, but many of them nodded and began talking with one another. Something had clearly changed.

  "I almost feel like singing," I whispered to Weevil.

  "Don't," Weevil said. "Not when we've just made peace with them."

  Realizing that she had lost, Governor Felling lowered her head. Doctor Cresh
was already leaving the platform in the company of Brogg and Clement. It was over.

  "We have to tell you our stories," Marjorie said to the crowd as she walked onto the platform. "And then we ask you to let us come home."

  I didn't hear the stories, for someone had already released my father and Della's father as well, who each scooped us into their arms and carried us off the stage. Weevil went to find his father, and we retreated away from the town square, to our homes.

  There would never be a way to know whose homecoming gave the most joy to their families.

  I wasn't there when Weevil brought his father back to his family, but the next day, he described to me every detail of it. He had entered his home and merely told his family he had gotten lost for the past week.

  "But," he'd added, "what is once lost can always be found again."

  "What are you talking about?" Weevil's mother had asked.

  "I left a surprise outside," he said.

  His family flew to their door and flung it open, only to see their husband and father standing in the doorway, holding a handful of wildflowers he'd picked. I heard their joyful screams from my home.

  My reunion with my mother was much quieter and filled with more tears. She had lost both me and my father that week, with no hope of ever seeing either of us again. We spent our first evening at home seated around the fire, sipping a warm tea as I told them the story of what had happened in the Colony.

  I left out every detail I could, or at least, every detail that involved the risk of my life. I would eventually tell them everything, but not tonight. And likely not for another thirty years, maybe forty. My mother was better off not knowing too much about me too quickly. Based on the few questions he asked, my father probably guessed more of it than I wanted to admit.

  I was told that Della's father threw her a large party that went on for nearly three days. We were invited to attend, but it was a long journey and one that neither Weevil nor I was in the mood to make. As far as we knew, we would never see her again.

  We did see Sir Willoughby, though, who was soon named Governor Willoughby. He had acted swiftly to bring home all the Colonists from Attic Island and to expose the illegal treaty that Governor Felling had made with the rulers of Dulan. Public anger was such that for the first time, Keldan demanded war with Dulan. Dulan called for a response, but instead found its people ashamed and humiliated. Certainly, they would not fight to keep slaves they knew they never should have had. Within a few short weeks, many of those who had been forced into servitude were sent home, and more would follow. At least for the time being, our two countries would remain at peace.

  By decree, the Scourge was over, though suspicion of those who had once been sick was slower to fade. Nobody meant harm upon former Colonists; they just had a hard time changing their understanding of how deep Governor Felling's betrayal of our people had been. In some ways, it was easier to believe that a deadly disease had spread across our land than to believe she would literally sell out her people in order to fill the treasury and maintain the peace.

  Governor Felling, Doctor Cresh, and the wardens who had been involved were all given life sentences, this time in a prison here in Keldan. I didn't know exactly where it was and didn't much care. As far as I was concerned, they were no longer any part of my life.

  The third act of Governor Willoughby's was to end all laws requiring my people to be sectioned off in the river country. From now on, it was legal for River People to live wherever we wanted. Most of us remained in the river country because it was still the finest home anyone might ever choose, but we gradually began to mix more and more with the townsfolk. The names "grubs" and "pinchworms" largely disappeared from use, only spoken by the coarsest of people, those without friends amongst either of our groups. The increasing trade between townsfolk and River People brought in more money to Keldan than Governor Felling's plot ever had. In the upcoming election, we'd have equal rights to vote.

  For months after returning home, I found myself tracing the thin red line along my forearm, wondering what had happened to each of the Colonists I'd met, and whether all the slaves had returned from Dulan, and what their homecomings were like.

  After a couple of years, the red line began to fade. I hoped it would never disappear entirely. It was too much a part of me.

  Weevil said the line wasn't necessary, that the courage I'd discovered in the Colony was evident in my actions and in the strength of my voice. Maybe that was true, or maybe he was just saying those things because he loved me.

  It took me that long to figure it out, and another couple of years to figure out I felt the same way too. When I was ready for him to propose marriage, I'd let him know.

  Jonas must've proposed to Della too. One day, we got an announcement of their wedding and a request to visit them at their new home on Attic Island.

  I was so surprised that I nearly dropped the announcement, but Weevil pointed out a note that was inside the letter.

  It read, Dearest Ani and Weevil, Weevil, at some point before you grow up, will you please change your name? It's a terrible name.

  I paused and laughed. "It's a perfect name."

  "No," he said. "It's terrible, but it's still the only name I've got."

  We continued reading, We would've invited you to the wedding itself, Ani, but we were afraid you might want to sing for us.

  I took no offense at that. My singing was worse than ever. I'd nearly killed a bird last week when I tried to sing along with it.

  Perhaps you are wondering why we chose to make a home on Attic Island. Well, the easy answer is that no one wanted it, so we were given as much land there as we wanted. The more complicated answer is that Attic Island has always begged for me to come back. It wants to prove that it is not a place for prisoners or for the dying, but it is a place for life. We are creating new buildings here. Homes for those who are truly sick, where they can come to a place that is quiet and peaceful and that can offer them hope to recover completely from their illnesses. Jonas and I will both train as physicians, and we will build our lives here and be happy. If either of you ever want to return to Attic Island, we will offer you comfortable places to live for as long as you want to stay. They can never equal the river country, I'm sure, but it would be the greatest joy to share in your company again. With love, Della

  Weevil put an arm around me while I folded up the letter and reclined against him. "What do you think, Ani?"

  I smiled back at him. "I think we ought to see the Colony one more time."

  The first spark for The Scourge began with the history of leprosy (Hansen's disease). Hardly the cheeriest beginning for a book for young readers, I know, but I was fascinated to learn that by the twentieth century, we understood this disease and how to treat it, yet in many places around the world, it still remained legal to take leprosy victims away from their families and place them in a leper colony, often for the rest of their lives. For most of human history, the stigma was worse than the disease itself.

  And it began to occur to me how easily a stigma like that could be manipulated if the wrong people were in power.

  From that strange inspiration, both Ani and Weevil began to emerge, each of them with strong, unique voices and an unshakeable friendship. My thanks to the Proclaimers for their song "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" as the basis for that friendship--you'll see in the story where that pops up. Thanks also to Linkin Park for "Breaking the Habit." It could be Ani's theme song.

  My greatest love and appreciation will always go to my husband, Jeff, who supports me every step of the way, even when I get author crazy. (Okay, especially when I get author crazy.) Love also to my children, who are greater than I ever could have hoped for.

  Deep appreciation goes to Lisa Sandell, whose talent, intelligence, and passion for her work combine to make her an exceptional editor and the dearest of friends. It is an honor to work with her and a privilege to publish with the great Scholastic family. I am so grateful to everyone there. Thanks also t
o my agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette, whose unwavering support, advice, and enthusiasm buoys me, propels me, and keeps me forging ahead.

  Final thanks to you, my readers. Each year, so many amazing books are released. Thank you for choosing one of mine. I hope this story brings you as much pleasure in reading it as it gave me to write it.

  Whatever comes, I hope to find each of you on that road with me. I wouldn't have it any other way.

  Jennifer A. Nielsen is the acclaimed author of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Ascendance Trilogy: The False Prince, The Runaway King, and The Shadow Throne. She also wrote the Mark of the Thief trilogy: Mark of the Thief, Rise of the Wolf, and the forthcoming Wrath of the Storm; the historical thriller A Night Divided; and the sixth book of the Infinity Ring series, Behind Enemy Lines. She collects old books, loves good theater, and thinks that a quiet afternoon in the mountains makes for a nearly perfect moment.

  Jennifer lives in northern Utah with her husband, their three children, and a perpetually muddy dog. You can visit her at www.jennielsen.com.

  Also by

  JENNIFER A. NIELSEN

  A Night Divided

  THE ASCENDANCE TRILOGY

  The False Prince

  The Runaway King

  The Shadow Throne

  THE MARK OF THE THIEF TRILOGY

  Mark of the Thief

  Rise of the Wolf

  Copyright (c) 2016 by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Nielsen, Jennifer A., author.

  Title: The scourge / by Jennifer A. Nielsen.