by Beth Revis
My breath came out in rattling gasps, and I forced my mind to focus, my body to accept. Pulling the pain from Papa’s body was like pulling water from a river by pinching it between my fingers.
Black spots dotted my vision, and I collapsed.
* * *
• • •
I woke up in the chair I’d placed beside Papa’s bed, the crucible in my lap.
“I couldn’t move you,” Ernesta said. She’d pulled up another chair beside me.
“Papa?” I asked.
“He’s sleeping.” Her voice was low.
I tried to stand, and my back seized with pain. I collapsed back into the chair. Pins and needles prickled through my flesh, burning in agony.
“You pushed too hard,” Ernesta said.
“I had to do something.”
She helped me stand up, and we walked gingerly down the hall. She tried to take my crucible from me as she helped me into bed, but I couldn’t relax my grip; my fingers were frozen like claws. I curled up around the warm metal and fell asleep.
When I woke, it was dark, but according to the clock on my wall, only a few hours had passed. I let go of the crucible. The pain was fading from me, which meant it must be re-emerging for Papa.
It was so dark in the hallway I almost couldn’t see. Mama had a fire going in the hearth in the front room. It was stifling hot, the orange glow of the flames casting eerie shadows around the room.
“Has he woken?” I asked.
Mama shook her head. “How are you?”
I tried to shrug, but even that movement hurt, so I sat down in a chair by the door. “Why’d you light a fire? It’s too hot.” Even though it was winter, the weather was mild and warm, unusually so.
Ernesta started to answer, but Mama caught her eye and she fell silent.
“We should open a window,” I said. I started to move, but Ernesta jumped up, pushing me gently back into the seat.
“No point,” she said.
I turned to the window, and realization hit me as forcibly as the stench from the death cart: It wasn’t dark outside—the windows were covered in heavy black cloth.
We’d been quarantined.
FORTY-ONE
Nedra
“They can’t keep us here,” I said, jumping up despite the pain and moving to the door.
The second I opened it, a rock slammed into the doorframe. Another soared past my shoulder, smashing into a vase on the table behind me, and a third rock hit me in the chest so hard that I took a step back into the room. Ernesta got up and slammed the door shut.
“They can’t do this to us!” I said.
“Elder Gryff saw me calling for the kittens,” Ernesta said. “When I went out. He caught me. I tried to lie, but he guessed the truth. They came while you were asleep.”
I looked at my mother and sister. “We have to get you out,” I said. “I’ve been around this sickness before, I’ll be fine, but you could catch it—” I knew I wasn’t immune just because I’d been lucky before, but I was desperate to ensure my family’s safety.
Mama was already shaking her head. “It’s for the best. We can’t risk spreading the plague to the rest of the village.”
I thought about the Longshires. I could still hear the empty, hollow knocks on their door when no one answered.
“I have friends. We’ll take Jojo and the wagon and go into the city. The hospital will help us.”
Mama shut her eyes. “Your father wouldn’t survive the trip.”
“You two, then,” I insisted.
“You can barely stand,” Ernesta said. She held my arm, supporting me. The aftereffects of taking Papa’s pain still burned in my blood.
“There has to be something . . .” I muttered as she led me to our room.
My crucible still lay in the center of the bed. I clutched it to me, and Ernesta pulled the quilt over my shoulders. I fell asleep again, exhaustion overwhelming my body.
* * *
• • •
“Nedra.”
My eyes creaked open, crusty and dry. My mouth was dry, too. My throat. It felt like I’d walked through a fire.
“Nedra.”
I sat up in bed. “Nessie?”
Ernesta grabbed my hand. “Are you okay?” she asked.
I could smell bread baking. “Yes,” I said.
“You’ve slept for hours.”
I stood up straighter and realized that my body felt like my own again. “I’ve never tried to take away someone’s pain without a creature to funnel it into.”
Ernesta’s face was sunken, her eyes red-rimmed and dark.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Papa.”
She didn’t have to say anything else.
He was gone.
I took his pain, but he died anyway.
“Come on,” Ernesta said, and it wasn’t until she spoke that I realized I had sort of sunk into myself, my body collapsing to mimic the way my soul felt.
I turned to the sheet on my bed. I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the cloth quickly, fashioning masks for myself, Ernesta, and Mama.
“First things first,” I said, showing Ernesta how to put the mask on, then tying one for myself. I didn’t meet her eyes when I added, “For the smell.”
“I’ll take this to Mama,” Ernesta said, picking up the third cloth. “She put some bread in the oven before going to take a nap. It’s probably done now.”
I suddenly realized I was starving. I headed to the kitchen, opening the oven door and pulling out the loaf of crusty bread baking in the center. I rapped my knuckles on the top of the loaf, listening for the hollow sound inside to tell me it was done.
No one baked bread like Mama. It was perfect. I sank my teeth into the first steaming slice, and for just one moment, I let myself believe the lie that being home meant being safe.
Ernesta entered the kitchen and sat down at the table. The cloth mask for Mama was still in her hands. She didn’t meet my eyes. Tears fell from her cheeks and plopped onto the cloth.
“No,” I whispered, my head shaking, my body shaking.
I dropped the slice of bread onto the floor and ran to the front room.
She was sleeping. She was just sleeping.
“Mama,” I said.
Just sleeping.
I dropped to my knees beside the couch, feeling her wrist for a pulse. There wasn’t one. I leaned over her body, reaching for her neck, and Mama’s loose shirt fell open a little. And I saw the shadow. I ripped the cloth more, exposing her chest. A black stain swirled over her heart, creeping through her veins up and down her torso. How long had she been infected? Since Papa? When she kneaded the bread, when she sprinkled salt across the top of the loaf? Was she dying as she baked for her daughters? Did she know?
I gagged, still tasting the warm, buttery goodness. My stomach heaved in protest, and I choked down the vomit burning up my throat.
I stumbled up. I had to get out. Get away. I couldn’t stand it. The fire, still blazing, stifling, making it hard to breathe. Mama, there on the couch. I couldn’t be here. I couldn’t be in this house. This wasn’t my home. My home couldn’t exist without them. It wasn’t right. Everything was wrong, bad, off. I had to get out. My heart was thudding, pounding. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t feel my feet, my hands. Maybe the plague was in me, too, blackness creeping through my blood, sucking away my life. I kicked my shoes off and stared at my toes, then looked down at my fingertips. Nothing but the shadows from the fire.
But my heart wouldn’t stop racing.
We had to get out of here. As far away as possible.
I stumbled to the door, ripping it open. Something hit me in the shoulder, knocking me back. I didn’t stop. Another rock, hitting me in the head. I kept moving. Blood leaked down my face. I touched it. Red. Not black
. Red.
Dimly, I was aware of the gathering crowd of children holding stones. Of Ernesta, calling for me to return.
A shot rang through the air, the sound cutting through my panicked thoughts, ricocheting through my ears, silencing the chaotic pulsing in my brain.
I stopped.
“Not one step further.” Elder Gryff stood in front of our yard gate, a gun leveled at my chest. He wore a heavy cloth mask over his face, and his eyes were wide with terror. Behind him, people clutched stones. Not just children—neighbors. Friends. Kyln, the boy Ernesta thought was handsome. The Petrasens, whose son I had cared for when the mother was laid up in bed with her second child. There was Lorrina, the butcher. Tears streamed down her face, but she gripped her heavy rock.
“They’re dead,” I said, my voice pleading. I turned to the house and saw Nessie in the door, afraid to step out onto the porch. “Please, let me and my sister leave. We’re not infected. My parents . . . they’re already gone.”
“Go back inside.”
“They’re dead!” I screamed. “We can’t stay in there with them!”
Elder Gryff tilted his head, looking down the barrel of the gun. His finger was tight on the trigger.
“Please,” I begged.
“We can’t risk it,” he said.
Up and down the street, more than a half dozen homes had black cloth over the windows. Our village was dying, and the council was trying its best to save who was left. A part of me understood it. Agreed with it. But my parents were dead inside that house, and this mob wanted to trap me with their corpses.
“Please,” I said again. “We’ll take the mule cart and go. I have friends in the city.”
“You could infect every village you pass on the way out.” Elder Gryff’s voice was choked.
I bowed my head, turned, and went back inside. Ernesta shut the door behind me, the sound of the metal latch echoing throughout the house.
FORTY-TWO
Nedra
I sent Ernesta to the kitchen as I gathered Papa’s stiffening body onto a quilt and dragged it down the hall lined with the books he loved so much. I put him on the floor beside Mama, and then I doused the fire. My sister and I did what we could to pay respect to our dead parents. We said the Oryon prayers. Nessie lit candles near their eyes, so that the light could guide their souls to the afterlife. I took off their shoes and rubbed dirt into the soles of their feet so that it would be easier for their spirits to leave the bodies. We carried out the traditions, we mourned as we were able, and we slept that night in each other’s arms, huddled in the corner opposite my parents’ corpses.
* * *
• • •
The next morning, I blinked away the fear and panic and sorrow and forced myself to become Nedra the student, not Nedra the daughter. I took Ernesta by the hand, and we left the room where my parents were laid to rest, shutting the door firmly behind us.
“How long will we have to wait?” I asked my sister.
“A week,” she said. “When the Sens fell sick, Elder Gryff made us all wait a week, then he shouted to see if there were any survivors.”
“Were there?”
Ernesta didn’t look at me. She was staring at the loaf of bread Mama had made, still sitting on the counter. “The middle child, Ivynna. She came outside.”
I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath. “I’m glad one of them lived.”
“Her hand . . .” Ernesta looked down at her own hand, extending her fingers in a way I knew Ivynna must not have been able to. “They sent her back inside and waited another week. When she didn’t come to the door a second time, they burned the house.”
* * *
• • •
We busied ourselves with emptying out the cabinets, laying all the food on the kitchen table. We left Mama’s bread on the counter. We weren’t going to eat that.
“This will last us the week,” I said. “We just need to be careful.”
“I’m not hungry,” Ernesta said.
We sat down at the table, and we tried not to think about what was behind the closed door of the front room.
* * *
• • •
That night, Ernesta and I slept in our beds, our hands bridging the distance between our mattresses.
“Tell me about the school.” Ernesta whispered. “And the people you met, and the city. Tell me about Grey.”
I pretended to be asleep.
* * *
• • •
Ernesta and I went through the motions of being alive, but we moved carefully, as if we’d planned these slow dance steps, picking our way through the house, our eyes sliding over the closed doors. We lit a fire in the kitchen for light—the black curtains blocked the sun, and the oil in the lamps would run out quickly. In the stifling heat, I spread open the book Master Ostrum had given me.
I read every word Bennum Wellebourne had written on those pages. I studied it closer than I’d studied any book before. But there was nothing about the plague.
Ernesta opened the trunk at the end of the hall, the one that held Mama’s crafts—gifts she had been making for us for when we married or moved away from home. Mama had started working on it when I first received my acceptance letter from Yūgen, but already there were two quilts inside, one for me and one for Ernesta. Nessie took hers and lay in bed, clutching the cloth against her chest as if it were a doll.
My eyes blurred as I struggled to read. I didn’t want Wellebourne’s words. I wanted Papa’s. I felt guilty to put aside the text Master Ostrum had given me, but maybe there was something else on Papa’s shelves, something like my great-grandmother’s journal.
I sprawled on the hallway floor, pulling book after book from Papa’s shelves. His organization system was chaotic, and some books had handwritten notes on scraps of paper inside. Reserved for Rocwyn, or A gift from Aunt Gaitha; don’t sell.
The ones closest to the kitchen—and the back door—were those he intended to load onto his cart for his next trip out. The books nearer his bedroom were more valuable tomes, some of them wrapped in leather or protected by specially sized wooden boxes with bronze latches. Some he intended to sell for the right price; some were priceless.
There was a slender book of poetry in cheap cloth binding nearest to the bedroom. I slid it off the shelf, turning it over in my hands. It didn’t look particularly special, a cheap volume of mass-produced saccharine drivel made popular by the Emperor or some other important mainlander. Not at all the kind of thing Papa would usually cherish.
I flipped it open.
To my darling love, it said in my mother’s handwriting.
* * *
• • •
The days ticked by.
I wondered if Yūgen was open again, if they would let me know when I could come back.
I’d take Ernesta with me. They wouldn’t let her in the dormitory, but we could sell Papa’s cart and find a small apartment in Whitesides.
I hoped someone was feeding Jojo.
Once I returned to the city, I could get a job as a medical alchemist even without officially taking the robes, and eventually we could afford a better place to live. And if not, we could travel the outer regions together, working to help stop the plague.
Or we could leave. Sail the world.
Go anywhere but here.
* * *
• • •
I clawed at the edges of the house, trapped like a rat in a crucible. It was strange how death turned a home into a prison. I couldn’t stand the walls, the heavy black cloths that blocked out the light. Keep me here, fine, but let me see the sun.
Ernesta stayed in bed, wrapped in our mother’s quilt and her own sorrow.
The food on the table dwindled.
We didn’t touch the bread.
I read.
* * *
/> • • •
I stuffed tablecloths into the cracks around the door of the front room.
It was starting to smell.
* * *
• • •
After poring over the books on the hallway shelves, I ventured into my parents’ room. The bed was unmade; unusual for them. A sharp pang sliced through my stomach. My mother cared so much about things being neat. I shook out the crumpled quilt and straightened the sheets. I fluffed the pillows and arranged them just right.
I tried not to think about the long dark hair on my mother’s pillow, or the way my father’s side smelled of his shaving soap. I tried not to think of the lies that whispered up to me from the bed, promising that my parents weren’t gone, that I’d see them again. After all, here was their bed, their room, their life—right here, waiting for them.
Papa had books lined up on a shelf in his room, too. These were his treasures, his personal library. Some I recognized from my grandparents’ house before they passed away, some he simply kept for sentimental reasons. They were Papa’s “finds” in his travels, the books he’d picked up on the road that were so valuable he kept them out of reach, even from us.
I sat on the floor, my back resting against Papa’s side of the bed, his worn slippers by my knees, and I pulled the books from his shelf.
I opened an old leather-bound Oryon-illuminated manuscript, each page decorated with gold and silver paint, the words handwritten in fading brownish-red ink. There was no title, just three faded stars on the cover representing Oryous, the three-in-one god, past, present, and future. He has seen me grow up, he is with me now, he knows what I will do in the future. He knew, he knows, he will know forever.