Dead leaves crunched underfoot and their smell sugared the air with autumn’s perfume.
“That’s where we’re headed. There’s a fellow there, Tom Storey, Allie’s grandfather. They call him Father Storey. Once upon a time Tom was the program director at the camp. Now he has the place opened up as a shelter for folk with Dragonscale. He’s got more than a hundred people hiding there, and they’ve banged together a decent little society. There’s three meals a day—for now, anyway. I don’t know how much longer that will last. There’s no electric power, but they’ve got working showers if you can stand being pelted by ice water. They’ve got a school, and a kind of junior police force called the Lookouts, to keep watch for Quarantine Patrols and Cremation Crews. That’s mostly teenagers—the Lookouts. Allie and her friends. Gives them something to do. They have all the religion you could possibly want, too. In some ways it isn’t like any religion that’s ever come before and in other ways, well. Fundamentalists are much the same wherever you go. That’s one of the things I wanted to forewarn you about, while Allie ran on ahead. She’s even more devout than most, and that’s saying quite a lot.”
There was a rending crack, a sliding, reverberating crash that shook the forest floor and caused Harper’s pulse to leap. She stared back through the woods in the direction they had come from. She couldn’t imagine what could possibly have made such an enormous, shattering noise.
The Fireman cast a brief, considering glance over his shoulder, then took her arm and began to move her along again, a little more briskly now. He continued as if there had been no interruption at all.
“You have to understand that most of the camp is between your age and Allie’s. There are a few oldsters, but a lot more who ought to still be in school. Most of them have lost family, seen the people they love burn to death in front of them. They were in shock when they found their way to camp, refugees, deranged by grief, and just waiting around to burst into flame themselves. Then Father Storey and his daughter Carol—Allie’s aunt—taught them they don’t have to die. They’ve of fered them hope when they had none and a very concrete form of salvation.”
Harper slowed, in part to rest her sore ankle, in part to absorb what he was saying.
“What do you mean, they’re teaching people they don’t have to die? No one can teach someone with Dragonscale not to die. That’s impossible. If there was a treatment, some pill—”
“You aren’t required to swallow anything,” the Fireman said. “Not even their faith. Remember that, Nurse Grayson.”
“If there was anything that could prevent the Dragonscale from killing people, the government would know by now. If there was something that worked, really worked, something that could extend the lives of millions of sick people—”
“—people with a lethal and contagious spore on their skin? Nurse Grayson, no one wants us extending our lives. Nothing could be less desirable. Shortening them—that’s what would best serve the public good. At least in the minds of the healthy population. One thing we know about people with Dragonscale: they don’t burst into flame if you shoot them in the head. You don’t have to worry about a corpse infecting you or your children . . . or starting a conflagration that might take out a city block.” She opened her mouth to protest and he squeezed her shoulder. “There’ll be time to argue this point later. Although I warn you, it’s been argued before, most notably by poor Harold Cross. I feel his case largely settles the matter.”
“Harold Cross?”
He shook his head. “Leave it for now. I only want you to understand that Tom and Carol have given these people more than food or shelter or even a way to suppress their illness. They’ve given them belief . . . in each other, in the future, and in the power they share as a flock. A flock isn’t such a bad thing if you belong, but a few hundred starlings will tear an unlucky martin to feathers if it crosses their path. I think Camp Wyndham could be a very unfriendly place for an apostate. Tom, he’s tolerant enough. He’s your inclusive, modern, thoughtful religious type, an ethics professor by trade. But his daughter, Allie’s aunt: she’s barely more than a kid herself, and most of the other kids have made a kind of cult around her. She sings the songs, after all. You want to stay on her good side. She’s kind enough, Carol is. Means well. But if she doesn’t love you, then she’s afraid of you, and she’s dangerous when she’s afraid. I am uneasy in my mind about what might happen if Carol ever felt seriously threatened.”
“I’m not going to threaten anyone,” Harper said.
He smiled. “No. You don’t strike me as the type to make trouble, but to make peace. I still haven’t forgotten the first time you crossed my path, Nurse Grayson. You saved his life, you know. Nick. And you saved my skull, while you were at it. I seem to remember it was just about to be kicked in when you intervened. I owe you.”
“Not anymore,” Harper said.
Ahead of them, in the dark, branches rustled and were pushed aside. A modest assembly emerged, Allie leading the way. The girl was breathing hard and had a pretty flush of color on her delicate features.
“What happened, John?” asked a man standing directly behind her. His voice was low and melodious and even before she saw Tom Storey’s face, Harper liked him. At first, she could make out little more than his gold-rimmed spectacles flashing in the darkness. “Who do we have here?”
“Someone useful,” the Fireman said, only now she knew his name: John. “A nurse, a Miss Grayson. Can you take her the rest of the way? I’m no doctor, but I think she fractured her ankle. If you’ll help her along to the infirmary, I’d like to go back and collect her things while there’s still time. My guess is there’ll soon be police and a Quarantine Patrol swarming her place.”
“Gee, can I help?” said one of the other members of the greeting party. He stepped forward, slipping easily between the Fireman and Harper, and put his arm around her waist. Harper slung hers over his shoulders. He was a big man, maybe quarter of a century older than Harper, with sloping shoulders and pale silver hair beginning to thin up top. Harper thought of an aged and well-loved Paddington Bear. “Ben Patchett,” he said. “Glad to meet you, ma’am.”
There was a woman with them, too, short, squashy, her silver hair braided into cornrows. She smiled tentatively, perhaps unsure Harper would remember her. Of course there was no chance at all Harper could’ve forgotten the woman who fled Portsmouth Hospital, shimmering as brightly as a flare and just as sure to explode.
“Renée Gilmonton,” Harper said. “I thought you ran away to die somewhere.”
“That’s what I thought, too. Father Storey had other ideas.” Renée put an arm under Harper’s armpits, helping to support her from the other side. “You took such good care of me for so long, Nurse Grayson. What a pleasure to have a chance to tend to you for a bit.”
“How’d you bust your ankle?” Father Storey asked, lifting his chin so the dim light flashed on the lenses of his spectacles, and for the first time Harper could see his features, his long, skinny, deeply lined face and silver beard, and she thought: Dumbledore. The beard was actually less Dumbledore, more Hemingway, but the eyes behind the lenses of his glasses were a brilliant shade of blue that naturally suggested a man who could cast runes and speak to trees.
Harper found it hard to reply, didn’t know yet how to speak of Jakob and what he had tried to do to her.
The Fireman seemed to see in a glance how the question defeated her, and answered himself. “Her husband came for her with a gun. I chased him off. That’s all. Time is short, Tom.”