“What?” Harper asked.
“You think you’re in trouble. Ain’t nothing compared to the hill of shit Allie is under for lettin’ you go. Allie is doin’ penance for it now. She asked for a chance to make amends and Mama Storey gave it to her.”
“How? Did she take a vow of silence?”
“Not exactly. You remember what Father Storey used to do? That thing about suckin’ on a stone when he needed to think?”
Snow squealed underfoot as they climbed the hill. Harper needed to the count of three to figure it out. It had been a long night.
“You have to be shitting me.”
“I shit thee not. Allie is carrying a stone in her mouth to think over her mistakes and refocus on her obligations. The last time we let down our guard, someone took a stone and used it to crush Father Storey’s head in. We all carry rocks now, to remember.” Jamie removed one hand from her pocket and showed Harper a stone as big as a golf ball.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. So how long are you going to walk around sucking on that thing, Allie?” Harper asked her, as if there were any hope of an answer.
Allie looked like she wanted to spit the rock into Harper’s face.
“That all depends on you, see?” Jamie asked. “Now, you weren’t at the meeting when we agreed there needed to be consequences for people who think they’re above the rules. No one is too pissed at you. Mikey saw you row out to the Fireman’s island, so we’ve known you were safe for a while. Ben and Mother Storey had a talk and agreed it wouldn’t be fair to make a big deal out of you leaving safe territory. At the same time, Carol was worried the rest of the camp would get ugly if you were held to looser standards’n everyone else. So they come to a decision and Allie agreed. Allie only has to carry the stone in her mouth until you take it from her. And you only have to carry it in your mouth for—”
“Jamie, I appreciate you being so direct with me. But you need to know, no matter what you think you all decided, that I am not ever going to suck on a stone in some medieval act of penance. If you think I will, then Allie isn’t the only one with rocks in her head.”
They emerged at the southeastern corner of the chapel, near the steps down into the women’s dorm in the basement. Three Lookouts sat on logs, singing a rustic and curiously brutal hymn, “They Hung Him on a Cross.” Their eyes were bright as brass coins, and the Dragonscale on their exposed hands was lit like burning lace, bathing the snow in crimson light. Their breath unspooled from their lips in threads of red steam. All of them were starved-looking, bones showing in their faces. Thin hands, thin necks, sunken temples, concentration-camp haircuts. A random, disassociated notion occurred to Harper: When your stomach is empty, so is your head.
“Well, I hope you change your mind, Nurse. ’Cause Allie’s contrition doesn’t end until yours begins.”
“Allie,” Harper said, “I take responsibility for my fuckup. Full responsibility. Which means if you want to play martyr, that’s up to you. I’m not making you do it.” She cast a sidelong look at Jamie, and added, “And no one is making me do it, either. It’s degrading and infantile. If someone wants me to peel potatoes or scrub pans, I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. But I’m going to pass on this particular grotesque act of self-abasement, thank you.”
“Allie is ready to do what it takes to make things right. People look up to you, Nurse—sure would be nice if you’d do the same. Allie is glad to serve as an example, for however long it takes.”
“Or until dinner.”
“Nope. Wrong on that. If you won’t take the stone from her and carry it yourself, it stays in, breakfast, lunch, and dinner . . . although you might recall we Lookouts gave up our lunch a while back, so the likes of you could eat. I guess Allie’ll have to take it out and put it under her pillow when she sleeps, but that’s it.”
“I don’t know which of you is worse. Her with her mouthful of stone, or you with your mouthful of nonsense.” Harper stopped walking, turned her back on Jamie Close, and spoke to Allie with her hands.
“Stop this,” she said, in the language of silence that Nick had taught her.
Allie met Harper’s gaze with cold, hating eyes. She had only ever learned how to finger-spell, and so her reply came in a slow trickle that Harper had to sound out in her mind:
Y-O-U
K-N-O-W
H-O-W
T-O
M-A-K-E
M-E.
The last part of this statement involved the use of Allie’s middle finger and was widely known even to people who hadn’t studied sign language.
BOOK FIVE
PRISONERS
1
From the diary of Harold Cross:
JUNE 30th:
BACK FROM THE CABIN. SHOULDN’T HAVE HAD THAT THIRD HOT POCKET. AM HALF-SICK FROM IT AND EVEN MY SMOKY DAMN FARTS SMELL LIKE PEPPERONI.
INTERESTING NEWS FROM CORDOBA. TWO HUNDRED INFECTED KILLED AT THE JESUIT MONASTERY IN ALTA GRACIA, BODIES BULLDOZED INTO A PIT BY THE MILITARY. DR. Bá WAS ABLE TO RECOVER FOUR CORPSES, INCLUDING THE BODY OF EL HORNO DE CAMINAR, WHO SINGLE-HANDEDLY HELD OFF THE MILITARY’S ASSAULT FOR MOST OF AN HOUR BY CREATING SOME KIND OF FLAMING TORNADO, AN ACT THAT ALLOWED ALMOST A THOUSAND PEOPLE WITH DRAGONSCALE TO ESCAPE INTO THE JUNGLE. SOUND LIKE ANYONE WE KNOW? TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH, EL HORNO DE CAMINAR MEANS “THE WALKING FURNACE.”
DR. Bá HAD A CHANCE TO WORK ON THE RECOVERED BODIES AND E-MAILED ME THE PRELIMINARY FINDINGS. INTERESTING STUFF. HE AUTOPSIED THE BRAIN OF A RECENTLY INFECTED CHILD AND IT SHOWED ONLY A DUSTING OF THE SPORE IN HIS SINUSES AND ON THE MEMBRANE SHEATH AROUND THE CEREBRAL CORTEX. BUT THE ARGENTINEAN FIREMAN HAD BEEN INFECTED FOR MUCH LONGER AND THE DRACO INCENDIA TRYCHOPHYTON HAD PENETRATED DEEP INTO HIS SUPERIOR TEMPORAL GYRUS.
EL HORNO DE CAMINAR GAVE AN INTERVIEW TO AN ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE BLOG, IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE PLAGUE, AND EXPLAINED HOW HE WAS ABLE TO CONTROL FIRE WITHOUT EVER BEING HURT BY IT. “YOU CAN ASK THE SPORE TO KEEP YOU SAFE, BUT YOU MUST FORGET YOUR OWN VOICE FIRST. YOU CAN ASK IT TO FIGHT FOR YOU, BUT YOU MUST COME TO IT AS A SUPPLICANT WITHOUT LANGUAGE.” PROBABLY A CRAP TRANSLATION, BUT IT STRUCK ME AS INTERESTING. THE SUPERIOR TEMPORAL GYRUS HARBORS WERNICKE’S AREA, ONE OF THE SEATS OF SPEECH. I FEEL HE HAS EXPLAINED EVERYTHING AND YET I UNDERSTAND NOTHING.
2
Harper read the notebook in the bathroom, with the door locked, to prevent someone from walking in on her and finding her with it. She felt vaguely like an adolescent, privately examining a work of pornography with a dry mouth and a tripping heart.
When she finally stepped back into the wardroom and the milky glow of dawn, she discovered a white rock on the foot of her cot, a sheet of paper under it. WHEN WILL YOU TAKE YOUR MEDICINE? someone had written.
Father Storey drowsed in one bed, Nick in the other. With both of them asleep in the same pose, and with the same frowning look of concentration on their faces, it was impossible not to see the close familial resemblance. The child was still inside Father Storey somewhere, as a fly remains perfectly preserved in a bead of amber. The old man waited for Nick, a baggy overcoat that he would be ready to slip on in six decades.
Harper glanced at the curtain into the waiting room, to be sure she was unobserved, and put the notebook back in the ceiling. Then she picked up the stone and ducked into the next room.
Mindy Skilling, a pretty, waifish girl of about twenty, was on watch. Harper had treated her last month for a urinary tract infection. Mindy gave Harper a dewy, pitying look. She had a lovely, expressive face—bright eyes and long curling lashes—and Harper remembered that in a former life Mindy had studied acting.
“Did you put this on my bed?” Harper held out the stone.
Mindy shook her head.