The Eleventh Plague Page 6

  I shook my head and turned back to Dad. If they thought I’d leave him alone so easily, they were crazy.

  “Look, there’s really nothing you can do here. Why don’t we —”

  “Marc, maybe it’s better if he stays inside for the time being. Right?” Sam said it gently, but there was a trace of warning there.

  “Why don’t you go on ahead, Marcus?” Violet said. “You too, Sam. We’ll be okay here.”

  “Vi —” Marcus started, then pulled back. “You sure?”

  Violet examined me over her shoulder. Her lips lifted into a thin smile beneath her blue eyes and pink freckles.

  “You’re not going to be any trouble, are you?” she asked.

  The way she was leaning over my father — was it a threat? His life was in her hands. I shook my head slowly but didn’t speak.

  “Okay,” Marcus said, backing away from me. “Come on out if you get hungry.”

  Violet waved Marcus off over her shoulder, then the front door opened and shut again.

  “Sit down if you like,” she said.

  I didn’t move.

  In the stillness of the room, I was aware every time Violet’s instruments clanked together. I looked over to the mantel, where there were two rows of framed pictures. The frames were whole, but the pictures inside them were discolored, torn in places, and repaired. One showed a family, tanned and smiling and trim, posing on some tropical beach in front of a huge white boat, while another was of a mother and father sitting in lawn chairs out in front of a dilapidated trailer, a baby in an old stroller beside them.

  “Those are our folks,” Violet said as she worked. “The poor rednecks are mine. Marcus’s are the ones with the yacht. I think they actually owned that island.”

  Looking at the faded pictures of their long-dead families, a chill moved through me.

  “What’s your name?” Violet asked, but I glared at the floor. “There’s no harm in telling me your name. Unless you’re Rumpelstiltskin, I guess. Are you Rumpelstiltskin?”

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  “Why don’t you sit down? We can —”

  “Just tell me when we can leave.” My voice echoed in the small room, but Violet acted like she barely even heard me. Her flat expression never changed.

  “Your dad’s right arm and leg are broken in multiple places; so are a few ribs. He’s dehydrated. He has what I think are infected cuts in various places. The worst of it is he took a pretty good blow to the head, enough to crack his skull. That put him in what people call a coma. That’s when —”

  “I know what a coma is. When will he wake up?”

  Violet’s eyes never wavered from mine.

  “It could be five minutes from now,” she said. “Or it could be five years. Or it could be never. I won’t lie to you. In the old days there’d be more we could do. More tests so I could be sure. But now … it’s serious. The head injury is bad, but those breaks could cause trouble too.”

  It was like she wasn’t even speaking English, just voicing a twisted jumble of sounds. A dark weight settled on my chest, pressing down on my lungs. I felt sick. My head swam.

  Violet took a breath, about to say more, but was interrupted by a pounding at the front door. She set her hand on my back as she passed by me and went to answer it. When the door opened, I caught a glimpse of an older man standing outside, tall and craggy looking with shining white hair.

  “What were you two thinking?” he demanded as he tried to push his way in.

  “Caleb, I don’t have time to —”

  “Where’s Marcus?”

  “He’s getting the barbecue ready. I’m with a patient.”

  “That’s exactly what I want to talk about. Will —”

  The man started to force himself inside, but Violet planted her hand in the center of his chest and pushed him out onto the porch. “If you want to talk, we talk outside.”

  Violet slammed the door behind her. The two of them were just outside the window, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. The man towered over her, beginning to shout, trying to intimidate her, but Violet didn’t give an inch. She argued him down the stairs and out into their front yard.

  I looked from the window down to Dad, and that’s when what Violet said hit me. It was like I was in the middle of the ocean and my hands had slipped off the side of a lifeboat. I sucked in a deep breath. I had to be calm, like Grandpa. Strong, like Grandpa. This was reality, and I had to deal with it. How I felt wasn’t important. My fingernails dug into my raw palm.

  I stuffed my hand into my pocket as the door opened again. Violet swept in and went directly to the wooden cabinet. She drew something out that I couldn’t see, then returned to Dad’s side.

  “That was Caleb,” I said. “Will’s father.”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “He doesn’t want us here.”

  “I think that’s putting it mildly.”

  “He’s why Sam wasn’t sure I should come here.”

  Violet looked at me steadily but said nothing.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him that if my family wanted to share our home and food with you, it was our business.” I watched as Violet lifted a needle into the candlelight and filled it with liquid from a small bottle. “But that I definitely, without a doubt, wouldn’t use any of our medicines.”

  Once the needle was full, Violet flicked it with her finger, then slid it into Dad’s arm and pushed the plunger. When she was done she turned back to me.

  “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” she said with a wink. “These are antibiotics, in case there are infections and to protect against pneumonia.” Her brow furrowed. “He needs blood thinners because of the breaks but … we ran out months ago.”

  “Why are you helping us?”

  “When I was in med school,” she explained, “one of my teachers told me that my only job was to treat the patient in front of me. He said I couldn’t change the world, I could just treat what’s in front of me.”

  Over the next hour or so, Violet fed Dad with a plastic tube threaded down his throat and then made some plaster and set his arm and leg in a cast, struggling to make the shattered bits of bone line up and lock into place.

  I fell into a chair behind her, sinking into its deep cushions, while outside it slowly grew dark. A bright orange glow rose from the park. Maybe fifty men, women, and children converged around the bonfire. It had a large roasting spit built over it that Marcus and Sam were tending, turning the big deer around and around over the flame.

  A string of about twenty small torches was set in the ground around the perimeter of the group, making flickering islands of light. The people milled around, laughing and talking, swimming in the glow.

  “Who are you people?” My voice sounded strange and distant, like pieces of wreckage bobbing along on dark water. “What is this place?”

  Violet smoothed a length of plaster-covered cloth across Dad’s knee, then gave me a kind and soft smile over her shoulder.

  “There’ll be time for explanations later,” she said. “I’ll be done soon. When I am, we’ll get you cleaned up, and then I should get you something to eat.”

  I shook my head. Violet persisted, but I didn’t move. I wasn’t being taken away from Dad.

  Outside the window, people moved dreamily around the playground. Groups came together and apart, only to re-form again like beads of oil on water. All of them talking, hugging, throwing their heads back to laugh. All of it an eerie dumb show, silent to me in the house.

  Violet continued working and I closed my eyes, surprised to find sleep overtaking me. I fought it for a moment, but it was too strong, too long in coming. I just prayed my dreams would find me back out on the trail with Dad, crashing through the grass with Paolo behind us, Dad talking a mile a minute, me bringing up the rear.

  When I finally did sleep, though, I dreamed I was walking through the woods alone, late at night, my every step mirrored by
an immense shadow with claws that lumbered by my side.

  TEN

  When I woke up, Violet was gone and there was a gnawing emptiness in my stomach. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had eaten. As I sat up, I saw a note sitting on a table near Dad.

  We’re all at the barbecue. Come out and have something to eat when you get up. — Violet

  Outside, the party had gotten smaller, but a group of twenty or so still milled around the fire.

  There was some jerky in my pack, and maybe a few crumbs of hardtack had made it through. That would do. I looked around the room, but then remembered with a jolt that in my hurry to get Dad inside, I had left the pack outside. I could see it peeking over the lip of the wagon. Grandpa’s rifle leaned against it. The realization that I had left them both sitting out there in the open made me forget my hunger for a moment. I could feel the sting of the beating Grandpa would have given me if he had seen. Stupid. I wished I could just make my bed on the floor next to Dad and go to sleep, but I couldn’t leave my gear out there for anyone to take.

  I struggled out of the chair, kneeling at Dad’s bed on my way to the door. The dirt and splashes of blood that had lingered on his face were gone and his skin wasn’t quite the waxy mask it had been. I tried to tell myself that he didn’t look any different than he ordinarily did when he was asleep, but there was a stillness there, an absence that seemed vast. I squeezed his arm and leaned down next to his ear.

  “I’ll be right back,” I whispered before stepping outside.

  The hairs on my arm lifted in the cool air, and the spicy smell of wood smoke and roasted meat made my stomach roar, pushing the last remnants of sleep out of my head. I crept down the stairs and across the yard, easing up to the wagon, hoping not to be seen. When I got close enough, I drew my bag toward me. Unfortunately I forgot that Grandpa’s rifle was leaning against it, so as soon as I pulled the pack away, the rifle fell with a clatter. My insides jumped.

  “Hey.”

  I looked down. Jackson and two others were sitting near the wagon’s tires, a litter of plates and half-eaten dinner all around them. There was a skinny kid with big glasses and another larger kid with thick curly hair. All of them were staring at me, three pairs of eyes burning in the dark.

  “You get something to eat?” Jackson asked. I clutched my pack to my chest. “I have food.”

  “We’ve got venison,” Jackson said. “And some potatoes Derrick’s mom made.”

  “They suck,” the big kid, Derrick, said.

  The kid with the glasses was sitting on the other side of Jackson. “My mom brought her blueberry pie,” he said, which for some reason caused the big kid with curls to shoot him a leering grin.

  “Oh, I bet she did, Martin,” he said.

  “Shut up, Derrick! That doesn’t even make sense!”

  “Oh yeah? You want to know what makes sense?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Martin said. “My mom?” Jackson pushed Derrick away and stood up by the wagon. “Ignore Derrick. He’s obnoxious. You should stay and have some food.”

  “I’m fine.”

  I shouldered my pack and reached for the rifle, but before I could get away, Derrick leapt in front of me and started doing a spastic shuffle, jumping up and down and throwing his arms around at his sides like he was having a fit. I took a step backward.

  “Uh … Derrick?” Jackson said, stepping up to my side. “What are you doing?”

  “Well,” Derrick said, panting, “I figured, uh, maybe the problem was that he didn’t feel entirely at home yet, so I thought I’d perform the Settler’s Landing Dance of Welcoming.”

  “You look like you’re having a seizure,” Martin said drily.

  Derrick cackled and threw himself into the air, which I guessed was his big finish, since when he landed he swept his arms out in front of him and took a deep bow. Martin clapped sarcastically and Jackson laughed. When Derrick stood up again, he somehow had a plate of venison and potatoes in his hand. Where it came from, I had no idea, but when he held it out to me, the smell of it almost made me faint.

  “Eat,” he said. “Eat, my new and tiny little friend.”

  “What do you care if I eat or not?”

  Derrick’s grin froze.

  “Just being friendly, man, that’s all. You want it or not?”

  I was about to turn and run back up the stairs into the Greens’ house, but my hands moved before the rest of me could. Before I knew it, I had snatched the plate from him and dug my fingers into the pile of meat. It was rich and gamey and seeped into every part of my body.

  I gulped it down, and when it was gone, I scooped up the potatoes and devoured those too, sucking the remains from my fingers. When I was done, I had to gasp for air. Jackson and the others stood there, jaws wide.

  “Uh … you want us to go kill you something else?” Martin asked. “I think we have a horse that’s lame.”

  Embarrassed, I pushed the plate at Derrick and grabbed the rifle out of the wagon. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

  “Hey, it’s no problem, man. I’d do anything for the guy who shot Will Henry.”

  I turned, glaring at Jackson. “They know about that?” Jackson flinched. “I —”

  “Relax,” Derrick said. “We just wish your aim had been a little better.”

  “Hey, you coming to school with us tomorrow?” Martin asked. I looked at him, blank faced, sure I hadn’t heard him correctly. “School. You know. Teachers. Books.” Derrick whacked Martin in the stomach. “Girls in tight sweaters.”

  “You all go to school?”

  “Sure! How else are we going to get into a good college?”

  The three of them laughed, but I didn’t get it. The way they talked, like they were tossing a ball around in a game of keep-away, was confusing.

  “So you wanna come?” Jackson asked.

  I looked over my shoulder at Dad’s window and shivered at the thought of him lying in that tomblike quiet. What if he woke up and I wasn’t there? I shouldered the rifle and backed away from the three of them without a word.

  Derrick called after me. “Okay! Take it easy. Come back anytime!” Jackson pushed Derrick hard on the shoulder, knocking him off balance.

  “What? I was being nice!”

  “You were being a spaz.”

  I left them bickering, getting halfway across the road, when Marcus spoke up from behind me.

  “Everyone? Everyone, can I have your attention please?”

  Marcus was standing by the fire with Violet at his side, waving everyone closer together. Caleb Henry loomed in the background.

  “Just for a second. Thanks, everybody. Um. I just wanted to say it’s great that we could all be here like this tonight. It’s Thanksgiving today, uh, we think, and I’m sure most of us remember that from back when we were kids. Every year we’d gather the whole family and spend the day together, eating and watching football and arguing.”

  “Was this back on the yacht, Green?” someone called, and a laugh rose up from the group.

  Marcus chuckled. “Well, wherever it was, I don’t remember ever feeling closer to my family than I did right then. And I don’t think I’ve ever felt closer to all of you. We’ve done great work in the past year, haven’t we?”

  There was a general murmur of agreement from the assembled, a scattering of applause.

  “New wells were dug, the crops came in a bit better than expected, and everybody’s house is ready for the winter. But most of all, another summer has gone by and we’re all still here, together and safe. We’re lucky. Damn lucky, I think.”

  Just then Caleb edged Marcus out of the way and came forward. His face looked even rougher in the firelight, creased like an old map. As soon as he stepped up, everyone went quiet. Caleb looked from person to person grimly, then began a prayer. Everyone lowered their heads as he spoke. His voice was dark and sharp.

  “Lord, after the flood, many of us believed it would be the fire next time. All of us here saw that fire, and thanks to your
grace we were among the few who found their way through it. As we struggle to please you, we are beset on all sides by those that would tear down all that we have built.”

  As Caleb spoke, his blue eyes searched the crowd. I wondered if he was looking for me.

  “Today we give thanks and reaffirm that the price of your gift is vigilance and obedience to your will. Amen.”

  The crowd murmured “Amen” and then someone at the back of the group began singing a song that I didn’t recognize at first. “Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light …”

  Even Jackson and his friends joined in. Some of the adults laid their hands over their hearts. I remembered it then from the few times Grandpa had sung it when he was drunk. The American national anthem. What were they singing that for?

  “What so proudly we hail —”

  “Leave me alone!” someone shouted.

  The singing stopped and the group turned as one body to a mass of shadows that was swirling at the edge of the park. “Oh no,” Jackson said from behind me.

  Derrick barked with laughter. “Here comes the show, ladies and gentlemen!”

  As the group turned more into the light, I could make out a kid standing in the center of a circulating mob of five or six others, all of whom were jutting in and out at him like crows after a scattering of seed. The kid in the center was thrashing hard and had already put two kids on the ground, one clutching his knee to his chest, the other cradling his jaw. A third boy got up his courage and went in, only to get a kick between his legs that put him down howling. “Nice one!” Derrick shouted.

  “Stop it!” Marcus hollered as he rushed toward the scene. “Stop this right now! Jennifer!”

  Jennifer?

  Marcus grabbed the arm of the kid in the middle to pull him out of the melee. To my surprise, it wasn’t a boy at all, but a black-haired girl of about sixteen, dressed in dirty jeans and a loose blue-and-red flannel shirt. As she stumbled closer to the firelight, her tan skin glowed like bronze. Marcus pulled her back just as she was going after one of the boys who was stupid enough to have gotten up off the ground.