by Linda L Zern
“Wash them right, let the water drip down your elbows.”
Tess wanted to protest. Why was this stranger telling her how to wash her hands? Gwen had shown her how to wash her hands when there was doctoring to do. Those boys had always been getting something banged up or needed stitches. And Ally and ZeeZee, but Tess refused to let her brain dredge up visions of her sisters. Stop! Stop thinking! Stop seeing them burn!
Her hands jerked up to her temples as she tried to crush the thoughts in her skull, keep them from escaping, stop them from ripping her apart. The bowl of hot water crashed to the ground.
“Jesus, Mary, and Saint Joseph!” Midge slapped her hands against her butcher’s apron.
Tess turned. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.” She stared at the metal bowl as it spun on the concrete floor, the sound of its metallic spinning singing off the walls. It clanged faster and faster and then stopped.
The girl getting sewn up never flinched or complained. She sat like a doll.
“Why is she crying?” The doll said.
“What? Don’t be silly. No one’s crying. And it had better not be you. Better not.” The doc gave the kid a squinty-eyed shake of the head.
The doll agreed with a headshake of her own and a quick nod at Tess.
Was she crying? Tess couldn’t feel it. If only she could cry, maybe then her hands wouldn’t feel like they belonged to someone else. There must have been something else in her face to make the doctor put down her needle and start walking toward Tess. The doctor reached out and grabbed her shoulders with fingers like steel.
“Unless you are having a PTSD episode, I don’t have time for hysterics. Do you think you’re the only one who’s had to face this bottomless pit?”
A bottomless pit? Tess didn’t answer. She couldn’t. There was a fist inside her chest, squeezing.
“The question has an obvious answer. Don’t make me slap you.” The woman’s eyes saw everything as she studied Tess’s face. “You’ve got as much color as the belly of a fish. The fire is going to give me enough to do without you freaking out in here. Sit down if you’re going to faint.” She punctuated her sentence by giving Tess a hard, short shake.
“Don’t.” Tess jerked back. “Don’t touch me.”
Instantly, Doc Midge let go and stepped back. “Fine. But don’t you flake out. I mean it.”
Unblinking, the doll stared at Tess. A sound like paper tearing came from the cocoon of blankets nearest the far wall.
“Help me. Check on that girl back there, would you?” the doctor dismissed Tess. “Maybe try some water. It’s all we can do now.”
Something to do. Anything. Tess seized it and walked to the last bedroll, crouched, picked up a mason jar of water, and pulled back the frayed edge of a blanket.
They’d shaved her head because of the lice, but even washed and tended, Golda looked . . . what was there to say?
Curled in a fetal position, she was dead.
CHAPTER 29
Below them, on the ground floor, preparations went on with a hustling urgency. Somewhere wood shattered, but the infirmary fell into a sharp-edged hush. Doc Midge sighed when she saw Golda’s body.
“Oh damn!” the doctor said, but there was no fire in the words.
When she finished wrapping the doll’s stitches, she said, “Go on, Molly. Find your sister and tell her to bring the big needle for sewing the shroud. Go on and mind that you’re quiet. There’s death in our house.” The girl jumped down from the table and walked out without a backward look.
In the sudden stillness that only death could command, the doctor pulled Tess to the entryway, where a galvanized bucket waited. She shoved the bucket into Tess’s hands. “Go get water. You spill it, you fetch it.”
Tess stared at the empty container. With a hand on Tess’s shoulder, the doctor softened her tone. “There’s a well, behind the building. Follow the crowd.”
Tess turned and stumbled over a rough patch on the cement floor.
A hand reached out, steadying her. There was kindness but no pity in the doctor’s tired face. “You just keep moving. One step and then two and then you keep living, and on the way to living, you might find a reason for all the steps. Go on. Ask if you need help.”
Down the escalator, Tess paused on the step where she’d shot and killed a man looking for Ally, to find Ally, to save Ally. She took another step.
Just keep moving.
She followed the trail of kids running water to the front gate, more drones for the anthill. At the corner of the building, she froze. There it was—Ally’s fountain—half hidden behind the tumbled blocks of a concrete wall. The bubbling boil of water from an artesian well filled a small, cement cistern.
The smell of rotten eggs, faint and thin, marked the sulfur from the endless supply of fresh water, one of Florida’s underground free-flowing springs. Water. Food. Safety. The Marketplace Fortress. It was all here behind the growing wall. Straight past the well the back edge of the wall rose, not quite so high here as on the front face, but growing.
Kids dipped a crazy assortment of buckets and containers into the cistern and then ran off, all of them ignoring the man on the ground, at the base of the wall, being kicked and beaten by three Amazons in plain sight. Mister Terry curled tight, hands over his head, trying to protect himself from the thuds of worn and patched army boots.
Tess clutched her bucket and ran. “Hey. Stop. What’s this for? Mister Terry!” Tess stopped short, stunned to find no one coming to the man’s defense. “Help me,” she yelled at a boy kneeling next to the well. He ignored her. Tess jumped at the first woman in the group, the woman’s leg drawn back to land a blow on the fallen man’s head.
Her momentum threw her into the woman, who fell back, crashing into the bullies next to her. Tess dropped the water bucket. The world became a blur of fists and rage. It felt good to lash out, to empty herself in righteous retribution. She stopped thinking and exploded into motion.
Someone grunted. Another sputtered and spat out a mouthful of dirt. One of the women, a long-legged, middle-aged type, cursed and made a half-hearted attempt to backhand Tess. Dodging, Tess punched her in the gut. The others stayed down.
Tess spun looking for someone else to attack. She planted her feet and waited for any of them to pull a weapon and end the scuffle. If that happened, Tess was going to lose. She glared at the trio, her fists balled at her side, anger pulsing under her skin. Spinning, she found the bucket and snatched it up, holding it in one hand like a club. She pushed between the man on the ground and the Amazons.
They held up their hands in mock surrender and stepped back.
“Cripes, what’s wrong with you people? There are kids over there watching you.”
She pointed at the well, but there wasn’t anyone there. The children had scattered. Conditioned by years of keeping themselves to themselves, they knew better than to interrupt an adult squabble.
Behind her, Roy Terry groaned. She didn’t turn around. “Mister Terry, I suggest you get up if you can.”
Another groan, but she could hear him struggling to his feet.
“Girl, you have no idea what you’re doing,” said the tall one who was rubbing her jaw line.
“Don’t I? Maybe. But beating this man to death isn’t going to take away one single scar you carry.”
One of the women, her hair cut close to her pink scalp, reached up to touch the diamond shape on her cheek. No removal surgery for her. “Maybe not,” she said. “But it might make us feel better. You should probably ask him why. Right, Mister . . . Terry?” Her voice dripped with venom, but the fight seemed to have gone out of her. “Right, Mister Terry?” she repeated.
Tess took the chance and glanced back to see the man stagger up, clutch his gut, and look at her with blood dripping from a cut on his eyebrow. There was something in his look that made Tess relax her grip on the bucket. By some unseen signal, the three women turned and walked away.
Anger and adrenalin drained away with every step they
took. Tess rolled her shoulders. “I hardly think that they were frightened off by my deadly fighting bucket.” Terry weaved on his feet. His shakiness galvanized her. She wedged him up with an arm under his shoulder and walked him to the edge of the artesian well, propping him against the stone of the cistern.
Crouching, she splashed his face with the egg water.
He gasped.
“As good as smelling salts.”
He coughed and then tried to give her a half-hearted smile. “Thank you, but they were right.” He poked at the cut on his head. “You don’t know what’s going on here.”
“That’s going to need stitches.” Dipping water out of the cistern with her hand, she swished her mouth clean of dirt and then spit. “Okay. I may not know what the back story is.” He grimaced when she pressed her palm against the side of his face. “But I do know that your cheekbone isn’t broken, but it might have been if I hadn’t brought my trusty bucket with me. Seriously, you need to see Doc Midge.”
“The men take care of themselves in the men’s court.” He shook his head. “I’ll do.” He reached for another handful of water, sipped.
“So, what was that all about? Wrong place, wrong—”
“Maybe not, Tess. Those women,” he said, gulping, “feel they have just cause to do what they were doing.”
Tess didn’t interrupt. She caught his look and waited for an explanation.
“They aren’t strangers to me, and they feel that I could have done more.”
She lifted her head and sniffed, then wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“The wind is bringing it straight to us,” Tess said.
“Yes.” He tried to sit up straighter.
She didn’t offer to help. “Were they right? Should you have done more?”
His eye was already swelling shut. “Yes. My fault. I was first mate of the Black Watch.”
He went white and then put his head between his knees.
Tess glanced up to see Britt watching them from the corner of the building. She leaned against the blocks, arms crossed over her chest.
Ahhhh, the unseen order giver. Tess bet that she’d given the order calling off the three witches. It had hardly been Tess and her mighty fists. Tess pulled Roy Terry to his feet. “Come on. I need to get the doctor her water, and you need to get checked out.”
“No. Men aren’t allowed inside after the initial interview.”
She reached down for his arm.
“No, Tess, and you won’t go to El about this. You won’t.”
“But these women are allowed to beat the living crap out of you here.”
She offered him her shoulder. “Why shouldn’t I go to El?”
“I may have more than sins to pay for, did you ever think of that?” He stumbled to a stop and caught her eye. “Seriously, I’ll be more careful. Don’t meddle. Please.” It was a plea.
He weaved into her, steadied himself, stood straighter, and pushed away. He pointed to where Britt watched them.
“Why would you come here and let them hate on you?” She frowned at Britt, who glared.
Ignoring her, Roy Terry stumbled toward the tents of the men’s living area.
Eggshells, Doc Midge was walking on eggshells around Tess, waiting. Waiting was all any of them could do now.
Tess understood having to watch someone that way. She’d watched her father like that after he’d finally gotten them to Grandfather’s ranch—after the collapse, after West Virginia, after he’d traded Mother to bandits to save himself.
No, that wasn’t fair. He’d traded one to save three: Ally, ZeeZee, and Tess too. Father had saved his girls’ lives but, in the end, he’d lost. Somewhere on that journey, he’d lost his mind.
Tess remembered her father being sharp and aware when he’d driven them out of the mountains away from Grandma Bond’s, and he’d been capable and functioning when he’d navigated through the displaced mobs of refugees walking, walking, walking to nowhere in those scary days after the government went down.
“Drink something?” The doctor handed Tess another mason jar with water, gently pushing her down onto the cypress stump stool.
Tess wanted to tell her that she knew what being on the broken edge of something looked like. Instead, she nodded, took the jar, and drank.
“Drink some more. Do normal things. I can guess why you’re here. It’s not all that complicated. The fire. Golda. They told me about someone who brought Golda back. Someone from out there, whose family is still out there.”
Tess drank but didn’t answer. What was the point? She stared at the water. A fine layer of sediment swirled in the bottom of the jar.
“The woman that everyone is afraid of. I know her. I know Myra.” The doctor fiddled with a clean blanket in a stack next to Tess. “She picked us up, promised to take my girls to a safer place than the hotel on New Symrna Beach. It had been a beach holiday. I’d just finished my residency. We were stuck when the first flare storm hit. It was a bottleneck because of the bridges, you know; we were stuck across the causeway on the beachside. Told to stay put until things smoothed out. Well, by the time I tried to leave, all the bridges were closed and held, controlled by the worst kind of . . .” Her eyes drifted to a long gone vision only she could see. “Doesn’t matter. So we went with her, with Myra. She came at us from the sea, offered rescue, and I thought we were safe. Maybe because she was a woman.” Her hands stilled. “That’s what I get for being sexist.” She laughed, bitterly.
“El found me in a camp down south. My girls.” She reached out, rested her hand on the blankets. “My girls. Rebecca and Sarah and—” She stared down at her empty hands. The earthy smell of onions cooking in the kitchen reached them even on the second floor.
“I heard them call her a pirate,” Tess prompted.
“Sure. That’s as good as anything else. Vikings. Raiders. Bloody, hellish slave traders.” She started to wipe down a pair of sewing scissors. “Not in the beginning, though, but after she lost people, her children. Something changed. You can’t do that, let the losses empty you out. Myra, she’s,” the doctor paused, considered. “A pirate. Sure. If that works for you, a butcher, and at the very least, a kidnapper.”
“I’m sorry about your girls.”
The doctor turned away and dropped her head. “Me too. But listen to me: Letting this world have your heart makes her win.”
“What about the Els of this world? Do they win too, when they shoot all the men left at the Marketplace and then stack them up like cordwood in the loading docks?”
The older woman huffed out a laugh at what should have been horrifying. “Sometimes all you get is revenge, and you take what you can get. And that can feel like winning for a while.”
Tess stood up, looking for somewhere to put her empty jar.
“Don’t cry too long and sit down. The others won’t like it if you wander away. “
“I’m not,” Tess retorted.
“Crying or sitting down or leaving?”
The woman had a way of making Tess feel silly. “Any of the above.”
“I believe you,” she said, pointing at the jar in Tess’s hands. “Careful not to break that. They’re getting too rare as it is. Glass is about the only thing I trust to be truly sterile around here, and we aren’t finding too many replacement parts these days. I’m taking a break. Wake me if there’s something you think I can cure, and don’t get me in trouble with the management. Try to sleep. Two things you should do when you get a chance, eat and sleep.” The woman didn’t wait for a response or to see if Tess obeyed. She dropped onto an empty bedroll and went still, a woman used to sleeping and waking and working around the clock.
“What about her?” Tess pointed to Golda.
“Don’t worry about her. Someone will be coming.”
When Tess was sure the doctor slept, she pulled the stool close to the ruined body of Golda and waited.
In less than an hour, the doctor jumped to her feet, brushed her teeth with water from
a jug and a dash of baking soda, and started checking her supplies.
“Sit down before you fall down. You won’t be able to help anyone if you make yourself sick.”
Tess sat. “How old were your daughters?”
The woman’s eyes were flat. “They were five and seven.” She said it without emotion and then added, “Thank you for bringing Golda back. I mean it. It’s much harder not to know what happens to them.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “Find out what happened to your family as soon as they let you. For now, let’s help the people we can.”
Fire breathed black ash that snaked into the building, searching out empty pockets and corners to pile up in. The children at the Marketplace came to Doc Midge when the smoke filled their living quarters: coughing, wheezing. Worried adults helped Tess drape wet cloths over their faces, kept them close to the floor on the lower level, while the doctor searched for places where the smoke and ash couldn’t drift. But it was everywhere—seen and unseen. Outside it curled around the corners of the building, billowed, and rose in choking columns. The fire, once a far off crackle, became an obscene roar outside the walls.
A tiny girl with short red curls and brown eyes wandered to a corner under the escalator clutching her chest, panting like a dog. No one followed. Tess looked for a mother, sibling, someone to check on her, someone who followed after her.
Her lips were blue when Tess got to her, her eyes closed. The child slid to the floor onto her butt and then onto her side, collapsing like a doll made of cooked noodles.
“Hey, Kid, are you okay?” Tess reached out, shook her. Nothing. “Kid.”
Picking the girl up, Tess pushed her way to Doc Midge, who stood at the back entrance, a wet bandana tied over her face.
“What now?” the doc said, tearing at the cloth; she checked the kid’s chest with her hand. “Sit.” She pointed at Tess. “Down. Right there. Hold onto her for me. Probably asthma. It’s little Sweetling. No one knows her story; she was one of the children we found—”
A tearing wheeze cut her off and then more panting. The doc tore the shirt over the kid’s head. The girl’s chest caved in with each breath. The sound became a tearing whistle.
