by Jo Treggiari
He stood looking at the dogs, his face pale and sick, and then he slid down the wall until he was sitting on the ground.
Lucy crawled over to him. His left arm hung loosely. She put out her hand, afraid that she might accidentally hurt him, and settled for stroking him on the cheek. “Are you all right?”
“Painkillers wore off,” he said scowling. “I’m pretty sure now that I’ve pulled a muscle.”
“Come on.” She helped him stand. They hobbled out the door into the dog run where the others stood waiting.
“Might have brought the Taser out a little sooner,” Sammy told his brother.
“Couldn’t reach it. You may have noticed the hundred pounds of dog sitting on my chest?”
“Always with the excuses,” Sammy said, pulling his shredded robe awkwardly over his head. His forearm was imprinted with four deep tooth marks gushing blood.
Del cursed. “Can you still use it?” She sounded angry.
Sammy looked disappointed. “Yeah, it hurts bad, but—”
“You can climb?” Del asked.
“Of course,” he said, watching blood drip onto the floor. “I didn’t mean to get mauled by a dog, you know.”
Del pressed her lips together. “I know,” she said in a softer tone. Stowing the slingshot in her back pocket, she ripped a length of cloth from the discarded robes and tied it tightly around his arm. He gasped.
Giving him a look, she gathered the children to her and faced the fence.
“You go first,” she told Sammy. “I’ll lift the kids up to you.”
He pulled himself up, swung over, and jumped down. Once he was on the ground, he held his arms up for the first of the two children. As soon as they were safely on the other side, Del went up, then Lucy, and lastly Aidan, who favored his left arm and climbed one-handed. He had just reached the top when the fox terrier burst through the door, barking madly. Its toothbrush tail stuck straight up, and the fur on its back stood up in a ridge. It ran back and forth along the fence seeking a way out, and then began throwing itself repeatedly at the chain link as if it were made of rubber.
“Let’s go before the poor thing kills itself,” Aidan said from the top of the fence.
Lucy turned away.
And then a second dog hit the fence barely a foot below the top. Another rottweiler, even larger than the first. It catapulted itself upward, thick black claws pushing the chain link outward as it tried to find purchase and muscle its way over. Aidan jumped, making no attempt to land gracefully. He staggered and then regained his balance, pulling Lucy back from where she stood almost mesmerized by the animal’s single-mindedness. The dog fixed its hot gaze on her and, growling terribly, made another impossible leap into the air, landing almost on top of the fence before falling heavily back to the concrete.
Aidan hurried her a safe distance away. “It’ll be over that in a minute.”
The dog was panting heavily, but still it paced and jumped and whined. Lucy’s presence was driving it crazy.
“It’s not going to stop hunting us,” Lucy said. She looked at the exhausted children huddled together in Del’s arms and at Sammy trying to smile. “It wants me.” She shrugged her arms out of her backpack, carrying it by the strap, and walked toward the fence. The rottweiler’s lips inched back from its incisors. Its ears flattened against the bony skull, and an awful snarling rumbled from the barrel chest. Muscles bunched in its back legs as it gathered itself to leap again.
“It can’t have you,” Aidan said, trying to haul her away. “Get away from the fence, Lucy!” She shook herself loose, jarring his arm. He winced with pain.
“It’s okay.”
Keeping her eyes on the dog, she opened her backpack and dug around in it, locating the tinderbox.
The dog kept up its continuous growl. “You want my blood?” Lucy shouted, pulling out the vial. She raised it above her head and threw it over the fence. The glass smashed against the concrete. Thick red blood spattered against the wall.
They ran. It wasn’t until they reached the parking lot that they paused, looking back at the dark hulk of the building. Lights blazed on the top floors. In an upper window behind heavy curtains, they could see human figures hurrying back and forth. Lucy might have imagined it, but she thought she could hear a single, shrieking note that seemed to go on and on.
“Think they’ll follow us?” Aidan asked.
Lucy shook her head, thinking of Mrs. Reynolds. “No. They have what they need.”
The sky opened and rain began to fall, a hard-driving shower that soaked them immediately but was as warm as a spring shower. Lucy looked up into the lightening sky and let the rain push her hair off her face. If more dogs did come, the rain would wash away most of their scent. The fog had dissipated and the air smelled fresh and clean. The dull pain in her head subsided to a thump. Sammy carried a kid on his back; Del had linked hands with the other one. Lucy heard her voice, low and soothing, as she urged them to move. It was weird to hear such kindness from the girl.
The empty parking lot glittered like an ice rink. They ran through the rain, slowing down again once they came to the bridge. Lucy looked back at the tower. The red light was dark.
Aidan slipped his arm around her waist. She leaned into him, careful of his wounded ribs and arm.
“Which way?” he said.
She looked ahead. Del and Sammy and the children were walking slowly. They’d reached the bridge. With the sleepy kids and the exhaustion that she was sure everyone was feeling, it would take them hours to get home. She scanned the horizon. The long bridge curved above the wind-whipped waves of Lake Harlem. Beyond that lay the Wilds, as familiar to her as the lines on her palm. Lucy could close her eyes and in her mind navigate over the flats, the grove, past the salt marsh and the blighted pines, the remains of her camp and the Great Hill. And then onward up the shifting terrain of the gorges and the escarpment and the suspension bridges swinging wildly with the slightest breath of wind. They’d have to carry the children, or haul them up the granite cliff face somehow. Aidan and Sammy were injured. Her own body hurt so much, everywhere, that it was almost funny.
Lucy turned away from the thicket of tall trees and the gleam of the restless sea she glimpsed between the black trunks, and toward the broad, solid road that snaked north for five miles before entering the Hell Gate. The road the Sweepers had taken. “That’s simple,” she said with a grin. “For once we’ll take the easy way.”
She held hands with Aidan as they crossed the bridge, walking into him when he suddenly stopped.
“What?” she said, startled. “Do you hear something?” He put his finger to her lips.
“Shh,” he said. “C’mere.” He pulled her to the side where the shadows concealed them. His voice sounded thick.
Del, Sammy, and the kids had almost reached the road.
Lucy moved closer.
Aidan traced his finger to her cheek and then to her chin. He tilted her face upward.
And then she was looking only at him, his bright eyes shadowed, the messy fall of his hair over his forehead, his wide mouth with that infuriating curl in the corner. His hand moved to the side of her face, he leaned forward, and, letting her breath leave her in a sigh, she rose onto her tiptoes to meet his lips. Her fingers tangled themselves in his hair and she pressed against him, feeling the warm solidity of his body, the crushing strength in his arm as he pulled her against him, and the doubt draining away from her, leaving nothing but happiness.
After a long minute, Aidan pulled back a little. Her lips felt bruised. She was flustered now, conscious of the tingling sensation left on her mouth, the need to keep touching him. Her mouth hardly felt as if it belonged to her anymore. He kissed the tip of her nose and, linking his hand with hers, drew her toward home.
EPILOGUE
ABOVE THE WORLD
Do you think the rain will ever stop?” Lucy asked Aidan.
He shrugged and she gripped his arm more tightly. “Oww,” he said. “You think yo
u could relax that death grip?”
“Did I hurt you?” she asked.
“No, I’m healed.”
“Well, you know I don’t like being up so high,” she said. Aidan shifted his back against the tree trunk.
“Come here, then,” he said, prying Lucy’s fingers from his arm and guiding her forward so that she was nestled against his shoulder. She still didn’t understand how he could be twenty-five feet off the ground and act like he was lounging on a couch, but she settled into the crook of his arm and crossed her feet on top of his legs. “So,” she said, “The rain?”
“It’s been, what? About two weeks?”
She thought back. “Ever since … you know … that night.” The night they’d escaped. The night they’d first kissed.
He yawned, stretching like a cat. Her hand tightened around his arm again. She pushed the drift of her hair away from her mouth. The canopy of this elm was so thick that the raindrops ran out of steam before they reached their branch.
“It’ll clear up any minute,” he said lazily. “Either that, or it’ll go on for months.”
She pressed her palm against his forehead. It was cool and smooth.
“I’m not sick.”
“I know, I just have to check.”
“Every day?”
“Just until I’m sure that Dr. Lessing didn’t do something to you.”
He exhaled deeply.
“Are you falling asleep?”
“Maybe. I was up at dawn hunting bunnies,” he said. “Ever since Del and Sammy left, I’ve been the guy. At least until you learn to handle a bow as well as you handle a spear.”
His lips hovered near her ear. She felt the soft shushing of his breath. A shudder went up her spine. She snuggled closer. She could hear the dull roar of the waves, the rustle of the wind. As long as she didn’t think about the ground, it was nice being up high, cradled and surrounded by thick, green leaves.
Aidan had picked his favorite tree, the elm, and his favorite place in it. At the very top. When he stood up, he said he could see fifty miles in every direction. Lucy had to take his word for it, because there was no way she was going to balance on a branch that dipped up and down under her weight, with nothing to hold on to but whiplike stems. He liked to be here at dusk, when the bullfrogs started their nightly warblings and the broken string of beacon fires along the northern route became visible.
Del had left a week ago. She’d taken the Geo Wash Bridge west, before heading due north to find the settlement up there. And surprisingly, Sammy had opted to go with her. Actually, Lucy amended, not so surprisingly. They had spent a lot of time together after they’d gotten back from the island, and Lucy had seen something in Sammy’s eyes. Del had kept herself apart from the jostle and bustle of the camp. She’d hunted, she’d helped shore up the dikes now that the canals were filled with roaring cascades of water, she’d harvested tomatoes and squash, she’d worked like she was possessed, but after the work was done, she’d disappeared to places only she knew about.
Lucy had been anxious. Mostly for Aidan. She knew what Del’s friendship meant to him.
“We talked. It’s cool,” Aidan had said. “She made a mistake. And you know, maybe I …” He’d stopped and looked at her carefully then. “Maybe I wasn’t straight with her. About you. How I felt about you. That was wrong of me.”
Lucy had dropped her eyes, suddenly shy.
“You’ll make it up to me, then?” she’d said, teasing to break the tension.
“Lucy, you know how I feel about you, right?” he whispered now.
She was breathless. “Why don’t you tell me?”
He tilted her face up. “Why don’t I show you?”
“How?” she said, fighting the urge to giggle. If she started laughing, she’d probably fall out of the tree.
“Like this,” he said, kissing the lobe of her ear. She closed her eyes, looking at him through her lashes. Her hands tightened on the tree limb. She felt dizzy all of a sudden.
“This,” he breathed, planting more kisses along her hairline. His fingers tangled with hers. She was holding on to nothing but him. He was kissing her eyelids now. Each movement of his lips made her shiver. Aidan murmured her name. She was melting. She couldn’t feel the hard bark against her hip. Nothing existed but his gentle hands and his warm lips.
“You smell like blackberries in the sun,” he said. “You taste like honey.”
He could do this for hours. Kiss every inch, every centimeter of her neck and face except for her mouth. It drove her crazy, made her want to scream Enough!
“Aidan. Aidan! I’m going to fall!”
“Hmmm,” he said, against her neck. He opened his eyes. They were sleepy, but she saw the glint that hovered in them.
Lucy leaned back in his arms and rested her head against his shoulder. Rocked in the elm’s broad branches, she felt safe. The fires weren’t visible through the heavy screen of leaves, but up above where the branches thinned were the stars. Aidan had shown her the North Star, tracing its path from the handle of the Big Dipper, which was pretty much the only constellation she could identify with any certainty. It hung low, not the brightest star, but special now after so many nights of picking it out together, as though it somehow belonged to them. “Are you sorry you didn’t go?”
He took a moment to reply. “Some day, when we’re ready. If you want to,” he said, drawing his eyebrows together. The crooked smile was still there, dancing in the corner of his mouth, but he looked serious.
Lucy followed his gaze northward.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing a book is often a solitary endeavor but making it good takes many people.
A million heartfelt thanks to: Silvia Rajagopalan, Charise Isis, Alison Gaylin, Jennifer May, and Charity Valk, who were there at the beginning. Without all your enthusiasm and help it is very possible there never would have been a book.
My family and friends, in particular, Arnaldo Treggiari, the Rajagopalans, Gail Parris, Lesley Sawhill at the Woodstock, NY Children’s Library, and all the kids who have workshopped with me.
I’m indebted to my agent, Garrett Hicks, who digs deep; my über-editor, Lisa Sandell, who knows her way around words and then some; and the Scholastic team, especially Jody Corbett, Starr Baer, and Elizabeth B. Parisi.
To Milo, who understands when Mommy has to shut herself away for a few months, and still thinks the whole author thing is cool.
As always, to my husband, Marcus, who gives good advice and delivers mega cappuccinos to order.
And special gratitude to my dearest, brave friend Sacha McVean, who tried to outrun a tsunami and inspired a heroine.
About the Author
JO TREGGIARI was born in London, England, and raised in Ottawa, Ontario. Her first attempts at writing were when she started revising classic fairy tales at the age of eight. Jo has also lived in New York City and San Francisco, where she trained as a boxer, wrote for punk magazines, and owned her own record label.
She Snow lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, with her husband and their children, and still enjoys shadowboxing.
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by Jo Treggiari
Cover art © 2011 by Steve Stone
Cover design by Elizabeth B. Parisi
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Treggiari, Jo.
Ashes, ashes / by Jo Treggiari. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-545-25563-9
[1. Science fiction. 2. Survival — Fiction. 3. Epidemics — Fiction. 4. Environmental disasters — Fiction. 5. Dogs — Fiction. 6. New York (N.Y.) — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.T717Ash 2011
[Fic] — dc22
2010032398
First edition, June 2011
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eISBN: 978-0-545-38880-1
