Ashes, Ashes (16 page)

“Five,” Henry said. “Two more kids, Lottie and Patrick, and Hank—you know, walrus mustache, who helps out in the kitchen? And …” He took a deep breath. “Del and Leo.”

Scout groaned.

“We’re trying to decide if we should keep everyone together or disperse,” Aidan told her.

“We cannot decide anything until we have a camp meeting,” Grammalie Rose said.

“Fine. We’re
discussing
it, then,” Aidan rejoined. Lucy was surprised at the anger in his voice.

Grammalie Rose shrugged. “We all need to calm down first.”

Aidan nodded curtly. He stalked a few paces away and stood with his back to them. Lucy understood how he felt. She wanted to be doing something. Right now she felt like she was just waiting for the next awful thing to happen.

“There are shelters farther out, near the bridges, that are harder for vehicles to reach. There are hiding places. Bombed-out buildings. We can lie low for a while,” Henry urged. “I spent last night in one of the canals.”

That explained the mud encrusting his clothing.

“The Long Wet is just beginning. There is the danger of flash floods,” Connor pointed out.

“Well, high ground then,” Scout suggested. “The plateau, maybe?”

“No protection,” Henry said. “Gales, lightning storms, fire.” He checked off the points on the fingers of one hand.

Connor glared at him. It was turning into a shouting match.

“How will people be fed if we are spread to the winds? The little ones? It is mostly little ones now,” Grammalie said. “Here we have shelter. Supplies. Water.”

“They’re just picking us off,” Henry said. “We’re like sitting ducks!”

Lucy silently cheered him.

Grammalie Rose put up a hand, forestalling any further argument. “We may indeed end up moving, but nothing can happen until everyone is here to decide what is best. Sammy and Beth are still out foraging. They have a voice in this as well.”

Her brows drew across her forehead, giving her sharp eyes a hooded appearance. Lucy thought she looked older suddenly. She noticed how bowed the woman’s back was, and how swollen the knuckles on her work-reddened hands. Suddenly she wanted to offer Grammalie Rose a chair, but there were none.

“In the meantime,” she continued, “there is food to gather, washing to be done, injuries to tend.” She looked pointedly at Aidan’s forehead and Henry’s eye.

Henry muttered something unintelligible.

“We need water,” Grammalie Rose said. “That is paramount.”

Aidan whirled around.

“We’ll get that,” he said, scooping up a few large plastic jugs and thrusting them at Lucy. She took them, too surprised to say anything. He grabbed four more and steered her out of the square. She pulled her arm away and stood still. She hated how he just grabbed her and started moving. Like she was a kid who couldn’t cross the road by herself. He stopped, surprised.

“Listen, I’ve been working my butt off ever since I got here,” she said. “Maybe I don’t want to haul water!”

“I wanted to talk to you alone. I’ve been thinking about stuff,” Aidan said.

“Okay, so talk.”

“If Grammalie Rose sees us just sitting around, she’ll put us both on latrine duty, and you don’t want that, believe me.”

Lucy had already caught the earthy odor coming from the row of narrow tents on the west end of the camp.

“Okay,” she said slowly. It would actually feel good to be moving. “Listen, all this talking stuff is kind of irritating, though. Why can’t someone just make a decision and then we act on it?”

“You mean like someone in charge?” He shook his head. “That’s not how it is here. Sure, Grammalie Rose is kind of the boss, because she’s the oldest and she’s had experience living in a commune. And Leo—” Aidan’s voice hitched. “He was a natural leader, but everyone is equally important here. That’s the point.”

“But doesn’t it drive you crazy? I mean, how does anything ever happen quickly?”

“It doesn’t.”

At least he sounded as frustrated as she felt. Lucy began to feel a little thrill of excitement.

They started walking again. Aidan took a narrow path between two rows of old brick houses. The second floors were still mostly intact, but the foundations were crumbling and the roofs leaned together like two people about to kiss. Wooden scaffolding pressed up against the masonry on both sides, keeping it all standing, but Lucy couldn’t help but be glad when they came out on a demolished area filled with rubble. Some kids were playing kick-the-can in the dust. They hollered when they saw Aidan and he waved back. A green garden hose coiled on the ground like a big snake. It was attached to a pipe that stuck up out of the debris. Aidan turned on the spigot. Water, rust-colored and full of debris, started to flow in a series of jerks and spurts.

“Why don’t we get fresh water from a spring?” Lucy asked.

“I’ve found a couple of sources out in the woods, but it’s a long trek. This is more convenient, at least until the cistern dries up.”

The water cleared. He fitted the lip of a jug over the hose end and stood back up.

“So, what’s the big plan?” asked Lucy, feeling a shiver race along her spine. Standing around waiting for bad things to happen was worse than actually doing something. “Were you trying to find a way to get onto the island?”

“Are you crazy?” he said, looking thunderstruck. “I’m not James Bond. Where would I even start?” Aidan scratched his head with his free hand, completely missing a leaf that was trapped there. “No, I was just working out ways we could post lookouts, cut off entrances to the camp, prepare for the next raid. And …” He seemed uncomfortable. “I was thinking that this isn’t really your battle. You can leave. No harm done.”

She was instantly furious. It didn’t matter that she had been considering the same thing. That was her choice to make, not his.

“Don’t be stupid,” Lucy said. “I was there when they grabbed Leo and Del.” She choked on the words, she was so mad.

She met his gaze. “I hid.” He dropped his eyes and stared at the gushing water. “They could easily have taken me, too,” Lucy said.

He looked flabbergasted.

She was pretty surprised herself. Saying it out loud made it all clearer in her head. She could try to make things right, and she could always leave afterward.

“I get the whole ‘camp is the safest place’ thing,” she said. “And it is for the little kids, but there are the rest of us.”

Aidan nodded.

“I was thinking rescue mission,” she continued, trying to sound convincing.

“Some day, sure; but we know nothing about how things are set up, the layout of the place. We don’t even know what kind of weapons they have. Or how many of them there are. Believe me, I want to get Del and Leo and the others back worse than anybody, but if we go charging in there, we’ll get caught.”

Lucy stared at him. This talk didn’t seem like him. It wasn’t what someone who climbed to the tops of trees should be saying.

He must have read the surprise in her eyes. “What?”

“You said no one has ever come back. We don’t know what’s happening to them. So what are you waiting for? An invitation?” She bit her lip. This was one of her worst faults, speaking without thinking, but she couldn’t help it. The words just kept bubbling out of her.

He looked as if she had slapped him in the face. She tried a gentler approach.

“You’re so calm about it. The Sweepers took your friends, and it’s like you’ve given up without even trying.”

“I’ve been thinking about this all night!” Aidan yelled. “There’s no easy solution. You think me and maybe two others can just barge in there like ninjas?!”

They glared at each other. The water overflowed the container, but he made no move to replace it with another. He paced back and forth, savagely kicking chunks of brick out of his way.

“You don’t know. It’s not the first time,” he said in a calmer voice. “Leo was the fighter, the planner, and even
he
couldn’t think of a way to get the others back. With him gone …” Aidan shrugged his shoulders. “We’re just not that organized.”

“What about all of this?” she said, pointing to the shelters, the cultivated fields in the near distance.

He scowled. “It took us about six months to get all the shelters up, the water situation figured out, and the vegetable gardens planted. It was mostly Grammalie Rose’s doing. And it takes the best part of every day to keep it going.”

She understood that. It had taken all her energy to keep herself fed, warm, and dry.

“Yeah, but we can’t just do nothing,” she said.

“You’re a lot like Del,” he said. “Hot-tempered. What’s the nice word? Impetuous.” His mouth twisted into a wry grin.

Lucy wasn’t too pleased to be compared to Del. She’d caught the admiring note in his voice. She pressed her lips firmly together. He was looking off into the distance—probably thinking of
her
. Lucy lifted the hose and stuck the end into another jug. The water was flowing more freely now and was less brown. She resisted the temptation to spray him.

“You said Leo was the fighter. We might not be able to throw a right hook or a roundhouse kick, but we could arm ourselves and go after them,” she said. Aidan jumped a little, as if he’d forgotten she was there.

“You saw the kids in the square?”

She nodded. “The ones collecting projectiles?”

“They were so upset about Lottie and Patrick and the rest of them that they begged for something to do. I couldn’t think of anything else. We’ve got rocks and cans, but they’ve got stun guns and chloroform gas and masks. The best thing for us to do is to keep watch and to hide.”

“Watching and hiding didn’t do much good last night.”

“We weren’t expecting it.”

Lucy felt a surge of frustration. “We’ll never be able to expect it. They’ve got the element of surprise on their side. They’ll just pick us off.”

He looked so miserable; she felt awful, but she couldn’t stop talking. “We don’t even know what they’re doing to them.” She was remembering the sad lady and the children from the shelter. The vans coming and taking them away. This had been going on for months.

Aidan shook his head. “We have to think about everyone in the camp. How would it be if most of the adults were gone on some disastrous rescue mission? There are kids here who can’t make it on their own.”

“Grammalie Rose,” she said feebly.

“She’s eighty, did you realize?” Aidan shook his head.

Lucy kicked out at a rock as big as a bowling ball. Her toes stung but she ignored the pain. Aidan bent down and placed another bottle under the tap.

She stared at his thick blond hair with the leaf caught there. “I thought she was your friend.” It was maybe a low blow, but she couldn’t stop the words exploding from her mouth. Part of her wanted to hear what he would say. Part of her didn’t.

He looked up. His green eyes flashed with anger.

“She is!”

“Well, you don’t act like it! If she were my friend, I’d be out there looking for her.” She recalled his comment to her back in the tree, about being a mouse in her safe hollow. “I wouldn’t be skulking around here.”

“You don’t know me!” he yelled, leaping to his feet. “You drop in and you think you even know what’s going on? Well, you don’t. You don’t know me, you don’t know us, you don’t know how we live!” He was so angry now, he was practically spitting.

Lucy felt the rage well up in her belly. Who did he think he was? “I can see that you’re all hiding instead of fighting,” she threw out. Her hands were shaking.

“You have nothing at stake. These aren’t your friends. This isn’t your family.”

“I’m here right now.”

“For how long?”

She froze. Aidan was right. She hadn’t exactly decided whether to stay or go yet. She opened her mouth and then closed it again.

He was only a few inches in front of her now. The long muscles in his arms flexed. A vein pulsed in the column of his neck. She could smell him. Sweat and lemons. He looked like he was going to hit her. She tensed, and then he stepped away. He filled the last two containers in silence, kneeling down and keeping his back to her.

Lucy felt all the annoyance and anger drain away, and it was as if they took her energy with it. All of a sudden she was bone tired.

Aidan was moving. He carried two jugs in each hand, leaving three for her. He was already halfway across the lot, calling to the can-kicking kids to come with him, before she’d even picked hers up. The weight made her wrists ache. She staggered after him, throwing mental daggers into his broad back.

CHAPTER TWELVE
THE RETURN

T
wo days of hauling and digging helped keep the fear at bay, but the frustration was eating her alive. Lucy had agreed to every duty Grammalie gave her as long as the job took her away from people and the camp. And as far away as possible from Aidan.

She carried in the last load of cabbages and dumped the tub on the floor by the long table. She stretched, easing the cramped muscles along her spine. She’d been stooped over for so long, her back protested. She stifled a yelp.

Henry looked up from peeling onions. His blackened eye had turned shades of purple and yellow, and tears leaked from between the swollen eyelids. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his shirt. He smiled at her.

“Thanks. Haven’t seen much of you lately.”

Lucy jumped up on the edge of the table and swung her legs, noting that her injured ankle had swelled again. “Been out in the fields mostly.” She picked gravel out of her knee.

He nodded as if he understood. “Normally I’d do anything before peeling onions, but it feels good to keep my hands busy.”

They were both quiet for a few seconds. Slowly, shockingly, things had started to feel like normal again. The busy pace of days spent worrying about food, water, tending fires, and rebuilding shelters didn’t leave much room for anything else. Still, Lucy felt guilty every time she thought of Leo and Del.

“Need any help?” she asked.

“You can go check the soup. We’re eating at the big tables since the rain’s holding off. Grammalie Rose thought we needed a group night.”