Outrun the Moon(57)

Her voice is tight, and I don’t leave right away. I know she can still see the dark outline of my form through the canvas. Of all the people here, I am probably the best qualified to understand her grief and, ironically, the last person she wants to talk to about it.

I return to the others. While we wait for the water to boil, Harry, Katie, Francesca, and I take soap and rags down to the lake. The population of the park’s makeshift village seems to have doubled since we left. At least two hundred people gather at the lake alone, their noise amplified by the water. A middle-aged Chinese man stands knee-deep with his pants rolled up, beating the water with a stick. People watch him with puzzled—and in some cases, disdainful—expressions.

Katie scratches her elbow. “What’s he doing?”

“Caning for fish,” I say with some embarrassment. No wonder they think we’re odd. At the same time, though, I want to tell those onlookers to mind their own baloney. I’d like to see them try to catch a fish without a pole. “It requires much skill.”

“He’s trying to feed his family,” says Francesca. “It shouldn’t be a spectacle.”

We find a tiny alcove that is heavily screened with shrubbery. Harry looks cautiously around before pulling her skirts to midleg and stepping into the lake. My distaste at being grimy trumps my modesty. I strip down to my most honest layer and plow right in. After an afternoon of porting bricks, I’m as ready for the cold water as I am for a hot meal.

“Come on, Harry,” teases Katie. “If we’re sharing a tent, you must do your part. You stink as much as the rest of us.”

“But it’s indecent.” Harry looks behind her for the dozenth time. “Someone might see.”

Katie jerks her head toward Francesca, who’s holding a rag to her top as she scrubs her lower regions. “She’s got more than all three of us put together. It ain’t you people will be looking at.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Francesca says hotly.

After we line up and shield Harry from prying eyes, she quickly scrubs down.

Finally, the four of us emerge, dripping and half naked, like mermaids who grew legs.

Katie picks something off her arm. “It’s a good thing we got out when we did. Look, I got leeched.” She peels a fat blob off her arm and chucks it into a bush.

Harry lets out a bloodcurdling scream. Who knew her tired lungs were up to the task?

“Shh!” Francesca hisses. “People will see.”

Harry dances around, doing her best to stifle her screams but failing woefully. It is then that I realize Harry got leeched, too. I can see several on her exposed arms and legs. “Get them off! Get them off!” she squeals.

I reach to pick one off, but quickly realize I have problems of my own. I yelp, but not as loud as Harry, and engage in my own frantic dance of leech removal.

In all my days, I have twisted the heads off chickens, sucked on fish eyes, and even stuck my arm in that vat of slithering eels. But of any encounter with the gross and repulsive, none makes me want to crawl out of my skin faster than the sight of those slimy blobs stuck to me like overgrown moles. I pry and chuck faster than Tom can clean a tree of pecans, leaving behind red welts and bloody pinpricks on my skin.

Francesca picks them off her own body with more poise than any of us, face frozen in a grimace. Katie frees Harry of the last of her suckers—she got the most—and then we run barefoot back to our tent as if the leeches are in hot pursuit. Francesca grabs at a leafy bush, taking half the plant with her, and I catch a whiff of mint.

We pass Headmistress Crouch making her way down to the lake. She is no longer wearing her hat, and there are water stains under her arms. Her hair hangs in a loose braid down her back.

As Katie streaks by, she cries, “Be careful of the leeches!”

Headmistress Crouch recoils. “Leeches? Good Lord, what’s next? Locusts?”

Minnie Mae and Georgina watch us fly by, bloodied and heaving, probably looking like escapees from the local asylum. Harry dives into our tent first, followed by the rest of us. The leech bites are more disgusting than harmful, but we cower in that tent as if a four-hundred-pound gorilla waited outside, beating his chest.

Francesca recovers her wits first. “I’ll be right back.”

From the tent opening, I watch her dip the mint plant into one of the now-boiling pots of water. She shakes it out before bringing it back.

One by one, she tears the leaves off. “Swipe these over your bite marks. It’ll clean them and keep down the swelling.”

We do as she says. Harry looks like she’s on the verge of passing out, lying with her hair in a tangled mess and taking up half the floor space. Katie gives Harry her pillow, then places mint leaves all over her friend’s red welts. The petite Texan is the best kind of friend, attending to her friend’s injuries before her own. “We get leeched all the time in Texas, Harry. They’re like chuck-line riders, always looking for a free meal.”

Harry stares at the tent ceiling, silently hugging her pillow.

“They use leeches in Chinese medicine,” I tell them. “They’re supposed to be good for you, unlike, say, mosquitos, which are good for nothing.”

Harry’s eyelashes flicker, but that’s all the moving she does. The tent is beginning to steam up.

After making ourselves decent again, Francesca and I duck out. We pull one pot of water off the flame, replacing it with a third, into which Francesca drops the bacon. It sizzles, releasing a scent that makes my mouth water. I stir it with a stick, while she carefully drops dried noodles into the pot still bubbling. “Too bad we don’t have meat or eggs. Wonder if I can find any parsley growing near the stream,” she says, more to herself. “Mercy, would you mind watching the pots? I’ll be right back.”