Give the Dark My Love(71)

Amputation.

“It’ll save your life,” I said. “It’s the only thing that’s worked to contain the disease.”

She set her jaw and nodded.

“We’ll go tonight. With that many houses fallen from the plague, there aren’t enough people left to stop us from leaving. We’ll take Jojo, and we’ll go.”

“Do you really believe I have a chance to—” Nessie’s voice was soft, and she didn’t finish her thought.

I gripped her hand—the uninfected one. “Yes,” I said, pouring every ounce of hope I had left into that one word.



* * *



? ? ?

We packed. And we waited. Darkness fell.

Ernesta held the quilt around her shoulders. I slid boots over her feet, using the action to confirm that they weren’t infected as well.

“I can carry something,” she said as I slung the knapsack over my shoulder. At the bottom rested Master Ostrum’s book and the old book I’d found in Papa’s room, the alchemy text. And I packed a few knickknacks to remind us of home. Because we were never coming back.

And my crucible. Nessie wouldn’t let me take any of the pain from her hand. “You need your wits about you,” she said, and she was right.

“I have this,” I said, adjusting the pack on my shoulder. “Ready?”

Ernesta nodded.

I gripped a rope in one hand. Trying to take the cart would draw attention, but we could take the mule. Nessie could ride, and I’d lead.

Ernesta opened the back door. Quietly, we crept out onto the smooth stone step, the one my grandfather had found one day while plowing. We moved onto the path, my eyes fixed on our stable.

Nessie gripped my arm at the same time a shot cracked out across the night. I shifted my gaze. A stream of gray smoke rose from a man’s gun. I didn’t know him; he just vaguely looked like someone from our village, or perhaps the next one over.

“If you take one more step closer, I will kill you,” he said.

I had hoped that there wouldn’t be a night watch. That darkness would protect us, hide us for our escape.

“If you try to leave your house again until we call for you,” he said, “we will kill you.”

Under the starlight, I saw more people emerge from the darkness, lining up around our fence. They were all armed, their faces set in grim lines. There were no more children throwing rocks. The plague was spreading, and so was the fear.

“You won’t get another warning,” the man said.

Beside me, I felt Ernesta slouch, defeat radiating from her body.

“You understand,” the man said.

“We’re just trying to survive,” he said.

“Six more houses have fallen ill,” he said.

“We can’t risk it,” he said.

We said nothing. We turned and went back inside. I locked the door.

Ernesta sat down at the kitchen table. She put her head into her arms, her right hand sprawled out in front of her.

The windows were dark with night and the black cloth that covered them, but I could still feel the villagers watching us, their eyes like wolves’.

I lit the oil lamps and every candle I could find and set them around us. The flickering light bounced off the walls. I lit the fire in the oven and stoked it.

“There’s no food left to cook,” Nessie said.

I sat down across from her. I held her infected hand. I looked into her dark eyes, the same shade of amber honey as mine.

“We have to do it,” I said.

Her fingers curled into a fist, hiding the stain of black.

“We can’t wait until morning.” Mama and Papa had gone so fast. “No one has lived with their blood stained black. No one but those who cut it from their bodies.”

Nessie was my baby sister by only twenty-three minutes. But she seemed so small in that moment, so helpless, like we were years apart.

Papa kept grain liquor under the sink in a glass jar. I poured Nessie a shot and watched as she drank it, and then I poured her another one, and another. She kept clenching her hand into a fist, as if memorizing the way it felt for her fingers to fold over her palm, for the muscles to tighten and the skin to stretch and the bones to obey her will.

I pulled out Papa’s toolbox. The hacksaw, the teeth still stained with sawdust. The sharpest knife from Mama’s drawer. A needle, thread. Towels. Every towel I could find. Papa’s leather belt.

I stretched the belt out on the table and hacked off a piece, then used a punch to make more holes. I handed Ernesta the smaller piece of leather.

“What am I supposed to do with . . . ?” Her voice trailed off. She lifted the leather to her mouth and bit down on it. It was as much pain relief as I could give her.

I put the cast-iron skillet on the stove, letting it heat up. My grandmother had cooked on that skillet, my mother.

Silent tears leaked down Nessie’s face. Her fingers clenched, relaxed, clenched again.

“More,” I said, pushing the jar of liquor at her. She downed the rest of it, choking on the burning liquid, then took up the bit of leather again.

My heart raced, thudding against my ribs as if I’d just run for miles.

“Are you sure we can’t wait?” she asked in a small voice.

If I could give her anything, it would be time. I wanted so much to give her time.