Without realizing it, she must have spoken out loud. Grammalie Rose pinched her elbow. Lucy half turned, and her fists came up defensively. The old woman batted them down. Lucy tried to form words but was unable to. Her brain was speeding. Those other strange people in the fields must be S’ans, too. She didn’t understand how this could be. Everything she had ever been told said that they were carriers of the disease, as much as the urban birds were. They were to be avoided, and yet they were here. Working and mingling as if they were regular people.
The pinch became increasingly painful. She dragged her gaze from the S’an and stared at Grammalie Rose.
“I will slap you if I have to,” the old woman said in a ferocious voice. “Are you going to faint?”
Lucy shook her head. Her legs felt weak, but her head was clear.
“Listen to me. You hate because you are scared, and you fear because you don’t understand.”
A shiver of horror ran up Lucy’s spine.
“The S’ans are to be pitied, not feared,” Grammalie Rose said. “They have survived the disease, but they are damaged. Their skin, their bodies, are ravaged. Do you hate him because he is not so pretty as you?”
“No, I… I…” Incredibly, through the fright, she felt a flush of shame. The S’an was three feet away and Grammalie Rose was carrying out this inquisition in front of him. “No,” she said again, feeling like she was being hauled up in front of the class and reprimanded for cheating on a test. She knew that everyone under the awning was staring at her.
“Do you know where the name came from?” Grammalie Rose asked, relaxing her grip a little. Lucy felt the tips of her fingers buzz as the blood flooded back in. She thought back to the news reports.
“They are escapees from the sanatoriums, right? Driven insane by the second wave of the plague? After the disease mutated, people started losing their minds and their legs fell off and they craved fresh brains and stuff….” Her voice trailed off. It sounded sort of stupid when she said it out loud.
Grammalie Rose snorted. “Zombies, huh? I used to love those old movies.” She let go of Lucy’s arm, nodded to the S’an who was still standing there, holding the sloshing tub in both arms. He shambled off, spilling water in a trail behind him, but before he went he winked at Lucy.
She stared after him, her mouth open. She closed it with a snap.
“That is an urban myth arising out of fear; because they were infected, but against all odds survived with their skin burned and cracked and their eyes bloody. They are not crazy people.”
“But don’t they carry the contagion still?” Lucy asked. Her hand had gone to her knife; she rubbed her thumb over the hilt, tried to control the shaking.
“No.”
This was contrary to everything Lucy had heard.
She rallied her thoughts. “I thought the symptoms meant the sickness is still there. His eyes are red. He’s still bleeding under his skin. He was wearing gloves.”
“No. His immune system remains weak, but they are no more sick than we are. The gloves and robes shield his damaged skin from the sun. He wears the mask to protect our sensibilities.” Grammalie Rose put stress on the words. Her black eyes were flashing with anger. Lucy stepped backward, tripping over a beet. She bent down to pick it up, noticed the other vegetables and the fallen bowl, and started piling them together.
It seemed impossible, but surely if the S’ans had been living with the settlers for all this time then they must be all right. Leo had said that people were scared so they had to be careful. Somehow Sammy and the others had checked out. She got to her feet. She needed time to get her head around this.
Grammalie Rose bent with a grunt and picked up a garlic bulb that had rolled near her foot. She handed it to Lucy, who put it in the bowl with the rest.
“You look to be good with a knife, wilcze. Think you can deal with the rabbits? Small pieces for a stew.” Grammalie Rose spoke calmly, as if nothing had happened.
“Uhh.” Lucy was startled.
“Good. I’ll be over helping to peel that mountain of potatoes. Otherwise we’ll never eat today.” She nodded grimly at her and made her slow way to the far end of the table where Henry and the others stood. After a few seconds more of staring at Lucy, they got back to work and the hum of conversation started up again.
Lucy rubbed her nose with the back of a hand covered in blood. She’d already gutted and filleted three of the rabbits. The chef’s knife she was using was very sharp, the edge honed beautifully. The S’an—Sammy—had not come back again, but the expectation of seeing him was making her jumpy. Part of her wondered where Aidan was. He was the only person she sort of knew in the camp, and he’d disappeared. She cut the pieces of glistening red meat into chunks and pulled another rabbit toward her. Using a cleaver, she chopped off the cotton ball tail. The knife whacked through the bone and into the board. She rocked it back and forth to loosen it.
“Whoa!” Henry jumped backward, his eyes wide in mock alarm. “Do you think you can put the knife down for a second?”
After a moment, Lucy recognized the teasing note in his voice. She smiled back reluctantly. The wood in front of her was covered in deep cuts. She hadn’t noticed how much pressure she’d been exerting.
Henry slouched against the table. Freckles sprayed across his nose and cheeks. His eyes were dark brown and round like a child’s. The spike of hair made him look like a cartoon character. He held a plate. On it was a loaf of bread and a small bowl filled with green-tinged oil.
Lucy’s belly rumbled audibly, but she was so hungry, she didn’t care.
He pushed the food toward her. “I thought you might be hungry. It came out of the oven about fifteen minutes ago.”
Hastily wiping her filthy hands on her pants, Lucy tore off a chunk of bread and shoved it into her mouth. It was still warm. Henry watched her with an amused expression. “You can dip it in the oil, if you like. We have to make our bread with water, no milk you know, and it makes it sort of dense… and hard to swallow.”
She stopped chewing for a minute. “Tastes pretty good to me.” She took his advice, though, and swirled the next chunk in the oil. It was fruity and rich, and absolutely delicious. From the far end of the awning, the mouthwatering smell of onions, garlic, and carrots simmering in oil wafted into the air. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed fried food until now. The thought of fried potatoes made her giddy.
Henry pointed to the other side of the square where the remains of a building stood. Someone had attached frayed lengths of canvas from the two remaining corner uprights to make a rough roof. “Used to be an Italian deli,” he said. “Nothing survived in the shop, but they had a cellar filled with wine and bottles of oil. The wine’s gone now, unfortunately,” he concluded. He met her eyes with a wry look. “But we’ve got enough oil to fry a mountain of potatoes.” He rummaged in his back pocket and brought out a stub of pencil and a tattered notebook. “Can I ask you a couple of questions?”
“Sure, I guess,” said Lucy, brushing bread crumbs off the front of her shirt.
“We keep an informal sort of census now. So many people coming and going,” Henry said. “Name?”
“Lucy Holloway.”
“Age?”
“Sixteen. I’ll be seventeen in a… few months.” She realized that she wasn’t sure exactly how soon her next birthday was.
He nodded. “Nice to have another mature person here. It’s mostly little kids and the DAs.”
Henry answered her querying look, lowering his voice: “Doddering Ancients, but don’t let Grammalie Rose hear it.”