She watched Aidan despite herself, noticing his quick smile, the light rumble of his voice, his graceful movements. She wondered if he was going to come over or if he was still mad. She was sorry, suddenly, that they had argued. But that didn’t mean she was going to walk across the square to him. Lucy tore her piece of bread into little scraps and tossed them onto the table. She turned on the bench so she was looking in the opposite direction.
“Your eyes are the same shade as a stormy sky,” Henry said, breaking into her thoughts. He leaned his chin on his steepled hands.
She was just able to keep herself from rolling those eyes. “My sister used to say they were the color of dirty window-panes,” she said, trying to laugh it off.
“Oh no,” he said, “they’re exactly like—”
Lucy interrupted and changed the subject. “So what’s going on tomorrow?”
Henry blinked. He looked a little bit like a frog with his big, round eyes. She fought a giggle.
“Tomorrow?” he said.
“Yeah. I was thinking I’d like to go out to the woods and the plateau. Maybe learn how to use a slingshot. Can you show me that?”
He gulped. “Normally we have a rotating schedule every week and people are assigned different chores. So it’s the fields one week, and the next, rebuilding or hunting. With everything that’s happened lately, we’ve sort of lost track of who’s doing what.”
“Great,” she said. She grinned at him. “So what do you think?”
“Doesn’t Grammalie Rose usually tell you what she needs you to do each morning?” he asked.
Lucy scowled. It was like she’d been drafted.
Henry hurried to say, “But you can already handle a knife, so maybe Aidan will give you some weapons training.”
She sat up. “I thought he wasn’t much of a fighter?”
“Since Leo and Del are gone, he’s the best we’ve got. He’s pretty good with a bow and arrow, and a slingshot. He’s on hunting duty more than anyone. You’ll have to ask him, though.”
She frowned again. Aidan probably didn’t want to hear anything she had to say. He was still over there with the S’ans, and he hadn’t looked in her direction once.
“Listen, are you mad about something or just hungry?” Henry asked. “Do you want more soup?”
She forced herself to smile at him. “No, I’m fine. Just tired.”
Henry got to his feet. He stacked their dishes.
“Okay. I’ve got to organize the dishwashers, but that’ll only take about ten minutes. You’ll be here?”
“Sure.”
Lucy stretched out her legs and wiggled her toes. Then she leaned forward and cradled her head on her folded arms. The fire smoke tickled her eyeballs. She felt a huge yawn coming.
“Tired, wilcze?” Grammalie Rose said in her rough voice. The old lady sat down with a creak and a sigh. “Thank you for all your hard work these past few days.”
Lucy straightened her back. “Sure,” she said, surprised.
“I see you have befriended Henry, our resident lothario,” Grammalie Rose continued. “Has he told you how beautiful you are yet?”
Lucy coughed. “Not exactly.”
“He will. He’s an eternal optimist.”
The old woman beckoned to Connor and Scout, who were walking by with linked hands. “They were responsible for our rabbits today,” she informed Lucy. “Did you two have to go out far?”
“A few miles out on the plateau,” Connor replied.
Scout frowned. “It took hours. They were really skittish.”
“Any trouble?” the old woman asked.
Connor shook his head.
Lucy couldn’t help but notice how their fingers clasped and unclasped but never let go, and how they leaned together, as if an invisible string were pulling on them. They walked on, Connor’s head bent to hear something that Scout whispered to him. The back of his neck glowed bright red.
“So will there be some kind of meeting tonight?” Lucy asked.
“Not tonight,” Grammalie Rose said. She pulled a box from a pocket and opened it. Inside were six or seven of the brown cigarettes and a crumpled book of matches. She lit one, blowing the smoke into the air in a long stream. “Tempers are still too hot tonight.” She picked a dried leaf of tobacco from her lip. “Sammy wanted to storm the hospital.” She uttered one of her dry laughs. “He is as foolhardy as his brother.”
Lucy was surprised the—Sammy had been thinking along the same lines as she had.
“Aidan doesn’t want to go. He wants us to hide here,” she said.
“Really? Perhaps he has finally learned to be cautious.” Grammalie Rose squashed her cigarette on the sole of her clogs and put the butt into the box, which disappeared again into a pocket. She turned to look at Lucy. “You think Sammy is right, eh?” She patted her on the shoulder and got heavily to her feet. “You wear your emotions on your face, wilcze. I understand what you are feeling, but it will help no one if more of us are captured. We need time to plan.”
She moved away.
Lucy looked around. The two little kids who’d been at the end of her bench were gone. She imagined them bundled in their blankets under tent cover, a tumble of bodies like drowsy puppies.
Others had pushed their benches closer to the fire pit. From behind her she heard the clatter of dishes and the chime of silverware. Water sloshed into tubs and people talked in low voices. Teams of four and six picked up the long tables and moved them back under the awnings. From the group by the fire she heard the strumming of a guitar, the chords spilling out in a stream of formless music. Someone clapped their hands, keeping time, and others stamped their feet against the tarmac as the guitar wove around the simple beat. And then a violin came in, a single, sustained note that seemed to climb into the air and hang there, anchoring the guitar. Lucy had never had much time for her parents’ classical music. She’d thought it cold and clean and rigid, much like her parents and their friends, and she’d always thought that violins sounded like cats being sawed in half. But this was different. Lucy felt the melody in her chest, as if her heart would explode with fullness. It was the saddest, happiest, wildest, and most human sound she’d ever heard, as if all the yearning in the world had been bottled up and then released in a pure shot of energy. She held her breath, suddenly afraid that she was about to burst into tears.
And then the guitar switched tempo to a folkie reel, speeding up and playing a rippling series of notes wrapped around a repetitive verse and chorus, and the player’s hand slapped the body of the guitar at the end of each sequence, speeding up the momentum. The violin came in again and wove around the tune so it seemed as though the two instruments were chasing each other like a dog after a cat. And everyone was clapping in time and stamping their feet.
The younger kids ran around the fire, lit up like little savages. Soon others were up out of their seats and linking hands and dancing. A conga line wound between the benches. It was so corny, Lucy could only squirm. Sue swept by with her pigtails bouncing, followed by a dozen people whirling in circles. Connor and Scout stood wrapped around each other, barely moving. Kids she hadn’t seen before danced together in groups or couples. Grammalie Rose, her unmistakable hawklike profile turned toward Lucy, sat near the fire, nodding her head and tapping her toes.