The People of Sparks (13 page)

The doctor echoed her thought. “The city?” she said. “Why in the world would you go there?” She seemed astonished, as if she’d never heard before of anyone going to the city.

“Because of this particular mission,” Caspar said. “Of a secret nature.”

“I see,” said Dr. Hester. “All right, then. It’s nearly time to eat. Take your beasts down to the barn, and then come on in.”

That night, Caspar talked a great deal about his exploits as a roamer. “In the northern forest lands,” he said, “I came upon some old cabins that still had glass in the windows. It was quite a trick to get the glass out without breaking it—took four days—but I managed. Did cut my hand a bit.” He extended his large hand and pointed out a tiny scar on the palm. “Quite a lot of blood from that. Then up near Hogmarsh, I found a very valuable item.” He gazed around at them, smiling slightly.

“What was it?” asked Torren, who had forgotten for the moment to be mad at his brother.

“An ancient statue,” said Caspar. “It depicts some very rare sort of bird, with a long neck and only one leg. You can see that it was once painted pink.” He paused to let the wonder of this sink in.

“Pink, tink, stink,” said Poppy. “Pinky stinky.” She stared at Caspar and giggled.

“Hush, Poppy,” said Lina.

“Then in Ardenwood,” Caspar went on, idly twisting his tiny mustache, “I had to fend off a few bandits.”

“Bandits?” cried Torren. “Really?”

“Well, they might as well have been bandits,” Caspar said. “Turned out they had no weapons, but they were set on stealing from me, that’s for sure. I got rid of them fast with a few well-placed lashes.” Caspar sliced his arm through the air, as if he were cracking a whip. “And a good thing, too,” he went on, “because not far from there I located another special thing—several boxes of authentic, pre-Disaster arti-ficial flowers. They are made of very fine cloth, hardly faded at all.”

“Artificial flowers?” said Lina, wondering why the people of Sparks would want fake flowers when they had real ones growing everywhere.

“Yes,” said Caspar. “I have a sort of knack for finding unusual things.”

Maddy didn’t join much in the conversation. Once Mrs. Murdo, being polite, asked her if she too enjoyed being a roamer, but she only smiled a little and said, “I don’t mind it. There are worse things to be.”

Mrs. Murdo waited to hear about the worse things, but it seemed that was all she was going to say.

When it was bedtime, Caspar went up into the loft and Torren dashed up after him. Maddy took Torren’s place in the medicine room, saying a brief good-night and closing the door firmly after her. The doctor helped Lina and Mrs. Murdo make up beds of pads and blankets on the couch and on the floor.

“It sounds interesting to be a roamer,” Lina said.

“I suppose so,” said the doctor.

“And Caspar has a special knack for finding things?”

The doctor bent over and spoke softly into Lina’s ear. “He has a knack for finding the
wrong
things,” she said. “He’s always bringing loads of things people already have, and not finding the things people really need. Artificial flowers,” she said wearily. “What are we going to do with artificial flowers?” The bed being made up, she went around the room and blew out all the candles but one. “He’s always been a bit odd,” said the doctor. “Looks as if he’s gotten even odder since he was here last. He tries hard, though, you can say that for him. He has high ambitions. He wants to be a famous roamer. He doesn’t know that he’s a bit famous already, among the other roamers—but not famous the way he’d like.”

She handed the last candle to Lina and stumped off to her room.

The next day was strange and unpleasant. Caspar sat in the big armchair telling stories about his adventures while Torren hovered around him asking questions. Lina listened for a while. She was curious about this work of roaming—it sounded exciting, like something she might want to do herself. But she soon got bored, because it seemed to her that Caspar never said much about the really interesting parts of his adventures. She wanted to hear what the faraway places were like, and how the old buildings looked, and everything that was in the buildings, but all Caspar talked about was how brave and clever he’d been to find the things he found, and what injuries he’d suffered in finding them.

Maddy didn’t listen to Caspar; she spent most of her time in the courtyard or the garden, motionless and silent, gazing at the plants, her arms folded across her wide waist. Every now and then she plucked a leaf or blossom, rubbed it between her fingers, and sniffed it. Once she asked Lina what a certain plant was. “I’m not sure,” Lina said. “I only know a few of them.”

“Then you know more than I do,” said Maddy, flashing Lina an unexpected smile. But other than that, she said almost nothing to anyone. She didn’t seem angry or unhappy, just off in her own world. Lina wondered about her but felt far too shy to ask questions.

After a while, Caspar shooed Torren away, sat down at the table, and pulled some scraps of paper from his pocket. He spread them out and bent over them, and his jovial, boastful manner changed. He ran his finger along the lines of writing on the papers. He wrote on them with a stubby pencil. And as he did so, he frowned and muttered and mumbled to himself, words that sounded like nonsense to Lina except for an occasional string of numbers. “Mmmbgl bblbble 3578,” he would say. “Throobbm wullgm fflunnnph 44209.” She wandered up behind him and tried to look over his shoulder. After all, she had experience with torn documents and hard-to-decipher bits of writing. But Caspar twisted around and scowled at her, holding his hands over the papers. “Private! Private! Keep away,” he said. He wouldn’t let Torren see, either, so Torren sat on the window seat and sulked.

Around midafternoon, the doctor rushed in the door looking even more frazzled than usual. Her shirt was smudged with blood, and her shirttails were half tucked in and half not. “I’m out of clean bandages,” she said. “Lina, did you do them? I need some. And I need that lavender extract—a bottle of it. No, I’d better get two bottles.” She hurried into the medicine room.

Lina had forgotten all about the bandages. She dashed into the kitchen, pulled some rags from the basket, and tore them into strips. She took these to the doctor, who was on her knees, rummaging through a chest.

“And,” said the doctor, “I’m going to have to make some mustard plasters tonight. You’ll need to go out into the orchard and gather me some mustard flowers. I’ll need a lot. Get the leaves, too, and the roots. I want the whole plant.” She found her bottles of oil, thrust them into her bag along with the bandages, and rushed out the door again.

Lina felt her spirits sink down into her shoes. She didn’t want to gather mustard plants. It was too hot. It was
ferociously
hot. She was sick of being hot, having her neck damp beneath her long hair and her clothes sticking to her back. She was sick of doing chores. She shuffled out into the courtyard, where a few of the doctor’s seedlings were drying up in their pots. She trudged to the pump, filled a bucket, and splashed some water on each limp plant. Then she sat down in the shade of the grapevine and leaned against the wall beneath the window and thought about everything that was wrong.

She was mad at the doctor for giving her so much work to do and hardly noticing when she did it. She was mad at Mrs. Murdo for not moving them out to the Pioneer Hotel. And she was lonely. She missed being with people she knew. Especially, she missed being with Doon in the old way, the way they’d been together when they were partners in Ember. Now he seemed to care more for his new friends than he did for her. Every time she thought about him, she felt a thud of pain, like a bruised place inside her.

From the window just above her head, Lina heard Caspar’s voice. “Not now!” he said. “I have to do some planning. I need quiet.”

The door opened, and Torren stormed out. He threw a furious glance at Lina but didn’t speak. He ran through the gate and up the road. He’s mad, too, thought Lina. Everyone’s mad.

From inside, she heard Caspar’s voice again, startlingly near. He was talking to Maddy, who must have come in the kitchen door. Lina realized they were standing by the window, just behind her.

“We’ll head out day after tomorrow,” said Caspar. “Starting early.”

“Uh-huh,” said Maddy in her low, growly voice.

“All those stories about germs still lurking there,” Caspar said, “they’re nonsense, you know. Those germs died out long ago.”

“No doubt you’re right,” said Maddy.

They were talking about the city! Lina sat very still and listened harder.

“People talk about other kinds of danger there, too,” Caspar went on. “Bandits and so on. Doesn’t bother
me.
”

“Of course not,” Maddy said.

“And anyway, even if there is danger,” said Caspar, “it’s worth the risk, because of what we’re going to find.”

“You sound very sure that we’re going to find it,” said Maddy.

“Of course I’m sure,” said Caspar. “Aren’t you?”

The answer to this was just a grunt.

They moved away from the window, and their voices grew fainter. Maddy spoke next. Lina couldn’t hear all of what she said, but she caught the words “How far?” and in Caspar’s answer she heard the words “day’s journey.” Then she heard steps clomping up the stairs to the loft, and the room went quiet.

Lina sat very still. Her bad mood faded. Other thoughts swirled in her mind. She was remembering the sparkling city whose picture she had drawn so many times, the great city of light, the city she had always believed in. Now Caspar was planning to go there. It wasn’t dangerous anymore, and it was only a day’s journey away.

She knew, of course, that the city Caspar was talking about had been damaged, like everything else, in the Disaster. The beautiful, shining city she had imagined must have been this city in the past, in the time before the Disaster. In her mind, she revised her vision of the city: some of the high towers would have toppled, and their windows would be broken. Stones from ruined buildings would have fallen into the street. Roofs would have caved in.

But the idea that struck her was this: maybe the people of Ember were meant to restore the city. Perhaps their great job—the reason they had come up into this new world—was to live in the city and rebuild it, so that once again it was the glorious, shining city of Lina’s vision.

This was
such
a beautiful idea. That night, she lay in bed thinking about it, and the more she thought, the more sure she was, and the more excited.

CHAPTER 13

                    
Taking Action

One evening Doon wandered off by himself toward the far corner of the hotel, where the trees grew thickly and the undergrowth beneath them was dense. He made his way into the woods, to a thicket of vines all woven together like thorny ropes. Little lumpy fruits, some red and some black, grew on these vines. Doon had already discovered that the red ones were hard and sour, but if left to ripen they turned black and sweet. He had been checking the vines regularly; each day there were more and more of the black ones. Today, he saw, there were more black berries than red. He began picking them. Some he ate right from the vine—they were sweet and juicy. Others he put in a basket he’d brought with him to take back to the others in room 215.

He heard footsteps behind him. A voice—he recognized it instantly—called out, “Doon!” He turned around, and there was Tick striding toward him, smiling his dazzling smile.

Doon stood up—he’d been squatting to reach for the berries on the lowest vines. “Look what I found,” he said, holding out a handful of berries to Tick.

Tick took one and popped it into his mouth. His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Terrific!” he said. He took the rest of them from Doon’s palm. “So,” he said, “are you going to save us again?”

“Save us?” said Doon, confused.

“Yes, from starvation. You’re the hero of Ember. It’s about time for you to save us again.”

It flustered Doon to be called a hero. He wasn’t sure if Tick was admiring him or making fun of him. He couldn’t think what to say next.

Tick reached into the thicket and plucked a few berries for himself. “These are good,” he said. “Mind if I take some?”

“They don’t belong to me,” said Doon. “Anyone can have them.”

Tick hunted among the vines for a while, picking berries and popping them into his mouth. Then he said, “You know that building they call the Ark?”

Doon nodded.

“Ever been in it?”

“No,” Doon said. “Just in the separate room at the back. They have books in there—you should see them, there must be thousands.”

Tick didn’t comment on the books. “I went in there the other day,” he said. “They had me carry in a crate of pickled beets. It’s their storehouse, you know. They say they’re short of food. Hah!” Tick gave a laugh that was more like a bark. “That place is
full
of food.”

“Really?” said Doon.

“Really,” said Tick, tossing three berries into his mouth. “There’s jars of preserved fruit, and sacks of dried fruit, and every kind of pickle, and bags of corn—loads and loads of food. And we get limp carrots for our dinners. I believe there’s a bit of stinginess going on.”

Doon frowned. He thought of his father, looking with dismay last night at the scanty contents of his dinner parcel. He thought about what Ordney had said at lunch the week before:
We just don’t have enough for four hundred extra people.
Was this untrue after all?

Tick had moved a few steps away and found a patch that was thick with berries. He was picking them rapidly, eating each one. When he spoke, his words sounded a little juicy. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I don’t like unfairness.”

“I don’t, either,” said Doon. He walked over to Tick and offered him the handful of berries he’d just collected. Tick took them all.

“I believe an unfair situation needs to be corrected,” Tick said.

“Corrected how?”

Tick wiped his red-stained fingers on his pants. “Well,” he said, “that’s something we have to figure out.”