What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose) (13 page)

“No, it’s not that.” I know she’s worried about the disease she is certain lurks within me. That it might be about to burst to the surface of my skin with all the accompanying signs and symptoms. “But I’ve been cooped up below and they haven’t giving me much food. I got hurt, too.” I point to the purple knot on my forehead. “I’ll be okay in a day or two.”

Stace lets my hand drop and stares at her feet, as if it’s her fault for what happened to me. She finally asks, in a small, ghost-soft voice, “Are these the ones you said were going to take care of us?” She nods toward the open doors of the dorm, to that place outside this room where the Elders are, wherever that might be. I’ve gone back to combing my hair before it’s completely dry, am in the middle of trying to drag the comb through a snag over my right ear so resistant to untangling I feel like I’m about to pull a clump of hair out by its roots.

“No, these aren’t the ones. Not the only ones,” I tell her. I close my eyes as I say this, feeling only a little like I’m telling a lie. “There are others here, I know it. Not the Black Riders and not the Elders. There are some that can help us, take care of us.” I look around and lower my voice. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

And then, out of the blue, I feel like I’m going to pass out. I’m still so weak. We haven’t had anything to eat yet this morning. I scoot back onto my cot, telling Stace I’ll be all right in a moment. She looks worried, makes sure I’m comfortable, covers me with a scratchy wool blanket.

I drift in
and out of sleep for a while, the sounds echoing around the dorm growing distant, indistinct.

Only a few hours ago, I slept soundly, dreamlessly, completely. Now I find that it’s a struggle to shove aside nightmare visions of all the horrors I’ve seen since reaching the outer edge of Raintree. I try to wave away images of Moira and Needle and Gideon’s body, of the cage dangling above the river, of the ride in the van while lying prone at the feet of the Black Riders. Replace all of this with only what I’ve seen since my release from the cellar.

The conditions at the Orphanage are awful. It’s beyond filthy—the children’s clothes are mud-stained and ragged, their bedding is torn and sour-smelling, the restrooms stink. If there was one thing I always imagined I’d find in downtown Raintree, it was a group of survivors who had figured out a way to keep clean.

But the older ones have. The Elders. The ones my age that I’ve seen are all like Tetch, clean and comfortable, well-fed and satisfied. But they aren’t doing a good job taking care of the younger ones. Maybe they can’t be bothered.

Besides William, Tetch and me, I’ve counted twenty-two young children gathered here, including CJ, Terry and Stace. I keep wondering,
are these all that are left?

All
the children who have survived the long, slow trek to Raintree?

Or who were left behind in Raintree in the first place?

My guess is that they range in age from around eight or nine to thirteen or fourteen, but it’s hard to tell. Most are scrawny, malnourished, underdeveloped even with the two meals a day at this place. To be an Elder must mean you get more to eat.

Then I have a thought that strikes me with the force of a revelation. I can’t believe that it’s never occurred to me before. Maybe it never has because Larkin was around before and I always imagined the two of us growing old together, somehow escaping what was happening to everybody else.

Thinking about all of the small, bony bodies of these children milling around me, listening to their cries, the
thwack
of balls, the stomping of feet, noticing how quickly they wear themselves out, how they stick close to the cot they’ve claimed as their own like it’s a tiny lifeboat on a turbulent sea, I realize that there are no children any younger than the youngest of these.

No babies are being born.
No toddlers, no runny-faced little tykes to repopulate the world.
This is it.
When the youngest of these get older, when they fall ill, there will be no more to take their place.

The world is emptying out fast. Soon it will belong to Moira and the other Black Riders. Soon it will contain nothing recognizably human at all.

When I open
my eyes again, it seems like only moments have passed since my talk with Stace—but there’s William, kicking at the edge of my cot, trying to shake me awake.

“It’s time to get breakfast going,” he says. “You want to eat, don’t you?”

I swing my legs off the end of the cot, sit up and pull on my boots. When I get to my feet I’m a little wobbly but I say nothing and follow him out of the dorm.

He takes me down to the main floor of the old school building, through a door next to the cafeteria and back into the kitchen. It’s as filthy as every other place I’ve seen. The counters are smeared with the crusted remains of meals. There are plates and bowls and platters waiting to be scraped clean piled in the sinks.

I look out through the large space opening into the cafeteria, above a long counter where students once stood in line to have hot food dished onto their trays. I see that the cafeteria tables are in the same state, caked and littered with scraps. There are unlined garbage pails, clouds of gnats buzzing above them, waiting to be hauled outside somewhere and dumped. There’s the sharp cidery smell of boxes of apples in a corner. Most look smushed and water-damaged, many rotting.

William says nothing, watches me inspect the kitchen. It’s as if he’s already withdrawing from whatever he used to do here, handing it over to me. Even though there’s no electricity, someone has stashed loaves of misshapen bread in the refrigerator. Jumbo-sized cans of beans and chili and vegetables and hotdogs, boxes of macaroni and cheese and rice clutter the counters.

“We’ve got this set up,” William finally says, proudly. “See.” He points to a couple of camp stoves, small, smoke-smudged things with a pile of propane canisters stacked nearby. “You can heat some stuff up but don’t use too much fuel. We’re starting to run out.”

“Where does the bread come from?” I ask him.

“We have some generators working. And there’s a bakery nearby with a bunch of flour and shortening and stuff that’s still good. We can make simple things.”

We
, I think.
The Elders.

“What happens when you run out of that stuff, though? All of this?” I point to the cans and boxes and rotting apples in the kitchen. “When you run out of fuel?”

He shrugs. “Nobody’s going to be around when that happens. Nobody like us. Like we are now.”

“What do
they
eat?” I ask abruptly, my voice dropping to a whisper without my intending it to. “The…others?”

He shakes his head and turns away from me. Then he picks up a can of corn, a giant can of creamed corn and holds it out to me like it’s the most important thing I will ever need to know about. “Look, I brought you down here because we want you to start feeding the kids. You only need to know what you need to know to do that—nothing else. Don’t be a pain in the ass and we’ll get along.”

Feed the kids.

There’s definitely a pecking order among the Elders, among the survivors my age. And I know I’m at the very bottom. Subterranean level. Bowels of the earth.

But William and Tetch can’t be too highly placed in this society either. And somehow Emily has insinuated herself among those Elders lucky enough not to be stuck in this place. Or maybe they want to keep us apart so I don’t corrupt her, try to turn her against them.

In the daylight, William looks puny. He’s not very tall, standing only a few inches above Tetch. I start to think of both of them as the runts of the litter. The weaklings. The scar above his right eye makes me feel a little pity for him every time I see him, for how he must have suffered at some point in the past. But he’s such a jerk that the feeling doesn’t last long.

I keep thinking,
When I’ve regained my strength, these two will be easy to control, to manipulate…

There are knives on the counters, heavy, thick-handled meat-cutting knives with broad blades. William catches me staring at them and his expression changes from one of superiority to a look of unease. “Can you cook anything?” he says, dropping the creamed corn on the counter with a clang to distract me.

“I can open a can,” I say.

“Well, it’s time to make breakfast then,” he says. “Or brunch or whatever you want to call it.” He rustles through a couple of large utensil drawers until he finds a big can opener which he slides over to me. “Here’s your equipment. Get to it.”

“I guess that means you’re not going to help.”

“Listen,” he says, laughing at how dense I am. “You’re going to have to
earn
your way out of the mess you’re in. Honestly, I don’t know how you’re going to do it.”

And so I make breakfast—cold slices of what I start to think of as Raintree bread, lumpy and often burnt but far better than no bread. There’s the creamed corn served cold and applesauce. I start to make oatmeal but William tells me to save the propane for dinner. Orphanage rules—only one hot meal a day. Oatmeal is a dinner thing.

“There’s a lot of dirty plates to clean, too,” William says. “You can get some of the kids to help you. We’ve been using paper plates for a while. That’s why there’s so much garbage.” He goes to a box stashed under one of the overhanging counters and grabs a stack of paper plates, peels two off and hands one to me. “Let’s eat first though.”

I’ve gotten good at staving off hunger, at making a little food last a long time and it’s not until he says this, until he gives me permission to feed my face, that I feel a jolt of hunger. It’s like an electric shock, buzzing down through my esophagus to the bottom of my belly.

“You’re going to eat this, too?”

He looks annoyed. “Well, I’m stuck here, aren’t I? What else am I supposed to eat?”

“I thought you and Tetch would have a special gourmet stash hidden somewhere.”

He flips me off and roots around in some of the drawers until he finds a couple of serving spoons. He rubs them clean on his shirt-tails. He waves one at me. “I want to see this kitchen in better shape by dinner time. There’s some dish soap and you can get some water outside, from the rain barrel.” But then he surprises me by dishing me up a plate of food and handing it to me.

I eat with my hands and the food tastes wonderful. I remember the fantasies I had about the food waiting for us in the city. About cheese. About bacon and eggs. Sausages and French toast. Hot, solid food that I might never see. But there’s enough in this room to give me hope that somewhere there is more.

I let the applesauce slide down my throat, soothing it, working its way into my impoverished stomach.

With my mouth full of bread, I ask him, “Why is Tetch called Tetch?”

He gives me a puzzled look, as if he has no clue what I’m talking about. “That’s her name.”

“The name her parents gave her?”

“Oh, I see. It’s the name of a friend of hers who’s no longer around, that person’s last name. She decided she wanted it for her own. It means something to her. We all try to reinvent ourselves.
They
certainly do.”

“They?”

“I’m not going to talk about…the others.” He’s been sitting on a stool, eating without any great interest in his food. He gets up now and tosses the remains of his breakfast onto a pile of rotten scraps that overflow a stinky green plastic pail. I watch applesauce slide over the lip of the pail to pool in a small, peach-colored puddle on the floor. He makes no move to wipe up the mess.

Of course I know who
they
are…Moira, Gideon and the rest. But I don’t know
what
they are, how they live. I want to ask him so many questions but decide I’ll bide my time for now. I need to build up my strength and figure out what I might be capable of achieving in this strange city when I’m strong again, when I know my way around.

Before he leaves the kitchen, William stops for a moment and looks back at where I remain perched on a stool, caught in the act of scraping applesauce into my mouth with the edge of my hand. He gives me an odd look, eyes suddenly wide and haunted, his air of authority vanished. He reminds me of Stace clutching my hand this morning.

Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I see
his
mouth is suddenly slack-jawed, quivering. It’s obvious he wants to tell me something but is afraid that if he tries to speak he will start to cry.

He’s cracking up and I haven’t said a word. Haven’t raised a finger against him.

There’s a struggle raging inside William. His closest friend, his only ally—Jendra—is gone. He needs someone beside him, someone to back him up. At this moment he looks so confused, tortured by the fact that he’s actually on the verge of asking
me
for my help, that he wants
me
on his side. All his bravado, his show of self-confidence, can’t cover the fact that, inside, he’s a broken little boy.

As I watch him, I understand something about this place. The others, the Black Riders—they aren’t the ones he’s reaching out to. They aren’t the adults he longs for. He’d rather turn to me than face them alone.

The Black Riders scare him to death.

At the end
of my first day freed from the cellar, the Black Riders pay us a visit.

In the darkness of the dorm, I’ve been lying on my cot for hours and can’t fall asleep.

There isn’t any formal bedtime here, aren’t any lights to turn out. All the children eventually drift off to their cots, too exhausted to play anymore, too tired to chase each other and bicker. They crawl under blankets and lie still.

Besides only allowing one hot meal a day, there aren’t any discernable rules governing life at the Orphanage. As long as no one’s bleeding or screaming or trying to run away, Tetch and William don’t care what the kids do.

The dorm is always cold but seems more so when it’s dark. I’m continually rubbing a runny nose on the sleeve of my shirt. It’s warmer in bed but the blankets are musty smelling and scratchy. The mattress is paper thin and lumpy. It often feels like parasites are nibbling at the back of my neck.