“Araby,” he says in the voice he uses with Elise and Henry. “Eat some bread.” He slides the basket across the table at me. I take it angrily, and when I do, the sleeve of my dress tears loudly enough to draw Elliott’s attention.
“You need something new,” he says. The innkeeper takes the hint and hurries away.
It’s heartening that Elliott has found support here, at the first establishment we’ve visited. Perhaps people are still capable of hope. I hope that I will have the same success on my mission of finding Father.
Moments later, the innkeeper’s wife brings a dress to the table for my inspection. It’s overly large, demure, and has a busy flowered print. I start to say that no, I would never wear this, but then the innkeeper speaks from behind his wife.
“It belonged to my daughter. She’s been dead for two years now.”
“Will it do?” Elliott asks.
I take the dress. It’s even more shapeless than I expected, faded from multiple washings. It looks like a dress sewn for a twelve-year-old. A large twelve-year-old. The innkeeper’s wife has tears in her eyes.
“Lovely,” I say, wondering if I can repair the damage to my own dress instead. Elliott counts out a few extra coins, but the man won’t take his money.
“We are glad that you’ve returned,” he says. “My brother was one of Prospero’s former guards. When he defected to your cause, the rebellion gave him something to live for.”
Elliott nods slowly. “Spread the word. We’ll need a meeting place. . . .”
“Some of the men have already been gathering here.”
“Excellent. I’ll return tomorrow, around noon, to rendezvous with whomever you can contact.”
The innkeeper beams, but his wife looks more skeptical. She has lost her daughter. Nothing Elliott does will change that.
The innkeeper arranges for one of his workers to drive us across town in an illicit steam carriage. “I would give it to you,” he tells Elliott, “but we use it to fetch supplies, and without transportation . . .”
“I won’t ask that of you.” Elliott claps the man on the shoulder, seeming for all the world like a ruler already. But I see the way he looks at the carriage when we go outside. It isn’t fancy like April’s, or modified for speed like his old one, but it’s transportation in a city where movement is limited. He won’t take it today, but he doesn’t have to. We’ve all seen that the innkeeper hides it in an abandoned building behind his establishment. He sends a driver and a guard with us. The guard has two guns and stands in the back, on a platform similar to what April’s guards used to occupy.
“Drive along the river,” Elliott requests. “I want to have a look at the factories.”
A corpse blocks the street, so the guard gets out and moves it, carefully using a wooden beam that he seems to keep on hand for this exact purpose.
“Not many carriages for hire, it seems,” Elliott remarks, watching with an air of longing as the driver works the controls.
“Prince Prospero has been commandeering them,” the man says. “His men take them at gunpoint.”
“Yet another challenge to moving enough food into the city,” Elliott says.
We are driving past an entire city block that has burned. Some walls are still intact, even a blackened window. In a partial wall a brick fireplace stands alone, charred and abandoned.
“Have Prospero’s soldiers tried to take this carriage?” Elliott asks. He’s scanning the buildings that line the river.
“More than once,” the driver says. “We know a few hiding spots.”
Elliott grins his approval. “I like a man who can avoid Prospero’s traps,” he says. The taciturn driver nods.
“Turn ahead,” Elliott says. “We’ll want to approach the university from the upper city.”
We’ve been gone for less than a week, but I’m seeing the city through fresh eyes. I glance at Will. Once he tried to make me see the beauty of this place, but there is so little left. Everything is dirty, crumbling, gray. A sickly sweet smell pervades everything, and I try not to gag.
Abandoned objects litter the road. A child’s hair bow, a wooden soldier, a fine silver flask that someone must have treasured.
Instead of dwelling on these things, I focus my attention on the buildings. So many are simply shells and ruins, but the city doesn’t feel emptier. Behind a collapsed apartment building we see more tenements, an exposed cellar, as if the layers of the city have been peeled back, revealing more and more. The hole that was once a cellar is now filled with greenish water.
Elliott pays the driver and salutes both the guard and driver before sending them back across town. We’re on the main avenue, and while stately trees still stand, the stately buildings have collapsed into piles of white rubble behind cracked marble columns.
Several are completely gutted. Elliott set his old apartment on fire before we left. Perhaps it caught other buildings on fire, too. Windows are smashed and glass gleams from both grassy areas and the streets. The walls of the science building are chipped from gunfire.
I hear the stream gurgling before we reach it. The sound of running water is soothing amid all the destruction, but the bank is empty. I hadn’t expected Father to just sit here, waiting for me to return. Still, I’m disappointed. Above the stream, where Father used to come feed the fish, is a hand-painted sign. DOWN WITH SCIENCE. THE SCIENTISTS ARE MURDERERS.
“The scientist is a murderer,” Elliott agrees, but he shuts his mouth when he sees the expression on my face. Will doesn’t say anything.
“Let’s look inside,” Elliott says, leading us around to the side of the science building. He tests a door, and the lock is broken, so it swings wide. The smell in the hallway is overpowering. I put my hand to my mask, and my eyes begin to water.
“Is anyone here?” Elliott calls.
“No one who was even half alive would stay here.” Will chokes out the words. A body is sprawled across the hallway.
Elliott takes my arm and attempts to pull me outside. “Will can check. He’d recognize—”
“No.” I won’t allow them to protect me.
“Let her look,” Will says. “She needs to know.”
“Besides,” I say, once we’ve stepped over the body and I can think a bit more clearly, “whatever bodies we find . . . Father won’t have died of the Red Death.”
Will’s dark eyebrows go up. He doesn’t know about the tiny vial that Father gave me, which may, perhaps, save me from the Red Death. If we can find him, maybe he can provide the same medicine for the children. And Will and Elliott.
We pass several large lecture rooms strewn with blankets and discarded clothing, but everything seems to be abandoned now. Some of the rooms have charts on the walls, with Latin terms that Father would understand, but I don’t.
Under a chart are some other notices, messages for the people who stayed here. Times and places for meetings. I reach out to touch the scrip about a rendezvous that happened sometime last winter.
We search all of the rooms. Nothing.
Elliott sees how disappointed I am. “It was our best place to begin,” he says. “The university is huge, Araby. Hundreds of rental rooms in dormitories. We’ll keep searching, and I know a man who can help us. We’ll check the Akkadian Towers as soon as we can.”
“We have four days until April returns.” Will’s tone is reassuring. “Plenty of time.”
We leave the building through the wide double doors of the front entrance. Above them are the words EXPERIMENT ON THE SCIENTIST. SHOW HIM HOW IT FEELS.
I stare at the words for a long time. Father may not be susceptible to the Red Death, but that doesn’t mean he’s safe. He’ll be doing everything he can to stay hidden from people like the ones who wrote that. He could be anywhere. We might never find him.
But what if he could find me?
“Where could I get paint?” I ask.
“I’m sure Will can find some.” Elliott gives Will a challenging look, perhaps reminding him of his promise to follow orders.
“I’m good at finding things,” Will agrees. “You want something dark to put your own message on the walls?”
He can read me too well. I nod.
“We’ll split up,” Elliott says. “It’s growing late. My acquaintance won’t answer his door after dark. Meet us on the steps of the library in an hour.” Elliott walks away. I don’t like the way he assumes that I will follow. If I go with Will, it might communicate something to Elliott. But I know what Will is doing. Elliott’s visit to this person—who he does not refer to as a friend—is more mysterious.
I don’t have to hurry to catch up with Elliott. He’s only taken three steps around the corner and stopped. Our way is blocked by a pile of freshly dead bodies.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I’VE SEEN DEAD BODIES NEARLY EVERY DAY SINCE the first plague started, but never so many at once. They are heaped together, lying all intertwined. I gag like Will did in the science building and force myself not to be sick. The carefully tended lawn, once so vibrant and green, is totally obscured. Most of the bodies are in shrouds, but some untended corpses lie around the periphery. Red tears stain their cheeks. One is holding a bouquet of wilting flowers. Did she bring her loved ones here, and then die herself?
This disease leaves you little time to mourn. Little time to live with guilt and loneliness. People are dying so quickly.
I want to shield myself from the awfulness, but I can’t stop looking. Puddles surround the corpses. Soon this rainwater will mix with the groundwater, spreading further contamination. The innkeeper was right—whoever can rid the city of these bodies will be a hero. It is the first step in saving the city.
“Step away,” Elliott says, even as he goes closer. He doesn’t check to see if I’ve obeyed, and I don’t. Taking a vial of liquid from his pocket, he pours something over the nearest victim and then lights a match. As he drops it, he takes a quick step backward. Despite the recent rain, the corpse catches fire immediately. The blaze is very hot, hotter than any fire I’ve ever encountered, and the smell is terrible. Elliott’s face is illuminated by the blaze. He looks radiant.
“If I can mix enough of this compound, find enough men, I can begin to clear some of the streets.”
He empties two more vials over the heap, lights another match, and soon most of the bodies are burning.
What he’s doing is terrible in its own way. Cremation is better than leaving the bodies here, it must be. But one of the women who died here was blonde, and when her hair begins to burn, all I can see is April’s face. I crumple to my knees, tears streaming down my cheeks. We have to find a way to save her. I won’t let her end up like this.
Elliott doesn’t comment, and I’m glad. I collect myself and stand. “Where next?”
“This way.”
We walk, gingerly, around the burning bodies, to a main avenue lined with tall, cramped buildings where students used to live. Rows of identical doors face a paved courtyard. Elliott’s gaze darts everywhere, searching all of the alleys and shadowy nooks. A wise precaution, since men in dark robes seem to appear wherever we are. I watch over my shoulder as Elliott raps on a door.