Ashes, Ashes Read online

  The earth tilted, pulled at her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, feeling her tenuous hold loosen and her equilibrium leave her with a stomach-twisting suddenness. Lucy fell against the stranger, a boy. Her head spun, and for a moment she thought she might vomit. Her stomach cramped. She bit down on her tongue until the nausea passed.

  “I lost my balance,” she muttered, even though he hadn’t said anything. Her voice was gruff, and she was conscious of his hand still clasping hers, the warm solidity of his chest. Lucy scuttled back against the trunk, pulling her hand away and clutching the bark tightly. She had never liked heights, not even the swings or slides in the playground growing up. There was no room on the branch to move very far away. She carefully avoided looking down again. She could hear the dogs milling around, snapping and growling at one another. She tried to pretend she was not fifteen feet up. The boy stared at her with an amused expression that she longed to slap from his face. She cleared her throat. Her hand went to the knife inside her pocket.

  “What?” she blurted out. She was painfully aware of the grime on her face and hands, the dry sweat that stiffened her hair, the stale, dirty stink coming off her mud-soaked jeans. He smelled clean. Soap—a memory so sharp, it hurt. His clothes were worn and patched, but not as filthy as hers. They were brightly colored, too—not the best choices for blending into the dull, beige landscape and shadows—as if he didn’t care who could spot him from a mile away, and he’d cut the sleeves from his red sweatshirt as though he didn’t feel the damp chill. She shot a look at him from under her eyelashes. He was about her age, with green eyes, dirty blond hair, and a generous mouth that was smirking at her. The grin slipped a little as her tone of voice registered.

  “I’m waiting for you to thank me,” he said. Her cheeks flamed.

  It had been months since Lucy had been around another human being. She went out of her way to avoid them, to hide. She felt acutely uncomfortable; sort of like the feeling she used to get on the first day of school after the freedom of the summer holidays. She looked away from the intensity of his gaze. The dogs were sniffing around the tree. A couple of them had plopped down and begun licking themselves. They looked almost friendly, except that whenever she or the boy shifted just a little bit on the branch, they leapt to their feet and started growling and snarling again. Farther out in the brush she could see more shadowy sentinels waiting for her to make a break for it. How long would they wait for a meal? How soon before they’d give up and try for a mouse in a burrow or a rat on the garbage heaps? How long before she could climb down and go home? The boy was still looking at her, almost as if he could tell what she was thinking. The smirk was back. She dropped her eyes, busied herself with tightening the bandanna around her left hand. It was wet with new blood. She’d left a bright smear on the bark on her way up.

  Clasping his hands to his chest and adopting a high-pitched voice, he said, “Oh, thank you, Aidan, for saving me from that pack of vicious dogs! That was so great of you to hang out of the tree like that and risk your life or possibly a serious accident for a complete stranger!” She scowled, wondering if she could jump off the far side of the tree, avoid the dogs, and get the heck out of there. She looked down at the new hole torn in the knee of her jeans.

  “Thanks,” she said, after a long moment. “I’m Lucy.” Her voice sounded raspy, and she was aware of how dry her throat was. “Do you have any water?”

  He shook his head. “Didn’t plan on being here that long. Just came out to relax. See what I could see …” He stared at her and she wondered if her hair was bushing out.

  “Are you scouting?” Lucy asked. She knew, of course, that there were others out there, loners like herself, but most people kept to their safe places and didn’t wander. She saw campfires sometimes, heard voices from a long way off, but Aidan was the first person she’d seen in a while. As far as she was concerned, the streets belonged to the S’ans—survivors of the plague who were horribly scarred and sick in the brain.

  He shook his head. The sarcastic curl was back in the corner of his mouth, and she decided it was just something he couldn’t help, but it didn’t exactly make her warm to him.

  She looked at him properly. As far as she could tell, he carried no collecting bags, no blade, not even a big stick.

  “What do you mean?” she said. “You’re not scouting?” Lucy straightened up; her fingers felt for her knife again. “Are you a spy?” she blurted out. “Are you spying on me?” Her greatest fear was that someone would force her back to the shelter.

  Aidan’s eyes flicked to her face and then away again. He stared at his hands. She waited for him to say something. He cleared his throat. “Not spying,” he said. “But I’ve seen you before.”

  She remembered the disquieting feeling that she was being watched and waved the knife in front of his face. “You’ve been following me.”

  He looked up. “No!” he said, as if horrified. She set her teeth.

  “Your camp is visible from here if you know where to look. That’s all. I noticed …” Now it was his cheeks that reddened. He stopped in mid-sentence, then shrugged his shoulders up and down and said in a louder voice, which set the dogs below whining and snapping, “It’s lucky for you that I was here; otherwise you’d be dog meat. You ran to this tree. I didn’t make you come here.”

  That was true enough. She eyed him, fingering her blade. “Sort of creepy, though,” she muttered. “So what were you doing here, then?” she asked, lifting her chin and staring hard at him. “Are you just … hanging out?” The words felt odd on her lips.

  “Yeah,” he said easily. “I guess you could call it that. I just like to climb trees, and the view from here is pretty much three hundred and sixty degrees.” He gestured wildly with one outstretched arm. Just watching the sweep of his hand made Lucy feel dizzy again, and she clutched at her tree branch, trying to do it inconspicuously. She was appalled. There hadn’t been a moment in the last twelve months, except for when she was sleeping, when she wasn’t doing something. If she wasn’t gathering food, she was plugging gaps, collecting water, or baiting hooks. And in the evenings she’d plait coarse grasses into rough lengths for ropes or mats, cure skins, smoke meat, pound acorns, or mend tears and patch holes in her clothing and shoes. She definitely didn’t have time to hang out.

  Lucy stared at the boy thinking he was insane, but the really crazy thing was that he was staring back at her with the exact same expression mirrored in his eyes.

  “Hello?” she blurted out now, slapping the branch so hard, it stung her palm. “Why risk everything for no reason except that you wanted to look at the view!” She pointed to the dogs. “This isn’t a park anymore.”

  Aidan froze for a moment and then leaned back against the tree limb, his arms crossed behind his head. She had no idea how he was balancing himself, but he looked as comfortable as if he were lying on a couch.

  “I think you think you know more than you do, wild girl,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” Lucy said, bristling.

  “How long have you been out here?”

  “Long enough to know how dangerous it is. The S’ans! The Sweepers! The scavengers!”

  “I’m careful,” he said after a pause. “And the scavengers aren’t all bad.”

  “You’re nuts.” And stupid, she added silently. “The scavengers will rob you blind, the Sweepers will lock you up, and the S’ans will give you the pox. Or, if you’re lucky, just plain kill you,” she added, digging her knife into the tree trunk.

  He was looking amused again, and her hand itched to slap him. A little snort of laughter escaped from his mouth.

  She carefully swiveled her torso so that she was facing away from him. Less than a mile away, past the trees and the scrubland, was her camp. It might as well have been on the other side of the world. Aidan whistled a tuneless song under his breath and she did her best to ignore him. The dampness soaked into her skin, chilling her bones. She stunk of swampy mud. Her fingers cramped on the h
ilt of her knife, but she kept it out and ready.

  The rain finally fizzled to a stop. Mist rolled in from the sea and wreathed the ground below. There was the tinkling splash all around them of drops falling from leaves onto the earth. Lucy’s hand crept up to pat her head. Moisture made her hair frizz out. She probably looked a mess.

  She scowled, shifting on the branch. Her butt was falling asleep and she longed to move, but there was no escape. The dogs panted and grumbled and prowled below. One, a terrier, Lucy thought, the sort of dog she’d once have thought was cute, just sat and whined pathetically at the bottom of the tree as if it was starving. A tussle broke out between two of them, a black pit bull with fur so short and slick it looked spray-painted on and a burly rottweiler. Smaller dogs darted in, nipping at flanks, and the chorus of barks was deafening. It was a short, vicious fight that ended with lacerated ears and bleeding muzzles. Tufts of fur floated in the air. The two dogs collapsed, chests heaving, licking their wounds. The audience of dogs lay down as well, as if exhausted by the excitement. Some of them seemed to fall asleep. Lucy carved out a chunk of bark and tossed it down onto one of the sprawled bodies.

  The animal was up in an instant, growling ferociously and clawing at the tree. More dogs rushed in from every direction, baying in excitement. Their eyes reflected the moonlight, and thick strands of saliva sprayed from their jaws. Lucy wondered if they were rabid.

  “Smooth,” said Aidan. He’d been so quiet, she’d half-suspected he had fallen asleep.

  She glared at him.

  “Come on, seeing as we’re stuck here for a while,” he said, leaping to his feet. He was standing on the branch, perfectly balanced, one hand stretched out toward her. Below, the dogs were going crazy again, catapulting themselves up into the air, scrabbling at the tree trunk.

  “Uh, no …” The thought of moving made her head swim.

  “I want to show you something. Up there,” Aidan said, shifting easily on the branch, his arms relaxed by his sides. He was wearing brightly painted high-top sneakers. His feet seemed to grip the bark. Lucy’s heavy boots felt like weights at the ends of her legs. Her wounded hand twinged when she clenched it experimentally.

  “Scared?” he asked.

  She imagined pushing him down or kicking his legs out from under him.

  “I’m not,” she said, clenching her jaw. She got carefully to her feet, holding on to a branch above her head with one hand and tightening her grip on the knife with the other. Lucy ignored Aidan’s outstretched arm, and eventually he shoved his hand in his jeans pocket as if to mock her, and started climbing. He moved with an ease that made her face flush red with annoyance. She rubbed her thumb over the bone handle. Her stomach twisted and she felt a rush of bile in her mouth. She bit her lip hard and forced herself to look ahead to where he was standing with his head crowned by new bright green leaves. Not down, don’t look down, Lucy told herself fiercely. He was a jerk, and there was no way she’d let him see how terrified she was. She remembered how she’d followed her little brother, Rob, across a fallen tree in the park once, although her knees had turned to water, just because he’d taunted her. When she’d caught up to him, she had wrestled him down to the ground and stuffed handfuls of rotting leaves down his shirt.

  Aidan walked casually to the end of the branch and then pulled himself up to the one above it. It was about chest-high on Lucy. She watched to see how he swung his leg over and then stood up. There were plenty of small branches overhead to hang on to, and she was pretty pleased with her performance. Just the slightest wobble on the way up, a misstep, forced her to drop to her knees and cling to the branch before continuing. But she’d sprung up again quickly before he’d noticed, not realizing until she was moving again that her fear of heights was being suppressed by feelings of irritation and a burning desire to prove to him that she was tougher than he would ever be. The tree was solid and broadly branched, and the bark smooth enough not to snag her feet but rough enough to give her some purchase. Aidan climbed and she clambered after him until they were near the top. The branches thinned out. Lucy gripped a handlelike pair of limbs and felt a little more secure. The air was much colder up here, and she pulled her sweatshirt hood forward, annoyed, too, that he didn’t seem to feel the cold at all.

  “So what’s so special—” she began, and then she caught her breath. They were above the fog bank. Below it to the west lay the scrubby wasteland, the mudflats, the salt marsh, and just beyond, the vast waters of the Hudson Sea. To the south, under the low-slung moon, on a narrow wedge of rock and soil were the toppled skyscrapers—row upon row of fallen dominoes—and the ridges of pulverized concrete and steel girders like jagged, broken teeth. Such a strange skyline now, full of odd angles and deep chasms with no symmetry; it no longer seemed like something built by humans. The new wooden structures that bristled from every area of high ground looked like they would blow over in a stiff breeze. And to the east, Lake Harlem took the shape of a bulging Christmas stocking, the misshapen toe cupping the southernmost part of the promontory they perched above.

  Lucy’s rib cage felt suddenly too small for her lungs. The devastation was overpowering seen at this distance. An entire city leveled. Some structures brought down by the gale force winds and the earthquakes, others by friendly bombing. And buried deep within the mortar and brick and sheets of steel were millions of people who had sickened and died in a matter of hours, many dropping where they stood in the first and second waves of the plague.

  “They’re like giant gravestones.”

  “Easy to forget living out here, I bet,” Aidan said.

  “Yeah,” she said slowly. “I had begun to forget.” She shifted her weight without thinking and grabbed a branch to steady herself, ignoring the pain as her left hand flexed. In her camp, on her spit of land bordered by mud and water, it had felt as if she lived in a wilderness, when in fact the remnants of her old life were only a few miles away.

  He pointed east over the mudflats. “Check it out.”

  Lucy could just make out the blurred shape of a landmass in the middle of the lake, a narrow island not more than a few miles long. Just visible against the blue-black sky was a darker silhouette. A tower, strangely shaped—an octagon or hexagon. At the very top blinked a red light.

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s Roosevelt Island.”

  The name stirred a memory in her, but she couldn’t place it.

  “That’s where your Sweepers come from. The Compound.”

  There was another large, low, rectangular building attached to it. Just the outline was discernible, and it was unlit, but she could tell that it was solid, massive.

  “The hospital,” Aidan said.

  And suddenly Lucy remembered.

  She gripped her knife, feeling a chill creep up her spine. She remembered the dozens of newscasts, the mass hysteria that each one brought. The island was where the smallpox hospital was. In the early days of the plague, notices and warnings had originated from there, but as the epidemic had spread, the status reports had ceased. Anyone with common sense could just look around and see that most of the people they knew and saw every day were sick, no matter what the television might be telling them about vaccine supplies and control. The live footage of calm, white-coated doctors and pretty, smiling nurses had ceased, replaced by pretaped public service announcements, and the hospital had become just another derelict building. The little she knew about the S’ans and the dangers of the world she lived in now had come from those early news reports—a mixture of public service announcement and disinformation. “Stay in your homes. Avoid crowded places. Inform your doctor of any symptoms.” And flashing across the screen 24/7, the plague hotline number to report your infected friends and neighbors. The hazard squads, they were told, patrolled constantly, seeking out pockets of infection, affected birds and animals, and those too sick to get themselves to the hospital. The white vans touring the neighborhoods and the white-suited men became a frequent sight, but they
always gave Lucy the creeps. Once the disease took hold, most people had stopped believing that they were getting anything approaching the truth and ignored the reports and the government orders to remain in quarantine. People had left the cities in droves and the sickness had left with them, spreading like a wildfire.

  There was something unsettling about the building, Lucy thought, taking a deep breath. In a landscape without any other artificial lighting, the red beacon at the top of the tower seemed like the baleful eye of some giant beast. There must be people inside, but whether they were doctors or government people or squatters, she couldn’t tell.

  Aidan grabbed her arm. “But look,” he said, turning her to face north. His face was lit up with excitement. He stood on the highest branch capable of holding his weight. The wind rustled the leaves. Far beyond the Hudson Sea—out where, Lucy knew from childhood Sunday drives with her family, there had once been farmland and apple stands, cows and pumpkin patches and the sweet cider donuts Maggie had loved and eaten by the dozen, and where the land was now given over to wilderness—a flickering light had appeared, followed by another farther away, and then another, strung out like shimmering golden beads on a necklace. A crooked line of fires. Aidan’s fingers dug into her arm. She would have pushed him away, but she was afraid of falling.

  “Oww,” she said.

  He barely took any notice of her.

  “There are people out there who don’t have to hide. Who are just … living. That’s where I’m heading someday.”

  “So why don’t you go, then? What are you waiting for?” She tried unsuccessfully to keep the sneer out of her voice. He was probably one of those people who didn’t move without someone telling him it was okay.