![]() “I lost track of time.” “Pretty ballsy of you,” she says. I’m exhausted again, even though I’ve been sleeping for days. I must have looped around the northern border when I was lost in the Wilds: I’ve ended up sixty miles southwest of Portland. How long were you out on your own?” “I don’t know.” I rest my head against the wall. “Where are we now?” “A few miles east of Rochester,” she says. “I came over from Portland.” Too soon the bowl is empty again, even though the snake in my stomach is still lashing. Alex told me once that Invalids-the people who live in the Wilds-have learned to make do with only the barest provisions. It’s fine.” I sip from this bowl of broth more slowly, savoring its strange, earthy quality: as though it has been stewed with stones. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” “No, no. “So,” she says, “where did you cross from?” When I hesitate, she says, “That’s okay. I take it from her and she sits again, drawing her knees up to her chest, like a kid would. The black-haired girl returns with a second bowl of broth. I think I hear a crescendo in the hallway voices, a swelling of sound. She sighs, stands, and disappears through the darkened doorway. “Please.” The hunger is a snake it is lashing at the pit of my stomach, eating me from the inside out. “You’ll make yourself sick,” the girl says, shaking her head, and takes the empty bowl from me. As soon as the broth is gone I’m desperate for more, even though my stomach starts cramping right away. Suddenly hunger yawns open inside me, black and endless and all-consuming. “Slowly,” the girl says, but I can’t stop. My throat feels as raw as sandpaper and the broth is heaven against it, and even though it has a weird mossy aftertaste, I find myself gulping and slurping down the whole bowl. I have trouble lifting it to my mouth, but I do, finally. The bowl is heavier than I thought it would be. “Can you hold it?” “Of course I can hold it,” I say, more sharply than I’d meant to. She starts to pass it to me, then hesitates. The bowl the girl is holding is full of mostly clear broth, tinged with just a bit of green. There’s a searing pain behind my eyes, too, and when I look down I see my skin is still crisscrossed with a web of cuts and scrapes and scratches, insect bites and scabs. I feel like a puppet halfway come to life. I try to sit up all the way but have to lean back after only a few seconds of struggle, exhausted. But she cannot be cured she is here, on the other side of the fence: an Invalid. Behind it, she has the mark of the procedure-a three-pronged scar-just like Alex did. Her hair is long and knotted above her left ear. She draws the wooden chair to the side of the bed and sits. She shrugs, but says, “You’re welcome,” and seems to mean it. I thought we should at least try.” She gives me a doubtful look, as though she’s not sure I’ve been worth the effort, and for a moment I think of my cousin Jenny, the way she used to stand with her hands on her hips, scrutinizing me, and I have to close my eyes quickly to keep all of it from rushing back-the flood of images, memories, from a life that is now dead. We didn’t think you were going to make it. She’s holding an earthenware bowl with both hands, carefully. “You were half-dead when we found you,” the black-haired girl says matter-of-factly as she re-enters the room. ![]() Love, the deadliest of all deadly things. They reeked of deliria they bled it.” And of course at the time it seemed terrible, and true. Dernler glaring at us from behind her enormous glasses, jabbing the open textbook with her finger, saying, “You see? You see? These old religions, stained everywhere with love. I have a sudden flashback to junior-year American history and Mrs. I recognize the symbol-it’s a cross from one of the old religions, from the time before the cure, although I can’t remember which one now. On one wall is tacked a small wooden cross with the figure of a man suspended in its middle.
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