The Apothecary Page 0,84

really feel hopeless—and I let it stay on my face. I didn’t know what to do except try to buy the apothecary time.

Then a loud alarm went off on the destroyer, and a Russian voice over a loudspeaker issued a command. I wondered if the ship was shielded in some way against the radiation, or whether the water alone would protect us, down below.

The Scar said, “We leave her on deck.”

Fear seized me. “You can’t! I’ll be poisoned and die!”

“Then that will be one problem solved,” the Scar said.

Danby smiled and let go of my shoulders. “That’s true,” he said. “I envy you for seeing what it really looks like, Janie. We have cameras, of course, but film is never the same. It should be very beautiful, so close.”

“Why are you doing this, Mr Danby?” I asked. “It can’t be because you read Anna Karenina when you were fifteen.”

Danby seemed surprised for a moment that I knew about his Tolstoy conversation, but then he considered the question. “What better reason could there be?” he said. “I want the nation that produced such a book to survive, and not to be annihilated by your naïve and vicious American government.”

“But a person produced that book,” I said. “Not a nation. That’s—” I caught myself using the present tense. “That was the great thing about the apothecary. He wasn’t working for a country. He was working to save people everywhere.”

“As am I!” Danby said. “A Soviet nuclear force is the only way to keep the Americans in check and ensure that their weapons will never be used. The US needs a deterrent. I’m sure your parents would agree. Now I really must go below.”

“Don’t leave me out here!” I said. The Latin words on his blackboard came into my head. “Decipimur specie—rectie! We are deceived by the appearance of right! Remember? You think you’re right, but this is wrong!”

Danby smiled at me. “You really were such a promising student, Miss Scott. I wish you all luck.”

He followed the Scar towards the last open door, to go below. I thought about running after them and trying to fight my way down, but I knew I would never be strong enough.

I turned to the rail of the ship. I’d been acting as if I believed the bomb would go off because the apothecary wasn’t around to stop it, but now I needed to believe that it wouldn’t. I had to believe that the apothecary was strong enough to stop something twenty times more powerful than he expected. I was alone on the grey deck of the destroyer, in the vast silver sea, and I wanted to be brave. Snow had started to fall. I stood a little straighter and tried to have some of Benjamin’s fire in my eyes.

Then I looked towards Nova Zembla and waited.

CHAPTER 34

The Bomb

For what seemed like a long time, I was alone on deck in the silence. I held my breath, standing at the rail and blinking at the island through the snow, hoping that Benjamin and his father had gone ahead with their plan—that Jin Lo’s net would work, and the Quintessence would absorb the radiation. Imagining them working away on the island helped. They would carry on and succeed, and save themselves and the Samoyeds on the island, and the reindeer and the fish and the Norwegian children—and also me, exposed on the deck of the destroyer. I didn’t want to think about what would happen next, when they would have to leave Nova Zembla. They couldn’t possibly rescue me from the Soviet Navy, and the idea left me feeling hollow and abandoned.

I tried to be selfless and hope only for Benjamin’s safety, since he and his father were trying to save the world. But what I really wanted was for all of us to be safe, and out of this wretched place. I just couldn’t see how that was going to happen.

As I strained my eyes at the horizon, it began to change. Something small grew out of the surface of Nova Zembla, blooming orange and red like a monstrous flower in the failing light. It rose slowly, ominously, into the air. Then there was the sound of the blast, bleeding into a long, diminishing roar, and the ship trembled on the surface of the water.

I thought of Benjamin in the lunchroom, saying, “We’ll be incinerated. We’ll turn to ash.” The idea that all of them were gone, instantly—Jin Lo with her fierce competence and her hidden