those who had died—and for those who hadn’t ever had their pictures made, small belongings, like combs or snuffboxes or dolls. There were entirely too many toys last year.
Dust Sickness was everyone’s greatest fear, the silent killer that crept through Elysium, taking whom it would. It was a lengthy, agonizing sickness you got from breathing in too much dust. Sometimes it could lay dormant for years, then rear its ugly head. It could take years to kill you, or months, or weeks, or days. Mother Morevna did what she could to protect us, covering the whole city in a spell that made dust storms roll right over us. We had faith in her and the magic that had saved us over and over. Still, we put on our dust masks just in case. And still, every year we wondered whose bodies would add to the height of our walls come next Mourning Night.
“Someone’s breaking curfew,” said a familiar voice. I froze.
When I turned, I saw Lucy sitting with her back against the wall, her hair in twists just visible under her vibrant kerchief. She looked at me, her face serious. She smiled as I let out the breath I’d been holding.
I tried to smile back, then held my hand to my face when my nose throbbed.
“What happened?” Lucy asked.
“Trixie has a mean aim with a shovel,” I said, and because of my nose, “mean” sounded like “bean.”
“Don’t know why you don’t punch her in the nose,” she said. “I would.”
I didn’t doubt it. Lucy and her family had been sharecroppers at the farm next to ours, and I’d seen her give a boy a busted lip when he took one of her dolls. Even now, though Lucy was widely known as not only the most fashionable Black girl in Elysium, but the most fashionable girl period, everyone knew not to mess with her. Even the boys.
We hadn’t spoken much growing up, but when the rain fiasco happened, she was the only one who had believed that I wasn’t crazy. Some people see things that others don’t, she’d said, and shrugged. I never forgot that. Or that when Trixie and her friends had been seen sneaking over toward my chicken coop, it had been Lucy who chased her away. I didn’t have many friends, but Lucy was the closest thing I’d had to one in a long time, even if it was only because of our arrangement.
“What are you doing out here anyway?” I asked her. “You know I always get the water.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I’m waiting for my supply girl.” Despite the law that stated that women should wear no makeup in order to conserve resources, Lucy had started her own underground cosmetics empire. She made subtle eye shadows and liners, mascaras, rouges. I, myself, had some of her mascara, packaged discreetly inside a corncob pipe she’d gifted me after noticing how pale my eyelashes were.
“She’s bringing me these,” said Lucy. “Of course, the Dowsing Well water will come from you.” She pulled a list out of her pocket and showed it to me.
Red clay (3)
Beetle wings (Japanese, Potato, Red)
Ink—nontoxic
Crayons
Beeswax
I gave it back to her, and we watched as the workers finished what was left of their job on the platform and shuffled over to the little spread-out handkerchief on which a few water rations (old Coke bottles filled with water) waited.
“Nobody suspects anything, don’t worry,” Lucy said, watching how nervously I was holding the bucket. “Least of all from you.”
“I’m just a false prophet, after all. I couldn’t be a thief too.”
“Oh, brush that chip off your shoulder,” Lucy said. “Besides, I don’t think you can steal from an endless well.”
“There are people who would argue with you on that one,” I said.
“Well, crime or not, I’m glad you can do it, because without that water, I’d be sunk.” Lucy squinted into the darkness and crossed slim, elegant arms. “Where is this girl? I’ve been out here for thirty minutes. She’s supposed to be coming from the west.”
“I’m headed west,” I said. “You can come with me if you want.”
Lucy’s eyes darted toward the platform. The workers, satisfied for the night, wiped their brows and began to leave the clearing in twos and threes. Across the platform, the steeple of the Baptist church jutted up, taller than the windmills, and somehow whiter, its wind-battered cross stark against the sky. The round rose window—unbroken by the high winds—was dark like a closed eye. Mother Morevna was asleep.