Sal. And wash out that nose with salt water. It’ll do you good.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. And with a glance at the closed window, she headed into the hospital.
A familiar tingle ran under my skin. Dishonesty. Ever since my first vision of the rain, I could feel it tingling like electricity the day before a dust storm. I didn’t feel it every time someone was being dishonest, but when I did, it was unmistakable. I wondered for a moment what she could be lying about and why; then I shrugged and went on my way. This certainly wasn’t the first time I’d been lied to.
I went into my little shack and did my best to distract myself with an old schoolbook. But it seemed that every word I read passed over me like a cloud.
I sighed and looked at my nose in the small hand mirror that had been my mother’s. Still red and angry and obvious. I can’t go out looking like this, I thought. Then the announcement blared overhead: Mother Morevna’s voice, amplified with magic so that it rang out all over town.
“Attention, everyone! The ceremony is soon to begin! Please make your way to the center of town.”
I groaned and pulled my hat back on, shutting my book. Outside, the night wind blew, but not harshly, and the dust only rose to my ankles. The banners hung from building to building, house to house, windmill to windmill, bright against the dark sky, and I followed them to the Square, where all the garlands met at the enormous pole that rose out of the platform in front of the church and jail. People from all over town were congregating on each side of the platform: white people on one side, and everyone else on the other, with buzzing tension in between.
Everyone faced the doors of the Baptist church, where Mother Morevna would climb up onto the platform and begin the ceremony. People slumped, and their suits and dresses wrinkled in the heat—we didn’t have seasons anymore. Not in this world. Just endless, unbearable heat. One woman across from me was fanning herself with her wide straw hat. Many of them watched me out the corners of their eyes.
I pulled my hat lower, keeping my eye out for Trixie and her aunt and uncle. God, I hoped they didn’t make me stand with them, though admittedly, there was a low chance of that. Glancing over my shoulders, I went to the shadow of the nearest windmill and stood there alone.
“Scoot over, criminal,” said a voice. It was Lucy again, in a patterned feed-sack dress, her hair back in a brightly colored kerchief. Her eyelids shimmered slightly in the light.
“How’d your supply run go?” I asked, making room for her.
“All right. I gave Jane an extra blush for following us all the way back home.” She looked at me. “I should have given you some concealer. Your nose still looks bad.”
“Well, it’s the thought that counts,” I said, and she smiled.
I was thankful that I had someone to stand with. Mourning Night was always hard. The platform now held a small collection of photographs and a few other items. A pair of glasses, an old blue bottle, a bolt of fabric, something that glinted silver and was probably a thimble. These reminders of the dead were so grubby, so pitiful, that they tugged at the heartstrings of even the hardest in Elysium. There were only two toys that I could see: a dirty, one-eyed teddy bear and a turtle that someone had whittled out of a block of wood and painted. Yes, this was much better than last year. But what would next year bring? I had seen the frantic way the farmhands had worked, the textile mill ladies, the dairy farmers, the tanners. I had heard the grumbling. I had seen how much people had done without. But still, the question buzzed among all of us: Would there be a next year? Who would win: Life or Death?
Suddenly, the crowd quieted. Everyone leaned forward, and all that could be heard was a dog barking somewhere on the edge of town.
Then the church door opened and she appeared, the one who had saved us all. Mother Morevna seemed to demand attention, even though none of us had ever heard her raise her voice. She was elegant, fierce, powerful, everything I could never be, and the world seemed to stop for her. She wore a beautiful green dress, almost Victorian in