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“Try to keep the dead from seeing us. For as long as you can,” Memphis said.
“What about me, Memphis?” Isaiah asked.
“Just… stay by my side,” Memphis said. “Stay close.”
“I wanna help.”
“That is how you can help.”
“’S all right, Little Man. You ain’t less for it,” Bill said.
But it felt like it. Hadn’t Isaiah made it all the way here from New York? That he’d gone under before the fight in Gideon wasn’t his fault. Once again, Isaiah had been pushed aside, and he was mad about it.
“All right. Let’s go. Everybody put your hands on Evie,” Memphis said. He took off his
shoes and socks and squished the earth of the storm cellar between his toes. He poured the dirt from Seraphina’s gris gris bag into his palms and wiped them with it. He couldn’t say why, only that he needed something to ground him, something from home. He looked into Evie’s fluttering eyes. “Listen here: Don’t let go till I say. Then get the hell out.”
With that, Memphis placed his hands above Evie’s slowing heart. He could feel the land of the dead pulling at him. Voices calling, He is here with us. The Healer. Get him. Take his power. He could feel the sickness slithering inside Evie, trying to take her under. He was frightened. It was too much for him.
“Memphis?” Henry’s voice. “Why don’t you think just about healing.”
Instantly, Memphis began to relax. With his friends beside him, giving him their strength, he concentrated only on healing Evie. But the infection was insidious. No sooner would he cure it in one place than it would try to take root in another. He knew he had to keep it from her heart.
The voices were back. Memphis saw terrifying things from the corners of his eyes. And then he heard Sam: “Don’t see us.” The voices receded. Sam’s voice: “Go on, Memphis.” Memphis worked as fast as he could. He could feel the sickness trying to invade him. His lungs hurt. His breathing was labored. He had to get out. Whatever he’d done would have to be enough.
“Get out,” Memphis said, straining, and the trance was broken. “Theta. Now.”
Theta’s hand glowed red. She pressed it against Evie’s side, wincing as Evie moaned, forcing herself to keep it there for a count of ten to sterilize the wound as best she could. The skin along Evie’s right side above her hip was red and weepy. Ling found a tin of bandages among the storm cellar’s supplies. Together, she and Sam wrapped the bandage around Evie’s middle to cover the injury.
“Now what?” Ling asked.
“We’ve stopped it from spreading,” Memphis said, brushing an arm across his sweating brow.
“Will she be okay?” Isaiah asked.
“I don’t know, Ice Man.”
Sam held Evie’s hand and tried to rub warmth back into her cold fingers. She had dainty hands, and it surprised him that he’d never quite noticed this before, and he wished everything were normal so that he could tease her about it, call her some stupid nickname that she would pretend annoyed her when they both knew she liked the attention.
Sam swallowed around the lump in his throat. “You gotta get better, okay, Lamb Chop? I still owe you twenty clams. The Evie O’Neill I know would never let me get away with that.”
Jericho looked on and tried to pretend it didn’t bother him. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t quite erase his feelings for Evie. He came around the other side of her and rubbed her left hand. Sam glared. Jericho ignored him. He caught Ling’s eye. She shook her head, angry with him. That was harder to ignore.
“How far are we from Bountiful?” Jericho asked.
“A full day’s drive, reckon,” Bill said.
“Listen,” Henry said.
“What?” Ling asked.
“That’s just it. It’s quiet.”
Carefully, Jericho opened the storm cellar doors, and they emerged into a ruined world. Gideon’s sidewalks were empty, its windows broken. A bicycle lay overturned in the street beside a doll with its arm missing. The wheat fields had gone to chaff. The pond was dry. So were the oil pumps. Gideon had been leeched of anything that had value. Gritty ash blew through the abandoned streets. The town was dead and gray.
A town fit only for ghosts.
BOUNTIFUL
