After a while, the refugees came out from the narrow streets into a wide-open area. This must be like Ember’s Harken Square, Lina thought, a place in the center of town where people gather. It wasn’t square, though. It was more like a rough half circle paved in dusty brown brick.
“What is this place called?” Lina asked Mary Waters, who was walking just ahead of her.
“The plaza,” Mary said.
Plah-zuh. Lina had never heard that word before. It was her first new-world word.
On one side of the plaza was the river. On the other side were stalls with thatched roofs and small buildings with display racks out in front holding faded-looking clothes, shoes with thick black soles, candles, brooms, pots of honey and jam, along with plenty of things that Lina didn’t recognize.
A bigger building stood at the plaza’s far end. It had wide steps in front, a double door, and a tower with windows up high that looked out over the plaza. Next to it was a tremendous plant of some kind—a great pole, much higher than the building, with branches like graceful, down-sweeping arms and leaves like bristles.
“What is that?” Lina asked a woman who was standing at the edge of the plaza, watching them go by.
The woman looked startled. “That’s our town hall,” she said.
“No, I mean the big plant next to it.”
“Big plant? The pine tree?”
“Pinetree!” said Lina. “I’ve never seen a pinetree.” Her second word: pinetree.
The woman gave her an odd look. Lina thanked her and walked on.
“Step this way, please,” said Mary, who was trying to keep the unruly refugees in order. “There’s plenty of water for you here—both in the river and in the fountain.” She pointed to the middle of the plaza, where there was a pool of water circled by a low wall. The water in the middle of the pool jumped up into a column of bubble and spray that splashed back down and jumped up again constantly.
The people of Ember surged forward. Dozens ran to the edge of the river and bent down to bathe their faces with water. Dozens more crowded around the pool. Children splashed their hands in it, crawled up on the rim, and tried to reach the leaping water in the middle. Some of the children jumped in and had to be hauled out by their parents. People at the rear of the crowd pushed forward, but people at the front weren’t ready to be pushed. Suddenly there was yelling and jostling and water sloshing out onto the pavement. Lina slipped and fell down, and someone tripped over her and fell, too.
“Please!” shouted Mary, her deep, loud voice rising above the uproar.
“Order! Order!” shouted a man’s voice. Lina heard other voices, too, as she struggled to her feet, the voices of the villagers crowding in at the edges of the plaza.
“Get back, Tommy, get away from them!”
“Where did you say they came from? Under the ground?”
“Are they people like us, Mama?” a child said. “Or some other kind?”
Of course we’re like you, thought Lina. Aren’t we? Are there more kinds of people than one? She got to her feet and wrung out the hem of her sweater, which was sopping wet. She spotted Mrs. Murdo on the other side of the plaza and headed toward her.
The commotion finally subsided. The people of Ember, their thirst quenched, gazed about them in wonder. Everything was strange and fascinating to them. They stood with their heads craned back, gazing at the towering plants and the peeping creatures that flitted around in them; they stooped down to touch the bright flowers; they peered in doorways and windows. Children ran down the grassy bank to the river, tore off their shoes and socks, and dunked their feet in the water. Old people, exhausted from their long walk, lay down behind bushes and went to sleep.
The three town leaders began moving among the people of their village, talking with them in low voices for a minute or two, then nodding and moving on. Lina saw these townspeople glance at the new arrivals with worried looks; they didn’t seem to know what to say. Lina could understand why. What would the mayor of Ember have done, for instance, if four hundred people had suddenly arrived from the Unknown Regions?
By this time, the sky was beginning to darken. A few townspeople started calling the refugees together. “Come this way! Call your children! Please sit down!” They stood at the edges of the crowd with their arms stretched out and nudged people inward, until finally all four hundred people were squeezed into the plaza, gathered around the wide steps in front of the town hall, where the three leaders were standing.
Mary Waters raised her arms above her head and stood that way without speaking for several seconds. She looked powerful, Lina thought, even though she was very short. The way she stood, with her feet planted slightly apart and her back straight, made her seem almost to be growing out of the ground. Her black hair was streaked with gray, but her face was smooth and strong-boned.
Gradually people fell silent and turned their attention to her.
“Greetings!” she cried. “My name is Mary Waters. This is Ben Barlow. . . .” She pointed to one of the men standing next to her, a wiry man with a stiff, gray, box-like beard jutting from his chin. He had two wrinkles, like the number eleven, between his eyebrows. “And this is Wilmer Dent,” she said, pointing to the other man. He was tall and thin, with wispy, rust-colored hair. He smiled a wavering smile and waggled a few fingers in greeting. “We are the three leaders of this village, which is called Sparks. Three hundred and twenty-two people live here. I understand that you come from a city three days’ walk away. I must say, this is a . . . a surprise to us. We have not been aware of any post-Disaster settlements nearby, much less a city.”
“What does ‘post-Disaster’ mean?” Lina whispered to Doon.
“I don’t know,” Doon said.
Mary Waters cleared her throat with a gruff sound and took a breath. “We will do our best for you tonight, and then tomorrow we will talk about . . . about your plans. Some of our households are willing to take in a few of you for the night—those with young children, and those who are old or ill. The rest of you may sleep here in the plaza. Those who go with the householders will share in their evening meal. Those who stay here will be given bread and fruit.”
There was a scattering of applause from the people of Ember. “Thank you!” several voices cried out. “Thank you so much!”
“What’s ‘bread’?” Lina whispered to Doon.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Will all those who most need shelter for the night please stand?” Mary Waters called. “As I said—those with children, and the elderly and ill.”
A rustle swept through the crowd as people got to their feet. Voices murmured, “Stand up, Father,” “You go, Willa,” “No, I’m all right, you go,” “Let Arno go, he’s sprained his foot.” Because of Poppy, Lina and Mrs. Murdo stood up. Doon remained sitting, and so did his father.
The brilliant yellow ball in the sky was traveling downward now, and the shadows grew longer. Night was coming, and with the gathering darkness Lina’s spirits grew darker, too. She thought of the green-and-blue bedroom she’d moved into back at Mrs. Murdo’s house in Ember, the lovely room she had been so glad to have. She was homesick for it. Right now, she would have been happy to have a bowl of turnip soup and then crawl between the covers of the bed in that room, with Poppy next to her, and Mrs. Murdo out in the living room tidying up, and the great clock of Ember about to strike nine, the hour when the lights went out. She knew that this place—the village of Sparks—was alive, and that Ember was dead, and she would not want to go back there even if she could. But right now, as the air grew chilly and whispered against her skin, and a strange bed in a stranger’s house waited for her, she longed for what was familiar.
Mary Waters was calling out names. At each name, someone from the village stepped up and said how many people that household could take.
“Leah Parsons!”
A tall woman in a black dress came forward. “Two people,” she said, and Mary Waters pointed at an old couple at the front of t
he crowd of refugees, who picked up their bags and followed the tall woman.
“Randolph Bonito,” called Mary, and a big, red-faced man said, “Five.” The Candrick family, with their three small children, went with him.
“Evers Mills.” “Four.”
“Lanny McMorris.” “Two.”
“Jane Garcia.” “Three.”
It went on for a long time. The sky grew darker and the air cooler. Lina shivered. She untied her sweater from around her waist and put it on. Light and warmth must go together here, she thought: warm in the day, when the bright light was in the sky, and cool at night. In Ember, the lights made no heat at all, and the temperature was always the same.
At the edges of the plaza, someone was raising a flame-tipped stick and lighting lanterns that hung from the eaves of buildings. They glowed deep yellow and red.
Mary was pointing at Mrs. Murdo now. “You, ma’am,” she said. “Your child looks the sickest of anyone. We’ll send you home with our doctor.” She beckoned to a woman standing nearby, a tall, bony old woman with bushy gray hair chopped off just below her ears. She was wearing loose pants of faded blue and a rumpled tan shirt that was buttoned crookedly, so one side hung down lower than the other.
“Dr. Hester will take you,” Mary said. “Dr. Hester Crane.”
Lina stood up. She turned to Doon. “Will you be all right here?” she said. It made her uneasy to be separated from Doon and his father.
“We’ll be fine,” Doon said.
“No need to worry,” said his father, spreading a blanket on the ground.
The doctor stooped down to look at Poppy, who drowsed in Mrs. Murdo’s arms. She put a hand on Poppy’s forehead—a big, knuckly hand, with veins like blue yarn. She pulled down the underside of Poppy’s eye. “Um-hm,” she said. “Yes. Well. Come along, I’ll do what I can for her.”
Lina cast an anxious glance at Doon.
“Come and find us in the morning,” Doon said. “We’ll be right here.”
“This way,” the doctor said. “Oh, wait.” She scanned the mostly empty plaza. “Torren!” she called.
Lina heard the slap of footsteps on brick and saw a boy running toward them out of the darkness.
“We’re going home now,” the doctor said to him. “These people are coming with us.”
The boy was younger than Lina. He had a strangely narrow face—as if someone had put a hand on either side of his head and pushed hard. His eyes were round blue dots. Above his high forehead, his light brown hair stood up in an untidy tuft.
He glared sideways at Lina and said nothing. The doctor headed up the road beside the river, walking with a long stride, her hands in her pockets and her head bent forward as if she were looking for something on the ground.
Staying close beside Mrs. Murdo, who was carrying the sleeping Poppy, Lina followed. The chilly evening air crept in through the threads of her sweater, and an insect hovering near her ear made a high, needle-like whine. The homesick feeling swelled so big inside her that she had to cross her arms tightly and clench her teeth to keep it from coming out.
CHAPTER 4
The Doctor’s House
The sky had turned a deep blue now, almost black. At one edge shone a streak of brilliant crimson. In the houses of the village, one window and then another began to glow with a flickering yellow light.
They walked and walked. Each time they came to a doorway, or a gate in a wall, or stairs leading upward, Lina hoped this might be the house. Back in Ember, where she’d had the job of messenger, she’d been a tireless runner; running was her greatest joy. Tonight it was hard just to walk. She was so tired her feet felt like bricks. But Dr. Hester walked on and on, with the boy trotting ahead of her sometimes, and sometimes lagging back to stare at Lina and Mrs. Murdo and Poppy, until they came to the outer edge of the village. There, standing somewhat apart, was a low-roofed house. Except for a glimmer of light on its two windows, reflected from the reddening sky, it was in darkness, huddled beneath a great brooding plant the shape of a huge mushroom.
“Is that a pinetree?” Lina asked the doctor.
“Oak tree,” the doctor said, so Lina understood that “tree” must mean all big plants, and they came in different kinds.
A path led to a wooden gate, which the doctor opened. They came into a shadowy, leaf-littered courtyard paved with uneven bricks. On three sides were the three wings of the house, like a square-cornered U. The eaves of the roof sloped down to form a walkway all around. In the failing light, Lina could just see that the courtyard was crowded with plants, some growing in the ground and some in pots of all sizes. Vines wound up the columns of the walkway and crawled along the edge of the roof.
“Come inside,” the doctor said. She led the way to a door in the central part of the house. She and the boy went in. Lina stopped just inside the doorway, and Mrs. Murdo came up behind her, Poppy in her arms. They stood peering into the gloom. There was an odd pungent smell—like mushrooms or leaf mold, only sharper.
The doctor disappeared for a moment, and when she came back she held a lit candle. She moved around the room lighting more—two candles, three candles, four, until a wavery light filled the central part of the room. The corners remained in darkness.
“Come in, come in,” the doctor said impatiently.
Lina moved forward. She felt grit beneath the soles of her shoes, and the tickle of dust in her nose. She was in a long, low room with clutter everywhere—clothes draped over the backs of armchairs, a shoe on a saggy couch, a plate with some bits of food on it sitting on the windowsill. At one end of the room were two doors, both of them closed. At the back, a stairway rose into a dark square hole in the ceiling. At the other end of the room, in the corner, was an open doorway—leading, Lina guessed, to the kitchen. Beside this doorway was a kind of hollow in the wall, framed by stones and containing some sticks and scraps of paper.
The doctor stooped down before this hollow place and held her candle to the sticks and paper there. In a moment, a flame leapt up. It was a bigger flame than Lina had ever seen, like a terrible orange hand, reaching up and out. Lina’s heart knocked hard against her ribs. She stepped backward, bumping into Mrs. Murdo. They stood staring, Mrs. Murdo with a hand clutching Lina’s shoulder.
The doctor turned around and saw them. “What’s the matter?” she said.
Lina couldn’t speak. Her eyes were fixed on the flames, which leapt higher and crackled.
Mrs. Murdo tried to answer. “It’s, ah, it’s—” She inclined her head toward the end of the room, where the first flame had become a dozen flames, licking upward, sending out flashes of orange light.
“Oh!” said the doctor. “The fire? You’re not used to fire?”
Mrs. Murdo managed to smile apologetically. Lina just stared.
“It stays in the fireplace,” the doctor said. “Not at all dangerous.”
In Ember, there was never fire unless there was danger—someone’s electric wiring had frayed and ignited, or a pot holder had fallen on a stove’s electric burner. The only fire Lina had seen that wasn’t dangerous was the tiny flame of a candle. This fire scared her.
In the window glass, reflections glimmered. The windows were set so deeply into the walls that there was a ledge at the bottom, wide enough to sit on. The boy, Torren, hiked himself up on one of these ledges and sat there, kicking his feet against the cabinet set in the wall below it. “Afraid of fire,” he said in a low, scornful voice.
“Come in,” the doctor said. “You can sit over there, if you like.” She pointed to some chairs at the other end of the room, far from the fire, so that was where Lina and Mrs. Murdo sat. Poppy woke up enough to give a weak wail, and then she slumped into Mrs. Murdo’s lap. “This will likely be the last fire of the season, anyway,” said the doctor. “Nights will be getting warmer soon. We won’t need one.”
A creak sounded from outside, and then rapid footsteps. Someone pounded on the door. Lina clutched Mrs. Murdo’s hand.
But the
doctor only sighed and moved to answer the knock. “Oh, it’s you, William,” she said. “What do you need?”
“Some of that ointment,” said a man’s voice. “I need it right now. My wife cut her hand. It’s bleeding all over.”
“Come in, come in, I’ll get it,” the doctor said, and she went into another room and rummaged around while the man stood shyly just inside the door, looking out of the corners of his eyes at Lina and Mrs. Murdo.
The doctor brought him his jar of ointment, and he went away. No more than ten minutes later, another knock came, this time from a young woman who wanted some willow bark medicine for her sister, who had a pounding headache. Again the doctor rattled around in the other room. She came out with a small bottle, and the woman hurried off with it.
“Are you the only doctor here?” Mrs. Murdo inquired.
“Yes,” said Dr. Hester. “It’s a never-ending job.” She suddenly looked worried. “Did I give William the right jar? Yes, yes, the one on the third shelf, I’m sure I did.” She gave a frazzled sigh. “Now let’s tend to your little girl. Put her down here.” She patted the couch that stood against the wall. “And wrap her in this.” She retrieved a knitted blanket that had fallen on the floor, gave it a shake, and handed it to Mrs. Murdo. “I’ll give her a swallow of medicine.”
Poppy accepted two spoonfuls of medicine—it was something reddish that Dr. Hester poured from a jar—and spit out the third, whimpering. Lina’s heart ached to see Poppy so sick. Most of the time, Poppy was a ball of energy, so quick and curious you never knew what she’d do next. She might chew up a valuable document, for instance, or trot off on an exploration of her own at exactly the wrong moment. Now she was limp and pale, like a little sprout that hadn’t been watered.
Mrs. Murdo laid her on the bed. Lina sat by her and stroked her hair, and quite soon she went to sleep. The doctor disappeared into the kitchen, and Torren climbed the stairs and vanished into the room above.