She handed the last candle to Lina and stumped off to her room.
The next day was strange and unpleasant. Caspar sat in the big armchair telling stories about his adventures while Torren hovered around him asking questions. Lina listened for a while. She was curious about this work of roaming—it sounded exciting, like something she might want to do herself. But she soon got bored, because it seemed to her that Caspar never said much about the really interesting parts of his adventures. She wanted to hear what the faraway places were like, and how the old buildings looked, and everything that was in the buildings, but all Caspar talked about was how brave and clever he’d been to find the things he found, and what injuries he’d suffered in finding them.
Maddy didn’t listen to Caspar; she spent most of her time in the courtyard or the garden, motionless and silent, gazing at the plants, her arms folded across her wide waist. Every now and then she plucked a leaf or blossom, rubbed it between her fingers, and sniffed it. Once she asked Lina what a certain plant was. “I’m not sure,” Lina said. “I only know a few of them.”
“Then you know more than I do,” said Maddy, flashing Lina an unexpected smile. But other than that, she said almost nothing to anyone. She didn’t seem angry or unhappy, just off in her own world. Lina wondered about her but felt far too shy to ask questions.
After a while, Caspar shooed Torren away, sat down at the table, and pulled some scraps of paper from his pocket. He spread them out and bent over them, and his jovial, boastful manner changed. He ran his finger along the lines of writing on the papers. He wrote on them with a stubby pencil. And as he did so, he frowned and muttered and mumbled to himself, words that sounded like nonsense to Lina except for an occasional string of numbers. “Mmmbgl bblbble 3578,” he would say. “Throobbm wullgm fflunnnph 44209.” She wandered up behind him and tried to look over his shoulder. After all, she had experience with torn documents and hard-to-decipher bits of writing. But Caspar twisted around and scowled at her, holding his hands over the papers. “Private! Private! Keep away,” he said. He wouldn’t let Torren see, either, so Torren sat on the window seat and sulked.
Around midafternoon, the doctor rushed in the door looking even more frazzled than usual. Her shirt was smudged with blood, and her shirttails were half tucked in and half not. “I’m out of clean bandages,” she said. “Lina, did you do them? I need some. And I need that lavender extract—a bottle of it. No, I’d better get two bottles.” She hurried into the medicine room.
Lina had forgotten all about the bandages. She dashed into the kitchen, pulled some rags from the basket, and tore them into strips. She took these to the doctor, who was on her knees, rummaging through a chest.
“And,” said the doctor, “I’m going to have to make some mustard plasters tonight. You’ll need to go out into the orchard and gather me some mustard flowers. I’ll need a lot. Get the leaves, too, and the roots. I want the whole plant.” She found her bottles of oil, thrust them into her bag along with the bandages, and rushed out the door again.
Lina felt her spirits sink down into her shoes. She didn’t want to gather mustard plants. It was too hot. It was ferociously hot. She was sick of being hot, having her neck damp beneath her long hair and her clothes sticking to her back. She was sick of doing chores. She shuffled out into the courtyard, where a few of the doctor’s seedlings were drying up in their pots. She trudged to the pump, filled a bucket, and splashed some water on each limp plant. Then she sat down in the shade of the grapevine and leaned against the wall beneath the window and thought about everything that was wrong.
She was mad at the doctor for giving her so much work to do and hardly noticing when she did it. She was mad at Mrs. Murdo for not moving them out to the Pioneer Hotel. And she was lonely. She missed being with people she knew. Especially, she missed being with Doon in the old way, the way they’d been together when they were partners in Ember. Now he seemed to care more for his new friends than he did for her. Every time she thought about him, she felt a thud of pain, like a bruised place inside her.
From the window just above her head, Lina heard Caspar’s voice. “Not now!” he said. “I have to do some planning. I need quiet.”
The door opened, and Torren stormed out. He threw a furious glance at Lina but didn’t speak. He ran through the gate and up the road. He’s mad, too, thought Lina. Everyone’s mad.
From inside, she heard Caspar’s voice again, startlingly near. He was talking to Maddy, who must have come in the kitchen door. Lina realized they were standing by the window, just behind her.
“We’ll head out day after tomorrow,” said Caspar. “Starting early.”
“Uh-huh,” said Maddy in her low, growly voice.
“All those stories about germs still lurking there,” Caspar said, “they’re nonsense, you know. Those germs died out long ago.”
“No doubt you’re right,” said Maddy.
They were talking about the city! Lina sat very still and listened harder.
“People talk about other kinds of danger there, too,” Caspar went on. “Bandits and so on. Doesn’t bother me.”
“Of course not,” Maddy said.
“And anyway, even if there is danger,” said Caspar, “it’s worth the risk, because of what we’re going to find.”
“You sound very sure that we’re going to find it,” said Maddy.
“Of course I’m sure,” said Caspar. “Aren’t you?”
The answer to this was just a grunt.
They moved away from the window, and their voices grew fainter. Maddy spoke next. Lina couldn’t hear all of what she said, but she caught the words “How far?” and in Caspar’s answer she heard the words “day’s journey.” Then she heard steps clomping up the stairs to the loft, and the room went quiet.
Lina sat very still. Her bad mood faded. Other thoughts swirled in her mind. She was remembering the sparkling city whose picture she had drawn so many times, the great city of light, the city she had always believed in. Now Caspar was planning to go there. It wasn’t dangerous anymore, and it was only a day’s journey away.
She knew, of course, that the city Caspar was talking about had been damaged, like everything else, in the Disaster. The beautiful, shining city she had imagined must have been this city in the past, in the time before the Disaster. In her mind, she revised her vision of the city: some of the high towers would have toppled, and their windows would be broken. Stones from ruined buildings would have fallen into the street. Roofs would have caved in.
But the idea that struck her was this: maybe the people of Ember were meant to restore the city. Perhaps their great job—the reason they had come up into this new world—was to live in the city and rebuild it, so that once again it was the glorious, shining city of Lina’s vision.
This was such a beautiful idea. That night, she lay in bed thinking about it, and the more she thought, the more sure she was, and the more excited.
CHAPTER 13
Taking Action
One evening Doon wandered off by himself toward the far corner of the hotel, where the trees grew thickly and the undergrowth beneath them was dense. He made his way into the woods, to a thicket of vines all woven together like thorny ropes. Little lumpy fruits, some red and some black, grew on these vines. Doon had already discovered that the red ones were hard and sour, but if left to ripen they turned black and sweet. He had been checking the vines regularly; each day there were more and more of the black ones. Today, he saw, there were more black berries than red. He began picking them. Some he ate right from the vine—they were sweet and juicy. Others he put in a basket he’d brought with him to take back to the others in room 215.
He heard footsteps behind him. A voice—he recognized it instantly—called out, “Doon!” He turned around, and there was Tick striding toward him, smiling his dazzling smile.
Doon stood up—he’d been squatting to reach for the berries on the lowest vines. “Look what I found,” he said, holding out a handful of berries to
Tick.
Tick took one and popped it into his mouth. His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Terrific!” he said. He took the rest of them from Doon’s palm. “So,” he said, “are you going to save us again?”
“Save us?” said Doon, confused.
“Yes, from starvation. You’re the hero of Ember. It’s about time for you to save us again.”
It flustered Doon to be called a hero. He wasn’t sure if Tick was admiring him or making fun of him. He couldn’t think what to say next.
Tick reached into the thicket and plucked a few berries for himself. “These are good,” he said. “Mind if I take some?”
“They don’t belong to me,” said Doon. “Anyone can have them.”
Tick hunted among the vines for a while, picking berries and popping them into his mouth. Then he said, “You know that building they call the Ark?”
Doon nodded.
“Ever been in it?”
“No,” Doon said. “Just in the separate room at the back. They have books in there—you should see them, there must be thousands.”
Tick didn’t comment on the books. “I went in there the other day,” he said. “They had me carry in a crate of pickled beets. It’s their storehouse, you know. They say they’re short of food. Hah!” Tick gave a laugh that was more like a bark. “That place is full of food.”
“Really?” said Doon.
“Really,” said Tick, tossing three berries into his mouth. “There’s jars of preserved fruit, and sacks of dried fruit, and every kind of pickle, and bags of corn—loads and loads of food. And we get limp carrots for our dinners. I believe there’s a bit of stinginess going on.”
Doon frowned. He thought of his father, looking with dismay last night at the scanty contents of his dinner parcel. He thought about what Ordney had said at lunch the week before: We just don’t have enough for four hundred extra people. Was this untrue after all?
Tick had moved a few steps away and found a patch that was thick with berries. He was picking them rapidly, eating each one. When he spoke, his words sounded a little juicy. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I don’t like unfairness.”
“I don’t, either,” said Doon. He walked over to Tick and offered him the handful of berries he’d just collected. Tick took them all.
“I believe an unfair situation needs to be corrected,” Tick said.
“Corrected how?”
Tick wiped his red-stained fingers on his pants. “Well,” he said, “that’s something we have to figure out.”
We, thought Doon. He liked that. Though he’d stopped taking part so often in Tick’s projects, still he admired Tick’s energy and felt his power. He was glad Tick had sought him out. He was glad that Tick seemed to consider him different from the others, smarter, more important. “You’re right,” he said. “We should do something.”
Tick nodded. “I don’t trust these Sparks people,” he said. “In some ways, they seem very primitive. Do you know that they make fire by hitting two stones together?”
“They do?” Doon hadn’t seen anyone starting a fire, since he was rarely in kitchens. He knew that the fire in the bakery was kept going all the time; he’d seen people going in there sometimes carrying candles that had gone out. “They don’t have matches?” he said.
“Sometimes they do,” said Tick. “But not always. Matches seem to be rare.”
“We should give them some of ours,” said Doon. All the people who’d come out of Ember had the matches that were supplied with the boats. The Emberites had hundreds of matches.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Tick said quickly. “We need them. We have to keep those for ourselves.”
Doon wondered why, when they had so many; but he thought maybe matches figured somehow in Tick’s plans.
“So you’re with me?” said Tick.
“Sure,” said Doon. Then he hesitated. “With you in what?”
“Action,” said Tick. “You took action before, when there was an urgent situation. We may need to take action again pretty soon.”
Doon still didn’t know what Tick had in mind, but he asked no more questions. Tick had a way of letting you know that he’d given all the answers he was going to give. “All right,” Doon said. “I’m with you.”
“Good,” said Tick. He held out his hand, and Doon shook it. Tick grinned and walked away.
Doon watched him lope across the field. For a moment he was lost in his thoughts—food in the storehouse, stinginess, unfairness, figure something out, you’re with me. . . . When he came to himself again and glanced down at his hands, he was startled to see them streaked with blood. Had he scratched himself on the thorns of the vines? It took him a second to realize that what looked like blood was only berry juice, passed to his hand from Tick’s.
Lina made a plan. She’d hide among the boxes and crates on Caspar’s truck, and she would ride that way to the city. It was only a day’s journey away. Surely she’d be able to find a way back. There must be other roamers on the roads.
Of course, she could just ask Caspar if she could go with him. But she was sure he’d say no. He was on some kind of important business. He wouldn’t want to be bothered with her. It was best to go secretly. Once she had seen the city, she would know if it was the place where the people of Ember were destined to live. She was sure she’d know as soon as she saw it. Then she could hop out of the truck and find her way back. Caspar might never see her at all.
The next day, she tore part of a blank page out of one of the doctor’s books and wrote this note:
Dear Mrs. M,
I have gone with Caspar and Maddy on the truck. I will be back in two days or maybe three. There is something important I want to find out. Also I need a change from here. See you soon.
Love, Lina
Her plan was to wait until that night, when Mrs. Murdo was asleep, and tuck the note between the pages of the ancient, crumbling book she had been reading, something called Charlotte’s Web. (She kept urging Lina to look at it, but Lina said she wasn’t that interested in spiders—it would be better for Doon.) Mrs. Murdo read only in the evening, so Lina would have at least a day’s head start before anyone knew where she was.
A few doubts about her plan lurked in the back of Lina’s mind. She knew Mrs. Murdo would worry about her. Poppy would miss her. And Lina didn’t really like Caspar, or trust him, and she knew that he and Maddy would probably be angry if they found that she had come along. It was a bit of a risky journey she was embarking on. But anything truly important involved risks, didn’t it? She had taken a huge risk before, in the last days of Ember, and it had been the right thing to do. So probably this was the right thing, too. She was so sure the city was their destination, and she was so determined to see the city for herself, that she turned her mind away from her doubts. It would be an adventure, she told herself. She would be fine.
She got up before the sun the next morning. She crept out of her bed on the floor one tiny motion at a time. Poppy didn’t stir, nor did Mrs. Murdo in her bed on the couch. In the half darkness, Lina put her clothes on and pulled the pillowcase bag she’d packed the night before from its hiding place in the window seat. She tucked her note between the pages of Mrs. Murdo’s book. Then, carrying her bag, she opened the door so softly it made no noise and went out into the courtyard.
Just beyond the gate, the truck was standing ready. The oxen weren’t attached to it yet; they were down the road, at the barn, to be brought later by the stablehand.
Lina climbed onto the back of the truck. Its metal bottom was gritty with dust and bits of dry grass. It was loaded with four large barrels, two bicycles strapped together, a box full of tubs and buckets, and four big wooden crates made of slats of wood spaced about an inch apart. The crates were taller than Lina and about four feet square—like small rooms, almost. Three of them were full of goods to be sold, but the fourth was empty—its contents had been sold in Sparks. That one would be Lina’s hiding place.
Getting into it
was easy. First she tossed her bag over the side, and then she climbed up the slats as if they were a ladder and jumped down in. The wood was rough and splintery, but she had prepared for that. She’d brought a small blanket from her bed. She spread this on the bottom of the crate and lay down on it, using her bag of supplies as a pillow. She was sure that if she lay very still, no one would see her.
And she was right. An hour or so later—she didn’t know for sure how long, but the sun was now shining through the slats in the crate, and she could feel its warmth on her back—she heard the clatter of the gate latch, and voices. Torren’s first:
“But I’d be helpful!” he said in a tearful, desperate wail. “I would! I know how to tie knots, and I can—”
“Now, that’s enough,” said Caspar. “You’re not coming with us, get it through your hard little head. You’re not old enough. Roaming is a dangerous business, it’s not for children.”
“She gets to go,” Torren said.
“Of course. She’s not a child. She’s my partner.”
Lina felt a jolt as the box holding Caspar’s and Maddy’s belongings was heaved up onto the truck. “Here comes Jo with the oxen, right on time,” said Caspar.
The truck squeaked and trembled as the oxen were hitched to it. Lina heard the gate latch clatter again, and then the doctor’s voice: “When will you be back this way?”
“Not for a while.” The truck slanted as Caspar got on. “Several months, is my guess. We’ve got a big route planned out.”
“You should be taking me!” cried Torren. “You’ll be sorry you didn’t! I’ll tell on you! I’ll tell Uncle!”
Caspar chuckled. “Uncle would not be interested,” he said. “He’s much too busy. Always has been.” There was the crack of a whip. “Goodbye, little brother,” Caspar called, and the truck jolted forward.