Mindy McGinnis - In a Handful of Dust

“There’d only be one way to find out.”‘

“That’s what I was afraid you were going to say.”

“Well, cheer up. They won’t risk losing us—we’ve got wombs,” Lynn said darkly.

“You really think Lander would have one of his own men drink water that could kill them?”

“I think Lander would pour poison down his mother’s throat if it served his purposes.”

The thin bank of clouds moved on and the moon shone into their room, shining brightly on the two women so far from their home. Lucy swallowed hard, fighting back tears.

“Ben says I spoke up too early, that I shouldn’t have told I can witch. He says the men on the road would’ve helped us anyway, on account of us being women, and I was stupid to give away my secret so soon.”

The words tumbled out into the darkness, hot and sticky in her mouth, leaving as much of an aftertaste as the Las Vegas water. “If I hadn’t told, they might not try so hard to keep us here. They’ll never let us go now. Not when I could be the only thing that keeps them from dying.”

“Well, Ben’s a short idiot. Letting us go is one thing and us leaving is another.”

The giggles started in Lucy’s midsection and worked their way upward, erupting only when she pictured the look on Ben’s face if he knew Lynn had called him a short idiot. Lynn glanced over.

“Not a lot to laugh about.”

“No,” Lucy admitted, wiping the last tears from her face. “There’s not. Shit, Lynn, what’re we gonna do?”

“We’re gonna get out of here before I’m pregnant and you’re failing to thrive.”

Lucy did not sleep well. Dreams filled with bloodied sand and dark drops on black pavement kept bringing her back to consciousness to take deep breaths of the fetid hotel air.

“I’m getting up,” she said to Lynn, moments before the sun began to streak the sky pink. Lynn muttered something from the other bed but didn’t stir. She was not the type to sleep in, and her fatigue was a measure of how drained her body still was.

Lucy dressed in clothes Nora had given her, ones that fit better than Ben’s castoffs from when they first arrived. Lucy’s clothes from the road were so choked with bad memories she couldn’t believe the threadbare fabric could hold up under the weight. She slipped out the door and closed it softly behind her, not wanting to steal whatever moments of sleep Lynn might have left before Lander came calling to take her to the roof.

The hallway air was even heavier than in the room, where at least a window could be opened. Lucy exhaled sharply, and a door down the hall opened. Nora stepped out and Lucy called to her, glad to see she wasn’t the only one awake.

“Hey, Nora,” she said as she walked toward her, and the older woman jumped. “Sorry,” Lucy said quickly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s okay,” Nora said, but her hands were shaking as she pulled her hair up off her shoulders into a ponytail. “You couldn’t sleep?”

“Nope.” Lucy glanced into Nora’s room out of curiosity and saw what Ben had promised. Medical books lined the walls on shelves clumsily set at awkward angles, sagging beneath the weight. “You a reader?”

Nora pulled the door shut but smiled at Lucy, motioning for her to follow. “Those aren’t the kinds of books you read to pass the time, little one. What’s in those books keeps me sleepless, like you.”

They walked out of the hotel into the warm morning. A stiff breeze peppered with sand picked at them as they walked toward the indoor gardens. “Not a good day for your mom to be up on the roof,” Nora observed.

“No,” Lucy said, “but Lander will probably take her anyway. She’s a good enough shot to account for the wind and still hit her target.”

They picked up the pace as they passed the sand dunes in front of the garden hotel. The breeze was sculpting intricate tops and tossing the extra sand into their faces. Nora held the door open for Lucy and they stood inside for a moment, listening to the sand hitting the glass windows.

“That’s quite the ability your mom has. I’m surprised she has no problem doling out death, when her own mother was a healer like me.”

Lucy splayed her hand on the glass window and studied it to buy some time as she made up a lie. “My grandma was trained in the city as a doctor, but when she had to leave, Lynn learned a harder way of life.”

“And which one do you take after?”

“I don’t know enough about myself to know,” Lucy said honestly. “I guess I could kill if I had to, but Lynn’s made sure I haven’t had to.”

Nora spread her own hand on the glass next to Lucy’s, equally small but with wrinkled skin. “I think you’ve got potential as a healer. You have small hands and a quick, gentle touch. Your mom said you were helping your grandmother back home when polio went through.”

“Yeah.” Lucy pulled her hand away from the warm glass, a sudden vision of familiar faces contorted with pain filling her mind. “My best friend was the first one to go.”

Nora touched her arm, her hand warm and sure. “I’m sorry.”

Lucy watched the pattern of her hand fading from the window, the tiny amount of moisture she’d left behind evaporating quickly on the hot glass.

“Ben said you know a lot about water sicknesses, that you gathered up those books and learned all you could. Is polio something you know a lot about?”

“I do, yes.” Nora smiled at her. “Is that the first thing you would like to learn about? The illness that drove you from home?”

“Definitely,” Lucy said, smiling back despite the nervous churning of her stomach. “I was wondering about something in particular. I know someone can have polio and not show any symptoms, but still pass it on to other people, right?”

Nora nodded. “Yes, they’re called carriers.”

Lucy’s words came out in a rush, the miles of road in between her and Carter insignificant in her mind if she could deliver him from the hell of loneliness. “So will that person always have polio? Can they continue to infect people until they’re dead?”

“No,” Nora said automatically, and Lucy’s heart leapt in her chest. “The carrier’s body will pass the virus out within a few weeks. They’d definitely need to be quarantined for a while and monitored, but after enough time, the carrier would pose no more danger.”

Lucy shut her eyes against the pounding heat of the lobby, her heart beating in her chest so loudly, she wondered if Nora could hear it.

“Morning, ladies.” Lander’s voice bounced off the glass in front of them to reverberate back through Lucy’s bones, reminding her there was still a game to be played, and with more consequences now than ever.

She turned with a smile. “Good morning.”

Witching with Ben was more tedious than ever, now that Lucy knew she would never benefit from the wells she was marking. Fletcher’s warning about dragging Lynn back over the mountains echoed in her mind, drowning out Ben’s complaints about the blowing sand. With each quiver of the stick Ben drove a flag, and Lucy didn’t stop him even when she was well aware it was the quickness of her own pulse and not the call of water.

“Can we be done already?” Ben whined. “This sand is getting everywhere, and I mean everywhere.” He pulled the band of his pants away from his stomach to illustrate his point.

“Don’t forget this stick still wants to hit you,” Lucy teased, her spirits high enough to put up with Ben’s misguided humor.

He was concocting a smart remark when Lucy spotted a flash of light over his shoulder. “What’s a car doing out there?” Lucy framed her hands around her eyes to keep the sand out and squinted. “The highway’s the other direction.”