Mindy McGinnis: In a Handful of Dust

The door was propped open, and through it Lucy could see Vera bent over her notes, exhaustion dimming the usual brightness of her eyes. “I’m sure,” Vera said quietly.

Lucy knocked hesitantly on the open door. “Uh… are we interrupting?”

Stebbs shook his head. “No. You need to come in here. Both of you. And shut the door behind you.”

Lucy’s trembling hand struggled with the simple hook-and-eye lock. Stebbs was only serious with her when things were dire.

The three adults looked at one another for a moment, the weight of their silence resting on Lucy’s heart more heavily than any words. “What? What is it?”

“Who’s gonna tell him?” Lynn asked, looking to Vera and Stebbs.

“Tell me what?” Carter asked, his hand finding Lucy’s despite the adults seeing.

Vera cleared her throat. “I’ve been looking at my notes, trying to figure out the source of the outbreak. You remember there was a lull, and then we got slammed by more sick than we had in the first wave.”

“Like the brothers and sisters of people who were first sick,” Lucy said slowly. “They were passing it to each other.”

“Except they weren’t,” Vera said. “I thought so too, but then I realized the incubation period was wrong. If the second wave of patients were catching it from their siblings, they would’ve been symptomatic sooner. Instead they weren’t showing up here until their brothers and sisters were better.”

“Or dead,” Lynn added.

“Incubation period?” Carter looked from Vera to Stebbs. “What’s that mean?”

“It’s the time period from when you’re exposed to the virus to when it actually makes you sick. This second wave was getting sick after they came here.”

“So they caught it here,” Lucy said. “No big surprise, this place was crawling with sick.”

Vera shook her head. “No, sweetheart. We made sure there was no contact between the well and the ill. The first rule of keeping a contagion in hand is quarantine.”

“People break rules, Grandma.”

“If it were an isolated case or two, I would agree,” Vera said. “But every person in the second wave had been here. So it had to have been someone carrying it between the two groups.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Carter said, color draining from his face. “It was me, wasn’t it? I must’ve mixed up which canteen I was using for the sick and for the well.”

Lucy felt his fingers go cold in her own. “You wouldn’t do that,” she said, voice hard. “You wouldn’t make a mistake like that.”

Stebbs walked over from his place beside Vera and put a hand on Carter’s shoulder. “It’s best you sit down, son. There’s more to tell.” Stebbs steered him away from Lucy to the empty chair opposite Vera.

“Lucy,” Lynn said. “You come on over here with me now.”

Her body tensed in rebellion, every muscle wanting to follow Carter, but Lynn’s tone left no room for argument, and Lucy joined her against the wall.

“He wouldn’t have done that,” she said vehemently to Lynn. “He’s smarter than that.”

“It wasn’t the water,” said Vera. “Do you remember me telling everyone about the different kinds of polio, and how they affect people?”

“Yeah. Some people are paralyzed, like Adam. Some people only get a fever, and then feel fine. Some die, like my sister,” said Carter.

“And some don’t even know they have it,” Vera said.

Realization dawned on Lucy, her heart collapsing under the weight of what Vera was saying. “No,” she said, the word barely squeezing past her lips. “He is not sick.” Carter’s gaze jumped from Vera to Lucy, his confusion evident.

Vera reached across the table, clasping his hands in her own. “I’m so sorry. I tried to find another answer, but it fits. Your sister was the first, the people who came in after had all interacted with you at some point. The second wave was so perfectly timed, it had to be someone here. You were the one moving between the sick and the well, carrying messages and sharing your water.”

“Can you… Is there any way to tell, to be sure?” Carter asked, his voice stronger than his shaking hands.

“Without a way to look at cells in your blood, no. All I’ve got to go on is timelines and crossed paths,” Vera said.

“So you could be wrong,” Lucy said.

“It’s possible,” Vera admitted, still looking at Carter. “But that would put me back at square one, searching for a source. So I need you to tell me—had you not felt well at any point before Maddy got sick?”

Carter shook his head, his throat too constricted for speech. Stebbs stepped behind him, put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “This is important, son. So think hard, and be honest.”

“No fever? No muscle spasms?” Vera continued.

“No, nothing,” Carter said.

“What about headaches?”

Carter stopped shaking his head and closed his eyes. “Shit,” he said, slowly and quietly, the one syllable damning him. “Yeah. The day we went swimming. I had a blinder, but I went anyway.” He opened his eyes and looked at Lucy. “’Cause I wanted to see you.”

A breath slipped from her hitching chest, and a sob followed it. She tried to go to him, but Lynn’s grip on her arm was like an iron band. She couldn’t offer him comfort when he put his head on the table and sobbed for the death he had brought upon his sister, the racking breaths shaking his frame, his tears soaking Vera’s notes. Vera and Stebbs did what they could, the inoculated surrounding the infected, the innocent watching from the shadows.

“You can’t see him again, Lucy. I’m sorry,” Lynn said.

Lucy sat on her bed in the home she shared with Lynn, her heartbeat a dim echo inside her body. Light flickered across the walls from the oil lamp on Lucy’s nightstand, the flame burning low on the wick. Lynn sat at the foot of the bed.

“I mean it. It’s not games now. I know you’ve snuck out of here once or twice in the past, but you can’t go to him. I won’t let you.”

Lucy nodded absently, her mind still wrapped around the image of Carter sobbing, and Lynn pulling her away from his infected tears.

“What’s going to happen to him?” Lucy asked, her voice thick with hours of crying.

“Can’t say,” Lynn answered. “Your grandma and Stebbs said they’d be by after a while. You can ask your questions then.”

“It’s not fair.”

A wry smile twisted Lynn’s mouth, and she shrugged. “What is?”

Lucy teared up again, fresh salt water burrowing new tracks over her swollen cheeks. Lynn took her hand and squeezed it. “No, it’s not fair, little one. Carter did nothing to deserve getting sick. Knowing that he killed his sister, and brought death and twisted limbs on so many, is a weight to bear.”

“I don’t know if he can take it,” Lucy said, her fear welling into a panic. “What if he—he—”

The specter of suicide, the death her own mother had chosen, wasn’t a stranger in their bleak world.

Lynn shook her head. “I don’t think he’s the type, and I’m not just saying it.”

A heavy knock on the front door reverberated through the house, up to the second floor where they sat. Lynn’s hand shot to her side, and Lucy realized she was wearing her pistol.

“It’s probably your grandma,” Lynn said, her voice tense with other possibilities. “Sit tight.”

Lynn left the room, and Lucy wiped her face on the comforter, scrubbing away the dried salt and fresh tears that had gathered. She heard muffled voices below, recognized Stebbs’ low drone, along with Vera’s comforting tones. Three pairs of footsteps came up the stairs, and Lucy lengthened the wick on the oil lamp. The flame flared and lit Vera’s face as she walked into Lucy’s room, her wrinkles etched more deeply than before, eyes sunk with exhaustion.