what you imagine camp is like, isn’t it? Me too. The words that pop to mind are “idyllic,” “frolicsome,” “middle-of-the-night-giggles” (I know, I know, not a word, more a phrase, but you get my point). Happiness of the unfettered sort.
I want you to close your eyes and take your giant mental eraser and erase all those images. Can you do it? I know asking you to rid yourself of certain thoughts is almost as good as asking you to think those thoughts obsessively (whatever you do, don’t think of pink elephants!), but do your best.
Because here’s the thing: Your ideas of What Camp Is won’t work for this story, sorry to say. The camp we’re about to enter is of a different sort. It’s a camp where children are doing their best to survive without their parents, the whole time fearful of a witch popping out of nowhere to carry them off and eat them for supper. To say that the littlest children have constant stomachaches would be an understatement.
Under the best of circumstances, the Greenan camp wasn’t a wildly happy place, but because it was a camp filled with children, all was not gloom and doom. The Greenan camp was known especially for its three rope swings tied to trees at the edge of the creek, and on warm days the children flew over the water, shrieking and squealing, little sisters ignoringtheir big sisters’ warnings, the tallest boys climbing as close to the tops of the ropes as they could.
And so it had been at the beginning of the witch’s season, when the children had started to make their way into the camp, first in a trickle, then in a great stream of chatter and commotion. But two days before Isabelle first met Hen on the path to Corrin, a girl named Lanny entered the Greenan camp feeling dizzy and slightly out of sorts. She was ten, and normally the picture of health, and on this particular day she couldn’t figure out why she felt so strange. Had the witch cast a spell on her? Or was it just the fear racing around her heart that caused the white dots to appear in front of her eyes?
No, not the witch, not the fear. It was influenza the girl carried with her into the camp, and it caused her to wobble on her feet and grab at branches to keep from falling. Within a day, half the children had caught it, and the other half were left to care for them. But how? Damp cloths on the forehead. Creek water boiled in a pot and dripped down their throats.
You know and I know those remedies couldn’t possibly work against the flu. Nothing worked. And every day more children got sick, and so there were fewer children to act as nurses and gather food and keep the fires going.
And then one day somebody came. They had been praying for this, the children who still had their wits about them, who weren’t roiling and writhing with fever and chills. They had been hoping for more than a week that somebody would come. Somebody who could save them.
And now, finally, they were here.
34
Isabelle felt it even before they walked into the camp. Not just felt it, but knew it, as in: A little piece of knowledge had somehow knit itself into her bones. She knew that they shouldn’t go in there. Something was wrong.
Rat Face agreed. “Smells funny,” he said at the edge of the clearing, from where they could see makeshift tents here and there, but not one single child. “Smells the way it did when Uncle Seth died. Like fever and rot.”
Hen turned pale. “The little ones are in there,” she said in a shaky voice. “Sugar, Artemis, Jacob, all of ‘em.”
“Then in we go.” Samuel put a reassuring handon Hen’s shoulder. “We’ll find your little ones first, and then see what’s to be seen about the others.”
“Yes, we must find them,” Hen agreed. She rubbed her hands hard against her arms, as though she were cold. “Oh, but won’t Mam be after me if a single hair of their heads is out of place!”
“What if they’re ill?” Rat Face moved so that he was blocking the way into the
I want you to close your eyes and take your giant mental eraser and erase all those images. Can you do it? I know asking you to rid yourself of certain thoughts is almost as good as asking you to think those thoughts obsessively (whatever you do, don’t think of pink elephants!), but do your best.
Because here’s the thing: Your ideas of What Camp Is won’t work for this story, sorry to say. The camp we’re about to enter is of a different sort. It’s a camp where children are doing their best to survive without their parents, the whole time fearful of a witch popping out of nowhere to carry them off and eat them for supper. To say that the littlest children have constant stomachaches would be an understatement.
Under the best of circumstances, the Greenan camp wasn’t a wildly happy place, but because it was a camp filled with children, all was not gloom and doom. The Greenan camp was known especially for its three rope swings tied to trees at the edge of the creek, and on warm days the children flew over the water, shrieking and squealing, little sisters ignoringtheir big sisters’ warnings, the tallest boys climbing as close to the tops of the ropes as they could.
And so it had been at the beginning of the witch’s season, when the children had started to make their way into the camp, first in a trickle, then in a great stream of chatter and commotion. But two days before Isabelle first met Hen on the path to Corrin, a girl named Lanny entered the Greenan camp feeling dizzy and slightly out of sorts. She was ten, and normally the picture of health, and on this particular day she couldn’t figure out why she felt so strange. Had the witch cast a spell on her? Or was it just the fear racing around her heart that caused the white dots to appear in front of her eyes?
No, not the witch, not the fear. It was influenza the girl carried with her into the camp, and it caused her to wobble on her feet and grab at branches to keep from falling. Within a day, half the children had caught it, and the other half were left to care for them. But how? Damp cloths on the forehead. Creek water boiled in a pot and dripped down their throats.
You know and I know those remedies couldn’t possibly work against the flu. Nothing worked. And every day more children got sick, and so there were fewer children to act as nurses and gather food and keep the fires going.
And then one day somebody came. They had been praying for this, the children who still had their wits about them, who weren’t roiling and writhing with fever and chills. They had been hoping for more than a week that somebody would come. Somebody who could save them.
And now, finally, they were here.
34
Isabelle felt it even before they walked into the camp. Not just felt it, but knew it, as in: A little piece of knowledge had somehow knit itself into her bones. She knew that they shouldn’t go in there. Something was wrong.
Rat Face agreed. “Smells funny,” he said at the edge of the clearing, from where they could see makeshift tents here and there, but not one single child. “Smells the way it did when Uncle Seth died. Like fever and rot.”
Hen turned pale. “The little ones are in there,” she said in a shaky voice. “Sugar, Artemis, Jacob, all of ‘em.”
“Then in we go.” Samuel put a reassuring handon Hen’s shoulder. “We’ll find your little ones first, and then see what’s to be seen about the others.”
“Yes, we must find them,” Hen agreed. She rubbed her hands hard against her arms, as though she were cold. “Oh, but won’t Mam be after me if a single hair of their heads is out of place!”
“What if they’re ill?” Rat Face moved so that he was blocking the way into the
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