Yellow when there’s been a delay. So what does red mean?”
For a moment I see fear flashing in Hunter’s eyes, and suddenly I am cold again.
“Red means run,” he says.
The relocation will soon begin in earnest. We will move everyone, the whole homestead, south. It is an enormous undertaking, and Raven and Tack spend hours planning, debating, arguing. It is not the first time they have orchestrated a relocation, but I gather that the moves have been hard and dangerous, and Raven considers them both failures.
But spending the winters up north has been even harder, and proved even more fatal, and so we will go. Raven insists that this time there will be no mortalities. Everyone who leaves the homestead will arrive safely at our destination.
“You can’t guarantee that,” I hear Tack say to her one night. It’s late, and I’ve been startled awake by the sounds of retching from the sickroom. It’s Lu’s turn.
I’ve slipped out of bed and started toward the kitchen for water when I realize Tack and Raven are still there, illuminated by the low, smoldering glow from the fire. The kitchen is murky, filled with wood smoke.
I pause in the hallway.
“Everyone stays alive,” Raven says stubbornly, and her voice trembles a little.
Tack sighs. He sounds tired—and something else, too. Gentle. Concerned. I’ve come to think of Tack as a dog: all bite and snarl. No softness to him at all.
“You can’t save everybody, Rae,” he says.
“I can try,” she says.
I go back to my room without the water, drawing my blankets all the way up to my chin. The air is full of shadows, shifting shapes I can’t identify.
There will be two main issues once we leave the homestead: food and shelter. There are other camps, other groups of Invalids, farther south, but settlements are few and separated by large expanses of open land. The northern Wilds are unforgiving in the fall and winter: hard and brittle and barren, full of hungry animals.
Over the years, traveling Invalids have mapped out a route: They have marked the trees with a system of gouges and slashes, to indicate the easiest path south.
Next week, groups of homesteaders—scouts—will leave on preliminary expeditions. Six will trek to our next big camp, which is eighty miles south, carting food and supplies in backpacks strapped to their bodies. When they reach camp, they will bury half the food in the ground, so it will not be consumed by animals, and mark the place of burial with a group of stones. Two will return to the homestead; the other four will go on another sixty miles, where they will bury half of what remains. Two of the four will then return to the homestead.
The fifth scout will wait there while the last scout pushes a final forty miles, equipped with the remaining portion of food. They will return to the homestead together, trapping and foraging what they can. By then we will have made all the arrangements and finished packing up.
When I ask Raven why the camps get closer and closer together as they wind southward, she barely glances up from what she’s doing.
“You’ll see,” she says shortly. Her hair is plaited into dozens of small braids—Blue’s work—and Raven has fixed golden leaves and dried red baneberries, which are poisonous, at their ends.
“Isn’t it better to go as far as we can every day?” I press. Even the third camp is a hundred miles from our final destination, although as we move south we’ll find other homesteads, better trapping, and people to share their food and shelter with us.
Raven sighs. “We’ll be weak by then,” she says, finally straightening up to look at me. “Cold. Hungry. It will probably be snowing. The Wilds suck the life out of you, I’m telling you. It’s not like going on one of your little morning runs. You can’t just keep pushing. I’ve seen—” She breaks off, shaking her head, as though to dislodge a memory. “We have to be very careful,” she finishes.
I’m so offended I
For a moment I see fear flashing in Hunter’s eyes, and suddenly I am cold again.
“Red means run,” he says.
The relocation will soon begin in earnest. We will move everyone, the whole homestead, south. It is an enormous undertaking, and Raven and Tack spend hours planning, debating, arguing. It is not the first time they have orchestrated a relocation, but I gather that the moves have been hard and dangerous, and Raven considers them both failures.
But spending the winters up north has been even harder, and proved even more fatal, and so we will go. Raven insists that this time there will be no mortalities. Everyone who leaves the homestead will arrive safely at our destination.
“You can’t guarantee that,” I hear Tack say to her one night. It’s late, and I’ve been startled awake by the sounds of retching from the sickroom. It’s Lu’s turn.
I’ve slipped out of bed and started toward the kitchen for water when I realize Tack and Raven are still there, illuminated by the low, smoldering glow from the fire. The kitchen is murky, filled with wood smoke.
I pause in the hallway.
“Everyone stays alive,” Raven says stubbornly, and her voice trembles a little.
Tack sighs. He sounds tired—and something else, too. Gentle. Concerned. I’ve come to think of Tack as a dog: all bite and snarl. No softness to him at all.
“You can’t save everybody, Rae,” he says.
“I can try,” she says.
I go back to my room without the water, drawing my blankets all the way up to my chin. The air is full of shadows, shifting shapes I can’t identify.
There will be two main issues once we leave the homestead: food and shelter. There are other camps, other groups of Invalids, farther south, but settlements are few and separated by large expanses of open land. The northern Wilds are unforgiving in the fall and winter: hard and brittle and barren, full of hungry animals.
Over the years, traveling Invalids have mapped out a route: They have marked the trees with a system of gouges and slashes, to indicate the easiest path south.
Next week, groups of homesteaders—scouts—will leave on preliminary expeditions. Six will trek to our next big camp, which is eighty miles south, carting food and supplies in backpacks strapped to their bodies. When they reach camp, they will bury half the food in the ground, so it will not be consumed by animals, and mark the place of burial with a group of stones. Two will return to the homestead; the other four will go on another sixty miles, where they will bury half of what remains. Two of the four will then return to the homestead.
The fifth scout will wait there while the last scout pushes a final forty miles, equipped with the remaining portion of food. They will return to the homestead together, trapping and foraging what they can. By then we will have made all the arrangements and finished packing up.
When I ask Raven why the camps get closer and closer together as they wind southward, she barely glances up from what she’s doing.
“You’ll see,” she says shortly. Her hair is plaited into dozens of small braids—Blue’s work—and Raven has fixed golden leaves and dried red baneberries, which are poisonous, at their ends.
“Isn’t it better to go as far as we can every day?” I press. Even the third camp is a hundred miles from our final destination, although as we move south we’ll find other homesteads, better trapping, and people to share their food and shelter with us.
Raven sighs. “We’ll be weak by then,” she says, finally straightening up to look at me. “Cold. Hungry. It will probably be snowing. The Wilds suck the life out of you, I’m telling you. It’s not like going on one of your little morning runs. You can’t just keep pushing. I’ve seen—” She breaks off, shaking her head, as though to dislodge a memory. “We have to be very careful,” she finishes.
I’m so offended I
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