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When the screaming started, it was hard to recognize at first. The panicked yells came from somewhere beyond me. As I broke the surface, Beatrice’s voice filled the air, squeezing all the breath from my body. “Let me through,” she called, pushing past some of the girls.
I scanned the water’s edge for Benny and Silas. They weren’t where I’d last seen them. Sometimes they perched on a rock several yards out, but they weren’t there. It took me awhile before I noticed them, by the opposite shore, clinging to the remnants of the broken dock. They stared back at me, as confused as I was but perfectly safe.
It was then that I saw what Beatrice had seen. She pushed past a few of the girls until she got to Pip, who was submerged in the water. She’d fallen back in the shallows, her hair floating up around her head. Her eyes were unfocused. Beatrice reached down, tucking her hands beneath Pip’s arms, trying to pull her toward the shore. As she turned, calling to me, I noticed her clothes were stained. A cloud of blood had spread out in the water. It surrounded them, coloring everything red.
I swam as fast as I could, not stopping until I was there, Pip’s hand resting in my own. The skin beneath her nails was a dull gray. “Stay awake,” I said, squeezing the blood back into her fingers, as if that could revive her. “You have to stay awake. ”
Ruby rushed forward, grabbing her side, trying to hoist her up. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” I looked into the dark water, unable to see our feet. Pip was bleeding so much. It was everywhere, running down her legs, clouding the water around us. By the time we got her to the beach she’d lost consciousness, her body heavy and limp.
The girls ran from the lake, huddling around us, so close I could hear each one of their choked breaths. “Take them inside,” I called to Clara, as a few of them began to cry.
“Is she dying?” Sarah asked. Clara pulled her up the shore, hurrying the rest of the girls along. Her question became my own. I knelt beside Pip, pressing my fingers against her cheek, feeling the coolness of her skin. Her face had no color in it. Her arms were beaded with pale pink water.
The blood kept coming, pooling black beneath her. It seeped into the sand. As Beatrice leaned over, breathing breath into her body, I smoothed back her hair. I kept doing that, gently touching the soft curls around her forehead, as if that simple gesture could keep her alive.
THE NEXT MORNING I PICKED THE PEBBLES OUT OF THE DIRT, collecting them methodically, careful not to miss any. After I dropped the last one in the bowl, I just sat there, staring at the freshly turned earth. The trees moved above, shifting, giving in to the wind. I found myself making lists of things to do and then carrying them out. Had I cleared the ground of any remnants of the funeral? Did I have the last of the flowers the girls had placed down? Was the dirt level, the grave hidden enough so no one would notice it? These small details were the only things that calmed me.
The grave had been dug past three feet. Beatrice knew the measurement from the burials during the plague—too deep for anyone to notice or disturb the remains. We’d picked the white birch by the edge of the forest, burying her there, just beyond the roots, so I’d always know the place. I’d been the one to prepare her body, washing the dirt and blood from her skin, untangling her hair. I’d wrapped her in one of the blankets from the dugout, a soft gray quilt, the pink embroidering intact. Ruby said something to honor her. It had felt wrong not to, even though we all kept lapsing into silence. The hours had rushed past me, the small, quiet funeral. Her death. I couldn’t keep pace. I picked a stray flower petal off the ground and crushed it between my fingers, satisfied when it broke apart.
Beatrice believed she’d been sick for some time, that she was bleeding internally. The blood had come on fast. It had sunk into the sand, staining the beach. I could still see it now, though Clara had tried to wash it away. A dark spot spread out by the edge of the water, the rocks a reddish black.
I felt different than I had when Caleb died. The pain didn’t rip through me. I didn’t cry once during the ceremony. I just sat there, listening to Ruby’s words somewhere outside me, feeling completely removed, as if I were floating somewhere above the group. I kept tracing things back as far as I could. I went to the day I’d visited her at School, wondering if it would have made a difference if she’d escaped then. When was it that she grew so sick? How had I missed what was happening? She’d complained of exhaustion, but nothing more.
Somewhere behind me a twig snapped. I turned to see Clara stepping through the trees. “It’s time, Eve,” she said. “The horses are ready. If we leave now, we could set up camp before the sun goes down. ”
The ground in front of me was patted down, the pebbles that lined the grave now collected in a neat pile. I moved some of the undergrowth over the soil. Clara stooped down to help. We both spread out the dry leaves and twigs, shifting them around until all the fresh earth was covered. As we started back up the hill, I turned back one last time, looking at that spot below the birch tree. All signs of the funeral, and Pip, were gone.
Twenty-five
IT TOOK US THREE DAYS TO REACH MARIN. WE’D DECIDED TO approach it from the north, avoiding the city, in case any soldiers were passing through. When we were just a quarter mile out, Clara took off across the moss-covered road, her head down, the reins clasped in her hands. The spotted mare she’d ridden in on was calm as she urged it around the abandoned cars, the fallen trees, and trash bags, deflated and broken on the curb. They were moving so fast, nearly at a full gallop, her hair blown back by the wind.
“She’s going to do it,” Benny whispered behind me. He kept his hands on the sides of the horse to keep his balance. “She’s going to jump. ”
I watched the road ahead, where the pavement was obscured by a mangled heap of garbage—plastic bags spilling out clothing, others filled with worn toys or papers. Warped wooden planks were scattered across the road. Clara was racing straight at it, her shoulders down, eyes locked ahead.
The horse lifted off, jumping the massive heap, its coat reflecting the midday light. Helene started clapping, and a few of the other girls joined in. “Did you see that?” Benny asked. He kept nudging me in the back, pointing at Clara, who was already circling back to us. She paused at the side of the road, where Ruby was standing, and helped her back onto the horse. She smiled at me as she threw the packs over the horse’s bare rump. I knew she was trying to lift the mood, to celebrate our arrival in the little ways she could.
The days had passed in silence. At night, when we camped, the conversation always found its way back to Pip. Benny and Silas seemed to accept her death in a way the rest of us couldn’t. Benny’s brother Paul had been killed in a nearby ravine two years before, and it seemed to them some unavoidable part of life in the wild. But the girls wanted to know the details of how Pip had died, how long she’d been in the building at School, if she was sick or if this were something that no one could prevent. I was still puzzling through the answers on my own, and it felt strange to talk about her death out loud. To discuss Pip, this friend I’d known since I was six, with relative strangers. To say she was, she did, she used to—all in the past tense.
Clara called out to the girls as she started ahead, seeming satisfied that they were smiling now. She had led us most of the way. As we kept on down the roads, mile upon mile, it was hard to do anything except follow behind. I listened to the dull, hypnotic sounds of the hooves on pavement. I thought of Arden and the last day I’d seen her, when I’d given her the key. It was possible she’d been inside the City during the siege. I tried to push down the possibility that kept resurfacing, the lingering feeling that she too was dead. She could’ve been one of the rebels who’d been found and executed. There was no way for me to know now, with so little word from the Trail. There was a chance I would never know.