کتاب 06-08

8

Harper drew the black thread through Ben’s cheek. He shut his eyes, screwing his face up in pain. She gave the line a sharp yank to make him look at her.

“Did you hear her?” Harper whispered. Her heart was still whacking away in her chest. “Ben. Did you hear the crazy coming out of her?”

Ben sat on her cot. They were in the ward, away from the others, no one else in immediate earshot except Father Storey and Nick, and neither of them was listening.

Outside the windows, ranks of icicles dripped bright water in the milky glow of the sun. Ben drew a thin, whistling breath.

“Nurse? Do you think you could please leave my face on my skull? I’m kind of attached to it.”

She hissed: “I can’t promise anyone I can keep Father Storey alive. I can’t promise to save him. I want to know what you’re going to do if he dies. Are you going to be the one who pulls my baby out of my arms?”

“No! No. I wouldn’t take your kid from you, Harper,” he whispered back. “But I’m sure there are plenty of people who would, if Carol told them it had to be done. Jamie Close. Norma Heald.”

“And you’d just stand by and let it happen?”

A shadow moved across the curtain between the ward and the waiting room. Carol? Allie?

Ben took a deep breath and when he spoke again, his voice was raised so he could be heard in the next room, and probably halfway to the cafeteria. “Almost everyone in this camp has been taken from someone. Almost everyone is an orphan in some way. Your baby would fit right in. I wouldn’t like to see it happen, but there’s a lot of things I’ve had to live with that I didn’t like. I’m sure I could manage one more. What I won’t do is bargain in secret with you, or be part of a whispering campaign against Mother Carol. People who are whispering aren’t in harmony with the rest of the camp, and the only way we’ll survive is if we all speak with one—”

“Oh, give it a fucking rest,” Harper told him and poked him in the face with the needle to give him a stitch he didn’t really need.