Mrs Fox has shrunk down nearly as far as I have.
Corinne glances at her and back at me, then she straightens her cap and tugs the lapels on her cloak, stretching out her neck from right to left. She closes her eyes and lets out a long, long breath.
Without looking at me, she says, “Try it again.”
“The difference between a clinic and a house of healing?” Mistress Coyle asks, ticking off boxes on a sheet.
“The main difference is that clinics are run by male doctors, houses of healing by female healers,” I recite, as I count out the day’s pills into separate little cups for each patient.
“And why is that?”
“So that a patient, male or female, can have a choice between knowing the thoughts of their doctor or not.”
She raises an eyebrow. “And the real reason?”
“Politics,” I say, returning her word.
“Correct.” She finishes the paperwork and hands it to me. “Take these and the medicines to Madeleine, please.”
She leaves and I finish filling up the tray of medicines. When I come out with it in my hands, I see Mistress Coyle down at the end of the hallway, passing by Mistress Nadari.
And I swear I see her slip Mistress Nadari a note, without either of them pausing.
We can still only go out for an hour at a time, still only in groups of four, but that’s enough to see how New Prentisstown is putting itself together. As my first week as an apprentice comes to an end, we hear tell that some women are even being sent out into fields to work in women-only groups.
We hear tell that the Spackle are being kept somewhere on the edge of town, all together as one group, awaiting “processing”, whatever that might mean.
We hear tell the old Mayor is working as a dustman.
We hear nothing about a boy.
“I missed his birthday,” I tell Maddy, as I practise tying bandages around a rubber leg so ridiculously realistic everyone calls it Ruby. “It was four days ago. I lost track of how long I was asleep and–”
I can’t say any more, just pull the bandage tight–
And think of when he put a bandage on me–
And when I put bandages on him.
“I’m sure he’s fine, Vi,” Maddy says.
“No, you’re not.”
“No,” she says, looking back out the window to the road, “but against all odds the city’s not at war. Against all odds, we’re still alive and still working. So, against all odds, Todd could be alive and well.”
I pull tighter on the bandage. “Do you know anything about a blue A?”
She turns to me. “A what?”
I shrug. “Something I saw in Mistress Coyle’s notebook.”
“No idea.” She looks back out the window.
“What are you looking for?”
“I’m counting soldiers,” she says. She looks back again at me and Ruby. “It’s a good bandage.” Her smile makes it almost seem true.
I head down the main hallway, Ruby kicking from one hand. I have to practise injecting shots into her thigh. I already feel sorry for the poor woman whose thigh gets my first real jab.
I come round a corner as the hallway reaches the centre of the building, where it turns ninety degrees down the other wing, and I nearly collide with a group of mistresses, who stop when they see me.
Mistress Coyle and four, five, six other healers behind her. I recognize Mistress Nadari and Mistress Waggoner, and there’s Mistress Lawson, too, but I’ve never seen the other three before and didn’t even see them come into the house of healing.
“Have you no work, my girl?” Mistress Coyle says, some edge in her voice.
“Ruby,” I stammer, holding out the leg.
“Is this her?” asks one of the healers I don’t recognize.
Mistress Coyle doesn’t introduce me.
She just says, “Yes, this is the girl.”
I have to wait all day to see Maddy again, but before I can ask her about it, she says, “I’ve figured it out.”
“Did one of them have a scar on her upper lip?” Maddy whispers in the dark. It’s well past midnight, well past lights out, well past when she should be in her own room.
“I think so,” I whisper back. “They left really quickly.”
We watch another pair of soldiers march down the road. By Maddy’s reckoning, we’ve got three minutes.
“That would have been Mistress Barker,” she says. “Which means the others were probably Mistress Braithwaite and Mistress Forth.” She looks back out the window. “This is crazy, you know. If she catches us, we’ll get it good.”
“I hardly think she’s going to fire you under the circumstances.”
Her face goes thoughtful. “Did you hear what the mistresses were saying?”
“No, they shut up the second they saw me.”
“But you were the girl?”
“Yeah,” I say. “And Mistress Coyle avoided me the rest of today.”
“Mistress Barker . . .” Maddy says, still thinking. “But how could that accomplish anything?”
“How could what accomplish what?”
“Those three were on the Council with Mistress Coyle. Mistress Barker still is. Or was, before all this. But why would they be–” She stops and leans closer to the window. “That’s the last foursome.”
I look out and see four soldiers marching up the road.
If the pattern Maddy’s spotted is right, the time is now.
If the pattern’s right.
“You ready?” I whisper.
“Of course I’m not ready,” Maddy says, with a terrified smile. “But I’m going.”
I see how she’s flexing her hands to keep them from shaking. “We’re just going to look,” I say. “That’s all. Out and back again before you know it.”
Maddy still looks terrified but nods her head. “I’ve never done anything like this before in my whole life.”
“Don’t worry,” I say, lifting the sash on my window all the way up. “I’m an expert.”
The ROAR of the town, even when it’s sleeping, covers our footsteps pretty well as we sneak across the dark lawn. The only light is from the two moons, shining down on us, half-circles in the sky.
We make it to the ditch at the side of the road, crouching in the bushes.