I navigate my way back to the top of the lane. I don’t want to be caught by the scavengers. I hear a whistle and turn to see Amon waving me over to a cross street. I run over and give him a hug.
“Are you okay? Where’s Clove?” I ask.
“Safe. With Dodger. Over there,” he says. He points down the alley. Clove and Dodger are sitting in a doorway. We walk over and I give Clove a big hug.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“We’re fine” she answers. “Amon saw the scavengers coming and pulled me down this street. He said we should stay put and you’d find us.”
“And I was right,” Amon says.
“Did they see you?” I ask Amon.
“No, I saw them coming before they saw me.” He smiles.
“Benefit of being tall?” I laugh.
“I see things first!” he says.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say. I touch my hand to my pocket and feel the shilling. We can buy food today.
We walk through the streets toward the bakery. When we arrive, I order bread for us. I quietly take the bottle out of my pocket and sprinkle Thieves Oil over our hands before we eat. We stand in front of the bakery and devour the bread in bliss.
“That was so good,” Clove declares when she is done. “Thank you, Rose.”
“Thanks, Rose,” Amon adds.
“You are welcome,” I say. A wave of sadness sweeps over me.
Did I see Lem at the Rag Fair? I miss him. What happened to my brother?
“I’m done,” Amon announces wiping his mouth.
“Can we go to the docks?” Clove asks.
I nod my head in agreement. It is best to keep moving. Put distance between ourselves and the scavengers. The crowds. The Plague.
We cross my old neighborhood and head toward the docks. Ahead of us is another crowd of people. At first, I worry they might be scavengers and I put my hand across Amon to slow his walk, but on second look, I see they are not scavengers, they’re townspeople.
I wonder what’s happening for there to be such a gathering in the middle of the street. But I cannot leave Clove and Amon again, so I take each of their hands and lead them toward the group.
As we approach, I stop dead in my tracks.
I see the man in the crow’s costume walking out of a house. There is a city official and a watchman standing outside the house as well. A house with a red cross on it. A plague house.
The crow-man closes the wooden door of the house and gives a silent nod to the watchman. Some sort of a judgment has been made. The crow-man walks through the crowd, tapping his cane on the ground with each of his steps. The crowd splits in two to let him go by. As he passes us, I sense him looking right at me through the glass eyes in his costume. I lower my head, instinctively, hoping he doesn’t recognize me from before. He slows and stops in front of me.
“You,” he says in a muffled voice behind his mask.
Suddenly, there is a scream in the crowd.
“It’s the Plague Doctor!”
Then, there are whispers …
“Shhh … the Plague Doctor.”
“God help us … it’s the Plague Doctor.”
Is this the Plague Doctor? I wonder. Elizabeth said a Plague Doctor examined her at the pesthouse. This was the man-in-costume who followed me after I robbed a plague house.
Just then, the watchman yells, “Attention!” The crowd silences at once.
The Plague Doctor is also startled into action at the yell. He turns and continues walking briskly through the street, as if he has somewhere very pressing to go.
“Thank you,” says a flustered city official. He holds a letter in his hand. He reads aloud: “The plague houses will be sealed to ensure quarantine.”
“What’s he talking about?” asks the man beside me.
The crowd breaks into whispers and questions. No one understands what is happening. Confusion infused with fear fills the crowd. The watchman takes a hammer and nails from his pocket. He walks up to the door with the painted red cross and begins nailing the door shut.
“What do you think you’re doing?” yells one man.
I can see faces in the front window of the plague house, looking out at us. A man, a woman, two boys, and a baby. A family. The man and boys look feverish and have sores on their faces. The mother and baby look tired but well. The family looks at the crowd; they have fear in their eyes.
“He’s nailing their door shut,” a lady says loudly. She points accusingly at the watchman.
With each nail hit into place, the crowd grows louder. Angrier.
There are opposing views of what’s happening in the crowd.
“You can’t seal them in! You can’t do that!”
“Seal them in!”
“How are they going to get food?”
“You can’t nail their door shut!”
“Put more nails! No one wants to catch the Plague from them.”
“Who will take care of them?”
“Seal in the Plague!”
Screams and threats spew from the crowd. There are people on the side for sealing them in and people against it. I can feel the tension rise. Men around me start throwing punches and fighting each other. Women quickly walk away from what looks to be the beginning of a riot. Some men pick up rocks from the ground and throw them at the watchman. Other men take out knives from their pockets, ready for blood. It turns into a proper brawl.
I can hear whistles in the distance. Punches are thrown. Blood is spilt. Men stagger and fall. It is not like anything I have ever experienced. It is war on our streets.
I pull Amon and Clove along to get away. Dodger scurries ahead of us. He looks back now and again to ensure we are following. I notice Cal out of the corner of my eye. He is fighting with a man, but it looks like he is losing.
I put Clove’s hand into Amon’s.
“Keep walking forward,” I instruct him.
“But Rose —” he says.
“Do as I say,” I order.
I walk up to the man fighting Cal. I have no weapons. For a brief moment, I wish I had bought a pocketknife from the boy at the Rag Fair. Not that I would know how to stab a man. Or that I ever could. But it would be a weapon in my hand.
Without thinking, I clench my fists and hit the man’s back with both my hands. It is enough to distract him. Cal throws a solid punch and hits the man square in his jaw. The man falls to his knees.
“This way,” Cal commands and motions for me to follow him toward the crowd.
“No, this way,” I say, waving him in the opposite direction. Away from the fight.
I point and he sees giant Amon ahead of us.
I grab Cal’s arm and pull him with me. Down the street. When we finally break through the last line of the mob, we quicken our pace to a straight-out run.
“Run,” I yell to Amon, Clove, Cal, and Dodger.
We run to the end of the neighborhood.
“This way,” Cal commands, taking the lead. He looks back to ensure that I … that we … are following him.
Cal motions us to turn a corner. We stop at an abandoned store. Cal leads us up to the side of the store. We are all out of breath. Hearts racing. He looks up and down the street to ensure no one is looking. Then, knowing we are safe, he expertly pops open the window and hops in with one sweeping jump. He leans back through the open window to us.
“Come on,” he instructs.
Big Amon lifts Clove through the window to Cal’s open arms. Then, me. Then, Amon picks up Dodger and hands him to Cal. Then, Amon very ungracefully hoists himself in. The store is empty. Cal gestures for us to go behind the counter out of sight and sit down.
“Everybody okay?” Cal asks.
We all nod. We are okay.
“Thanks for saving me back there,” Cal says reluctantly.
“Welcome,” I reply. I silently kick myself for jumping into a fight to help Cal. What was I doing? Why would I risk myself for him? What a stupid thing to do.
I look around the abandoned store. There are many long wooden shelves, but they are all empty. The counter goes around the walls in a U-shape. Perhaps this was once a general store.
“Where’s Cinn?” I ask, realizing he is missing.
“Is Cinn fighting too?” Clove asks with concern.
“No, no. Cinn is nowhere near the fight,” Cal says. “Don’t worry. He went to look at the Bills of Mortality this morning. I expect he’s still there,” Cal says.
“Where’d Cinn go?” Amon asks in confusion. I’m confused too, but I don’t let Cal see that.
“What are the Bills of Mortality?” I ask.
As if Cal is reading my mind, he explains. “It’s a list. The number of deaths for the week. It tells you how many people died of falling, how many people died of fever, how many died of leaving a candle burning and setting their house on fire … And how many died of the Plague.”
“Who keeps numbers like that?” I ask.
“The City of London,” Cal answers. He whispers to me, “The numbers are going up. More and more people are dying from the Plague.”
“Is that why they were sealing that family in the house? To keep the Plague in?” I ask.
“Probably,” he says.
“But they weren’t all sick,” I say. “The mother and baby looked healthy.”
“If one person in the family has it, I guess they expect they all carry it. Being sealed in together means they will definitely all get it eventually. I guess the city hopes that if they seal the Plague in the illness might die … with the families who die.”
“Hasn’t anyone created a cure yet?” I say.
“Not that I know of,” Cal says, suspiciously. “You don’t happen to know of anything that will protect a person from the Plague, do you?”
His sentence hangs in the air like a waft of smoke.
“No, of course not,” I lie.
I feel exposed.
“Who was the man in the crow’s costume, the Plague Doctor?” I say, changing the subject quickly. “I’ve seen him before. Outside of another plague house.”
Cal exhales. “It’s a nasty job,” he says. “The Plague Doctor, well, he’s a doctor for the poor souls who get the Plague. No other doctors or nurses will touch them. Have you ever seen anyone with the Plague? It’s a brutal sickness.”
I think about my mother and father. About the dead man in the plague house I robbed. I think about Elizabeth.
“Let’s not talk about that,” I say, looking over to Clove. Amon has his arm around her. Cal nods, understanding me. We have to protect her from knowing the details of the sickness.
“The Plague Doctor was scary,” Clove says.
In my mind, I agree with Clove. He looks like a creature from a nightmare.
“Don’t worry about the Plague Doctor,” I say to Clove and Amon. But I say it for myself as well.
Cal leans over and pets Dodger. “You best take care of this guy,” he advises. “The city is clearing the streets of dogs and cats.”
“Why?” Amon asks.
“I suppose they think our four-legged friends spread the Plague,” replies Cal.
“Dodger doesn’t have the Plague!” Clove insists.
“No, he doesn’t. And neither do we,” I say.
Cal stands up and cracks his knuckles.
“We should get going,” he says. “I’m supposed to meet Cinn and he’ll be wondering where I am.”
“Thieves like us shouldn’t stay in one place too long,” Clove says. I guess she remembers that Cinn said something like that the day Amon was whipped.
We leave the way we entered: through the window. I feel Cal’s eyes on me as we walk up the street.
What does this boy know about me and Thieves Oil? I wonder.