Ashes by Laurie Halse Anderson Page A

caught in the stream, taking care to set aside the longest bones that could be used as pins. He sat and listened in as I told Ruth about snow, how it fell like frozen feathers from the sky, how it could be formed into balls and thrown at a sister, how icicles grew like frozen giant’s teeth off the edge of the roof, and how everything melted into water and mud when spring took winter’s place. Aberdeen did not believe me about the snow. He wanted me to tell every story I knew about the great ships that crowded the wharves of Newport and New York, how far they journeyed, and what it sounded like when the wind filled their sails and pulled them from the harbor toward the endless sea. So I told those stories too. He wanted to hear about England and Scotland, where there was a city named Aberdeen. Said he fancied a trip there one day.
    I talked until my voice was rough and raw, all the while keeping up a steady application of hot poultices on her dreadful cut, as well as a constant stream of prayer to God and supplication to the ghost of our mother.
    Late the second night Ruth regained enough awareness to drink some tea and eat a few bites of egg. On the third morning she woke enough to drink a full pot of willow tea. That afternoon I had to help her take care of a call of nature, which was a momentous jolly occasion, for it meant that her insides were working proper. The next day I noted a resolute change in her wound; the skin around it had cooled and the swelling had much receded. She ate an entire egg as well as a handful of grapes. Best of all, she complained that the grapes were sour. Aberdeen laughed out loud and said that if she was restored enough to be peevish, then she was well on her way.
    Once she was fully awake and returned to the land of the living, I stopped telling her stories. I had enjoyed the telling, but when Ruth regained her senses, she became wary of me again. The unsettled sensation betwixt us flared. Her eyes narrowed when I stepped close to her, as if she were a cat who’d just spied a snake in the grass. She did not argue or turn away. She even conversated a bit, asking for water for Nancy Chicken or if there was anything left to eat. That was an improvement, to be sure, but any hopes I had of my sister arising from her sickbed with newfound love for me were soon crushed.
    Four days and nights had passed and Curzon had not returned. I worried about his absence ceaselessly. Aberdeen shared a tiny bit of my concern, but he was younger and more inclined to hopeful thoughts. That night Nancy Chicken wandered off whilst we slept and did not return. Ruth understood the meaning of this tragedy as well as we did. She lay on her back and cried quiet, with her hands covering her face.
    And then the fifth day passed, a day when Aberdeen and I ate nothing. The fish had vanished, we’d plundered all the grapevines we could find, and we’d lost our source of eggs. Ruth could walk a bit, but only with one arm over Aberdeen and the other round me. I counted it as a victory that she was willing to lean on me without shrinking from my touch. But it would take weeks before she could walk for hours on end, and then only if we could find some food.
    Aberdeen and I did not talk about this. We did not discuss Curzon, either, because to do that we’d have to entertain the notion that he’d abandoned us or he’d been captured, and I could not decide which would be worse.
    And so the sixth day passed too.
    I woke the morning of the seventh day to find Ruth staring at me, the tip of her nose almost touching mine.
    â€œI hear a donkey,” she said.
    â€œDonkey?” I asked, startled by this strange declaration. “Are you certain?”
    She nodded.
    I cautiously peered outside. A thin finger of smoke rose from the ashes of the fire. Aberdeen was nowhere in sight. I held my breath but heard only the wind in the trees and the burble of the stream.
    â€œThere is no donkey,” I told