She tore her eyes away from the map. “Then why would they have you dive down there to find it?”
Palmer situated himself against the hull of the sarfer. He stared out over that dark, damp patch of sand. “When I got back up, the pit they had dug was already filling back in. And they’d broken down a few of their tents, like locating the old city was all they were after. Like they were moving on. And there was a party that came back, that had gone somewhere. They returned the night I was there, looking for water. They’d gone off to find something.”
Vic didn’t understand. But she didn’t interrupt. Her brother was reasoning something out.
“I remember them saying something about us needing to be precise. They just wanted us to locate those scrapers, down to the last meter. I think they were using their map the way you’re talking about, to find other dive sites. That’s how they knew where to look for Danvar. They were homing in on some other spot. Getting it down precise so they’d know where to dig.”
“What makes you say that?” Vic asked.
Her brother turned to her. “Because they found whatever it was they were looking for. I think it was a bomb. I went into one of the tents, looking for water and food. There was a crate of smaller bombs. And then I hid and I heard them talking about this one device—I saw it, a strange-looking thing—and they said this one bomb could level all of Low-Pub. And I believe them. They were serious. Organized. They laughed about leaving the desert flat. I think they mean to do it.”
Vic studied her brother. She glanced at the map. “When?” she asked.
“I don’t know. It’s been three days. They saw me under the table. They probably assume I heard everything. I remember them saying they were going to hit Springston first.”
“Maybe they’ll change their plans because you heard them,” Vic said. “Maybe they’ll call it off.” She was trying to be hopeful.
“Or they’ll do it sooner. Vic, we’ve gotta get to Springston. We’ve gotta get Conner and Rob out of there. We’ve gotta warn everyone.”
“There are people in Springston who want us dead,” she reminded him.
“Brock and his men are heading to Springston, and they want everyone dead,” Palmer said.
The words stung like a gust of sand. Vic shook her canteen and listened to the contents splash around. Her brother looked away from her and toward the sky where crows circled and the tops of dunes blew in gray sheets. She knew her brother was right. She folded away the map of a thousand undiscovered treasures and slipped it into her pocket. She knew he was right and that they had to go back to Springston. And she didn’t like it.
41 • A Smuggled Tale
There was the sting of a wolf biting her lips. A nightmare of burning desert sand and freezing windy nights and a pack of wild beasts tearing at her flesh—all broken by a splash of water against her mouth. And the young girl awoke in a strange room.
There was a woman above her. A bed. The young girl was lying on a bed beneath sheets as clean and white as a child’s teeth. Her dive suit and her britches were gone, just a shirt like a man wears folded across her and cinched with a white ribbon—sweet-smelling and clean. She moved to touch the shirt, and her side screamed out where she’d been bit.
“Lie still,” the woman said. She placed a hand on the young girl’s shoulder and forced her back against the pillows. There were two boys in the room. They were the boys from one of her dreams. “Can you take another small sip?” the woman asked.
The young girl nodded, and a jar was brought forward, the water inside as clear as glass. She lifted her hands to help, but they were bandaged and useless. The water burned her mouth in the best way.
“What’s your name?” the woman asked.
“Violet,” she said. Her voice was small in that strange room.
The woman smiled at this. “Like the flower.”
The older of the two boys moved closer to the bed, and Violet remembered his face from her dream, but it wasn’t a dream. Conner. He had picked her up and carried her. She knew where she was, that this was real. She turned to the woman with the water, who was asking about her name.
“Father said violet was the color he saw when I was born, that it was like seeing the air from beneath the sand. That’s why he named me Violet.”
The woman smoothed the hair back from the girl’s forehead and frowned like this was the wrong answer.
“Can I have more water?” she whispered. Her mouth was so dry.
“Just a little,” the woman said. “It’s possible to drink too much.”
Violet nodded. “You can drown,” she said. “Like in the river. Or what happens if you drink the bad water from the trough.” She lifted her head and took another sip. The younger of the two boys stood at the foot of the bed and stared at her. She knew who this was. “You’re Rob,” she said.
The boy startled as if someone had stomped on his foot. Regaining his composure, he bobbed his head.
“Father said we were about the same age.”
“Then he wasted no time,” the woman with the jar of water muttered. She sounded upset. “Where is he now? How far away is your village?”
“How did you get across No Man’s Land?” the older boy asked.
“How old are you?” Rob wanted to know.
The woman snapped her fingers at the two boys, and they seemed to know this meant not to talk. And something occurred to Violet. “You’re my second mom,” she said. “You’re Rose.”
The woman’s cheeks twitched at this. She shook her head and opened her mouth to say something—Violet thought maybe to say that she wasn’t her mom—but instead she just wiped at one eye and kept quiet. The two boys seemed to be waiting for Violet to answer all their questions, but she had already forgotten most of them.
“I don’t come from a village,” she said. She rested her head on the pillow and gazed longingly at the jar of water in the woman’s hands. “I came from a camp. It doesn’t have a name, just a number, and we aren’t allowed to leave. There are tents and fences, and we can see the city from the camp. Kids from the city come to the fence—there’s two fences, so if you get through one the other will stop you—and some of the kids from the city throw candy through the fence and some throw rocks—it’s usually the bigger kids with the rocks, which means the rocks come harder than the candy, but we’re told to stay away from the fence anyway—”
“What kind of camp is this?” Rose asked.
“Like camping in a tent—?” Rob said, but he got snapped at again.
“A mining camp,” Violet said. “It’s where they blow up the ground and grab the worthy stuff out with their nets. That’s what the foreman calls them, but Father says they aren’t really nets. They have magnets in them. He knows all about wires and magic and stuff. They make us work the troughs for the heavier bits that drift to the bottom. We work with water up to our elbows all day, cold water. It makes your hands and fingers shrivel. People in the camp who come from the south call it the pruning flesh—”
“Water up to your elbows,” Conner scoffed. “And where’s all this water come from?”
It was clear he didn’t believe her. Father warned Violet this would happen, that no one would believe. “The water comes from the river,” she said. “But you can’t drink it. Some do, and they die. Because of the metals and the mining. The water for drinking comes from way upstream, past all the camps, but they don’t give us much of that. Father says they starve our mouths and drown our arms just to drive us mad. But it didn’t make me mad. Just thirsty.”
Saying this won her another sip from the jar. Violet felt better. It was the sheets and the roof over her head and the jar of water and people to talk to.