Chapter 34
Prairie Fire
Lila had already gone over the leaving with Mr. He downstairs. When she came back up, Eren and Nova were still on the edge of the bed, sweat and mud and burnt smell in their clothes from the way down, hair a mess.
Mr. He had heated water, carried it from the stove into a small room hung with a thick curtain, and called:
"If you're up, come wash. Water's hot."
Lila answered and pulled Nova toward the stairs.
Eren stood with them.
"Lila, I'll take him."
"You sit back down."
The room went still. The edge in her own voice seemed to startle her. She softened it.
"You've got wounds. Water'll make them worse. Don't push it."
Nova looked at Eren, blank.
Eren glanced at Lila, didn't argue, and gave Nova a small shake of the head.
Nova let her take him down.
The thick curtain went up and came down. Light shut off. Sound came through thick.
Water in the tub, wood knocking.
"I can do it myself…"
"Forget it… what if you pass out…"
A cloth wrung out, slack, then tight. After that, a long stretch of almost nothing.
"Does it hurt?"
"No."
Scrubbing went on past where it should have stopped. Then only the drip, back into the tub.
The curtain again—up, down.
Nova came up dripping, in clean clothes Mr. He had dug out.
He leaned in, voice low. "Sister Lila's not right."
Eren hadn't answered when her voice came from downstairs.
"Eren—you're up."
He went down. The curtain took him.
"Lila?"
"What's taking so long…"
"Don't be shy… we didn't fuss like this in camp…"
Water, barely there.
"Arm up…"
A hissed breath. Then nothing.
"…What's the use…"
Something hit the tub—a dull splash.
The curtain tore open and slapped the frame.
Lila.
Silence on the other side. When the curtain moved again it was Eren, hair still wet, clothes changed, the wrap at his waist done over.
Outside, no sound. Lila had folded herself into the lee of the wall, head down.
He found her there, crouched, put a hand on her shoulder, and said nothing.
She didn't look up. A long while later she got up and went into the little room. The curtain fell. Water started. Through it, a sob, kept very low.
When the curtain lifted she had on only a vest, wet hair stuck to the nape, old scars showing under it. She went upstairs with her outer clothes in her arms.
Before long all three of them were in dry clothes. The day's sweat-and-sour smell in the little room had thinned. Nobody felt easier for it.
Lila didn't rest. She gathered the dirty clothes they'd changed out of and headed downstairs again.
Eren watched her go and said nothing.
The stairs creaked. Then her voice and Mr. He's came up from below. He asked why she wouldn't rest a minute. She said she'd only be sitting anyway. A cabinet door scraped open right after.
Only Eren and Nova were left in the room.
Eren thought of Lin Ce's manuscript, pulled it from the bundle, and tried to find anything in it about the shoot.
A leather notebook, rubber-banded, dried blood on the cover. He slipped the band and opened the first page.
Lin Ce's writing ran dense. The margins were packed with notes, underlines, arrows. Some places had been crossed out and rewritten until the ink sat in two shades.
The first half was long stretches on Crystone, vein structure, properties, experiment numbers.
Eren slowed after a few lines.
He knew the characters one by one. Strung together they went strange. Crystone, veins, ratios, trigger conditions—then a jump into numbered codes and shorthand. Nova leaned in, face wrinkling.
"What's it say?"
"Gibberish."
Nova tried a while longer, serious. Too many characters he didn't know, and the ones he did still meant nothing. He gave up and watched Eren's face instead, guessing from that.
Eren flipped on ten pages or so and hit a numbered block.
"Shoot A-04, third observation round."
His finger stopped on the paper.
The pages after that were all the shoot. Lin Ce called it a "crystal-shoot parasite." Observation cycles, changes in the host, when the ability fired—written down, but the side notes were a mess, some of them shorthand only Lin Ce would have read.
Eren meant to go further. A shout from downstairs cut him off.
"The manuscript?!"
Nova ran to the stairhead first. Lila was already below, the whole bundle dumped on the floor—dry rations rolling, hemp cord down. She went at another pack, hands getting faster.
"The manuscript?! Lin Ce's manuscript?! This is all that's left…"
"Lila." Mr. He took half a step.
She didn't seem to hear. The rush in her eyes had gone red.
"It was right here. Who touched it?!"
"I've got it."
Eren was already down the stairs, the leather notebook in his hand, giving it a shake.
Lila's voice stopped. She stared at the manuscript a long time, as if she had to check the cover, the band, the blood, each in turn. Then she let a breath out, slow.
"You were reading it?"
"Mm." Eren held it out. "Wanted to see if it said anything about the shoot. Didn't take it."
Lila nodded, took it, opened it and shut it, then set it in the middle of the table and put her palm on the cover.
"Don't leave it lying around."
Mr. He bent for the cord on the floor. Nova brought the salt pack that had rolled away back to the table.
Eren looked up at Mr. He.
"Mr. He—come on. Let's walk the street. Get some air."
Mr. He glanced at Lila, nodded, and followed him toward the back door.
As Eren passed Nova he pointed at his own eyes, then flicked a look toward Lila.
Nova got it at once. He sat at the table, pretending to sort salt and cord, and never took his eyes off her.
The back door opened and shut. Wind pushed in through the crack.
The yard was narrow—firewood stacked on one side, a few empty jars against the wall. Eren didn't go far. He stood in the shadow just outside.
Mr. He kept his voice down. "Lila can't go on like this."
"She came down from upstairs talking about packing. I thought—didn't we say a few more days before we leave?"
"She's had a shock." Eren watched the crack in the door. "Give her a little time."
"She won't—what, lose her memory? Start seeing things?"
Eren waved it off. "Don't overthink it. She's tough."
Mr. He looked at him. "Tough only goes so far. Look after her. Look after yourself. Don't let anything else happen."
Eren nodded.
They stood outside a while longer.
Inside, Lila laid out what Mr. He had pulled from the shop and the storeroom, piece by piece: two old waterskins, a bag of coarse salt, a pack of pressed meat and toasted flour, two lengths of hemp, a roll of coarse cloth for wrapping puttees, a small tin of grease.
Nova sat with his head down. His ears still caught every word outside, clear.
"Sister Lila, we're not in a hurry. You should rest."
"You go rest. I'll finish packing."
Salt and dry rations went into three shares, then she dumped them out and split them again by weight. After the meat went into a bundle she felt for it every so often. The waterskins went up by the door, then came down to change places.
Mr. He was back. He stood in the doorway and called, "Lila—enough gear? Tell me what's short. I'll go buy."
"I'll make a list later." She didn't lift her head. "Going far, we take enough. Food, kit, weapons. Can't skip any of it."
She shoved a coil of rope into Nova's arms as she said it.
Mr. He opened his mouth, then swallowed whatever had been coming.
Nova stood at the stairhead with the coil, nowhere to put it. Lila turned, saw him, and dropped at once to look at his feet.
"How are the shoes?"
Nova shrank back without meaning to.
"They—they're fine."
He turned and ran upstairs.
"I'm gonna go rest."