Scarlett Hopper's Arc

Chapter 10 of 33

They finished the trench before the ash rose. John salted the line the way he'd said. Scarlett burned the pulled stalks downwind and watched the smoke thin. The rot was cut off, not gone. She would have to watch the beds for days. She looked at John, standing by the wheelbarrow with his sleeves rolled, and made herself say it before she talked herself out of it. "You'll need somewhere to sleep," she said. "Not outside. The scavengers watch the ridge." He nodded once. He didn't ask for anything. Her house had one room she kept locked. It had belonged to whoever lived here before the collapse. She called it Jim's room in her head because a name had been carved into the door frame. Mold ran black up the plaster. The mattress was soft with rot. She hadn't opened it in a year. She had no other space. The couch sat under the window she'd boarded, and the dog slept there. She pulled the janitor's sack from the pantry and dropped it at John's feet. Bleach, mold killer, rubbing alcohol, rags. She handed him her spare mask, the black one with the pink filters. "Put this on. The spores will drop you if you breathe them." He fitted the straps over his ears without a word. She tied her own on and opened the door. The smell hit even through the filter. They worked. John stripped the mattress and dragged it to the yard to burn. Scarlett scraped the plaster with a putty knife until the black came off in curls. She sprayed the wall down and scrubbed. He carried the frame out, then the dresser. The dog stayed in the hall and watched. Twice he pushed an image into her head: the sun tipping west, the wind starting to lift dust on the ridge. "We've got maybe an hour," she said. John wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. "Floor next." They bleached the boards. She cut a length of clean canvas from the barn tarp and laid it flat where the mattress had been. He hauled in a folded cot he'd spotted in the shed. The room smelled sharp now, not sweet. That was the trade she wanted. When the ash started tapping the shutter, she shut the door on the wet floor and locked the outside bolt behind them. "It'll dry by morning. Tonight you take the couch. The dog will move." John set the mask on the table. "Thank you." "Don't thank me yet. You start on the beds at first light." He almost smiled. "I planned to." She latched the door against the wind. For the first time in a year, someone else was inside her walls when she slept. She lay down knowing the rot was held, the room would be ready, and a stranger with clean hands was breathing in the next room.