Scarlett Hopper's Arc

Chapter 5 of 33

Scarlett woke behind the boarded door with the fever gone. Her wrists still ached, but the red lines had shrunk to pink. Duke stood by the front step, tail sweeping left, and pushed a picture into her head: three figures crouched at the far end of the thorn wall, testing the canes with a stick. She pulled on the mask, grabbed the brass watering can, and went out. She kept low along the rows. At the north corner, the thorns had thinned where a rabbit or something bigger had chewed through the base. A gap the width of her hand ran along the wire. She could see boot prints in the dust on the outside. She worked fast. She cut fresh blackberry canes from the collapsed lot behind the house and dragged them back with her good arm. She wove them through the wire, thick end down, and twisted the wire tight around each stem. Sap glued her fingers. A thorn caught her thumb and she bit down and kept going. She packed the gap until no light came through. When the wall was solid, she walked the whole line and checked every join. She found two more thin spots and braided them shut. Then she filled the can at the cistern and watered each row, slow, so the dust settled and the leaves lifted. Duke barked once. She looked up. Crows had come down onto the fence posts along the wall — eight of them, black and heavy, spaced out like nails. One dropped into the row and picked a beetle off a bean leaf. Another watched the ridge without moving. They had been circling the district for days. Now they had landed. She crouched and held out a strip of dried meat from her pocket. The nearest crow hopped down, took it, and flew back to the post. She tore the rest of the strip into pieces and laid them along the top rail. The flock came for them one by one. When the meat was gone, they stayed. Duke pushed another picture: the scavengers on the ridge, watching. Then the crows lifting off the wall in a black sheet, wings wide. Then the ridge empty. "Then that's the deal," she said to the birds. "You watch. I feed you." By afternoon the ash wind rose. She pulled the mask tight and stood at the edge of the rows one more time. The wall held. The crows sat along it, heads turned outward. Duke lay across the gate. She pointed at the wall. "Guard it," she told them. "Guard it with your lives." A crow shook out its wings and settled. Another cawed once, low. She went inside and shut the door. For the first time, the rows were not alone when she was not standing in them.