Greenglass House (44 page)

The moment it was out, Natalie wished she hadn't asked. Annie Minks always took questions seriously, which meant you had to be careful what you asked, and when. The kitchen was smoky already, and her mother didn't need anybody's help to burn another batch of pancakes. She turned away from the stovetop with the eager look she got when she was about to explain something. Natalie sighed.

“It's when a lot of people get sick with the same thing at the same time. Like the black plague, or smallpox, or influenza.” Behind her, a plume of gray collected over the griddle.

“Like what's happening in Pinnacle?” Natalie asked, staring at the stovetop. The pancakes had smelled good for a minute, too. “Mama . . . ?”

Her mother opened her mouth to answer, then sniffed the air and remembered she was cooking. Natalie propped her chin up with her fist, elbow resting on the table, and watched Mrs. Minks turn the pancakes one by one to reveal their burned black bellies.

People said Natalie and her mother looked alike. It was hard to tell at thirteen, though; her mother was tall and liked brightly colored lawn dresses and shoes with heels, and her hair seemed perfectly happy all twisted up at the back of her head the way she had it right now. She had a compact of face powder that smelled like sunlight and a string of pearls that had belonged to Natalie's grandmother, which Natalie had worn exactly once, in a school play. She was, Natalie thought it was fair to say, beautiful.

Natalie wore dresses under protest. Overalls were much more convenient, and her favorite shoes were a pair long outgrown by her brother. Her hair mostly stayed in a ponytail nowadays, but a few pieces still insisted on coming loose (although those bits were growing out pretty well, considering how short she'd had to cut them a few months back—there had been an incident at school with some glue that she was pretty sure was George Sills's doing).

On the other hand, Natalie's disorderly hair was just about the same shade of nearly-black as her mother's, and her eyes were almost the same color, too: light brown, the color of coffee made just the way her mother liked, with a slosh of cream and a homemade sugar cube and a tablespoon of rum. Usually, starting about May, they even got the same wildly multiplying batch of freckles across their noses, which they would compare at the end of each sunny day, looking for any new matching spots. This year, though, Natalie's freckles were even more profuse than usual—lately her mother's face looked downright pale by comparison.

Mrs. Minks scraped the blackened pancakes into a pail with the rest of the spoiled ones and poured fresh batter on the griddle. “In Pinnacle they just have a persistent sort of flu, but it's got a lot of people sick.”

Natalie decided to keep quiet until at least one batch made it safely onto a plate; her stomach was grumbling and the kitchen was getting hot. Then she remembered something. “Mr. Finch looked worried when Doc left.”

Her mother's shoulders did something funny, as if she'd felt a sudden draft.

“Well . . . people will be expecting Mr. Finch to fill Doc's shoes while he's gone. I'm sure that's upsetting . . . to him.”

“But Mr. Finch knows how to give out medicines and take care of people, doesn't he?”

“Yes, but it's not the same as having Doc.” Her voice did something chilly, similar to what her shoulders had done a moment before. “It's . . . not the same.”

Not the same? Not much of an answer by anybody's standards, let alone her mother's. Still, it looked like this might be the one: the batch that survived. Natalie bit her lips to keep quiet while the edges of the pancakes set. Two more minutes. Maybe less . . .

Then her father and Charlie came in, smelling like the rough soap they used to get the oil and grime of the bicycle shop off.

“You didn't need to cook,” Natalie's father said. Mrs. Minks turned and hugged her husband tightly. It looked like the end of the pancakes' last chance for survival, until Charlie took the spatula out of her thin hand and removed them from the skillet himself.

“What happens,” Natalie asked when all four of them were seated with breakfast safely on the table, “if people start getting sick here?”

“Mr. Finch will take care of it,” Charlie said.

“Mama says it's not the same.”

Their mother looked at her plate. “Mr. Finch is fine.”

“But that's not what you
said.
”

For a moment there was quiet around the table. “I'm sure Lester Finch won't think twice about wiring a message to Doc in Pinnacle,” Natalie's father said, looking at his wife.

“Just send a
wire?
” Natalie demanded. “That's
all?
But what if it's the Pinnacle flu? How would we
know?
”

“Mr. Finch could tell if the flu from Pinnacle showed up here,” Charlie put in. Natalie shot him a
Shut up, will you?
look. Since when did her brother know anything about flus?

Flus, epidemics, persistent strange ailments, and know-it-all big brothers . . . she emerged from her thoughts just in time to hear her father say, “I bet I know how Natalie's going to spend the first day of the summer.”

“Can we work on my automaton? I found a piece that only fits when it's backwards, so the, the
cam
doesn't—”

“I think I need a day away from gears, Nattie. Besides,” he said with a smile, “don't you have something to show off to Miranda and the rest of your gang?”

He looked so proud.

“Oh, yeah. I guess I forgot.” She dropped her chin back onto her fist and drew circles in the maple syrup on her plate with her fork.

 

While Natalie fidgeted at her kitchen table and Doc Fitzwater made his steady, chugging way out of town, another crowd in another dusty village watched a little caravan prepare for a different departure.

At the reins of the wagon in front, a tall man in blue-lensed spectacles stood and waved, smiling a showman's smile that did not reach his eyes. The hands that held the reins wore expensive leather gloves in a pearly pale ivory shade. A silk top hat sat on the seat beside him, and his mane of red hair shot through with gray shone in the sun. It waved about a touch more than it seemed it ought to in the soft breeze.

He sat with a whirl of dark cloak and flicked his wrists. The wagon lurched into motion, the first in a train of more old and peeling wagons drawn by mottled mules. The procession left a rattle of glass and the faint carnival smell of fresh hay, frying grease, and spun candy in its wake.

The caravan turned westward, toward Arcane.

Visit
www.hmhco.com
or your favorite retailer to purchase the book in its entirety.

 

K
ATE
M
ILFORD
is the author of the novels
The Boneshaker,
which
Booklist
called “impressive and ambitious” in a starred review, as well as the crowd-funded novella
The Kairos Mechanism
. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York. Visit the tourism website of Nagspeake (where Greenglass House is located) at
www.nagspeake.com
and Kate's personal website at
www.clockworkfoundry.com
.