He took a deep breath after he’d spoken his piece. It was the longest speech and the most sense I’d heard out of the man since I’d met him. There he stood in a wrinkled uniform jacket with one button dangling from a thread and the knees of his trousers gone shiny with wear. His hat was dusty and rain had speckled the dust. What hair he had stood out in tufts above his ears. But he stood as straight as a ramrod, and his words sank into me like rain falling on parched soil. They moved me as I hadn’t been moved in a long time. They restored my true self just as absolutely as the forest food had satiated my Speck self. Nothing could have stirred the dormant duty in my soul as plainly as the heartfelt call to arms of that wizened old soldier.

I lifted my eyes to meet his. “You’re right, Kesey. You’re right.”

That was all I said to him, but he beamed as if I’d just given him a commendation. He marched off to follow Ebrooks and as they went, I heard him say, “I told you he was a right fellow, Ebrooks, now didn’t I? Just needed a bit of reminding, that was all.”

I did not hear Ebrooks’s muttered response. I applied myself to my task with fresh energy. By early afternoon I’d used up all of Kilikurra’s poles. They looked pathetic: a widely spaced fence of shovel handles sticking up out of the earth. But when I stood at one end of the row and sighted down them, they lined up perfectly. I took pleasure in what I’d accomplished with only crude tools.

I carried my shovel and pick back to my tool shed, returned to my cabin for water, and was just thinking of going to look for my clothing when I heard the snort of a horse outside my open door. I rose from my chair, but before I even reached my door, Spink rushed through it. He stopped short when he saw me and exclaimed fervently, “Oh, thank the good god that you have returned! Nevare, I feared I would never see you again.”

“I was lost in the forest overnight, sir, but as you can see, I’ve returned safely and taken up my duties again.”

Spink whirled as neatly as a cat and slammed my door behind him. Then he turned back to me and I saw that the relief on his face had been replaced with something akin to anger. “We’re talking plainly today, Nevare. No hedging. Where were you yesterday? And I warn you, I want the whole story.”

It was not a tale I could imagine telling to Spink or anyone else. Not just yet. So I replied stiffly, “I told you. I went into the forest. It got dark faster than I thought it would, and I got turned around. Even when daylight came, I couldn’t get my bearings. It took me a long time to find my way back home. I returned late last night.”

“Why did you go into the forest in the evening, Nevare?”

I hesitated too long, trying to find a good answer for that. When I opened my mouth, Spink waved his hand at me. “No. Don’t lie to me. If you aren’t going to tell me, then just don’t tell me, but please, Nevare, don’t lie to me. You’ve changed enough as it is. When you start deliberately lying to me, then I’ll know there’s nothing left of our friendship to salvage.”

His eyes bored into mine so honestly, and the hurt in them was so plain, that I was shamed dumb by it. I looked away from him. After a moment he said, “Well, let me tell you what has been transpiring in my home, and perhaps you can give me some answers to what you know of that.”

“In your home?” I asked, startled.

He took a seat at my table as if he expected to be there for a time. I slowly sat down across from him. He nodded at me sternly, affirming that I should take this conversation seriously. He cleared his throat. “Yesterday morning, a woman came to my door. She told me that she had been told that my lady wife could use a servant, and that she was willing to do anything our household required in exchange for shelter and whatever food we could spare them.”

“Amzil,” I said reflexively. I had completely forgotten that I had sent her to Spink’s door.

“Yes. Amzil. The Dead Town whore.”

A small silence followed his words. I felt both angry that he called her such a name and abashed that I had thoughtlessly sent a woman who merited such a name to his door. The awkwardness built between us as I tried desperately to think of something that would take us back to a place where we were friends who could talk to each other.

Spink cleared his throat and then added accusingly, “Amzil AND her three children. Of course, Epiny was immediately entranced with all of them. Have you any idea what a junior lieutenant’s pay is, Nevare? And how much noise three children make in a very small house? And how much they eat, especially that little boy? It fascinates Epiny. She just kept putting food in front of him, waiting for him to stop. But he didn’t, not until he suddenly put his head down on the table and fell asleep.”

A leaf turns in the wind, and you suddenly have a different perception of what color it is. It stung that Spink could call Amzil a whore, but he had no way of knowing that she was someone I cared about. I wondered when she had become “someone I cared about” rather than just Amzil the whore. That realization was as jolting to me as the sudden knowledge that I was the one throwing up barriers between Spink and me. “I didn’t stop to think about that,” I admitted. “Amzil came out here, wanting to live with me. She thought that was her only option, other than raising her kids in a brothel.”

“And you turned her away?” Spink sounded surprised.

I shifted in my chair and then said grudgingly, “It was right after that incident in town. I didn’t think they would be safe here. And she wasn’t offering me—I know they call her a whore, Spink, but I don’t think that’s fair to her. She’s done that occasionally, out of necessity, to feed her children. And I suspect that sometimes she wasn’t given the option of saying no, that men went out there, used her, and left money or whatever so they didn’t have to think of themselves as rapists. Well. I don’t know. But yes, I sent her to you. Without thinking of what a financial burden they might be. Did you let them stay?”

“Epiny answered the door.” It was the only reply I needed. He went on, “She’s a strong woman, my Epiny. Not in the flesh; I’ll admit that her health has suffered since we came here, and that like the rest of us, she is prey to the darkness of spirit that flows out of the forest. But she fights it. She has made the women of Gettys her special project. Having a woman come to the door and say that she’d rather scrub floors for us than be a whore was a validation of all that Epiny has been trying to accomplish with her whistles and meetings and night classes for women.”

“Classes? Classes in what?”

Spink rolled his eyes. “In whatever they want to learn, I expect. By the good god, Nevare, you don’t think I’ve attended, do you? I’m sure you recall how adamantly Epiny endorsed my mother’s idea that women must be able to manage their own households in the event that one is widowed or abandoned by her husband. Epiny teaches them the basics of arithmetic, and gives them an understanding of banking and, well, I don’t know. Whatever it is that she thinks women need to know when there are no men about.”

I gave an involuntary snort of laughter. “Amzil might be a better teacher than a student in such a class.”

“I suspect she might. She probably will be, if Epiny has her way. Despite their differences, Epiny is quite glad to have another woman around the house, because of her condition. She loves the children already. She has very much missed her younger sister, you know.”

“Epiny’s condition?” I feared the worst. It was well known that plague survivors often had impaired health and sometimes died young. “Is she ill?”

“Quite the contrary,” Spink assured me. His cheeks had gone pink, but he was grinning. “Nevare.” His voice suddenly deepened with emotion. “I’m going to be a father.”