Shadows of Sherwood (26 page)

“Sprinkle dirt on it,” Tucker answered. “But we don't put this fire out.”

They returned to the open lot. What had been a fairly calm scene a few minutes ago was no longer. Chaos ensued.

Under one tent several doctors hosted basic medical visits, right out in the open. Back to back they stood, examining sprained wrists, plucking out splinters, and asking people with sore throats to say
ah
.

Now, on the far side of the tent, a big line of people jostled and argued and seemingly competed for the attention of one of the doctors.

“What's going on over there?” Tucker said.

“Let's find out,” Robyn answered. They walked toward the commotion.

Standing alongside the doctor, a large, pretty girl in a red-and-orange dress held up her hands to the crowd. “Please step back,” she said. “Please. We're doing everything we can.”

The girl had a very silky bob of dark brown hair and hazel eyes that sparkled. Robyn gasped. It was Merryan Crown—a classmate from Robyn's school in the Castle District!

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Trouble in Tent City

“H-hi, Robyn,” Merryan stammered. Her plump cheeks reddened. “I didn't know you volunteered, too.”

“Merryan? What are you doing here?”

Robyn was alarmed. Not only was Merryan from Castle District—she was Governor Crown's niece!

Merryan gripped Robyn's arm and pulled her to the side of the table, her eyes wide and frightened. “Please. You can't tell anyone you saw me here, doing this. My family really doesn't approve of me coming here.”

Her frightened insistence baffled Robyn. “Who am I going to tell?” Robyn answered. It wasn't as if she could go back to Castle District anyway. “I don't care where you go.”

“You promise? I'll get in so much trouble.”

“Not as much as I will,” Robyn answered. “I mean, I'm supposed to be dead, or something.”

“What?” Merryan relaxed her grip. “You haven't been in school. I thought you had already left on vacation.”

“Vacation?” Robyn spat the word out like poison. “Not exactly.”

“Oh.” The pretty girl shrugged. “I thought you were going to be gone all month like the others.”

“What others?”

Merryan rattled off the names of a dozen classmates, all children of Parliament members. Her father's friends, in fact.

Robyn's pulse sped up. “They're all missing?” Why hadn't she realized she wasn't the only kid affected by the disappearances?

Merryan's tone turned confused. “They're on the diplomatic trip. With their parents.” She added wistfully: “It sounds so exciting. When do you actually leave?”

Robyn shook her head. “What are you talking about?” Merryan was acting like she didn't know about the disappearances. Had Castle District people been told something different?

But the conversation was interrupted by the jostling people clustering around the table. Merryan held up her hands again. “Please. Please wait your turn!” she cried. People pushed and shoved, trying to get closer.

Behind the table the doctor said, “That's it, I'm afraid.”

The crowd simmered around the announcement. “I'm very sorry. It's all we have for now,” he added. After a few moments of clamoring, the people accepted the truth—the medicine was finished.

“Stingbugs again?” Tucker asked.

Merryan nodded. “A lot of people are sick.”

“From stingbugs?”
That doesn't make any sense
, Robyn thought.

“Stingbug infections,” the doctor clarified. “They carry bacteria that can cause a bad blood infection.”

“I've never heard of that,” Robyn said. Stingbugs were annoying, but no big threat.

The doctor continued: “It's common for people in Sherwood to eat a particular herb from the woods that helps naturally repel the stingbug. If you eat it regularly enough, the bugs can smell it on your skin and they don't bite you.”

“Bitterstalk. But the woods are off-limits now,” Tucker added.

Robyn looked down at the skin of her arms. She'd had plenty of stingbug bites in her life, but she'd never gotten a blood infection. The bites simply swelled into a round red knot and itched for a few days before fading. The people in line for the antibiotics had similar bites, but red and purple lines spidered out from the knots on their skin. Some of the infected people stumbled and staggered around, appearing dizzy and nauseated.

“I'm sure you are vaccinated, like me,” Merryan told Robyn. “Everyone in Castle is. But not here. Here they rely on bitterstalk.”

Dad used to eat bitterstalk. Robyn found it too tangy, but Dad loved it.
It's an acquired taste
, he would say.
Yes
, Robyn always agreed,
but why would anyone want to acquire it?
Dad would just smile.

Now she understood—it had been protecting him.

“How long will they be sick?” Robyn asked.

“Weeks, without treatment,” the doctor answered. “Longer for some. And it depends on the bite. How big and where. Arms or legs, not so bad. Head and neck, worse. Abdomen—the worst of all. It can spread from there to the organs, and then—” he shook his head, as though hopeless. “But the antibiotic starts to clean the blood within a day or so.”

It sounded bad.

“Anyway, bitterstalk can't cure the infection. What we need now is medicine.” The table was full of small pill bottles, yet the doctor shook his head in dismay. “Other antibiotics are less effective. We don't have nearly enough to go around for the people that are already sick. And the bugs will keep on biting.”

“I volunteer at Sherwood Clinic,” Merryan said. “They have lots of the pills there, but they're so expensive.”

“I bring as much as we can spare from my pharmacy,” the doctor said. “But it isn't much. People in Castle rarely get this infection.”

That didn't seem fair. She was safe, and Merryan, too. The crowd of bitten people thinned as they headed back to their living spaces. Disoriented. Dejected. Robyn swallowed hard. “There has to be a way to get them some medicine,” she murmured.

“What did you say?” Merryan asked. She had resumed her other volunteer duties, with a clipboard in hand jotting something down.

Robyn looked at her. Compared to Merryan, all clean and pressed and pretty, Robyn felt exactly like the grubby, homeless urchin she was rapidly becoming. A few days ago, Robyn would have called Merryan stuck up, annoying, prissy, all kinds of things like that. Seeing her here, down in the depths of Sherwood, of her own accord, dealing so kindly with the rough-edged folk of T.C. was pretty shocking. Still, Robyn wasn't about to tell all.

“Nothing,” Robyn said. “You and me—we were never here. Is that the deal?”

For a moment it seemed like Merryan was about to say something. Then she just shook her head and smiled. “Deal.”

 

CHAPTER FORTY

Called on the Carpet

The room was white and the floor was slippery. The warden trembled in her sensible shoes. She stood silent. Alone. Waiting.

Sunlight streamed in through the slats in the blinds behind the sheriff's desk. The desk itself was a giant screen, angled slightly to favor the person sitting behind it. The warden tried to ignore the images flashing by, but there was really nowhere else to look.

“Warden,” said the sheriff as she strode in through sliding doors that led to her private conference room.

“Yes. Hello, Sheriff Mallet.” The warden admired the sheriff's sense of fashion. Mallet didn't bind herself to the uniform code the warden and the MPs were required to follow. She wore a crisp peach suit with a deep-orange blouse and narrow, heeled boots.

She took her seat behind the desk. The warden remained standing. There were no other chairs in the room.

“All the prisoners?” Sheriff Mallet's tone conveyed her disdain. “Explain.”

“Not all. Only one from solitary,” the warden stammered. “W-we think the others were a diversion she created to mask her escape—”

“Stop.” Mallet dismissed the warden's explanation with a wave of her hand. “I don't need to hear your excuses.”

“It was out of our hands,” the warden blurted out. “They—”

“I said stop.”

The warden clamped her lips shut and lowered her gaze to the floor.

“Seventy-five low-level prisoners . . . and one Crescent.” Mallet glared. “Unacceptable.”

Mallet had been down to the jailhouse to survey the damage personally. The warden was wrong about one thing: the Crescent girl in solitary hadn't masterminded the jailbreak. Not a chance.

Boltless hinges. A kicked-open door. This was not an inside job. Someone had broken in from outside.

Someone bold and brazen enough to stage a daytime jailbreak, right under the nose of the warden and guards, in full view of a half dozen security cameras, none of which managed to capture a clear shot of the perpetrator's face. Just the crown of her head and that strange, elaborate braid.

Someone who, Mallet feared, would go on to cause more trouble in Sherwood. She ran a hand along the rim of her desk now, thinking.

“It won't happen again.” The warden couldn't keep herself from speaking into the silence. “We'll change the doors . . . it hasn't been in our budget to date, but we can . . . It will never happen again.”

“Oh, I know it will not.” Mallet pressed a button on her screen. “Come and take her now.”

The sliding doors opened. Two beefy MPs stormed into the room.

“But—” The warden flinched in surprise as the guards surged forward and seized her roughly by the arms. Her feet slipped on the slick white floor as they pulled her toward the door.

“Put her in Sherwood Jail. Solitary.”

“No!”

“Look at the bright side, Warden,” the sheriff said, gazing coldly across the desk. “Cell block security is out of the MP's hands, remember? You shouldn't have any trouble getting out.”

Mallet flicked her wrist. Her guards dragged the warden off.