Read Online Quarantine: A Novel by John Smolens - Free Book Online

asked.
    “Yes,” Amanda said. “I’ve cleaned her, but it doesn’t stop.”
    Giles placed his hand on the girl’s forehead, which was hot
    and slick with perspiration. He took hold of the blanket and said,
    “Sarah, I need to listen to your heart.” But the girl clutched the blanket tighter. The chattering of her teeth was audible. “Sarah, please.”
    “Doctor Wiggins must examine you,” Amanda said. “Now
    do as you’re told.”
    Sarah appeared confused as she turned her head in the direction
    of her mother’s voice. Her blond curls, glistening in the firelight, reminded Giles of Amanda when they were in school together.
    With both his hands he took hold of Sarah’s tight fists and
    carefully pried the fingers open. “That’s better,” he said. “I just need a moment, and then we will bundle you up again.”
    Sarah’s nightshirt was soaked, and the doctor quickly unfas-
    tened the wooden buttons. He lowered his head to the girl’s chest, the skin hot and damp against his ear. There was a pronounced
    rattle to her breathing, and her heart thumped rapidly against her narrow rib cage. Straightening up, he said, “I would wash her
    again and keep her in dry clothes.”
    “I have been trying,” Amanda said. “She has soiled all of her
    own, and now I’m using her brother’s.”
    “Of course.” Giles got to his feet and stepped aside. “Where
    is Leander?”
    “I sent him up to the loft and he is not to come downstairs.”
    “Good.”
    Amanda got down on her knees, leaned over her daughter,
    and began to remove her damp clothing.
    Giles went out into the dooryard, the evening air a relief after the heat from the fireplace. Chickens stirred in the coop, and there was the smell of wood smoke throughout the neighborhood. He
    sat on the step and removed the bottle from the inside pocket of his frock coat. He worried out the cork and took a pull of rum.
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    q u a r a n t i n e
    After a few minutes the kitchen door opened behind him and
    Amanda sat beside him on the step. He could feel her weariness
    now—it seemed to penetrate him. “Would that be rum I smell?”
    she asked.
    “It would be.”
    She took the bottle from him and raised it to her mouth. “I
    should be ashamed. But this fever came on so quick, and I’ve
    hardly slept myself. During the storm yesterday, Leander and
    Sarah went into the Poes’ stable to get out of the rain. He says he believes it was Jotham there, in the barn.”
    “Jotham has come down with fever as well.”
    She turned and looked at him now, and he could not return
    her stare. “Caleb says there’s to be a pest-house established on the Mall.”
    “Yes, tomorrow we will begin.”
    “Remember when this happened before, when we were chil-
    dren?” she asked. “I must have been ten or eleven—odd how I
    can’t be sure anymore.”
    “I was thirteen. It was the winter my father died.”
    “Ice,” she said as though it were a revelation. “I forgot. Your
    father was out on the Artichoke River, cutting ice.”
    “Everything went in—the wagon, the horses, my father. All
    drowned. It almost seemed merciful, compared to the way people
    were dying of the fever.”
    “I remember lying in bed at night with my sisters,” Amanda
    said. “There were cries and screams throughout the neighborhood.
    I thought Newburyport was being visited by one of the plagues
    of Egypt. My imagination—I envisioned the Merrimack running
    red with blood.”
    “There was the sound of the carts in the streets, collecting
    corpses.”
    Suddenly her hand was on his forearm. “She will die?”
    “She’s quite strong, Amanda.”
    “I want to keep her here, where I can look after her.”
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    j o h n s m o l e n s
    “You know you can’t do that.”
    “There was a time—” She removed her hand. “There was a
    time when you said you would grant me anything.”
    “There was,” he whispered. “Please accept my apology.”
    “You are not at fault.” She raised a hand to her face,