With a last guilty glance back at the boy in the shed, they followed.
Susan had once heard a friend’s grandmother say that no matter what the calendar told her, when she closed her eyes, she was still a young mother, with a small daughter. It didn’t matter that the daughter now had a daughter of her own. The picture hung there inside her head, unchanging. Susan had thought about that, wondering whether she had her own picture, hanging behind her eyes. Now she knew she did. While Nell toted around her blanket, and Kate and Jean carried their Barbies in their waistbands, Susan held on to the picture of a girl who was good at the supposed tos in life. She went to school and did her work and helped at home. She liked checking things off lists and knowing she’d done them right. Supposed tos. Ought tos. Shoulds. She had those covered.
The picture had suddenly become clear because all the supposed tos had gone wrong. The Susan in the picture was not meant to be walking down a foul-smelling street, following a petulant girl who could use a shave, or — she corrected the thought — a wax and file.
“Maybe we should get away from her,” she said to Max. She kept her voice low, not wanting Kate to hear. Her sister clung to her hand, round eyes taking in all the sights, none of them good ones.
He shook his head. “You want to get lost here? At least she knows something about the place. Somebody’s got to help us make sense of it.”
Susan wondered if anybody could. The farther they walked, the less sense it made. On the other side of a short alley, they caught a glimpse of laundry day. Bunches of people milled in a large square, arms full of clothing. The machine Liyla was so excited about turned out to be nothing but a spinning black barrel, powered by steam.
“You see those in museums,” Max said, astonished. “They’re like a hundred years old! And what is that? A musket?”
A red-cloaked man, gun slung over his shoulder, stood checking off names on a list as people jostled one another in line. A couple of red-sashed children moved up and down the row, keeping people in order.
“What are those kids doing?” Susan asked the girl. “They’re not soldiers, too, are they?”
Liyla laughed. “Purity Patrol. Even girls get to do it. Now, that’s really being useful.”
Susan cringed, watching the patrol members prod people twice and three times their age. The square looked crowded and hot.
“You’d think they’d spread it out a little,” Nell said. “Who says everybody has to do the wash on the same day?”
Liyla made a face that said she was long-suffering, having to answer such questions. “Only the law — that’s all,” she said. In a little singsong, she recited another one of her strange rhymes:
“Wash day’s here, don’t you forget it.
Be in the square or you’ll regret it!”
She caught sight of their dumbfounded looks. “Well, everybody’s got to keep clean, don’t they?”
“That boy didn’t look too clean,” Kate said to Susan. “The one you gave the peaches to.”
Liyla snorted.
“Well, not discards,” she said. “’Course not them.”
It occurred to Susan that she’d been walking along teetering between panic and outrage, and she really did have a choice. She decided on outrage.
“That’s ugly,” she said. “Stop it.”
Liyla looked at her in genuine surprise.
“It’s only the truth,” she said. “What am I supposed to say?”
Supposed to. Here, Susan didn’t really know.
“Well, not that. That boy deserved food as much as anybody.”
“Deserved? What in the name of progress does that mean?” Liyla asked. “Where do you get such ideas? Reject’s a reject, and useful are useful. What else matters?”
“Don’t you feel sorry for them?” Jean asked Liyla. “Even a little?”
Liyla considered this as if it had honestly never occurred to her. After a minute, she shrugged.
“Might as well be sorry for one of our chickens when she won’t lay and turns into supper. Doesn’t change anything.”
She started back down the street, unfazed by the looks they gave her.
Susan thought that maybe Max was right about following her. Nothing seemed to bother Liyla, and maybe not too many other people could lead them through these strange streets, unruffled by everything. She did seem to have a firm idea of where she was headed, too.
Only once during the walk did the girl falter. She had taken them deep into the city, where squat buildings took the place of squat houses, their outer walls plastered with decaying flyers and newer notices pasted over old until the bricks were no longer red or even brown, but a mash of gray, the color of leftover paste. The occasional hot breeze set the wall aflutter and sent the grimy, torn bits swirling into the street.
They had weathered one of these small blizzards and turned into the next alley when Liyla stopped short and let out a yelp. Someone had been leaning against one of the grimy walls halfway through the passage and bolted upright at sight of them, nearly as frozen as the girl.
He — by the height of the figure it seemed a he — wore a hood, and every inch of his body was covered in mottled-green cloth. Despite the heat, gloves encased his hands and thick mesh hid his face.
“What is that?” Jean whispered.
Liyla didn’t answer. Her breathing had quickened, and she lost her grip on her basket. It fell onto the broken paving stones, spilling plums into the path.
The figure seemed to study them a moment. Hesitating, it took a step forward.
Liyla’s hands flew up, and Susan was stunned to see a knife in one of them. “You get back, you! There are six of us! We won’t go easy!”
Again, the silent figure paused. Liyla stood breathing hard. The knife trembled in her hand. The figure only regarded her another minute, then turned and walked
