The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

“Mutti!” a towheaded boy yelled as he ran toward them.

She inhaled sharply and looked at Dr. Gettler, who didn’t appear to have heard the child’s cries.

Just before reaching the doctor, the boy cut across the line of corpses that included Rolene, as well as the next row, and plowed into Cora.

She stumbled backward, and the sun’s warmth hit the top of her damp head as her hood fell.

He wrapped his chubby arms around her leg and buried his tear-streaked, grimy face against her cloak. “Mutti, Mutti.”

Without thinking—only feeling the crushing grief of the tragedy around her—she rubbed his back, and he pressed himself tighter against her. His hand found the bottom of her robe, and he reached under the fabric and prodded her knee. Cora straightened but didn’t brush him away. It had been more than two years since she’d last received any affection, and this boy needed her. He began stroking her skin. She closed her eyes and allowed his self-soothing to calm her, too. As his whimpering faded, the knots in her muscles unraveled.

This warmth: she wanted it to extend into forever. Focusing on his soft touch, she blocked out everything around them, and her breathing fell into rhythm with his. Her eyes closed, she pretended this child was her own, and she gave him the comfort that only a mother could.

You fool, her subconscious chided.

She jerked her face away from his.

At this very moment, her germs might be traveling down his airway. She tightened the wrap that hung around her neck and pulled the hood over her head. Holding her breath, she shifted to pry him off her leg and gasped at his bare, blistered shoulder. He was the final child she’d saved.

Cora wobbled from the fatigue that accompanied the shocking realization. If she’d been stronger, or more determined, his mother would still be alive. She tried detaching the boy from her leg, but his grip tightened, and he began chanting “Mutti.”

Exhaustion was beginning to overwhelm her. She wavered, and the grisly scene around her dimmed. If it weren’t for the child clinging to her, she would allow herself to collapse.

“Wie heißt du?” What’s your name?

“Em-em-Emmett.” He wiped his runny nose with his hand.

She brushed back his hair, thick with sand. “Hast du Hunger?” With all the chaos, no one would notice her sneaking into the kitchen. “Möchtest du einen Apfel und Milch?”

“Nein, Mutti,” he said, seemingly unaffected by her shroud.

He was calling her mother. Although he was clearly in shock, a warm current still passed through Cora. She knelt and hugged him. “It’s going to be okay.”

He looked at her with his big brown eyes and nodded, though she doubted he understood English. She wondered if the rest of his family had been aboard the ship. If not, they were probably in Kleindeutschland, frantically searching for the pair among the returning survivors. If all his kin had died in the tragedy, maybe he could stay here with her.

She could find a way to mother him from a distance. Just until Dr. Gettler had his breakthrough. The two of them would be a family.

She knelt before him. “If we can’t find your Vater, I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

“Mutti, ich habe deinen Kasten.” From his pocket, Emmett pulled a small, nickel-plated box, its lid engraved with a cross, and handed it to her with a shy smile.

He’d been through so much; she didn’t have the heart to tell him it didn’t belong to her. “Du bist ein guter Junge,” she praised him.

Cora tried opening the box and noticed a keyhole. “Hast du das Schlüssel?”

“Im Wasser.” He sniffled and pointed at the river, where the key must have been lost during their struggle.

She shut her eyes and brought him closer. “That’s okay.”

Suddenly the boy flew upward from her grasp, blocking the sun; then he was gone.

Baffled, she shielded her eyes from the glare.

Already five yards away, Dr. Gettler was struggling to hold the writhing boy at arm’s length. He, too, must have thought at first that the child was Ulrich.

“Mutti!” the boy wailed.

She ran toward them. “Give him back! It’s okay, Emmett, I’m coming.”

“Dummkopf,” Dr. Gettler said so harshly that Emmett stopped struggling.

The admonishment stilled her, too.

“Haven’t we lost enough today? This boy now must be isolated.” Still holding Emmett, he set out toward the main hospital building, then turned on his heel. “What were you doing with him?” His tone contained a steel edge she’d never heard before.

“Es tut mir leid,” she said, hoping the apology sounded more convincing in his native tongue. “He thought I was his mother, and I—”

He laughed cruelly. “Mother? You’ll never be this boy’s mother, or any other child’s.” Holding the whimpering Emmett in outstretched arms, he strode across the corpse-lined lawn.

Emmett cried and reached for her.

She wanted to rush after them, rip the boy away, and pummel the doctor with her fists.

But he was right. Within a week or two, some of those she’d saved this morning might be sent back here.

Clutching the small box, Cora prayed that she hadn’t just infected the boy.

A man, dragging his injured leg as he perused the dead, stopped and stared at her, reminding her that the unfathomable tragedy around her hadn’t obscured the meaning of her shroud. To these outsiders also, she was nothing more than an untouchable outcast.

Dr. Gettler disappeared into the hospital with Emmett, and she realized he hadn’t asked her to continue the search for his one remaining family member.

A part of her wished Ulrich were dead, so that the doctor would be as lonely as she was.

Ashamed of the thought, she traced the crucifix etched on the box and decided she’d been meant to receive this trinket. As a reminder of her promise.

She turned toward the General Slocum. The popping and hissing of the fire had slackened. All that remained of the steamship in the shallows was its blackened skeleton. She should have slipped aboard one of the rescue boats an hour ago.