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

stern, Mary was wearing a life preserver. So was Helmut, seated on the vessel’s only bench.

Alfred reached into the boat for his and fastened it around his neck.

“Have you got an extra?” Cora asked, her teeth chattering.

Helmut fished a flask from his raincoat and took a swig. “We weren’t expecting a fourth.” The look of derision on his bearded face suggested he hadn’t fully believed Mary’s claim.

Alfred shoved the rowboat free of the river bottom and threw himself in, disrupting its balance, and Cora yelped.

“You’re a skittish one, aren’t ya?” Mary asked.

Cora didn’t answer. She doubted her friend was as complacent as she’d sounded; Mary’s knuckles were white from gripping the gunwale. Cora wiggled her fingers. Beneath the already sodden leather, they felt numb.

Pushing off the bottom with an oar, Helmut turned the bow toward Manhattan. He began rowing, and the boat plowed through the chop.

Cora stared at the campus, bathed in an azure glow creeping up the eastern horizon.

Only once had she seen the island from afar. As the ferry had approached the hospital, she and Maeve had stood at the bow railing, arms wrapped around each other.

Despite a new facade on the main ward, additional wood-framed pavilions, and the specimen trees she’d helped plant, the facility still looked bleak. At its core, Riverside hadn’t changed a bit, but it had changed her.

Ensnared by an eddy, the boat spun.

The sailor grunted as he worked the oars, and the dinghy lurched free of the vortex.

Alfred and Mary cheered and hungrily eyed each other. If they weren’t seated at opposite ends, Cora was sure they would have kissed.

A wave struck the top of Cora’s hood, and she squealed in surprise. Runoff streamed down her face, and the terror of drowning gripped her. She held the soaked face wrap away from her mouth and gulped in air.

When the burn in her lungs subsided, her breathing slowed.

Shivering, she settled into the standing water in the hull. With each swell they rode, her stomach heaved, and more brackish water splashed over the sides. Even if they managed not to flip, they still might sink. And Cora’s heavy cloak would drag her to the bottom.

A bucket attached to the bench by a rope rattled against the side. Cora grabbed the container and began bailing. More poured in faster.

Ignoring the aching in her arms and the sting as her thinly covered knuckles banged the wood, she scooped faster. “Please, Lord,” chanted Mary, an Irish Catholic who never attended church, and Cora matched her tempo.

Maybe this was God’s way of preventing the two from leaving Hospital Island. Cora had been arrogant to believe she could walk a mile through a bustling city, where she couldn’t wear her leper’s shroud because of the attention it would attract, without infecting a single soul. And there was no guarantee that Carnegie’s microbiologists could cure her. Instead, they might die trying.

The boat rode up a swell, and she spotted North Brother’s ferry dock, diminished in size. They must be nearing the worst of Hell Gate.

Ahead, the whitecaps rose higher. Alfred took the oars from Helmut and yelled, “Brace yourselves.”

The boat tossed, and Mary bobbled.

Reflexively, Cora reached for her friend to keep her from falling overboard, but Mary lunged out of reach. The boat rocked, and everyone scrambled to balance it.

Mary’s lips curled into a grimace, and she pointed behind Cora.

Cora twisted to check for a ferry charging toward them. Distant sailboats and barges dotted the waterway, but none appeared concerned with their small party. “What is it?”

“Your face,” Mary stuttered. “It looks God-awful.”

Suddenly Cora’s cheeks felt like they’d been scraped with a razor blade and doused in saltwater. A gust seared the raw skin, and she realized her headwrap now hung around her neck.

She dropped the bucket and recovered her face, which stung as much as her hands. She wiped sea spray from her eyes, peeled off her gloves, and yelped.

Her fingers looked like sausages and felt like they were in a frying pan. It has to be from the saltwater, she thought, looking for something to dry them with. The pain intensified, and a wave of wooziness rushed over her. She brought her hands to her mouth to blow on them.

They weren’t cracked; they were blistered. Flat, red boils covered her skin. She tried to bring one of the sores into focus. Her head throbbed, and she felt like she was aboard the Slocum, the fire closing in on her.

The blisters resembled smallpox. No! she screamed inside her head. Not now! They couldn’t be real; the stress of the passage must have driven her mad.

But Mary—not Cora—had first noticed them.

Though she could have hallucinated Mary’s outcry. Nausea swelled in her stomach, and she turned just in time to vomit over the side of the boat.

Helmut swore and grabbed the oars from Alfred. “Move!” he yelled, and Alfred toppled into the bow. “She’s no burn victim! She’s got the pox!”

Alfred righted himself. “Scheiße, Mary, you lied. How could you let her come?”

“I didn’t know, I swear,” she cried, her hand covering her mouth.

“I’m gittin’ the hell off this boat and away from that vile creature.” Alfred began rowing with panicked vigor.

Compressed into the far corner of the stern, Mary kept her hands in front of her chest, clearly ready to ward off Cora if needed.

This can’t all be a hallucination, Cora decided. Touching her cheek beneath the wrap, she cringed from the pressure of her fingertips on the bumps.

A sharp pain seared her abdomen. She reached for the incision, but the cramping had originated farther down.

Her immune system must have finally succumbed to the vicious beasts. Scratching her arms beneath the cloak, she howled in frustration.

A wave slammed into her back and she fell toward Helmut, who shouted and dove to port, driving the boat onto its side. Alfred threw himself to starboard, and the vessel righted, but only until the next swell pounded them.

Despite being drenched, Cora felt fever hot. Yet at the same time, chilled to the core.