Sect Year 5 · fourth month · night of day 1 · the forty-seventh life: Hallam Ford, her thirty-first year
Nesa washed the basin twice before the first bell, and the second washing did no more good than the first. The tap in the wash-room ran cold from the river water tank. She scrubbed the enamel with her thumb until the rim squeaked under it, and the squeak was the only sound in the room that made sense to her. Her hands knew the work. The rest of her stood a little way off and watched them do it.
The girl would not leave her alone. She sat behind Nesa’s eyes like a coin under the water of a bucket. A child of ten with her cheek pressed flat to a ward window, a stranger’s hand in hers, and then the hand sliding free. A sister’s voice had called the girl away from the glass. The girl had gone without looking back at the bed. Nesa had not known the memory was hers until the wake, and now she couldn’t set it down anywhere.
She dried the basin and carried it out on her hip. The ward was waking as it always did, with coughing first and the wagon drivers swearing at the stove after. Nesa counted the beds as she went, as she had counted them all night. There were twelve at the back, past the fever room, each with its number chalked on the frame. Two were in…
