Angel of the Battlefield by Ann Hood

Author:Ann Hood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2012-01-13T05:00:00+00:00

September 5

The air smelled different. That was the first thing Maisie thought as she walked across the pasture. She could actually smell grass and dirt and horse poop and smoke, each scent sharper and . . . she inhaled deeply, trying to find the word to describe what she meant. Cleaner, she decided. The air smelled cleaner. In New York, the air always had a hint of car fumes in it. On their block, the smell from the Laundromat hung in the air and food smells from nearby restaurants mixed with it. Since they moved to Newport, her mother had made a big show of taking exaggerated deep breaths and saying “Ah! The salty sea air.” But Maisie never really got a whiff of it. Sure, everything stayed kind of damp from being so close to the ocean, and once in a while a strong odor of seaweed infiltrated the air.

But here it was as if every scent was making itself known. Maisie paused. Like right now she could smell something strong and floral. Sure enough, a cluster of flowers appeared around a bend. Maisie kept walking and breathing in all the smells, keeping her eyes peeled for some sign of civilization.

A new smell. Maisie inhaled. Berries, just like the Union Square farmers’ market on a hot summer day. Sure enough, she saw a tangle of blackberry bushes. The berries were bigger than any she’d seen before, even bigger than the ones her mother liked to buy at her favorite supermarket, Fairway, where the produce and meat and just about everything was superbig and shiny. Her stomach grumbled at the sight of so many berries, and Maisie realized she hadn’t eaten anything since that mac and cheese.

She plucked a blackberry from its branch and popped it in her mouth. The flavor—intense and sweet and more blackberryish than any blackberry she’d ever tasted—exploded on her tongue. And the bushes were crowded with blackberries. Maisie decided to help herself. She chose the fullest bush, placed herself in front of it, and began to eat. Each berry tasted better than the one just before it, all of them plump, juicy, and slightly warm. What kind of chemicals do these Bartons use that make the blackberries so delicious? she wondered.

As soon as she wondered that, Maisie said, “Uh-oh.”

She stepped away from the bush and turned slowly in every direction. Everything smelled clean, she realized, because it was clean. There was absolutely no pollution here. And she couldn’t see any power lines anywhere because there weren’t any power lines. And these blackberries were so good because they were, well, real blackberries, without Miracle-Gro or anything at all.

Maisie had figured out where they had landed. But when was it?

For the first time in her life, Maisie wished she’d paid a little more attention to her social studies teacher, Mrs. Johnson. All last year, Mrs. Johnson had taught them about American history—pilgrims and pioneers and settlers. Which group did Clara Barton fit into?

Pilgrims. She was fairly sure they wore shoes with big buckles.

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