The Tiger Flu by Larissa Lai

Author:Larissa Lai
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Published: 2018-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

NODE: SUMMER SOLSTICE

DAY: 9

I’M DREAMING OF A VILLAGE IN THE MOUNTAINS WHEN THERE’S AN urgent knock at my door.

“Dr Groundsel! Wake up, hurry!” Tania’s voice.

I drag myself out of bed, pull on my old, soft spider-thread tunic.

“It’s Madame. She’s taken a turn for the worse.”

Her favourite girls are gathered around her as she lies, breathing roughly on her bloody sheets. The candles they’ve lit cast a pale yellow light over her sharp face. Her neck looks swollen. I press my hand against it. It’s hot. Her forehead too is warmer than it should be.

“She can’t see,” Tania says. “Her vision is blurred.”

“Is that right, Madame?”

“My head hurts,” she says.

She looks old and frail. The hair that was bright red yesterday has gone ashy.

“The brain can swell,” I tell her. “It’s rare, but you were scratched very badly. I could cut? I’m a good surgeon.”

“I know what you want to know, Doctor Groundsel.”

“She knows, but she’ll never tell,” says Tania, moving loyally to Madame’s bedside.

“Never,” says Myra. “Don’t you dare ask.”

I prepare morphine as Madame taught me, find a place in her leg that can bear a needle, and inject her.

“I’ll tell you, but you must promise to keep it secret.”

“I have no one to tell.” Of all the times to get what I want.

“Let her save you, honoured teacher. You can tell her then.”

Madame speaks slowly through her pain. “You’ve landed right at ground zero of the Grist Commune.”

“I don’t understand. There are no Grist sisters here.”

“The Cordova School was the Grist Commune. It’s where Grandma Wun Ling came after the purge, and after her sister, Chan Ling, fled with many others to the quarantine rings. The school was a cover for it, so we could hide and survive. As our numbers dwindled, we brought in orphans so we could pass our history and survival techniques on to them. But it was to no avail. We lost our last doubler three years ago.”

“I don’t believe you.” I begin to shave away the ashy red curls.

“Please, Madame,” says Myra.

“The girl who came to look for you was our last starfish.”

“Enough, dearest Madame. You must stop.” Tania. “Just let the doctor fix you. You can tell her whatever you want later.”

“It can’t be so,” I say. But my heart knows it’s true.

Madame Dearborn says, “Why would I lie to you? I am the Grist Commune’s last groom.”

“Not possible,” I breathe. I know I should stop her from talking if she’s to make it.

“When I die, the Saltwater Grist Commune will be over. That’s why Carmela Sweetwater came to look for you. I advised her not to. We needed her starfish abilities, and Myra and Tania were already looking for the mythic Grist Village. But she was stubborn, said only she knew where to look. She was a half sister, descended from Wun Ling through her mother’s line. She found you, though she paid with her life.” Her eyes brim with tears.

“But my sisters …”

“Miss Sweetwater got there before any army, and she lost her hand to you.

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