We stay four days at the first encampment. On the night before we are supposed to set out again, Raven takes me aside.
“It’s time,” she says.
I’m still angry at her for what she said to me at the traps, although the rage has been replaced by a dull, thudding resentment. All this time, she has known everything about me. I feel as though she has reached into me, to a deep place, and broken something.
“Time for what?” I say.
Behind me, the campfire is burning low. Blue and Sarah and some of the others have fallen asleep outside, a tangle of blankets and hair and legs. They have begun to sleep this way a lot, like a human patchwork: It keeps them warm. Lu and Grandpa are conversing in low voices. Grandpa is chewing some of his last tobacco, working it in and out of his mouth, spitting occasionally into the fire and causing a burst of green flame. The others must have gone into the tents.
Raven gives me the barest trace of a smile. “Time for your cure.”
My heart jumps in my chest. The night is sharply cold, and it hurts my lungs to breathe deeply. Raven leads me away from the camp, one hundred feet down along the stream, to a broad, flat stretch of bank. This is where we’ve broken through the thick layer of ice every morning to pull water.
Bram is already there. He has built another fire. This one is burning high and hot, and my eyes sting with ash and smoke when we’re still five feet away. The wood is arranged in a teepee formation, and at its crown, blue and white flames are licking up toward the sky. The smoke is an eraser, blurring the stars above us.
“Ready?” Raven asks.
“Just about,” Bram says. “Five minutes.” He is squatting next to a warped wooden bucket, which is nestled between pieces of wood on the periphery of the fire. He will have soaked it with water so it doesn’t catch and burn. The proximity of the fire will eventually cause the water in the bucket to boil. I see him remove a small, thin instrument from a bag at his feet. It looks like a screwdriver, with a thin, round shaft, a sharp and glittering tip. He drops it into the bucket, handle down, and then stands up, watching as the tip of the plastic handle makes slow revolutions in the simmering water.
I feel sick. I look to Raven, but she is staring at the fire, her face unreadable.
“Here.” Bram steps away from the fire and presses a bottle of whiskey into my hands. “You’ll want to drink some of this.”
I hate the taste of whiskey, but I uncap the bottle anyway, close my eyes, and take a big swig. The alcohol sears my throat going down, and I have to fight back the urge to gag. But five seconds later, a warmth radiates up from my stomach, numbing my throat and mouth and coating my tongue, making it easier to take a second sip, and a third.
By the time Bram says, “We’re ready,” I’ve polished off a quarter of the bottle and above me, through the smoke, the stars make slow revolutions, all of them glittering like pointed metal tips. My head feels detached from my body. I sit down heavily.
“Easy,” Bram says. His white teeth flash in the dark. “How you feeling, Lena?”
“Okay,” I say. The word is harder to get out than usual.
“She’s ready,” Bram says, and then, “Raven, grab the blanket, will you?” Raven moves behind me, and then Bram tells me to lie back, which I do, gratefully. It helps the woozy, spinning feeling in my head.
“You take her left arm,” Raven says, kneeling next to me. Her earrings—a feather and a silver charm, both threaded through one ear—sway together like a pendulum. “I’ll take her right.”
Their hands grip me tightly from both sides. Then I start to get scared.
“Hey.” I struggle to sit up. “You’re hurting me.”
“It’s important that you stay very still,” Raven says. Then she pauses. “It’s going to hurt for a bit, Lena. But it will be over quickly, okay? Just trust us.”
The fear is causing a new fire in my chest. Bram is holding the metal tool, newly sterilized, and its blade seems to catch all the light from the fire behind him, and glow hot and white and terrible. I’m too frightened to try and struggle, and I know it wouldn’t do any good. Raven and Bram are too strong.
“Bite on this,” Bram says, and suddenly there is a strip of leather going into my mouth. It smells like Grandpa’s tobacco.
“Wait—,” I try to say, but I can’t choke the word out past the leather. Then Bram places one hand on my forehead, angling my chin up to the sky, hard, and he’s bending over me, blade in hand, and I can feel its tip just pressing into the space behind my left ear, and I want to cry out but I can’t, and I want to run but I can’t do that, either.
“Welcome to the resistance, Lena,” he whispers to me. “I’ll try to make this quick.”
The first cut goes deep. I am filled with burning. And then I find my voice, and scream.