Chapter 24: A Cup for Every Omega

The omegas began to line up at the pack hall before dawn.

I came down at six and found the queue out the door and down the steps.

Sixty people stood in it with blankets over their shoulders.

They had been sick for years. Most of them did not know why.

Pia stood at a trestle table in the hall with her sleeves rolled up and her eyes red.

"I counted forty-one just on this side," she said. "I stopped counting."

"Then start with the oldest."

"Clara, they're all-"

"Start with the oldest, Pia."

She started.

I had brought Redfern jars in the back of Torin's truck.

I had been up half the night with a mortar.

Feverfew for the shaking, and thyme for the cough.

A pinch of moonflax went in each cup.

My hands knew everything. Six years had not touched what they knew.

The first omega was an old man with a hollow chest, who sat down heavily and took the cup in both palms.

He drank it.

Nothing happened for a moment.

Then a faint pink came up under the grey of his cheeks. He looked at his own hand and made a sound, half laugh, half sob.

"I can smell the bread," he said. "From the baker's. Three streets over."

The queue behind him began to cry.

I did not stop moving.

I took the next cup and the next one.

I ran the hall that day.

I did not plan to.

The elders brought me papers, and I read them standing at the trestle with a jar in one hand.

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