The Changes Trilogy Read Free

a mother picking up her baby; he carried her to the cushioned cart, which was brightly painted with swirling patterns—it was the sort of handcart that street-market stall holders had used for pushing their goods about. The old woman settled herself on the cushions, stared at Nicky again, and called another few words. At once the whole group trooped off the grass and took up their positions for the march.
    Nicky ran forward from under the trees. They were all watching her still, as though she might be the bait in some unimaginable trap.
    â€œPlease,” she called. “May I come with you?”
    A rustle ran through the group like the rustle of dead leaves stirring under a finger of wind. One of the worried women said something, and three of the men answered her. Nicky could tell from their voices that they were disagreeing with her. The old woman spoke a single syllable, and the nearest man shook his head at Nicky. He was short and fat and his beard was flecked with gray; his hat was pink, only it wasn’t a hat, of course—it was a long piece of cloth wound in and out of itself in clever folds to cover his head and hair.
    â€œPlease,” she said again. “I’m all alone and I don’t know where to go.”
    â€œGo away, little girl,” said the fat man. “We can’t help you. You are not one of us. We owe you nothing.”
    â€œPlease,” began Nicky, but the old woman called again and at once the whole group began to move.
    They walked off quite slowly, not because they wanted to move like a funeral, but because they couldn’t go faster than the slowest child. Nicky stood and watched them, all shriveled with despair at the thought of facing the huge loneliness of London once again.
    She stepped into the road to watch the strange people turn the corner north. (If they’d wanted to go south they would have started down the other side of the Green.) But instead they went straight ahead, up the Uxbridge Road, toward the doorstep where the one-legged man had sat in the sun.
    Nicky began to run.
    Her satchel dragged her sideways and thudded unsteadily into her hip. A rat tail of dirty fair hair twisted into her mouth and she spat it out. Her soles slapped on the hot pavement and the echo slapped back at her off the empty shops. When she crossed the big road at the end of the Green the strange people were only a hundred yards down it, so slow was their march. She ran on, gasping.
    They must have heard her coming, because one of the four men who walked in the rear came striding back toward her, his stave grasped in both hands like a weapon.
    â€œGo away, little girl,” he said sharply. “We don’t want you. We can’t help you.”
    Nicky stopped. He was taller and younger than the fat man who had spoken to her before, and frowned at her very fiercely.
    â€œNo! Don’t go that way!” she said between gasps. “There’s a bad sickness that way. An old man told me. He said he was going to catch the sickness and die. He made me promise not to go down there. He said he’d seen people staggering about and then falling down dead in the street.”
    The dark man moved his stave, so that it stopped being a weapon and became a stick to lean on.
    â€œThis is true?” he asked.
    â€œYes, of course.”
    He looked at her for several seconds, just as fiercely as before. Then, without another word to her, he turned and called after the procession in the strange language. Beyond him Nicky could see two or three faces turn. A cry came back, the man answered and another cry came. By this time the whole group had stopped.
    â€œCome with me,” said the man without looking around, and strode off up the street. Nicky followed.
    Men, women and children stood staring and unsmiling, still as a grove of trees, while she walked between them. When they reached the cushioned cart where the old woman lay, the man stopped and spoke for some time.