Ashes

Isabel and Ruth escape, following on the tail of the advancing army. While this is dangerous, they have no choice: They need to lose themselves in a crowd, quickly. They plan to join the “camp followers,” a ragged bunch of women and children who cook and clean for the soldiers. At first, they infiltrate successfully, and the women welcome them as fellow camp followers who fell behind. They begin to ask questions, and Isabel realizes she can’t pass herself off as one of them. Making the excuse that Ruth has an upset stomach, the sisters withdraw into the woods again.

Ruth is resistant to going back into the woods, fearing ghosts and missing Aberdeen. Isabel tries to comfort her with the thought of the wildlife they’ll see, but Ruth persists and says, “Ghosts steal souls” (219). As they walk, Isabel starts to smell blood. She brushes it off as the smell of a wounded animal, until Ruth spots a human body under a bush: a man who has died of smallpox. The girls aren’t frightened, as they both had smallpox as children. They agree that they should bury the man’s body, but the ground is too hard, so they simply cover him with fallen branches and leave a cross at his head.