The Tiger Flu

Chapter 2 is set in the Grist Village and is told from Kirilow Groundsel’s perspective on Day 1 of the node “Kernels Plump.”

The Grist Village is a forest community of parthenogenic women in exile from Saltwater City. The Grist sisters propagate through “doublers” who spontaneously become pregnant and birth several babies at a time. “Starfish,” meanwhile, are women who have the capability of regenerating organs and limbs; starfish will give their limbs or organs to doublers, to extend the doubler’s life, allowing them to birth as many new Grist sisters as possible. Auntie Radix is the Grist Village’s eldest doubler and considered the queen of the village, which is currently composed of 83 women. Auntie Radix is also the village’s last doubler.

Kirilow “Kiri” Groundsel is a “groom,” which is the Grist word for doctor. It is the groom’s duty to look after the doubler, to make sure they are healthy. They do this primarily by surgically harvesting organs from starfish and transplanting them into the doubler.

Chapter 2 opens with Kiri thinking that she does not want to give the eyes of her lover Peristrophe Halliana, the community’s last starfish, to Auntie Radix, but Auntie Radix’s eyes are deteriorating, and she needs new ones. Kiri administers some “mother moonshine” infused with “forget-me-do” to Peristrophe, which is a narcotic that makes pain feel like pleasure. Kiri uses her knife to surgically remove Peristrophe’s eyes for Auntie Radix.

Chapter 3 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kora’s perspective on Day 1 of the node “Kernels Plump.”

The Ko family farms potatoes in their rooftop garden. Kora helps Uncle Wai collect their latest crop and notices that the potatoes are rotting. The Ko family is hungry, and their health is suffering. From her room, Kora overhears Charlotte and Uncle Wai fighting about Delphine. Charlotte argues that they must kill the goat for food, even if she is Kora’s beloved pet. Kora listens to music to drown out the sound of their arguing and eventually falls asleep. She wakes in the very early morning to see Old Chang rise: “On the western horizon, Old Chang rises. She gazes at him and wonders about all the things he once did for the people of the time before” (31).

Chapter 4 is set in the Grist Village and is told from Kiri’s perspective on Day 1 of the node “Kernels Plump.”

Kiri lays out the harvest of forget-me-do in the cave she shares with Peristrophe, who is currently weak. Auntie Radix, in her old age, requires Kiri to harvest multiple organs from Peristrophe, and this leaves Peristrophe tired and sickly. A little less than a week after asking for Peristrophe’s eyes, Auntie Radix tells Kiri that she needs Peristrophe’s heart or she will die. Kiri recalls the old songs about how it is her duty as a Grist sister to protect the last doubler, but she does not want to give Peristrophe’s heart to Auntie Radix (34).

A few days later, Kiri sees a “red flash of hair,” which must be a “Salty” (36), creeping through the Grist village, between her and Auntie Radix’s caves. Thinking it is potentially an attack from HöST, Kiri follows it into a clearing, where she throws a knife and expertly cuts the Salty’s hand off at the wrist. The Salty screams in pain and flees into the night.

Chapter 5 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kora’s perspective on Day 2 of the node “Kernels Plump.”

Charlotte kills Delphine the goat, which instigates more arguments between Charlotte and Uncle Wai. Uncle Wai does not think it was necessary to kill the goat; Charlotte counters that K2, who is sick with tiger flu, will die unless he eats meat. As they argue, Kora overhears an insinuation of a romance between Uncle Wai and Charlotte, with Uncle Wai saying that the love between him and Charlotte “was real” (40). Kora also overhears Charlotte reveal to Uncle Wai that Everest, her eldest son, is dead from the flu.

Kora cannot bear to listen any longer. She flees the apartment, traveling down Hastings Street and into the nearby wet market. A girl with “kohl-rimmed” eyes from the Cordova School of Dancing Girls accuses Kora of stealing cans from her stand (41). Kora denies it, knocks over the girls’ table, and flees the scene.

Chapter 6 is set in Grist Village and is told from Kiri’s perspective on Day 1 of the node “Grain in Beard.”

Kiri and her “mother double” harvest forget-me-do, the Grist sisters’ most precious crop. Kiri catches sight of the Salty as they harvest, the one whose hand she cut off two days earlier. Kiri is surprised and bewildered when she sees that its hand has grown back; this Salty must be a starfish somehow. Kiri also notices that the Salty is weak and sickly, likely infected with the flu.

Kiri entraps the Salty in a “womb bomb,” which is a net-like device “made from modified black squirrel bladder cells” (44). Kiri mouths to her mother double that the Salty “can starfish” (44). Kiri wants to kill it, but Glorybind Groundsel signs and says they need to preserve it. They take the Salty back to their lab to examine it.

Kiri is disgusted by the Salty; she and Glorybind feed it tea made of forget-me-do. Kiri takes the Salty’s pulse, and the Salty says she can teach them about time “past and time to come” and that she can show them their history (49). The Salty says that if Kiri helps her now, that will pave the way for the Grist sisters to re-enter Saltwater City “as full and beloved citizens” (49). Kiri is unsettled by the Salty’s words. Kiri is about to wrap the Salty in a womb bomb when there is a knock at the door. It’s Auntie Radix’s new young groom Bombyx saying there is an emergency with Auntie Radix’s heart.

Chapter 7 is set in the Saltwater Flats and told from Kora’s perspective on Day 3 of the node “Kernels Plump.”

A crew of ragged girls from the wet market are waiting for Kora when she approaches the gate of the Woodward Building. Kora goes around the building and flees to a fort near the water.

The fort is a shrine built for Isabelle Chow, the founder of HöST Light Industries. Kora says an “awkward little prayer” for Isabelle (53). She finds a scale that looks like a candle and plugs it into her halo. The scale shows her a private vision of Isabelle in which Isabelle addresses someone she calls “my love” and reveals that she needs a thousand “test subjects” in the “race for the world” (54). The vision does not make sense to Kora, and she sleeps in the shrine and dreams of Delphine. In the early morning, Kora returns to her apartment building and quietly walks past two snoozing Cordova girls outside the gates.

Chapter 8 is set in the Grist Village and is told from Kiri’s perspective on Day 1 of the node “Grain in Beard.”

Auntie Radix’s health is failing; she struggles to breathe. Kiri performs CPR on her, which revives her. Bombyx, Auntie Radix’s young groom, thanks Kiri for bringing her back to life. They wait a moment to make sure Radix is stable, and then Kiri departs for her own cave.

Glorybind and Kiri head back to their caves singing a “happy rhyme” of Grandma Chan Ling, who led the Grist sisters to their village 80 years ago. They have just reached their door when Bombyx comes racing back to tell them that Radix’s heartbeat has slipped once again.

Kiri performs CPR again, but Auntie Radix chokes out that it’s “too late” (60). Auntie Radix calls Kiri selfish as she passes away. Everyone is shocked, and the young groom angrily tells Kiri that she hopes she is pleased with herself, since Kiri refused to give Auntie Radix Peristrophe’s heart. Glorybind tells the young groom that she must focus on her funerary duties to Radix.

Chapter 9 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kora’s perspective on Day 3 of the node “Kernels Plump.”

After spending the night in the shrine, Kora scarfs down a breakfast hash of potatoes and mushrooms prepared by Charlotte. Charlotte also has Kora take some breakfast to Uncle Wai, who is sick and running a high fever. Kora mops his forehead. Charlotte tells Kora that Uncle Wai is ill because of her, since his illness worsened after chasing her through the wet market the day before.

Later, Kora returns to the kitchen to get some food for K2, but there she sees Delphine dead and butchered, slung over Charlotte’s shoulder. Kora races to her room with her hands covering her eyes.

Kora spends her day in her room. She refuses to eat the goat stew Charlotte makes, even when Charlotte leaves a small bowl on a tray outside her bedroom door. Only in the evening, when Kora is ravenous, does she open the door and eat the entire bowl of stew. Almost immediately, Kora’s stomach churns and she vomits the stew. She then goes to Uncle Wai’s room to sleep at the foot of his bed.

Chapter 10 is set in the Grist Village and is told from Kiri’s perspective on Day 2 of the node “Grain in Beard.”

Glorybind and Kiri hear music coming from Kiri’s cave. When they arrive, they see the Salty and Peristrophe are playing music from a CD player. Kiri does not recognize the machine. Glorybind, upon hearing the music, is consumed with the urge to dance, and she joins the Salty and Peristrophe in a joyous joint dance: “Burst and laugh and burst again, like fireworks from the time before” (70). Kiri reluctantly joins them. The music stops when the battery in the CD player dies. The Salty again tells them to come back to Saltwater City, where they can listen to music every day.

The Salty coughs. Kiri notices that Peristrophe is also coughing. Kiri loses her temper and screams that the Salty came to infect them, and that she needs to get out of their cave. Kiri forces the Salty to drink forgetting tea before she leaves, so the Salty will have no memory of the Grist community. They put the Salty in a wheelbarrow and dump her in the same location where they found her in the clearing in the valley.

Chapter 11 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kora’s perspective on Day 4 of the node “Kernels Plump.”

Kora wakes up sick and famished after having vomited up the goat stew. She makes her way out of her room to find some food. K2, Charlotte, and Uncle Wai all sit around their teak kitchen table.

Uncle Wai proposes that Kora go to the Cordova School of Dancing Girls, which is a special school for girls located closer to Saltwater City proper. At the school, girls learn to “dance,” which is the Cordova School’s word for foraging for supplies and thieving, among other survival skills. Kora initially does not want to go. Charlotte does not want her to go either, but Uncle Wai reminds them that, in trying times, they must set aside individual desires for the larger collective and for survival. The Cordova School will help her figure out a way to survive in the “world that is coming” and the lessons she will learn from Madame Aurelia is the best chance she’s got (75). Uncle Wai says it’s a prestigious invitation. His flu is advancing, and he spits out blood.

Chapter 13 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kora’s perspective on Day 2 of the node “Grain in Beard.”

Kora arrives at the Cordova School as the girls are having a stew that goes by a name she does not recognize (bourguignon); it’s also made with an ingredient she does not recognize (beef) (82).

Velma, a girl of seven or eight, comes to collect Kora from the foyer. Velma says they just started dinner and that Kora is lucky since it’s a heist day; Myra and Tania broke into a HöST supermarket, so they have an abundance of supplies.

In the dining hall, the girls are separated by age, with the older girls sitting at one table and the younger girls sitting at another. Kora tries to sit with the girls her own age; she recognizes them as the girls from the wet market who chased her. Myra, at the head of the table, hisses that Kora better not sit with them; she makes Kora sit with the younger kids instead.

Myra reveals that Kora’s family is responsible for the tiger flu, the pandemic that has killed so many and changed the world. When Madame Dearborn enters the room, she instructs Kora to sit with the girls her own age and says that she hopes they are treating her well.

Chapter 14 is set in the Grist Village and is told from Kiri’s perspective on Day 5 of the node “Grain in Beard.”

The Grist sisters perform a funeral ritual over the bodies of Auntie Radix and Peristrophe called the Night of the Firefly, in which they light many bonfires. The Grist sisters worry that the Salties will see their bonfire, but the Salties are celebrating their own holiday, the Midsummer Festival, which commemorates “the end of oil, the ascent of Our Mother, and the ancient launch of Chang and Eng” (87).

Kiri watches her sisters celebrate through a haze of grief. She is depressed and wants to give up. Glorybind reminds Kiri that she has a duty to Grist Village. She must go to Saltwater City to discover if a Grist commune still exists there.

Bombyx takes Kiri away from the funeral ritual, saying she needs to show Kiri something. She guides Kiri through the trees into a secret wild olive patch, where there is an “abandoned magic bus” (92). Inside, by the light of a jar of fireflies that illuminates the darkness, Kiri sees that Corydalis Ambigua is pregnant. Bombyx asks for Kiri’s help in “popping her puppies” (94). Though Kiri is a starfish groom, she agrees to help. Kiri asks why Bombyx did not tell anyone that Corydalis is a doubler. Bombyx says that Radix would not have liked it.

Suddenly, enormous war ships from HöST called batterkites fill the skies above Grist Village. The batterkites are part machine and part biological, made from a combination of electronics, seal bladders, and oysters. Kiri suppresses her fear as she helps Corydalis birth her babies.

Chapter 15 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kora’s perspective on Day 6 of the node “Grain in Beard.”

Myra asks Kora, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done for food?” (97). Myra, Soraya, Modesta, and Tania all tease Kora for catching and roasting a rat with K2 a few months ago, something they observed Kora doing. Kora retches at the memory of it, and the girls laugh and make fun of her. Kora pukes, and the girls kick her and rub her face in her own vomit, then force her to lick the vomit up from the ground.

The next day, Myra is still taunting Kora. She asks Kora the worst thing she has ever done for love; Myra tells Kora that her family can’t have really loved her very much if they sent her to Cordova. Tania asks if Kora has a boyfriend; they suggest that maybe K2 is her boyfriend, and Kora says they are sick for asking that. They then posit that maybe Kora likes girls; Kora says if she did like girls, she would not like Myra.

The day after, Velma brings Kora to the school clinic, which is run by Madame Dearborn. She knows that Myra and the other girls have been picking on Kora. Madame Dearborn kindly treats Kora for a concussion and bemoans how Myra and the other girls do the Cordova School just as much harm as good.

Chapter 16 is set en route to Pente-Hik-Ton and is told from Kiri’s perspective on Day 6 of the node “Grain in Beard.”

Kiri leaves Bombyx, Corydalis, and her new litter of babies curled together in the bus. She goes to find out what happened to the rest of the Grist sisters.

When Kiri returns to the funeral area, she stumbles upon Calyx Kaki in the forest, drunk after having had too much forget-me-do. Kiri yells at Calyx to tell her what happened. Calyx says a whole fleet of batterkites passed overhead last night, but they are gone now. Kiri hears a groan from the other side of the clearing and goes to investigate; Calyx warns her not to look.

A flash of lighting illuminates what has happened to the Grist sisters: A “hundred arms and legs writhe” as all the sisters are caught in a strong mesh net (105). Kiri tries to cut the net’s fibers, but they are too strong. From within the net, Glorybind shouts that Kiri must go to the city and find a new starfish. She says that her friend Elzbieta Kruk at the New Origins Archive will help her on her journey. She advises Kiri to “find her feet” and “play fewer games” (106). As another batterkite arrives, Calyx and Kiri flee. Kiri reflects, “I cry like the little child I cannot be anymore, tear away from the depression in the forest floor, the writing mass of my very own sisters, and the massive, hungry ship that descends on them” (107). She watches as the batterkite sucks the whole net of her sisters into its interior.

Kiri catches another glimpse of the red-haired Salty as she returns to Bombyx and Corydalis. Kiri informs them of what happened, that Grist village has been destroyed. Bombyx and Corydalis decide they will go to the well-hidden valley where they went hunting for elk last summer, while Calyx and Kiri will go to Saltwater City to rescue the Grist sisters and find the Salty (109).