Summary

Chapter 1: My Trouble Its Beginning, Tober 2 – Ice Cream “Ice” Fifteen Star is a member of the dark-skinned Sengles, a nomadic group of thieves and hunters. She has a brother named Driver Eighteen Star and a brother named Mo-Jacques Five Star who dies of “posies.” The rest of Ice Cream’s family is long dead, having originally come from the Two Towns near the Chespea Water. They left due to the arrival of the “neckface murderers” many years before. They now inhabit the western part of Massa. The Sengles are prone to the plague that has wiped out most of humanity, called “posies” or “WAKS.” It kills people by the age of twenty-one. Most of what is known about the disease comes from eighty-year-old evacuation notices. The notices reveal that all people not suffering from WAKS would be evacuated by...