Some doors were marked with signs that read: “QUARANTINE INFLUENZA: Keep out of this house.” At the end of the alley, a woman in a black dress came out of the silversmith’s shop and tied a piece of white crepe to the doorknob, sobbing uncontrollably. Pia couldn’t help staring, new tremors of fear climbing up her back. She knew what the different colors of crepe meant; she’d seen enough of it in the mining village after cave-ins and explosions, and during the wave of tuberculosis that hit the village when she was seven. Black meant the death of an adult; gray an elderly person; white a child.
