Drought

  “Is it kind of loud? I should have warned you.” Ford slides his hands over my ears and smiles. I rest my hands on top of his, for a moment, and smile back. The music is muffled, not like modern people hear it, I warrant. I want to be a modern girl at the movies, so I pull his hands away, even though the sound seems loud enough to make my teeth rattle.

  “I’ll turn it down,” Ford says.

  Now I can barely hear the music and the talking, but I like it that way. Just looking is more than enough. The people are so big on the screen, and nearly transparent, somehow. I never pictured them flat either.

  It’s beautiful, so beautiful, in colors brighter than real life. The girl on the screen wears a trim green dress with a skirt so tight and short, I don’t know how she sits down. She strides confidently on shoes made of only a few strips of leather. I want to be her, so joyful and carefree.

  “I’ve seen this movie, like, four times,” Ford says. “You’ll like it. You can see all the fancy stuff you’ve been missing. The people in it are über, über rich.”

  “Like Darwin West,” I say.

  Ford laughs. “If Darwin has money like these people, he’s not spending it like them.”

  I think of his cabin with blazing lights and water that runs inside it, and how his shoes are always fine and new. I think of the thick gold watch on his wrist that glints when he pulls the chain back over his head.

  Could there be any richer?

  “You’ll see.” He shifts in his seat and suddenly, somehow, he is much closer to me. I feel the heat coming off his body, and the movie feels less consuming now.

  The girl on the screen is driving a tiny, sleek thing that is nothing like the bulky trucks the Overseers drive.

  “That’s a sports car,” Ford says. “I bet it goes from zero to eighty in, like, two seconds.”

  “Sports car,” I say, testing it in my mouth. If I lived in the modern world, could I drive one?

  Would I want to? She’s missing so much flashing past her while she hurries to the next empty thing.

  The girl eats, and flirts with boys, and breaks their hearts. But she doesn’t do anything that matters. She’s not kind. And she doesn’t help a single person.

  Is this modern life? I don’t know if I like it. But I like watching it. I try to remember every little thing. I’ll remember them again, and again, when Ford is gone.

  I watch the movie, but I feel Ford’s eyes on me, not the screen. I shift a little closer to him too—but I use the softer end of my fork to poke his side gently.

  “You don’t have to buy tickets to look at me,” I tease.

  “I just like to watch you,” Ford says. “It reminds me of how to be happy.”

  He slides one arm around my shoulder, and I know what to do. I leave my fork in the empty container and rest my head on his shoulder. It’s hard, but not bony—a strong place that will barely even feel the weight of me on it.

  “You just watch the movie,” I tell him.

  The boy from the ticket booth sticks his head in Ford’s window and grins at us. “Ah, romance.”

  I sit up straight; my cheeks flame.

  “Table for two, Chuck,” Ford growls.

  “Popcorn delivery, Mr. Touchy.” The boy puts an enormous white paper bucket in Ford’s lap; it’s spilling white fluffy bits on the floor.

  “Thank you,” I tell him.

  “Nice girl you got there,” Chuck says.

  “Chuck,” Ford says, none too quiet.

  But Chuck doesn’t seem to notice or care that Ford’s annoyed. He snakes his arm in the window and grabs a giant handful of popcorn. “That guy is such a sucker,” he tells the screen. “Chasing after her. She’ll never end up with the nice guy.”

  “Don’t you have to clean up or something?” Ford asks him.

  “Maybe.” The boy tilts his head sideways and looks in at me. “Unless you want company.”

  I know Ford wants to be alone—I suspect he wants to do more than watch the movie. I feel it in his fast breathing, in how he’s pressing the side of his body into mine.

  Maybe that’s too much for me. But I don’t mind finding out for myself.

  “We’re fine,” I tell Chuck. My voice shakes a little, but neither boy seems to notice.

  “Maybe next time,” Ford says.

  “Yeah, right. This girl’s way too smart for there to be a next time.” Chuck gives me a wink. Then he tosses one of the popcorn pieces at Ford and strolls away. I don’t watch him for too long. The movie is taking us inside a gorgeous, tall house with white pillars like trees. I gasp at the beauty, and Ford gives my hand a squeeze.

  The people in the movie seem more real than us, their lives more important, the colors of the world brighter than what I see every day.

  “Try some popcorn,” Ford says.

  I put one piece on my tongue and close my mouth over it; the salt and fat melt slowly. It is heavenly. More flavor than I’ve ever had, except for the spaghetti.

  “Told you it was good.” Ford puts the bucket in my lap and pulls me close with his arm again. I wriggle my hips until I’m right next to him. Again I rest my head on his shoulder, still putting popcorn in my mouth, piece by piece.

  His hand gently squeezes my shoulder, his fingers draped down over my arm. I wonder what it would feel like to wear the smallest of clothes like the girl on screen. I would feel Ford’s skin all over me, right now.

  It might be too much to bear.

  My stomach feels too full. I set the popcorn bucket on the floor of the truck and lean back against Ford.

  He puts his hand against my cheek, pressing—not hard, but not easy to ignore either.

  I turn my head, like he wants me to. Then I kiss him, like I want to.

  It feels different than when we are under the cisterns. There’s no limit out here in this wide space, far from the eyes of Darwin West. Ford’s hands travel over my shoulders, across my bodice, find the ties and buttons that he never dared to touch before.

  I’m greedy too—I tug at his shirt, up, up, until he realizes what I want and he pulls it off. I pull back from his kisses for a moment, look at the inked designs crisscrossing his chest. They outline the muscles and hardness. I trace my fingers over them, and Ford pulls me tight for another kiss.

  More of our skin is touching now. And still all I want is more, more, more.

  But his hands slide there—and there—and suddenly it’s too much. There’s not enough air to breathe. I pull back, gasping. Ford eases back too.

  “I’ve never …,” I say. “I don’t know.…”

  Ford smiles, his face half shadowed, half bright in the light of the movie playing. “That’s okay.”

  He tugs his shirt back on, then he rests his arm on the back of his seat. I straighten, tighten my clothes. Then I rest my head on his shoulder. We stare at the people on the screen, in their jewel-bright clothes, doing things I only half understand. Ford’s fingers gently trace a circle on my shoulder.

  “You don’t have to go back,” he says.

  All the heat still stirring in my body freezes. “I do,” I tell him. “I have to go back.”

  Ford’s hand on my shoulder stops. I feel his arm go tense. He swallows hard and looks out the window.

  “They need me,” I tell him.

  “Darwin can live with one less pair of hands,” he says, still looking away from me.

  I reach up to touch his cheek—but still, that feels wrong, to be close to any part of him. Instead I lean forward and cross my arms tight. “They need the Water.”

  “You mean your blood.” His voice is flat.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s heresy, Ruby. And it’s … crazy. Your blood isn’t magic.” His voice is low, but hard.

  “You don’t have to believe me.” I edge away from him until I’m as far away as I can get, pressed up against the window on my side.

  “Look, Ruby …” His voice is gentle now, and he reaches out to take my hand. I let him hold it but keep it limp. I thi
nk about the strong girl in the movie. She would have snatched her hand away and stalked off to another boy.

  But there is no other boy in my heart. I only want to be here.

  I can’t, though.

  “Take me home,” I tell him.

  “I’d take care of you. I’d do anything for you,” Ford pleads.

  I look down at the empty box of spaghetti, the empty rows meant for modern people’s cars—it all seems wrong. I’ve tried something I’m not meant to have.

  “Take me home,” I whisper. “Please.”

  “Unbelievable.” Ford picks up the popcorn bucket and flings it out the window. The white scatters everywhere like snow.

  Did he ever think I would go back? Had he planned to put me in his truck and never see the Congregation again?

  “You think you can control me,” I say. “Like Darwin West.”

  “Don’t ever compare me to that man,” he says.

  “You want to tell me what to do. You want me to obey,” I say.

  Ford twists the key, and the truck’s engine roars to life. “One more day, Ruby. One more day and I’m gone. No more chances.”

  “I know,” I say. Tears blur my eyes. Does he think I don’t realize this is all coming to an end? That the rest of my life is before me, the same as all the other years before I met him?

  “I thought you wanted me,” he says.

  “I do,” I tell him.

  But the Congregation needs me. That is where my promises lie.

  “Doesn’t seem like you want me much,” Ford mutters.

  We don’t wave at Chuck when we leave the movie behind, even though he leans out of the window and waves wildly, with a big grin on his face.

  We don’t talk all the way home.

  Chapter 33

  Ford stops the truck when we reach the edge of Darwin West’s property.

  “One last chance,” he says.

  Then he takes my hand, softly, and traces a circle on my skin. He doesn’t look at me. He looks only at our hands, joined.

  I can’t speak. I lean my head back against the seat and close my eyes. I listen to the rumble of the truck, inhale the stale spaghetti smell. None of this is my world. None of it feels right.

  “They’d die without me,” I say.

  Ford lets out a long breath. His hand falls away, and the truck moves forward again. The road feels so bumpy after being on the faster, smooth ones.

  “You don’t have to go all the way to my cabin,” I tell him.

  “It was a date. That’s how you do it,” he says.

  I don’t want to remember him angry. “I’m sorry,” I tell him.

  “I know.”

  Now that we are close to the cabin, he switches off his lights. The truck slows and then we are there. The cabin looks so much smaller now. I notice the roof, half its shingles sideways or missing, and the crooked door with mold growing on the parts that never see sun.

  “When will you be gone?” I ask.

  “Two days,” he says. “At most.”

  “So … good-bye,” I tell him.

  He turns to face me, and I face him, even though every part of me screams: get out, hurry away, make sure nobody sees you.

  When we kiss, my tears slide between our lips. Ford wipes them away when we part.

  “I could’ve saved you,” he says.

  “Otto saves,” I tell him.

  “Right.” His hand goes to his necklace, for a moment, and then he comes around to open my door.

  As soon as I step outside, I sense it: someone is out here, someone besides us. I don’t know if I saw a shadow move, or heard breathing, but I’m certain.

  “Careful,” I whisper.

  “What?” Ford says, far too loudly, looking around.

  I stand still, as still as a hunted animal. But I don’t see anything, hear anything. My skin crawls with being watched, though.

  “Go,” I tell Ford.

  “Not until you’re inside,” he answers.

  Yes. Yes, inside I’ll be safe, safer than out here. I want to kiss him again. I want to say good-bye. But I only raise my hand and half run, half tumble down the hill to the cabin.

  It’s dark inside; the sun hasn’t started to come up yet, and I extinguished the lamp before I crept out to be with Ford. I stand still to let my eyes adjust; in the silence I hear the truck’s engine grow to a rumble, then gravel spitting from under its tires. Ford is leaving.

  A sob pushes out of me. I take careful steps to Mother’s bed, barely visible in the near black.

  “I did this for you. I did this for the Congregation,” I say. More tears spill over my cheeks.

  When I kneel to touch her on the floor, my hand passes through where her body should be. I feel only damp blankets. Has she moved? I stand and check her bed—but no.

  Someone took her. I left for the first and last night in my life, and someone took her. Darwin West, I warrant, breaking the very few rules he ever followed.

  I burst out the cabin door. I’ll get Boone. I’ll get ten men. We’ll go to Darwin’s house and we’ll save her; we will, I don’t care if we’re not supposed to fight back.

  Then, a voice.

  “I’m over here, Ruby.” Mother’s voice? Impossible. I scramble away from the sound, coming around the corner of the cabin.

  I’m halfway up the hill when the person speaks again.

  “Stop running, Ruby.”

  It is Mother.

  I spin around, looking for her. Everything is dark, and she says nothing more. But then I spy a sliver of white fluttering near the road. She’s in the bushes, only feet away from where the truck was parked.

  Part of me wants to run. I’m afraid of what she saw, what she heard. But where would I go? I made my choice when I let Ford’s truck drive away.

  “Mother?” I ask. My voice quavers. “Please come out.”

  “Come here,” she says. The white fluttering grows, and I see now that she’s waving her arm at me.

  What did she see, so close to the truck? What did she hear?

  Slowly, I come close to her. She’s got one arm wrapped around a slim pine tree trunk, her face as pale as the bloodstained gown she wears. But she stands, and breathes.

  “Do you still hurt?” I ask her.

  “Not enough. You healed me well,” Mother says. “Too well.”

  “I’m not sorry you’re better.” I can’t think of what else to say. So I offer her my hand. “Let me take you back to bed.”

  “Your blood grows stronger every day, Ruby. That’s what I think. How else could I have healed so fast tonight?” She sighs and lays her head against the trunk, the brown of her hair blending until all I can see is the unnatural white of her face.

  “I made a lot of Water,” I tell her.

  “Still, you didn’t think I’d wake so soon, did you?”

  No. I thought I could go away, and come back. I was more worried about Darwin West catching us.

  Mother shakes her head. “There’s no room for romance here, Ruby.”

  So she saw something—so she knows enough. My stomach feels like a rock. My arm drops slowly, slowly, as if passing through mud.

  “And with an Overseer.” Her body slumps a little, and she grabs at the trunk with her other arm.

  “Mother!” I wrap my arms around her chest and pull her upright. She twists against me, not wanting my touch, I think.

  “You’ll let go of me now,” she says.

  I obey, but I do not step back. “Let me bring you inside. You’re still healing.”

  “They beat us. They starve us. And you … you kiss one?”

  “Yes,” I whisper, familiar shame filling me. She’s telling me the same thing I’ve told myself.

  “Never did I think, Ruby. Never did I think you would betray your family.”

  “I didn’t betray us. I only … I only wanted … love.”

  “To think I worried about what’d you do with Jonah Pelling,” she says.

  “Ford’s a good person,”
I tell her.

  “No. No, he’s not.” Mother fixes a grim stare on me. “What did you tell him, Ruby? What does he know?”

  I told him I craved escape. I told him I loved the short bristle of his hair. I told him I knew what it felt like to lose someone you loved, inch by inch.

  “I didn’t tell him anything,” I say.

  “Your blood? Our age? Does he know these things?”

  “Only my blood,” I whisper. “But he doesn’t even believe it’s sacred.”

  “Ruby! Your greatest secret, gone,” she says.

  “He’s leaving,” I tell her. “He’s leaving for good. None of this matters.”

  “And you?” she asks, her voice rasping, dryer than bark peeling off birch.

  First I don’t understand. “And me? What do you mean?”

  “Don’t mock me.” Mother grips the tree and turns so her back is to it, both hands behind her for support. Then she inches up, up, until she is standing very straight.

  We are exactly the same height now.

  The force of her stare pushes me back a step, then another.

  “You’ll go with him, won’t you?” Mother says.

  “No. No!” I look down the road, imagining the taillights I didn’t even see—because I was already in the cabin looking for Mother, worrying about her. “I’m a Congregant.”

  “And a fine, fine young lady in love.” Mother’s laugh is terrible: low, bitter. She doesn’t think I’m fine. She thinks I’m soiled.

  “I don’t—” But no. I can’t tell her I don’t love him, even though it’s the only thing I can say that might help.

  So I swallow and give the best truth I can. “It doesn’t matter if I love him.”

  “Does he give you pretty things? Trinkets, or food?”

  I think of the spaghetti, and the popcorn, and his kisses. He gave me far better than trinkets.

  “He’s kind to me,” I tell her.

  “It’s far more than that, isn’t it, Ruby?” She moves as if to fold her arms, her usual powerful stance when she questions me—but when she lets go of her support, her knees betray her and she sinks to the ground.

  I plunge to the forest floor next to her. “You’re not well enough to be outside,” I urge.

  “No. But I woke and my daughter was gone.” Mother bows her head for a moment, and when she looks at me again, her eyes are bright with tears. “I thought Darwin took you. I was … I was walking to his cabin.”