Drought

  “I thought he took you,” I tell her.

  “He could have, couldn’t he?” She gives her eyes a vicious wipe and looks away from me.

  As long as my mother has been conscious, I do not think I have ever seen her so vulnerable before. It kills every bit of fight in me.

  “I’m sorry. I never should have left you, not even for a few hours. Not for a moment.” I grasp both her hands and fold them together over my heart. “Please forgive me.”

  She lets me hold her for a moment, then finds the strength to yank her hands away. “I can’t forgive a betrayal.”

  “It was for one night. It was a good-bye.”

  “You sold yourself for trinkets,” Mother says.

  That lights anger in me. “I would never—”

  “I saw your kiss. I saw how he watched when you walked down the hill. That boy desires you, Ruby. You made that happen.”

  If she’s trying to make me feel worse, it doesn’t work. A small, proud flame lights in me. After we fought, after I put him aside, he still desires me.

  That will carry me through many a long, hard day.

  “He’s left,” I say simply.

  “And what did he leave you with?” She looks down at my waist, then back up.

  This time I do not miss her meaning. “We didn’t do that. Not like—” I stop before I say it. But she finishes the sentence for me.

  “Not like me? Not like Otto and me?”

  I nod.

  Her slap hits me so hard, my head snaps sideways. Overhead, something flutters away. A bird, I suppose.

  She hasn’t hit me since I was very small and I crept away from her. It was a game to me. She thought I had fallen into the Lake.

  “Don’t ever leave without telling me,” she said then.

  I’ve sinned the same way again.

  “Sneaking about with an Overseer is nothing like what I had with your father,” Mother says.

  “He’s not like the others,” I tell her.

  “I’ve seen him lift his chain. I’ve seen him level a gun against us,” she answers.

  “He hated every bit of it. And now he’s leaving, and I’ll never see him again.” I can’t help the tears that start down my face, even if it makes Mother snort with disgust. “He won’t tell anyone about me, Mother, I know it.”

  “I wish it were true, Ruby. I wish it were true.” Mother puts both hands behind her and tries to stand, but her legs won’t hold her.

  “Let me help you,” I tell her.

  “Seems I’ll need to get by on my own, soon,” she says.

  “Never. Never!” I cry.

  Mother lets out a sigh and stops her attempts to stand. She tips her head back and looks up at the trees. “I hate the woods. I’ve hated them from the day I walked into them, and I’ll hate them until the day I walk out of them.”

  “We all hate it here,” I say.

  “I’ve dreamed of leaving. I’ve dreamed of fighting. But I know what we’re meant to do, Ruby,” she says. “You know it too.”

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  “We are meant to wait, and pray, and endure. That is all,” she says.

  There’s no way to make her understand. All I can do is show her it’s done. All I can do is stay by her side and remember my promises.

  So I don’t argue anymore. I offer her my hand. “Let me take you inside. Please, Mother.”

  She considers me for a moment, then nods once, short. When I pull her up, she groans. My hand slides against something wet along her back.

  “You’re bleeding again,” I tell her. “Come.”

  “Wait.” Mother shakes me off. She is barely standing, tilted to one side, her gown shaking from her body’s trembling.

  “Promise me first,” Mother says.

  I bow my head.

  “Promise me you’ll never leave,” she says.

  Anger stirs in me. Didn’t I already tell her that? Haven’t I already shown it? I made my choice.

  But I say it. “I promise. Now … please.” I look up and hold out a hand.

  “Promise me you’ll never look at him again,” she says.

  He’s in my memory forever and gone in two days. I keep my eyes level, meeting hers, not looking away. “I promise.”

  “Promise me you’ll forget all about him, Ruby.”

  I look away from her.

  “If you can’t do that … how can I trust you again?” she asks.

  “You can trust me,” I tell her.

  “How can I love you?” she whispers.

  My breath stops.

  “Promise,” Mother says.

  I want to say it. I open my mouth to say it. But the wind shifts, and the smell of Ford is around me for a moment, caught in my hair and my clothes.

  Never will I forget him.

  “I can’t,” I tell her.

  Her body slumps, but she does not fall.

  “Come inside,” I say.

  She shakes her head.

  I want to leave her here, go to my bed, close my eyes, and forget every bit of this for the last few hours. But there’s no way I can leave her here, even after what she’s said.

  “Then we’ll lie here,” I tell her.

  I kneel at her feet and brush away the sticks and pinecones that surround her. Then I stand and press against her shoulders, gently. All the strength is gone from her. She sinks to her knees, then slumps onto the ground.

  Mother curls into a tight ball, and I round my body around hers. Her breathing is ragged at first, and then it erodes into gasps, and then sobs. Her body shakes with them.

  “Promise me you’ll be here in the morning,” she whispers.

  “I promise,” I tell her.

  Her body goes limp.

  I wrap my arms around her tighter and stare into the woods, waiting for dawn.

  Chapter 34

  I wake with pine needles in my mouth. Mother is gone; a damp reddish patch remains where she lay. The sun is already full over the horizon, but it hasn’t burned the night chill off yet. Autumn is upon us.

  She cried last night until sleep took her; then I closed my eyes. I dreamed of Ford, and kisses, and popcorn.

  Tomorrow is his last day here. Today is the second to last. Will I see him? Do I want to?

  I wipe the salty taste from my lips. I’ve woken into a different life now, the one I’m meant to live. I should be glad if I don’t see Ford again.

  When I get close to the cabin, I hear a sound coming from it—a strange, light sound I haven’t heard in a long time, in the morning. It’s Mother, singing. I push open the cabin door and find her sweeping.

  “Good morning,” I say. It’s hard to say anything to her after last night. I cringe, waiting for anger, or worse—silence.

  Maybe she already has stopped loving me.

  But she smiles at me with no anger, no threat. “Good morning, Ruby. I thought I’d clean before we went to the cisterns.”

  She’s got her dress and boots on. Her body is straight and strong enough to sweep the floors. Even her hair looks lustrous.

  My clothes are stained from embracing her bleeding body last night; my eyes feel near swollen shut from shedding so many tears. Next to her, I look like the one recovering from Darwin’s blows.

  “You’re better,” I say.

  She shrugs but doesn’t stop cleaning. “I feel completely healed.”

  She doesn’t thank me—she never does. What I give is what’s expected of me, what I was born for. I try to push the irritation away. It never bothered me before. Why should it bother me now?

  “Do you think the Visitor will come tomorrow?” I slide around her to pull the soiled sheets from her bed. I’ll put them in the Lake, weigh them down with a stone so they soak without floating away. They’ll come out muddy, at least, but most of the blood will be gone.

  “We’ll be readying the cisterns today,” Mother says. “And I smell breakfast cooking.”

  I hadn’t noticed the smell before, but now that I breathe in, there?
??s grease in the air, a promise of food.

  “Then the Visitor’s coming very soon,” I say. Darwin is working to put plump on our angles, hide the evidence of his abuse on every other day of the year.

  “Aye. Maybe even today.” Mother stops to inspect her work, hands on hips, but whirls into motion again.

  If he comes today, Ford won’t be back tomorrow.

  “Why are you tidying? The Visitor won’t be coming here.” It comes out as a grumble, even though I meant it as a tease.

  It doesn’t seem to bother Mother; nothing could bother her today, I think. “Today is a fresh start, Ruby. I want everything as clean as I can make it.”

  I notice her boots now; she’s brushed and scrubbed at every stain, I think. I don’t understand. Does she think housecleaning will make her forget—will make me forget?

  When Mother sees me looking at her feet, she waves her hand at mine. “Let me clean your boots.”

  But then the bell rings—the dinner bell, something we rarely hear anymore. Mother claps her hands together, boots forgotten. “Breakfast, Ruby.”

  “I know.” Does she think I’m still a child?

  Mother chatters about something as we walk to breakfast—stuffing the cabin’s chinks with mud, perhaps, to ready it for winter. Or maybe she’s telling me about the latest dispute with the Pellings. I don’t know. None of it matters. It’s all the same thing we’ve talked about for two hundred years.

  We sit with Beaulah Pelling, her face as sour and pinched as the apples set out for breakfast. She doesn’t have a smile to spare.

  Mother usually doesn’t seek her out. Once I heard her tell Hope that the woman was harder to bear than sitting on a tack. But today she smiles and gives Beaulah a squeeze around the shoulders.

  “Is your arthritis better?” Mother asks.

  “For now. Trust it to flare up when the snow flies.” Beulah gives a single nod, then takes a vicious bite of her apple. At least all the Congregants have kept their teeth. Our tiny bit of Water has been enough for that.

  “I’ll get your food,” Mother tells me. “Sit and relax.”

  “I can—”

  “I’ll get it.” Her tone leaves no room for argument. I watch her go up to the table and pile two plates with eggs and biscuits, plus plenty of apples and leftover sausage from our celebration. As she goes, she stares at each Overseer and looks at the corners of the room.

  Ford isn’t here. I knew it even as I walked in the room. When Ford’s around, everything feels calmer, steadier. But today the room felt jittery and wrong.

  “Soon we’ll be harvesting snowflakes,” Beulah sighs.

  “And freezing our fingers half off,” I say.

  She gives me a surprised look; normally I ignore her complaints or give her a sunny reply. But I’ve no strength to fight her gloom today. Besides, my gloom is far darker than hers.

  Mother sets the plate in front of me. The eggs nearly slide off the plate, leaving a wet trail behind them. The biscuit has black burned edges.

  I try a bite of eggs. They’re ice cold, and somehow I know now that they shouldn’t be. I gag.

  “Delicious,” Mother says.

  “Best food I’ve tasted in weeks,” Beulah sighs.

  All around the room, the Congregants are grinning and jamming food into their mouths. They don’t stop to look at the food or wonder whether it’s better suited to be fireplace coals.

  A week ago, I would have been just like them. But now I’ve tasted better. I know just how terrible this food is. I remember spaghetti. I remember popcorn.

  I push the plate away and Mother gives me a sharp look. She’s been watching me since we came into the Common House. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “My stomach hurts,” I tell her. It’s true enough.

  “There won’t be more later for you. Eat,” she orders.

  “I’m not hungry,” I tell her.

  She frowns, but only for a second, and then smiles wider. “Then take apples for later,” she says, rolling her eyes a little at Beulah. What a silly little girl she has.

  “You gonna eat that?” Beulah asks. Her arm snakes toward my plate.

  “Take it,” I tell her.

  Mother’s eyes narrow.

  “I’m not hungry,” I tell her again.

  “You must stay strong,” she says softly.

  Is she worried for me, or worried for the girl with Otto’s blood? I try to push away the thought. Why am I thinking these terrible things? I’ll be here with her for a long time, until Otto comes.

  The door to the Common House opens; I twist to see who’s there, hoping for Ford. But it’s Darwin. His face is flat, lifeless, the most frightening look of all for him.

  “Come on, Toads,” he says. “Time to work.”

  They all stand, eager almost. But I stay seated. What we will grant for just a bit of kindness, a bit of food. What if we used our energy for something different?

  I look across the room and see one other not standing: Earl Pelling. He catches my eye and then looks at Darwin, and back at me. Nods once. Then he jams an entire biscuit in his mouth.

  I look away. I can’t give him what he wants.

  The Congregants grasp for a last biscuit, a last apple, and the big dented metal bowls are empty before the crowd has left for outside. I don’t reach for anything extra. Already Mother has pressed two apples on me. I’ll keep them, at least for now. Eventually hunger may make them delicious.

  Darwin leads us across the dirt road to the cisterns. He catches a look at Mother, standing next to me, and his eyes widen. He glances back at the closest cistern and gives it a good thump. The full sound seems to satisfy him, and he looks at a clipboard that one of the Overseers has handed him.

  “I need five toads to fix the cabins up roadside. Five to cut the grass, here. And three to tidy up the outside of the Overseer cabin.” Darwin looks up, expectation on his face, and Congregants step forward quickly to volunteer. It’s better to speak up while you know what the job is.

  It’s what we do every year to prepare for the Visitor. We make this look like a different kind of place—a place where people have time to do things besides harvest water, a place that’s home, not a prison.

  Last year, I painted the boards on the walls of the cabins that faced the road—but only so far as the cisterns. The Visitor never goes past here. The year before, I scrubbed brown dots of dried blood off the cisterns.

  Another truck with Overseers pulls up; they’ve got buckets and long brushes in the back of their truck. The passenger door opens, the same place I’d sat just last night. And out comes Ford.

  Do I let out a gasp? Or does it just echo inside me? Mother grabs my elbow, looks at the truck, then looks at Darwin.

  “Do you need another painter?” she calls.

  Darwin shakes his head. “Dock scrubbers!” he shouts. “My house!”

  Ford and the other Overseers he came with step up. They are holding buckets and long brushes. Ford’s eyes brush past me, and I lose my breath.

  “Don’t even dream it,” Mother says, and her grip becomes painful. I try to shake free but she only grips harder.

  Ford hands out brushes to five Congregants. Mother keeps me right next to her.

  “Weeds!” Darwin calls out, and Mother gives me a shove so I stumble forward.

  “We’ll weed,” Mother says loudly.

  I get a big paint-stained bucket and a small shovel with a dulled nose to dig with. Mother takes one too. I walk to the edge of the clearing and kneel. At least it’s easy to find weeds, unlike drops of water.

  Mother pops a weed out and tosses it in her bucket. Another, and another. Breakfast has energized her—or maybe it’s anger at me.

  “The Elders will come to our cabin tonight,” she says in a low voice.

  “Tonight? But it’s not our meeting night,” I say.

  “You’ll tell them what you did. And they’ll decide what to do,” she answers.

  I hadn’t thought about anyone
else knowing. Somehow I thought only Mother would have my secrets about Ford. But of course she’s told them. She loves the Congregation over me—she said as much last night.

  “He’s leaving,” I tell Mother. “For good.”

  “It doesn’t change what you did.” She glances over her shoulder, and I look too.

  The Congregants who volunteer to work with Ford are piled in the back of the truck. He’s inside, staring straight ahead. The truck moves forward, and that’s when he looks, for just a second, at me.

  I see anguish, and love, and all the things that are in my heart too.

  “Turn around,” Mother orders, and she gives my ear a hard tug.

  Still I can hear the gravel popping under the wheels, and the engine rumbling as the truck moves away. Ford is driving away again.

  And this time, Mother is right beside me to ensure I make the right choice.

  Chapter 35

  It’s not dark yet when the Elders come. Tonight we don’t have to hide. We did Darwin’s work. And then he even gave us a sort of dinner—slimy, cold, thin slices of white meat, with sticky yellow slices of cheese and crackers edged with more mold.

  This time I made myself eat every bit. I’m a Congregant, nothing more. Any bit of food is a miracle.

  Hope comes to the door first. When I open it, a rush of cool air comes in, laced with woodsmoke.

  “Ruby,” Hope says. That is all. No hug, no more greeting, no small joke about the day’s work. Her face doesn’t hold a hint of a smile.

  “Come in.” I smile wide as I step back to let her in the cabin. She looks away.

  Boone and Asa come together. Boone is a step behind the older man, his hands out and up slightly, as if to catch Asa if he stumbled. But Asa is sure-footed tonight. A little food and Water has brought back his strength.

  “You made a good mess, girl,” Asa snaps at me.

  “I only—” I start, but Asa holds up his fist.

  “Your reasons don’t matter,” he says.

  Boone only shakes his head, flicking me a glance, then goes inside.

  Mother and Hope have been talking in low voices, too low for me to hear much. I’ve heard bits: love, foolish, danger. Perhaps I don’t want to hear more.