Drought

  One more strike, and Meg falls onto her stomach. Darwin lets the chain fall to his side.

  The chant fades away.

  Meg’s dress is not ripped, but blood darkens it from underneath, a fast-spreading stain that shadows her whole back. John reaches for her, and Darwin doesn’t stop him. He’s looking at Mother.

  “Are you sure?” Darwin asks softly, tender for just a moment, like he sometimes is with her. It doesn’t stop him from using every bit of muscle when he swings the chain.

  “Are you sure?” Mother doesn’t bow her head.

  I start the chant again, and so do all the other Congregants. It’s louder this time, and the Overseers shoulder their guns. I look for the new one.

  The chain speeds toward Mother’s back. There’s a horrible thump when it strikes—a sound that makes me cringe, no matter how many times I hear it. But she does not cry out.

  “Eight more,” Darwin says.

  The new Overseer’s gun is dangling in his hand now. His mouth hangs open. One of the other Overseers nudges him with the barrel of his gun, and he shakes his head. Then he slowly lifts his gun back into position.

  I chant louder.

  Otto will come.

  And I stare at the new Overseer. His face looks wet; could he be crying? Overseers don’t show emotion, unless you count anger, or lust.

  Darwin strikes Mother again, and this time a groan escapes her. She presses her hands into the ground, no longer staring up at him.

  I creep forward and kneel next to her. “Let me,” I say.

  “Get back, you useless girl!” she roars, and then the chain strikes again, just an inch from me. Somehow she finds the strength to kick me.

  She’s only protecting me. She wants me away from the chain, and from Darwin. She knows I’m not useless.

  I tell myself these things like my own chant, and the Congregation continues theirs.

  Otto will come.

  The new Overseer steps into the circle they’ve formed around us. He’s only a few steps from Darwin now.

  The chain lands again.

  Mother slumps to the forest floor. I want to hold her. I want to shield her. But I know what I am supposed to do—and that she would not forgive me for taking a blow. So I wait until I can help her.

  “Four more,” Darwin says. He runs his fingers along the chain and wipes the blood on his pants.

  “You have to stop.” The new Overseer is right next to Darwin. His eyes flick fast from the chain, to Mother, to Darwin … and then to me.

  Darwin blinks at him, draws a breath, then says nothing.

  “Don’t they suffer enough?” the new one asks.

  The Congregants’ chant falters, then dies. Are they all feeling hope flaring in them, like I do—and hating themselves for it? Perhaps this new one is softhearted, but Darwin will squeeze that out of him soon.

  “You work for me.” Darwin says it low, and calm. But his hand grips the chain even harder. “No questions, no complaints, remember?”

  “I—I know. But this is …” The Overseer swallows. “Nobody should stand for this.”

  Fear thrills through me as if he is one of ours. Doesn’t he know he’s asking to be hurt? Doesn’t he know that defying Darwin will always, always bring pain?

  “How is your mother feeling?” Darwin asks in a silky voice.

  Now the bold, foolish Overseer stares at his feet. If he answers, I cannot hear it.

  “Seems like she’d have a real hard time without that nice insurance that I pay for,” Darwin continues.

  The Overseer nods. “I’m grateful.”

  “Who do you care about? These Toads or your own mother?” Darwin arcs the chain up high, high, higher than any of the other hits, and lands it straight down on Mother’s spine. This is the worst I’ve seen him beat her in a long time.

  Her body jerks from the impact. I know it means she’s fainted, gone to a place without pain … until I bring her back with Water.

  Please, Otto, I pray. Let her be strong enough for three more of those.

  “Got anything more to say?” Darwin asks.

  The Overseer stares at Mother. Slowly, he shakes his head.

  I hate him for it. It’s not fair, maybe. What’s he supposed to do? But his noticing the wrongness of Darwin made me hope, just for a second, that things will change. I wish he hadn’t said anything at all.

  The Congregation begins to chant again, and the last three hits are hard and fast.

  “All done,” Darwin sings. He coils the chain and slides it back in his pocket.

  I rush to Mother. The ground around her body is wet with blood, and her sleeves have split where I’ve already mended them countless times. But her chest moves; her body is still fighting him, even though her mind has eased elsewhere. I smooth her hair. Darwin never touches her face, or head.

  The new Overseer dares to speak again. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

  Darwin’s answer is to grab the new one’s shoulders and spin him so he’s directly facing Mother. Then he strikes the back of his knees with the chain, so the new one falls to the ground beside Mother. Our eyes meet, and I see that his cheeks are truly stained from tears.

  But I look away, and fast. There’s no good in feeling for this boy.

  “Take a good look,” Darwin snarls. “And decide if you’re with me or not.”

  The boy turns his head and vomits into the leaves. He heaves, and heaves, until all that’s left are the sobs ripping out of him.

  There is no one to console him; Darwin slides away and the Overseers do too. The Congregants, most of them, begin the trudge home.

  But not all go—as always, Boone stays, and Hope with her new husband, Gabe. Ellie is here too, of course.

  “She’ll heal,” Ellie says. “We just need to get her home.”

  Boone lifts her feet; Hope and Gabe lift her upper half while I support her middle. When Ellie makes a move to help, I shake my head. She frowns, but lets her hands drop.

  The Overseer is still on the ground, but he is watching us now.

  “I’d help if I could,” he whispers.

  Gabe snorts and hawks a glob of spit on the leaves next to him. It’s a foolish thing to do, something he wouldn’t dare with any other Overseer.

  “Her breath is going funny,” Boone says.

  “Hurry,” I answer, turning my back on the new Overseer.

  Chapter 3

  By the time we reach the Cabin, it’s gone entirely dark outside. The only sound is our feet scuffing the road—the frogs stopped croaking a few weeks ago, maybe too thirsty for song.

  Something flits past my head. The bats are out for their breakfast.

  I’m so hungry. If I could catch bugs, I’d make them my every meal. With Mother hurt so many nights, she hasn’t been able to creep out enough for nighttime trapping. Nobody gets food unless the Overseers give it to us.

  Mother’s body sways heavy between us. The walk is slow and careful. Our feet know the road, but one slip could jar a body that’s barely holding on.

  “I’ll get the lantern.” Ellie eases ahead and through the door.

  It’s not locked—we haven’t got locks. Mother’s told me about grand houses with so much inside, they have locks, perhaps more than one, on them. I’ve seen locks only on the fine house that the Overseers share.

  Light flares in the crack of the open door. We ease Mother inside.

  Like all the others, our cabin is a single small room, thrown up against winter winds the first year that the Congregants fled to these woods—and were followed by Darwin West. It has a small stove, a single rough window that looks onto the Lake, and bare log walls. The cracks between the walls are crammed with years of dried mud.

  Our only furniture is two beds, a sheet hanging between them. It was Mother’s Christmas gift to me this year. “You’re almost a woman now,” she said. “And you deserve your own small space.”

  Ellie smoothes the bloodstained muslin on Mother’s bed before we lay her on it.
br />   “Poor child,” she sighs, laying a light hand on Mother’s cheek.

  I have had only a mother for as long as I’ve lived, no father with us, but it was the opposite for Mother: she just had her father, a trapper who was gone for months at a time. And then she had Ellie, who rented them two rooms in her house.

  The shadows hide the worst of Mother’s wounds. I pretend that it’s been this bad before, that this is a normal night. “Gently,” I say, more of a prayer than an order, as we lay her down.

  “I’ll get the water,” Gabe says.

  Boone draws in his breath sharply. “What did you tell him?” he asks Hope.

  Gabe isn’t an Elder. He shouldn’t know how Mother heals so well and fast after each beating.

  Hope’s cheeks are pink, but she meets Boone’s stare. “He is my husband now.”

  “Now, but not for always, maybe,” Boone says.

  Not many of the Congregation’s couples have proven to be for always.

  Gabe slides close to Hope and puts his arm around her shoulders. “For always,” he says—simply, without anger. I see why Hope chose him, even though it meant his setting aside another.

  Jonah doesn’t understand it, I’d guess. We all knew he’d set his heart on Hope, years before he was old enough.

  He’ll be waiting a long time, maybe forever, I think.

  “Your secret is safe.” Gabe looks at me—not at any of the Elders. But he frowns.

  “I know,” I tell him. And then I give Hope a small smile. I know why she told him. Hope stopped whispering her daily secrets to me when Gabe’s eyes fell on her.

  I miss our stolen time in the shade, whispering, giggling.

  “We’re wasting time while Sula suffers,” Boone says.

  Gabe pushes out the door. He’ll be lucky to get one clear bucket. The Lake is victim to the drought too, dwindled to puddles and wet mud. I don’t remember ever seeing it like this. When we go to bathe, or find drinking water, it’s nearly impossible to find clear water.

  After Gabe’s gone, Hope speaks. “Ruby’s secret is hard for him to accept.”

  “You shouldn’t have told him—and that’s one of the reasons why,” Boone says.

  “He’ll be easier with it, in time,” Hope says to me.

  At least I understand why he’s been so strange and unfriendly lately.

  While we wait, I reach under Mother’s bed and pull out the sharp-edged stone we keep concealed beneath her mattress. It’s jagged, but it does its work well enough.

  Boone is looking at the picture of Otto that hangs on the wall. Mother has lined the walls with the few special things she brought from the village: a fur muff her father made for her, a silver mirror from the mother she never knew, and the drawing of Otto that Boone made for her, years ago.

  People had time to pack their most treasured possessions when they fled Hoosick Falls. Darwin never bothered to take any of it away. He wanted only us … and Water.

  “I should have drawn it the night he ran way,” he says. “My memory is already fading.”

  “We thought he was coming back any day,” Hope says.

  “Why does he let us suffer for so long?” I ask.

  Boone does not answer.

  Ellie lays her hand on my cheek, just as she did on Mother’s. “We suffer because we are Otto’s chosen children.”

  “He chose us to suffer?” I ask, hating how small and petulant my voice sounds.

  “He chose us to live!” Hope exclaims.

  “In time he’ll come,” Boone says. I notice, now, how pinched his face is.

  “You’ll not leave until you’re healed tonight,” I tell Boone.

  He shakes his head. “There’s no need.”

  “And who will fill Ellie’s cup tomorrow?” I ask. “Not you, with a lame foot.”

  “He needn’t take the Water,” Ellie says. “He needn’t do that for me.”

  “Not every person has to be as stubborn as you,” I tell her. “Let me heal him, especially since you won’t let me heal you.” It has been a long, painful argument between us. She will not accept a single extra bit of Water. She will only take what Darwin permits at weekly Communion.

  Mother says that most Congregants would not be so selfless. “If they all knew, they’d bleed you dry,” she always tells me.

  I discovered my blood was special long ago, back when I was barely half the height of Mother … long before Otto’s blood ran out.

  Mother had forced me to come on one of her trapping trips, sneaking into the woods on a drizzly, dark night to steal extra food for the Congregants. I liked the food. I hated the trapping.

  We had to be silent in case one of the Overseers cared to check the woods at night. Darwin thought he controlled every morsel that went into our mouths.

  There was barely a moon, and the clouds curtained the stars. But Mother was silent in the woods, as if she could see a clear path in front of her. My feet seemed to find every crackly branch and leaf.

  “Toe to heel, toe to heel,” Mother whispered. Still my feet stumbled. With my every sound her shoulders raised and her fists clenched, but after a while she gave up trying to remind me.

  I hoped, after every trip, that my clumsiness would save me from checking the traps with her. But she still insisted that I come along. “You’ll learn how to trap,” she said, “the same way my father taught me.”

  So I followed her that night as she glided to the squirrel trap tree. It was deep in the woods, so deep that we didn’t even come this way for gathering water. Mother had baited loops of rope hanging off limbs, and at least a dozen squirrels had fallen into her trap. They strangled before they even got to eat the bait.

  Mother let out a small, triumphant laugh and clapped her hands together once. Then she set off to the nearest squirrel. Their shadowed small bodies swung from the ropes, moving slightly in the night wind as if they’d just been caught. I hung back, feeling like I’d come across something private, something I shouldn’t get near. But Mother didn’t even pause. She strode up to the first one and cut it loose. Then she tossed it back over her shoulder.

  It was my job to catch them—and hold them, all the way home. That night I was feeling especially reluctant. I let the first one drop in the leaves, then bent to pick it up by the bit of string left around its neck. It smelled like musk and blood.

  “Use the tail. We can’t afford you dropping even one,” Mother whispered.

  “They’re only a bite or two,” I told her.

  Mother came to my side so fast, it was as if she flew. “Every bite matters,” she said, her voice low and intense. “Never turn aside food.”

  My stomach growled like it was agreeing with her.

  “Hold it tight,” Mother ordered.

  I’d been alive for decades. I knew I should be able to carry a few dead squirrels, especially if it meant feeding hungry Congregants. So I swallowed and grabbed the tail.

  It was cold and bristly, nothing like the way I thought it should feel. Squirrels never stopped twitching their tails; it seemed wrong that this one was so still.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “You’re too soft,” Mother said, patting my cheek three times with her rough palm. She didn’t understand that I was apologizing to the squirrel. I didn’t try to explain.

  Mother returned to the tree. While I stared at her first victim, two more landed by my feet.

  Then my squirrel’s tail twitched—just a bit.

  “Mother! It’s still alive!” I called.

  She turned back swiftly to look at me. “Did it bite you?”

  “No.” It was far too weak for that.

  “Break its neck,” she said.

  I shook my head.

  “It’s the kindest thing to do.” Her voice was softer.

  When I didn’t move, she started back toward me. “Must I do it?” she asked.

  “I’ll do it!” I cried. I couldn’t stand to see her kill this squirrel.

  “Best hurry. We’ve got
the fox traps to check, still,” she ordered. Then she turned back.

  I put my hands around the squirrel’s tiny neck; I imagined I could feel the blood pulsing in its veins. “Could you run away?” I whispered. But I knew that the squirrel was far too weak for that.

  The rain was falling harder; I felt drops running down my face. I imagined what I could do if this was consecrated Water, with my father’s blood, coming from the sky. I could tilt the squirrel’s head back, let it fall in his mouth just like our Communion.

  I wanted to save the squirrel so badly.

  The squirrel’s paws hung limp, but its claws felt sharp. I wondered … I wondered if I carried its salvation in my veins.

  It was something I’d thought about before: if my father’s blood was holy, then could my blood be holy too? But the only time I’d asked my mother, she’d slapped me.

  “Never speak of that,” she’d ordered.

  Five more squirrels were sitting in the leaves near me. Mother would finish soon.

  I drew the claw across my wrist, but it left only a white scratch. I pressed harder, and blood welled along the line of the scratch.

  Then I turned the squirrel on its back, cradled it in my hand, and held my wrist over its mouth. Rain ran over my hand, blending with the blood. At least one, two, three drops fell, I was sure.

  “Praise Otto,” I whispered, because it seemed like something had to be said.

  The tail twitched again, and again, and then the squirrel sprang to life. It flipped in my hand and gave my finger a good, hard bite.

  I cried out and dropped the squirrel. My finger hurt, but I was exhilarated. I had saved a life.

  “Ruby?” Mother dashed back to me, her eyes searching and quickly landing on the hand I was cradling close to my chest. She grabbed my hand to inspect it.

  “It bit me and ran away,” I said.

  “You’re bleeding,” she said.

  “It bit me hard.”

  But her fingers ran over my wrist, and her eyes met mine. In the dark I couldn’t tell if she was angry, or confused. But then she let out a half groan, half sob and pressed her fingers against the cut on my wrist.

  “I didn’t want it to die,” I said.

  She tilted her head back and stared at the sky, then wiped tears—or perhaps just raindrops—away with her free hand.