Drought

“Mabel didn’t mind,” Hope says.

  “She was soft like that. Always falling for the strays, like your mother here, Ruby,” he answers. “Otto came out of the woods. Biggest stray of them all. See what trouble that got us into?”

  Nobody else could talk to Mother like that, but she only shrugs. We’re all accustomed to Asa’s vinegar, and the loyalty that lies beneath it too.

  “Why so grumpy, old man?” Ellie asks in a light voice. “Was our dinner too rich for you?”

  We all laugh at that one, even Mother.

  “Truly … Darwin West was merciful today,” Hope says. “We got biscuits and fish. And no beatings.”

  “Sula must have thrown him a smile,” Asa says.

  “No. Nobody can predict that monster.” Boone gives Mother a quick look. “And Sula doesn’t control that man.”

  Mother draws in a deep breath and squares her shoulders. “Shall we begin?”

  The Elders settle into a rough circle, Asa and Boone perching on low stools they must have brought from their cabins. Hope stays on Ellie’s bed. Once we two played childish pretend games in Ellie’s cabin, especially in the long winter months—right on that bed.

  “We can talk about Ed and Posey first,” Boone says.

  “Or maybe those shiftless Pellings,” Asa growls.

  But then they look at Hope, who is bouncing a bit on the bed and frowning—and the men laugh.

  “Only teasing, Hope,” Asa says. “It’ll be Ruby first, of course.”

  “What is this about?” Mother asks, looking at each Elder in turn.

  But they are all looking at me.

  “Ruby, you were born two hundred years ago,” Boone starts.

  “The tiniest, prettiest thing,” Hope adds.

  Ellie nods.

  “Now you’re nearly as ugly as the rest of us,” Asa says.

  “A woman, now,” Ellie says.

  Mother seems as lost as I, still looking from face to face—and then at me. “Ruby?” she asks.

  I shrug.

  “We’ve been … watching you for a while,” Hope says.

  “Seeing if you’re ready,” Asa adds.

  “For what?” I burst out. I’ve tried to be patient, but I can’t imagine what they want.

  “We want you to be our Leader,” Boone says.

  “Until your father—until Otto comes,” Hope adds quickly.

  They all look up at the sky, for just a moment.

  The heat presses on me like someone is holding a blanket over my face. I gasp for air. The dim-lit room sparkles and shifts.

  “You already have a Leader,” I say—too afraid to look at Mother and see what her face must be like.

  “We have a Reverend—and that won’t change.” Boone stands now and puts his hand on Mother’s shoulder.

  I dare a glance, then. She doesn’t look angry. She is only shocked, I think. Our eyes meet, and I know she must see a mirror of her expression on my face.

  “Mother is all the Leader you need,” I say.

  “There’s four Elders. We need a fifth,” says Asa.

  “Then get another Elder.” I must sound ungrateful, whining, even. But I have never expected this—never wanted it.

  Ellie answers, the words said with careful effort. “You carry Otto’s blood. You’re the one meant to lead us.”

  “What does that mean for her then—lead?” Mother asks. She stays on her chair, Boone’s hand on her shoulder.

  “You’ll come to the Elders’ meetings. You’ll talk to anyone who has a problem, or dispute—and you’ll pray with them,” Hope says.

  “That’s what Mother does,” I say.

  “Not this summer,” Mother whispers, and Boone squeezes her shoulder.

  “You’ll do what Otto did—mostly. Some you already do, with your blood,” Asa says.

  “I won’t have her beat,” Mother warns.

  “No,” Boone agrees. “We’d protect her, like we always have.”

  “It’s a good idea.” Mother stands to come close to me. She takes my hand in hers. “You can lead. Darwin never has to know. You can be what the Congregation needs … what I haven’t been, this summer.”

  “Because of him,” Boone says through gritted teeth.

  Mother nods.

  “So many people want you to do this,” Hope says. “They want you.”

  “They do?” I can’t imagine who.

  “We all see how you’ve grown,” Ellie says.

  “And we all know who your father is,” Hope adds.

  “I’m not my father,” I say.

  Asa shifts his weight and aims a finger at Ellie, or perhaps Hope. “Told you she’d balk.”

  That raises my hackles. “I’m not balking. I’m only—”

  “Shocked.” Hope’s smile warms the cold, afraid feeling that’s stealing over me.

  “Shocked,” I agree.

  “Come here, Ruby,” Ellie says.

  Hope slides off Ellie’s bed and I climb up, gently. Ellie hooks her pinky finger through mine. I can feel her pulse, fast and light.

  “You would be sustaining us, like always,” Ellie says. “That’s all.”

  “No, No. If I’m to lead us … I want to change things,” I tell them.

  Ellie pulls her hand away. “Sustain,” she says, stressing the word.

  Mother walks to the bed. “You must accept things as they are. You can’t try to save this Congregation.”

  Tears are pinching at my eyelids, trying to push out. I bow my head and will them to go away. “I want to help,” I say.

  “Not this again,” Asa sighs.

  “You will help,” Ellie says. “As we need you to.”

  “Can you promise us that?” Hope asks.

  “And if I don’t?” I say. Rebellion burns in me. “Or if I won’t lead?”

  They look at one another; they didn’t expect that question.

  Mother finally answers. “If you don’t do as the Elders ask, then … Otto will condemn you to hell.”

  Hope gasps. But no one disagrees.

  “To hell?” I stand up and so does she; we are eye to eye, so close that I could breathe in the air she pushes from her lungs. “Do you really think my father would send me to hell for trying to help?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.” She does not seem to blink or even breathe, only stares at me.

  “Please just promise, Ruby,” Hope says. “We only want you to be safe.”

  “Promise for me,” Ellie says.

  I should try to make them see what I know—that I can save all of us. But maybe Otto would condemn me. Maybe we are meant only to wait.

  So I swallow and say it. “I promise. I’ll lead. The way … The way you want me to.”

  “Good girl,” Mother says, and she pulls me into a hug. I do not hug her back.

  “Congratulations,” Boone says.

  “Thank you,” Ellie says, and the other Elders give their thanks too. But hearing their voices only flames the anger in me.

  “I have to be alone … for now,” I say, and nobody stops me.

  Nobody even walks me outside.

  Chapter 7

  Soon all of the Congregants know I am Leader.

  It starts with a strange glance, a quick squeeze of my hand—people telling me they know, without saying.

  But then the pleas begin.

  Yesterday I was alone, harvesting, when Gen Baker found me.

  “Those Smiths stole the last of our dry hay, I know it,” she said. “What’ll we do for fresh beds this winter?”

  “I’m … sorry?” I was too startled to say anything else. Besides, the Bakers and Smiths were always feuding.

  Gen tapped her spoon against her cup. “You’re the Leader. Fix it.”

  Mercifully, an answer came to me. “Come to the next Elders meeting.”

  She left me alone after that, though she wasn’t entirely satisfied.

  Harvesting has become a new torture, for it’s a time when the Congregants can find me. More and more come, wanting
small things that are large in their lives. We will have a very full Elders meeting next.

  Today’s harvest is a little better, at least. They took our cups and spoons away today just as the sun reached its peak in the noon sky. We’d met quota, most of us, the morning dew kinder than it had been in a while.

  Darwin didn’t take the time to punish us for anyone’s shortfalls. Instead he told the Overseers to give us shovels.

  “You’ll all dig,” Darwin bellowed. “Four holes each, and then more if it’s still light out.”

  I hate scraping and bending for water, but digging is worse. The ground is baked hard, reluctant to give up its grip on the rocks and roots around it. And the Overseers watch us the whole time. There’s no slipping into the shade for a moments’ rest, or watching a bird flit overhead.

  At least we’re paired, two to every hole, so one can dig while the other tosses the dirt.

  “I’ll pair with Ruby,” Mother tells the Overseers. They only grunt and give us our shovels—long sticks with narrow heads on them.

  I’m glad to hear her claim me. Maybe fewer people will ask me for things if I have her company.

  “There’s a spot with shade,” I whisper to her, pointing to the area marked with a painted orange X. Most of today’s digging areas are right along the road, where only tall weeds grow.

  Mother gives the earth a heavy jab with her shovel. “I’ll start it for us.”

  She pulls her hair higher on her head and bends to the task. Red welts stand out on the back of her neck. Darwin hit here there two, perhaps three nights ago. I’ve been careful to let those stay angry and sore, so he thinks every part of her is healing as slow as he’d like.

  “We can both do it,” I tell her. The ground is too hard for her to break alone. It will get easier when we reach the crumbly underlayer.

  But it will still be hard work. The holes must be narrow, and deep, so deep that the Overseers can reach down and feel nothing but air beneath their fingertips.

  “You sleep like the dead these last few days. Are you staying too long at the cisterns?” Mother asks.

  I haven’t been back to the cisterns since Ford and I talked. I’m afraid he’ll be there—and I’m afraid that I want him to be.

  Never have I missed a night, not when we’ve added any water to the cisterns. Mother says I must give only a little blood at a time, that if I tried to do it every few days, or every week, I could weaken. She doesn’t know how much of my blood pours into the buckets at night, trying to make stronger and stronger Water to ease her wounds.

  I’ll make up the difference soon, giving extra blood to the Water … as soon as I figure a way to go to the cisterns without seeing Ford.

  “I’m sleeping enough,” I tell Mother.

  “Perhaps you’re still growing.” She stops digging for a moment to study my face, and a slight smile softens her hollow cheeks. “In some ways you’re still a child.”

  “I suppose.” I duck my head so she can’t see the lie in my eyes.

  I manage to flip a clod of dirt off the surface of the soil, and then another shovel, this time full of sand. “I wish I knew what he was planning.”

  “Darwin West will do what he wants, whether or not we know what it’ll be,” she answers. “You needn’t worry.”

  “Knowing when something is coming helps,” I argue.

  I’ve heard other Congregants chattering about the holes. Some think there’s going to be a fence—though this makes little sense, since the holes are cut in strange angles throughout the woods. Others think they’ll be used for some strange punishment. None can imagine what that would be, though, and none wish to discover it.

  One thing is for certain: these holes can only make our lives worse. When has Darwin ever done something to make us live more easily?

  “Dig!” an Overseer bellows at us. But he is too lazy or hot to come closer. Perhaps the heat has drained the fight from him too. Even with the shade, the heat seems to slink up from the ground like fog. Humid thick fingers twine up my skirts, over my neck, trying to pull me to the ground.

  “Whatever Darwin West has planned, I’ll protect you, Ruby.” Mother’s voice is softer. She reaches out to grasp my elbow for just a second before taking her turn at the soil.

  I remember how she used to fill my cup for me, when I was smaller, allowing me to rest in the shade or build fairy houses with sticks. Even this summer I think she would slip by with extra water, if it weren’t for Ellie’s need.

  But things are different now. “I’m Leader. I’m supposed to protect you,” I say.

  “No. Sustain, Ruby.” Mother gives me a sharp eye before stabbing her shovel into the dirt.

  We fall into the same rhythm we’ve used for the last few days he’s made us go out digging.

  “Suppose we should be glad we’re not digging with spoons,” Mother sighs. She dumps her dirt just behind her, not giving an extra effort to the task. But even so, she staggers back once her shovel is lightened and nearly falls to the ground.

  “Let me dig twice for your once,” I urge her in a low voice, making sure not to look over at the Overseer in the deep shade.

  Mother shakes her head and grips her shovel hard with both hands. “No, Ruby. Mine is to suffer. Yours is to sustain. That is how Otto would want it.”

  “What was he like?” I ask my mother, like all the other thousands of times I’ve asked the same question. But she always gives a new scrap of a story, or reminds me of something that’s grown fuzzy in my mind.

  “When I met your father, he was half wild, and as thin as a river otter,” Mother says. “He followed my father out of the woods.”

  “He wanted your father’s food,” I say.

  Even as Mother works, a smile softens her face. “Yes. Even though Otto lived off the land, he was a terrible trapper. I don’t know if he ever managed to kill something.”

  “Otto was good at some things,” I say.

  “Not at first, I didn’t see that.” Mother laughs. “He was nothing next to my fiancé.”

  We both stop for a moment and look at the Overseers. Darwin isn’t near today, though I know we’ll see him at sunset.

  “He wasn’t always this cruel.” Mother bows her head and looks at the hole. “Though I didn’t choose him for kindness. He was rich, and he promised me an easy life.”

  We both let out a short laugh.

  “Dig!” The Overseer closest to us bellows, this time taking a few steps toward us.

  The hole is deep enough now that I must bend to get my shovel to the bottom and scrape the dirt up the side to the top. I try not to struggle as I do it. I don’t want Mother to know how hard this work is for me.

  “Otto was kind, wasn’t he?” I prompt Mother.

  “Yes. He was so … easy with being kind. He gave all that he had as if it cost him nothing,” Mother says.

  “He didn’t have much,” I say.

  “Nothing except his blood.” Mother’s lips press together, and her eyes dart to my arms.

  A crack of sticks, and Jonah Pelling is there. His shirt is wet against him—has he been working, for once?

  “The Overseers are on the lookout,” I warn him.

  He waves his hand. “They sent me to get them water.”

  Mother crosses her arms around her shovel, leaning on it. “You’re their message boy?”

  “Whatever is takes to duck the lash.” Jonah gives me a wink, not seeming to notice Mother’s wince. “So you’re Leader now. Fine news, little Ruby.”

  I bite back the urge to tell him I’m not little anymore. None gets under my skin like Jonah. “Your Overseers are likely thirsty,” I say.

  “I provide what’s needed.” He gives me a smile that is too bold, too familiar.

  I’ve had enough of the Pellings. I’m glad to see him saunter away.

  “Where’d my father come from?” I ask.

  “I’ve told you, Ruby,” Mother sighs. “The woods.”

  “Who was his mother?”

&
nbsp; “We’d best speed up, Ruby,” she warns. “Else we’ll never dig more holes before the sun goes down.”

  I give the sand and rocks a vigorous scoop. “Tell me about Otto’s mother, please?” I try to use the same sweet tone that won me tiny triumphs with her when I was smaller.

  She sighs again. “He was only a child when his parents were taken. Then he had to survive on his own.”

  I’ve heard the story before, but I’m always certain she’s keeping parts of it from me. Surely she knows more about this. “Who took them? Where did they go?” I press.

  “He never said more than that.” Her voice is sharp.

  And then I ask the same thing I have always wanted an answer to, hoping maybe this time she’ll say something different. “Were they like Otto … and me?”

  “I don’t know.” Her answer is quick. “We’ll never know.”

  “I suppose not,” I mutter.

  “Just one more foot,” Mother says. “Why don’t you pick our next digging spot?”

  I pretend to look around, but I’m only thinking of how to move our talk to Ellie … to the thing that’s been burning me like the middle of the hottest flame.

  “Maybe we’ll have dinner tonight,” I say.

  “Unlikely.”

  “We can bring it back to Ellie.”

  She nods. “We’ll find something for her tonight.”

  I try to slow my breath and think before I say the next thing, but it’s so hard. “Did Otto ever deny anyone?”

  “He gave Water to all who asked. But nobody knew it was his blood. Nobody except me, and then Ellie …” Mother squares her shoulders and pulls a good amount of dirt from the hole.

  Nobody else knew the secret of Otto’s blood until they’d followed her to the woods. She told the few people she trusted the most. They became the Elders.

  “I want to help everyone, just like Otto,” I say.

  Before I even look at Mother’s face, I send Otto a fast prayer: Help me, Otto. Help me, my father.

  Her eyes are narrowed, and she stares at me like she’s trying to burn holes with them. She knows already where my mind is, I think.

  “Sometimes we must wait for what we want,” she says.

  She’s been saying that for two hundred years. I’m very tired of hearing it.

  “Haven’t we waited long enough? Ellie is dying,” I burst out.