Seed (17 page)

This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home. This little piggy went squeal, squeal, squeal. And this little piggy had none.

I have none.

None.

Nothing.

CHAPTER TWENTY

E
lizabeth is ill. Her breathing is staggered and her face is flushed red with sweat.

“You must sit down,” I say to her. “I can do the porridge.” But she shakes her head and continues to stir that big wooden spoon through the oats and our cows’ milk. Her stomach is so swelled with the baby that it pushes against the cooker.

Linda gently takes the spoon from Elizabeth. “I’ll tell Papa S. He’ll make you rest,” she says. I can see the roots of their friendship as I watch them. Elizabeth tries to smile but I can tell she’s in pain. It’s difficult seeing her like this and I wish I could make her feel better.

“I’m fine. It’s just uncomfortable, that’s all,” she says. But she’s wrong. She needs to rest.

We eat morning meal inside, with the rain spattering on the windows. I’m thinking about how the days are changing when Elizabeth’s face turns white. Her eyes are shut tight and her fingers grip her spoon.

Linda whispers something to her, but Elizabeth shakes her
head. A silence spreads up the table and it reaches Papa S., but he carries on eating, spooning his food into his mouth. Has he not noticed Elizabeth? The pain she is struggling with? I want to tell him, but I’ve never spoken to Papa S. in such a way. I look to Jack. He has stopped eating and I know he wants to do something. But it’s Linda who stands up.

“I’m taking Elizabeth upstairs. She is unwell,” she says. We can all see that there is food in both their bowls. They cannot leave it.

Papa S. puts down his spoon. He is staring at Linda, as though he’s about to speak. But his lips stay shut tight. It’s the coldness in his eyes that stop me moving. Linda doesn’t seem to notice as she helps Elizabeth to her feet.

Kate rushes to her other side. She puts Elizabeth’s arm over her shoulder and helps her from the room. They don’t close the door and we can hear them, moving slowly and awkwardly across the hall and up the stairs.

There are three bowls on the table, the porridge still warm.

I dare not look at Papa S. But I don’t understand his anger. They did not want to leave their food, but Elizabeth is ill.

I don’t like the way that her face turned white. I want to run from the room to be with her, but Papa S.’s displeasure has tiptoed down the table and holds me back.

We eat the rest of morning meal in silence. Papa S. finishes
his food and drinks the last drops of his water. When he stands up, I know his anger has not left him. It’s caught in the lines on his face.

“The wasteful shall be punished,” he says, his voice cracking into the air. I wait for him to say more. To say that he’s made a mistake and it’s all right for them to leave their food. Because Elizabeth is ill and we must all help her to feel better. But instead, he storms from the room. Heather, his Companion once again, follows behind him. There is no longer happiness on her face, only fragments of fear.

“Hold the flannel to her forehead,” Linda tells me. “When it gets warm, rinse it again in the cold water.”

Elizabeth’s eyes are closed, but I know she’s not sleeping. Within a minute, the heat from her skin has already soaked through the flannel and is warming my palm. But I must stay calm. I must not show that I’m afraid.

I take the flannel, float it in the ice-cold water in the bowl at my feet, then squeeze it through before putting it on Elizabeth’s forehead again. She moves slightly, which I think is a good sign. Linda takes a small packet from her pocket. Inside, there is a strip of silver with little white circles. She pushes one of the circles and it pops out onto her hand.

“What’s that?” I ask her.

“I have to bring her temperature down.” She puts the white circle in a small glass of water and it starts to fizz and shrink and disappear. I grab the glass before Linda has time to pick it up.

“You can’t do this,” I whisper. The smell from the glass slips onto my tongue.

“It’s fine, Pearl. It will help Elizabeth.”

“No, it won’t. This isn’t from the earth. You will destroy her.”

“No, Pearl. I’ve had these many times. So have Ellis and Sophie. They’re good for you. They help get rid of pain.”

“Pain is good for you,” I say. “Elizabeth needs her pain.”

“Right now, Elizabeth needs to get her temperature down. She is too hot. And if we can’t cool her down, then she and her baby will be in danger.”

“The flannel will cool her. You told me it would.” But I can feel Elizabeth’s illness seeping through the cloth.

“It’s not enough, Pearl.” Linda is reaching for the glass, but I won’t give it to her.

“It’s not what Elizabeth wants,” I say.

“Do you want her to die?” Linda says. “Or her baby?”

Her words stop me. Does she really mean Elizabeth could die? Is it her time? Sylvie died having her baby. Sylvie died giving birth to one of us.

Linda’s voice is calm. “If she drinks this, we can help her.”

I look toward the door. It’s closed, but is there someone listening on the other side? It’s a risk I will take. I pass Linda the glass with the misty liquid. She nods at me and we lift Elizabeth’s head.

“Drink this,” Linda whispers in her ear. I am torn between pushing it away and letting her drink it. But I watch Elizabeth’s lips open, the drink disappearing from the glass and into her body. I don’t know what I have allowed to happen, but I know it is too late to change it.

Kate has disappeared. She helped clear away morning meal, but then she wasn’t working in the fields and I can’t find her in the house. I thought maybe she was helping Kindred John, but Jack says he hasn’t left the barn.

She wasn’t back for middle meal, or evening meal. Rachel doesn’t know where she is. Jack and I have looked in the barn, the forest, the bee shed. Maybe she’s with Papa S.? But Heather is still his Companion.

“What’s he done with her?” Ellis asks. We’re gathering in the chickens for the night.

“What do you mean?” I try to laugh, but I know that I’m worried.

“Papa S. said she would be punished and now she’s disappeared.”

“He meant punished by Nature.”

“She left a few spoonfuls of porridge, so she could help Elizabeth,” he shouts, slamming down the empty metal bowl. “She didn’t deserve a punishment.”

“It’s not like that. Papa S. hasn’t done anything wrong. He is nothing but good to us.”

But he didn’t help Elizabeth. She was too ill to eat and although he loves her, he called on Nature to punish her.

“She’s disappeared, Pearl.” Ellis is right up close to me.

“She could be anywhere, helping one of the Kindreds, anything.”

Yet I know I’ve looked everywhere. Jack has looked everywhere.

“Ask them where she is, then.”

“No.”

“Why not?” he asks.

“Because I know she’s fine.”

“What if she’s not?” Ellis shuts the mesh fence harshly. Pulls over the lock.

“You have to trust them, Ellis.” I know I’m trying to convince myself, but Ellis won’t take my words. They fall from him as he turns from me and stamps back to the house.

I wake in the night so violently that all I can hear is my heart smashing in my chest. I sit up, confused, unsure where I’ve been in my dream.

Then I remember Kate. I slip from my bed and feel across the black air until I find her bed. It is empty.

The dark of the room makes me realize. I know where she must be. There must be other stages of being a woman, and she is back in the hole. I know she will be frightened and I know what I must do. And I must do it before I wake properly and think.

I find my sweater in the darkness. The noise I make seems loud, but no one wakes up. The children breathe in their sleep.

I walk out of our room and down the silence of the corridor. I falter on the top step of the stairs, as it creaks into the night. But no one comes. My feet carry me down, across the hall, into the kitchen. I unlock the door quietly and step outside. The cold hits my bare legs, wakes me up more. But I won’t turn back.

It’s so dark, so silent. The grass from the meadow brushes against me as I wade through it with my arms outstretched.

I’m coming, Kate. I won’t leave you there.
I hit the table with my palm, feel my way around it.
Just keep going straight.
Through the grass, until I reach the hedge. It is here, crackly against my hand.
Find the place to walk through, Pearl. Keep your hands brushing on the hedge, until it falls into a gap of air.