Seed (20 page)

“Do you really want to leave?” I ask. I hadn’t wanted to. I had wanted to just show Ellis the beauty around us. To remind him how amazing Seed is, and to make him love it all over again. But I’ve said the words now, and I can’t take them back.

“Yes,” he says, looking down at his hands. “More and more, I want to leave.”

I hold my breath in the almost-darkness. Hearing him say the words. Knowing that he’d want to leave all this behind. And I don’t understand it.

“But Mom won’t go. She says she’s got a reason for living now.” He laughs bitterly. “And I’d never leave Sophie here.”

“But how can you want to leave?”

He lifts his face and looks away, across the black fields toward the lights of our home. “There’s evil here,” he says.

His words stop my heart.

“Then I think you should go,” I say. I feel my words bubbling up and I can’t stop them. “Because you have absolutely no right to come here, and after all that we’ve given you . . .” I don’t want to cry. I’m climbing down the tree, because I’ve got to get away from him. My hair catches on a branch, but I yank it free and almost fall the whole last bit as I jump on the grass and start to run.

“Pearl,” Ellis calls after me. I won’t stop. “Pearl!”

I run through the orchard, the trees protecting me. I hear Ellis running closer and he’s quick, too quick for me. He has my arm and he’s pulling me.

“No,” I yell at him. I’ve never heard myself like this. Neither has the air, neither has the sky.

“Pearl, stop,” Ellis says, his voice calm, but his grip on my arm is tight.

I stop and I turn and I’m hurting inside, just looking at him. But I pull my arm free. “You’re the evil one,” I shout. “This is what growing up on the Outside does. You should go back there. Leave us alone,” I say and I start to walk away.

Ellis is just a few steps behind me. I won’t say any more. I can’t say any more. “Pearl,” he says and hearing his voice makes me want to cry, because he is my friend, he is part of our family and he wants to go and I want him to go, but if he does it will shatter my heart. “I’m sorry,” he says and he catches up with me and gently puts his hand on my arm.

“Don’t you realize that it’s the Outside that has made you this way?” I say. “Give yourself properly to us, Ellis, and you’ll be happy.”

Ellis takes a breath in. He runs both his hands through his hair, but his curls fall close to his eyes again. “Can’t you see, Pearl?”

“See what?” I ask, staring at him, willing him to look into my
eyes, willing him to have my happiness. Because I would give it all to him.

He looks up at me. Then he reaches out for my hand and I let him take it. “Nothing,” he says quietly. “Nothing.” He looks down. Gently he moves his thumb over my thumb. I feel his skin on my own.

“Are you really going to leave us?” I ask. I don’t want to hear his answer.

“No,” he replies. He looks into my eyes. “I won’t leave you here, Pearl. And I can’t leave my mom and Sophie.”

“They wouldn’t want to go. They’re happy at Seed. And you’re happy here too, you’ve just forgotten, that’s all,” I say. Ellis reaches out and touches my hair. A shiver runs through me and I close my eyes.

A twig cracks somewhere in the darkness. My eyes open and Ellis and I look. He drops my hand and I can hear the sound of someone walking away. Running.

Someone was here. We both know it.

“Who was it?” I whisper.

“I don’t know,” Ellis replies. “But we haven’t done anything wrong, Pearl.”

Haven’t we? His voice sounds scared.

“I want to go back to the house,” I say.

The night feels different now. The air is cold on my face. Back
at Seed, everything will feel better. In the warmth of our family, everything will make sense.

I try not to remember the figure in the darkness, because when I do, a strange fear begins to creep into me. And Seed isn’t a place for fear.

Last night, I watched them come back through the fields. Two figures in the black shadows, side by side. She could not hide, not with her hair catching in the moonlight.

And today I keep this blonde girl as my child. Through my glass, I watch as she picks the lettuce. She works slowly, carefully. Sometimes, she takes a leaf from the edge and eats it. Sometimes she stretches her arms up toward the sky.

The door of my prison opens and he is here. I don’t have time to step back, to pretend that I haven’t been watching.

“Have you been looking out the window?” he asks, so close to me. I shake my head and he knows that it is not the truth.

He strikes my face so hard that I fall. The floor hits me. I put my arms over my head, but this time there is no more.

“I am sorry,” he whispers in my ear. “But you know you have done wrong.”

Wrong?

He is spooning the stew into my mouth as if I am a baby. My baby. My baby. I swallow. The soup is almost cold, but it is all that I have. And in it, there is the blackness.

Yet sleep is not long enough. It’s not far enough away.

Soon. Soon I will be strong enough to go.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

N
ana Willow’s eyes are open wide when I walk into her room. She’s sitting up and she watches me as I step toward her. I concentrate on the small tray that I’m holding, try to stop the glass clinking onto the bowl. I have never fed Nana Willow, it is always Heather or Elizabeth. The sweet smell of the soup crawls up my nose, but I don’t want to breathe through my mouth.

She is still watching me. Carefully, I put the tray down on the small table next to her bed. I have to look up at her. The skin on her neck twists as her face is turned toward me. I try to smile, but she doesn’t smile back. Her lips are now as pale as her skin, with lines of red where they have cracked.

“I have brought your food, Nana Willow,” I say. She doesn’t answer. She just looks at me with her old eyes that know a thousand things. Does she think I’m Sylvie? Do I dare to ask?

There’s a chair next to the table, so I pull it around. When I sit on it, my knees are touching her bed.

“Are you comfortable?” I ask her. There are pillows behind
her back and her blanket is pulled almost to her chin. She nods her head.

I reach for the bowl. It’s too full and I’m shaking and I’m worried that I shall spill it. But I dip the spoon in, blow gently on the soup, and slowly bring it to Nana Willow’s lips. She opens her mouth like a child, her ancient tongue poking out slightly as I tip the soup so she can drink. And all the time, she watches me.

Again, I put the spoon in. Again Nana Willow drinks. And again. There’s just the sound of the spoon scraping, Nana Willow’s catlike breathing, and the sound of the soup as she swallows it.

She hasn’t even eaten half the bowl when she turns her head away. Her lips are shut and she won’t accept the spoon.

“Is that enough?” I ask her. She nods. The spoon sinks into the soup as I put the bowl back on the tray.

There are tears on Nana Willow’s cheeks.

“Nana Willow?” I ask quietly. But now she won’t look at me. “Are you hurting?” I ask her. She shakes her head.

Suddenly her fingers are around my wrist. She’s squeezing my skin.

“She didn’t die,” she says, her voice rasping. “When Sylvie had her baby, she didn’t die.” But then her eyes turn in panic toward the window, where the curtains are pulled back from the skin of the glass and the black night looks in. She lets go of my wrist and pulls her blanket up to her neck.

“But Elizabeth said she died,” I say. Nana Willow shakes her head violently. “Then where is she? Where did Sylvie go?”

Nana Willow doesn’t move. Something has scared her. I get up and walk to the window and my hand reaches for the curtains. There’s someone there. Out there, looking in, watching us. A man. Is it Papa S.? I yank the curtains shut, but hold on to the thick material, trying to steady my breathing.

My arms are shaking as I turn back to Nana Willow. Her eyes are closed. As I step closer, I can see that tears have dried in streaks on her cheeks.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

W
e follow Papa S. and Kate through the meadow. Only a few of us fit through the gap in the hedge at a time, but we spill through it like water and walk toward the woods. The children are chasing each other with sticks. Kindred Smith grabs Ruby as she runs past and swings her high in the air. I can hear Linda laughing as she walks close to him. I can’t see Papa S.’s face, but I know he must be smiling.

We are quieter when we reach the trees. They make a path for us and we hush to be able to hear the whisper of their leaves. Even the children start to slow down as we walk through the scattered light.

“I wish Elizabeth were here,” Jack whispers to me. I squeeze his hand because I know how much he misses her. But she’s alone in the house, just her and Nana Willow.

Sylvie didn’t die. I can’t forget those words. And I can still feel Nana Willow’s fingers on my wrist, but they’re forced away as we reach the clearing. Papa S.’s Worship Chair sits in the middle. I won’t think about what lies underneath, deep in the ground.
Instead I will look at how it gleams, where someone has polished its arms and legs.

Quietly, we form a circle, as Papa S. walks to the middle and sits down on the chair. The sun shines on him and his whole body is covered in light.

We all join hands, making our circle, our family. No beginning, no end. The feeling of happiness spreads through me again, glows among us.

Slowly, Papa S. tips his face toward the sky. We copy him, and above us the color is a striking blue. There is one white cloud. We look up and wait for the sign. At first, there is nothing and then a bird swoops into view, its wings outstretched, its body floating in the curve of the sky.

“We worship you,” Papa S. calls out. We copy his words. Ellis, Kate, every one of us.

“We worship you,” we say together. “We worship you.” Over and over, louder and louder. “We worship you!” Until the words spin in my head and my body seems to float from the ground. The worship soaks through my skin and embeds itself in my bones, turning them to dust. My voice is all that’s left.

Gradually we become quieter. Gradually our words fade into the air and we stand in silence under the ceiling of sky.

“We are done,” Papa S. says. I look at the circle around me and I know that everyone has been with me to that place. Linda
leans her head into Kindred Smith as she whispers words I cannot hear. This is her first time in the worship circle, and her face is layered with happiness.