Seed (33 page)

“I don’t know. They’re in our house.”

He’s crumbling the mud off a potato. “What are they saying?”

“I don’t know.” I take the potato from him and put it into the almost full bag. I want to feel excitement. Are they Ellis’s friends? Have they come to save us?

“Let’s find out then.” Jack reaches out for my hand as we walk.

I trust him to lead me through the empty kitchen and into the hall. They are not here. But I can hear them, in the sitting room, the room I just slipped away from.

“Come on,” Jack says and he squeezes my hand.

“Are we just going to walk in?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says. And so we do. We push open the wooden door and watch as Kindred Smith and the strangers look up at us. The woman’s nose is like the beak of a hawk. I don’t like her empty smile.

“Hello,” she says, standing up from our sofa. “My name is Jean. I was sorry to hear about your friend Elizabeth. It must have been a shock to you all.”

Jack and I don’t say anything.

“We didn’t know that children were living here.”

Still we don’t say anything. Kindred Smith is watching us.

“I’m Stuart,” the man says. He doesn’t stand up. He reminds me of a few of the people I see at the market, with rolling skin on his chin and fat hands. “Do you want to come in for a quick chat?”

“No.” I’m startled by Jack’s rudeness.

“We have work to do,” I say.

Is this really who has come to save us? I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. I thought I would want to go with them, that I would trust them, but I don’t.

“It won’t take long,” the woman says, moving toward us. “How long have you lived here?”

“All our lives,” I say, glancing briefly at Kindred Smith.

“Are you happy here?” she asks.

My cheeks redden. I feel Jack’s fingers in mine.

Behind them, outside the window, Papa S. has crept up and he is looking in. The stubble on his chin presses against the glass.

“What work are you doing?” Stuart asks, from where he still sits.

“We’re digging the potatoes,” I say.

“Not school work, then?” he asks. School. Where Ellis has been.

“We alternate,” Kindred Smith interrupts. “All the children here have a balance of education. As well as their school work, they learn to work the land.” But we don’t do school work, only the reading and writing in winter. Kindred Smith is lying. “And Jack is a budding mechanic.” He smiles encouragingly at us. “Aren’t you, Jack?”

“Yes,” Jack answers.

“Would you like to see?” Kindred Smith asks.

“We’d prefer to see their school books,” Jean answers. She turns to me. “What are you learning?”

“Everything,” I answer. Stuart snorts, his jelly cheeks shaking. I glare at him and he tries to smile. Doubt begins to find me. Can we really give up Seed for people like this?

“Would you like to show us your books?” the woman asks.

I feel Papa S.’s eyes on me.

“Not now,” Kindred Smith says and he claps his hands together. “Plenty of time for that. But that sun won’t wait for us, and they need to bring more potatoes in before it gets dark.” He walks toward us, puts his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “We’ll come and get you if we need to talk to you more.”

So we turn our backs on the strangers, walk through the door, and away from them.

Jack and I pretend not to look as we bend over the spades, but I can see the black shape walking toward us. It’s the crow-like woman, coming closer. She reaches me first.

“That looks like hard work,” she says.

“I enjoy it,” I reply. I stop digging and look at her.

Tell her now, Pearl, tell her.

But I know that Papa S. is watching me.

“Do you see a lot of Steve?” she asks.

“Who is Steve?”

“Steve Elmack. The man who runs it here.”

I don’t understand.

“Your leader,” she says.

“Papa S. is our leader,” I say. Steve?

“How often do you see him?” she asks. Jack is still.

“All the time,” I say.

“What’s he like?”

I don’t answer.

“Does he make you do anything you don’t want to?” she asks.

Still I don’t reply. I want to talk to her, to tell her everything. But I’m scared that Papa S. is hiding, watching.

“There’s help away from here, if you need it,” the woman says.

I look at Jack, but his face shows nothing.

“We’ve told Steve that we’re coming back in two days, so that we can see your school work. You might want to tell me more then?”

Two days. In two days I’ll find a place to hide, where Papa S. cannot see and I will tell this woman everything.

It’s strange when she touches my arm, as though she wants to say something more. I glance toward the house. Then she turns from me and walks back toward the driveway. As I dig my spade into the earth, their car starts. I listen as it takes them away.

Jack is staring into the distance.

“I don’t think we have long,” he says. As I brush my hair away, mud smudges near my eyes. “For this,” he says, sweeping his arm from our home to our forest. I wrap my cardigan closer to me.

“We’ll stay together, Jack,” I whisper. “I promise I won’t go without you.”

Jack tightens his hand around the spade. His knuckles go white. I touch them, try to soothe blood back into them.

“I don’t want to live here without Elizabeth,” I say. But there is more, so much more.
One day, Jack, I will tell it all to you.

Suddenly Jack picks up his spade. He swings it high and slams it into the ground. He tips his head and he yells toward the sky. I want to touch him, but I’m scared. I have never, ever seen Jack like this, and when he doesn’t stop, I run from him. I lift my skirt so I can run over the muddy field, back into Seed.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

T
he sun is barely up when we turn the corner to the field. Immediately, I know that they are dead. Two of our cows lie side by side, their bodies slumped into the grass, their eyes wide open, their mouths gaping.

Kate drops her bucket and it clangs on the ground as she runs to them. She kneels next to the body of the first, thumps hard onto its skin.

“It’s dead, Kate,” I say.

She looks up at me, her hair wild. “What’s going on?” she shouts.

Someone is running up behind us. I turn to see Kindred John getting closer. “I saw from the window,” he calls to us. “We’ll have to get the tractor with the wagon up here.”

“What’s happened to them?” Kate asks. She stands up, her feet wide, her hands on her hips.

“They were old,” Kindred John says. He puts his hand gently on Kate’s arm, but she shakes it off roughly.

“Oh, Kate,” he says as he smiles. For an instant, I think she
might hit him.

I grab her arm and pull her away, hurry her from the field, my empty basket knocking against my leg.

I lead her without speaking, all the way to the forest. We stop only when we’re covered by trees. She stares at me.

“Cows don’t just die like that,” I say. “Two of them at the same time.”

“What’s happening?” Kate asks. She’s looking around us, but there are no answers in the air.

I can’t hold my words in anymore. “Sylvie didn’t die when I was born.” I meant to whisper, but my voice is too strong. I can’t see behind the trunks of the trees. I can’t see if anyone is near enough to hear me.

I take Kate’s hand and she lets me lead her again. In and out of the trees in silence, until we start to walk across the West field.

Run, Pearl, run.
My mother’s voice fills my bones.

We’re standing in the middle, with nothing around us but the green grass stretching to the house and the white sky reaching down to touch the trees that line the fence to the Outside.

“They locked her away.” I say it without hesitating.

“Who?”

“They locked Sylvie away.”

“What do you mean?”

“She didn’t die when I was born, Kate. They hid her away.”
The words catch in my breath.

Kate looks toward the red bricks that make up our home. “Where?”

“I don’t know. But they did something to her. They hurt her. And now she’s gone.”

Kate turns back to me. There’s a sadness in her eyes I have never seen before. I need to ask her whether we put sticks on top of my mother’s coffin. Did the children laugh as we watched her body burn? But sickness grips me and it hurts too much to say it.

“We can’t stay,” Kate says. She puts her hands on my shoulders. “Do you want to stay?” Her face is so close to mine that I can feel her anger.

“I don’t want to be his Companion,” I whisper.

She takes her hands from me and starts to walk away. Her blonde hair hangs, lifeless, down her back. She is going toward the fence that keeps us from the Outside.

“Kate?”

“Quickly,” she says.

I have to run to catch up with her. Side by side we are hurrying to the edge.

Run, Pearl, run.

The air pushes into me, as the shadows of the trees creep over us. The wooden fence is here for me to touch.

“This is where I meet Simon. If we go now, we can find him
and he will help us.” But Kate sounds hesitant and she no longer looks strong.

I touch the damp wood. It’s green on this side, where the sun never reaches. If I stand on my toes, I can see the road. It’s blank, until it turns a corner and disappears. There are no swarms of flies. Kate is looking back toward the house. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t climb over the fence.

I know we won’t go yet, because Jack is at Seed. And Ellis. I won’t go without them. And Elizabeth is calling to me. I cannot leave her and our baby without saying good-bye.

“Tomorrow,” I say. “Tomorrow, when that woman comes back, I’ll find a place to hide where Papa S. can’t see and I’ll tell her everything. And we’ll leave here. We will,” I promise Kate.

Raindrops begin to knock quietly on the leaves above us.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

A
hand jolts me awake. I’m in bed and it’s still dark, but someone is shaking me.