The Grower's Gift (Progeny of Time #1) (2 page)

Maya had known it wasn't the real Spring when the temperatures rose so soon after New Year's. She should have tried harder to warn the people of her town not to plant yet. Not that they ever listened to her. Winter snows had started back in September, and everyone was eager to begin planting. The Spring of 2102 brought only false hope. A fine start to the new year that was. Nearly everyone lost their crops in the floods that followed the brief spring. Many had feared the end of the world. Yet if the world was ending, it had started years ago. Earth had been dying a slow death for decades now, as had the people who still survived in the Badlands.

Frosts would last for months, the thick snow clouds obscuring the sun. And people froze or died of heat and dehydration when the sun beat down mercilessly, drying everything in its path, the soil, the plants, animals and people. There was no more telling when either would come, or if the next flood would take your home in its frothing passage.

There was only today in the Badlands and what you made of it. And you were either happy to be alive, or not. Too many weren't.

A familiar whistle chased Maya's dark thoughts away. She whistled back and extended her hand to help Giles climb up and join her in the tree.
 

"Off work already?" she asked.

He nodded and nestled in close to her. He had to, now that both were too big to easily fit side by side on the oak's thick branch. Not like they could as children, back when Giles had come to live in Maya's town eight years ago. Now they were both 16, both of age.
 

Giles bumped her arm with his elbow when he fished out something from his pocket. He held out the paper wrapped thing to her. "Happy Birthday, Maya!"

She gasped. "What is this? You shouldn't have spent money on me."

"Who else do I have to spend it on?" Giles asked quietly.

Maya clutched his hand over the present and hugged him, silently cursing her insensitivity. Giles' mother and his little sister had both died barely a month ago, coughing themselves to death. Maya couldn't help them. She'd tried so hard, so very hard. For a time, she had thought she found the spark of life in Giles' sister, the survival streak, as Maya thought of it, and was sure she could save her. Then Giles' mother died and the girl just wasted away.
 

Giles' body shook in sobs, and Maya let her own tears flow. "I should have saved them. I could have, if only I could figure out how to use my gift. I'm so sorry, Giles."

Giles tensed up and pulled out of their embrace. He wiped away her tears with his sleeve and leaned in to kiss her before she realized what he was planning. She turned away hastily, so his lips brushed her cheek instead.

"Giles, no," she said, not daring to meet his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed.

Giles was her friend, her confidant, the one person who listened and never judged.

Why did he have to insist on something more?

Maya focused her eyes on the rushing water. "I already told you. You're like a brother to me…my best friend. I don't want to lose that..."

She let her voice trail off. It was true though. The day he moved to her town was like getting a brother, a twin even. They even resembled each other, and had the same golden brown eyes and sun-kissed skin. Giles' hair matched his eyes though, and turned yellow in the summer. Her own hair was so dark brown it looked almost black. The color of healthy spring earth her mother would say. Maya had never seen such soil. All they had for planting was brittle, light brown soil scorched by the heat of summers that went on too long, or was destroyed by the snows and rains that came when they weren't supposed to.
 

Giles had stopped sobbing, and sat rigid beside her. Maya chanced a small peek at him from the corner of her eyes.

His golden brown eyes twinkled through the tears. "Let's try that again…happy sixteenth birthday, Maya."

He forced the package into her hand and didn't try to kiss her again. "I made this for you, I didn't buy it."

Maya unwrapped the paper. Inside lay a circle of leather, its tasseled ends tied in a neat bow. She pulled the ends and a bracelet uncoiled, an inch wide, its face covered with intricate carvings: a blooming tree, a couple with a child, fruits, birds, even cows. All the living creatures moved as though alive, and the fruits gleamed as though freshly grown, the leaves on the trees rippling in a soft summer breeze. Real talent made the bracelet.

"Do you like it? I thought it could remind you of what you want to learn so much," Giles said, studying her face seriously.

Giles was the only other person in the world who knew that Maya was certain she had the ability to give life back to the dying.

 
"I love it!," she exclaimed and extended her left arm towards him. "Will you tie it for me?"
 

It was the left hand, through which the warmth of her healing power always flowed. No, not always. Not even close. Only sometimes. And it never flowed, more like trickled. Perhaps the bracelet would help. All those living things. How could it not?

"You could earn good money selling things like this," Maya said, admiring the bracelet.
 

"No one in the Badlands has money enough to spend on trinkets," Giles replied quietly.
 

"Perhaps in one of the cities in the Ring then," Maya urged. He could make such beautiful things of leather, shoes and belts and gloves. "It's a shame to give it away for free."

Giles looked off into the distance. "The main purpose of the things I make is to have beauty in our lives. That's what my father always said. They have no real purpose except as trinkets, and they have too many of those in the cities. Besides, I can't work all that fast with these." He held out his hands, the last two fingers of each ending in stumps.

Maya smiled at him sadly.
 

"It's all pointless talk anyway," Giles continued. "You know very well that no one from the Badlands is allowed into the Ring."

Maya bit her bottom lip. The five cities of the Ring were overcrowded and none had accepted refugees for decades. Besides, who'd want to live there anyway? Behind glass windows in buildings so tall you couldn't see the ground because you were too high in the sky. At least in the Badlands, nature was still all around you every day. Even if the Earth was dying, someone should still be there to see it pass. Maya could change all that, she knew. Bring back hope to the people of the Badlands.

"If only I could learn to work my gift properly. If I could heal the Badlands, they'd open up the cities again," Maya muttered.

Giles' eyes flashed. "Do you think you can transform the entire planet? A few shoots here and there is all you've ever managed to grow."

"I'm still learning. I know in my heart that I have the power to make the Earth come to life again! I thought you believed me!"

Maya punched him in the arm and jumped from the tree. "I don't need you to believe me. I don't need anyone to believe me. You'll all see what I can do eventually, as soon as I learn to control it."

Giles jumped down too and took her hand. "I'm sorry. Of course I believe you. After all, I just saw the wheat shoots you managed to coax back to life."

Maya gasped. "What shoots? The ones that got soaked in the floods?"

Giles nodded.

"Why didn't you say right away?" Maya asked him, knowing it was the absolute worst thing to say as soon as the last sound left her mouth. Palpable hurt filled the air between them.

His eyes turned cold and distant. "I thought you already knew. My gift would fade in comparison to that news. I spent a long time working on it."
 

Maya squeezed his hand. "Don't say that. Your gift is already working. I can feel it. I'm sure that with its help, I can make those shoots grow all the way."

Already Maya thought the flow of life giving warmth was increasing down her left arm, pooling in her palm. She pulled him after him as she started running back home.

~

Dusk covered the town square by the time Maya and Giles reached it. A jet black hovercraft hummed in front of the pub, blue lights twinkling around the edges of its wings. Maya twisted her ankle painfully on a hole in the ground where some cobblestones were missing. She winced and grabbed onto Giles' hand tighter then led him back into the shadow of the houses that lined the square. It was better not to be noticed by any Citizens.

"I hope they're not here for another of their hunts," Maya whispered when they reached the road that led to her home at the edge of town, even though most of the houses that lined it were dark and deserted.

"The craft looked Special Forces to me, so maybe they're here for something else," Giles whispered back.

Maya groaned. "I doubt it. When was the last time Citizens came all the way out here for anything other than a hunt?"

Adventure seekers from the Ring would sometimes come to their town bringing along a pack of genetically engineered beasts and have themselves a hunt. For them, the wild animals that managed to adapt to the ever changing, unpredictable weather weren't fun enough to hunt. The vicious beasts they let loose and weren't able to hunt down were no fun for anyone. As if staying alive in the Badlands with barely enough food wasn't nearly impossible without having to worry about wild beasts attacking you as well.

The flickering light Maya's parents left burning on the back porch cast a pool of light into the small field beside Maya's home. She let go of Giles' hand and ran towards it. True enough, green shoots of wheat had pushed through the brittle earth, reaching towards the sky.

"I did it, Giles! I really did," she said when he knelt beside her.

He smiled and gazed at her with such softness and love in his eyes she had to look away.
 

Maya forced her thoughts back to the warmth building in her left arm, pooling in her palm. Somehow, the bracelet helped channel the warmth there and contained it. Now all she had to do was release the life giving energy and the wheat would shoot straight up into the air, ready for harvest. If snow fell in flurries tomorrow it wouldn't matter. They'd have grain to eat and enough seeds for the next planting. The whole town could have enough to eat, all of the starving and poor could have enough grain forever.
 

Maya fixed the image of healthy, ripe wheat firmly into her thoughts as she let the warmth flow from her fingers and into the soil. She saw it seeping into the earth, feeding the shoots with a life giving drink of energy. She closed her eyes, imagined the wheat saplings growing, turning from green to brown, the grains swaying in the soft summer breeze.

"What are you doing out there, Maya?" her mother called from the back door. Her voice was soft and strained, like she could make it go no higher, like it would break at any moment.
 

Maya jumped to her feet and hid her left hand behind her back. She waved to her mother with her right. "Coming! I wanted to check on the crops first!"
 

The hollows in her mother's pale cheeks filled out when she returned the smile. She wore her best dress of red velvet with a collar of lace.
 

"Come on in, both of you. There's turkey and birthday cake." Her mother waved them inside, still smiling.

"You shouldn't have, Mom," Maya said as she followed her mother inside. Yet the smell of the bird made her mouth water. Baked potatoes lined the turkey, glistening in the half light.
 

Her father pulled the platter from the oven, and turned to them. "It's not every day our only daughter comes of age. Of course we must celebrate."

They sat in the dining room that they never normally used, and ate off sparkling white china plates with golden scrolls worked into the edges. The turkey was a skinny, wiry thing, yet still the best that Maya had had in a long time. Probably the best that could be gotten anywhere in the Badlands.

Maya joined in as they sang her the happy birthday song, right before she blew out the single candle on her cake. It was the same candle they'd used for quite a few birthdays now.
 

After they finished the cake, her father uncorked a bottle of wine and poured for all of them. "A toast!" he said and raised his glass. Maya and the rest followed suit. "To Maya, who is now finally old enough to know better!"

 
"My father, the joker!" Maya said, laughing. She raised her glass and took a long drink. A full glass of wine. She'd only ever had a sip here and there. Finally being of age had its privileges, it seemed.

Her father took a black box with a light blue ribbon tied around it from a drawer by the door, and held it out to Maya. Her mother beamed beside him. "We hope you like it."

Maya kept her smile wide, but inwardly she frowned. The box alone was too costly. They shouldn't have. Not with their last grains destroyed by the floods.

The light in her mother's eyes was so bright, Maya didn't want to destroy the moment. Her mother looked younger, the way Maya remembered her from her earliest birthdays.

She untied the bow and slowly lifted the lid. Light glinted off a golden pendant shaped as a magnificent tree, its branches and roots entwined, encircling it. All thought of refusing the gift evaporated. The intricately carved leaves seemed to move in the glimmering light.
 

Still they shouldn't have.
 

Her father cleared his throat. "Do you like it?"

Some of the light had already disappeared from her mother's eyes, Maya saw when she looked up. "I love it. But this must have cost a fortune."

Her parents exchanged a strained look and then her father turned back to her. "Don't worry about any of that, Maya."

She hung it around her neck and grinned. "Thank you so much."

She hugged her mother, startled as always at how frail she was. Her father hugged both of them.
 

"It is an old heirloom, passed down for generations in the family," he whispered into her hair.

From the corner of her eye, Maya saw Giles stare out the window, his eyes unfocused. Hurt still clung to him like a rain cloud.