The Harvest (7 page)

He knows all that’s a bindle full of horse apples. Pop told him the truth: The Heartland revolves around the sun, along with other worlds, and that revolution means sometimes they face the sun, sometimes they don’t. No gods and goddesses, no disagreeable mythologies competing with one another, just a simple arrangement of objects out there, objects given over to what Pop called “scientific principle, the laws of a world and a universe in perpetual action.”

He misses Pop.

Right now, he feels like he’s not facing the sun or even the moon, but rather a wide-open darkness. A dangerous pit of shadow that will consume him. The Blight-vine around his arm twitches as if—well, as if what, he doesn’t know. Maybe the vine fears the darkness, too. Maybe night really is the playground of Old Scratch, and maybe this thing he’s got inside him marks him as one of the legions of King Hell: a lord of darkness, not a scion of light.

What the hell is happening to the world?

Things are supposed to get better. But they’ve always just gotten worse. Like a hill of dirt and scree, where everything slides down, down, down.

He sits there on Esther’s porch, looking out over the eventide corn, sun spilling its guts across the horizon, bleeding out as darkness creeps in at the edges.

A bag sits next to him, full of supplies for the journey.

He senses her before he hears her. Seconds before the floorboards of the porch squeak, he can already
feel
Wanda standing behind him. A sense that goes beyond sight, sound, smell. It’s that firefly glow again. Like a cloud of them forming a human shape, twinkling like the stars in the sky.

Her hands find his shoulders. He gets chills as she runs them up under the collar of his shirt. It’s not just her fingertips. Tendrils tickle.

“I hear you’re coming with,” he says, repressing the urge to lean into Wanda. The smell of honeysuckle reaches his nose.

“Mother Esther says you’ll need help. And that your Obligated might as well be the one to help you.”

Mother Esther
. He lets that go again, though he knows he’ll have to address it sooner than later. He pulls away from her hands and stands up. “For someone so resistant to the Empyrean way of doing things, she’s awfully cozy with the idea of us being Obligated.”

“Maybe she sees there’s something between us. Something real.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that. The vine around his arm tightens like a cob-snake choking the life out of a shuck rat. His blood feels hot as a rush of it rises to his cheeks, chest, wrists. Wanda’s perfume fills the air.

Instead, he says, “She coming down?”
To say good-bye to the lambs she’s leading to slaughter?
The thought strikes him as paranoid, but it is what it is.

“She said we should go.”

“So it is, then.” He hikes the ratty bag over his shoulder. It’s heavy with goods for the journey. Wanda takes her bag, too, and links her arm with his.

They walk out toward the corn.

He expects a quiet exit, thinks they’ll just walk through the garden and then step into the stalks, and that’ll be that, but things are never that simple.

Soon as they step under the mossy trellis and into the garden, he sees that the Blightborn have gathered there, lining their path. Dozens of them, staring on with the madness of hope in their eyes, arms clasped before them.

“The hell is this?” Cael whispers to Wanda.

“They’re saying good-bye. Wishing us well.”

“Why?”

“Because everything hangs on us.”

He doesn’t want that burden. It’s an uncomfortable fit, like a pair of hand-me-downs too tight, too rough against the skin. And now all these people watching them go, it’s strange—he doesn’t matter in his own mind, and yet to them, he sure seems to. Cael offers up an awkward wave that turns into him gesturing for them to back up and go home.

“Thanks, thank you,” he says, “but you can all go about your business. We’ll be fine, I uhh, we appreciate it—”

But none of them move. They all keep staring and smiling. A young girl with one arm like a tree branch uses the tip of a curling leaf to wipe away a tear rolling down her cheek. Next to her, an older woman with twisting fiddlehead eyes pulls the girl close to give her comfort.

And then, at the end, the Maize Witch steps out. She’s in full Blight—a demonstration for those who have gathered. Flowers blooming at the ends of her fingers. Drupe-fruits hanging from the undersides of her arms, dropping to the earth with wet plops. Vines trailing. Waves of scent rolling off her: rose, then fresh peaches, then burning birch.

She says nothing. She merely leans in and gives both Cael and Wanda a kiss on the forehead. Again he senses her, lit up like a cornfield aflame—so much life (or is it so many
lives
?). Her kiss tugs on him, like she’s trying one last time to assert control over him. He almost gives in to it, because it feels good. And because it feels
easy
. All too simple to let someone else make decisions for you, to yank the leash and lead you around like a dog.

Still, Cael’s got a stubborn fire burning in the well of his belly, and he can’t give in even if he wants to. He bolsters his will and pushes her back—not physically, but with a wave of scent all his own. A corpse-flower stink.

Esther seems to notice it. Her brow wrinkles, but her lips twist into a smirk.

“Go with my blessing,” she whispers. “Save the Heartland.”

Wanda pauses, eyes squeezed shut like she’s basking in it.

Cael pulls her along out of the garden. “C’mon,” he says.

The corn twists, broken by invisible hands. A path forms ahead of them.

Wanda gasps.

“What?” he asks. “You’ve seen her do it.”

“I didn’t know
you
could do it.”

“Can’t you?”

Her gaze stays with him for a second, almost like she’s seeking his permission, or at least trying to read what he’s thinking. Then carefully, her stare flicks toward the corn and she reaches out a hand—fingers trembling, thumb tracing circles in the air.

“I can feel it. There’s still life here.”

She twists her hand suddenly to the left. Then to the right.

Nothing happens. The corn doesn’t even shudder.

Her hand drops, and she pouts. “Aw, shucks.”

They wait a few moments, then Cael nods and keeps walking, Wanda right alongside him.

“Saranyu’s about a week’s trip,” she says.

“Wouldn’t be if we could just go right to it. But we gotta take the long way.”

“Mother says—”

Mother says
. Ugh.

“—that the Empyrean have been running patrols at the end of the dead corn in that direction. But we go west a ways, we can take cover and maybe find some supplies at that dead town out there.”

A ghost town. Heartland’s full of them, but now Cael wonders if even more will be drawn on the map—fresh, ragged X’s scratched over once-healthy towns. If the Empyrean really are clamping down because of the Saranyu—like they did with Martha’s Bend—then that’s the likely outcome.

“Fine,” he says. He doesn’t like it, but he’ll trust it. Last thing he wants to do is run afoul of some skybastard patrol and cut this job off at the knees.

He thinks about—but dang sure doesn’t wanna talk about—Lane. Lane, still with the Sleeping Dogs. Now ruling the city that’s grown up out of the Saranyu’s wreckage? Jeezum Crow. Things sure have changed. But Lane must be having a field day.

As they walk, Wanda feels his eyes on her. He tries to sneak these looks, casting his gaze at her like a hunter trying not to spook his prey. But she feels him looking. When he does, they connect in an invisible way—unseen threads winding together.

After hours of walking he finally asks: “Why’d you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Become . . . this.” He holds up his Blighted arm, commands the vine to unspool and form shapes in the air, like a twister dancing across the earth. “Did she do this to you? The witch, I mean.”

“I chose it. And she’s not a witch.”
And she made me special
. Not like the other Blightborn. Maybe not even like Cael.

“Uh-huh. Well. A witch is what everyone calls her.”

“Because they don’t know her.”

“
You
don’t know her, either. She’s Empyrean. Or was, once.”

Wanda smiles, then presses a fist to her chest. “Not in here. She has the Heartland in her heart now. Mother Esther has all our best interests—”

“All right, whoa, no. Let’s hash this out. She’s not your mama, Wanda.”

“I know she’s not.” She pouts. “She’s mother to us all.”

He stops. Points a finger. “That’s cuckoo talk. Crazy as a starveling rat. She’s not your mama, she’s probably not even your friend. She’s got an agenda like everyone else out here in the corn. Maybe, right now, that agenda lines up with what we wanna see happen. And I’m not saying she’s evil, only that she’s got
her
interests put ahead of
our
interests. Lord and Lady, she compared all of us to game pieces on a godsdamn
Checks
board. She’s thinking about ten moves ahead, and I gotta be honest, I’m still trying to figure out all the moves that already happened.”

“You’ll see,” Wanda says. “She cares about you.” She hesitates, kicking her feet around the broken stalks. Before, she might’ve kept this all buttoned up, but she’s feeling bold, brazen, ready to jump. The words come tumbling out: “I care about you. You wanna know why I did it? Why I . . . wanted to be like
this
? Yeah, okay, it was scary. Damn scary! At the time I didn’t think of it as being special or getting some kind of gift like it was Crow’s Day or something. I thought of it as being cursed. I still thought of it as the Blight, but I wanted to be close to you, Cael. I wanted us to share something. I wanted you to
see
how much I loved you and would give up for you—and this isn’t just because we’re Obligated. I’ve always loved you. You were strong and cocksure, never wantin’ to just roll over and let everyone get their kicks in. When I got your name on Obligation Day, I about fell out of my shoes. I was happy then, and I’m happy now, and I hope one day you’ll see that I can make you happy, too.”

While she’s speaking, Wanda can feel him there—a small firefly glow growing brighter and brighter, all these individual embers swirling together until he’s ablaze with it. It washes over her, and she returns the light, returns the heat. And as her excitement grows, her voice gets louder, her words come quicker, and the corn around them quakes and crackles.

Cael crosses the open space between them, stalks snapping underfoot. Wanda catches a burst of scent there in the invisible distance—a mingling of heady, floral odors. The smell of trampled grass, of lush leaves torn in half. Her heart pounds. Cael reaches for her. His hands on her cheeks—she’s cold, he’s warm.

He leans forward.

Their lights merge—the scents overwhelm.

The kiss is long and deep.

His vine coils around her middle. She grabs one of his hands, and their fingers sprout coils and curls of green—all of it braiding together so that she’s starting to lose where she ends and where he begins.

Dry, dead earth splits with the sound of rocks breaking.

Roots reach up, pull them down together. They never break the kiss.

Thought is lost to sensation.

It devours him as they devour each other.

They do this once. Then they do it again, the next night. And the night after that. Days of traveling through the corn. Nights of merging together.

Each time, the act leaves an imprint—

Plumes of fragrance. Meshed fingers, tangled vines. Wet kisses and trailed saliva. Sticky, tacky sap. Dead earth churned fresh, tilled back to life by the movement of the boy and the girl above it and roots crawling through the earth like worms below them. Tongues tasting nectar. The softness of skin together, and the whisper-rasp of green against green. Vines twining, unspooling, twisting, teasing. Pinning wrists. Small grunts. The snap of branches. And then release—like trees losing leaves in a hard wind, shuddering and howling.

Cael feels lost to it all. A part of his mind still wants to do the human thing and think about what is happening. Him and Wanda? What about Gwennie? But it feels good, it feels
right
, and he can’t help his attraction to Wanda now. At first he thinks it must be due to the Blight, but then he remembers seeing her back in the corn outside the Empyrean depot—her with the rifle, her
seeing
his Blight and still having love in her eyes—and she seemed strong and confident in a way she hadn’t before. . . .

But then all those thoughts get buried underneath a more primal urge. A tide of feeling that isn’t human and maybe not even animal. It’s all colors and textures. Memory stirred by smells and tastes. The heady floral scent; the spoor of sweat; the taste of that sweat mixed with the sweetness of something else; the feeling of skin too smooth to be skin—

He gives in to that. Reeling. Reveling. Wanda moans against him. She moves to get comfortable, nuzzles into the curve of his outstretched neck, hand draped on his thigh like a resting butterfly.

The ground is soft. Welcoming.

Sleep takes him swiftly.

He dreams of being swallowed up into the earth. Roots pulling him down. Black, churned earth opening up. Teeth of rock and broken stalk. A hellsmouth of the mad, hungry world.

Then: a vibration through it.

A thrumming. He draws a sharp breath through his nose.

A ship.

His eyes snap open.

A shadow moves in front of the light above. Streaks of white go to wincing black. Cael thinks:
Is it morning? Past morning? Already? How did that happen? How did time slip away so dang quick?

Someone stands over him.

A tall shape. Broad. Blotting out the sky.

He reaches up, starts to protest—

“Hey, who in King Hell—”

Something cracks him hard in the face.

Wanda screams as consciousness threatens to slip away. Blackness bleeds in at the edges of his vision, and he sees his attacker—just some Heartlander, he thinks at first, but then he sees. The skin isn’t skin—it’s some kind of rubber casing, flesh-colored but not actually flesh. The material bunches up around the joints, and when the thing moves, he hears the servos whine and metal grind on metal. He sees not human eyes but blue glass disks bulging from a peach-pink face.