Seed to Harvest

by Octavia E. Butler

  “Isaac.” He slapped his chest. Then he pointed again. “You?”

  “Anyanwu!” she said understanding. “Anyanwu.” She smiled.

  And he smiled and mispronounced her name and walked her around the deck naming things for her in English. The new language, so different from anything she had ever heard, had fascinated her since Doro began teaching it to her. Now she repeated the words very carefully and strove to remember them. The yellow-haired Isaac seemed delighted. When finally, someone called him away, he left her reluctantly.

  The loneliness returned as soon as he was gone. There were people all around her, but she felt completely alone on this huge vessel at the edge of endless water. Loneliness. Why should she feel it so strongly now? She had been lonely since she realized she would not die like other people. They would always leave her—friends, husbands, children. …She could not remember the face of her mother or her father.

  But now, the solitude seemed to close in on her as the waters of the sea would close over her head if she leaped into them.

  She stared down into the constantly moving water, then away at the distant shore. The shore seemed even farther away now, though Doro had said the ship was not yet under way. Anyanwu felt that she had moved farther from her home, that already perhaps she was too far away ever to return.

  She gripped the rail, eyes on the shore. What was she doing, she wondered. How could she leave her homeland, even for Doro? How could she live among these strangers? White skins, yellow hairs—what were they to her? Worse than strangers. Different ones, people who could be all around her working and shouting, and still leave her feeling alone.

  She pulled herself up onto the rail.

  “Anyanwu!”

  She did not quite hesitate. It was as though a mosquito had whined past her ear. A tiny distraction.

  “Anyanwu!”

  She would leap into the sea. Its waters would take her home, or they would swallow her. Either way, she would find peace. Her loneliness hurt her like some sickness of the body, some pain that her special ability could not find and heal. The sea …

  Hands grasped her, pulled her backward and down onto the deck. Hands kept her from the sea.

  “Anyanwu!”

  The yellow hair loomed above her. The white skin. What right had he to lay hands on her?

  “Stop, Anyanwu!” he shouted.

  She understood the English word “stop,” but she ignored it. She brushed him aside and went back to the rail.

  “Anyanwu!”

  A new voice. New hands.

  “Anyanwu, you are not alone here.”

  Perhaps no other words could have stopped her. Perhaps no other voice could have driven away her need to end the terrible solitude so quickly. Perhaps only her own language could have overwhelmed the call of the distant shore.

  “Doro?”

  She found herself in his arms, held fast. She realized that she had been on the verge of breaking those arms, if necessary, to get free, and she was appalled.

  “Doro, something happened to me.”

  “I know.”

  Her fury was spent. She looked around dazedly. The yellow hair—what had happened to him? “Isaac?” she said fearfully. Had she thrown the young man into the sea?

  There was a burst of foreign speech behind her, frightened and defensive in tone. Isaac. She turned and saw him alive and dry and was too relieved to wonder at his tone. He and Doro exchanged words in their English, then Doro spoke to her.

  “He did not hurt you, Anyanwu?”

  “No.” She looked at the young man who was holding a red place on his right arm. “I think I have hurt him.” She turned away in shame, appealed to Doro. “He helped me. I would not have hurt him, but … some spirit possessed me.”

  “Shall I apologize for you?” Doro seemed amused.

  “Yes.” She went over to Isaac, said his name softly, touched the injured arm. Not for the first time, she wished she could mute the pain of others as easily as she could mute her own. She heard Doro speak for her, saw the anger leave the young man’s face. He smiled at her, showing bad teeth, but good humor. Apparently he forgave her.

  “He says you are as strong as a man,” Doro told her.

  She smiled. “I can be as strong as many men, but he need not know that.”

  “He can know,” Doro said. “He has strengths of his own. He is my son.”

  “Your …”

  “The son of an American body.” Doro smiled as though he had made a joke. “A mixed body, white and black and Indian. Indians are a brown people.”

  “But he is white.”

  “His mother was white. German and yellow-haired. He is more her son than mine—in appearance, at least.”

  Anyanwu shook her head, looking longingly at the distant coast.

  “There is nothing for you to fear,” Doro said softly. “You are not alone. Your children’s children are here. I am here.”

  “How can you know what I feel?”

  “I would have to be blind not to know, not to see.”

  “But …”

  “Do you think you are the first woman I have taken from her people? I have been watching you since we left your village, knowing that this time would come for you. Our kind have a special need to be with either our kinsmen or others who are like us.”

  “You are not like me!”

  He said nothing. He had answered this once, she remembered. Apparently, he did not intend to answer it again.

  She looked at him—at the tall young body, well made and handsome. “Will I see, someday, what you are like when you are not hiding in another man’s skin?”

  For an instant, it seemed that a leopard looked at her through his eyes. A thing looked at her, and that thing feral and cold—a spirit thing that spoke softly.

  “Pray to your gods that you never do, Anyanwu. Let me be a man. Be content with me as a man.” He put his hand out to touch her and it amazed her that she did not flinch away, that she trembled, but stood where she was.

  He drew her to him and to her surprise, she found comfort in his arms. The longing for home, for her people, which had threatened to possess her again receded—as though Doro, whatever he was, was enough.

  When Doro had sent Anyanwu to look after her grandson, he turned to find his own son watching her go—watching the sway of her hips. “I just told her how easy she was to read,” Doro said.

  The boy glanced downward, knowing what was coming.

  “You’re fairly easy to read yourself,” Doro continued.

  “I can’t help it,” Isaac muttered. “You ought to put more clothes on her.”

  “I will, eventually. For now, just restrain yourself. She’s one of the few people aboard who could probably kill you—just as you’re one of the few who could kill her. And I’d rather not lose either of you.”

  “I wouldn’t hurt her. I like her.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I mean …”

  “I know, I know. She seems to like you too.”

  The boy hesitated, stared out at the blue water for a moment, then faced Doro almost defiantly. “Do you mean to keep her for yourself?”

  Doro smiled inwardly. “For a while,” he said. This was a favorite son, a rare, rare young one whose talent and temperament had matured exactly as Doro had intended. Doro had controlled the breeding of Isaac’s ancestors for millennia, occasionally producing near successes that could be used in breeding, and dangerous, destructive failures that had to be destroyed. Then, finally, true success. Isaac. A healthy, sane son no more rebellious than was wise for a son of Doro, but powerful enough to propel a ship safely through a hurricane.

  Isaac stared off in the direction Anyanwu had gone. He shook his head slowly.

  “I can’t imagine how your ability and hers would combine,” Doro said, watching him.

  Isaac swung around in sudden hope.

  “It seems to me the small, complex things she does within her body would require some of the same abilit
y you use to move large objects outside your body.”

  Isaac frowned. “How can she tell what she’s doing down inside herself?”

  “Apparently, she’s also a little like one of my Virginia families. They can tell what’s going on in closed places or in places miles from them. I’ve been planning to get you together with a couple of them.”

  “I can see why. I’d be better myself if I could see that way. Wouldn’t have run the Mary Magdalene onto those rocks last year.”

  “You did well enough—kept us afloat until we made port.”

  “If I got a child by Anyanwu, maybe he’d have that other kind of sight. I’d rather have her than your Virginians.”

  Doro laughed aloud. It pleased him to indulge Isaac, and Isaac knew it. Doro was surprised sometimes at how close he felt to the best of his children. And, damn his curiosity, he did want to know what sort of child Isaac and Anyanwu could produce. “You’ll have the Virginians,” he said. “You’ll have Anyanwu too. I’ll share her with you. Later.”

  “When?” Isaac did nothing to conceal his eagerness.

  “Later, I said. This is a dangerous time for her. She’s leaving behind everything she’s ever known, and she has no clear idea what she’s exchanging it for. If we force too much on her now, she could kill herself before she’s been of any use to us.”

  Chapter Five

  OKOYE STAYED IN DORO’S cabin where Anyanwu could care for him until his sickness abated. Then Doro sent him below with the rest of the slaves. Once the ship was under way and beyond sight of the African coast, the slaves were permitted to roam where they pleased above or below deck. In fact, since they had little or no work to do, they had more freedom than the crew. Thus, there was no reason for Okoye to find the change restrictive. Doro watched him carefully at first to see that he was intelligent enough—or frightened enough—not to start trouble. But Anyanwu had introduced him to Udenkwo, and the young woman seemed to occupy much of his time from then on. Rebellion seemed not to occur to him at all.

  “They may not please each other as much as they seem to,” Anyanwu told Doro. “Who knows what is in their minds?”

  Doro only smiled. What was in the young people’s minds was apparent to everyone. Anyanwu was still bothered by their blood relationship. She was more a captive of her people’s beliefs than she realized. She seemed to feel especially guilty about this union since she could have stopped it so easily. But it was clear even to her that Okoye and Udenkwo needed each other now as she needed Doro. Like her, they were feeling very vulnerable, very much alone.

  Several days into the voyage, Doro brought Okoye on deck away from Udenkwo and told him that the ship’s captain had the authority to perform a marriage ceremony.

  “The white man, Woodley?” Okoye asked. “What has he to do with us?”

  “In your new country, if you wish to marry, you must pledge yourselves before a priest or a man of authority like Woodley.”

  The boy shook his head doubtfully. “Everything is different here. I do not know. My father had chosen a wife for me, and I was pleased with her. Overtures had already been made to her family.”

  “You will never see her again.” Doro spoke with utter conviction. He met the boy’s angry glare calmly. “The world is not a gentle place, Okoye.”

  “Shall I marry because you say so?”

  For a moment, Doro said nothing. Let the boy think about his stupid words for a moment. Finally, Doro said: “When I speak to be obeyed, young one, you will know, and you will obey.”

  Now it was Okoye who kept silent thoughtfully, and though he tried to conceal it, fearfully. “Must I marry?” he said at last.

  “No.”

  “She had a husband.”

  Doro shrugged.

  “What will you do with us in this homeland of yours?”

  “Perhaps nothing. I will give you land and seed and some of my people will help you learn the ways of your new home. You will continue to learn English and perhaps Dutch. You will live. But in exchange for what I give, you will obey me whether I come to you tomorrow or forty years from now.”

  “What must I do?”

  “I don’t know yet. Perhaps I will give you a homeless child to care for or a series of children. Perhaps you will give shelter to adults who need it. Perhaps you will carry messages or deliver goods or hold property for me. Perhaps anything. Anything at all.”

  “Wrong things as well as right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps I will not obey then. Even a slave must follow his own thoughts sometimes.”

  “That is your decision,” Doro agreed.

  “What will you do? Kill me?”

  “Yes.”

  Okoye looked away, rubbed his breast where the branding iron had gouged. “I will obey,” he whispered. He was silent for a moment, then spoke again wearily. “I wish to marry. But must the white man make the ceremony?”

  “Shall I do it?”

  “Yes.” Okoye seemed relieved.

  So it was. Doro had no legal authority. He simply ordered John Woodley to take credit for performing the ceremony. It was the ceremony Doro wanted the slaves to accept, not the ship’s captain. As they had begun to accept unfamiliar foods and strange companions, they must accept new customs.

  There was no palm wine as Okoye’s family would have provided had Okoye taken a wife at home in his village, but Doro offered rum and there were the familiar yams and other foods, less familiar; there was a small feast. There were no relatives except Doro and Anyanwu, but by now the slaves and some members of the crew were familiar and welcome as guests. Doro told them in their own languages what was happening and they gathered around with laughter and gestures and comments in their own languages and in fragmentary English. Sometimes their meaning was unmistakably clear, and Okoye and Udenkwo were caught between embarrassment and laughter. In the benign atmosphere of the ship, all the slaves were recovering from their invariably harsh homeland experiences. Some of them had been kidnapped from their villages. Some had been sold for witchcraft or for other crimes of which they were usually not guilty. Some had been born slaves. Some had been enslaved during war. All had been treated harshly at some time during their captivity. All had lived through pain—more pain than they cared to remember. All had left kinsmen behind—husbands, wives, parents, children … people they realized by now that they would not see again.

  But there was kindness on the ship. There was enough food—too much, since the slaves were so few. There were no chains. There were blankets to warm them and the sea air on deck to cool them. There were no whips, no guns. No woman was raped. People wanted to go home, but like Okoye, they feared Doro too much to complain or revolt. Most of them could not have said why they feared him, but he was the one man they all knew—the one who could speak, at least in limited fashion, with all of them. And once he had spoken with them, they shied away from attacking him, from doing anything that might bring his anger down on them.

  “What have you done to them to make them so afraid?” Anyanwu asked him on the night of the wedding.

  “Nothing,” Doro said honestly. “You have seen me with them. I’ve harmed no one.” He could see that she was not satisfied with this, but that did not matter. “You do not know what this ship could be,” he told her. And he began to describe to her a slave ship—people packed together so that they could hardly move and chained in place so that they had to lie in their own filth, beatings, the women routinely raped, torture … large numbers of slaves dying. All suffering.

  “Waste!” Doro finished with disgust. “But those ships carry slaves for sale. My people are only for my own use.”

  Anyanwu stared at him in silence for a moment. “Shall I be glad that your slaves will not be wasted?” she asked. “Or shall I fear the uses you will find for them?”

  He laughed at her seriousness and gave her a little brandy to drink in celebration of her grandchildren’s wedding. He would put her off for as long as he could. She did not want answer
s to her questions. She could have answered them herself. Why did she fear him? To what use did she expect to be put? She understood. She was simply sparing herself. He would spare her too. She was his most valuable cargo, and he was inclined to treat her gently.

  Okoye and Udenkwo had been married for only two days when the great storm hit. Anyanwu, sleeping beside Doro in his too-soft bed, was awakened by the drumming of rain and running feet above. The ship lurched and rolled sickeningly, and Anyanwu resigned herself to enduring another storm. Her first storm at sea had been brief and violent and terrifying, but at least experiencing it gave her some idea what to expect now. The crew would be on deck, shouting, struggling with the sails, rushing about in controlled confusion. The slaves would be sick and frightened in their quarters, and Doro would gather with Isaac and a few other members of the crew whose duties seemed to involve nothing more than standing together, watching the trouble, and waiting for it to end.

  “What do you do when you gather with them?” she had asked him once, thinking that perhaps even he had gods he turned to in times of danger.

  “Nothing,” he told her.

  “Then … why do you gather?”

  “We might be needed,” he answered. “The men I gather with are my sons. They have special abilities that could be useful.”

  He would tell her nothing more—would not speak of these newly acknowledged sons except in warning. “Leave them alone,” he said. “Isaac is the best of them, safe and stable. The others are not safe—not even for you.”

  Now he went up to his sons again, throwing on the white man’s clothing he had taken to wearing as he ran. Anyanwu followed him, depending on her strength and agility to keep her safe.

  On deck, she found wind and rain more violent than she had imagined. There were blue-white flares of lightning followed by absolute blackness. Great waves swept the deck and would surely have washed her overboard, but for her speed and strength. She held on, adjusting her eyes as quickly as she could. There was always a little light, even when ordinary vision perceived nothing. Finally, she could see—and she could hear above the wind and rain and waves. Fragments of desperate English reached her and she longed to understand. But if the words were meaningless, there was no mistaking the tone. These people thought they might die soon.