by Meg Elison
“Why?” Can asked. “Every town, every village needs more women. What part of life has any order, anyway? Women like us are the solution.”
“Breeders are the solution,” Flora said softly. “We’re something else.”
Can sighed. “Maybe. Still, I think we’ve got it right in Shy. Nobody checks what’s under your skirt unless they’re about to lick it. Nobody thinks of it as her business. We’re all women, and so we’re all free. What’s better than that?”
Flora was quiet for a while. “Can?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know what frags are?”
Can laughed a little. “Of course I do. I mean, they’re just a story. They’re not real. You know that, right?”
“What are they, though?”
“A rumor. Women who can impregnate themselves. Who don’t need a man. Can you imagine that? We could do away with them altogether, if that were true. You hear stories that there’s frags up in Niagra, or down in the jungles. It’s just stories for kids.”
“Just women?” Flora asked.
“You know any men who get pregnant?”
Flora thought of Eddy. Flora did not know how to define anything anymore. She thought of the horsewomen dead beside that word.
That can’t be real. I never read it in any book. I never heard of one in Jeff City, or Florda, or Niyok. But I’ve seen so many things I never knew existed.
What would it mean if it were real? Would they be as revered as Mothers, or endangered because of the threat they represent?
She thought about Alma smugly pregnant forever and ever, needing no man to seed her. All those towns with carefully regimented rules about breeding, done. Slavers out of business. She imagined Kelda, holding a baby that was hers and only hers, gotten on her own terms. She imagined herself, weighted down in the center and impatient for her own child to be born. The feeling that whipped through her body was a mixture of terror and longing and confusion. She had never let herself want that before, because it hadn’t been possible.
What is possibility? The world might be new again tomorrow.
When they stopped for the night, they were cold and lit a fire. Can asked quietly and gently if she could hold Flora as the slept, just for warmth and togetherness, nothing more.
Flora said yes, and that’s all that it was. Can curled behind her and Flora pulled Can’s big, rough hands to her belly and rested them there. And it was good.
CHAPTER 17
The Bambritch Book
Rain
144N
I’ve been interviewing survivors, whose stories I’ll keep beside the record I’ve been making here on the island. I think about my little trunk, the one I’m going to hide this book in to see it through. I can fit everything that matters to me into a box the size of my body. That’s rather fitting. If there’s to be nothing left of us, then so be it. I’d rather take the chance that I can’t get at my own books than that they’ll be destroyed. If we’re still here in a season, I’ll begin to write again.
Most of the survivors cannot read or write. I think those skills are often quite rare, and I got used to an unusual number of people who had them because of Nowhere and Ommun. Everyone born in Bambritch is taught as a child. So I’ve been scribing these newcomers’ stories as best I can, as the Midwife sometimes did. My story contains theirs, as packed and as jeweled within as a split pomegranate.
The Book of Ichabod, as scribed by Flora
Ichabod has a thin frame and bad eyesight. Comes from a place called Kloma and worked with cattle, milking and slaughtering. Twenty-five summers or so.
“The army done run us out. I heard they run out people all over Tehas, too. They marching all over, trying to find some fool thing. They got an airplane and they make noise with it, but it don’t do nothing. The guns, now, they do a lot. Big guns, like to blow up a whole house or a whole church. People stop fighting when they see that, they just lay right down. We done gave up. Anybody would.
“Looking for frags, they said. Ain’t none of us know what that is, so they roust people, start asking questions that don’t make no sense. ‘How’d you get pregnant?’ At the dance, how else does a body get pregnant? ‘Whose child is this?’ Everybody’s child; we’re a family. We were real smart until they started killing women and children right in the face. They weren’t kidding.
“The commander? Funny looking. Long hair and a face like a gent. Kinda purty. Cold, though. Army’s huge. Come from all over, all colors and all kinds. Some of them speaking tongues I ain’t never heard before. Some Spaniel, too. They got trained hounds, set them on my cattle. I never cried so hard. Them baby calves.
“Killed pregnant women. Yeah, they did. Kept asking how’d it happen, how’d it happen. I ain’t never seen anybody do that. With babies so few and so hard to come by. Acted like it wasn’t even nothing. Just with a gun, just real quick. But still. Asking all these questions, asking for frags. I guess we ain’t have no frags.
“Here? Because they told us to. Yeah, they said if we stopped or settled anywhere else, they’d kill us. Told us where to go and the name of the island and all. Loads never made it. Died on the road or else gave up and went to settle somewhere hid. I don’t know why they sent us here. I don’t understand it. You folks have a nice little town up here in the cold and the wet, but why here? The commander knows you, you know. Told us to ask for you. To ask for Flora.
“Y’all got any rules about courting around here? Yeah, I know we might could die, but until then what’s life for? I see. I see.”
The Book of Uni, as scribed by Flora
Uni is very young, maybe sixteen summers. Long black hair. Lots of scars, nervous.
“I was in Pediex most of my life. I don’t remember anything before that. I was sold when I was little, but I grew up and figured out how to sell it myself, it’s not hard. It beats the shit out of trapping nutria. They’re mean, you know.
“The army didn’t come through Pediex. We got refugees, though. From weed country. We figured they were coming our way. I was headed to Settle, but I met up with some people who were coming here. They all said the army is looking for frags, but frags aren’t even real. This is like that story about saying ‘Bloody Mary’ to your reflection on the water when the full moon is out and getting a child from her. Kids’ stuff. Stupid.
“No, I’ve never been pregnant. First of all, you can sell it in all kinds of ways. Most guys have had other guys more than you think. You do like they do, you don’t worry about it. Second, you take herbs that close up the womb. Yeah, they’re real. I got them from a witch in Pediex. You have them up here, too. I’ve seen them. Sure, I can show somebody.
“You got queers here? No kidding. Someone told me that, but I didn’t believe them. No, I don’t have any problem with that. I can sell it to women, too. Another way to not get pregnant and dead. No, we didn’t have any in Pediex. Nobody would have put up with that.
“No, we didn’t have anyone in charge, exactly. There were some trade groups up and down the river who made contracts for business and a few older folks who would settle disputes. Mob justice, couple of hangings for rapists. Girls like me never bothered, always paid. I liked Pediex. It was my home. I’ll probably go back, once all this blows over.
“Will they? I don’t know. They can’t be everywhere. They’re a big army, but still just one army. And they keep pushing north, so why would they double back down? It’s my city. There’s pink flower trees by the river. There’s fish all year round. It’s green like here, but not so cold.”
The Book of Fa, as scribed by Flora
Fa is older, white haired, quite twitchy. Smells abominably of deez.
“I’ve been making fuel since I was a child. Can’t smoke around me at all. Grew up in some desert, I don’t know the name. Drier every year. We moved toward the woods north of Pediex, made good deals there. Everybody needs deez.
“No idea about the frags. Yeah, I heard the army is looking for them. Mostly slavers are looking for gi
rls, right? Yeah, no idea.
“The future? I’d like to settle down somewhere they need deez. No trucks on this island, are there? Settle, though. Looks like a good-size town. Bet I could catch right on there. Oh, it’s nothing. Always something to move you along. Not enough rain, too much rain. Fever. Fire. One place is like another. This island is like other islands. I bet some of your boats run on deez. Where do you get it? Ah, yes, Settle. Settle sounds right.”
The Book of Cat, as scribed by Flora
Cat is a young child with tip-tilted black eyes and a burn scar over most of her left arm.
“I came in with my mother. I’m always with her. Yes, the army was scary. Big, big guns. They were so loud and I just wanted to run away.
“I know about frags. Yes, I do. They come from the water. They look like seals but then they peel their skin off and look like girls. Then they make a baby but take it back to the ocean to see if it can swim. If it can’t, then too bad. That’s too sad.
“Of course they’re real.”
CHAPTER 18
OMMUN
Alice put away yet another bottle of som. She kept telling herself that she was trying to make enough to supply the people of Ommun when she was gone, but she didn’t know where she was going.
“Have you thought about how long you want to stay here?” she asked Kelda, who was assisting her in the lab today.
“What do you mean?” Kelda asked, looking up from her work separating dried herbs from one another.
“I keep trying to think of what will be enough to get them going. The people of Ommun. But that thought only comes because I’m already planning to leave.”
“Where would you go?” Kelda asked. Her face showed concern that was rapidly edging into panic. “Nowhere is gone. Burned to the ground. Womanhattan was destroyed. We have no other home but Ommun, and they’re good to us here.”
Alice rolled her eyes and capped the vial she had been filling. “Good enough, yes. Better than some places.”
They did not usually speak of Estiel, when it was just the two of them. Neither one of them liked to say the name out loud.
“But I can’t stay here forever. I can’t stand living underground, for one thing. They whisper about us, for another. Are you happy here?”
Kelda shrugged. “I’m safe. I’m not hungry. For the first time in my life, I’m not forced to take part in breeding. Not any part of it, not even providing release. I like it here, Alice. I thought you did, too.”
“Don’t you miss the sun? Don’t you wish you could roam?”
“I do roam,” Kelda insisted. “Just the other day, I took Etta into the woods.”
“Sure,” Alice said. “After you got help with the lift. What if you wanted to leave without getting help or permission?”
“I’d make the climb,” Kelda countered. “Anybody is allowed to make the climb, anytime they want.”
Frustrated, Alice clinked two pieces of glassware together just a little too hard. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong here. It’s just . . . It’s a lot of little things. I don’t feel that I belong.”
“You could belong anywhere you chose to,” Kelda said, her chin jutting forward as she swept broken bits of leaves from the countertop and into a compost bin. “With your skills, anybody would have you. You’re just choosing not to belong here.”
“And you,” Alice said, turning her back on the younger woman, “are just settling for a place that makes you feel protected. That could be anyplace too, until it isn’t.”
Kelda bit her lip and didn’t say anything.
Alice softened and came to Kelda, sliding an arm around her waist. “I’m not angry with you. I just feel . . . trapped. Not like we were before. A much nicer trap. A soft cage with plenty of food. But a cage still. You understand?”
Kelda shook her head. “I don’t. I grew up in a place where I had to ask permission to speak. I showed you, our language of signs? I had to ask permission to use my voice. I could never leave. I could never just wake up in the morning and do as I pleased with the day. I had to tell someone where I was going, who I was with, when I would be back. I had to take off all my leathers once a month and let a doctor touch me all over. I have my freedom here. I don’t care that it’s below ground, or that the prophet is a strange woman, or that the mish has a bunch of guns. Nobody makes me feel like I am less than they are. It’s not a trap, Alice. It’s a home.”
Alice sighed and laid her palm against Kelda’s cheek. “I’m sorry, love. Your life has been so different from mine. It makes us want different things. That’s all.”
“Are you going to leave without me?” Kelda’s voice was very small.
“Where would I go?” Alice smiled and tossed one of her golden braids back over her shoulder.
Kelda brightened and went back to her work. It did not occur to her that Alice had not answered.
The laboratory was deep in the uninhabited section of Ommun. In the main halls, bells and calls were repeated by all who could hear them, passing the word that the dinner hour had come, or that there was danger afoot. As far out as they were, Alice could just barely hear an echo of their nearest neighbor’s bell.
“That’s dinner,” Kelda said, putting down her work at once and moving to wash her hands.
Alice watched her approvingly, noting that Kelda was a quick study and made her practices into habit neatly and without complaint. Alice washed up too and they began to walk.
After a few minutes, they began to see other people. Men from the mish immediately cleared their pathway, allowing the two women to go first.
“After you, Sister Alice. Sister Kelda.”
Kelda rewarded the men with a broad grin. Alice ducked her head and smiled a little, not wanting to encourage anyone in particular. None of the men had ever approached either of them. They found out after they had been in Ommun for a month that Alma the Prophet had forbidden any man to court any of the new women until it was known whether any of them were with child. She had told the men of her underground city sternly and in no uncertain terms that these women were off-limits.
Alice counted it up in her head. She figured they had four or five months before the issue would come up. Etta would be one of the last.
Then we’ll see how free we really are, she thought. The smell of rich vegetable stew came to her then and she inhaled deeply, pushing the thought away.
The people of Nowhere had not really integrated into Ommun. They clustered together in their quarters and tabled together at mealtimes. Alice saw that most of them kept their eyes open during prayer, though they folded their arms and bowed their heads respectfully.
Alma sees it too, Alice thought as she watched the Prophet’s eyes linger on their group a little long. Alma was still nursing her triplets, keeping the men of Ommun at bay. No nursing woman was available for courting, either. Between the courting prohibitions on the refugees of Estiel and on the Prophet herself, the men of Ommun were working with a worse temptation than ever.
It shows. Alice saw the young men, always in pairs, always working. They knew better than to stare, but still they lingered and tried to help where it was obvious they weren’t needed.
Looking over her shoulder just then, she caught a longing look cast at her back by a kid with a black beard.
And then there are the ones who don’t look. She spotted Gabriel and Rei sitting together, splitting a hot roll between the two of them. They spoke in low voices to one another, their foreheads almost touching. There is no one else in this room for them. Looking at her own table, she saw Tommy and Heath. Heath had been badly burned trying to rescue friends in Nowhere, and Tommy took painstaking care of his burns every day. He had come to Alice for remedies and painkillers, asking her advice about treating Heath so that his scars would not be too severe.
She thought of Errol and Ricardo, the two raiders from Nowhere whom she knew only from Etta’s stories. They had trained Etta to be a raider when she was little more than a child.
A
lice could picture Etta trailing always behind them, long limbed and gawky in girlhood, demanding always that they tell her more stories of the road. More stories about what she could expect, and how it would be. Etta had lost them as soon as she had just begun to discover herself, alone out on the road.
Etta. Alice spotted her at once, sitting beside her mother. She made her way over to them and sat close. Ina was gray and terribly small without her wooden belly. Beside Etta’s glowing, thickening frame, she looked like something that had been dried to last through the winter.
Alice watched Ina carefully, trying to discern whether the old woman had guessed what was plain to Alice’s own eyes. But Etta and her mother both ate with their eyes downcast, not speaking at all.
“Where did you go?” Kelda asked, nudging Alice to accept the bread basket.
“Just thinking,” Alice said lightly. She popped the bread in her mouth to keep Kelda from asking her more. Kelda, never skilled at reading anyone, asked anyway.
“Thinking about what?”
Alice didn’t have to answer because the door to the dining room opened decorously and Flora ducked inside. She came quickly to sit with the three of them at their table, and two boys from the mish set a place for her immediately. She had washed from the road, but she had obviously been traveling for some time.
“Sorry I’m late for dinner,” she said.
Alice reached an arm around her waist and Kelda put a hand on her shoulder. “So glad you’re back!” Kelda’s grin was wide.
“I’ll greet you all properly later,” Flora said, smiling. “For now, I’m just very hungry.” She set to the food in front of her and ate steadily. The Leaf boys saw her in action and brought her a second bowl of stew without a word.
Midmeal, Etta pushed her half-full bowl Flora’s way. She patted Flora’s silken arm. “It is good to see you.”
Flora smiled up at her. “I have stories from the road.”