The Book of Flora

by Meg Elison

  “As you all know, I am expecting once again. Though it is tradition for us not to reveal who a seeder is until a child is born, I have received a revelation that this time, I may share that with you all early. My seeder was Neum.”

  She reaches a hand out to the short man. He rises, looking around the room with a shy smile. The women of Ommun take note.

  Alice’s voice is in my ear. “That’s a reward.”

  “What?” I keep my voice low and try not to turn toward her too obviously.

  She does the same, ducking her head a little to speak toward my ear alone.

  “She can’t know. I’ve heard she takes a different lover every night, and then just names a seeder that she’s pleased with. She’s naming him so that he can be put out for stud now, instead of in a couple of months. That’s a reward. She’s paying him for something.”

  Neum is beaming at the attention he’s getting all over the room. I remember the last seeder she named—Shemnon, I think. He’s young and very good looking, with a deep, muscular chest from working the lift most of his life. Neum is the opposite: a small, round man, bald on top. He fetches and carries for Alma—Eddy told me that Neum tended to him when he first washed up here.

  Neum is the kind of man who needs this sort of boost in order to be considered at all for breeding—even in a place as lucky as Ommun. They have more women than most, but even still, many men are left out. The women choose the same men over and over, the proven ones and the ones they just want to be with.

  The stir dies down and Neum sits. Alma’s hands go to her belly.

  “With great joy, I share with you that my child or children will not be the only ones to be born in the spring. I have been shown wondrous things by our Heavenly Mother. Revelation has been given to me that many of the women of Nowhere have returned from their trial in Estiel with their wombs quickened.”

  Silence in the room. Candles flicker and no one moves.

  “And luckier still,” Alma says, her smile never faltering, “one of the women from Jamestown, our own beautiful Sheba, has been blessed!”

  Sheba doesn’t move. I can’t see her well, but from here her face looks a little swollen. She’s early yet.

  “Shit,” Alice says. “I didn’t know. I could have offered her some . . . help. Some care.”

  Alma’s full lips press into a line. “I thought that you ladies would be moved by pride to share your good news with us. But I see that your meekness is great. I’ll have to call you by name.”

  Silence still reigns. Some of the women in the room look around nervously.

  Alma raises her hands again. “Sylvia. Bronwen. Jenn. And Sister Etta.” She spreads her arms out to the congregation, motioning for them to stand and receive their due. No one moves or speaks for a long moment.

  Finally, Bronwen stands. She’s older, the Mother of a living child already. Gray is shot through her hair and she keeps a hand in the small of her back as if it pains her to stand. “Alma, I am pregnant. But I don’t see why that’s anyone’s business but mine. I don’t want to talk about it with the whole village. I’m seeing a Midwife.”

  At the word Midwife, Sylvia stands up. “She is. It’s between her and me. Can we drop this?”

  Alma is beaming. “Why wouldn’t you want to share this glorious news? This is the day that the Mother hath made! We should all rejoice and be glad in it.”

  Sylvia weaves her fingers together and shoots a look at Eddy. “Alma, we were not, uh . . . seeded under joyful circumstances. This is a painful subject. And a private one.”

  “But if joy comes from pain, we should focus on the good in it,” Alma explains. “And it’s not a burden you must bear alone. We will come together, as a stake, to care for you and your children. They will come to the nursery and be loved by every woman in Ommun. They will be consecrated to us, so that every child knows the love of the entire stake. This is a gift.”

  Bronwen’s brow knits up tight. “It isn’t a gift. I paid for it. And I’ll pay again, maybe with my life.”

  Alma scoffs. “No one has died in childbed in Ommun since before my time. We are blessed by our covenant.”

  “But those women were all born here,” Sylvia says patiently. “Women still die giving birth in other places. They did in Nowhere. Janet died in Estiel, when she was in perfect health. Her girl died, too. There are pieces to this that you don’t understand.”

  Ina, in a front row, bows her head, her hands going to her chest. I can see her shrinking.

  It’s the first time anyone has said Janet’s name out loud, in front of so many people. I wasn’t in the harem when she died. By the time I got back, she was a bloodstain and a name no one could say. There was no baby left behind, and I couldn’t help but wonder if someone had smothered the child rather than let it grow up in captivity. The women of Nowhere are like that. Like Eddy. They might have done that, but I’ll never know.

  “But that is the past,” Alma says impatiently. “You are part of us now. Your children will be born under the protection of Ommun.”

  I am staring at Eddy. Eddy, whose child has already died under the protection of Ommun. He’s staring at the floor. Kelda puts an arm on his shoulder and I see him shrug it off.

  Alma tries again. “We have been blessed. Sister Sylvia, I know it’s not ideal circumstances, but you might never have had a child at all. Right? Midwives do not become Mothers among your people. The Law of Emma?”

  “Emily,” Sylvia says. “And I’m keeping to that law. I’m not pregnant.”

  Alma’s eyes dart to Neum. Just for the briefest of moments, but it’s there.

  “But your moon blood has not come since you returned from Estiel. It’s been four, almost five—”

  “I was pregnant,” Sylvia breaks in. “Now I’m not.”

  Jenn stands. She is far too thin, and her scalp shows through her hair. “I’m not pregnant anymore, either.”

  Lucy’s mouth is open, pulling down at the corners. She’s standing just behind Alma. “How . . . how is this possible? Both of them lost? How could Heavenly Mother allow this?”

  Alice begins to rise beside me and I put my hand on her knee. “Don’t,” I say, low and pleading. “Please.”

  Alice stands as if she did not hear me. “We have ways of ending a pregnancy. To save the woman. I have learned it from old books and the Unnamed herself. I helped them do it.”

  There is a gasp that comes from everywhere at once. I see Lucy put her stone-white hand over her mouth. Eliza covers the eyes of the child in her lap, then thinks better of it and covers the kid’s ears instead. The room ripples.

  “You helped them do what?” Alma’s face is blotchy red, her serenity and composure gone.

  “End it,” Alice says simply and without malice. “It was theirs to end.”

  “It was not.” Alma’s voice hits like a slap in the face. “It was NOT. Those children belonged to all of us. To all womankind. To Heavenly Mother. And you killed them.”

  “They were never alive,” Alice says patiently. “They were never meant to be. They were pain made flesh.”

  “They were hope made flesh, you mean.” Alma advances toward Alice, quivering with rage now. “You witch. You have committed a grievous sin.”

  “I’m not pregnant anymore, either,” Eddy calls from across the room. “Alice helped me, too.”

  Alma’s head whips toward him. “You. I might have expected this from you. You, all full of rebellion and ghosts. You have defied the will of Heavenly Mother at every turn. You’re stiff-necked and disobedient.” She takes a few steps toward Eddy, and I can feel the deep unrest in the room. This could get ugly—very quickly.

  “We are not yours, Alma.” Alice is reaching for her, trying to form a connection. “We weren’t his and we aren’t yours. We are our own. If we cannot decide what happens inside us, we are slaves. Do you allow men to rape here in Ommun?”

  “No good man does that,” Alma says.

  “We have not been among good men. A man ca
n force a woman to bear. A woman must protect herself any way she can. That’s all we have done. Protect ourselves from pain and death and sorrow. Each woman must decide for herself.”

  “No,” Alma says at once. “No. No. You have decided for us all. Life must renew itself. We must go on.” She turns to Bronwen. “You did not do this terrible thing. This witchcraft. You must have known, in your heart, that it was wrong. This sorceress offered you a choice and still you chose the right.” She walks toward Bronwen, hands outstretched. “Surely, you can tell these women that they chose wrong.”

  Bronwen folds her arms above her belly. “I can only choose for me, not for them. I don’t want anyone choosing for me. Just like I don’t appreciate you announcing to everyone that I’m pregnant. I am not a thing. I don’t belong to anyone but myself.”

  “We must all belong to each other,” Alma wails, her lower lip quivering. I can see the shine in her eyes—tears or merely excitement, I cannot tell. “This is how we remake the world. This is how we undo the Dying. We are the givers of life.”

  She’s never had anyone argue with her like this. On something so fundamental. She doesn’t even know where to start. Her desperation scares me. I have seen this kind of rage before, when someone disagrees with reality and cannot accept it. Nothing good comes of that.

  “It’s not a gift if you have to pay for it,” Jenn says, echoing Bronwen. “It isn’t magic. It’s blood and terror. I understand it’s always been easy for you, but that’s not the same for everyone.”

  Ina stands and turns to face Alma. She’s going to try to be kind, I can already tell. “I nearly died to have my living child. I’ve seen many women who did. Most of them take the child with them. Life is not always increased by birth. I just think . . . I think no one should have to face that. It’s a hard decision, but no woman can be forced to bear. If we do that, we’re no better than slavers.”

  “That’s right,” Alice calls out.

  Alma ignores them, turning to the crowd and spreading her hands wide. “People of Ommun. These strangers are lost and we must show them the way. We must turn to our scripture, to find the truth. We must remember that Heavenly Mother knows each and every one of us as we are formed in the womb. Before we are born, she knows us. We are precious to her long before we are precious to anyone else.” Milk leaks from her and stains her gown, as if she called it forth on purpose.

  Gabe stands, holding one of the great thick books they study from. “Prophet? Isn’t this thing spoken of in Numbers?”

  “What?” Alma is not quite steady. Her loose curls are frizzing, rubbing against the skin of her neck. She focuses on Gabe like she could kill him with her eyes. “What is spoken of in Numbers?”

  “When a woman is defiled, and a priest gives her bitter water that causes her womb to rot?” Gabe is breathing hard and swallowing fast. His voice starts strong and sure, but grows higher the longer he speaks. He is losing ground, quickly. “Isn’t it saying that a woman can—”

  “That is a story for the old world,” Alma snaps. “Not this one, where children are so hard to come by.”

  They’re always doing that, the folk in Ommun. Trying to argue from storybooks about how things are supposed to go. I hardly follow it. I’ve tried reading their books, but the language is so strange that I find it hard to understand. They’re all raised on it, so they’re no good at answering questions. They act as though we were all born knowing.

  Alma takes a deep breath and smiles. It doesn’t quite fit her face. She’s still red all over and she can’t stand still. Her wet gown clings to her breasts. “Sister Bronwen, I will be so pleased to welcome your child to our stake.”

  She walks back over to her big chair beside the fireplace and takes in the room. I try to imagine what we look like to her. I can see her struggling to decide what she’s going to do now.

  “The rest of you, I’m going to need to pray about. Heavenly Mother will show me the way between mercy and justice.”

  Her face closes like a fist. She turns to Mack, a young woman who is holding one of her babies. She tucks the child in her arms and rises to leave. That’s it.

  The people from Ommun rise to follow her, but the rest of us are left looking around at each other.

  “She wouldn’t kick us all out over this,” I say to Alice.

  “Maybe just the guilty ones. Witches like me.” Alice is chewing her lip and staring at Eddy. He’s making his way over to us through the streams of people. Kelda is, as always, in his wake.

  Alice spits out her lip, red in a drawn-down crescent. “Why did you—”

  Eddy cuts off Alice with a look. “I’m not waiting on any kind of decision from her. Has it occurred to you that she thinks we kill children? She might have us murdered in our sleep, to set an example. I’m leaving before dawn. Anyone who wants to come with me is welcome.”

  “You really shouldn’t travel yet.” Alice tries again. Eddy’s look could freeze a river in June.

  “Pass the word,” Eddy says curtly.

  We’re good at whispering in the shadows, at least. We’ve been good at it since Estiel. But it doesn’t matter. Because when Eddy goes to say goodbye to his mother, she’s dead.

  CHAPTER 21

  The Bambritch Book

  Fall, cold

  144N

  It was Ina’s death, as much as anything, that made it so that we had to leave Ommun.

  The fight was life and death. It was whether we lived or died, and how we did either. Eddy couldn’t bear to live there, and after Ina, none of us wanted to die there.

  Well, almost none of us.

  Looking back at my book, I see that I wrote almost none of this. How could I have? It’s a wonder I wrote anything down. We were always leaving somewhere and losing someone.

  I remember hearing Eddy coming back down the hall too fast. I was up, packed, and ready to leave. Alice was with us. A handful of others from Nowhere wanted us to knock on their doors and we would leave together, greet the sunrise.

  Eddy was still bleeding and exhausted but couldn’t really sleep. Kelda told me later that he lay uneasy in their bed for about two hours before getting up and being done with it. It was still full dark, but I couldn’t sleep, either. I was ready.

  I wasn’t ready at all.

  Eddy didn’t go back to Kelda. He came to Alice and me. He was as pale as I had ever seen him, almost gray. For a moment, I thought his bleeding had worsened and he was going to die.

  His mouth opened, but no sound came out. His jaw worked a minute. Alice went to him and put her hands on his shoulders.

  “Ina?” Alice asked.

  “She’s gone.”

  “She left without us?” I was so stupid when I was young.

  He looked at me over Alice’s shoulder. “She died.”

  He sank, knees buckling, the rod of his spine becoming a rope. Alice caught his sagging body on top of hers and shuffled them awkwardly toward the bed. Eddy lay down, his feet still on the floor.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I know what dead looks like, Alice.”

  Alice bit her lips over and over. I remember the blood draining out of them and rushing back in the candlelight, pink and white and pink and white.

  “I’ll be back,” she said. She went straight out the door.

  I sat down with Eddy. I knew better than to touch him when he was upset. Alice might get away with that, but I never would.

  He wasn’t crying. He just looked to be in shock.

  I didn’t say anything. Everything that came to mind to say was a platitude, or irrelevant, or a question he couldn’t possibly answer.

  Alice came back, walking fast and talking faster. “Etta, I’m sorry. You were right, your mother is gone. We need to get to work now, okay? Okay?”

  Eddy didn’t move.

  Alice went to her bags and started gathering supplies. When she came up empty on a few things, she headed for Ommun’s storehouse. And, of course, that brought questions.

  Some k
id, might have been Ammon or Shemnon or Nephi—who knew anymore—followed Alice back, demanding to know what she wanted the supplies for. She wouldn’t answer him. I met the kid at the door.

  “Mother Ina has died. Now is not a good time for a lot of questions.”

  I don’t remember his name, but I do remember how his face fell. So young.

  “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to upset any of you ladies. I will let the women know.”

  “Let them know what?”

  “You’ll need help,” he said gently. “I want to make sure that you get it.”

  I went to Eddy, but he didn’t want me. He didn’t want anyone. He had thrown his arm over his eyes and would barely speak. So I went with Alice.

  She was so incredibly tender with Ina’s body that her smallest movements choked me with tears. She undressed the body and washed her all over, lovingly, with a basin of warm water. She mixed beeswax with dried herbs and rubbed down Ina’s hands, face, chest, and feet. The color clung to her skin, making everything a little yellow. I helped her move and arrange the body, but I found myself shrinking from touching her.

  I had seen death before. I had seen it come, red and violent. It came into children and adults and animals, and I had dealt it with my own hands. But Ina was so peaceful, the lines of her face relaxed and everything seemingly let go. I was spooked by it. I think she was the first person I ever knew who really and truly died of old age.

  Alice dressed Ina in a clean shift and laid her hands on Ina’s flat belly.

  “Her baby belly should be here. Right here.” Her face crumpled and red rushed to the center, burning beneath her freckles. “My mother should be here. The old women. Her friends.”

  She had not talked about Carla much since we’d left Estiel. Bronwen had seen Alice’s mother cut down in the fight for Nowhere, and brought the truth of it to the daughter. There had been no time to mourn then.

  Alice took her time now. She held Ina’s hand, sobbing and sniffling. That was the moment when I realized that every new death in my life was like a new link in an old chain. They connect, and you run your hands over all the ones that come before it. It is never new. It is never just one death.