Botanicaust

by Linsey, Tam

  The Brethren stood outside the door, arguing in deceptively calm tones.

  Levi stopped and turned back to the milk house. “Wait here.”

  Tula twisted at her skirt nervously, watching the dogs, watching the men with the dogs. The weight of the fabric annoyed her skin. Would she get used to wearing clothing again? Levi emerged with Eily cradled in his arms.

  One of the men tried to block the door with his body. “Levi, you cannot —”

  Without regard for the obstacle, Levi bumped through the group of men. “‘Blessed is he who has regard for the weak.’ Brother Samuel, will you care for this child until a decision is reached?”

  A red-faced man standing behind the rest stiffened. The argumentative man blustered louder. “We must not allow these sinning heathens into our midst, Bishop! Have a care for your flock!”

  Levi didn’t waver in his focus on Samuel. “The Tenets of the Prophet command us to consider in Scripture if something may be sent from God. ‘The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.’ These are lost souls, Brothers. And Eily is but an innocent child. Look within your hearts.”

  Samuel grimaced, his teeth bright above the darkness of his beard. Lifting jerky arms, he accepted Eily from Levi’s care.

  “Thank you, Samuel.”

  Samuel nodded once and turned from the group.

  The Brother who argued against them called out, “Remember the words of the Prophet! ‘And the children were Marked with Affliction, and the earth was deceived.’ If you choose to become a friend of the world, you become an enemy of God!”

  Samuel’s step faltered, then his spine stiffened and he continued away from the group.

  Levi ignored the man, taking Tula’s hand to lead her after Samuel. This time, instead of through the orchard, they cut a path across a stubbled field toward the gate. “Your father has been the gatekeeper as long as I can remember,” Levi said. “I can’t believe…” He shook his head. “I don’t even know what to call you.”

  Tula knit her brows. “I remember being Katie. But I’ve been Tula for so long…”

  Pausing, he gathered her other hand and turned her to face him. “We may be shunned forever. But I don’t know how else to keep you safe. I’m glad you’re with me.” His eyes drifted down her front. “It’s strange to see you in a dress.”

  Cocking a playful eye at him, she asked, “Would you like me out of it?”

  His smile was immediate, but faded quickly. “You know our … intimacy … would be frowned upon. For many reasons. We must be careful how we look at each other.”

  The happiness inside her heart withered. The Haldanians engaged in sexual liaisons so casually, she’d been with several lovers and never thought of monogamy, let alone marriage. But with the return of her memory, she recalled playing house as a child, and her assumption she would someday be a wife and mother.

  Another mold she no longer fit.

  She was unclean. Levi might be glad she was safe, but he couldn’t be with her here. Not if he hoped to resume life with his people.

  “I understand,” she said. The vacuum left where her heart had been made it hard to breathe.

  Nodding, Levi let go of her hands and continued to walk, the crop debris crunching beneath her calloused feet. Samuel diverged toward a smudge of houses and trees on the horizon while Levi led Tula the other direction. Concern for Eily warred with Tula’s burning desire to see Papa, all echoing with the realization of what life here at the Holdout would mean for her. Conformity, yet shunning. A place to be safe, yet never belong.

  As they approached the stone building, a man came out. He placed a wide-brimmed hat squarely on his head and crossed his arms. “I was told you were coming.”

  “T - Katie’s here to see her father.”

  “Peter’s indisposed.”

  “Papa!” Tula called, her voice weak. More than she could have imagined, she needed Papa — the comfort of his arms around her small shoulders. Her insides quivered with nerves. Levi had just rejected her. Not Papa, too? He’d let her inside the gate. He wanted to see her. “Papa?”

  No answer.

  The pain in Tula’s chest engulfed her. Tears slid unbidden down both cheeks.

  “Take her away, Levi.” The man refused to look at her.

  “I don’t want to have to force the issue. Let us pass.”

  “I won’t stop you. But he’s not here. He’s indisposed.”

  “Where?”

  “I can’t rightly say.”

  The muscles of Levi’s jaw bulged. Taking her hand, he pulled her away with a little too much force. She stumbled on the gravel road. “Sorry,” Levi mumbled, letting go of her and slowing to let her regain her balance.

  She wiped at her eyes with the backs of her wrists. If Papa wouldn’t see her, she could tend to Eily. “Can we go see Eily?”

  Levi nodded and led her toward town. She wanted to hold his hand so badly she ached, but knew better than to indulge in the familiarity. As they drew near the line of houses, more and more emptiness overwhelmed her. Longing sucked the strength from her as she scoured the brick buildings for something she recognized. Although they were all very similar — plain, rectangular brick homes with steep roofs and covered porches — none belonged in her memory. “I didn’t live here.”

  “No. Peter’s old place was one of the Englisch field homes.” He pointed across the rolling plain to a swell with a giant tree and another structure. The blades of a windmill twisted in the breeze. She couldn’t see it well enough to judge. “Past the Blecher place. You can’t see it from here.”

  Then she remembered the long walks to school with Eli. She searched for the small schoolhouse with the bell at the front door. A wooden swing-set peeked around the side of the building. She recalled a teeter-totter. And a baseball diamond. Were there children inside the school right now? She drifted toward the building, but Levi called, “This way.”

  She stopped, looked longingly at the brick wall inset with tall windows, and followed Levi. She would not be welcome there, either. She couldn’t go back. Her only direction could be forward. To keep herself and Eily safe.

  At a red brick home with a wide porch, he opened the door and led her inside. Polished wood plank floors held hand woven rag rugs, and the room they entered smelled like a combination of cooked meat and a pungent vegetal odor. Cabbage. A big wooden table — a dining table, she recalled — occupied the center of the room. Cabinets of the same wood planks as the floor circled the walls. In a corner stood a smaller table and a stack of chairs. A device she recognized as an oven with a cooktop stove. Fragments of memory made her dizzy as the names for everything returned to her.

  From a partially open accordion wall came the arguing voices of a man and a woman.

  Levi let go of her hand and headed that direction. “Samuel? Beth?”

  A woman emerged, dark purple dress covered by a black apron. Her cheeks were flushed from crying. “Levi. You should not have asked him —” She looked toward Tula. With a gasp, she clutched the neckline of her dress.

  “Beth, it’s all right. This is Tu - Katie.”

  “Katie.” The woman repeated, breathing like she’d been running. “Katie!”

  A memory tugged at Tula. “Bethy?” A …cousin?… called Bethany used to watch her and Eli when Mama went to quilting.

  “It’s not — you can’t — did you?” Beth gasped and looked like she was about to faint.

  “Get her a chair,” Tula commanded without thinking. She moved forward to take Beth’s arm and guided her to a seat.

  “Katie, you look like your mother.” Beth panted and lowered her head between her knees.

  Tula looked down at the white bonnet covering Beth’s thick hair, reminded of Mama bending to the laundry basket. “Bethy. You watched us when Mama quilted. Eli used to hide in the barn and drive you crazy with worry.”

  “Yes.”

  Samuel looked stricken. “I didn’t tell her about Peter.”

  “She is Peter’s lo
st daughter,” Levi replied, reinforcing a fact Samuel obviously hadn’t wanted to believe.

  Samuel shook his head. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Trust your heart to Gotte’s Wille. He has shown you the truth in Beth’s recognition. Be not afraid to speak what’s right. ‘God speaks through the unity of His People in Scripture.’ You are one of those People, Samuel.”

  “You know I’ve never been one to oppose the Brethren.”

  “I’m not asking you to oppose them unless the Scripture tells you to. Vote your heart. And pray others do as well.”

  Beth raised her head. “We will all pray.” She stroked Tula’s hand, then clasped it with strong fingers. “Katie, please join us for supper.”

  At the human connection, tears filled Tula’s eyes. Love for this woman — her cousin — spread from that point of contact deep into her heart and through her body to the tips of her toes. She squeezed Beth’s fingers, holding back desperation. “Thank you, Bethy.” Even if the rest rejected her, Beth saw the truth.

  “Where’s Eily?” Levi asked.

  “The child is through here.” Samuel gestured. “She urinated behind Beth’s loom.” His voice grew gravelly with disgust.

  Tula’s shoulders slumped. “She didn’t know how to ask.”

  Beth shrugged. “He gets more upset than he ought. It’s not like children haven’t made messes in here before.”

  Samuel didn’t reply, but Tula wondered if his face was always so red.

  Beyond the accordion wall, a dun sofa and two hard chairs surrounded a low wood table near a fireplace. Askew on the table rested a chessboard with fallen pieces, dark wood versus light wood. Several pawns strewed the floor nearby. In one corner, an upright frame with a partially finished blanket looked undisturbed in spite of Eily’s transgression. Lacy curtains framed several large windows opened to the autumn breeze. Eily was nowhere in sight. “Eily?” Tula’s heart contracted in fear.

  “Look under the sofa.” Beth’s soft voice said.

  Curled in a ball beneath the legs of the sofa, Eily didn’t move when Tula knelt and reached to pull her free. “Eily, it’s Tula.” Threads of loose fiber stuck to the girl’s tearstained face. Tula used the edge of her skirt to wipe at Eily’s cheeks. “Eily, do you need to … shit?” Cannibal terminology felt so crude now that she was among Old Order.

  Eily shook her head. “Is Ana dead?”

  It was the first complete sentence the child had spoken in over twenty-four hours. Tula pulled her close and pressed her cheek to the child’s head, her chest fresh with ache. “Yes.”

  The girl started to sob, then clutched Tula tight about the middle. “I miss her.”

  “We all do, Eily.”

  By the time Eily calmed, dusk had fallen, and Levi begged Beth to hold supper so he could tuck Josef in for the night. Tula balked at leaving the house, at leaving a slumbering Eily, but Levi insisted she needed to make herself known. To show the Holdout she was not a threat.

  As he led her through the dusky streets toward the Ward, Tula had to remember to breathe normally. She could hardly pay attention to what he was saying as she caught sight of faces peering from house windows.

  “Not all the CF children are here. Most of them are with their families. Usually they don’t have serious problems until they reach their teens or twenties. All in all, there are only about twenty-five or thirty permanent residents at the Ward.”

  She glanced at the dozen or so houses along the street. “Thirty! How many people live in the Holdout?” In her childhood, Sabbath gatherings had been held in the larger homes, so there couldn’t be very many.

  “I think around three hundred. Counting babies and children.”

  They ascended the three steps to the porch of the quiet building. A door slammed from the house to her left, and she jumped, turning to see a dog straining against its chain in their direction. Across the wooden boards of the open porch, deep-throated growls rumbled toward them, but the creature didn’t bark. Tula felt rooted in place, gaze locked with the man-eater. Levi opened one of the double doors and tugged her inside.

  Past a nurse’s station and the dark windows of the doctor’s office, two halls stretched in opposite directions and a wide staircase rose against the back wall. Levi led Tula to the left at a brisk pace, his head turning toward each of the open doors, although he didn’t slow down.

  Many children already slept, small mounds beneath the blankets. The rooms held two or three beds each, although several only had one occupant. In one room, a mother had her back to them as she read a story to the child in bed. Tula had to double step to keep up as Levi sped past the open door.

  At the end of the hall, gaslight glowed from the open doorway. In a chair next to the window, a sallow young woman in a blue dress sat crocheting. She looked up and put her yarn aside to rise from the chair. “I thought you might come — oh!” She stumbled back a step, bumping the chair against the wall. Her hands made the sign against evil as she spotted Tula.

  “Sister Amelia, this is Katie. I’m sure you’ve heard the gossip, by now.”

  “You brought her with you.”

  “Papa?” A small boy, hardly more than a skeleton, wrestled with the blankets and managed to sit up.

  Levi perched himself on the edge of the bed. “Josef, this is the friend I was telling you about. She was captured by cannibals when she was no older than you are.”

  “She’s a Blattvolk!” The dark circles of his eyes were as large as saucers. His breath started making soft, rhythmic whistles, and Tula had to resist the urge to rush to his side to help.

  The nurse fumbled at the bedside table for an inhaler without taking her eyes off Tula in the doorway.

  “The Blattvolk saved her from the cannibals. But you know, I learned something. The Blattvolk are just people. Some of them are good. Some of them are bad.”

  “And she’s a good one?” Josef dutifully sucked on the inhaler. Tula took a relieved breath herself as the whistling eased.

  “Yes. She rescued me.”

  Tula added, “And your papa rescued me back.”

  Josef stared at her as if surprised she’d spoken, but his eyes held only curiosity. “Were you a cannibal?”

  “When I was as little as you, the cannibals broke through the fence. They … ate my brother.” Her voice cracked. Saying her memories out loud for the first time made her feel as small as the boy in the bed. “We’d snuck out of Sabbath to chase a hailstorm when the fence went out. He was hurt — by our own dogs. The cannibals ate him first.”

  She wavered on her feet, remembering the smell of cooking flesh, the hunger in her belly. She’d refused to eat then. But later…

  She had to take a backwards step to lean against the wall near the door or else fall down. Closing her eyes, she tried to shut out the memories, but that only made them worse. Sister Amelia made a small noise. Tula opened her eyes, focusing on the woman — the familiar and comforting bonnet at the back of her head, the compassion in her eyes. Levi had risen, and came to her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  Sucking in a breath, she continued her story. “I don’t know how long I was with them. The woman who protected me. I think she’d lost a child. She kept me close. When the Haldanians came — the Blattvolk — I thought they were angels.” She could still see the hazy halo of smoke around the man who had lifted her into the duster. “I thought that for a long time.”

  Sister Amelia gasped. “They’re abominations!”

  Tula drew herself up and locked eyes with the woman. “They saved me from the cannibals. The Haldanians seek to end hunger, end cannibalism, so they change people to be like plants and make food from sunlight. I would have been eaten if not for the Blattvolk. I would not be here now to see Papa again, and cousin Bethy, and whoever else might remember me from so long ago.”

  Sister Amelia’s eyes widened and she screamed and plastered herself against the window. Tula stiffened, wondering which of her words had upset the woman. L
evi’s attention slid past Tula. “Eily! You were supposed to stay with Beth!”

  Tula twisted and saw Eily peering from the doorjamb behind her. She put an arm around the child and drew her against her side.

  “They gots kids, too?” Josef didn’t seem distressed.

  Levi answered. “I’d meant to introduce you to Eily later. She was a cannibal who the Blattvolk converted. She and her twin sister. But the bad scientists — not Blattvolk, the ones who live in the mountain — stole them and were doing bad things to them. And to Katie.”

  “That’s when your papa rescued us all. He carried me all the way out of the mountain.”

  “Does she eat people?”

  Eily stepped further into the room. Dirt and leaves caked one entire side of her skirt. “Eat people bad.” She spoke in Old Order. Tula beamed at her, glad Levi had taken time to teach the girls.

  Sister Amelia’s hands fluttered about her throat, but she relaxed as she looked Eily up and down.

  Levi met Tula’s gaze over Eily’s head. “She doesn’t speak very well, yet. But she knows the Lord’s Prayer.”

  “Do you like being green?” Josef asked, sitting forward.

  Eily cocked her head at the boy. She looked over her shoulder at Tula. “Boy is sick?” She spoke cannibal.

  Tula nodded. “Levi’s son. Josef.”

  Eily turned back and approached the bed. The nurse’s butterfly hands darted toward Josef and then back to her throat.

  From the pocket of her skirt, Eily produced a long thread she must have taken from Beth’s weaving. Sitting next to Josef, she wrapped the strands around her fingers and held them out. “Play.”

  The boy regarded her with solemn eyes, checked in with his father, then plucked at a string. Eily flipped her hands around and started her singsong voice with a story. Although Josef couldn’t understand, he played along, a smile darting over his face.

  Tula stepped into the room, freeing the door so the nurse could leave.