Banishing such a grave thought on the first summer night, she opened her mouth and drank the rainwater, coughing and sputtering, then swallowing and talking wildly about finding her own island to live on. “I’ll swim and find a better one,” she said. “Only you and me.”
“What will we eat?” asked Mary, smiling at one of her favorite games.
“We will eat chicken and apples,” Janey said grandly.
“What if there are no chickens and apples?”
“Then we’ll eat…goats and spinach.”
“Ugh. What if there are no goats and spinach?”
“Then we’ll eat fish and potatoes.”
“What if there are no fish and potatoes?”
“Then we’ll eat…” She paused. “Dogs and corn.”
Mary started giggling. “I don’t want to eat a dog!”
“Eggs and corn, then.”
“What if there are no eggs and corn?”
“Then we’ll eat dirt and stones.”
Mary’s giggling increased in pitch, in anticipation. “What if there are no dirt and stones?”
“Then I’ll eat…” She drew it out. “You!” When Mary heard the word she leapt up and ran, screaming, and Janey chased her into the water.
While Janey is smiling widely, remembering their splashing struggle, Mary begins moaning and grumbling, flipping over and shoving her back into Janey again. “I have so many bruises,” Mary informs her, stretching.
“I have more,” Janey answers, yawning and twitching her skin like a goat shedding a fly.
“Not true!”
“True!”
They bolt up, examining their legs and pointing out bruises that could easily be patches of mud. Mary reaches over to wipe the mud off Janey’s legs to prove her point, and Janey starts wiping at hers. They start giggling, since their hands are equally filthy, and Janey hears Mary’s stomach rumble.
“Let’s go see what they left,” Mary says. “I want some breakfast.”
Janey sighs inwardly, but doesn’t want to ruin the peaceful morning. “Fine,” she says tautly, trying not to snap at her sister. Reaching up, she takes a piece of bark off a nearby tree so she can shred it with her fingernails. It peels off with the grateful ease of sunburnt skin.
The nearest house is the Sauls’, tucked behind a boulder and shaded by a few larger, white-and-black trees. As they approach, the Saul dog Goldie lopes over to lick Mary’s face with his paws on her chest. Janey pats her stomach happily, and Goldie throws himself on her with glee. Running her fingers behind his ear, she carefully pulls a flea off his neck and crushes it.
“Soon there won’t be any dogs out,” says Mary.
“No,” says Janey, who is now scratching his rump so he twists back and forth with pleasure, ears back and tongue lolling. “We should enjoy them while we can.” She kisses Goldie’s nose, and he snorts and bathes her face with his tongue.
The Sauls’ doorstep is of no use, as Goldie or some other hungry creature pushed over the dish cover and ate whatever was there. They walk through their fields and to the Abrahams’, who have a plate lying under a deep, inverted clay bowl. On the plate are small, cold boiled potatoes. Mary eats two with her dirty hands. Janey plays with Goldie’s ears and gives him a potato, then reluctantly gulps half of one as a concession to her ever-brewing hunger. Janey likes that the adults have to feed them during summer, even if she won’t eat much of anything. It makes her feel powerful, like she’s an ancestor who has to be appeased, or a wanderer receiving tribute.
“You have to eat more, Janey,” Mary says.
“I’m fine,” Janey replies absently, finding another flea. “I had a bite.”
“One bite,” retorts Mary.
“I’ll eat Goldie’s fleas,” Janey answers, smiling, and then wanders to the Abrahams’ rain barrel, using a bucket to take a few swallows.
Mary rolls her eyes and accepts the bucket, gulping down the fresh water. “Come on, let’s keep going.”
Hand in hand, they walk through fields bent from the rain, the crops inclined backwards like parishioners observing a sky-bound miracle. The acrid, weighty scent of human and animal fertilizer has long since melted into something sweeter and dustier. A pen of goats is already netted over by a responsible farmer, and they pass by shut-up houses with empty dishes on their front steps. Janey spots a figure moving, and points, and then she and Mary are running. It’s only Melanie and John Joseph, but soon they’re chasing after them.
It’s the second summer since Amanda became a woman, and Janey still feels the strange void left in her absence. She is furious at Amanda for abandoning her, although part of her knows she’s being illogical. She begged Amanda not to eat, to make her childhood last, to stay with her, but Amanda shrugged and said, “How else am I going to get out of my house?”
Janey hasn’t spoken to Amanda since her summer of fruition. When she passes her, Janey looks away sharply, almost violently. As Mary’s pace increases, Janey tries to forget Amanda and focus on chasing other friends, who are filthy and full and ready to run.
Chapter Ten
Amanda
Summer is here, and Amanda is indoors, hating herself for sniveling about the heat and insects like the rest of them.
More than a year ago now, Amanda had, like Nancy, lain in her bed and cried as her summer of fruition approached. In a stroke of luck, she’d started bleeding just before the prior summer ended. Dark blood had spotted and then streaked through the black mud on her thighs, terrifying the boys, fascinating the girls, and calling forth every mosquito in creation until she rinsed herself and slapped on more mud.
With this fortuitous timing, she had an extra year to mature and prepare, much more than girls like Janice Saul, who had started bleeding in May and was still small as a child when she went off to her summer of fruition. It also meant a year of peaceful sleep in her bed, for now Father could not touch her. But she was still terrified, for her body was about to be loosed into a world of men and motherhood and blood. She didn’t dare talk of her fear with any of her friends, worried about seeming weak, or discovering that everyone else she knew was thrilled about the whole thing. She raised her head and pretended a lack of concern, and at night lay awake, her hands wringing and her teeth peeling strips of flesh, delicate as onionskin, from her lips.
It was tradition for a girl’s mother to escort her—or drag her—to the house where the summer of fruition began. Amanda’s mother may have hated her daughter, but she also insisted on upholding appearances. That morning, as Amanda performed her usual ablutions with trembling hands, brushing her hair until it shone and scrubbing her teeth with salt, stopping to empty her bladder every five minutes, Father sobbed in his bedroom. She hated the sounds he was making, childish and raw and intrusive, and had to bite her tongue not to scream at him to shut up.
When she emerged in her church dress, Mother was staring out the window, her arms crossed around herself. Elias was nowhere to be seen. Amanda wondered if Father was going to dry his tears and come give her one last embrace, but the sobs from the bedroom continued. Mother turned to examine Amanda, letting her flinty eyes travel from the neat braids to the clean leather clogs, and sniffed. “Well,” she said. “Let’s go.”
As Amanda began walking silently a few paces behind Mother, she wished for the hundredth time that she had a normal mother, one who might whisper words of encouragement or wisdom. Amanda knew that if nobody was watching, Mother would skip with glee like a summer child to finally be getting rid of her—but then again, maybe not. Amanda’s summer of fruition was Mother’s first step toward death. When Amanda had children, her parents only had until the wanderers deemed Father no longer useful, and then they would drink their final draft and be buried in the fields. It usually didn’t take long, particularly for those who made their living with their bodies. Father never complained, but she saw him limp sometimes and knew which shoulder was his bad one. Sometimes old men, terrified of leaving the world, worked even as they cried
and screamed with pain, until a wanderer came to counsel them into a quiet death.
Amanda saw muddy children streaking across the horizon like fish leaping, and closer, two children ran past and then stopped, so suddenly that one bumped into the other. “It’s Amanda,” whispered one of them, and they took hands and stared at her as she slowly passed, as if she were an otherworldly being or exotic beast. They were probably thankful they weren’t her. She would be thankful to be them.
When they neared the Aarons’ house, Mother took her arm tensely as they walked. Amanda half expected Mother to bend her head and begin muttering gibberish, pretending to offer support she had no inclination to give. Unused to the feel of Mother’s skin, Amanda was surprised at its slackness and dryness, and had to fight to keep from pulling her arm away. They stopped near the door.
“Good-bye, Amanda,” said Mother primly.
“Mother?” said Amanda, and Mother turned to face her. Fighting not to let her fear show itself, Amanda felt a tear slide down her cheek and said despairingly, “Do you have anything to tell me?”
Mother’s mouth tightened. “What would I have to tell you?” she asked, her eyes narrow and dismissive.
Amanda shook off Mother’s arm like she might a stinging insect. Taking a deep breath, she lifted her chin and left Mother gratefully behind.
She opened the door slowly, hoping she wouldn’t cry or scream or otherwise embarrass herself while everyone else sipped tea and stared in astonishment. Taking a deep breath, she walked into a group of about fifteen girls her age, some huddled on the floor, some embracing bravely, and one vomiting in the corner.
Looking back, Amanda admires how Renata Aaron handled them. She cleaned them up, calmed them down, and sat them on the floor with cake and milk.
“I want all you girls to know that none of you will be forced to do anything,” said Mrs. Aaron. Some of the girls sighed in relief, but Amanda didn’t quite believe her. “I also want you to know that for the first month there is to be no physical contact whatsoever. I mean it. You will get to know these fine young men through nothing more than conversation.”
“What happens after a month?” asked Ursula Solomon, her mouth ringed with crumbs.
“We will meet again and decide what to do,” said Mrs. Aaron cheerfully.
At their age, twelve and thirteen and fourteen, a month was still a lifetime. The girls shifted and glanced at one another, seeking permission to relax their posture and unclench their teeth.
“Now, remember you can’t marry someone with the same last name as you,” said Mrs. Aaron, “so you might not want to waste time talking to them, although it’s always nice to be friendly. And nobody who is a father, son, uncle, or brother to anyone in your family. That’s the rule. Even if you love them and want to marry them. So don’t love them.”
“What if we can’t help it?” said Jennifer Abraham, and someone else giggled faintly.
“Well,” said Mrs. Aaron sweetly, “I suggest you ignore them. There is no point in fanning a fire which must be put out.”
There was a pause, and she continued. “I want you to know that all the young men who have come of age and are ready for marriage are kind and gentle men. You don’t need to worry about anyone hurting you, or being cruel to you.” Nobody looked at Paula Moses, who had fresh fingerprint bruises around her wrists. “Kind and gentle men,” repeated Mrs. Aaron emphatically.
If they’re all kind and gentle men, then how did Paula Moses’s father get married? thought Amanda, and Mrs. Aaron glared at her as if she had spoken aloud.
“As you know,” said Mrs. Aaron, “you will be spending each night in a different household, moving from house to house during the day. Everyone is thrilled to have you. I am but the first of many women who will help and guide you.
“You will travel as a group, always having each other, and the men will join you at the end of the day when they are finished working. You will spend the whole night together. I want you to be respectful of other people’s homes and not break anything, or try to hurt anyone.”
Amanda wonders who, in the past, has broken things and hurt people.
“Now, are there any questions?” asks Mrs. Aaron.
The girls glance at one another. The idea of raising a hand and asking a question when faced with such a massive, enormous unknown is laughable. Where would they start? But then Ursula pipes up, “What if I don’t like any of the men?”
“Well,” said Mrs. Aaron, “I find that unlikely. Every girl who goes through her summer of fruition finds a husband.”
But they don’t necessarily like them, thinks Amanda.
All the girls, at one time or another during past summers, have hoisted themselves up to a window to watch a summer of fruition. Even in the first month of summer, they’d seen what happens, which completely belied what Mrs. Aaron was saying. But they wanted desperately to believe her. They had a month, and anything could happen in a month. They could run away, change, die. So they let themselves be soothed, and accepted seconds of cake, and put their heads close together to whisper.
There seemed to be a collective intake of breath upon the entrance of the men, brought in early on the first day. Some of the girls huddled close as if preparing to defend themselves, but the men were so polite and quiet that even the most frightened girls soon relaxed. Andrew told Amanda later that Mr. Aaron had given them a speech beforehand, comparing the girls to frightened mice. “You need to calm and charm a frightened mouse,” he told them. “What are you going to do? Stomp in there and grab the one you want? They’ll bolt in a second. They might even bite you! You need to tiptoe in there and barely even look at them. Offer them food and drink the way you might offer your ancestor a meal if he showed up at your door. Lie down on the floor and show your belly, if it helps them think you’re not there to eat them.”
The first night was all gentle talk as the men ceremoniously and submissively offered the girls more slices of honey cake or cups of milk. Even more surprisingly, they seemed to be genuinely interested in the everyday details of the girls’ lives. The youngest of the men was at least seventeen; having an adult so fascinated by their childish chatter was like being drunk for the first time. All the men were so handsome, tall and bright-eyed with luxuriant beards. Soon some of the braver girls were giggling and playful.
That night, after the men left, the girls huddled together, whispering about who they’d liked and who they hadn’t, what they’d talked about, who would make the best husband. The next day they walked en masse to Callan Moses’s house, shrieking at the rain and blackened children, and then delighting in the desserts that awaited them. Honey was precious on the island, and they’d never experienced such an explosion of sweetness. Janice, who couldn’t stop crying and vomiting and curling up in corners, was given a special drink by Mrs. Moses to “help her relax.” It made her calm and cheerful and unable to walk quite straight. When it wore off and she started sobbing again, she got more. She was the first to lie down under one of the men, giggling and hiccupping, her eyes glossy and dark. It was Thomas Joseph who took her, caressing her like she was something precious and new, while she stared at the ceiling in a syrup-sweet haze. The girls, talking to the other men, were too embarrassed to watch outright. They threw quick, fascinated glances toward the rutting couple, while the men shifted and stared and stepped a little closer to the girls they were looming over.
By the end of the first week, Amanda sat on Dale Joseph’s lap and kissed him. By the end of the second week, she was running through a room of Byron Jacob’s house with no clothes on, laughing at four pursuing men and promising herself to the one who caught her. The girls had discovered the power they had, the power to make men crawl and beg. They could say yes or no and the men would listen; they could play with them like pets or puppets. The men wanted to please their future wives, make them desire their strange male bodies with swelling muscles and heavy, dark, almost comical genitalia. The girls crawled over the men like curious animals, experimen
ting, examining, sniffing, biting. A couple of girls found the act of love repulsive and submitted with the stiff, resigned faces of old women shouldering a heavy load. To Amanda’s surprise, a few men actually seemed to prefer this sullen submission.
Amanda found sex with the men intoxicating, whereas before her summer of fruition sex had only been wearisome. There were certain aspects, however, she could not stand. She hated a man’s full weight on her and she didn’t like being touched on her throat. The worst was being surprised out of sleep by a lustful hand. She bit Garrett Jacob badly when he tried to slide fingers over her breast in the night, waking to him cradling a bleeding palm and glaring at her. Embarrassed and guilty, she apologized and let him do whatever he wanted with her later—acts she was pretty sure the ancestors would have disapproved of.
One night she awoke to sobbing. This had been a common sound during the first few days, but most of the girls had gotten over weeping for their lost childhood. Those who did were quiet, curled up on their sides to sleep, a few tears running slowly from their eyelids to the floor. Crawling naked, Amanda found the source of the sound: Janice was wedged into the corner of the room, trembling like she used to.
“Janice,” she whispered. “What is it?”
Janice tried to speak, but couldn’t. Some sleepy man mumbled a protest at the noise, and Janice plastered shaking palms over her mouth and nose like she was trying to suffocate herself. Amanda crept next to her and pulled Janice’s body to hers. It was strange, the feeling of a girl’s skin on her own instead of a man’s, the softness and smoothness and comfort of it. Janice put her head on Amanda’s collarbone, and her hot tears gathered in the tiny hollow there. “I can’t do this,” she said.
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