The Book of Etta (The Road to Nowhere 2)

by Meg Elison

  She rose and went to a shelf in the other room, coming back with her copy of the Book of the Unnamed. She leafed through pages, looking for a specific section.

  “Right here, in the Book of Roxanne. She’s talking about Shawna, and she says that she knew about abortions. From the old world.”

  Flora set her cup down, craning her neck to see. “Eddy talked about that book. I wanted to read it.”

  “You mean Etta?”

  Flora looked up at Alice, her eyes wide. “Yes. Etta.”

  Alice pushed the book toward Flora, still laid open. “You can read mine.” She sighed, sitting back down. “So, I know there are other books with that word, but it’s cut out of the page. Or the whole chapter is missing. There are other lost words. In stories about two women together, or about women who lived in slavery in the old world. I don’t understand it.”

  Flora didn’t either, but her eyes raked the page. “Cut out? Like how?”

  “No, not from that book. Nobody has ever changed the Unnamed’s book. But other books. Here.”

  Alice went back to her shelf and pulled four or five books out to free something that had been hidden behind them. She returned to the table with two books.

  One of them was heavily damaged; really only part of the book had survived. No covers, and ragged pieces of pages were interspersed with whole sheets. Alice laid it on top of the diary Flora was reading.

  “There’s only parts of this,” she said. “I found it when I was a teenager. It’s about a girl named Molly and her lover, Carolyn. There’s not much here, but you can tell they’re in love. There were women together in the old world. There was a word for it, in the old world.”

  Flora held her breath. She waited.

  “What’s the word?” Flora asked.

  Alice shrugged, gathering the books back up. “The people in the book are talking about a girl who might have had sex with another girl, at a school for girls in the old world. I don’t know the word, but I know what they’re asking. I asked my mother once about the lost words. She got really strange about it, saying she didn’t agree with the council destroying any books, ever. But that was after she . . . she kind of found out about me. She was so disappointed.”

  Flora watched her go back to the other room.

  “Do you think there was a word in the old world for what I am?”

  Alice looked startled. “Oh, I don’t think this happened back then. There were . . . There was an equal number of men and women. Why would it?”

  Flora looked down at the Book of the Unnamed. She didn’t answer.

  “Do you know about Etta?”

  Alice’s smile returned and she slurped her cooling tea. “Of course I do. I’ve been with her, you know.”

  Flora looked up and then quickly back down. “No, I know that. I mean, did you know she’s like me?”

  Alice laughed a little and reached out to touch Flora’s cheek, gently. “When I say I’ve been with her, I mean I’ve been inside her. She’s not like you, my love.”

  Flora felt her blush spread across her chest. “No, I mean—”

  “Come on, let’s go see her.” Alice was tidying up the table.

  Flora got up and slipped the copy of the book into her satchel. “Alright, let’s do that.”

  They walked across the open blocks of Nowhere, passing people as they went about their business. They saw Mother Ina, careworn and grim-faced, walking to the old schoolhouse.

  They passed murals painted on patched walls. Pregnant women with long hair, full moons, and eggs seemed to appear in all of them. Flora felt a little more foreign than usual.

  A woman with very short hair came right at them, carrying an armload of sheets. “Alice!”

  “Sylvia!” The two hugged while Flora stood awkwardly, waiting. “I haven’t seen you in a while!” She turned to Flora, looking her over. “How is our newcomer?”

  “Fine, thank you. Fine.” Flora tried to shrink, to turn away from Sylvia’s invasive gaze.

  “Well, we’re on our way to see Etta,” Alice said. Flora saw Sylvia’s blue eyes flash, but her smile only widened.

  “Of course you are. Well, don’t let me keep you!” Flora watched Sylvia’s blue eyes dart between the two of them as though she were searching for something.

  Alice threaded her arm through Flora’s and steered her away.

  “What was that about?”

  Alice rolled her eyes. “She’s jealous. How do I always end up with the jealous ones?”

  “Of me?” Flora swiveled her head over her shoulder to watch the short-haired woman go.

  “Of you. Of Etta. Of anyone who’s with me.”

  “Does she want to marry you? Or live with you?”

  Alice snorted. “Yeah, I guess. Everybody wants something I can’t give them. I make stuff no one else can make, you think that’d be enough.”

  Flora touched her own silk. “No, that isn’t enough.”

  They came to Ina’s house and knocked on the door. Alice called out to Etta a few times before they circled around to the back of the house. Alice could only see a tiny strip of the room, but she felt the emptiness. She thought of Ina’s tired face.

  “Shit. She’s gone.”

  They both knew it was true.

  Alice spent a few days showing Nowhere to Flora. They visited the log dorm where the boys lived, and Flora talked to a few of them. After, Alice took her to see where the village had big dinners together and sneaked her a pickle.

  “So the boys live all together, to learn their trades?”

  Alice nodded, leading them back toward her place. “Yes, once they’re big enough to leave home.”

  “How big is that?” Flora sucked her pickle, relishing the salt.

  “Five years, sometimes six.”

  “Why don’t they stay at home?”

  “Well, Mothers have work to do. Many of them want to try and have another living child, as soon as they can. This way, the fathers can care for them and teach them, and women can do more important things.”

  “What about girl children?”

  “They stay with their mothers, of course.”

  Flora digested that in silence, chasing it with a bite of pickle. “Until when?”

  “Until they’re ready. I moved out on my own in my fifteenth summer, but most stay longer. My mother . . . I love her, but we do not get along.”

  “Because she knows?”

  Alice started, looking over her shoulders. “No. No, because she wants to control me. Pick out my Hive for me. I wanted to choose my own life. And by then I had already been studying so long. To be a Midwife, I mean.”

  Flora’s brows knitted. “You’re a Midwife?”

  Alice cleared her throat. “Technically. Yes. Sylvia and I are both Midwives, though she’s the head Midwife. I . . . I don’t do much of the baby-catching. I’m more like what they used to call a doctor. I make drugs and see sick people more than I catch babies. But I know how. It just . . . It doesn’t do for me what it does for them.”

  Flora watched Alice’s face carefully, saw conflicting emotions cross it like the shadow of clouds on the ground.

  “I’ve been to births where everyone is crying, just lost in it, either joy or sadness. It isn’t like that for me. It’s blood and shit and worry, and a lot of the time it’s for nothing. Now, when I can break a fever or help set a bone . . . that’s different. That’s powerful. I’m just . . . I’m not like them.”

  Flora nodded. They walked the rest of the way in quiet understanding.

  Flora waited a few more days before trying to tell Alice again.

  “Where do you think Etta went?”

  They were naked in Alice’s big bed, the green glow of her night-paint creeping over their cheeks. Flora lay as uncovered as she dared, still shy about nudity.

  Alice came up on one elbow and lazily dragged the backs of her nails over Flora’s belly. “I don’t think she’d go back to Estiel alone, do you? I mean, her plan depended on having help, didn�
�t it?”

  “I wish she would have just made the trade,” Flora said, her insides squirming under the tickling sensation. “I would have helped her with that. We could have brought so many here.”

  Alice looked at Flora’s eyes. “You’re so different from her. You’re like me. You see things from different sides.”

  Flora smiled and Alice kissed her.

  Flora sighed. “I am like her, though. A little bit. She’s like me. She’s . . . She’s someone else when she’s on the road. Someone you don’t know. Named Eddy.”

  “What?” Alice looked a little annoyed.

  Flora took a deep breath. “When I met him, his name was Eddy. I didn’t know he was a woman until much later. I’ve been reading, in the Book of the Unnamed, you know how she bound her breasts and pretended to be a man?”

  Alice was following, but she didn’t speak.

  “Except I don’t think it’s like that, not exactly. I think she’s more like me. I always knew I was a girl. I think Eddy’s always been Eddy, but he just can’t be himself here.”

  Alice looked down, and Flora brought in both hands to cover her sex, reflexively.

  “I don’t think that’s true about Etta. I think it’s just safety. Like, the Unnamed never did that again after she came to live here. Why would she? That would be like her saying that she wasn’t safe here. Etta is safe here, just like she was. We all are. There’s no other reason to dress like a man.”

  Flora didn’t answer.

  “The Unnamed did that. She was a raider. She did it to save women. And then she stayed here, to be a Midwife. Like I do, using medicine. The same work. Etta could have that, too. She just can’t settle down, that’s all. She’s so stuck in her anger because we’re a little different.”

  Alice looked away for a second, thinking.

  “Anyway, dressing like a man here would mean giving away all of her power. Why would she want that?”

  Flora couldn’t pry her lips open.

  Alice spread her arms wide, expansive and grinning. “I could do it. We don’t need Etta. I could bind myself and go to the Lion with the som.”

  Flora searched Alice’s face. “Are you sure you want to do that? I don’t think you could look as much like a man as Eddy.”

  Alice scoffed. “Why, just because she’s got muscles?” Alice curled a bicep and grinned at Flora, gloriously freckled in the green light.

  Flora smiled in spite of herself. “Are you going to shave your head?” She reached out and touched Alice’s gold curls. “There’s an awful lot of binding to do here,” she said, moving a hand to Alice’s breasts.

  Alice sprang like a cat and the conversation was lost for a while.

  Later, Alice lay pressed against Flora’s back, sighing as their sweat mingled.

  Flora felt bolder, closer. She swept her red hair off her neck and smiled when Alice settled her lips on the spot she had exposed. “You could be like me.”

  “Hmm?”

  “We could go to Estiel. And I could dress you in silks, and tell them you’re a horsewoman. We could braid our hair alike. They’ve seen a lot of my kind before.”

  “Huh,” Alice said. “That does seem more likely to work.”

  “We could trade som and come back carefully, so the Paws couldn’t find Nowhere. Go every year, maybe.”

  “Are you planning to stay that long?”

  Flora nestled into the warmth of Alice’s arms. “I could stay here forever.”

  They planned for the next few days, looking over borrowed maps and talking about it only when they were alone. Alice packed away vial after vial of som, and even some seeds. She told Flora she didn’t think they’d have any luck with growing it, but it might help them make a better deal.

  They slowly planned the route by which they would drive into Estiel. The truck would likely be recognized by the Paws and they’d pass safely enough.

  “We should have asked Etta for the claw necklace. She won’t use it, and it might have helped us.” Flora did not like using Etta’s name. It felt funny in her mouth.

  “Well, it’s too late now,” Alice told her. “We’ll be alright. We’ll be two horsewomen, bringing the Lion what he wants. Right? If Etta has done it all these years, how hard can it be? She always says there’s hardly anyone out there. Right?”

  Flora looked at Alice’s guileless face and felt the first stirrings of doom. She could not say why, and so she could not say no. “Sure.”

  Flora taught Alice how to fuel the truck in motion. The smell of the rich exhaust made Alice ill, but she soldiered on. On the day they planned to leave, Flora dressed Alice and intricately braided her hair.

  “There. You’re just like me.”

  Alice laughed a little and grasped at her crotch as if to make a joke. Flora’s smile faltered a little.

  They stopped by to say hello to Carla, who sat bent over crop-rotation plans.

  “Mother?” Alice crept up and tapped Carla on the shoulder.

  “Oh!” Carla pulled her ear trumpet from beneath her papers. “Don’t you look different!”

  “Flora dressed me up! We’re going to the woods to look for a tree that her moths can eat.”

  Carla’s eyes narrowed slightly as she looked Flora’s face over. “Not too far, I hope?”

  “No, Mother.”

  “My living child.” Carla put her trumpet in her pocket and embraced Alice. She nodded curtly to Flora. “You two be safe.”

  Flora nodded back.

  The drive was bumpy and loud. Alice obviously hated it, but the feeling of adventure kept her spirits up awhile. On the second day, she was antsy.

  “My mother will be worried by now,” she said to Flora as they slept in the bed of the truck.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Does your mother worry about you?”

  “I never knew her.”

  The stars wheeled slowly overhead.

  “This is the farthest I’ve ever been from home.” Alice sounded very small.

  “I’ve been all over. Like the Unnamed.”

  “Tell me about it?”

  Flora told her about a swamp she remembered, where the trees stood up out of the water on roots like legs. Alice fell asleep.

  They reached Estiel early the next day. As they predicted, they were taken straight to the Lion.

  Alice seemed to thrum all over, like a string pulled tight.

  “I’m considering taking a drop of my own cannabis oil to calm down.”

  “Don’t,” Flora said. “You’re going to want to be sharp.”

  Paws walked them in through the front doors of the day-gloom hotel. Alice reached out for Flora’s hand, but the other woman flinched away from her.

  Alice had to crane her neck up to speak to the Lion, who towered over both of them. The big cats crept closer to her as she spoke, unnerving her until her voice was unsteady. Flora jumped in to help her, but quavered, too.

  They told their story anyway. Alice pulled out tiny bottles of som with hands that shook, spilling the wax-sealed glass vessels to the floor. She picked them up and tried to control herself. She looked up and saw the tiger’s nose twitching as it took in her scent. Its chain tinkled like the glass in the stillness.

  The Lion held out his hand, chains wrapped around it. “Bring it to me.”

  Flora tried to take them from her, to step between her and the man with the cats.

  “Not you. Her.”

  Alice held her head high. Her chin quivered but she stepped forward. She held out the som and tried to lay one in his hand.

  His hand closed on hers and he pulled her close to him, between him and his cats.

  “A lion knows its prey by scent.” He took a long, deep whiff of her, crushing her into him. “My cats know what you are, and so do I.”

  Alice burst into tears, all courage gone.

  “And you.” He looked Flora over, appraising. “You’re not the usual kind of thing I like to keep. But I think you’ll be useful anyway.”

 
Flora tried to dissuade the men who came to take them upstairs. In the end, Flora was dragged and Alice was carried, but they went. The cats’ gold eyes watched them go.

  Neither of them would ever return to Nowhere.

  CHAPTER 10

  Eddy knew all the stories. More importantly, his maps had once belonged to Errol, who had marked, not too long ago, every town that had any number of people in it.

  The map that included the town of Topeka—Eddy tried all morning to figure out how to say that name—was one that he had not unfolded since it had been given to him. The bright greens and blues of the plasticky paper shocked him. There were black Xs at Topeka and then again at Manhattan, but the one at Topeka was beside a hastily drawn section of chain. That meant it was a slave-trading city and should be avoided. Manhattan had no other notation but the one that meant there was a town there, or at least there had been one the last time Errol and Ricardo had come through. Eddy planned to follow the road that cut south under Topeka, but would eventually lead him to the town that used to be called Manhattan, in the state of Kansas.

  That’ll take me north over the mountains, and then I can head southwest until I find her city.

  Eddy foraged some eggs that day, tried hard to shoot a squirrel with his bow and missed it. He was beginning to think about getting up a tree and waiting for a deer. He should tan a deerhide or two in preparation for cold nights ahead.

  Or something bigger than a deer, with real fur.

  If there are deer, bigger things will follow.

  But his bad luck continued, and he shot nothing at all. He could always find corn and early fruits, but it wasn’t enough.

  The Book of Eddy

  Early Summer

  On the road to Manhattan. The old raider’s map says there’s a safe town there. Maybe I can barter for some meat.

  Far off, Eddy could hear wolves in the night. They howled and called to one another, keeping him awake. He had never had to fight wolves and didn’t want to start now. On the road, he watched carefully for tracks and spoor, not knowing them like a hunter, but knowing enough to tell a prey animal from a predator.