Slowly I feel my way down the steps. I lie at the bottom. My bones ache from the cold and the hard floor.
“Please come, Elizabeth,” I whisper. I kiss my palm and hold it above me, into the hollow blackness.
I’m woken by the sound of the trapdoor opening. There is light, muffled yet sharp enough to hurt my eyes.
“I’m here, Pearl.”
It’s Elizabeth. She lights a lamp and I can see again. “It’s all right,” she says. “It is over.” And she smiles at me. “You can change into this.”
She hands me a flowing green skirt. It’s beautiful. I reach out to touch its material in the flickering candlelight. It feels so soft.
“It’s silk,” she says. “I made it for you when you were born.”
I take off my trousers. As I put the skirt on, it feels like water on my bare legs. Elizabeth passes me a new slab of linen.
“Change this for the one in your underwear. We must leave the old one here for seven days.”
“Will I have to come back to get it?” I ask, the panic rising like bile in my throat.
“You will not have to come back here,” she says gently.
Elizabeth takes the old slab from me. It’s heavy with my blood. When she has laid it face down in the earth, she turns to me. “You must never speak of this to anyone,” she says.
She blows out the candle and starts to go back up the steps. I hurry after her.
When we’re outside, she lowers the trapdoor, covers it with leaves, and pushes the heavy Worship Chair back into its place.
As we walk away in the early morning air, the birds are singing. The rain has stopped. My emerald-green skirt will tell everyone that now I am a woman.
CHAPTER THREE
I watch Ruby’s little fingers as she washes the mugs. In time, she too will become a woman. I know that it is years away, but I can’t bear the thought of her being trapped in the earth. I try to push the memory away. Concentrate on the frothy water in the sink.
When Jack comes in, he notices my skirt immediately and stops. He looks at me. “A woman?” he asks, smiling.
Pride washes through me. “Yes,” I say.
Jack hesitates. I wonder if he will bleed and then be able to grow his hair like the Kindreds. He’s sixteen already, so surely it can’t be long. “You won’t change, though?” he asks.
“I might.”
“You better not,” he says. Then he reaches into the sink and Ruby smiles as he flicks water at me.
“Hey, watch my skirt,” I say, laughing.
“I won’t!”
So I splash him back and he runs from the room, straight into Kindred Smith.
“Careful,” Kindred Smith says. But he’s not angry. He never is. Of the two Kindred men, he’s always been my favorite, even though favorites aren’t allowed. With his beard the color of autumn, I can believe that he grew in the wood.
Jack reaches over and rustles my skirt. “Pearl’s a woman,” he says.
I see something flicker briefly in Kindred Smith’s eyes, but then he smiles warmly. When he puts his arms around me, I feel a strange aching to stay as a child.
“I remember when you were born,” he says as he shakes his head. “Your hair was so white it nearly blinded me. And that yell of yours came close to deafening everybody.” When he laughs, the wrinkles around his eyes squeeze close together. He takes my hand between his. “You’re no trouble at all now, though.”
“Oh, yes she is,” Jack interrupts. “You don’t know the half of it, Kindred Smith.”
I can feel my legs bare under my skirt as I laugh.
Ruby takes her hands from the sink and dries them on a cloth. She comes over to me and strokes the material of my skirt. “Are you really a woman now?”
“Yes,” I say. “And one day, you will be too.”
Her smile is wide. I try not to imagine her alone in the ground.
First meal is being laid out on the two wooden tables in the meadow. It’s my favorite place to eat. And this is my favorite day, because Fridays are free days. Unless Papa S. says different, we can spend all day lying in the grass if we want, staring at the sky. As long as the tables are laid and the food eaten, the day is ours.
Through the window, I can see Bobby as he puts the forks in the right places. He pauses to hold one up to the sun. Although he’s small for his five years, he seems wiser than most of us. He tells me that Nature speaks to him through sparks of light—I think he’s listening carefully now.
“Can you take the bowls out, Pearl?” Elizabeth asks as she comes in from outside. “And Jack, there are glasses on the side. The table won’t lay itself.”
I grab the bowls and run out into the meadow. I hear Jack and Elizabeth laughing behind me as I reach the knee-high grass. I push through, careful not to make a path. I wish I wasn’t carrying anything, so that I could reach my hand down and feel the strands on my fingertips.
When Bobby walks past, he kisses his palm and holds it toward me. It always makes me smile. He can’t wait to grow up and be like the Kindred men.
“Did Nature tell you anything today?” I ask.
“It’s a secret,” he replies before he disappears into the house.
Jack catches up with me as I’m laying the bowls, one in each place. He’s carrying towers of glasses in each hand.
“What did you worship this morning, then?” I ask him.
“I haven’t been out yet. I had to help Kindred John with the drinking fountain. We fixed the leak.”
I look at Jack. He’s so proud that he’s finally been asked to help the Kindreds with proper manual work. For years we’ve watched from where we’ve been playing, Jack fascinated by the hammering and clattering of mending and building. Slowly he’s got older, and slowly he’s been allowed to learn.
“About time you started to do some proper work around here,” I say, laughing. He picks up a fruit cloth and swipes at me across the table.
We walk along the table together. For every bowl I put down, he puts a glass, until all eleven places are laid. I stop to watch an ant as it scuttles over a spoon. Press my finger in front of it, willing it to walk on my skin. But it turns back and disappears over the edge.
I look back at our home, at its many windows, the red bricks covered by ivy in places, the chimneys scattered on the roof. I know that there is nowhere else in the world that I would rather be.
Heather comes from the kitchen door. In each hand she has a vase filled with flowers from the meadow. She’s woven some blue flowers into her hair, the petals ducking in and out of her curls. Soon, I will be able to do the same.
When she has placed the vases on the table, Heather comes to me. “Nature has made you a woman,” she says warmly. She kisses her palm and holds it on my stomach. When she hugs me, her curls fall over my face.
“I’m so happy,” I say as she pulls me back to look at her. I am sure that I see the memory of the circle of earth in her eyes. Maybe it is a good place.
“I am very proud of you,” she says, and my smile is in every part of me.
Our arms empty, Jack and I head back toward the house. “What shall we do today?” he asks, running a hand over his cropped-short hair.
I don’t answer him, because I have seen Kate standing by the kitchen door. I know she is looking at my skirt. I smile at her as she comes up to me.
“You made it, then,” she says. Is she talking about the hole in the ground? We are forbidden to mention it. “Now we are the same again.”
I feel her warmth as she hugs me. I imagine her stomach bleeding the way that mine is and how I never knew. But when she lets me go, there’s something different in her eyes.
“I’ll be able to grow my hair,” I say with a smile. “We’ll look like sisters again.” I reach up to touch her hair. We are an identical color of blonde, but my hair is so straight and Kate’s ripples slightly, like water.
Elizabeth stands by the cooker in the kitchen, stirring the wooden spoon through the enormous vat of porridg
e, humming quietly to herself. I watch the sun fall through the window onto her. It catches her red lips and almond-shaped eyes, and I know she’s the most beautiful being in the world. As I always do, I make a silent wish that she is my true mother.
I know that it is wrong to wonder. I know that we are gifts from the earth and we belong to all of the Kindred women. But I want to truly belong to her.
I push the thought away. Today there is space for nothing but happiness.
“Right, girls. Carry this outside and I’ll go and tell Papa S. that we’re ready to eat.”
Some of our family are already sitting at the table when we go out again. The porridge vat is heavy and pinches at my fingers, even through the cloth that I’ve wound around the handle. Kindred John gets up to help as we set it down with a muffled clunk on the end of the sturdy wooden table.
“Thank you, girls,” he says, gently laying his hand on Kate’s head. He is so tall, much taller than Kindred Smith, and his hand is so strong that he somehow makes Kate look young again. She winces slightly and moves quickly away. I don’t know what’s wrong, but she won’t catch my eye.
We sit down just as Papa S. comes out of his door, and that wonderful hush swoops over us. He makes his way slowly to the head of the table. Today it’s Rachel at his side. Her eyes are smiling at him as she holds a flower to her lips, her other hand linked with his fingers. It seems like she has been his Companion for a long time.
Papa S. is barely taller than her, yet his goodness stretches into the air. He wears his long hair loose today, flowing like white sun over his shoulders. The feeling of love and awe I have for him swells within me. I gaze at the intensity of his eyes, the deep lines on his face that celebrate his years.
I touch the material of my skirt and smile, hoping that Papa S. knows. Hoping that he has seen. Maybe soon it will be me who holds a flower to my lips, and everyone will watch me and know that I am his Companion. The thought of walking with him spills sunshine onto my heart.
We all stand as he reaches his seat. As one, we kiss our palms and reach them out to the sky. Papa S. sweeps a hand over all of us and we sit.
“Begin your thanks,” he says, his strong voice reaching out. So I lift my head and join the low murmuring around me. The air is warm. The long grass is silent around us. This is happiness.
I try to concentrate on my thanks, but my mind keeps drifting to Elizabeth’s swollen belly. I imagine the child, curled like a nut, growing day by day. Waiting and growing and blinking into the inky, wet darkness. I will look at its face when it’s born and see if it is like me. I’ll look for signs to see if it is my true blood sister or brother. Yet I won’t be able to treat it differently.
“Begin to eat,” I hear Papa S. say softly, and so we all lower our heads and start to pass our bowls toward the vat of cooling porridge.
It’s not my favorite food of the day. Elizabeth’s magic has long gone by the time the bowls are put in front of us. There’s always a rubbery skin on the top and the spoon has to pop through to reach the slightly sludgy porridge below.
“It’s delicious, Elizabeth,” Jack says and I know he means it. He has a warmth you can almost touch. I eat mine quickly, looking forward to the fresh bread and melting jam.
When we have finished eating, we clear the plates and bowls quickly. There haven’t been so many warm days this summer, and as the Kindreds rest at the table, we want to make the most of our free time.
“Thank you, Pearl,” Rachel says as she passes me her bowl. Papa S. smiles at me, and my arms tingle with pride. But he doesn’t say anything and there’s no flicker of recognition in his eyes. I wish I had the courage to ask him. Have you seen? Have you seen that I am a woman? But I gather their spoons and walk back to the house without saying a word.
Even though it’s only mid-morning, the kitchen is becoming uncomfortably warm. Jack has hooked the door open, and the windows looking over the meadow are as wide as they can go, but there’s no breeze.
“Hurry up, you lazy bunch,” Jack says, tickling Ruby and Bobby until their legs give way and they collapse on the stone floor.
“You’re not exactly helping,” Kate says, flicking bubbles from the bowl at Jack. He laughs as he wipes them from the suspenders attached to his trousers.
“That’s enough,” says a voice from the doorway. Heather doesn’t normally sound annoyed. Earlier she had been so warm toward me, but now her eyes are dark and her mouth is tight. “Papa S. would like some more milk,” she says to no one in particular.
“I’ll get it,” Ruby squeals, dropping her tea towel on the side and running toward the fridge.
“No, it’s OK,” Heather says, reaching for a glass from a cupboard above the sideboard. Ruby’s face sinks into disappointment, but Heather doesn’t even seem to notice. She takes the jug from Ruby’s hand and pours milk into the glass. We all watch her as she puts the jug back, closes the fridge door and walks back toward the meadow.
“What’s up with her?” I ask.
“She’s jealous of Rachel, I reckon,” Kate says. “I bet she was hoping Papa S. would choose a new Companion.”
A new Companion. Will it be me?
“She can’t be jealous,” Ruby says, her little face shocked. “It’s not allowed.”
“You can’t stop your feelings, though, can you?” says Kate. She looks at Jack, so quickly that if I’d blinked I wouldn’t have seen it. But I know I didn’t imagine it, because in that instant, Jack’s cheeks flush red and he looks down at his feet.
A strange feeling suddenly creeps from my throat, down to my tummy. I don’t know why it’s there, and I don’t know what it is, but then it’s gone.
They do not know that I am here, locked away forever at the top of the house. That I watch them. That one of them is mine.
They do not know my memory of growing my baby in me. And when it was time, the thunder in my stomach, cracking me open. The stinging turning to burning and tearing and the final release of a head. I pushed the flesh and bones from me. My child.
I hadn’t expected the slippery, snakelike cord that held my baby to me. My baby’s screams as that cord was cut through.
“Are you hurting it?” I remember asking. I didn’t know whether I had birthed a boy or a girl.
“The baby is fine.” The Kindred had smiled as he pressed a cold flannel to my forehead. He wasn’t doing it to help me. It was to keep me down.
“Can I hold my baby?” I asked. But then the cramps took over my body again. My mother stood between my legs and she pulled that severed cord.
“What’s happening?” I screamed.
The Kindred only smiled again. “Trust us,” he said. “Trust us.”
CHAPTER FOUR
He won’t cry. Even though the drops of blood squeeze through the crack in his skin, I know he won’t cry. So Bobby just screws up his face and keeps his eyes shut tight as I check his foot for any more thorns.
“They’ll give us blackberries in the autumn,” I say, gently touching the brambles with my fingertips. “So we can forgive them for this scratch.”
Bobby’s face stays scrunched as he watches me pick a bracken leaf. I press it onto his cut. He tries to move his ankle away, but I hold it tight, waiting for the leaf to work.
When it’s done, I stand up and brush the dry mud from my skirt. “Come on, let’s get back before it rains.”
Bobby leans his head into me. “Thank you, Pearl,” he says. And as we stand like this, I want to tell him: I think you’re my true brother. Because I knew, those five years ago, as soon as Elizabeth and Rachel reappeared with their empty bellies and the Kindreds carrying two mewling babies. I knew the moment I saw Bobby that he was mine.
But I say nothing. Instead, I take his hand in mine and we pick our way carefully back through the forest, back toward Seed.
The rain comes soon, when we are busy helping Elizabeth in the kitchen. It’s the first time it’s rained again in the three days since I’ve been a woman. Kate walks in and she dip
s her finger into the soft cheese as I push it through the muslin cloth. I laugh as I try to snap it shut, but she pulls her hand away.
“Hey, dreamer,” she says to me. “You’d gone to worship before I’d even opened my eyes.”
“I went out early with Bobby.”
“We found a robin,” Bobby says. “It spoke to me.”
“We managed ten rejoices before it flew away,” I say.
“I ended up going out on my own,” Kate says, that wicked smile tipping at her lips. “I chose mud.”
I don’t understand why she’s saying such things these days. I want to ask her, but something is holding me back.
“There’s beauty in everything,” Elizabeth says, just as Ruby rushes in and the rain outside beats louder. We put down the cloth and go to the open door to watch it.
“I like the way it bounces on the ground,” Ruby says.
“We’ll have to go out in it later. We’ve carrots to pick,” Elizabeth says. She stands next to us, one hand on Bobby’s shoulder, the other pressing gently onto the glass.
I look at Elizabeth’s fingers and put mine onto the glass next to hers. I’m sure our hands look the same. We both have slender fingers and small wrists.
She looks at me and smiles. “They’re just hands,” she says, and I wonder how she knows my mind.
“Come on, let’s go out in it now,” Kate says. “It’ll be fun.”
“Not you, Kate,” a voice says from behind us.
Kindred John has walked into the room, his footsteps disguised by the heavy thumping of the rain. Ruby runs up and jumps into his arms. He throws her high into the air and catches her again. When she is back safely in his arms, she rolls the ends of his beard into her hands.
“You have lines in your hair,” she says to him.
Kindred John laughs. “Nature is beginning to paint my beard gray,” he says.
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