Seed

by Lisa Heathfield

  “That’s not true,” Ellis says. His face is blank. He’s just staring at me.

  “The people on the Outside have the drops,” I carry on. “They put it in the honey and it kills the eggs. But we can’t use them because we know that they’re poisonous.”

  “The drops?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a lie, Pearl,” Ellis says. His eyes suddenly look angry. “There’s no such thing as the drops. It’s rubbish.”

  “You just don’t know about them,” I say. “Have you never tasted honey?”

  “Of course I have.” He laughs, but it’s a nasty sound. And I don’t want it here. I have never felt anything but happiness in the bee shed. “Many times. Without any stupid drops.” Ellis reaches over and takes the jar from me. “Watch.”

  Roughly, he unscrews the lid. Before I can stop him, he dips his finger into the honey and puts it, dripping, into his mouth. My stomach clenches.

  “See?” Ellis says. “It’s delicious. And not an egg in sight. Here.” He puts his finger into the jar again. The honey is thick on his skin and he lifts it toward my lips. “Try it.”

  I step away from him, my back against the wood of the shed wall. “Stop it,” I say, looking out of the window. I don’t think there’s anyone watching us.

  Suddenly, Ellis hunches over. He’s clutching his stomach and moaning. I want to go to him, but I dare not. A strange noise comes from his mouth.

  “Ellis?” I whisper. He should have believed me. And now it’s happening so quickly, the eggs are already hatching. The horror of it crashes into me. Ellis is going to die.

  I reach for him, but he’s standing up and laughing, his eyes sparkling. He must see terror on my face and he stops.

  “I was only joking, Pearl,” he says gently. “I’m fine. There are no eggs. I won’t have bees crawling inside me.”

  My hand is shaking as I snatch the jar from him. “It won’t be that quick,” I tell him. “But soon you’ll have bees in your mouth.”

  Ellis passes me the lid. I turn away from him as I put it back onto the jar. And I ignore the drops of honey clinging to the glass.

  I wake, sweating, from my nightmare. The same one. The one that mingles the days with the darkness of night.

  They are there, the men with the burning rods that they press into my skin. My skin hisses and melts and blinds me with pain. And I scream, but they won’t stop. The smell of my burning flesh claws at my nose, begging me to make them stop. I scream.

  Then blackness. Always at the top of the pain, on the spike that takes my brain away, the blackness happens.

  And then I wake, my sheet soaked with sweat. Just me and my breathing and the hard beating in my chest, alone in this room. But when I look down at my arms, the skin there is shriveled, like wax.

  And I know.

  I know.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Shall we sleep in the dip tonight?” I ask Kate. “We haven’t been for ages.” The sky is clear and I know the night will be beautiful.

  “What’s the dip?” Ellis asks. “Put that card down, Soph,” he adds, pointing to one in her hand. She picks it carefully from the ones she holds and puts it on the pile.

  “It’s the best place in the world for seeing the stars.” I haven’t really spoken to Ellis since we were in the bee shed, but now I can’t help being excited to show him somewhere new.

  “Will we really sleep there?” Sophie asks as Ellis picks a card from the pile.

  “If you’d like to,” Kate answers.

  “Sounds good,” Ellis says. “There we go, full house.” He takes the cards from Sophie and lays them in a fan shape on the floor. Jack leans over to look.

  “Will you play the piano again?” Kate asks. She stretches out her legs and nudges the cards with her bare toes.

  “Yes,” Sophie answers for Ellis, and she jumps from his lap and is pulling him up.

  Jack and I go over to the piano to listen. Kate stays on the floor, lying back and closing her eyes. Before Ellis even begins, the feeling is in my belly again. Every time he plays, it’s there. And as soon as his fingers move on the notes, the room comes alive. The air dances. The music breathes on me, licks my skin and fills my mind until everything else disappears.

  It’s just Ellis and his music.

  The door opens and Kindred John walks in. Without a word he closes the piano lid, so Ellis has to pull his hands away. Instantly, the magic is gone.

  “Papa S. needs quiet,” Kindred John says.

  For a second, Ellis just sits. It’s as though he’s still with the music somewhere. Then he stands up. “Sorry,” Ellis says. “No problem.”

  Kindred John looks over at Kate, where she lies on the floor, her eyes still closed. “Get up, Kate,” he says.

  She doesn’t move. Has she heard him? There is a slight smile on her lips. Kate?

  Kindred John stands, looking at her. An anger spreads from him. He seems unsure what to do. Then he looks sharply at Ellis before he walks out of the room. Kate opens her eyes, stretches her arms above her head.

  “I loved that, Ellis,” she says. She turns onto her side, rests her head in her palm. “How did you learn to do it?”

  Ellis shrugs his shoulders. “Practice,” he says.

  “Let’s go to the dip,” Bobby shouts, and he’s pulling blankets from the sofa.

  “Will we need more blankets?” Jack asks.

  “I reckon so, if we’re staying all night.”

  “Really, all night?” Sophie asks, and I laugh.

  “You’ll love it,” I tell her. “I promise.”

  We are ready by the kitchen door when Elizabeth comes in.

  “Come in if you get cold,” she fusses.

  “Sure you don’t want to come?” Kate asks her.

  Elizabeth sweeps a hand over her stomach. “I need the comfort of a bed,” she laughs.

  Linda stops Ellis by the arm. “Will you be OK?”

  “Of course,” he says.

  “Look after Sophie,” she tells him.

  Ellis grins. “Mom, we’re only in the field.”

  “Don’t worry, she’ll have a good time,” I reassure her. Sophie is standing with Ruby and Bobby and already they are looking sleepy, their eyes wide as they try to keep awake.

  The moon is glowing, the sky almost black. The blankets I am carrying are awkward to hold, but they keep my arms warm. Jack and Kate are in front and we all follow them toward the forest, curving around the edge of the trees until we get to the West field. We walk carefully; it’s difficult to see where the dip starts.

  It is here. In this light it looks like a dark hole. Sophie hesitates, looks at Ellis.

  “Is this it?” he asks as Bobby and Ruby hurry down it.

  “Trust me,” I say. “It feels like a black blanket when you’re down there.” I reach my hand out to Sophie and she takes it. Together we step down the sides of the dip, closer to the darkness. I can see the shapes of the others already sitting down and we curl up with them. There isn’t much space for Ellis.

  “Here,” Kate says and she moves closer to Jack. Ellis sits next to her and she reaches the blanket over him. I must push the flicker of jealousy away.

  Kate lies back, and we copy her. Sophie gasps. “Are they the stars?” she whispers. Above us, the dark sky is sprinkled with the brightest white.

  “I wasn’t expecting that,” Ellis says.

  I hear Kate move. Maybe she’s looking at him. “Don’t they have stars on the Outside?” she asks.

  Ellis laughs. “Of course they do. I’ve just never seen them like this. In the city, the sky is mostly just a bit of gray at night.”

  “They are the brightest at Seed,” I say.

  “That must be it,” Ellis says.

  “Do you know how they make the stars?” I ask Sophie.

  “No,” she says.

  “They are holes made from Nature’s tears. And every time someone does something bad on the Outside, another hole burns through the sky.”<
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  “Don’t be filling her head with nonsense,” Ellis says.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “You don’t really think that’s what stars are?” Ellis asks.

  “What else are they?” Jack asks.

  “Ellis thinks that on the Outside there are men who walk on the moon,” I say.

  Jack laughs so loudly that I feel guilty. “How do they get up there, then?” he asks.

  “A rocket,” Sophie says.

  “Is that possible?” Kate asks quietly. Does she believe him?

  “Yes,” Ellis says.

  “Have you been there?” Kate asks him.

  Ellis laughs. “No.”

  “I’m going one day,” Sophie says.

  “Me too,” says Bobby.

  We let the silence in. It creeps down the side of the dip and sits on our mouths. It holds my arms so I don’t even move. And it brings doubt with it. Could Ellis be right? Is there someone looking from the moon now? Can they see a black hole in the middle of a field, with seven silent figures looking up? Surely it can’t be possible. The thought spins my mind into a million different directions.

  A cry comes from the forest.

  “What’s that?” Sophie asks. She sits upright, grabs Ellis’s arms.

  “It’s just a fox,” I say. The scream echoes from the trees.

  “No, it’s a baby,” Sophie says. She sounds scared, as though she might cry.

  “That’s just the noise foxes make,” Jack says. “They won’t hurt you.”

  The cry again.

  “Are you sure?” Ellis asks.

  “Of course,” Kate says.

  “I don’t want to stay here,” Sophie says. “I want to go back to the house.” She looks at Ellis. The moonlight shows the fear in her eyes.

  I stroke her hair. “It’s OK, Sophie. It will stop soon.”

  “No,” she says and she starts to cry. Ruby sits up, but Bobby stays lying still, his eyes open wide.

  “How about you just try to sleep?” Ellis says gently. But Sophie just starts crying more.

  Bobby screams. He’s pointing to the top of the dip.

  “What is it?” Kate asks, sitting up.

  “There’s someone there,” Bobby says and he tries to burrow his head into me. I look up. There is nothing but darkness.

  “Right,” says Ellis. “I’m taking Sophie back to the house. Anyone else coming?”

  Ruby and Bobby don’t answer. They just stand up, holding each other’s hands.

  Ellis turns and his shape bends down toward me. He whispers in my ear. “That honey thing is rubbish.”

  Then they are all scrambling up the steep slope. At the top, Ellis looks back.

  “Night,” Kate calls up.

  “Are you really staying?” Ellis asks.

  “Of course,” Kate answers.

  “Then I’ll see you in the morning. If you haven’t been eaten by wolves,” Ellis says. Sophie starts crying again, so he takes her hand and they disappear.

  There is an emptiness now that he has gone.

  “What did he say to you?” Kate asks.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  I lie to her because something has happened that I don’t understand. There are no bees in Ellis’s mouth, no sign of them in his stomach. Yet he ate the honey without the drops and there should be eggs inside him. Shouldn’t there?

  The silence again. Just Kate, Jack, me, and the stars.

  Kate finally breaks the quiet. “Do you think he was serious about the man flying to the moon?”

  “I think someone’s lying. Either him, or those who told him,” Jack says.

  “He goes to a place where you learn things,” Kate speaks quickly, as though she wants to know.

  “They taught him rubbish, Kate,” I say.

  “Sometimes I can’t work him out,” Jack says.

  “I know exactly how he works,” Kate says.

  “How?” I ask. I need her to help me make sense of everything, make everything straightforward again.

  “I’m going to sleep now,” Kate says. I want to keep talking. There is so much I want to say. But Kate is quiet and I think that she has closed her eyes. I keep mine open, hoping the sky will wipe clear my thoughts.

  Slowly, Kate’s breathing changes. Jack turns on his side and I think he’s asleep too. The night sky stays almost touching me.

  There is a sound. I look up the sides of the dip. Something, someone, is walking across the field. Cold grass is crunched underfoot. Closer still and then it stops. I know someone is here.

  “Ellis?” I whisper. No one replies.

  Someone is watching. Can I hear their breath? I pull the blanket tight to my neck. I want to cover my face, but I’m frightened that if I do, they will come down.

  “Is that you, Ellis?” I whisper again. “Jack? Kate?”

  They’re sleeping, while someone is looking at us. It is just the night, I tell myself. Maybe Nature herself has crept here to keep us safe.

  Something moves. The footsteps are going away. They are gone. I want to run up the sides of the dip to see, but fear stops me.

  Gradually, I let the stars back in. Now that is all I see, all I hear. My eyes ache, but I won’t sleep yet. Not yet.

  He brings the bowl in. And the glass with the juice. Always the glass with the juice. Sometimes he will hold it to my lips, so that I have to drink. Other times I want to drink, because afterward it makes me sleep and then I am free.

  In the dark, I can fly out of the window, float down to the meadow and run and run and run and not stop. The air is in me, the fresh, clear air. It swoops around my mind and wipes away the pain. That throbbing pain of loss and loneliness and sickness and bleakness. I will run to the trees, to the lake I remember there. To the rocks.

  In the darkness I am free.

  He can’t hurt me.

  No one can touch me.

  And so I eat and so I drink and so I live. In this room, this tiny room, this suffocating prison. Watch my child through the glass. Hear my heart beating out my days in the silence.

  Maybe one day I will not drink. Maybe one day I will not eat. And the next, and the next? Maybe one day I will make myself truly free.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Don’t you ever think it’s odd that you’re all so fussed about Mother Nature, but then you’re working on cars that pump pollution into the sky?” Ellis asks Jack.

  I’m with them in the barn, sitting on seats we’ve made out of straw. The children are here, jumping from the bales, ducking in and out of the tunnel they’ve created. Outside it’s getting dark, but Kate is still with Kindred John, helping him in his room.

  “We make good engines, though,” Jack replies.

  “Good engines?”

  “Yeah, to kind of balance out those on the Outside.” Jack pulls his shirt on over his head.

  “How does that work then?” Ellis asks. He has a piece of straw in his hands and he’s slowly splitting it in two.

  “The oil that we rub into the engine, it’s that.”

  “What?”

  “That cleans the air. Kindred John discovered it a few years ago. So the cars we make for the people Outside actually help stop the pollution.”

  “They told you this?” Ellis asks. He throws down the piece of straw and looks at Jack.

  “Yeah. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

  “It gets rid of pollution from other cars,” I say.

  “So, the engines we work on at Seed are filled with some magic oil?”

  “I suppose you could put it like that,” Jack says proudly.

  “And I suppose you believe in the tooth fairy too?” Ellis asks.

  “What’s that?” asks Jack. Ellis just shakes his head, but I wish that he would walk away.

  Then Kate is here. She comes running in, her wild look in her eyes. There’s no space for her, so she climbs up and sits on Jack’s lap.

  “Finished with Kindred John?” he asks.

  “Yes,” she says
, pulling her cardigan across her body.

  “Why did he need you?” Ellis asks.

  “Just stuff,” she says. Then she scrambles up and runs for the hay tunnel. She crawls through and grabs a squealing Bobby by the ankles.

  “Stay in my prison!” she cackles. “You cannot escape.” So Bobby sits in the tunnel, giggling, as she runs over the bales. “You’ll all be mine!”

  Sophie tries to dodge past her, but Kate holds her by the waist and throws her in the air. “To my lair,” she shrieks as she bundles Sophie into the tunnel. Kate pulls a straw bale to block one of the ends.

  Jack jumps up, grabs a spade leaning against the wall, and goes to join her. “I’ll guard them,” he says in a gruff voice, spreading his legs wide, holding the spade high.

  I watch Ruby start to scale the big wall, made from heavy bales stacked high next to the tunnel. She’s not allowed up there, it’s too dangerous.

  “Ruby,” I call out, but I don’t think she hears me. She rushes up, gleefully trying to find hand and foot holes.

  And then the tower falls. It’s as though it happens in slow motion, as I watch the bales piled high up on each other begin to lean too far. Ruby is screaming as she’s falling backward, still clutching onto the straw, and it all just crashes down, piles and piles of bales smashing the tunnel below.

  “Sophie!” Ellis yells, and he’s running and pulling at the bales. I’m with him and I can’t see Sophie, or Ruby, or Bobby, or Kate, or Jack.

  I run to the door.

  “Kindred Smith!” I scream into the darkening air.

  I’m back beside Ellis and he’s throwing the bales behind. Together we grab them away. They’re so heavy, as if they’re made from bricks. The dust clogs my throat and we’re both coughing, but we still can’t see the tunnel, still can’t see or hear anyone.

  “Hurry,” I hear Ellis wheeze. Jack’s hand appears and we push the straw from him and he’s coughing and retching. He doesn’t seem to notice the blood coming from a deep gash on his chest where the spade has sliced into the skin. His white shirt is soaked red. He stumbles to the side, just as Kindred Smith runs in.

  Ellis finds Ruby and pulls her free. She’s shaking and Kindred John is by my side and he takes her from me.