Seed

by Lisa Heathfield

  “No. He was working with Kindred John. His hand … I don’t know. I don’t know how it happened.” He looks up at me and into me and our thoughts are the same. Because Ellis’s soul lies in his hands. His hands are his music. I hear his piano notes on the breeze and they twist down into my stomach.

  “Can they put it back on?” I ask.

  “I don’t think so,” Jack whispers as he looks down at his own fingers, where they can move with their blood and their skin and their bone.

  “Then why did they take him to the hospital?” I ask. “Because we could have helped him here.”

  “You saw the blood, Pearl.”

  “But we could have stopped him bleeding. We have everything here to heal him. Now he’s there, who knows what they will do to him.” I shiver, even though I’m not cold. I think of the doctors with their knives and their experiments.

  Jack looks up at me. His eyes are different now. “Not all doctors are bad,” he says. “I think hospitals might sometimes be good places.”

  “How can you say that?” I ask him. “You didn’t want to go when you cut your chest.”

  “That was different. I wasn’t that hurt.” He stares into his glass, where the water sits waiting. “And since then, I’ve talked to Ellis. They have medicines that heal.” Jack says it so quietly.

  My thoughts are messy. Because isn’t it against everything?

  “Papa S. says we have to follow Nature’s path, Jack. It’s the only way.”

  “If Ellis hadn’t gone to the hospital, he might have died. Is that the right way?” Jack asks. “Would you have been happy with that?”

  I know my answer. I know that I could never have held Ellis’s head on my lap and accepted that it was his time.

  “He might already be dead, Pearl.” The pain in Jack’s words show in every part of his gentle face.

  “No,” I say. Because that can’t be true. I can’t let it be true.

  “They might have been too late.”

  I can’t hear any more. I stand up from the bench, clutch my long skirt into my fist, and hitch it high above my knees so that I can run away. Through the meadow, through the field. Away, but I don’t know where. I just want to keep running until my lungs hurt enough to block out the pain.

  Above me, a buzzard circles as I run.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I don’t want to go back. I sit in an apple tree with the ghost of Ellis. He holds my hands in both of his. We watch the sun sink out of the sky and the gray turn to black.

  Only when the cold soaks into my veins do I go back to the house.

  Kindred John is sitting with Kindred Smith at the kitchen table.

  “Ellis is well,” Kindred Smith says to me, and he stands up so that he can wrap me in his big, safe arms. I must not cry, not now. So instead I laugh as I kiss my palm and hold it to the night sky beyond the window.

  But it was not Nature who saved Ellis.

  “Where is he?” I ask.

  “He is still at the hospital,” Kindred Smith says.

  “Why?” I ask. I look at Kindred John.

  “They’re looking after him,” he says, but his face looks strained. I should comfort him, but I don’t want to.

  “But Papa S. says that hospitals are bad places,” I say. “And now you’ve left Ellis there.”

  “The doctors will help him,” Kindred Smith says. But it’s against everything we’ve ever been taught, everything we’ve ever known. I don’t know what truths to hold on to.

  The door opens and Heather comes in. She looks tired. Her hair, which she always wears loose, is pulled back into a knot.

  “Pearl, I need you to take a bowl of cold water to Elizabeth,” she says. She’s reaching for her apron, tying the strings behind her back. They are all being so normal. Do they not remember about the doctors? Are the experiments not true?

  “I know it is strange, Pearl. But Ellis is well and he will come back to us,” Kindred Smith says.

  “You must go now, Pearl,” Heather says.

  I’m glad to leave the room, to walk away from them all.

  Elizabeth is worse than yesterday. Her face is so pale, and her eyes are scrunched with pain. She tries to smile when she sees me. I sit next to her bed and push her hair back from her face, where it is sticky with sweat.

  I put the flannel in the fresh water, squeeze it in the cold and put it on Elizabeth’s forehead.

  “Thank you,” she says and her body sinks back slightly into her bed.

  “Have you eaten?” I ask, and she nods.

  “Jack brought me food.” Then she grimaces, breathes quickly.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s nothing. It just hurts.”

  “Is the baby coming?” I ask.

  “No.” She laughs lightly. “It’s not ready yet. I just have a pain under my ribs.”

  “How can I make it better?” I ask. It’s almost impossible to see her like this.

  “Tell me about your day. Let me think of something else.” She reaches out to me, to hold my hand. Her arms are swollen. The skin on her fingers stretched.

  And so I lie to her. I lie to Elizabeth. I tell her about the barn, about collecting eggs, about sitting in the meadow with Jack, about being in the tree in the orchard. They are all truths. But I don’t tell her about Ellis. I won’t speak the words that are pushing at my lips. I can’t tell her about his blood, his hand. I fill the days with tiny lies that I might have done. Helping Rachel with evening meal, grating carrots and sprinkling them with poppy seeds.

  I place my hand on the swell of Elizabeth’s belly, rising like a hill under the sheet. “Is it moving?” I ask.

  “A bit. It has slowed down, though.” Elizabeth is smiling as she reaches out her other hand and strokes it over her belly. “There’s not much room left now,” she says.

  “How long will it be? Until the baby is born?” The flannel is warmed through, so I rinse it and squeeze it in the cold water again.

  “Maybe three weeks now.” I bend down and kiss the stretched sheet, where underneath our baby sleeps. Together we will run to the shadows of the trees, and I will tell you who your mother is. Our baby pushes against my palm in reply.

  “Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?” I ask.

  “Nature will decide,” Elizabeth says with a smile. But then she winces again, her neck stretching back.

  “Tell me what I can do,” I say.

  Elizabeth shakes her head as she puts her hand into mine and squeezes some of her pain into me. “My feet hurt,” she finally says. Her breathing is more level now, but there is a flicker of fear darkening her eyes.

  I move to the end of the bed and lift up the thin sheet. I try to hide my shock. Elizabeth’s thin, elegant feet are so swollen that I don’t recognize them as her own. They look filled with water, the skin shiny. I’m scared to touch them. But this is Elizabeth, my mother. When she grew me, she must have been in this pain.

  I take the flannel and place it over one of her feet. Gently I massage her swollen toes. I try to imagine her running in the grass, her hair tied with flowers, her laughter growing wings and disappearing into the trees. The baby lying in the meadow, watching the birds swooping up to the clouds.

  Elizabeth is asleep. Her breathing is settled and, for now, I don’t think she can feel the pain.

  As I lay my head down onto her bed and close my eyes, I let Ellis back into the room. They have cleaned up his blood and he comes to sit next to me. He is smiling. But where his hand once was, there is only air.

  Enough. I won’t eat. I won’t drink. He has taken everything from me, but he cannot take the final thing away. My choice. To live, or not to live.

  He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not. He controls me, he controls me not.

  No more.

  Papa S. is here. He walks toward me with the food. I clamp my mouth shut tight and padlock it with the years he has locked me away. He slams down the spoon and his fingers rip at my lips. He tries to f
orce my teeth apart, but I bite down hard. Because I won’t eat, I won’t drink. I won’t be his puppet anymore.

  I kick out at the bowl and it crashes and spills and my arm thrashes out and knocks his precious water tumbling.

  Now his eyes burn with anger. His arms shake with rage and he pushes into my closed mouth, over my nose, blocking my air.

  I can’t breathe. It’s what I want, but I can’t breathe and I am not ready. Not yet, not this way. Not him. I fight him and struggle, but I am nothing against him.

  Suddenly he lets go and the musty air rushes back to me.

  He kicks me hard in the stomach before he leaves the room.

  He closes the door quietly behind him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Kate comes to the table for morning meal, her hands linked with Papa S. She holds a flower to her lips, but this time she looks at me. Her eyes are filled with fire. Papa S. does not smile.

  We go through the ritual that we always do, but today it seems stilted. There are too many empty places, too many thoughts buzzing around our heads. The four days Ellis has been away have been too long.

  “Begin to eat,” Papa S. says. And we do. But the porridge tastes wrong. Everything feels wrong.

  It is our free day, but Kate will have to be with Papa S. and Ellis isn’t here. I can’t think of him and what they are doing to him. Kindred Smith is sitting next to Papa S., but they don’t talk. Normally their heads would be bent together and there would be smiles and laughter. But Papa S.’s face is rigid as he spoons the food into his mouth. Kindred John is also silent and their unease trickles down the table, even settling on the children.

  Linda barely moves as she eats. The dry patches on her skin have appeared again and she has scratched them raw. Thankfully Papa S. has forbidden her to go to the hospital, but since Ellis has been gone, the thin, gray cloud has settled back around her.

  We eat the porridge. Bobby taps Jack on his arm.

  “We’re going to make a den in the forest,” he says quietly.

  Jack smiles at him. “I’ll help you,” he says.

  No one says another word.

  The clouds are gathering, but it doesn’t look like rain. They are too white, too far away. And the blue of the sky doesn’t want to disappear.

  I have a basket of food that Bobby helped me prepare and he is clutching an armful of bamboo sticks, his eyes concentrating on the trees ahead. Sophie and Ruby hold a blanket between them, stretched out flat as they run in front of us through the field, their laughter warming the air. I want to have some of their happiness, but nothing is right without Ellis.

  I imagine that he is here. Maybe he would be carrying the bamboo. Maybe he’d be chasing Sophie, rolling her in the blanket, throwing her in the air. But then he’s wrapped in the soaked red sheet again.

  “Are you OK?” Jack asks. He’s carrying twists of thick rope.

  “Yes,” I say, but Jack knows me better than that.

  “He’ll be fine,” he says. “Kindred Smith says he’ll be back in a few days.”

  He won’t be fine, though, will he? I want to say. He’ll never be fine again.

  “Has Kindred John told you yet what happened?”

  Jack adjusts the rope on his shoulders. “He says the machine slipped.”

  “Do you believe that?” Am I really questioning Kindred John?

  “I have to believe it,” Jack says finally. He starts to walk quickly and I know he doesn’t want to speak about it anymore.

  We go into the trees. The air is green and I breathe in the beauty of it. We let Bobby lead. Follow the little figure of him as he grasps the tricky bamboos. We wind in and out among the tall trees until we get to the place he decides. I don’t know why he has chosen here, but he has.

  “Shall we collect sticks first?” Jack asks.

  “No,” Bobby says. “First, we collect leaves.” And so we do. We lay the blanket and start to fill it with leaves scooped from the ground. Jack and I pick up handfuls and look at each other in silent conversation.

  We’re sprinkling the leaves for the bottom of the den when I hear something, not far away. I look up, but no one is near. Then I see a hand, reaching around the trunk. I see his face only for a second, but I know it’s him.

  Simon.

  I shouldn’t go to him, but I do. Jack is busy gathering sticks and I walk away, toward the boy from the Outside. I turn behind the tree and he’s here. His face is soft, concerned. His body is so close to mine. We are tucked in together so we won’t be seen.

  “Why are you here?” I force myself to stay next to him.

  “Where’s Kate?” Hearing him say her name makes my stomach twist, and I don’t know what to do.

  “She’s not here.”

  “I need to see her.” His breath is so close that I take it in mine. Nerves trickle down my arms but I have to keep myself here.

  “Why?” I ask. “Why do you need to see her?”

  “She said she would meet me here.”

  “She wouldn’t say that. She hardly knows you.”

  Simon looks me straight in the eye. “I’ve known her for months.”

  “Months?” Is he lying?

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s not here,” I say again. I know I should walk away.

  Simon reaches out and touches my arm. “I’ll wait here. Will you get her for me?” His eyes are different from Ellis’s. They are a startling blue, his eyelashes pale. “Will you?” he asks me again.

  “She can’t come here,” I say as I move my arm from him.

  Simon doesn’t seem so calm anymore. “Why? Where is she? Is she with him?”

  “With who?” I ask.

  “That old man,” he says.

  I know now he must go. “You are not welcome here,” I tell him. And I mean to turn and go, to leave him there. But something makes me stop and look at him. At his Outside skin. At his forehead, his eyes. He’s not one of us, but he’s like us and there’s something about him that makes me know he is not evil.

  It’s Simon who turns his back on me and starts to walk away. “Tell her I’ll come back for her,” he says.

  Then he is gone.

  I stand where he has left me. I’m unsure what to do. Everything used to be so clear, so definite. But now my thoughts are like the roots around me, twisting into each other. I can’t find where they start, and however hard I try, they keep ending in darkness.

  Jack is knotting the rope on a tree. His movements are sharp and he yanks on the rope so hard that it must almost cut his skin.

  “Who was he?” he asks. The children are close by, making a pile with the sticks they have found, so Jack speaks quietly. I thought he hadn’t seen us. I don’t want to answer, but I won’t lie to Jack.

  “Simon,” I say.

  “Simon?” Jack pulls the rope taut and begins to tie it round another tree. The children are here, resting sticks up against the rope to make the walls of their den. Bobby is directing them.

  “Yes,” I say. Isn’t that enough?

  We weave ivy in and out, making the walls strong. All the time, I can feel Jack looking at me. Ruby and Sophie drag the blanket inside and Bobby pulls the basket in with them.

  Jack and I are alone, outside the den of sticks.

  “What did he want?” Jack asks.

  “Kate.”

  “Kate?” When I look at him, he seems hurt, not angry.

  “They met at the market,” I whisper. I won’t tell him any more. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “We must tell the Kindreds,” he says.

  “No.” I know it’s wrong, but I don’t want them to find out.

  “What do you mean?” Jack asks, confused. But how can I explain? It’s like the jigsaw of my life has been shaken up and put back together all wrong. I need someone to put the pieces straight, one by one.

  “I don’t know, Jack. I’m worried Kate will get in trouble.”

  Jack pulls his suspenders back over his shoulders. He’s
looking around. For Simon? For the trees to give him answers?

  “OK,” he says, but he doesn’t sound sure. “We won’t tell the Kindreds. But if we ever see him again, then I will.”

  Ruby rushes out of the den. “We’re ready!” she says, her smile out of place in my thoughts. She takes our hands in hers and pulls us into the den. They’ve laid the food out like a feast. Cherry-red tomatoes, chunks of cucumber, the hard-boiled eggs, free of their shells.

  Kate is sitting alone at the kitchen table when we get back. The children are cold, huddled together under the blanket and they scuttle upstairs to jump into their beds. My ankles feel like ice. Jack and I spent far too long sitting with our feet dangling into the lake. Trying to make sense of Ellis. Wondering when he will come home.

  “Where’ve you been?” Kate asks. She sounds tired.

  “In the woods,” I say. “I thought you were with Papa S.”

  “I was. But I’m not now.”

  Jack looks awkward. I’m sure he’s remembering Simon. He walks out the door and we listen as he crosses the hallway.

  “What’s going on, Kate?” I ask. I reach out for her hand. “Are you still his Companion?”

  Kate doesn’t answer, but she shakes her head. Suddenly she’s crying. She’s trying to keep quiet, trying to stop her life spirit from leaving her, but the tears won’t let her. I have never seen her like this. I move my chair and wrap my arms around her.

  “What is it?” I ask. “It’ll be OK.” But Kate’s tears don’t stop. Her body shakes under my arms.

  The door opens. Heather rushes in. “I can hear you from the stairs,” she says. “Shh, now. Shh.” She brushes Kate’s hair back from her eyes. And when they look at each other, I feel like a child again. I am not part of what they know.

  Kate breathes deep gulps of air. Heather fills a glass with water and holds it out to her. I think of Simon, hiding among the trees. Did he only run to the edge of the forest? Is he still hiding there now? His body being swallowed by the creeping dark?

  I watch Kate. Her eyes are red from tears. Tell Kate, he’d asked me. Tell her I’ll come back for her.

  But I don’t say a word.

  “Kate,” I whisper from my bed. She’s probably asleep. I’ve been lying here for so long, listening to Ruby and Sophie breathing, watching the night sky blear through the cracks in the curtain. Wondering what is the right thing to do.