“More trees?”
Alphonse stood and jumped a few times. “Do you like trees, Rudy?”
“Yeah. Like trees.” With his mouth wide, the boy held his stick up, then tilted it and it fell to the ground.
Georgie walked over, Rosa on her hip. “You’re a sweetheart to talk with him. He’s such a good boy, isn’t he? You’ll be a good father someday too, Alphonse. It’s nice that you listen to him. I mean, Reuben listens, but you’re right here, spending time with him. It’s nice like that.”
“Rudy’s a good boy.”
“He’s an angel. Reuben wants him learning now. You know, finding the right trees.”
“I don’t think Mr. de Reu’s finding the right trees anymore. He’s taking all of them.”
“Oh, well, he’s excited. He’s got new toys, you know? New toys are like that. I remember when Reuben bought the stove. What fun I had! I must have cooked every recipe I knew. Anyway, if Reuben clears a hillside, he can plant it back up.”
Alphonse scrubbed at both sides of his head and tried to focus. “How deep are the roots?”
“Oh, you know. They’re really deep. Mostly they are. Sometimes you pull down a tree with shallow roots. And you wonder, ‘Why are the roots so shallow?’ But you don’t wonder long, because there’s another tree right next to it.”
“They find water?”
“There’s not much water. It’s the drought. But yeah, the trees find it.”
Rosa began to squirm, and Georgie set her down. The little girl chased Rudy, and they ran toward the house.
Alphonse said, “What if the young trees can’t?”
“What?”
“If Mr. de Reu plants small trees, their roots might not go deep enough to find the water.”
Georgie’s brow furrowed. She cocked her head to the side and slowly walked back to the house after the children.
That evening, he sat in the middle of a cleared patch of stumps, watching his final night on the stead draw to a close. First sun was setting and the light visibly dimmed, the magic of the moment as strong as ever. Everything bright and double-shadowed one minute, then well-lit with sharp edges the next. Tradition said the shift brought clarity.
On this night, as first sun set, the weight in his chest eased.
I failed on Mount Tura, but I tried.
Surely the effort to summit was worth something.
His mother—she had deeper ambitions than he’d ever imagined, and he didn’t know how to reach her. But he could try.
The second sun settled, kissing the hills with pink.
* * *
Reuben’s eight wagons left for Collimais where they would join Caravan. They camped the first evening. The new hands, hired to help drive, told stories that Manny, Fred, and Alphonse hadn’t heard before. Even Reuben shared tales, and the evening was rowdy.
The next day they pulled onto Collimais’ wagon grounds, on the western edge of town. Alphonse suggested to Manny that they grab a bite. They found a café on the thoroughfare and took a table in back.
“Great to be around people again.” Manny grinned at the other patrons.
Alphonse wasn’t sure. Odile might still be in town; might walk by. Or she might not. He didn’t know which he’d prefer, because if he saw her, she might have nothing to do with him. He hadn’t said goodbye, and that had been a mistake. Anyone who had grown up here would have shown courtesy enough to say goodbye. He should have. He glanced out to the street. “Do you miss the cities?”
“Nah. I mean, you know. They have a lot going on, but the air’s better here.” Manny leaned back and winked at one of the wait staff. She came and stood close to Manny, asked if she needed anything. Manny told her to check later, and the waitress brushed her hip against her and said, “Sure will, honey.”
Foothillers passed by outside, enjoying the fine autumn afternoon. Alphonse didn’t know how to approach his mother, to change her mind on something she’d spent years working toward.
“Those wagons ahead of us,” Manny was saying. “Did you see their load?” Alphonse shook his head and she grinned. “Let’s just say you can smoke it. We should buy some. Take a little trip without leaving the grounds.”
Alphonse laughed, and everything turned around then. They talked about cities, steads, and normal things.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Myrta moved into Odile’s tiny bedroom, next to Ephraim and Ardelle’s on the inn’s lower floor, under strict orders to stay put.
She’d memorized every square inch of the space within fifteen minutes. “Isn’t there anything to do in here?”
“Leave,” Odile replied, which she promptly did.
Myrta stayed.
She experimented with her vision, flipping it on and off and spelling words in the air with her breath. She ran in place and watched her breath grow deeper blue. That held her interest, but after a few minutes Ardelle knocked and said to keep quiet.
There were eighteen wrinkles in the wallpaper, if you counted the small ones that might be the edges peeling. Six cracks in the ceiling. Odile had four pairs of shoes and an unpaired sandal.
Three days in, Odile snapped, saying there was enough to worry about without an uptight cousin too. Myrta said cabin fever wasn’t her invention. Odile said to stop griping since all she did was sit around and look at air anyway.
Myrta sucked in a lungful. “At least you can go out.” Odile glared, and Myrta hissed, “None of this is my fault.”
“We know, Myrta. Literally all of us know.” But the anger in Odile’s eyes faded. “Come on. We’re going outside.”
They went out the back, where even the morning heat was welcome—she was out of that room.
Odile strode ahead of her through the orchard. “Hurry. Ephraim will have a fit if he sees you.”
Myrta ran to catch up. Once at the overlook, she shaded her eyes. The spread of wagons outside Collimais dwarfed the town, and she gasped. “There’s hundreds. Holy heavens, that’s a whole season of goods.”
“Of course. What’d you expect?”
“Doesn’t anything get pilfered?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“It’s everything they grew.”
A breeze blew up, carrying yells and stakes hammered into the ground. Steaders, at the end of a growing season. An unexpected ache started in her chest, the harvest she’d missed by being here. Myrta pinched her lips thinking of the harvest meals Celeste made. Late nights putting up food; the smell of hay everywhere. Maples turning red.
“Myrta, if anyone stole anything they’d be shunned. It never happens.” Odile sank to the ground. “I mean, there’re the marshals. They carry doses of pacifon. If a fight breaks out, they take care of it.”
There’d been a marshal at market a few years earlier, not in any official capacity, but it had caused a stir. Such an official-looking person out in the belt. “They put people to sleep?”
“They’re mostly here for the census. But they carry pacifon, so I guess they’re keeping order. No one steals anything. There aren’t many fights.”
Horses were hitched up on the nearer side of the grounds, and one of them looked a little bit like Rennet, but it was too far to be certain. “Is Jack here?”
Odile leaned back on her elbows. “Yes. He and Nate got in two days ago.”
Myrta studied her cousin’s profile. Her strong nose, straight hair. The blouse and skirt in a green deeper than the sagebrush around them. Odile was watching the thoroughfare, then looking out to the wagon grounds, then back at the thoroughfare again. She belonged here, Myrta thought, right here. “Please don’t go with the handlers.”
Odile crossed her ankles. “I’m not. You’re right, it would be too hard on Ardelle and Ephraim.”
Myrta took a deep breath of relief. “Thank heavens. Oh, thank the holiest heavens above,
Odile, thank you.”
She didn’t respond, just kept watching the thoroughfare and the grounds. The breeze swirled up again and Myrta shifted her lensing.
“What do you see?”
Odile could always tell when Myrta was using her trait. Ephraim, Odile had said, had explained it years ago, how the muscles shifted near the temples. And, she’d said, she’d read the books in the office.
Myrta said, “It’s busy. All the stovepipes are going. All of them. There’re more auts than normal.” She squinted out at the wagon grounds. Black fumes swirled near the hitching posts. “There’s methane. I guess it’s the manure.”
Softly, Odile said, “What’s it . . . Myrta, what’s that like?”
She looked over. Odile never sounded shy, except she just had. It was odd to see Odile so vulnerable, and Myrta felt gentle suddenly, like the difficulty between them had turned upside down, leaving her, oddly, more knowledgeable than her cousin. She thought of the pain she might feel if things were reversed. “I wish you had it, Odile. The air’s beautiful. The lenses in my eyes can do something if I squint, where I see the particles, the molecules, each one of them.” She pointed out to the distant pastures. “I can see the breath from each ox in that field. It’s like a flower blooming from their nostrils and then fading, again and again. Some of them are mouth breathing.”
She looked south. “There are three auts coming from Beamais and one going there. There’s some water vapor above Beamais’ lake, even though we can’t see the town from here and I’ve never been. Out there,” she said, pointing to the belt, “there are more lakes. It’s like reading a picture. It’s beautiful, and I wish you had it. I wish it was something we could share.”
Odile was staring at her toes, her face still. Her face sad. “I used to wish that too.” After a while she stood and brushed her skirt off. “We should go back.”
They neared the orchard, and Myrta stopped. An aut stood in the lane, the green one, the one di Vaun had driven after market. The one she’d first put her hands on, back at the de Reu stead all those months ago. Alarm filled her, but Odile grabbed and pulled her across the yard, into the inn and toward the bedroom. Once inside she closed the door to a crack. Voices from the front carried.
“I’m sorry, Mel. We’re booked.”
That was Ephraim.
“You promised a room.”
And that was di Vaun, sounding annoyed.
Myrta fell to the cot, her fear giving way to fury. Ephraim hadn’t breathed a blessed word about holding a room for that man. It shouldn’t surprise her anymore, his inability to provide the most basic information. But holy heavens.
Odile shot her a warning look, shook her head, and went out.
Ephraim’s voice sounded pleasant, almost friendly. “Ardelle double booked. When we saw the mistake, we needed your room, but the lodge is nicer anyway. Stay on the thoroughfare. We’ll cover it.”
“We aren’t staying at the lodge. Move one of your guests.”
“A settled guest? I don’t think that’d work.” Then Ephraim added drily, “We have a pallet in the hayloft. Odile could make it up for you.”
Odile’s voice was next, sounding bored, like she’d just been working on the accounts instead of spending time with Myrta. “The lodge has nicer rooms, and the food’s better. Ephraim, we should bring their food in.”
“Odile. Mel wants a room, not supper.”
Another voice, a new one, chimed in. “The others are staying at the lodge.”
“Close off your front room,” Melville said. “We’ll sleep there.”
Myrta dug her nails into her palms. Surely he wouldn’t sleep right across the hallway from her.
“I can’t see that working. The guests use that room. If you truly enjoy our company, you could always dine with us.”
Myrta was sweating.
The other voice said, “The lodge seems nice, sir.”
“Mel. It’s best. Bigger room, better food, and it’s closer to the thoroughfare. You’d be right in the heart of, well, everything.”
There was more grumbling and more arguing. That man. His voice.
Ephraim repeated his suggestion, ending with, “We’ll make it up next time.”
The front door opened and shut. A moment later, Ephraim barged in, eyes blazing. “I want you in this room.”
He was angry at her?
Odile was back too, and she dropped onto her bed. Ephraim pivoted to her. “What possessed you to take Myrta out?”
“The hills are as safe as the inn. Melville wouldn’t go back there.” She pulled her shoes off and dropped them to the floor.
“He might!” Ephraim swung back to Myrta. “You’re confined. Here.”
“Seriously? I’ve been stuck in here for three days. It reeks!”
“I don’t care,” he said icily. “Do not test me.” He left.
Myrta fell against the back wall.
After a moment, Odile came and sat next to her. She pulled off her dirty socks, tossed them on the floor with some others, and crossed her legs. Her ankles were filthy. “He’s overreacting.”
Myrta pulled her blanket away from Odile’s feet. “I should’ve stayed in.”
Odile didn’t respond, just sat there with a thoughtful expression. After a few moments, a wicked smile flickered around her mouth. “Do you want to know what Melville does to people like you?”
Myrta looked over sharply. “I thought you didn’t know.”
She laughed soundlessly and raised her eyebrows. “We know what they used to do.”
Myrta forced herself to breathe. “Tell me.”
Odile leaned over, and in a lilting voice, said, “He wants to slice into your face. He wants to cut into you so he can look at your muscles. And he wants you wide awake while he dissects you.”
Myrta’s stomach twisted. That couldn’t be right. There’d be no purpose to it. It would make more sense to kill her outright, blind her or take her ovaries, something like that.
Odile ran her fingers back from her own eyes as she spoke. “He likes peeling the skin back. Real slowly. And then, he likes watching your muscles contract.”
“Stop it. I don’t believe you.”
“He makes you use your trait while you’re bound and gagged and sliced wide open.” Odile stood, taking up all of the free space in the room. She threw her arms out, flailed, and cried, “He likes the screaming.”
“That’s enough.” Myrta put her hands to the sides of her head and closed her eyes.
“First on the left and then on the right.”
“Stop. Stop it!” Myrta pulled her legs up.
Odile leaned over and hissed, “Then he goes inside your eyeballs. With needles.”
“I said stop. I don’t need to know any of this!”
“Oh, fine.” Odile sat. “The point is, you don’t know. It’s beyond stupid that you’re sitting here when there’s so much going on out there.”
Myrta stared up at the crack in the ceiling. “Di Vaun gets in my head, like a song I can’t stop hearing.” We’ll take you with us when we leave . . . I understand she’s here . . . You promised us a room . . . I understand she’s here . . .
“Melville’s a worm. A disgusting, filthy worm with bad breath who wants to carve you up.” Odile sat without moving. “You know what? I’m going to find Jack. Do you want to come?”
Myrta glared at her. “No.”
“Suit yourself. Enjoy . . .” she looked around, “the bedroom.”
After Odile left, Myrta rolled off the cot and kicked Odile’s dirty socks under her cousin’s bed. Then she cracked the window and looked around again. She picked through the stack of books on the nightstand. One was a drug manual. A few pages were earmarked, with notes scribbled in the margins. There was a book on the global environment. And another, worn and smudged. Anatomy of the Gen
etically Modified Human Eye.
She took that one to the cot. Half the words made no sense, and the diagrams brought Odile’s words back. . . . while he dissects you . . . Nauseated, she closed it and lay there.
After a while Ardelle opened the door. “I brought supper.”
“Can you bring me a candle? I want to burn something.”
Ardelle frowned and set the tray down.
“Mama, I’ve been stuck in here for years. Shouldn’t I practice? I think I should.”
Ardelle glanced around the room, her expression softening, and she went back out. She returned with a candle.
The meal was roasted vegetables and sauce, buttery and smoky, like it had all been cooked on a wood fire from one of the carts on the wagon grounds. It tasted like the outdoors, fresh and sharp, especially the tomatoes. It tasted like harvest, like Celeste’s meals back on the farm. The belt had a rhythm Myrta understood, all the details in place, neat and tidy, even who you’d marry was all figured out. Celeste had said she could go back someday. Maybe doing so made sense. She understood the belt. Renico? Not so much. “Renico targeted Great-Grandpapa.”
Ardelle’s eyes turned tired, like the skin around them wanted to fold right over. “Yes, they did. But they never caught him.”
“Tell me about him.”
“Sweetheart. I was small.” Ardelle put her plate on Odile’s nightstand and stood to open the curtains wider. “Mama and Papa fought whenever Grandpapa came, that’s all I remember. Mama didn’t want him living in the mountains, because he was getting on, but he always went back after his visits.”
“Stop. Why did he live there?”
“Well, Papa said the mountains were safe because people with other traits live there. It seems . . . I don’t know, it’s hard to believe that there are people there, but Grandpapa certainly was. Ephraim thinks it could be true, some group in the mountains. But if it is we shouldn’t know too much about them. That if there are . . .” Ardelle fiddled with her fork, “if there is a pool of genes, forgive me, that’s very clumsy, a group of people with certain genetics living there, then not knowing about them keeps them safer.”
Living in wilderness. It would be more isolated than the stead. “You’re saying people live in the mountains just to be safe from the combustion industry.”
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