Only when they reached the house and were making their way around to the front, where the windows were open a crack, did they see the figure crouched there. He or she was doing something at the window, either pulling out or pushing in a dark, lumpy something. As they got closer, Sammi saw that it was some sort of fabric, a bedspread or clothing of some sort, and that the person was definitely trying to push it through the slot. Her feet crunched on the gravel and the figure turned toward her, her jacket hood falling back a little to reveal Valerie’s tired, anxious face.
“Oh!” Valerie said, her hands going to her throat as she scrambled to her feet. The object hung from the slot. What looked like sleeves hung limply to the ground. “Sammi? Sage? Is that you?”
“What are you doing?” It was Sage who answered, her voice shrill. She stalked forward and grabbed the thing from the slot and yanked it savagely out. It caught on a splinter or a nail and ripped, curling lengths of knit fabric tumbling down the wall, and Sage yanked even harder and the sound of the tearing echoed in the still morning as the thing came away in her hands and all three of them stared at each other.
Then Valerie sighed, her hands falling useless to her sides. “It’s his favorite shirt, Sage,” she said unhappily. “I was fixing a torn seam for him…please, give it back. I’ll mend it again.”
“He shouldn’t be here,” Sage said, in that same thin, high voice that didn’t sound like her. “He’s not sick.”
But she allowed Valerie to take the shirt. Sammi and Sage watched her shake it out and squint at the damage, a long rip in the underarm, before folding it with care and stuffing it in the bag she carried over her shoulder.
“I brought a few other things for him,” she said quietly. “Some socks. A…book. I’m going to put them through now.”
Sage didn’t stop her this time, and Valerie crouched down again to slide her gifts through the slot. Sammi saw that the book was a Bible, a small one with a flexible blue plastic cover. It made a muffled slapping sound when it hit the floor inside.
Sage knelt down next to her and tried to look through the slot, but all she saw was darkness.
“I was here earlier,” Valerie said softly. “Around midnight. I stayed with him until he fell asleep, Sage.”
Sammi knew that Valerie was trying to comfort them, but she felt guilty. They’d been in their house, drinking tea and warming themselves at the fire, while only Valerie had come here for him. Was that going to be his future, to be forgotten and left alone each night as people found excuses to be elsewhere?
“Did he ask about me?”
Sage kept her face pressed against the house, so she didn’t see the way Valerie pursed her lips, the sadness that came over her expression. But she didn’t answer the question.
“You must not blame Cass,” she said instead. “This could be anyone’s fault. No, I mean, it’s no one’s fault. The blueleaf could have been so young it was hard to detect the signs, or it could have been from the roots they’ve been drying—they’re throwing out the whole batch now—or it could have been from dried flour, even, or beans from last summer.”
But Sammi had stopped listening. “What do you mean, blame Cass? Why would we blame her?”
Valerie’s eyebrows pinched together, making a line between them.
“No, you know something.” Sammi stared at her face, trying to find the answer in her silence. “What happened? Come on, I’m going to find out anyway—you know I will. What did she do?”
“She didn’t do anything, Sammi, other than her job. You know how hard Cass works, she’s out there every day that she isn’t watching the kids, and that’s hard work, bending down between the rows. I mean, I tried it and I couldn’t keep up. It’s hard on your back, and it’s just way too hard to keep staring at the plants and looking for something out of place. It could have happened to any of them—”
“Cass picked the blueleaf? Is that what you’re saying?” A horrible thrill of understanding made Sammi go cold. “But nobody ate it, did they? That couldn’t have made Phillip sick—”
“He isn’t sick,” Sage wailed, crumpled against the house as though she was trying to embrace it.
But Sammi was remembering all the times they’d hung out on North Island, the long lazy afternoons when, if they got hungry, they just ate handfuls of kaysev. They were careful…mostly.
Valerie held up her hands, palms out, as though defending against Sammi’s anger, against Sage’s anguish. Sammi noticed that she had on a blouse with a scalloped collar, like something a nun would wear, something that should have been thrown out twenty years ago. How did she do it, how did Valerie keep finding things to make her look so virginal, so pure, long after everyone else had resigned themselves to dregs and spoils, the Aftertime battle fatigues? She’d smoothed her shiny hair under yet another headband, this one covered with plaid fabric, and somehow that made Sammi all the angrier.
“Why do you always defend her?”
“Who?”
“Cass. Why do you defend Cass? She’s not your friend.”
“Of course she’s my friend,” Valerie said, but the line appeared between her eyebrows again, and Sammi knew that Valerie suspected, deep down, maybe buried so far that she didn’t even know that she knew something was wrong. “I think the world of Cass, she’s overcome so much, and she’s such a great mother to Ruthie and—”
“She’s not your friend. She fucks my dad!”
Sammi hadn’t meant to yell, but the words rang out sharp and clear on the chilly morning. Sammi watched the puff of her breath on the frosty air; it dissipated and was replaced by another and another. Breathe in, breathe out. Everyone kept breathing, kept living, and what was the point? Everyone betrayed everyone else—was that the cost of survival?
Something interesting was happening to Valerie’s face—it was crumpling in on itself, like a pretty tissue-paper flower splashed with water, wilting and fading before her eyes.
“Sammi…”
“She is. They’ve probably been doing it ever since they got here. Hell, probably before that. I saw them. Down on the dock, they were like—like—he had his hands inside her clothes, Valerie. I don’t know how he can even look you in the face every day, but that’s my dad.”
Valerie had a hand to her throat, her narrow fingers twitching against her perfect pale skin, like she was going to faint or something.
And still Sammi couldn’t shut up.
“He left my mom, did you know that? Even before everything got fucked up. He went off to find himself or whatever and just showed up when he felt like it. I hardly ever saw him—” the lie rolled easily from her lips, to Sammi’s surprise; lying shouldn’t be so easy “—and he never even tried to find us after. He had his business, I’m sure he told you about it, right, and that’s all he cared about.”
“No,” Valerie said in a choked voice. “He loves you. He always did. He told me he sent people to check on you, your safety meant everything to him—”
“You know what he sold in the Box, right?” Sammi felt the thrill of forbidden knowledge; she only knew this because she’d heard it from Colton, who overheard it from a couple of the raiders who used to go up to the Box for medicine trades. They’d stay there for a few days and party, and then return to the shelter they were in before coming to New Eden. “Drugs. Booze. Sex. Like, as in prostitutes?”
She spat out the last word, making it as ugly as she could, curling her lips around the syllables—and still there was a little thrill to the revelation. She realized that until now she had been trying not to believe it, trying to explain it away. She’d told Colton to shut the fuck up, that her dad traded food and medicine, that he protected people, helped the ones who needed it. But of course that was a lie. Just another one of her father’s lies.
“Kind of funny,” she said, making her voice as bored as she could. “My dad’s a pimp, and Cass, well, since she’ll fuck anyone, I guess that makes her his whore.”
Valerie’s arm shot out so fast that Sam
mi didn’t have time to duck. The slap was more shocking than painful, hard and stinging and making her head whip around. She bit her lip, and tears stung her eyes. She put her fingertips to her mouth and touched blood.
“Oh my God, Sammi,” Valerie said, horrified. “Oh my god I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean, oh, please—”
But what Sammi felt was victory, a mean and hungry victory, and she bared her teeth in a snarling grin. The hot, stinging impression on her cheek where she’d been struck meant that she had won. “No worries. I’d be pissed too. I mean, you’ve been so nice to my dad. Look at you, in your little skirts and all, and with your sewing, you probably thought you could make a home for you guys, with curtains in the window and a hope chest or whatever, right?”
Valerie made a horrified sound in her throat, a convulsion of shock and grief. Sammi knew she was hurting her, but she’d been hurt so many times and it wasn’t like anyone was very concerned about that, was it? Valerie—with her mended dresses and inspirational quotes and wind chimes—was just pathetic. Sammi was doing her a favor. She’d either deal with this or not; she’d get over her dad or she’d sink like a stone, and then she’d be the one who wasn’t careful when she ate her salad, or who went on the mainland without a weapon, or who walked into the water until it filled her lungs. Whatever. It wasn’t Sammi’s fault.
“I mean, I guess you could still do that,” she muttered. “Get dad to build you a little picket fence. You’ll just have to move Cass in with you, so you guys can share him.”
Valerie had been backing away from her, little stumbling steps, her sneakers too white, as though she’d found bleach and soaked them. But now she turned and ran, weaving and unsteady, heading for the path that led to her place, the sound of her wailing eerie and heartbroken.
“Sammi,” Sage cried. Sammi had almost forgotten she was there, on her knees in the dirt, up against the house. “Sammi, look.”
Jammed through the slot in the side of the house were fingers, the nails torn and bloody, deep gouges in the skin.
Phillip’s fingers.
Chapter 12
CASS WOKE FEELING like teeth were working her head from the inside. Her eyes were gritty and her mouth tasted like the fetid rot in the bottom of a trash can. She staggered out of the bed after checking on Ruthie—a trembling hand pressed to her cheek, feeling the warmth and her daughter’s steady pulse, calmed by the sight of her hair tangled and cascading over the pillow—and down the stairs, skipping the third one from the top, the one that squeaked. It was already getting late, the sun rising in the sky, and people would be up in the house. Cass heard voices from the kitchen and slipped out the back way, the damp cold hitting her like a washcloth dipped in ice water.
She went down to the shore and did her morning routine there. She brushed her teeth twice with the kaysev stub, spitting over and over again into the river. This time, she checked the other shore first, and there were a few of them there already, though they looked sleepy, too, bumping and stumbling into each other as they got as close to the water as they could. They kept up a steady stream of muttering, but it wasn’t the desperate hungry keening that signaled a hunt. Cass tested the air with a damp finger—sure enough, she was downwind. And sheltered by the overhanging willow that was coming back into leaf, they couldn’t see her.
On another morning Cass might watch them for a while, taking in the details of the clothes they’d been wearing since before they turned, of what was left of their hair. It could be a fascinating exercise, looking for clues to who they’d been—a gold watch that still hung on a bony wrist, the remains of a tattoo in the ruin of a bicep, a hank of dreadlocks stringing across a filthy scarred scalp; a T-shirt with a now passé slogan or a skirt with last season’s flared hem.
But today she didn’t care. She just didn’t care anymore. After last night…dear God, the boy had looked so terrified, his skin already getting the sheen. He had to be what…two days in? What had they served two days ago?
It was a useless exercise, since everyone was allowed to visit the pantry freely and help themselves to the snacks the cooking staff left out each day, bowls of greens and pans lined with kaysev “cookies,” the hard little nuggets studded with dried berries and sweetened with the syrup made from cooking the juice crushed from kaysev stalks.
It was just impossible to know, especially since the kids liked to spend their free days on North Island, frequently plucking raw kaysev to avoid coming back and eating at the community table. Cass understood that, remembered how much she’d wanted an identity of her own at that age, how she’d cherished the fleeting moments of freedom when she and her friends could pretend that they never had the homes and parents and lives they were all so desperate to outgrow. She knew the kids stole kaysev wine from the pantry, that they’d learned how to roll their own cigarettes. She even knew where they kept their little weed patch, although she hadn’t been sure it was the kids’ and didn’t feel right turning it under or trying to catch the gardeners in the act. It wasn’t her place to judge—that was for damn sure, especially now.
She thought of the little band of New Eden kids, Phillip and Colton and Kalyan and Shane, all the girls—Kyra and Sage and especially Sammi, oh, Sammi, and the thought of her hit Cass with a fresh assault of dread and fear and guilt. She had to talk to Sammi, had to explain again how they must never, ever eat anything that hadn’t been grown on Garden Island, that hadn’t been checked and rechecked and prepared by the kitchen staff. But how could she get Sammi to listen? What if Cass had had a chance to reach them, warn them, and had squandered it?
What if Phillip was her fault
No, no, she couldn’t do that, wouldn’t do that. It didn’t help. And God, it hurt, it hurt so much to wonder about all the ways she’d failed and people she’d hurt, if she indulged that kind of thinking for even a minute she’d never get up off her knees in the mud at the edge of the river, she’d just sink into it until it covered her over and buried her. And that wasn’t happening, not as long as Ruthie lived.
Cass splashed her face with water and dried it with the cloth she kept in her kit. She squatted to relieve herself, the urine splashing into the brackish edge of the river, and as she watched the Beaters it almost looked like they were trying to copy her, crouching and crab walking at the water’s edge.
Only…they weren’t at the edge of the water. They were in it. Water lapped around their ankles, their shins, soaking the bottom of their pants. Stupid beasts, their shoes would be ruined, waterlogged; the skin of their feet would swell and peel and, if they weren’t Beaters, succumb to rot and gangrene. But because of their wretched immunity they’d keep walking even after the skin had sloughed away and they walked on bone-ends and raw pulped flesh, never knowing and never caring.
Something almost sounded like laughter. They were playing like children, patting at the water with their hands and crowing. There was a commotion as they jostled for position, going farther and farther into the water until it was up to their chests, their underarms. They had to be freezing. A citizen could last ten, maybe fifteen minutes in that water before hypothermia sucked the life from them, but a Beater…they were too stupid to stay out of the cold water. It would serve them right if they fell facedown, dead, in the river.
The water was the only barrier between them and the island, and seeing them breaching it spurred a deep, almost insensible terror. Of course they couldn’t swim, and the wide brown river surged and churned with whirling currents and floating debris and hidden hazards. Cass was perfectly safe on this side, but the dread that accompanied this odd sight was undeniable and complete.
Cass gathered her things. She would tell the others, would find Dana or Shannon or Neal and let them know, as they were supposed to report any Beater sighting and especially any behaviors that were out of the ordinary. They’d know what to do. And Cass was more than happy to let the others handle it.
She was stuffing the cloth back into the little zipped ditty
bag that held her collection of toiletries when a startled squawk reached her ears. She looked back over the water and saw that two Beaters had given a third a shove, pushing it into deeper water, and were watching it flail. Water flew and frothed as it gasped for air and flung its arms out wildly, cheered by its babbling, grinning comrades.
The current began to carry it, slowly spinning, on a lazy ride downstream, and for a terrifying moment it almost seemed as though it was floating toward the island, but of course the river carried its bounty in the center, and only when a log or branch jutted into the water would it get snagged and dragged and deposited on a silty bank. By then it would be drowned, as dead as dead could be, sodden and already starting to decompose, just another bit of Aftertime detritus to be broken down and absorbed back into the earth, no longer a danger to anything.
Cass watched it struggle, beginning to tire, swallowing great gulps of river water. But right before she turned to go, she saw something that made her pause.
The Beater stopped flailing and paddled. For a moment she doubted what she was seeing, but the longer she watched, the more she became sure of it. Its hands stroked the water in front of itself, a sloppy dog paddle, fingers splayed and weak against the current. A moment later it sank beneath the surface, the water quivering and swirling above where it disappeared for a moment before the current smoothed it over.
The Beater was as good as dead.
But before it died, it had started to teach itself to swim.
The kids were all fussy, as though they had sensed Cass’s mood despite her efforts to cover it up. Twyla whimpered and sucked her thumb, a habit Suzanne had been trying to break her of for some time, and which she had given Cass strict instructions to monitor. But today wasn’t the day for it, and Cass let the little girl comfort herself, wiping her tear-streaked face gently.
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