by Cadle, Lou
In a moment, he had moved quietly out the door, and Coral was left staring after him, sniffing the air, trying to figure out what she was smelling. Then it hit her—the scent of aftershave. What a strange thing to take time to do in the new world, to shave and put on cologne.
A farm, he had said? Yeah, right. What was this place really, and who were these people? Like some kind of weird offshoot simple-living Christians, like Amish with a bad attitude?
She leaned to the side and patted her jeans pocket. The knife was still there. While she was alone, and in case she couldn’t keep from surrendering her jeans, she should hide it. Shedding the sleeping bag, she climbed off the cot and dropped to her knees, looking beneath it at the construction of the thing. There was a place down by the foot of it where a bracket attached to metal tubing. She tucked her knife in there, climbed back up, and lay back, dragging the bag back over her.
She wanted to lie there and make an escape plan, but she was bone-tired. The cot was the softest bed she’d felt since Benjamin’s house. Before she could make any plan at all, it lulled her to sleep.
*
“Wake up,” a reedy voice said.
Coral opened her eyes, disoriented at first by the stone walls and wooden roof overhead. Then she remembered: capture, concussion, cabin.
“It’s time to make dinner.” It was the girl Polly.
“Bathroom,” she croaked.
“Brynn says to show you, then to the kitchen with you.” She pointed. “Your boots are by the door. And your coat.”
Coral struggled out of her stupor, sat up, and was relieved to find that she wasn’t dizzy now. She stood, put on her boots and jacket, and waited for the girl to push through the door. Coral followed her.
The girl took her down a long path of trampled snow to an outhouse, an actual wooden structure. “Where’d you get the wood?” Had the cabin had wood flooring? She realized it had. “It’s a lot of wood.”
“We had it,” the girl said. “Hurry. You don’t want to get Brynn mad.”
Coral used the outhouse. There was a stack of brown paper towels for toilet paper, a luxury she hadn’t had for months. The girl led her back and to the biggest of the cabins. Unlike the women’s cabin, this one had an actual door, with hinges, and two windows, shuttered.
Where had they gotten all these supplies? How had they survived the fire and heat? She thumped on the door as she went through it. No scorching, and it felt solid. There was a knob with a keyhole. Surely it had to have been built after the fires. She eased the door back open and looked at the strike plate. It all looked so normal. And normal—the normal of the old world—was bizarre, now.
Inside, there was a dining table with seven seats around it—a couple folding metal chairs, one wooden chair, and the rest wooden crates. There was a narrow folding metal table pushed against one wall. An interior door opposite that Polly pulled open, motioning Coral ahead of her.
Coral walked over, still looking around, keeping an eye out for rifles or other potential weapons. She stepped through the door, saw Brynn working at a counter with another woman, and came to a shocked halt when she saw what was visible in a room, or more of an alcove, behind them. On the far wall, there was a metal desk holding a radio—an old-fashioned shortwave radio, she realized, like she’d seen in old movies, a black boxy microphone attached with to it by a spiral cord.
“Does it work?” she asked, pointing to it. It was modern technology, communication, contact with the outside world. Perhaps she could find out about her home town, and about what happened back in June. The longing to know if her family was all okay returned to her in a rush.
Brynn said, “Never mind that. Get over here and wash these potatoes.”
Another wave of wonder swept over her as she looked to the counter, a normal counter with a normal sink. Actual potatoes were lined up next to the sink—not canned ones, brown potatoes in their skins—laid out in a beautiful row. Twenty or so of them.
“How’d—”
“There’s a pitcher of water right there,” said Brynn. “Use it sparingly. But get ‘em clean. And wash your hands first.” She motioned with her elbow to a bottle on the sink.
Coral stepped forward, noticing the other woman watching her out of the corner of her eye, and looked at the bottle. It was disinfecting hand wash, the kind you rub in and let evaporate. She cleaned her hands and then hefted the pitcher. In the sink was a metal bowl. She poured a couple inches of water in and took a potato, dipped it in, and, seeing no scrub brush, used her fingertips to scrub off the dirt. She was moving in a sort of hypnotic state, she realized, caused by the scene of old normalcy around her.
The other woman—slight, dark-haired, maybe in her thirties—was opening cans of green beans and corn and stirring them into a salad. There was a plastic bottle of salad dressing on the counter, the white mayonnaise-substitute stuff. Brynn was cutting some thin carrots—more fresh veggies!—into chunks and dumping the cut pieces into another metal bowl. A smaller pile of parsnips sat to the side. Polly was taking a stack of plates and walked them through the door, no doubt to set the table.
It all felt surrealistic, dream-like, impossible. Coral washed another potato and set it aside. Soon, the water grew dirty. “Do I dump it down the sink? Like normal?”
“Outside.” said Brynn, and the unnamed woman took the bowl away to dump the water. “And move faster. I’m ready for the potatoes.”
Coral shook her daze off and started washing the potatoes faster after that. As fast as she finished one, Brynn cut it smartly into neat slices, dumped those on top of the cut carrots, and held her hand out for the next. Coral could barely keep up with her through the potatoes and parsnips. When Brynn had filled one bowl with cut vegetables, she efficiently pared the last parsnips, scraped the last of the vegetables into a second bowl and told Coral to follow her outside.
Yet another woman was standing at the barbecue pit. She nodded in greeting at Coral as she moved back. A cast iron pot was on the boil and a smaller, covered one was nestled down into red coals. Brynn dumped her bowl of veggies into the water and held her hand out for Coral’s. Coral handed it over as she made eye contact with the other woman—maybe in her early twenties, petite, with a clean white mask on her face. Coral realized her own bandana had slipped down over her neck, pulled it up over her mouth and nose and said, “I’m Coral.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m Mondra.” Her eyes were pale blue and watery. She was smiling beneath her mask and Coral managed to smile back.
“Come along,” said Brynn, and she handed the bowls to Coral and marched back to the big cabin.
Coral smiled one last time at Mondra and trailed Brynn back. In the kitchen, Brynn put all the paring knives away, pointed at Coral with a frown and said, “Leave them be.”
Coral nodded to indicate that the message was received, but she also made a note of which drawer held the knives. Polly took a double handful of eating utensils out to the main room, and Brynn handed Coral a rag and told her to clean up.
As she wiped the counters, she took every chance to look in the back alcove. The radio was attached by wires to a box which was itself attached by thicker black insulated wires to a stationary bike. It must be set up so that the bike generated electricity and that ran the radio. She’d tell Benjamin about it and ask if he knew how it worked. Could she get in here, pedal the bike, and contact the world?
She glanced at Brynn and thought she’d never be given permission to. But she could sneak in here at night, maybe, and try it. If only she knew how to work it. Or maybe you needed two people—one to pedal and one to talk on the radio, so she’d need Benjamin with her. Where were they keeping him? In another of the small cabins, she supposed, probably shared with men. It’d be hard for both of them to sneak out at the same time. She was afraid they’d both be watched carefully.
Maybe the thing to do was not to run at first opportunity, but to pretend to agree with everything, get along with people, and get them to put their
guard down. Then one night, get to the radio, try to contact people elsewhere, maybe learn about what was happening in Boise, or back east. Then, when they had quit worrying about her, gear up and escape.
How long might it take to lull these people into that lack of suspicion? What would she have to do to pass their tests? She glanced at the other woman, who had left and returned. “Hey. I’m Coral.”
“I know,” said the woman. “I’m Calex’s wife, Joli.”
Okay. Coral decided to be direct. “I don’t think your husband liked me very much.”
The woman said nothing, only stepped to the cabinets and put away a metal canister.
“What were you making?” asked Coral, trying to make her voice friendly.
“Biscuits.”
“You seem to eat well.”
“We were prepared.”
“That’s smart,” said Coral. The other woman didn’t answer again, and Coral gave herself a mental shake. She had to be better at this, at ingratiating herself. Her fear was that she was showing, in her tone or body language, that she did not trust these people, that she wanted to get away from them. She needed to convince them that her friendliness was real, not feigned. And it was smart, or at least fortuitous, that they had stowed away food and supplies: that much, at least, was true.
Coral tried again. “Alva said something about a cave?”
“Did he?” Joli asked.
Coral tried a smile, but the other woman’s expression didn’t get any friendlier. Maybe offering to help would thaw her. “I’m done cleaning up. What do you want me to do next?”
Brynn entered and said, “It will be a bit before we serve dinner, so come with me.”
Coral gave a little wave to the stone-faced Joli and went through the main room again.
Brynn said, “I wanted you in a dress before dinner, but Tithing says to let you keep your pants on under it.” She didn’t sound pleased about it.
“That’s nice of him,” Coral forced herself to say. She followed Brynn back to the cabin, the “sisterhouse,” and walked in on Alva, setting up a third cot.
“That was fast,” said Brynn to him.
“Hadn’t taken them back to the cave yet,” he said, turning to Coral. “Try it out, miss.”
“Coral, please,” she said. This time when she smiled, she received an answering smile. She sat gingerly on the cot and it held her. “It feels great,” she told him.
Brynn pulled the sleeping bag off the other cot and dumped it at the foot of this one. “Now leave us, Alva. We have private things to do.”
“Yes’m,” he said, and he backed out of the door.
Coral took the burlap shift Brynn handed her and slipped it on over her jeans and shirt without protest. She put the sweater and jacket over the dress and walked across the small cabin and back. The skirt would keep her from running, but it’d be easy enough to yank it up and stuff the ends into her jeans, should she need to. She stopped in front of Brynn and held her arms out. “Okay?” she asked.
The woman grimaced, clearly less than pleased at the compromise over clothing. “I’ll be keeping my eye on you. For now, go out to the fire and help Mondra, and don’t get any ideas about running away. Let me know when the potatoes are tender.”
Coral felt she was being released from prison—or at least let out into the prison yard. Not that she’d run without Benjamin, or without any supplies. And to be honest, not that she’d run with fresh food cooking up. If they were willing to feed her, she was willing to eat.
Mondra was leaning against the barbecue pit, probably soaking up the heat seeping through the bricks. She glanced up as Coral walked toward her, and then her eyes slid away to follow Brynn walking into the big cabin. There didn’t seem to be anyone else guarding Coral or making sure she didn’t escape. But why should they bother? The cold and the coming night were guard enough.
She’d try and make friends with Mondra, who seemed the most likely of the women so far to befriend, or at least the only one who’d given her a smile. If she was going to recover the gear and get away, the more she knew about these people and their habits, the better.
“How’s it going?” she said as she approached the woman. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Thank you, no. I’m waiting on the vegetables to get tender, is all.”
Coral leaned into the steam rising from the pot and breathed it in. “Smells good.”
“It’s simple food.”
“Any food is good food these days. I haven’t seen fresh in months.”
“You been hungry a lot since the Reaping?”
The Event, Coral supposed she meant. She’d have to figure out their take on it. “We’ve had fish, and a couple rabbits. We found some canned soup but lost it to stronger people.”
“That’s been the way of the world.”
Coral had to force herself not to give the woman an indignant glare. Didn’t she realize that’s exactly what had happened today, that she and Benjamin had lost their gear to better-armed people? Mondra didn’t seem to see it like that, though. Probably saw her own group as innocent, or justified.
“But it won’t be the way of the world much longer.” She glanced curiously at Coral. “You met Tithing?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m his wife.” There was pride in the statement.
“Really? You look about my age.”
“I’m seventeen. What are you?”
Coral tried to school her expression. Seventeen and married to a—what, a 40-year-old man? “I’m nineteen.”
“You’d be closer in age to me than anyone here. Polly is only twelve. Ellie is twenty-eight.”
“Did you get married after the—” she tried to remember their word for it. “The Reaping?”
“Oh no, we’ve been married for two years.”
Coral glanced away. That was seriously effed up. Married at fifteen to a middle-aged man? “And your mother and father are fine with this?”
“Oh, yes, they’re proud Tithing chose me. They’re at an Oregon farm.”
“Ahh.” Coral knew to leave the child-bride discussion alone for now. “What do they farm?”
Mondra giggled. “Not a farm. The Farm.”
Coral heard the capital letter that time. “I see.” There was some sort of extended metaphor they had going. Farm, Reaping. Something else she’d heard also fit the pattern. What was it?
The girl broke into her attempt to remember. “There’s a meeting day after tomorrow.”
“A community meeting, like a city council? Or you mean like a church service?”
“Churches are corrupt,” she said, her pleasant smile somehow incongruous.
“I suppose many are,” said Coral.
“All,” said the girl with a decisive nod. “But Jesus was seed. A flower. And so was Buddha. Maybe Mohammed, too.”
Coral nodded as if that made perfect sense to her. She reworked it in her mind. So, these were terms they used in their religion, which she had assumed at first was some sect of Christianity. Now she no longer thought so. Think of the terms as having capital letters. Jesus was Seed, but so were they. A Flower. The Farm. The Reaping. She said, doubtful that she was getting it right, “And you’re Seed? A Flower?”
Mondra smiled and shook her head. “No, I’m a Grain. Tithing is a Flower.” She spoke with exaggerated patience, as if to a child.
“Okay,” said Coral. “Tithing said he’d figure out if I was one of the, um, select, was it? That means a Seed?”
“The Chosen,” she said. She looked intently at Coral, leaning forward to study her more closely. “Did he think you are?”
“He said he’d know.”
“He’ll know.” She sounded confident. She took a towel and lifted the lid of the first pot. “Beans tonight,” she said, stirring them.
Coral hoped that she meant they were actual beans and not Beans in some metaphorical sense, like people who had failed Tithing’s tests. They looked like beans at any rate, and much more t
han Mondra looked like a grain. Or a Grain, rather. It was going to take a while to piece together their belief system and memorize all the lingo. “And will I learn more about this at the meeting?”
“Oh, yes,” the girl said with an angelic smile.
“Great.” With any luck, she and Benjamin would be gone before then. “So Alva says you all survived the Reaping in a cave. I was in a cave, too.”
Until the potatoes were cooked, they traded survival stories. Coral found out more useful information. Their cave, less than a mile from here, was on their property and had been stocked with supplies. They were expecting something bad to happen, and they had been entirely prepared. The real estate of the Farm was chosen, in part, for the cave. Sacks of flour, beans, rice, canned food, salt—all were stowed away for the catastrophe they knew was coming. The fresh food was root vegetables from their vast garden, dug after the fire had swept through and the great heat had ended.
And, Coral thought, as she carried the heavy pot of cooked root vegetables into the dining cabin, they had, after all, been right about being prepared for a major disaster. About all this other stuff—Reaping and Flowers and whatnot, entirely wrong, needless to say. She had been worried about getting brainwashed, but she thought she was going to be safe from that danger…unless there was sleep deprivation or some other torture to come that would weaken her, but none of that seemed imminent. On its merits alone, there was nothing about this religion that was going to convince her to convert, no matter how hungry and tired she was. It was clearly loony.
Still, she might have to pretend to convert, so she needed to pay attention and learn all their beliefs as quickly as she could. They entered the main cabin. The heat of the pot was creeping through the towel she had been given and her gloves, starting to burn her, so she hurried inside to set it down on the table next to where Mondra put the bean pot.
She did what Brynn told her to get the meal ready to serve, and then Brynn stepped outside and blew a high-pitched whistle. One by one, the men drifted in. Tithing took the head of the table and the biggest chair. Calex sat to one side of him, and a man whose name she didn’t know to the other. Alva, Pratt, and three others arrayed themselves around the table in what seemed to be regular seats for each. The group included an older black man, and he led Benjamin in. Benjamin didn’t look her way but sat without fuss on a box indicated. She hoped they hadn’t been mistreating him, but what she could see of him looked perfectly fine—physically, at least. The men filled all but two seats. Coral stood with the women, next to Mondra against the far wall, waiting to see what came next.