by Trish Mercer
After dinner the guide took Perrin to his office to talk while the rest of the family helped Mrs. Gleace clean up after the meal.
“Mahrree, can I interest you in taking home the rest of this chicken?” Mrs. Gleace said as she scraped the remaining meat and bones into a dish.
“I don’t want to take your leftovers, Mrs. Gleace—” Mahrree began, not wanting to deprive the Gleaces of an easy meal later.
“She won’t mind,” Jaytsy said, eyeing the guide’s wife. “She and Guide Gleace never ate any of it.”
Peto, who had been bringing dishes to the sink, spun around with accusation in his eyes.
“No, we didn’t,” Mrs. Gleace admitted. “And young Mr. Peto, once again you’re looking for that ‘catch’ because you think this may be part of some conspiracy. Oh, my poor boy. The world really has turned you inside out, hasn’t it? Our Hopeful Duck is still a bit wet.”
“So why didn’t you eat the chicken?” he asked as if interrogating the world’s sneakiest thief.
But Mrs. Gleace only chuckled sweetly. “Because, Peto, Hew and I don’t eat meat. Of any kind.”
Deck blinked at her. “Wait—your husband’s a rancher, and you don’t eat meat?”
“We haven’t for many decades now.”
“But he’s a rancher!”
“Yes, he loves cattle. He loves their shape, their innocence, their stubbornness, their plodding ways, even their eyes. Hew was a rancher because he wanted to make sure cattle are born well, live well, and die well.”
“I don’t get it,” Deck said, with the blankest expression Mahrree had ever seen. She had to agree. She didn’t get it.
“We love animals,” Mrs. Gleace explained. “We feel they are part of the Creator’s creations, and they are living their lives here just as we are. If we can avoid killing them just to feed us, we do. Not everyone in Salem refuses to eat meat,” she said when she saw the worry growing in their faces. “Only about a third of us live this way. But it’s a decision we’re happy with. You may eat meat as long as you wish. But if ever you choose not to, we can give you all kinds of alternative recipes.”
That wasn’t what was alarming Mahrree, though. “Did we offend you? By causing you to cook chicken and serve it to us?”
“Of course not,” Mrs. Gleace assured her. “That’s your way, and we wanted you to feel comfortable. I understand those two roosters weren’t happy with the direction of their lives anyway, and willingly met our neighbor’s chop block.”
When this didn’t garner the laughter she thought it would, she added, “Perhaps that was a bit too dark. Are you offended that we didn’t eat it?”
“No . . .” Mahrree said, not entirely sure.
“Then it all balances,” Mrs. Gleace said kindly. “Everything in Salem balances!”
Deck still was trying to catch up. “But there’s an old bull sleeping in the field attached to your house.”
“Ernst,” Mrs. Gleace said. “Hew’s favorite bull.”
“Named Ernst?”
“Yes, well, to each his own. Ernst doesn’t particularly like anyone but Hew. He’s going to have a hard time when Ernst finally goes. He’s on his fifteenth year, now—”
“But . . . but Guide Gleace has been delivering calves!”
“Yes, he wants to make sure they and the cows do well. He loves them. He raises them, helps other ranchers, and makes sure that the oldest ones that die naturally become the best leathers.”
Deck sat down hard on a chair. “And that’s all right? That he prefers they aren’t butchered? But that . . . they live happily?”
Peto winced at his brother-in-law who was the absolute picture of disbelief and astonishment.
But Mrs. Gleace saw something else.
She knelt in front of Deck and said, “You love them too, don’t you? You’ve worried over your expecting cows, and have cradled your new calves, and I’m guessing you even shed a tear or two over butchering a young bull.”
Deck’s face was wretched when he whispered. “I was told that meant I was soft.”
“And you think being soft is a bad thing?” Mrs. Gleace whispered back. “Oh, no. Softness is vital. Softness is life. The Creator Himself is soft, Deckett Briter. No greater compliment could be given to you.”
His chin trembled as he said, “But I also love steak!”
“As long as you didn’t know its name, though?”
“Yes!”
She chuckled as his complete misery. “My poor Deckett. I know, oh, how I know! You remind me so much of Hew when he was younger. I’ll tell him the two of you need to chat some time, to help you figure out where your mind really wants to be. It’s true that Hew had many head of cattle for years, but in the past forty years he never butchered any of them. He can teach you to be a rancher like he was. I think you’re going to love being a Salemite, Mr. Briter!”
Jaytsy watched her husband, her head cocked in surprise. “You want all the cattle to live?”
Deck shrugged glumly. “My cattle,” he murmured.
Jaytsy sighed. “You are the sweetest man I’ve ever known!”
“Oh, brother,” Peto grumbled. “End of weekly steaks, I can tell that already. Father will be thrilled when he hears this.”
Already pursing her lips, Mahrree said, “Ooh, I don’t think Perrin’s ready to be a non-meat eater. Maybe we’ll tell him about this another time. That’s not what Guide Gleace wanted to talk to Perrin alone about, is it?”
Mrs. Gleace’s merry expression turned solemn. “No, it’s not,” she said with more weight than Mahrree expected. “No.”
The finality of her word startled everyone into silence, and before Mahrree could wonder what was going on in Guide Gleace’s little office, Mrs. Gleace had already shifted and said, “So, how about I explain a bit more about our life here as we do the dishes?”
Peto, who was sure he knew all about Mrs. Gleace by now, said, “Smooth transition to a new topic.”
“Yes, I thought so. Now, every week people bring what they have available to the storehouse nearest them,” she plowed on in her new direction, dragging everyone with her. “Perhaps it’s something they make, like baskets, or something they grow, like produce. Maybe it’s their time and a skill, such as roof repair. Physical items are kept in the storehouse. Obviously some things can’t be kept there, though. If someone has a colt to give, he keeps it in his field until someone retrieves it. Or people create vouchers to offer a trade. Hew’s received many vouchers for calving, but I have no need of a baby tender. So he brings most of the vouchers to the storehouse and whoever needs the service can claim it.”
Mahrree could read the confusion in Peto’s eyes. “In Edge Guide Gleace would be receiving pay, but then he would turn around and hand it over to Rector Yung for him to distribute as he saw fit.”
Peto scoffed. “No one in Edge would willingly do that.”
“How do you know if someone needs something?” Jaytsy asked. “Or if someone’s trying to steal?”
“Our rectors have many duties here,” Mrs. Gleace told her. “Twice a year the rectors evaluate each family in their congregation, more often if situations change, and help decide what the family needs. Amounts of food, clothing, tools, and so on. No one wants to take more than they need. But I imagine some of the wealthy in the world would find our standards more meager than they’re used to.”
“Not me,” Mahrree assured her. “My pantry was packed!”
“Good. Rectors can always be asked to reevaluate a need. A baby born, a child getting married, an elderly parent moving in—of course you’re going to need something more, or less.”
“Sounds time-consuming,” Peto said.
“Not really. The rectors know their families well. They feel promptings from the Creator for them too. Quite often a rector will arrive at a family’s home before they even call for him, because he just knew. In ten minutes the need is evaluated, and within an hour the item has been retrieved and is in the home.”
Peto bobbed his head
.
Mrs. Gleace was on to him, too. “Think about this, Peto: last year we had a family lose their house to a fire. But within one week the members of their congregation came together to build them a new house and furnish it completely. Some of their neighbors who had been away for two weeks visiting grandparents in the north returned home to discover a new house in place of their friends’ old one. They didn’t even notice the difference until the next day! Now, would the villagers in Edge be able to do something like that?”
“We did a bit during the land tremor,” Mahrree said. “But in light of the way people behaved not too long ago to the refugees from Moorland? No, not anymore. Maybe they help only when they’ve experienced the tragedy themselves.”
“Or they think no one will help them unless they help others,” Deck suggested.
“In Salem no one suffers alone,” Mrs. Gleace said. “No one finds themselves in need for more than a day. We lift each other’s burdens, and it’s really quite easy work when we do it together. I can’t imagine the loneliness of the world you lived in. I heard there are people in Idumea who live in the streets? What a horrible existence. That would never happen in Salem.”
Mahrree knew that Guide Gleace received a great deal of insight about their family from the Creator, but now she was convinced that the Creator was nudging Mrs. Gleace just as much. She had looked straight at Peto when she said those words, as if she knew what had bothered him about Idumea several years ago.
“I remember seeing some of those people,” Peto said. “Remember that one man outside of the garrison?” he said to his mother and sister. “Wearing that ragged clothing going through the trash heaps looking for food?”
Jaytsy and Mahrree both nodded.
“We were the only ones who noticed him,” he told Mrs. Gleace. “No one else cared. And even then, we didn’t do anything for him,” he added quietly. “But people here do, I guess.”
“Making sure that no one lives like that—wouldn’t you agree that’s worth sacrificing a little competition for?” Mrs. Gleace asked.
Peto nodded as he stared at his hands.
Mahrree marveled. Mrs. Gleace knew her son almost better than she did.
“So,” Peto began, “the guide enforces this law of Salem?”
Mrs. Gleace looked up to the ceiling, almost in despair. “No, Peto. You poor child! No one at the top forces his way on those of us at the bottom. It’s the people who have chosen to live this way. This kind of generosity and equality can’t be mandated. All who live in Salem have chosen to live this way, and it is they, not my husband, who impose it. Oh, we’ve occasionally had some who’ve tried to live among us like wolves in sheep’s clothing ready to fleece our flocks, but in Salem the sheep won’t put up with it! They take that wolf to task, and if he won’t reform, they send him on his way to dissenter villages.”
“So if people here try to cheat, or steal—” Peto began.
“—they don’t eat,” Mrs. Gleace said simply. “They can’t claim anything from the storehouses. Occasionally we’ve had some lazy ones try to steal from others, but they’re always caught. Thieves here are rather sloppy and fortunately not well-versed in the ways of the world. They get to fix their errors and try again, and most accept the quiet offer from their rector to avoid being publicly embarrassed. The few who refuse are publicly declared as thieves, and everyone keeps an uncomfortably close eye on them. That shame almost always pushes them to doing the right thing. Occasionally someone will leave us to go thieving in the dissenter colonies, instead.”
Sensing there was more to that, because Mrs. Gleace no longer met Peto’s eyes, he prodded, “And what happens to them there?”
Mrs. Gleace swallowed. “The dissenters are far less forgiving than we are, and much more possessive. Anyone who steals from the dissenters either loses an appendage or is executed.”
Peto winced. “Pretty good deterrents, I suppose.”
“Faced with that overreaction as the only other alternative,” Mrs. Gleace said, “the vast majority of our people see that laboring for four hours a day isn’t such a bad swap for food on the table and a house to live in.”
“That’s a lot better deal than they’d get in the world,” Jaytsy said.
“That’s what we try to remind them, that we left the world for a better—and even easier—life. Our first ancestors ran to Salem with little else but the clothing on their back. They had lost their homes and even family members. They arrived broken and frightened. Only by clinging to each other could they heal each other. Think about it—how did your family come to Salem?”
Mahrree knew. “With only the clothing on our backs.”
“Exactly. Just as our ancestors came here, and running from a pursuing army, too. So how do you feel about this community now that you can see what we can provide for you?”
Mahrree could barely manage saying, “As if I have a family who would do anything to help me.”
“And aren’t we all family? This was the way our ancestors lived for the first six years until Guide Hierum was killed. The men who organized Idumea are the same who destroyed all the Creator established. Even though they had sat at His feet and learned from Him, the lure of possessing it all was too great a temptation for them.” Mrs. Gleace paused and looked at Mahrree. “This has frequently been on your mind, hasn’t it?”
Mahrree only could nod. So often she’d thought about Guide Hierum, wondering about the life of their First Families. But some years ago she’d given up hoping for a similar existence.
She shouldn’t have.
“It’s all right, Mahrree,” Mrs. Gleace said kindly, as if reading her mind.
Her next words convince Mahrree that not only was the Creator nudging Mrs. Gleace, but whispering directly into her ear.
“Finally, Mahrree, you get to live what you’ve wondered about. Your heart is ready for this, I can feel it.
“Now,” she said, rummaging around in a large crate on the floor, “many people have been paying us for Hew’s assistance in calving, but we’ve been passing most of it right on to our rector. However, this,” and she grunted as she pulled something bulky and heavy from the crate, “I held on to because I thought perhaps you’d appreciate them, Mahrree. I’ve got a whole garden out back, so I don’t need them.” She set the rectangular clay pot on the table, with tender but ambitious green stems and leaves jutting up from it. “When a neighbor brought these by yesterday I thought, Who could use a dozen herb starts for her own garden?”
No one fully understood Mahrree’s sudden weepiness, but Perrin did when he made her window boxes for her herbs two days later.
By the time they sat with Mrs. Gleace on her back porch that evening to share stories and listen for the first crickets, Mahrree wondered how it was they ever survived so long in Edge.
Chapter 15--“What I don’t have is
someone like you, Perrin.”