The Collective

by Lindsey Whitlock

  ‘There are many reasons I spend time here,’ Piety said archly, pouring them both tea and blowing on hers.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to thank you again,’ Elwyn said, ‘for letting me come here. For all your letters. They meant a lot to me growing up. Even when you stopped writing, I still read the old ones over and over. I kept them all. They made me believe in myself, believe I could be more than what I saw around me.’

  Piety’s mouth tightened into a sour smirk. She took a small sip of tea that was too hot and burnt. ‘Do you know when I started writing to you?’

  ‘When I was four.’

  ‘I had come to your town. Taken the train, walked from the station. Your grandfather had died – your mother’s father and mine. He had been a taciturn man, unkind to his animals and cold to his family. He disowned Mirth when she married a Forester, and I hadn’t been in contact with him for years. For a while, I regretted that. I went to see him in his last days. I wanted to tell Mirth he was sick, but he held a grudge against her even on his deathbed. After he died, I went to tell your mother about his passing. I wasn’t looking forward to it, and not just because I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news – I knew that for someone like her, not being invited to her father’s funeral would be unforgivable. But I went anyway.’

  Piety chuckled sardonically. ‘The trip was worse than I imagined. Mirth’s life had become so limited, and it was hard for me to see at a time when I felt so much was possible. But there, surrounded by kids playing in the dirt was you: a four-year-old boy in a largely illiterate community, reading a book.’

  Elwyn enjoyed stories like this. He smiled. ‘I like reading.’

  ‘It reminded me of myself. I had been a young girl who loved learning who lived in a home where learning wasn’t valued. I used books to claw my way out of the life I was born into. And back then, when I first saw you, I was proud of what I had done. I thought I had achieved something. I went to university. I married a wealthy, intelligent man. I had a child. But in time I would find that the world I had fought my way into was empty.’

  The smile on Elwyn’s face began to fade.

  ‘Timothy wanted you to come here. He wanted to work on this project with you, help you move up in the world with the hope that it would help him. But I want you to know that I was against it, Elwyn.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Elwyn said. The sandwich became sandy in his mouth, and it was hard to swallow.

  The tea had cooled enough for Piety to take a larger sip. Her eyes again looked sharp above the rim of the cup. ‘This,’ she said, nodding to the room around her, ‘is worth nothing. Don’t waste your youth striving for a hollow prize.’

  ‘I want more than this, too,’ Elwyn said. He spoke almost urgently, wanting his aunt to understand. ‘I want a house like Cronus Rhoad’s, and life with adventure and travel—’

  ‘You misunderstand me, Elwyn. It all is empty,’ Piety said, setting her cup down in her saucer. And Elwyn tried to take another bite, but the bread stuck to the top of his mouth. ‘You were better off where you were. Timothy wanted you here. I think we’re all better off left alone.’

  CHAPTER 10

  Rally!

  WHIM DIDN’T WRITE to Elwyn about the relocation notices. Nor that her father’s suspicions had been confirmed. She wanted to believe that this was out of respect for Mirth, that Elwyn’s mother should be the one to tell him the news. But in the chaos that followed the arrival of the notices, Whim hadn’t spoken to Mirth, nor had she sought her out. She knew deep down that her silence towards Elwyn was less to do with his mother and more to do with the fact that she feared he’d be indifferent. Not indifferent to her, but what was much worse – indifferent to the things Whim believed were the most important: love of a place, a people.

  Elwyn, though, continued to write. A week after the relocation notices, another letter arrived. It didn’t mention Aunt Piety, her advice or Elwyn’s frustrations; it wasn’t his habit to dwell on things that were dark – at least not out loud. Instead the letter was much like the last, focusing on things Elwyn hoped for, as bright and insubstantial as the light he described in the Rhoad family’s summer home. It wasn’t until the end that he addressed Whim’s concerns about her father:

  I hope things are better with your dad. I hope it’s not too hard on you. And I hope that one of these days you change your mind and come join me here!

  Whim had a drawer where she kept Elwyn’s letters, tenderly folded. But this one she tore in two, threw into the cooking fire, and watched for the seconds it took to burn.

  Outside her kitchen window, Badfish Creek moved like a disturbed anthill. The notices had been written in a confusing legal language. They cited a law that gave county overseers the right to seize land if its use was proven to be a danger to the Collective. Only two parts of the notices were written clearly: the threat of a forcible removal for any people who remained and the modest sum of money promised for a hasty departure.

  The sum was small even by Badfishian standards, but money was money. It was easy to see who was going to take it. Rugs were being aired, linens washed, utensils scoured before being packed. The sunny rocks and branches of trees were billowing with blankets, bedspreads and curtains that would be whipped and stretched rid of wrinkles before being folded into chests and carried onto carts.

  Whim didn’t resent these families – the Brambles among them. There was too much going on to bother with resentment; she and her father were working doubly hard to get things laid by in the distillery while at the same time preparing a protest. The days were hot and the tasks were many, but everything was done in collaboration. It had been an exhilarating week.

  That night, as the bats swooped and the fireflies lingered over tall grasses across the creek, people came to the Moone kitchen like moths to candle glow. Most of the men who sold their labour in the Hill fields were still gone – late June was the time for weeding and haymowing – but the room still quickly filled, some people having travelled many miles to get there after hearing the news.

  Old Finchy sat in the corner, a wreath of smoke over her head. Her mouth was pursed tightly around the pipe’s lip. Whim set out cups and a kettle of tea while she watched the old woman. The sight of Finchy there concerned Whim. She wondered when Finchy would break her silence and start scolding them all, calling them troublemakers. Not that it really mattered. What mattered was that her father had been right. Whim wouldn’t doubt him again. Or herself.

  She took a seat. People weren’t talking much, which was unusual. They filled their cups and stood or sat and turned to look at Aelred, who was at the front of the room, raising his hands for attention.

  ‘I’m glad you all have come. Tomorrow is the day. The day we rally. The day we face the men who stand against us,’ Aelred said. As he spoke, a hush settled over the room. The oil lamp and candle shadows played on his face, and the fire reflected in his eyes. ‘We’ll cloak ourselves in red, march through Liberty to the town hall, and demand to know where the money is coming from, who is behind this. We will make our rights known.’

  ‘Some of us have weapons, Aelred. We’ll bring everything we have.’ A voice from a darker side of the room spoke. It was Elwyn’s brother Dewey, hands in fists.

  ‘None of us will be armed. If we are seen as violent, they will have every excuse to use violence against us. If it’s brute force against brute force, we will lose.’

  ‘And you, Dewey Bramble, will be bringing nothing at all. You are too young to go.’ The large figure of Mirth Bramble stepped through the open door, wiping her shoes aggressively on the rug before she entered. ‘Aelred, what do you think you are doing? There are children here, and you’re asking them to risk their necks for your ideas.’

  ‘Not for my ideas. For our home, Mirth,’ Aelred countered.

  ‘Home or no home, we have to protect our children.’

  ‘We have to protect our home for our children. The same thing happened in the town in the south. Some people left. Those that
stayed behind were forced off. And when the land was empty, the houses flattened, what do you think they did? Within weeks, the earth had been hacked into mines.’

  ‘I’m not an idiot, Aelred. I’ve read your pamphlets. But I’ve read other things, too. I’ve read accounts of the Second War. Children as young as twelve brought onto the battlefields. Fighting for causes that adults invented. That’s why those under twenty aren’t allowed in militias any more, aren’t allowed in battles. There were fields covered with young bodies, Aelred.’

  ‘This is a protest, Mirth. It isn’t a battle.’

  ‘It isn’t their battle,’ she said.

  Whim waited for her father to respond, but Aelred was quiet, looking at Mirth who stood immovably on the other side of the room.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what it is,’ Dewey said. ‘I turned twenty last week.’

  ‘I know your age well enough, Dewey,’ Mirth said. ‘I’ve known you longer than you have known yourself. And I know you are hot-tempered and not at all ready for the things you think you are.’

  ‘You don’t know what I am ready for,’ Dewey said.

  ‘Oh, yes I do.’

  Aelred raised his hand and the argument stopped, if just for a moment. Mirth’s eyes were still on Dewey, challenging him to speak again.

  ‘What goes on in your own household, Mirth, I will leave to you. But you are right. We would be fools not to learn from our past. I can promise that no one under twenty will be coming with us.’

  There was a small murmur in the crowd, but few of the people there were young enough to be affected. It was Whim who felt this announcement deeply. She made a sound like she had been punctured. All the air left her.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll talk later, little Whim,’ he said gently. But the rest of the night, while logistics were laid out, disguises were planned and old songs were sung, Whim’s mind was stuck. Since the relocation notices had come, Whim and her father had been step-in-step, handing out flyers, sending word out to nearby communities. Despite the tragedy of it, the pain at the thought of losing everything, something had been kindled in her.

  Finchy didn’t speak. She had fallen asleep in her chair, and Whim had to wake her when the meeting was over. Finchy slapped her instinctively, like she always did when someone woke her. ‘Good, peppery reflexes’ is what she called it. ‘Troublesome girl,’ Finchy muttered on her way out, not apologising. People left slowly. The candles had burned low. The honeyed smell of wax permeated the small stone house, mixed with the smell of smoke as one by one the candles were extinguished. The cups were washed and left out.

  ‘Should I dry these tonight and put them away?’ Aelred said.

  ‘I will put them away tomorrow,’ Whim said. She had meant it sincerely, not unkindly, but the frustration in her heart came through.

  ‘Mirth was right, little Whim. It’s for the best.’

  Whim blew out the last candle. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t look at her father. She went to bed. Moonlight filled her room and so did the sound of the breeze, the gentle blinking lights of fireflies outside the window. She regretted burning Elwyn’s letter. Thinking of it now, it was just the brightness of his voice she heard. She could almost smell him, a smell like warm skin and acorn shells.

  Whim sighed and turned over in bed, moonlight on her pillow. Lying there, Whim made a decision. Tomorrow, she would put the dishes away, like she had said. And then she would put on cloak and hood. She would follow the ralliers, stand with them. And if everything went the way she hoped, she would find her way to Elwyn. She would tell him face-to-face what was happening. She would bring him home.

  CHAPTER 11

  At the Station

  IT WAS EARLY MORNING in late June when Whim saw the protesters off. The purple-pink haze was just inching into daylight as the Badfishians’ singing voices faded to stillness. Those who stayed behind shook their heads from the windows and doorways, early-rising children’s faces appearing smeared with honey. The protesters would march singing to Kegonsa and hop a train with the money they’d pooled to bribe a conductor to stow them in a freight car. They would don hoods and cloaks dyed red and walk in unison from the train station to the city hall in Liberty.

  The hoods and cloaks were made from old sheets and tablecloths collected from houses around town and sewn by Aelred. Through the madder-dye, Whim could see specks of stains. She hastily folded her own protest garb into a cloth sack along with an envelope that had the Blackwells’ address, then she slipped out into the woods. At first she went at her usual steady pace, but once she was out of sight of the town, she ran. She sped through the heavy underbrush of the woods she knew so well, that she could navigate as easily as any road. The course lay before her clearly: she would stay near enough to hear the sound of their singing, she would change her clothes, she would jump the train.

  But as she neared the station, the wild raspberries – all well picked-over by children – grew thick and thorny. She stopped to wrap the cloak around herself in shadows and then fought her way through the thicket and into the open town. She pulled her red hood down over her face as she slipped into the crowd and watched her father, still hoodless, stand on a crate, his fiddle under his chin.

  It was the final song. As the protesters sang it, clouds drew in from the west, the train came in. March Wilder walked up from Badfish Creek in his hand-pulled wagon to pick up the mail.

  March went respectfully around the protesters, who were feeling energised and rowdy. He got the mail from the conductor and was pleasant and polite as usual. No one seemed to pay the postman any attention; their minds were too full of themselves. But just as March was leaving the station, some of the protesters at the back – Whim couldn’t identify them with their hoods on – saw March and called out to him. They taunted, asked him why he wasn’t coming along, knowing that he and his wife Janie were taking the money and leaving. Whim looked to her father, but Aelred was busy directing people into the freight car.

  March acted like he didn’t hear, just walked away at his usual steady pace. The men shouted after him, called him a traitor and a coward. And again, March ignored them. So they went after him. The men began to push March a little. They snatched the sack of mail. Whim looked again to her father. He was talking to the conductor, making gestures to explain how everyone would fit into the freight car.

  ‘Come on, now,’ March said, a bit of worry in his usually even-toned voice.

  ‘Stop it,’ Whim said, approaching. ‘Leave him alone.’

  They barely glanced at her. One of the men dumped all the mail onto the road. March bent to pick it up and the man looked like he was going to push him to the ground.

  ‘Stop!’ Whim yelled again.

  ‘You young gentlemen were about to pick up Mr Wilder’s things before joining us on the train, isn’t that right?’ Aelred said, appearing beside her. After a moment’s hesitation, the men did, stooping to the ground and collecting the scattered pieces. As March collected himself, Whim moved towards the crowd, hoping her father hadn’t recognised her. But she felt a firm and gentle hand on her shoulder. She stopped. ‘Little Whim.’

  She turned to her father. She knew he was going to tell her to go home. Whim felt tears building in her eyes, tears of frustration.

  ‘Don’t think I am sending you back because I doubt your courage or your moral compass,’ her father said. ‘No one could doubt that. But you need to understand. History is full of the old generations sending the young to fight their battles. You don’t need to carry this. It isn’t your time.’

  He looked at her, grieved. Defiance drained from her.

  Aelred guided the rest of the protesters into the freight car, which was packed tightly with their red-clothed bodies, and Whim turned and walked back through the woods, grey and green below the heavy sky.

  Not wanting to see anyone, Whim didn’t follow the forest path. Instead she walked through the trees and the heavy brush, branches snagging on her re
d cloak. She was lost in thought when she heard a loud voice call her name.

  ‘Whim.’ Mirth walked toward her, heavy legs in heavy boots that crushed the spiny raspberries. ‘Have you seen Dewey?’ Her face was red with exertion or anger.

  ‘Dewey?’ Whim said.

  ‘Stupid boy. He’ll cause trouble, you know. If he’s gone with those…’ Her voice trailed off, as if taking in Whim’s appearance for the first time; her cloak and hood. Mirth’s face flashed for a moment with understanding, with pity. ‘You wanted to join them?’

  Whim didn’t know how to answer. She would not lie. She stood still and waited.

  ‘Whim, I have been meaning to speak to you.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I hope it’s not too late. Seeing Dewey last night made it clear to me. I’ve raised foolhardy children. They need to be protected from themselves,’ Mirth said. Whim looked at her cautiously. ‘Whim, promise you won’t tell Elwyn about the relocation. If he knows, if he catches a whiff of this, he won’t stay there. He’ll throw his whole life away. He’s smart but reckless, my boy. If he can just stick the course, he might actually make something of himself.’ Her strong voice wavered as she spoke and the wrinkles between her eyebrows were deep. Worry made Mirth old.

  Whim hardly remembered her own mother, but one image stayed with her through the years. Whim was five and had fallen from some high place, landing on her chin. There was a gash and a lot of blood. She ran to her mother. And her mother talked gently while she dressed the wound, using warm water and soft cloth. All the while, she had those same wrinkles between her eyes. The scar on Whim’s chin remained.

  Whim opened her mouth, then closed it again. She didn’t know how to answer.

  CHAPTER 12

  Destiny