The Collective

by Lindsey Whitlock

  ELWYN AVOIDED further conversations with his aunt, and he avoided looking her in the eye for too long. He felt like her indifference to the world was a disease, one he was in danger of catching. There was no illness Elwyn would want less; for him, the chief virtues in life were enthusiasm, desire and action. Apathy was death.

  A steely defiance grew day after day inside Elwyn’s chest. Though his brain and schedule were full, as he sat through the long hours of study, he thought about ways to move forward in the life his aunt scorned. He wanted to do more, to throw himself at the things he wanted twice as hard. But he didn’t know how.

  Meanwhile, the longer Elwyn worked with his uncle, the more he began to doubt the plans laid out for him. Timothy’s lessons were all about sitting, reading, following instructions, minding manners, memorising lines. How could such a closed, obedient training lead to the sort of life Elwyn wanted: one with not just riches, but also risk, adventure, good stories?

  Wealth, Elwyn began to think, was not all created equal. Money was like good looks – what you did with it was the important thing. The Blackwells’ money sat as unmoving as the well-preserved furniture that filled the unhappy house. Servants were paid, bread was bought, and nothing looked shabby or ill-kept, but modesty and conservation of resources ruled the day. Maybe this was virtuous, but Elwyn wasn’t so sure. He wanted to go out and enjoy the life he had found himself in. He wanted to have a bit of money in his pocket, to buy an ice cream or a gaudy pocket handkerchief, or even just to wander by the shops and imagine that someday he could have everything inside.

  ‘You’re making excellent progress, Nephew,’ Timothy said one afternoon, looking over the mathematics table Elwyn had completed.

  ‘Yes, I know. And I hope you’ve noticed that I’ve been staying up to do the extra reading you recommended.’

  ‘Indeed I have, and it is very well; diligence and obedience, Elwyn, are the most valuable traits a young man such as yourself can cultivate.’

  But Elwyn brushed this compliment away. ‘So I think you’ll agree that I’ve done well enough to have some free time. Maybe an afternoon or two each week?’

  ‘Free time?’ Timothy said with distaste. ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘To enjoy.’

  Timothy looked blankly at his nephew.

  ‘You know – to explore, meet people, get some fresh air and exercise.’

  ‘Nephew, I know that your upbringing was not one in which intellectual vigour was prized, but I cannot impress upon you enough the danger of idleness,’ he said. ‘Time, like all resources, must be submitted to structure, plans and procedure, or it will ruin you. Just think, for example, of the difference between your people and mine. I’m sure you must know some history? After the Second War, this country’s resources were depleted, the population more than halved. In reaction, Foresters chose to live in idleness, without the structure of government or any other number of natural hierarchies. And what has come from the Foresters? What have their accomplishments been? Nothing. Some people think this has to do with breeding, but they are wrong. It’s about structure. Unlike Foresters, people like you find here in Liberty took the chaos of the world and made order out of it. We erected towns. Built clocks. Split the land into parcels and elected leaders to govern with clarity and fairness. And that is why we have progressed.’

  Elwyn was eager to object, but his uncle continued. ‘And on the subject of governance, I’ve been meaning to speak with you, Nephew.’ Timothy went on to explain that he had a role in country planning commission meetings at the city hall, signing papers, reviewing regulations, and other administrative tasks. He had taken the first few weeks of Elwyn’s stay off to observe him and help him settle in, but he could no longer shirk his duties. Besides, his book proposal was already on its way to his old colleagues at the university press.

  ‘But this time will not be wasted. I have your afternoon’s studies well labelled and in the proper order. I am certain you will honour yourself and our work, and that you won’t fall behind,’ Timothy said. But Elwyn’s mind was already far away. As he spoke with his uncle, new possibilities had crystallised in his mind, while other things had fallen away. He came to the realisation that no matter how long he worked according to his uncle’s plans, he would never succeed in the way he wanted to. He would never succeed because he would be a part of someone else’s vision, not his own.

  Elwyn believed in enthusiasm, and enthusiasm dies if it’s not cultivated. With his aunt’s apathy in the back of his mind, Elwyn decided that he would honour that enthusiasm over the promise he made to his uncle. That afternoon, while his uncle was away, Elwyn would go back to that big white house on the hill. He would go there and convince Rhoad to give him a job.

  After his uncle left, Elwyn sat for a few minutes at the desk to glance over the material left for him. And then, seeing no one outside but a robin, Elwyn opened the library’s little round window. It was thick, built into the hill, and stiff with disuse. He crawled out into the grass and the sound of ticking clocks gave way to the sounds of the summer world: bluebirds, carts rolling on stone streets, women calling to one another, a man whistling as he brushed a horse tied to a post.

  People muttered as Elwyn passed, but Elwyn hardly noticed now. His mind was spinning with exhilaration and with all the words he might say to convince Rhoad to employ him or mentor him. And while he was at it, maybe he would catch a glimpse of that girl again, the girl with the goat.

  Elwyn walked up to Rhoad’s door and pressed the button that rang musical bells. He waited. Then he rang again. He heard shuffling footsteps inside and the same old woman answered the door.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she said.

  ‘I’m Elwyn. I don’t know if you remember me. I brought back the goat a few weeks ago. I’d like a job,’ Elwyn said.

  She shut the door. Elwyn rang the bell again, and the door opened.

  ‘Any job. If you’ll just let me talk to Mr Rhoad about it. I’m a hard worker and can—’

  ‘I have a house to keep and shopping to do. I don’t have time to talk to charity cases that don’t know their place.’

  She shut the door again, but Elwyn was resolute. He rang the doorbell. When no one answered, he rang it again. And then again. That was when he heard dogs barking from the other side of the house. They materialised around the corner and ran towards him, teeth bared. Elwyn ran as fast as he could down the hill and over the river to the town centre, putting as many obstacles between himself and the animals as he could. But the dogs did not let up. Elwyn scrambled up a maple tree and sat for a good while until the dogs finally lost interest and began to trot back home.

  It was only after they left that Elwyn’s muscles relaxed. He looked out through the leaves, noticing for the first time where he was: in one of the few shade trees on the edge of the square, the train station on one side, the grassy city hall on the other, and shops and cobblers and dry-goods stores lining the way between. He could see the clock on the city hall nearing five-thirty, and his uncle stepping out for a break on the front steps with the other committee members, recognisable by their pale faces and over-buttoned clothing. Elwyn realised he wasn’t sure when the meeting would end, and that he needed to get home before his uncle noticed that he was missing.

  The men went back inside, but just as Elwyn was about to slip down the tree, he saw something else. The old woman from the Rhoad house was doing her shopping. A somewhat younger and bulkier woman led a horse with a small covered cart, and the old woman pointed and haggled while the younger woman loaded their things. Presently, the younger woman dropped a bunch of white turnips, and they rolled around the street like balls. The old woman, who Elwyn expected to yell and scold, instead bent down slowly, hand on her back, and helped the young woman pick up the vegetables. Elwyn looked at the clock on the city hall, then back to the women and the horse.

  And then he jumped out of the tree and ran towards them, using the turnip distraction to climb into the cart undetected
and hide himself below bolts of cloth. The basket of vegetables was placed on top of him and the cart began to move forward towards the house on the hill.

  There, buried below cloth and turnips, Elwyn peeked through a crack in the side of the wagon. The sun reflecting off the river was blindingly beautiful, blindingly bright. When they reached the house, the cart was unhitched from the horse and unloaded in the servants’ entrance. This was done slowly, as the groom was busy flirting with the young cook. Elwyn stole away into the house without any trouble. Inside he wandered without direction, trying to avoid being seen, lest the dogs be called again. It was foolhardy, and Elwyn knew it, but he also felt he had luck on his side. And perhaps he did, because not too far into his wanderings, he heard a sound coming from behind a closed door. It was a voice he recognised immediately for its assuredness, and Elwyn went closer, his heart jumping in his chest.

  CHAPTER 13

  Riot

  ‘HESTIA, WHAT DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?’ Rhoad said. ‘I am not running a campaign on merit. Nothing is about merit in this world. It’s about stories. And what sort of story does it tell when the daughter of a candidate for the Chancellorship rolls her eyes behind him while he is giving a speech?’

  ‘I wasn’t rolling my eyes.’

  ‘A photographer was there, Hestia. The one photograph of me addressing the people, on the front of newspapers across the Collective, and what is in the background? My loving family? No. My slightly intoxicated wife and my daughter rolling her eyes.’

  ‘I think Mother looks nice. You can’t tell she’s intoxicated unless you know that she tilts a bit to the left after she’s been drinking.’

  ‘Hestia.’

  ‘What do you want me to say? That I’ll sit behind you with a prim smile and white gloves, gazing adoringly at you, every time there is a camera in the audience?’

  ‘I don’t think you understand what is on the line here. It isn’t just my campaign. It’s the future of the Collective. You want to live in some backward country all your life? Or do you want to be part of moving the world forward?’

  Elwyn thought this was as good a time as any to open the door. Cronus Rhoad looked slightly purple with exasperation, running a hand through neatly combed hair that was coming undone. Hestia stood in the centre of the room, feet planted, jaw set. She looked different than the first time Elwyn saw her. She had seemed sweet with her goat, but now defiance was her crowning trait; she inhabited every inch of herself the way small, strong creatures tend to do, the bees and the hummingbirds. The tips of her fingers, the ends of her hair were alive with an intensity that most people never reached, not even in their marrow.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she said to Elwyn.

  Rhoad now turned, looking calmer, but no more welcoming. ‘Explain yourself,’ he said. ‘Who are you and what business do you have in my house?’

  ‘I’m Elwyn, and—’

  ‘It’s the goat boy. The boy who brought back Willoughby,’ Hestia said curtly. Her eyes, bright as a cat’s and yellow-flecked, were scrutinising him.

  ‘Well, what is he doing here?’ Rhoad said, taking a bracing sip from his drink.

  ‘I’m not a boy. I’m sixteen. And I’m here for a job.’

  Rhoad put a manicured hand to his temple. ‘You come into my private residence, unannounced, uninvited, and ask me to give you a job? Do you have any idea who I am?’

  ‘You’re Cronus Rhoad. I tried the front door, but your… that old woman wouldn’t let me through.’

  ‘Out,’ was Rhoad’s answer, turning his back to Elwyn.

  ‘I can’t—’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘I can’t go until you give me a job,’ Elwyn said.

  ‘Out,’ Rhoad said calmly, but his face was purpling again, and his lean height seeming to stretch taller. Then Hestia turned to the window.

  ‘What is that sound?’ she said. And despite the situation, they all quieted for a moment, because a noise could be heard beyond them, a sound outside the open windows, distant yelling. They went to look out and from their high, hilltop perch they could see the town square below filling with red-hooded figures.

  ‘Hestia, stay here while I find out what’s going on,’ her father said. But Hestia was already out of the room and heading to the front door. Elwyn followed her, something in her drawing him. He felt a dangerous thrill, and instinctively reached into his pocket where he still kept his old sling. He had been taught since birth to always heed that instinct, to never be unprepared.

  ‘Hestia!’ Rhoad called out from the front door. ‘Come back. Get inside.’

  But she was running, and Elwyn started running, too, as they went over the river bridge. He didn’t want to stop her, he just wanted to be there with her, to see what she saw. People from Liberty gathered in the park along the river – near enough to see the protest, far enough to feel safe. There was curiosity in their whispers, but more than that, there was fear, a fear Elwyn didn’t understand.

  It was nearing evening and the sun was getting lower, emblazoning the red of the protesters’ cloaks and masks. There was something thrilling in the sound they made, in the red they wore. Elwyn and Hestia reached the group of protesters that was huddled around the town hall. They heard mutterings that someone inside had closed and bolted the doors. Elwyn caught a glimpse of his uncle behind the curtains in the hall window.

  ‘This is the county seat, not just for the rich, but for all of us. We demand to talk to the people who signed these orders,’ cried a man at the front of the mob. He stood on the steps and lifted his arms, igniting a roar through the crowd. The voice was familiar, but Elwyn didn’t have time to place it. Hestia had disappeared, swallowed up as if by a great red shouting mouth.

  Elwyn followed into a chaos of bumping and shouting that vibrated with life like a nest of field ants. The sound and the smell of the crowd – dew and campfire – filled Elwyn. His adrenalin was high as he pushed his way through, searching. He could hear Hestia’s father’s voice calling her name, just barely audible over the noise. But soon all other sounds were drowned out by the chanting of the crowd: ‘Our lands, our plans! Our lands, our plans!’

  People joined the man at the top of the city hall’s steps. They pushed on the doors, and someone grabbed a large stick and began to bash the windows in. Elwyn couldn’t hear the sound of them breaking, but he could feel it through the ground, like he felt the vibrations of the horses’ hooves nearing in the stones below his feet. Between the jostle of people, Elwyn could see Cronus Rhoad climbing the steps of the city hall. Protesters were ramming the door. Rhoad seemed to be trying to say something, but like everything else, it couldn’t be heard. The rattles and drums and horse sounds of the local militia joined the cacophony just as the doors to the city hall broke. The red people pushed in.

  Elwyn stood on a bench, finally spotting Hestia’s auburn hair in the sea of surging red. But from his perch, he saw something else, too. As the militia closed in, one of the people cloaked in red pulled out a revolver. He raised it above his head and shot it straight into the air, shouting something inaudible. Meanwhile the Hill people in the city hall were dragged out. Timothy was first, tears slicking his pink face as he was forced to stand. Elwyn’s stomach churned.

  The revolver was no longer aimed at the sky. It was aimed at Elwyn’s uncle. And Elwyn, without stopping to think, grabbed a rock and put it into his sling. Within seconds, the stone was flying through the air towards the hand that held the gun, and hit it perfectly. The weapon fired as it dropped. Elwyn could hear a yell and saw Rhoad crumple as the misfired gun lodged a bullet in his foot.

  Hestia ran to her father. Elwyn tried to follow, but between them the militia was beating the protesters. They fled, many with darker red stains on their red clothes. But as they ran, one of them stopped in front of Elwyn; the eyes, barely visible through the holes in the cloak, were wide.

  ‘Elwyn. What are you doing here? Whose side are you on?’

  But a militiaman came towards
them, and the person who spoke to Elwyn vanished into the chaos of the crowd. Elwyn was kicked in the head – by who, he never saw – and collapsed on the ground. As he fell, it was the sound of the man’s voice that echoed in his head, a voice as familiar as it was unplaceable in the mayhem that surrounded him.

  CHAPTER 14

  Aelred Doesn’t Come Home

  THE NIGHT WAS BALMY AND MOONLESS. A strong wind rocked the tops of the trees as the fireflies blinked and the crickets made their music. Whim was worried.

  Sleep wasn’t in Badfish Creek that night. When the wind paused, Whim could hear the stirring of people, quiet talk, rustling bedclothes. But it wasn’t just the sounds. Sleeplessness could be felt in the quality of the air, thick as steam.

  The wind picked up and it became harder to hear anything over the dark, waving branches. The fat-leaved oaks were the loudest of all, with their thickly knotted arms. A chill went up Whim’s spine, and at first she didn’t see the men and women that began to appear in the darkness, black figures in the black night. They were so quiet against the wind, she feared for a moment that they were ghosts.

  ‘Allun!’ she said, running to the first figure she recognised. He gave a half smile, but he didn’t look happy. ‘What happened? I thought you all would be home hours ago.’

  ‘Ran into some trouble,’ Allun said, uncharacteristically taciturn.

  ‘Where’s my father?’ Whim said. As she got closer, she could see that half of Allun’s face was puffy, a dirty cut from his cheekbone to his nose. Whim blanched at the sight. ‘What happened? Where’s my father?’ she repeated.

  ‘Allun!’ Posy ran towards them, her hair tied up in curl-rags, trying to pull on boots as she ran. She cried when she reached him; tears rolled down Allun’s face, too.

  More protesters filtered in, filling the clearing where they usually gathered for fires. Their clothes were dirty, their legs dragging. Some were bloody, some had bruises darkening from yellow to purple on their exposed skin. Whim was frozen in place. It was as if she were a child, lost.