by Diane Cook
“And?”
“They were good.” Their eyes egged her on. “Perfect-looking.” She shook her head. “But not what I remember. Pretty colors but not a lot of flavor. The wild onions here are astounding in comparison.”
People began to shift uncomfortably.
“Well, what else did you see?” said Debra, a bit of an edge in her voice.
“I went into a store that sold kitchenware, and all the pots and pans are so pretty and clean.”
They waited.
“And?”
She thought and they held onto her silence. “Honestly,” she said, drooping, “I saw mostly terrible stuff.”
The Newcomers nodded. The Originalists said, “Different terrible stuff? Or the same terrible stuff as before?”
“The same, but worse.”
She told them there was more debris in the streets. The smog hung low like a fog you walked through. Lines snaked out of every shop. Fights breaking out over something like broccoli.
She said more people were squeezing into the existing buildings because there was no room to build more. “Plus, there’s no more sand for concrete.”
“What?”
Bea shrugged. “Look, I don’t know. That’s just what I heard.”
On her floor of the building, it seemed like each apartment now held several families instead of just one. But even as that was happening, she said, several of the children from the building had died. She looked at Agnes, wet-eyed. Agnes felt a lurch inside as she tried to remember the names of her friends. Glen had remembered them—why couldn’t she? They were dead now. She wasn’t.
Bea said there were many more people who lived on the street, but she didn’t know where they went after curfew.
“Underground,” said Frank, matter-of-factly. Patty’s mom swatted him. “Let her talk,” she snapped. Patty’s mom was drunk on Bea’s information. As though secretly she loved the City and all its flaws.
“Just outside the City limits, there are camps. I think they go there. I don’t know how they get through the checkpoints, though.”
Frank whispered “Underground” out of the side of his mouth, away from his wife.
“The trees, that handful of surviving trees scattered and gated around the City? All dead. Someone bombed them all. Some countercultural group.” The Newcomers nodded again. “Gangs,” mouthed Frank.
“There was violence everywhere instead of in smaller pockets. I was afraid when I was outside. People ring your bell and you can’t answer the door. It’s not safe.” The Newcomers nodded at this too. They seemed to know about it all. Bea had seen the City they left behind. There was not much new she could tell them, but still it seemed they’d hoped for something different.
Bea fell into silence, and everyone, especially the Originalists, looked disappointed. This isn’t what they hoped new stories from the City would be like.
Not that long ago, Agnes remembered, they were telling stories about her mother. They referred to her as the Deserter in the stories. They imagined the many lives she might be leading then. They called them Ballads, and they took some wild turns, as stories do. Some ended with her heading up a new Administration and tearing down the buildings of the City, though they never decided where people would live after that. That wasn’t the job of fire-time stories. Recently, after spending the season in the mountains, Juan had told a Ballad that ended with Bea opening the borders of the Wilderness State so others could come in.
“But,” Patty’s mom had said, “we don’t want that. Do we?”
They looked around the fire and shook their heads. No one wanted more people to come. The Newcomers disliked the idea most of all.
“If you let more people in, soon it’s gonna look like the City,” said Frank.
Linda had picked up the tale then, and Bea was back safely in the City, where she’d found a hovel of rats on the outskirts and was ruler of their gang. She was married and pregnant again, this time with a litter of rats with human hands. She and her rat gang were resisters looking to overthrow the Administration.
“What’s an Administration?” Pinecone had asked. No one answered him.
Agnes hated the stories at first, when her mother’s absence was fresh and hurtful. She blocked out those early stories. As time passed, and she started listening, she would think about adding to the story and realize she had nothing to say. She found it impossible to imagine what her mother was doing in the City. It had to have changed. Her mother certainly had changed. And so it seemed impossible that her mother was actually there.
That’s when Agnes started a new strain of Ballads.
“You know she never made it to the City, don’t you?” Agnes had said one night around the fire.
They were silent for a moment.
Then Debra started to nod her head. “I heard she perished in the Fallow Lands.”
“I heard she was imprisoned and now works the Mines,” said Linda.
The scenarios tumbled out of their mouths.
“She missed greens too much, so she’s gone to work the Greenhouses.”
“She was barred from the City and is hiding in the Refineries.”
“She’s sandbagging along the New Coast.”
“She’s a Meat™ maker.”
“She’s on the Flotilla.”
“She’s in the Private Lands,” Val offered.
Some of the Newcomers oohed at the thought. They thought the Private Lands were real, and Agnes knew that if they’d had a choice, they’d rather be there than the Wilderness.
But Carl said, “Oh, come on, Val. There’s no such thing.”
But if there were such a thing, everyone would feel so betrayed. And Val knew that.
“She’s in the Farmland drinking milk,” said Juan.
They groaned amorously for milk.
“She’s sitting on the hill over there,” Agnes said. “Watching us.”
Deep down, they all thought this was the most believable story.
They crawled into their beds thinking of the Deserter watching over them. Some of them thought her dead, because it was less eerie to imagine her watching over them as a spirit than as a stalker. That was what Agnes wanted. For others to think her mother was dead. She was tired of being the only one who believed it.
Across the fire now, her mother seemed tired, drained. Her shoulders slumped as though conjuring the City had taxed her beyond her powers. “Is there anything else you want to know,” she mumbled, trying to seem engaged. She was trying to impress—Agnes could see that. She was the Newcomer now, or that’s how she might have felt. Agnes imagined she did not like that feeling.
Juan cleared his throat. “Well, so we know the City is terrible.” He looked around and everyone nodded. Some rolled their eyes. Her mother bowed her head, as though embarrassed. She had always been the best storyteller. But this story was proving hard to tell. Juan continued, encouragingly, “But what I want to know is . . .” He paused for effect. “Did you drink any milk?”
The group tittered, bashful. They wanted good memories, not warnings. Her mother laughed, almost delightedly, as though she had found a purpose. And with her face newly animated, said, “Did I drink milk? Did I drink milk!”
Agnes stood and left the fire.
She could hear her mother finally captivating the group. She’d found her stride. The Community oohed and aahed and giggled, and her mother laughed that strange laugh. Her mother must be making everything up now. Or these things were true and it was the bad parts she’d made up. How could such a terrible place make so many people happy like this?
Agnes curled at the bottom of the bed and shivered. Glen was in the cave, sleeping there still. Agnes couldn’t warm the skins herself. It was why a family was nice to have out here.
She stared into the sky, wide-awake for a long while, tracking night fliers above her and the roaming stars. Eventually she heard people retiring to the beds, the talk around the fire subdued to a murmur.
Her mother arrived soundl
essly. She pulled a skin from the top and lay under it, hugging her knees up, keeping her feet away from her daughter.
Agnes huffed.
Her mother murmured, “But why don’t you come up here and sleep where it’s really warm.”
“Because I sleep down here.” She added, “And maybe Glen will come.”
“He won’t,” her mother said, and then her hands were gripping Agnes’s arm and leg, dragging her up to hold her against her stomach. Her mother’s chin dug sharply on the top of her head.
“Did you have fun stalking me all day?” her mother cooed. Agnes squirmed. “You don’t have to watch me all the time,” she said. “I’m not going to leave.”
Agnes went limp like prey. It hadn’t occurred to her that she was keeping tabs on her mother for fear she’d leave. She just didn’t trust her.
“I know you are angry with me. But someday you won’t be.” Her mother spoke calmly, as though hypnotizing her. She stroked Agnes’s new short hair abrasively. And Agnes felt a pang, the memory of a comforting pain, of her mother brushing out the snarls of her childish long hair under the electric lights of their apartment.
“I’m sorry I left,” she said, “but now I’m back. I had my reasons. Okay?” Her mother’s body quickly warmed the bed; then the heat melted Agnes and she curled herself into her mother. She had missed this feeling. She felt as though she’d just put down something heavy that she’d carried for many miles. Her muscles burned as they relaxed.
Agnes felt youngest again. Somewhere in her deepest memory, she recalled that when she felt really sick, but also other times, the only way to feel better was to crawl into her mother’s bed. To learn anything about the world, about life, or about her, Agnes had to nestle alongside her.
Agnes let out a relieved sigh so long it sounded mournful. “Did you really drink a lot of milk?” she asked.
“Sometimes you have to give the people what they want.”
Agnes frowned, and her mother must have felt the frown on her arm because she said, “I drank a little, honey. It’s really too expensive to drink it all the time.”
“Describe it.”
“Cold, creamy. Like cold spring water and animal fat. It coats your whole mouth. And when you’re thirsty, it’s better than water. If it’s cold.”
“I remember.”
“Do you? But do you remember that it tastes bad after you’ve swallowed it? Like a minute later, it’s already old in your mouth. Gross.”
“Was it always like that?”
“I think our tastes have changed. But I can’t tell them that. I don’t want to ruin milk for everyone.”
“But you made them miss it still.”
“It’s better to miss something you can’t have than think there’s nothing worth missing.”
“Then why did you tell me?” Agnes had loved milk.
“Because you can handle it.”
Agnes blushed. She knew this was a compliment. She wormed closer. “What else didn’t you tell them?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
Agnes nodded eagerly.
Her mother told her that there were animals in the City. Not just the rats that had been in some parts but now different types of animals. No one ever saw them because they came out at night, after curfew. But she went outside after curfew and was alone in the empty streets under the towers of steel and glass and stone, and she saw their eyes in alleys, saw them scurry by. Rats, of course, but also raccoons, opossums, snakes, coyotes. Just before curfew lifted, they went back into hiding. She told Agnes that the stars were even better than they were here. Something she’d never known because she’d not been outside after curfew when the lights of the City were cut. But in the middle of the night the smog cleared for her and she saw the dust of galaxies.
“Does that mean we’re going back?” Agnes asked. Perhaps her mother had spent so much time there trying to prepare for their inevitable return. She had never really wanted to be here in the Wilderness. Agnes knew that.
But her mother became stern, scary. “No,” she snapped. “We can never go back.”
“Why?”
“There’s nothing for us there. There’s nothing there for anyone. And more people are seeing that now.”
“Like the Newcomers?”
Her mother made a small grunt acknowledging them. “I’ll bet we’re going to get a lot more Newcomers the longer we are here. But I promise you, whatever happens, we will not return to the City.”
“But what if we have to leave?” Agnes swallowed hard. It was not a possibility she had considered before. But her mother had brought the outside world back with her when she returned. And it was affecting how Agnes saw her future.
“We won’t.”
“But if we have to. Where else would we go?”
Her mother paused, lowered her voice, and said, “I would take us to the Private Lands.”
Agnes waited for her mother to laugh. Her mother hated conspiracy theories, and the story of the Private Lands was the biggest one she knew. Her mother used to say that the Private Lands were what people believed in when they’d lost all hope. She meant it disparagingly. Agnes had heard a lot more about the Private Lands from Jake and the Twins. Their parents, the adult Newcomers, all believed in it. But Jake and the Twins didn’t. They’d been born into this world as it was. They didn’t imagine there could be some secret alternative. Why would there be?
“But,” Agnes ventured, “the Private Lands aren’t real.”
Her mother leaned in and whispered. “That’s what I used to think too. But here’s another thing I didn’t tell them.” She nodded her head to the fire. “They are real. And I know where they are.”
“Where?” Agnes felt like she was talking to a child laying out her make-believe world.
“Near here. You have to cross the Mines panhandle, but then you are there, in one of the corners. Apparently it’s an enormous place.”
“Did you try to go there?” Agnes asked, knowing that she must have. If she’d been gone so long in a place as terrible as the City, it had to be because she was trying to get somewhere that promised to be better.
“No, of course not. I was trying to get back to you.”
“You must have. It’s why you were gone so long.”
“I wasn’t gone that long,” her mother insisted, as though she couldn’t accept the real length of her absence.
“You were gone so long,” cried Agnes.
“Agnes.” Her mother’s tone was a warning.
“Didn’t you miss me?” Agnes blurted from behind her own private wall.
“Of course I missed you.”
Agnes sat bolt upright. “Then how could you?” A thought, one she’d never had before, pressed itself between her eyes like a cold finger. I would have come. Agnes had spent all her time wondering why her mother had left, but she hadn’t thought to wonder why her mother hadn’t grabbed her by the hand as she’d run. Said, Come on, come on, and fled, not from Agnes but with her. Agnes hadn’t thought to include herself in the possibilities of that life because her mother hadn’t thought to. Had she been thinking at all?
Her mother shushed her and pulled her back into her lap. “Come back,” she hissed, and squeezed Agnes hard, possessively. “I love you more than you can understand,” she said. “I would do anything for you.” She growled, “You’re mine,” reclaiming Agnes as a creature that could not exist without her.
Agnes stiffened, withdrew her limbs, her self, and crawled back under the corner of the pelt, curled up. She did not want her mother’s aggressive overtures of love. She wanted her back rubbed, her cheek caressed. She wanted murmurs against her neck. Her hand held lightly. She wanted to not have to ask questions. To be confused. She wanted confessions she didn’t have to demand. She hated her mother’s fierce love. Because fierce love never lasted. Fierce love now meant that later, there would be no love, or at least that’s what it would feel like. Agnes wanted a mild mother, one who seemed to love her exactly
the same every day. She thought, Mild mothers don’t run away.
Her mother did not try to wrestle her back again. Rather, she watched Agnes for a moment before she closed her bright animal eyes.
Agnes hated that her mind would not let her curl back into her mother. Would not let her run to her without a care or worry or resentment. Would not let her forget that cloud of dust her mother had disappeared into. Yet Agnes shivered in her absence still. Would her mother’s whims ever not matter? She fell asleep to the exhalation of her mother’s spent breath, and to the urgency of her own thrumming heart.
* * *
In the morning, Agnes woke up under shadow. The Twins stood between her and the sun, disapproving looks on their faces. Her mother was nowhere.
“Let’s go,” the Twins said in unison.
Agnes stretched out of bed and silently fell in line with them.
“We have decided something,” said Celeste as they reached the edge of camp.
“Yes,” said Patty. “We have decided there’s something really messed up about your mother.”
“You said she was dead,” Celeste said. “How is she not dead?”
“I thought she was dead,” said Agnes.
“Are you a liar?”
“No,” cried Agnes. “I thought she was dead,” she mumbled again.
“Well, are you happy that she’s not?” Patty asked.
Agnes thought about the conversation last night, the way she’d relaxed in her mother’s arms, how one touch could offer comfort and the lack of it could trigger pain. She thought of how cold she had been upon waking up alone. She did not remember such an empty feeling when her mother had been gone for all that time. Agnes had kept herself warm. It was as though she felt her absence most when she was close enough to touch.
Agnes shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know.” She stopped. The Twins stopped. “Would your moms ever leave you?” she asked.
Patty shook her head, and Agnes believed her.