He’d emptied the
vat first. The rotted, sweet smell was so pungent that he’d left
the press house while the liquid gurgled out of it into the old
metal drains below and from there to the reed beds that lined the
roads.
Porkchop had taken
the children far into the orchard and he could see them sitting in
a circle on the ground surrounded by the trees. Weeks ago, the
children had picked the last of the pearl apples, named for the
lustrous pink-silver-white flesh that lurked inside the small, red
fruit. The bare limbs of the squat, gnarled trees stood stark
against the grey sky.
When the vat was
empty, he’d covered his uniform with his canvass coat and tied a
kerchief around his nose and mouth. He lowered the rope ladder into
the vat and climbed down. Her bloated body was slippery and he had
some trouble picking her up at first, but eventually he crouched
down and was able to slide her up and over his shoulders. He stood
and carefully climbed back up. He balanced her at the waist over
the top of the vat, climbed out and went to get the cart. He gently
laid their mother in the back and covered her with a blanket.
Porkchop saw him do it, turned and told her siblings to stay put
then started towards him.
"Ma wouldn’t want
to be buried here," she said, coming up to him. "She hated it
here."
By law the
Constable was supposed to bury her in the county site in Battery
but he felt a responsibility.
"I’ll find a nice
spot," he told her. "I’ll be back in a few days."
He climbed into
the front seat and heeyapped at Josephine. Midway between the
orchard and Battery, the Constable stopped and took out a shovel.
He dug a grave in the shade of a silver maple and buried their
mother.
The other task had
been to remove the children from the land. None of them had reached
the age — Porkchop still had more than a year before she turned —
and the Landlord had no legal responsibility to them.
"I don’t want them
in my camps," he’d said. "Take them to Andrastyne." He’d handed the
Constable a piece of paper with a name and address on it. "He can
find places for them."
The Constable had
nodded but he also knew the law. It all rested on Pater. He'd come
prepared with a cloth bag of trinkets that lay at his feet below
the front seat of the mule cart.
Movement down the
road caught his eye. A scrap of blue curtain in the front window
swayed back in place. He heeyapped at Josephine and brought her to
a halt in front of the ramshackle house. He knocked on the door and
when a voice barked on the other side he very slowly and carefully
opened it.
___
PC Pierre returned
to the orchard three nights later. He found the children inside,
eating their supper. He laid a hand on the shoulders of the two
children nearest him: Forest and Jelly. He drew Porkchop
outside.
"You can’t stay
here, now that...now that there are no adults," he told her.
Deloran County Law
was clear about orphaned children, PC Pierre explained. Decades
ago, there had been so many of them — left behind when their
infected parents died — that the authorities had passed the law to
keep them from overrunning the streets. Unless someone agreed to
take the orphans or the owner of the land agreed to let them stay
on, children under the age of twenty automatically became wards of
the state and were sent to forestry camps, orchards and farms
across the county. Most were already used to hard work and, other
than the cost of a little food, they were cheap labour. Many of
them died in the camps or ran away and died in the forest.
Porkchop looked
down at her feet. She dreaded what the Constable would say next.
There’s so many of us, she thought. We have to stay together.
"But," the
Constable continued, "your grandfather said he’d take you."
"Grandfather?"
"Pater, that's
your grandfather. He knew that your Pa and all of you were
here."
"But Pa never said
anything."
"He didn't know.
Pater asked me not to tell him. Told me it wasn’t my place." PC
Pierre looked briefly at his own feet. "He's a bit, well he can be
a bit difficult. But he has about ten acres of farmland. There’ll
be plenty of room for all of you. And who knows? You’ll be twenty
in less than two years. Maybe the Landlord will take the family
back on here."
Porkchop doubted
that.
The Constable
stayed the night so that they could get an early start the next
day. When he woke up the next morning the children were already
packed and ready to go. Nine rucksacks of varying sizes sat in a
neat line by the press house door.
After breakfast
the Constable fed and watered Josephine and harnessed her to the
cart. Porkchop, with Bull and Jones, did a final inspection of the
buildings, making sure that everything was in its place. Santa
washed the dishes, passing them to the others, who dried them and
put them back onto the kitchen shelves. Mixer sat in front of the
open press house door, smacking his fist on the ground over and
over.
The sun was almost
up when they left.
They bumped slowly
along the potholed roads. Most were gravel and dirt, but some still
had a coating of black tar in places, broken off at the road sides.
They said very little. Porkchop and Titania sat up front with the
Constable, the younger ones in the back. Bull, Forest and Jones
walked alongside the cart.
Jelly sat on her
pack watching as the road slowly wound out beneath her. Her pack
contained her medicine box, seeds, some small garden tools, a few
pieces of clothing, and the two books that Pa had given her.
Left from the
orchard. Right at Farrow Road. Straight for about an hour. Left at
fork. Right at intersection.
Along the way she
spotted anything with writing on it, repeating the words over and
over in her mind. She recognized some old road signs, the kind that
Pa used to bring home sometimes. Rectangles and octagons and
triangles. Some of the triangles still had faded tinges of yellow
paint on them and the outline of three black wedges in the
middle.
Narrow was also
silently memorizing the route. They were heading west. He would
update his maps as soon as he got the chance.
Santa sat with her
legs stretched out in a V, Mixer nestled between them. He looked
miserable. At the start of the journey he had drawn a handful of
dirt from his pocket and flung it on the bottom of the cart in
front of him. He drew his fingers through it, over and over again.
Santa began to hum a tuneless tune and soon Mixer fell asleep.
Josephine took an
easy pace. The children had never been away from the orchard and
were quiet as they studied their slowly passing surroundings. PC
Pierre would occasionally interject with stories.
"Part of this area
was carved out by rocks that were hurled after the explosion," the
Constable said to Porkchop who sat next to him.
From the back of
the cart Narrow asked, "What explosion?"
"Well, the
history's not clear. From what I've been able to piece together
from the records there was some kind of upheaval or explosion, a
few hundred years ago. Some records say it could have been an
earthquake or a meteor." He anticipated Narrow's next question. "A
meteor's a big hunk of rock that flies around with the stars in
space." Narrow looked up into the sky. "You've seen a shooting
star, right? That's a meteor."
He explained that
whatever the cause, the ground had heaved so badly that it split
apart many mountains, shooting boulders in every direction.
"I'm pretty sure
that's how Honey Hill got to look the way it does," he said. "I'll
show you when we get a little closer."
The Constable
steered Josephine along the route that hugged Spoon Valley rather
than go through Battery and risk the Landlord seeing the
children.
"This is Spoon
Valley — "
"Is it true that
it's shaped like a soup spoon?" Narrow called from the back of the
cart. "Pa told us that."
"He was
right."
They stopped on
the road and ate a cold supper after which Bull, Forest and Jones
clambered into the wagon with the rest of their brothers and
sisters. All the children were now asleep, crammed up against one
another in the small cart; he took the blanket from under his seat
and laid it across the younger ones.
The evening was
clear and bright with stars. In the woods along the roadsides the
Constable caught a glimpse of glow moss. He didn't see it much
anymore but every now and then a patch would pop up. It looked like
ordinary water moss during the day, the kind some farmers used to
retain moisture in the soil, but at night it would glow, a bright
white light at first that would fade as the night progressed. He
noticed that the glow was beginning to fade and urged Josephine
onward.
"Just make it to
the cabin, Josie. It's just a little further," he said quietly.
He had planned on
breaking the trip into three legs but Forest had told him that the
weather would turn sharply colder overnight. PC Pierre decided it
was best to get as close to the farm as possible tonight. Josephine
didn't do well in the cold.
It was morning but
still dark and the north wind had picked up when he steered
Josephine into the yard at the cabin. He woke up Porkchop.
"I'm sorry,
there's not much room. I'll sleep in the shed with Josephine. You
take the cabin. We'll get to the farm tomorrow."
Porkchop woke her
siblings and they shuffled inside. It was smaller than any building
they'd ever been in; even the orchard shed was bigger. Porkchop
insisted that they all eat, after which the Constable left to bed
down with Josephine in the shed. The cabin had only one bed, which
Porkchop gave to Titania, Santa and Mixer. The rest of them slept
on straw mats on the floor. Porkchop took a spot close to the
fireplace and kept it smouldering for warmth through the night.
They all slept in,
except for Josephine who'd been awake for hours, pacing around her
stall, looking at the sleeping Constable, then out the window, then
back at him. Finally, she'd had enough, walked over to him and
flapped her lips in his ear; he woke with a start, his hand rising
automatically to wipe off the spit.
It was cold and
they could see their breath as they started on the final leg of
their journey. Josephine was tired and annoyed at the cold and
slowed her already slow pace.
Eventually the
road turned a corner and, in the distance, Honey Hill came into
view.
"Is that it?"
asked Narrow, pointing. Porkchop had chosen to walk that morning
beside the cart and Narrow had hopped into her empty spot.
The Constable
nodded. "Yep. That's Honey Hill. Now, the interesting thing about
the hill is — "
"How come it's
called Honey Hill? Are there bees?"
"Honeysuckle. But
yes, there's plenty of bees."
Narrow expected
the Constable to continue but when he didn't he prompted him.
"So...?"
"Oh so...why Honey
Hill looks that way? See how there's a flat part on the left?
That's the plateau." The Constable put the reins between his knees
and gestured with both hands. "And then the cliff top? You can
climb that but it's pretty steep. That's not natural. A boulder
smashed into it. Took out the whole side."
"How do you
know?"
"Remember what I
told you yesterday about the explosion? It rocked the ground so
badly that things started to shake apart, crack open. Whole
mountains got pounded into dust. Honey Hill must have been in the
way of a stray boulder. There are lots of big stones in the Valley.
They had to have come from somewhere."
"I wonder what it
was like."
The Constable
smiled. "Probably pretty loud." Narrow laughed.
It was late
afternoon when the children finally clambered down from the mule
cart. Their tired eyes followed the Constable’s pointed finger down
the road to where it opened up into a large bowl shape.
A small wooden
house stood, leaned more like, at the bottom of it. Its roof and
sides were patched with a hodgepodge of corrugated aluminum and
yellowed plastic siding. Wisps of smoke escaped from a skinny metal
chimney that poked out of the roof. The front porch, furnished with
a wooden folding chair and an oak stump with an axe embedded in it,
sagged in the middle. To the right of the house was a path that led
into woods; to its far left was an enormous barn, its boards
weather-stained a greyish purple. In front of the house was a
dilapidated stone well; part of its rounded wall had fallen in. At
the back, its outer roof edge just barely visible was the
outhouse.
"It’s getting late
and I need to get back to Battery," PC Pierre explained to
Porkchop. The last pay day of the year for the local lumbermen was
in four days and that meant that the Piggy Gristle would be full.
That usually meant trouble.
He blew his
whistle three times.
"He’s expecting
you."
"Thank you," said
Porkchop.
"If the snows
don't come too early, I’ll check in when I come by this way
again."
He heeyapped at
Josephine who turned and started back up the road, her hips swaying
with the movement of the cart, leaving the children standing by a
muddy ditch filled with brewers’ blooms and fuggetaboutits. They
hoisted their packs over their shoulders and began the trek down
the road.
Porkchop led the
way, then Santa who carried Mixer in the sling, followed by
Titania, Forest, Narrow, Bull, and Jelly and Jones, who walked
beside each other.
Porkchop was a
plain young woman, tall with long legs and a short waist. She was
bosomy, like her mother, but no one would have known it by the
plaid flannel shirts she wore. She looked more like a lumberman in
her canvass pants and black leather lace-up boots.