Drought (5 page)

“She has passed,” Mother says. She lifts the eyedropper.

I set the broom on the floor, slow, not wanting any clatter to attract Darwin’s attention. His face is flushed red—the man is angry, I imagine, at losing his cruel game.

“Fine. She passed.” Darwin steps so close to Mother, her skirt touches his boots. I step forward to help Ellie, but she motions me away.

The drop of Water dangles over Ellie’s open mouth.

But Darwin’s arm snakes out. He knock’s Mother hand and the drop of Water goes flying.

“No!” someone shouts from the Congregation.

Never waste the Water. Every single drop is meant to be drunk—or delivered. Darwin is breaking his own rule.

I look for the mark: where did the Water land? Everyone is craning their necks to see. Someone points at a dot on the floor. Darwin treated the Water like it was garbage—something only fit for washing the floor. I suppose he doesn’t mind wasting Water, not if he can spend it with cruelty—he has plenty more in the cisterns.

“Psych,” Darwin says.

I don’t know what psych means. But I think it’s certain that Ellie will not get Communion today. She will probably never get it again. I slide an arm around her shoulders. She does not refuse me this time.

“Another drop for her?” Mother asks through tight lips, though we all know the answer.

“I think not. This one is done for good.” Darwin folds his arms and shakes his head, the smile stretching his lips wide as he fixes his eyes on Ellie.

Ellie lets out a shuddering breath. Her time is nearly gone, then. We will have only days to say good-bye.

“But she passed,” I burst out.

“Ruby.” Mother’s single word is an order I know well: Silence, Ruby. Let well enough alone.

A small smile flickers on Darwin’s lips, and he stares at me. “You think I’m unfair, don’t you, little Toad?”

“I … No.” I shake my head and stare at his feet. My mouth is dry with fear now, too dry to form any more foolish words.

“It’s sunrise,” the new Overseer says.

Darwin is squinting at the new Overseer as if he’s never seen him before. Then he gestures to Mother without taking his eyes off the new Overseer. “Wrap it up, High Priestess Toad,” he barks.

Mother sets the dropper on the altar, careful to make sure it doesn’t roll off, and recaps the bottle. Then she gestures with both hands, palms toward the ceiling. “Please rise for our final prayer.”

The old oak benches creak as the Congregation pushes to their feet. I speak our special prayer with everyone else, even though I feel doubt. If Otto loved us so much, if he were truly divine, wouldn’t he have come back to save us a long time ago?

Otto, our savior
We seek thy deliverance
Take us from our pain
And show us to heaven
Where Water flows freely
And we live in thy presence
Amen
.

Darwin stares straight ahead as we recite the prayer. He does not join us, nor do any of the Overseers. I wonder if they pray to anybody, and if they think their god loves what they do to us.

Chapter 5

The days get hotter and the woods yield less and less water. Darwin’s hand grows heavier. There are more days when he beats us than not.

I’m more careful healing Mother, now. But even so, it took two buckets of murky lake water to ease her wounds tonight. Now she breathes easier, and everyone has left us. It is time for my nightly trip to the cisterns.

It is a hot, still night—barely better than the day. The air is cooler than the cabin, at least. There could be an Overseer waiting, even though we’ve never seen one in the woods at night. I walk toe to heel, toe to heel, like Mother taught me. I keep my feet on the dusty road, away from branches, barely making a scuff or crackle on the road to the clearing.

Mother’s warnings of Overseers terrified me when I was smaller.

“Always be careful,” she reminded me every night. “Always expect them to be there.”

To still the fear, back then, I pretended I was nothing more than a mouse rustling through the weeds. If an Overseer happened to be out at night, all he would see is a little brown mouse creeping to its nest. I wasn’t a girl. I wasn’t even big enough to trap and eat.

Now I pray silently to Otto—and listen like a deer tiptoeing past a wolf.

It’s dark out tonight, barely any moon to see by. But my feet know the path well, and I do not stumble once. When I reach the cisterns, I pat my skirt to make sure the sharp stone is still tucked there—yes, an edge threatening to poke through the threadbare fabric. Then I climb the ladder to the top of the cistern we’ve been filling these last weeks.

A breeze comes from somewhere—sent by Otto, maybe. It catches at my hair and swirls the curls around my face. I pause to push it behind my ears. Why didn’t I think to bring a piece of twine or some hairpins with me? Mother would say I’m still a child who needs minding.

I screw open the valve and peer inside, even though I know I won’t see anything in the dark—unless it’s nearly full to the brim. There’s only darkness. I roll back my left sleeve—the arm I haven’t already cut for Mother tonight—and hold my arm over the opening. My skin is smooth, even though I’ve cut it in this place hundreds, maybe thousands of time. My body heals just as fast as the Water heals everyone else.

Mother cried the night when the last drop of my father’s blood fell from the last glass vial. She collapsed onto the cistern in a kind of desperate embrace, not worrying for once about how loud she was or who might hear us. The empty vial slipped from her fingers and fell onto the grass without a sound. I picked it up and tucked it into my skirts.

Now the vial sits with the other three, four nestled in the little box beneath Mother’s bed. Empty all, Otto’s promises used up.

I held my arm up high when she descended the ladder that night. “Let me do it,” I said.

We’d never talked about what would happen when his blood was gone. But she didn’t argue. Instead, she took my hand in hers, turning it so she could see the tender underside of my arm, my veins a faint blue trace in the moonlight. “There’s no other way for us to live,” she said. “And live we must, if we wait for Otto.”

I have visited the cisterns every night since.

One quick slash of the stone and my blood is flowing free. I let it drip into the cistern—one, two, three … ten drops altogether.

Back when Mother added Otto’s blood, she counted to three and stopped. But mine’s likely not as strong as his since I am half from Mother. Besides, I’ve got lots more to give.

Mother always whispered a prayer, so I do too. “Deliver us, Otto.”

Does he hear me? Does he see me, pouring the blood he gave me into our captor’s cisterns?

“Why don’t you come?” I say, too loud, and warning fear makes my skin tingle.

Of course there is no answer—he never answers me, not in my mind, not in the wind or the birds singing in the trees. When I talk to Otto, I feel like I am throwing a pebble off a vast mountain. I have thrown enough of those pebbles to have made my own mountain.

I’ve added enough blood to the cistern now. I press my hand to the cut.

It barely stings tonight, probably because I’m more tired than usual. I peel away my hand to peek at it; it still looks wet, so I press my hand back on the wound. The wind pulls at my hair again, and this time I toss my head to push it away. The movement makes me tip to the side, and I make a quick grab at the cisterns.

My hands echo on the near-empty cistern, like a clap of thunder.

Then an even louder sound—a crack of sticks, only a few feet away, perhaps by the next cistern. This is a sound I’ve never heard here before.

I freeze, waiting for another sound, any sound, to tell me what’s waiting at the bottom of the ladder. Let it be a fox, or a bear. Yes, it’s probably an animal, driven by the drought to find water farther from home, closer to people.

Any animal will be kinder to me than an Overseer.

“Who’s there?” a man’s voice says in the darkness.

Cold fear sweeps over me. I squeeze my eyes shut, like a child, praying he won’t see me if I can’t see him. If I stay still enough, maybe he won’t even think to look above his head. Maybe he’ll go away, and I’ll be able to slip back to our cabin.

There’s rustling below me now, and another stick cracks underfoot. This man, whoever he is, knows less about creeping around the woods than I do.

“Hello?” he asks.

He doesn’t sound cruel. He sounds a little afraid, maybe. And he sounds uncertain—nothing like an Overseer. Maybe he’s a stranger. Maybe he’s someone who could help, even. Might someone slip into our woods at night, someone who doesn’t belong?

I could get us help. For a second, hope surges in me. My foot aches to step down the ladder, five quick steps, and beg for this man to save us, to do what Otto hasn’t.

But Mother’s warnings stop me. Otto will save. Strangers won’t help us. They didn’t help us when Darwin turned the town against Otto, and Mother. They didn’t help when the Congregants had to flee. And they won’t help now either.

There’s a loud squawk below, one that pushes new dread through my body. I know that sound. This is no stranger.

“You out there, boy?” It’s Darwin’s voice, on one of the talk boxes that the Overseers wear on their belts. They can speak to each other without even being within eyesight.

How close is he now? Dread makes my limbs feel heavy. Can I even stay standing up here? Or will I fall backward, heavier than a stone, and lie on the ground waiting for discovery?

The man near me speaks. “I’m at the cisterns, like you told me to.”

“Any sign of the little thieves?” Darwin asks.

Silence, for a moment. I lean over the cistern and dare to look down. Should I run? Or pray he hasn’t seen me?

A pair of eyes meet mine, looking up from below. It’s the new Overseer. I am frozen with fear. But a slow, wondering smile settles onto his face.

“It’s you,” he says.

“Don’t tell,” I whisper, both a prayer to Otto and a plea to this man who can hurt or save me.

He lifts the talk box to his mouth. “All’s quiet,” he says. “No sign of anybody.”

Relief rushes through me so fast, so hard, that my body trembles. I can barely keep hold of the ladder.

Darwin answers fast on the talk box. “You keep an eye out. Find out how those Toads are stealing from me.”

“You got it.” The man below me disappears, but I hear him coming closer, and I sense him at the bottom of the ladder. I run one finger over my arm—healed, though streaked in brown—and pull my sleeve over the place where I cut myself. My hand still shakes.

Then I descend, slowly, my mind racing with plans for escape. Halfway down he shocks me—he puts both of his hands on my waist. They feel warm and wide, but gentle.

I let him lift me down and turn me around to face him. When he takes his hands off my waist, it feels strangely cold.

“There you go,” he says.

I can’t see his eyes, but I see some of the drawings on his right arm, twisting from shoulder to wrist. There’s the glint of an animal’s eye, and flames reaching over his forearm. I imagine tracing each one with the tip of my finger, lightly, trying to feel where the colors blend.

“I’ll never come back,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

Then I lunge, try to get past him.

“Wait … please,” he says.

The word stops me. An Overseer never says please, especially to a Congregant. That is a word we use to pray to Otto, or to beg Darwin for mercy.

He could have grabbed me, or whipped his chain at me. But he
asked
.

“Don’t go yet. I just … I just want to talk for a little bit,” he says.

“My mother …,” I start, but I can’t make any other words come out. My breath is too short.

“Darwin hit her pretty hard today.” He folds his arms. Even though it’s dark, I can feel his look, steady.

He wants me to say something, I know it. But there’s no use complaining to an Overseer. I only stare at the ground.

“It makes me sick. I want to stop him but …” He trails off.

I look back up; now he is staring at the ground too. He shakes his head, not raising his chin. “I’m sorry.”

“Only Otto can stop him,” I whisper.

But I don’t know if he hears me, because he turns away and walks to the grass under the cistern we’ve been standing next to. He sits in the softest, lushest grass beneath the belly of the cistern and pats the ground. “Maybe—maybe you could stay? Just for a minute.”

“No, I can’t.” I wrap my arms around my sides.

“I won’t touch you,” he says softly. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

Only a fool wouldn’t be worried about that. Mother has warned me about what men want to do to girls. And this man belongs to Darwin West. Every part of me wants to run—except a small, dangerous part, a part that wants to know why he lied to Darwin for me. He’s more Congregant than Overseer. Or maybe he’s something I’ve never known before.

Things have been the same here for hundreds of years. He’s something different, maybe something safe, even.

I keep my eyes on him and edge a little closer to where he sits. But I stay standing.

He doesn’t coax me closer, only watches. “Darwin posted me as the guard for the night. Nobody else is coming.”

Be ready to run, I remind my legs. You can leave at any moment.

“I’m Ford,” he says. “And you’re Ruby. I heard your mother say it, the other day.”

He called me Ruby. He knows my name. It’s not
“little Toad”
or
“girl.”
I’m a person to him.

Slowly, slowly, I settle into the grass. Still I’m far enough away to run, if I need to. But I’m close enough to hear his soft breathing. I brush my fingers over the tops of the soft grass, softer than the bed that I should be sleeping in right now. It’s cool, and a little damp.

“Ford,” I repeat, liking how the short, strong word sounds. It’s not modern; it’s something that fits in my old, simple world.

“How old are you?” he asks.

I don’t answer him. Maybe he’s strangely kind for an Overseer; gentle, even. But I won’t give him my secrets.

“You’re seventeen, I bet. I’ll be nineteen in September,” Ford says. “Am I right? Seventeen?”

“Nearly.” I push down the hysterical bubble of laughter that wells inside me.

“I’ve lived in Hoosick Falls my whole life and I’ve never seen you. You go to school near here?”

All my schooling has been what Mother and the others have taught me in winter nights, or in stolen moments in the shade. I shake my head.

“You’re homeschooled, then,” he says.

Longing fills me. School is one of the hundreds of things I’ve dreamed of, but never had.

“Tell me about school,” I say.

“My school? It’s not too big. Maybe fifty kids in class. You get pretty sick of each other.” He lets out a short laugh. “But nobody leaves, not even after they graduate. Including me.

“I’m just like the rest of the guys here,” Ford says, his voice heavier now.

His troubles are nothing close to mine. But he helped Ellie at Services, and he didn’t tell Darwin I was here. I owe him something small, I think. “You’re kinder than the others,” I say.

“I’m nothing special.” His voice is low and bitter. “All I do is watch.”

“But tonight … you didn’t tell Darwin I was here.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did that,” he says.

“Thank you,” I tell him, looking over. The shadows make the lines of his face even stronger, outlining the jut of his chin and nose.

“Don’t. I don’t deserve that,” his voice cracks.

“Maybe you’re right,” I say.

He’ll hurt me now, I know it. I brace my legs to spring, to run, to duck. But he doesn’t move at all … and I don’t either.

We’re quiet for a while. The backs of my legs feel wet from the damp seeping through my skirts. I swing my legs under me, even though it will make it harder to leave fast.

“You have a hobby?” he asks me.

“What’s a hobby?”

“You know. Something you do for fun,” he explains.

“There’s not much room for fun here,” I say.

“There must be something.” His voice is soft. Part of me knows I’m never safe with him. But part of me wants to tell him things.

“I like to sing.” I think of our songs to Otto, drifting over the tops of trees.

“You don’t want to hear me sing.” He laughs. “I’m more of a fix-it kind of guy.”

“What do you fix?”

“Anything with an engine. Cars, trucks … I’ve been giving my mom’s car oil changes since I was twelve.”

“Do you fix things here?”

He lets out a sound that’s more of a bark than a laugh. “I’m just a guy with the gun, around here.”

“And the chain,” I say softly.

“I hate it. I hate all of it.” He turns so he’s facing me, full on.

And I turn too, so we are looking straight at each other, though still far away.

“It used to be there was nothing I couldn’t fix,” Ford says. “But now …”

“But now?” I prompt him.

“My mom’s sick, real sick. The kind of sick you can’t fix.”

I think of the buckets I poured over Mother tonight. What would I do to help her, if I didn’t have that? “That … That must be hard.”

“And this place …” Ford makes a loud sniff. Then he swipes his arm over his face, fast.