When Will glanced my way, I felt a telltale illicit shiver, and wondered at my own odd behavior. Yes, I was lonely; yes, I missed Luis. But was it so easy for me to respond to another man’s looks, his light and casual touches? If it was, what worrying thing did it say about my character?
“The food’s good,” Will said, steering me with one hand on my shoulder blade toward the line of people forming near a buffet. “We all take our turns in the kitchen, but thankfully, most people are better at it than I am. I can chop a mean carrot, but seasoning’s best left up to the experts.”
The food was, indeed, fresh and colorful, and it smelled delicious, from the vegetables and crisp breads to the thin slices of meats. I took a modest-sized plate and followed Will to a long wooden table, with the others. As I sat down, I asked, “Do you raise your own animals, too?”
“Some,” Becca said, and nodded down at the slices of pork on her plate. “We’ve got some pigs, some sheep, chickens and some cows, but the chickens are for eggs, and the cows are mostly for milk. Horses, too, but not for eating, obviously.”
“Rabbits,” Desmond put in, mumbling around a mouthful of green vegetables I didn’t recognize. “Love them rabbits.”
“I hate to see them on the dinner list.” Aiyana sighed. “They’re so beautiful.”
“Aiyana’s vegetarian,” Will said, and passed her some bread. She had only greens and potatoes on her plate, I realized, and blushed a little as Will pointed it out. “She’d starve rather than kill a chicken.”
“That’s only because she doesn’t have to clean up after them,” Karl said. He had a distinct European accent, though I wasn’t sure if it came of German origin, or another neighboring country. “Right, Aiyana?”
She blushed further, and looked down at her plate. “I like the fields,” she said. “It’s peaceful.”
I cleared my throat and said, “Do we get a choice of what to do?”
“Not at first,” Will said. “You’ll rotate around, find what you’re good at doing. I work with the animals, and sometimes in the fields; I also do the doctoring, when it’s needed. Becca teaches the kids, but she does real good with cows, so she gets up early for the milking before class.”
Cows. I shook my head, wondering what I’d expected from this—certainly not this homespun rustic conversation about milking cows and cleaning up after chickens. Pearl’s followers were fanatics, and they were dangerous.
Yet they didn’t feel dangerous at all.
I accepted a glass of cloudy yellow liquid someone said was lemonade, and turned the topic to something else. “I don’t see the children in here. Do they have their own place to eat?”
“Oh, they eat earlier,” Becca said. “Great kids, very gifted, you know. We make sure they get to bed early; they get tired out from their days, poor things.”
I glanced around at the others, who were all eating. “Are any of them yours?” I asked. Will almost choked on his lemonade before he burst out with a laugh. Desmond pounded him on the back as he coughed.
“Definitely not,” Karl said, and grinned before he bit off a big chunk of his bread. “None of us, anyway. There are a few at the other tables whose kids qualified for the program.”
I—or Laura—blinked in wide-eyed confusion. “Are most of them orphans?”
My new friends looked at one another, and for the first time, I saw a slight hesitation ripple through them. Eventually, Aiyana said, “Most of them are. And the rest weren’t in good situations, you understand. They really were in danger. We’re saving their lives.”
Desmond followed that by saying, in a darkly determined way, “We’re not going to let anybody hurt them. Not again.”
That fit with what I’d understood—that Pearl had indoctrinated her followers to believe that the Warden children were abused, and in horrible danger of being killed by the very organization that should have been protecting them. It wasn’t true, but it was a powerful message, and there was just enough truth in it to give the lie a believable flavor.
The others murmured support for that sentiment. Will was looking right at me as he did so, and I nodded, making sure that my gaze held his. “I don’t like seeing kids hurt,” I said. “Especially the young ones. Somebody needs to protect them.”
That was all true; what they would not realize, I hoped, was that I would be protecting these young ones from
them
. At least, I planned to try.
Will seemed to suspect none of that. I felt no change in his warm regard of me. He finally scooped up a bite of pork and ate without further comment.
I spotted Oriana a few moments later, sitting with another group and talking animatedly, as if she’d woken from her earlier dull, almost drugged state. She seemed as happy as the others now.
It was difficult for me not to feel that way as well, as the evening slipped over us, and my newfound companions lulled me into a peaceful sense of belonging.
By the time we began to break up, it was full dark, and Will retrieved an oil lamp to walk me back to my lodge. It seemed peaceful and very beautiful here; I could hear no machines, not even the distant hum of traffic that seemed such a sound track to modern life. This setting reminded me of ancient times, as did the houses, the clothing, even Will’s open, unguarded smile.
“There you are,” he said, and raised the lamp to illuminate the steps to the lodge. He kept holding it up, and the golden light shimmered on his face and in his eyes. “I’m glad you joined us here, Laura. I think you’re going to like it.”
“I already do,” I said. That wasn’t a lie, either. I did like it, more than I had life outside of these artificially peaceful fences. Out there, it seemed trust was a dead language, and danger lurked around every corner. Here, I felt safe. And at peace. It was absurd, and yet it was true.
Will took my hand and, to my very great surprise, pressed a quick, warm kiss to my knuckles. It sent a marked wave of sensation through my body, from toes to the top of my head—a flash of heat I’d only ever felt at intensely personal moments, with Luis. It left me feeling shaken, and deeply vulnerable.
Luis.
I closed my eyes for a second and felt the low, steady whisper of the connection I still retained with him. Images flashed through my mind—Luis, on his knees beside his murdered brother. Luis, holding me still as he healed me. Luis, with that incomparable light of passion in his eyes as he bent to kiss me.
This isn’t real
, I told myself.
Will isn’t real. Luis is. What I have with him can’t be duplicated.
But Luis wasn’t here, and there was something deeply, sweetly seductive about Will in a way that I had never encountered before. I felt a surge of panic. Djinn couldn’t be so changeable, so easily swayed ...
... But I was no longer a Djinn.
When I opened my eyes, Will was still holding my hand, watching me with those wide, lovely eyes. He started to say something, then evidently thought better of it, and turned away. I watched him go, bathed in golden light, until he disappeared into another lodge.
Then I went into my own new home, found my bunk among all its identical fellows, stripped off my gray clothes, and worried for only a few moments before I fell as deeply, peacefully asleep as I ever had since being reborn into the human world.
It seemed ironic that I should find the most peace I’d known in the most dangerous place I’d ever entered.
The next day came early, when dawn was still the same drab color as the clothes hanging at the end of my bunk. I woke to the creaking of metal springs, low-voiced conversations, the whisper of clothing, and the sound of water running in the bath at the end of the lodge. I stayed still for a long few moments, luxuriating in the sense of warm relaxation, and then regretfully rose, gathered clothing, and went on to the baths. These were communal showers, with no privacy to speak of, but the women seemed not to be much bothered by their displays of nudity. I had no ethical objections to it in any case, and enjoyed the hot water immensely, as well as the feeling of once again being clean. The soap was rougher than I’d expected—hand-milled, according to one of the other very wet women standing next to me under the spray. I passed the bar on to the next woman when I was done. It all seemed very ... civil.
Dressed and reasonably groomed, I made my way to the food hall, where coffee and tea were available, as well as eggs, bacon, and toast. I didn’t see Will or Becca, but Desmond, Karl, and Aiyana waved me over. We shared a pleasant few moments before they left on their morning duties, and I was finishing my toast when Will entered, filled a cup with coffee, and came to sit beside me.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked. It seemed a politely empty question, and I replied with the appropriate civility. “Any idea what you want to do today?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I thought I’d be assigned to something, I guess.” It was a little dangerous, but I hazarded it anyway: “Perhaps something to do with the children?”
Will didn’t pause in sipping his coffee, and he didn’t look directly at me, but I still felt that same odd hesitation tremble between us. “Maybe later,” he said. “They need some help on laundry duty today. Suzette’s out sick and Topher got roped into felling trees. You don’t mind doing laundry, do you?”
I did, in fact, but Laura Rose would not. “That’d be fine,” I said. “Where do I go?”
“I’ll show you.”
Our meal finished, Will walked me outside. He kept his hands clasped behind his back, and exchanged smiles and pleasantries with people we passed. I didn’t see weapons in evidence anywhere. The children streamed past us, heading toward what looked like a white-painted school. I saw no evidence of Pearl’s presence anywhere, other than the general whispering sense of power in this place.
“Aren’t there guards?” I asked. “I mean, it was pretty scary getting in. I thought someone would be—”
“Yeah, the vetting process is extreme, I keep telling them it’s not necessary,” Will said. “We always know when people try to get in who aren’t genuine about it. We’re not violent people. We don’t want to hurt anyone; we just want to live a little differently from the way others do. I don’t like it that they threaten people and try to scare them away. We don’t have guards here. It’s not a prison, Laura. It’s our home.”
“Are you in charge?” I asked it directly, and it startled a laugh from him—rich, full, and unguarded.
“Do I seem like a guy who’d be in charge?” he asked, and then sobered. “No, I’m not in charge. We don’t have that kind of relationship here. There’s no dictator; no government, exactly. We have an industry proctor who deals with work schedules, but that’s mostly paperwork. Our food proctor works out farm and husbandry details and does the menus. We have a services proctor for everything else.”
“How do you pick the proctors?”
“We all used to take turns,” he said. “But certain people have a talent for administration, so right now Violet’s our industry proctor, because she’s great at scheduling and making sure everyone gets varied work and rest. We’re still looking for someone to want the food and services proctor roles full-time; until then, we all take a week at it. Trust me, it works out. We’re not perfect, and we do have conflicts from time to time, but surprisingly few, really. We don’t need jails. We don’t need courts, or lawyers, or drug rehab.” Will hesitated, then shook his head to get long hair away from his eyes. “On the outside, I was a mess. I had a meth habit. I never fit in. Here, it’s all different, Laura. You can just be yourself here.”
That was ironic, considering what
being myself
meant, but at a certain level I actually craved the certainty I heard in his voice. He’d found his paradise. In a sense, I felt that under other circumstances it might have been mine as well.
But not for the children.
Pearl was the unseen cancer at the heart of this seemingly healthy community, and I hated her for it with a sudden, breathtaking intensity. Will would be broken in this, and so many others who didn’t deserve to have their dreams shattered.
It would be as much my fault as hers, or they would see it that way; they would see me as a betrayer of the worst kind.
Even now I could feel the early echoes of the pain I would cause.
“Laura?” Will was looking at me in concern. I forced a smile.
“I don’t know who I am,” I said, again quite honestly. “How can I really be myself?”
“You’ll find your way,” he said. “We all find our own ways.”
Chapter 10
THERE WAS A SURPRISING
meditative quality to doing laundry; no mechanized washers and dryers, but there was water heated in the center boiler, and tubs, and I was part of a team of four who filled the tubs, dunked and scrubbed the clothing, rinsed, wrung, and hung it up to dry in the crisp sunlight. The smell of the detergent—homemade—was strong and a little astringent, but the warm water felt soothing on my skin, and so did the sun. I was surprised when the midday meal break came; we’d done almost the entire camp’s laundry in a single morning. Rhona, one of the four working with me, explained that we would leave the drying until twilight, then take in the clothes for folding and redistribution. It seemed a steady, simple system. A few of the clothes had names inked in them, because they were especially sized or tailored for their owners, but most were interchangeable shirts and trousers and skirts. Bandannas of various colors signaled seniority within the groups, though there were only a few in for washing.
Lunch was spent sitting in the shade with a small picnic delivered from the food hall. Again, I felt that sense of ease, of peace, of a quiet and predictable life.
No one struggled here. No one felt isolated, afraid, unloved, unwanted.
Not even me.
It took three days of laundry service before I was moved to another duty ... animals this time, cleaning up after the chickens, pigs, and horses. The sheep were grazed out on a hill, with two shepherds to guard them; the cows seemed placid and well fed as they grazed downhill.