Drought (13 page)

“Not in the woods—not these woods, anyway,” I tell him. “What if we could find him wherever he went, after he left us?”

“And bring him back?” Jonah snorts.

Earl speaks up again. “We went looking, way back when. Never found a trace of him.”

“It’s a different world now. Maybe it would be easier to find him … or someone who could help us.”

“Who’d want to help us?” Jonah stands up and brushes his hands on his pants. “Not one Overseer ever lent us a hand.”

I shiver, remembering Ford’s touch. “I believe there are kind people in the outside world,” I say softly.

“Based on what?” Jonah raises his eyebrows.

“There’s Otto, at least. You believe that much, don’t you?” I ask.

“You want to run away. Is that why you refused me?” Jonah crosses his arms and gives a look up and down the length of my body. It makes me want to cover myself, every inch. But I stay standing tall and stare back at him.

“I want to get help,” I say. “I want to get Otto.”

“Here I thought you were more of a fighter,” Jonah says. “Like me.”

“It’s the best way to help the Congregation,” I tell him. But the thought of Mother twists my stomach. I know how furious she’d be if she heard talk like this.

But she hasn’t saved a single one of us, has she? Maybe I could do more.

I hear the
squikety-squik
of a wheelbarrow; Mother has nearly returned. We don’t have long.

“If I go to find Otto, will you come with me, Jonah?” I ask.

Jonah might be bad company, but he’s better than no company. I don’t know anything about the modern world or what kind of protection I might need there.

“You gonna marry me?” Jonah asks.

“No,” I say too quickly, I think, since a blush rises in his cheeks.

The Congregants with the wheelbarrow are nosing into sight now. Two of them, with Mother leading the way.

“You’ll change your mind,” Jonah says.

This time I stay silent.

“You tell me when and where,” Jonah says. “And we’re gone.”

“Ruby! Come help with the cement!” Mother calls.

“Not for much longer,” Jonah says quietly.

“We’ll talk soon,” I promise.

Then I go and help fill the hole with the gloppy wet cement. It’ll dry eventually, they tell me, and then the ropes will come down. That pole will stand tall for years and years … maybe forever.

But we won’t be around to see that.

I’m going to make sure the Congregation is free, and soon.

Chapter 16

The next day, Mother shakes me awake when the night is just starting to give way to sun.

“We’ve got Ellie’s cabin to clean,” she whispers.

“The harvest—” I start, but she shakes her head and gives my hand a small tug.

“We’ll be quick. She didn’t have many things left. Less maybe, now.” Mother turns her head and stares in the direction of Ellie’s cabin.

Waiting even a day could have been a mistake. The Overseers might have gone through their cabin, or Congregants who don’t care about who the Elders think deserve Ellie’s extra things.

Still, I have to drag my body from bed. I don’t want to see her cabin without her in it. And I especially don’t want to see it once we’ve taken her things out.

“Hurry.” Mother tugs my dress from its hook and tosses it on the bed. I slide it on, along with my boots. Then we make the short walk to Ellie’s cabin.

Ellie’s cabin is cool, clammy, and dark. Mother gropes for the lantern, but it’s not on its shelf by the door.

“The Overseers took it,” I tell her.

“It’s better we work without it anyway.” Mother props the door open a bit with a stick she finds by the steps; there’s barely enough light to see the outline of Ellie’s bed, trunk, and stool.

The last few times someone withered, we cleaned out their cabin. Once, Hope helped. Another time, Boone was there. Of course there was nothing to do when Asa’s Mabel withered. We tried to bring flowers and food to his cabin. But he wouldn’t open the door for two weeks.

This time it feels right for it to be just Mother and me.

I go to Ellie’s trunk. Even after hundreds of years, rich swirls of gold-painted vines and flowers cover the top and spill over the sides. I can see their glint in the dark. When I was small, I used to sit by the trunk and trace the path of the paint with my finger, trying to find the beginning and the end.

“Should we empty it here?” I ask. “Or carry the whole thing?”

“Help me lift it,” Mother answers.

We each take a handle and heave, but we barely can lift it from the floor. When Mother shakes her head, I drop my part. The floor makes a loud cracking noise, and for a moment I think it will give way.

“Quiet, Ruby,” Mother snaps.

“I’m sorry.”

“Whatever makes it so heavy?” she asks.

I kneel by the trunk and flip up the hasp. “I think I know.”

On top there’s her extra blanket, with bits of dried lavender folded into it. Below that, the few scraps left from Ellie’s wine-colored wedding dress, the ones too small to do anything useful with. And then there’s more lavender. I slide my fingers below the crisp rustle of the dried flowers. And there I find smooth shapes, one after another. Tears rise fast in my eyes, surprising me. It’s been so long since I gave her that last rock.

I didn’t know it was the last one then. I thought maybe I’d bring her one the next week, or the one after that. But somehow there were other things to do—helping more with the harvesting, I suppose, or slipping away to find berries for the Congregation when the Overseers weren’t watching.

“It’s all the rocks,” I tell Mother. “She saved them.”

Mother shakes her head, looking puzzled. “Why would Ellie save rocks?”

My fingers close around one; I pull it gently through the layers of lavender and tattered red fabric. They flutter from my wrist as I stand and show Mother the rock.

“I gave them to Ellie,” I tell her. “Over one summer, when Darwin was especially … harsh.”

It was another dry time, but I was so much smaller … and I remember that it did rain, a little. It was just never enough for Darwin.

“We all took turns filling your quota back then,” Mother says.

Yes. They’d each taken my cup and filled a bit—just as we did for Ellie in her last days.

I remember Ellie’s kind smile. “Run and find me the prettiest acorn in the woods,” she’d urge me, taking the pewter cup from my fingers. I let it go reluctantly, wanting to be an adult like the others—but not wanting the backbreaking work either.

So I crept through the woods and found all the dark spots and boulders that help me creep through them even today, without an Overseer seeing me. I found all kinds of treasures: acorns, yes, and rocks with streaks of shining crystals in them.

Mother smiles and shakes her head. “I’d forgotten how Ellie sent you on all kinds of treasure errands.”

“She wanted me away from you, and from Darwin—didn’t she?” I ask. I’d never realized it until now.

“We’ve always protected you from him, Ruby. All of us.”

Sometimes I wish I could still run into the woods and look for treasures, instead of watching him hurt her.

“We haven’t much time.” Mother points at the chest. “Bundle what you can into her blanket and take it back.”

I stand to spread the blanket on the floor, but Mother holds her hand up.

“Wait,” she says. “I’ll sweep the floor first. I can’t bear—”

“I know,” I say. Seeing Ellie’s beautiful old quilt spread across a dirty floor.

Mother uses a small branch broom from the corner to sweep. I unfold the blanket, then, and start to put the rocks inside.

“Leave those,” Mother says. “No one will want them.”

My eyelids prick with tears, but I nod and set them against one wall of the cabin—all but one. I’ll keep that.

Then I pull her spare dress off the hook on the wall and put it in the center of the blanket, along with her boots.

She was buried without them—without one bit of anything Darwin gave her. It makes me smile.

“Her watch,” Mother says. “Isn’t it in there?”

That was her greatest treasure. I pat my hands in the trunk, but there’s nothing left but scraps and lavender.

“It’s not in the trunk,” I say.

“Those Overseers took it,” Mother says in a sharp voice.

Anger flares in me, and for a moment I almost tell her that Ford wouldn’t do that: Ford’s kind, honorable, not a thief. Even if he is an Overseer.

“Maybe she hid it. We haven’t seen it in a long time,” I say.

Again Mother looks out the door; it’s lighter, yes, but I haven’t heard a single Overseer’s truck rumble past.

“We’ve got a little time,” I say.

“You finish there,” Mother orders, pointing at the blanket. I tie the corners into a bundle while she runs her fingers along the high edges of the rough-hewn log walls, then on top of the doorframe. But she finds nothing.

“Under the bed,” I say. “Try there.”

Mother slides her hand under the bed, frowning. A smile lights her face and she pulls out the watch.

Without a glance to the outside, she settles on the ground and cradles the watch in her hands.

I slide next to her, feeling like a small girl again. “Can I touch it?” I ask.

“Of course.” But she doesn’t let go of it. Mother holds out her palm, the watch and its long delicate chain nestled inside.

Once the gold chain shone; now it seems dull, like the clouded glass over the face of the watch. Or perhaps that’s only because it’s so gloomy in the cabin. It might shine in the sunlight. I brush one finger over the tiny gold vines that are worked into the piece.

“It was her husband’s,” Mother says. “And before then, his mother’s.”

“Jeremiah,” I answer. He died before Mother and her father moved to Hoosick Falls: a farming accident. Ellie sold their tiny farm and opened the boardinghouse on River Street instead.

I wonder if she would have given him Water, if she had the chance. Would she have saved his life like I wanted to save hers?

“They’re together now.” Mother’s voice is gentle. Her fingers close around the watch for a moment, then open again.

We should stand and finish our work; the horizon is bright enough for watery light to steal into the cabin. But I don’t want to break the spell. Mother might be in a rare mood for stories.

“It says eleven fifteen,” I say, prompting her. And it works.

“Ellie stopped the watch the day Darwin found us here.” Mother holds the chain high so the watch dangles in the air. She squints at the face. “She said she’d wind it when we were free.”

I tap the watch with my finger and it swings a bit. We’ll be free soon, Ellie. I swear it.

“Why didn’t you run farther?” I ask Mother. “You stopped so close to Darwin and the town.”

“They only said we had to leave the village. Besides, I was pregnant. I couldn’t go very far or very fast.” A tiny smile crosses her face, and she presses her free hand to her stomach for a moment. Then she lowers the watch into her palm again.

“All of this was meant to be, Ruby,” she says.

“Otto might still have found you, if you had run farther,” I say. “You could have had more babies—”

“I had you. And Otto … he’ll come.” Her smile is a little too bright, I think, and she blinks back tears. “We still have time.”

“Why didn’t you fight?” I ask.

“Ruby.” She says it like a sigh, her voice edged with tears.

“Things might have been different,” I whisper.

“We … 
did
fight, once,” Mother says slowly. “You wouldn’t remember. I forget that, sometimes.”

“What? You never—” I turn to face her fully.

Mother doesn’t look at me. Instead she presses the watch against her cheek.

“There were more of us, eight more of us, when we came to the woods. There was another child, even. He was five.” Her voice chokes off.

The shock roots me to the floor like Ellie’s heavy trunk. “Nobody talks about this.”

“Louis. He was so bright and bold.” Mother squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath.

“What happened?” I ask.

When Mother answers, she speaks with her chin tilted up, a tear sliding down her cheek. Her eyes are still closed. “They ran. Louis led the way. But the Overseers were faster.”

“Did you run?” I ask.

“You were a tiny baby,” Mother says. “I never could have escaped.”

She slips through the woods like a fox. Couldn’t she have tried?

“The Overseers killed them all, Ruby. Killed them and strung them from a tree in the clearing.”

“Nobody escaped?”

“Not one.” Now she looks at me, eyes bright with tears. “Darwin said you’d be next if anyone tried again.”

“Me?” I shouldn’t be shocked. He’s always known I am Mother’s weakness.

“If anyone even tried to escape, he said, he’d hang you.”

“Nobody talks about it.”

“No. But we all know it. It helped us to accept that escape isn’t what Otto wants … and it isn’t safe for anyone, especially you.”

Then all the Water I’ve made for the Congregants these years has been payment. Payment for saving my life and sacrificing their freedom.

I think of the nights I’ve skipped the cisterns, of late, all because of a boy. The Water might not be strong like it usually is, now. Is that how I repay my family?

Mother lets out a low gasp. “It’s nearly time for harvest.”

She hurries to her feet, sliding the watch in her skirt pocket.

I grab the blanket from the floor. Mother picks up Ellie’s stool and the pillows on her bed. The fresh-stuffed new one looks wrong in this dim, sad place.

“Wait.” Mother pulls the watch out of her pocket. The growing light catches one of the edges and splashes golden marks around the walls.

“The Overseers—” I start, for once the one hurrying us.

“Ellie would want you to have this.” Mother presses the watch and chain into my hand. I curl my fingers around it. It feels too cold for a summer morning.

“But you love it.”

“You’ll let me look at it, from time to time … won’t you?” she asks.

I’ll bring it with me when I leave. I’ll carry it each day until I return, with Otto or help or some kind of salvation for the Congregation.

“Of course I will,” I say. She gives me a sharp look, then her eyes narrow.

“With Ellie gone, that’s one less tie to us,” Mother says. “Isn’t it?”

She is watching me so intently. I only shake my head no. “I miss her, is all.”

“We are here to endure, and you are here to sustain,” she reminds me.

“I know.”

“Good. Now”—she smoothes her skirt over her hips—“as you said, the Overseers are waiting.”

We hurry Ellie’s things back to our cabin, and then it’s time to harvest. Mother leads the way out the door, but I outpace her on the way to the clearing … always checking, though, to make sure she follows close behind.