Gray (Book 2) (13 page)

“Come along,” said Brynn, and she handed the bowls to Coral and marched back to the big cabin.

Coral smiled one last time at Mondra and trailed Brynn back. In the kitchen, Brynn put all the paring knives away, pointed at Coral with a frown and said, “Leave them be.”

Coral nodded to indicate that the message was received, but she also made a note of which drawer held the knives. Polly took a double handful of eating utensils out to the main room, and Brynn handed Coral a rag and told her to clean up.

As she wiped the counters, she took every chance to look in the back alcove. The radio was attached by wires to a box which was itself attached by thicker black insulated wires to a stationary bike. It must be set up so that the bike generated electricity and that ran the radio. She’d tell Benjamin about it and ask if he knew how it worked. Could she get in here, pedal the bike, and contact the world?

She glanced at Brynn and thought she’d never be given permission to. But she could sneak in here at night, maybe, and try it. If only she knew how to work it. Or maybe you needed two people—one to pedal and one to talk on the radio, so she’d need Benjamin with her. Where were they keeping him? In another of the small cabins, she supposed, probably shared with men. It’d be hard for both of them to sneak out at the same time. She was afraid they’d both be watched carefully.

Maybe the thing to do was not to run at first opportunity, but to pretend to agree with everything, get along with people, and get them to put their guard down. Then one night, get to the radio, try to contact people elsewhere, maybe learn about what was happening in Boise, or back east. Then, when they had quit worrying about her, gear up and escape.

How long might it take to lull these people into that lack of suspicion? What would she have to do to pass their tests? She glanced at the other woman, who had left and returned. “Hey. I’m Coral.”

“I know,” said the woman. “I’m Calex’s wife, Joli.”

Okay. Coral decided to be direct. “I don’t think your husband liked me very much.”

The woman said nothing, only stepped to the cabinets and put away a metal canister.

“What were you making?” asked Coral, trying to make her voice friendly.

“Biscuits.”

“You seem to eat well.”

“We were prepared.”

“That’s smart,” said Coral. The other woman didn’t answer again, and Coral gave herself a mental shake. She had to be better at this, at ingratiating herself. Her fear was that she was showing, in her tone or body language, that she did not trust these people, that she wanted to get away from them. She needed to convince them that her friendliness was real, not feigned. And it was smart, or at least fortuitous, that they had stowed away food and supplies: that much, at least, was true.

Coral tried again. “Alva said something about a cave?”

“Did he?” Joli asked.

Coral tried a smile, but the other woman’s expression didn’t get any friendlier. Maybe offering to help would thaw her. “I’m done cleaning up. What do you want me to do next?”

Brynn entered and said, “It will be a bit before we serve dinner, so come with me.”

Coral gave a little wave to the stone-faced Joli and went through the main room again.

Brynn said, “I wanted you in a dress before dinner, but Tithing says to let you keep your pants on under it.” She didn’t sound pleased about it.

“That’s nice of him,” Coral forced herself to say. She followed Brynn back to the cabin, the “sisterhouse,” and walked in on Alva, setting up a third cot.

“That was fast,” said Brynn to him.

“Hadn’t taken them back to the cave yet,” he said, turning to Coral. “Try it out, miss.”

“Coral, please,” she said. This time when she smiled, she received an answering smile. She sat gingerly on the cot and it held her. “It feels great,” she told him.

Brynn pulled the sleeping bag off the other cot and dumped it at the foot of this one. “Now leave us, Alva. We have private things to do.”

“Yes’m,” he said, and he backed out of the door.

Coral took the burlap shift Brynn handed her and slipped it on over her jeans and shirt without protest. She put the sweater and jacket over the dress and walked across the small cabin and back. The skirt would keep her from running, but it’d be easy enough to yank it up and stuff the ends into her jeans, should she need to. She stopped in front of Brynn and held her arms out. “Okay?” she asked.

The woman grimaced, clearly less than pleased at the compromise over clothing. “I’ll be keeping my eye on you. For now, go out to the fire and help Mondra, and don’t get any ideas about running away. Let me know when the potatoes are tender.”

Coral felt she was being released from prison—or at least let out into the prison yard. Not that she’d run without Benjamin, or without any supplies. And to be honest, not that she’d run with fresh food cooking up. If they were willing to feed her, she was willing to eat.

Mondra was leaning against the barbecue pit, probably soaking up the heat seeping through the bricks. She glanced up as Coral walked toward her, and then her eyes slid away to follow Brynn walking into the big cabin. There didn’t seem to be anyone else guarding Coral or making sure she didn’t escape. But why should they bother? The cold and the coming night were guard enough.

She’d try and make friends with Mondra, who seemed the most likely of the women so far to befriend, or at least the only one who’d given her a smile. If she was going to recover the gear and get away, the more she knew about these people and their habits, the better.

“How’s it going?” she said as she approached the woman. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Thank you, no. I’m waiting on the vegetables to get tender, is all.”

Coral leaned into the steam rising from the pot and breathed it in. “Smells good.”

“It’s simple food.”

“Any food is good food these days. I haven’t seen fresh in months.”

“You been hungry a lot since the Reaping?”

The Event, Coral supposed she meant. She’d have to figure out their take on it. “We’ve had fish, and a couple rabbits. We found some canned soup but lost it to stronger people.”

“That’s been the way of the world.”

Coral had to force herself not to give the woman an indignant glare. Didn’t she realize that’s exactly what had happened today, that she and Benjamin had lost their gear to better-armed people? Mondra didn’t seem to see it like that, though. Probably saw her own group as innocent, or justified.

“But it won’t be the way of the world much longer.” She glanced curiously at Coral. “You met Tithing?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m his wife.” There was pride in the statement.

“Really? You look about my age.”

“I’m seventeen. What are you?”

Coral tried to school her expression. Seventeen and married to a—what, a 40-year-old man? “I’m nineteen.”

“You’d be closer in age to me than anyone here. Polly is only twelve. Ellie is twenty-eight.”

“Did you get married after the—” she tried to remember their word for it. “The Reaping?”

“Oh no, we’ve been married for two years.”

Coral glanced away. That was seriously effed up. Married at fifteen to a middle-aged man? “And your mother and father are fine with this?”

“Oh, yes, they’re proud Tithing chose me. They’re at an Oregon farm.”

“Ahh.” Coral knew to leave the child-bride discussion alone for now. “What do they farm?”

Mondra giggled. “Not a farm.
The
Farm.”

Coral heard the capital letter that time. “I see.” There was some sort of extended metaphor they had going. Farm, Reaping. Something else she’d heard also fit the pattern. What was it?

The girl broke into her attempt to remember. “There’s a meeting day after tomorrow.”

“A community meeting, like a city council? Or you mean like a church service?”

“Churches are corrupt,” she said, her pleasant smile somehow incongruous.

“I suppose many are,” said Coral.

“All,” said the girl with a decisive nod. “But Jesus was seed. A flower. And so was Buddha. Maybe Mohammed, too.”

Coral nodded as if that made perfect sense to her. She reworked it in her mind. So, these were terms they used in their religion, which she had assumed at first was some sect of Christianity. Now she no longer thought so. Think of the terms as having capital letters. Jesus was Seed, but so were they. A Flower. The Farm. The Reaping. She said, doubtful that she was getting it right, “And you’re Seed? A Flower?”

Mondra smiled and shook her head. “No, I’m a Grain. Tithing is a Flower.” She spoke with exaggerated patience, as if to a child.

“Okay,” said Coral. “Tithing said he’d figure out if I was one of the, um, select, was it? That means a Seed?”

“The Chosen,” she said. She looked intently at Coral, leaning forward to study her more closely. “Did he think you are?”

“He said he’d know.”

“He’ll know.” She sounded confident. She took a towel and lifted the lid of the first pot. “Beans tonight,” she said, stirring them.

Coral hoped that she meant they were actual beans and not Beans in some metaphorical sense, like people who had failed Tithing’s tests. They
looked
like beans at any rate, and much more than Mondra looked like a grain. Or a Grain, rather. It was going to take a while to piece together their belief system and memorize all the lingo. “And will I learn more about this at the meeting?”

“Oh, yes,” the girl said with an angelic smile.

“Great.” With any luck, she and Benjamin would be gone before then. “So Alva says you all survived the Reaping in a cave. I was in a cave, too.”

Until the potatoes were cooked, they traded survival stories. Coral found out more useful information. Their cave, less than a mile from here, was on their property and had been stocked with supplies. They were expecting something bad to happen, and they had been entirely prepared. The real estate of the Farm was chosen, in part, for the cave. Sacks of flour, beans, rice, canned food, salt—all were stowed away for the catastrophe they knew was coming. The fresh food was root vegetables from their vast garden, dug after the fire had swept through and the great heat had ended.

And, Coral thought, as she carried the heavy pot of cooked root vegetables into the dining cabin, they had, after all, been right about being prepared for a major disaster. About all this other stuff—Reaping and Flowers and whatnot, entirely wrong, needless to say. She had been worried about getting brainwashed, but she thought she was going to be safe from that danger...unless there was sleep deprivation or some other torture to come that would weaken her, but none of that seemed imminent. On its merits alone, there was nothing about this religion that was going to convince her to convert, no matter how hungry and tired she was. It was clearly loony.

Still, she might have to pretend to convert, so she needed to pay attention and learn all their beliefs as quickly as she could. They entered the main cabin. The heat of the pot was creeping through the towel she had been given and her gloves, starting to burn her, so she hurried inside to set it down on the table next to where Mondra put the bean pot.

She did what Brynn told her to get the meal ready to serve, and then Brynn stepped outside and blew a high-pitched whistle. One by one, the men drifted in. Tithing took the head of the table and the biggest chair. Calex sat to one side of him, and a man whose name she didn’t know to the other. Alva, Pratt, and three others arrayed themselves around the table in what seemed to be regular seats for each. The group included an older black man, and he led Benjamin in. Benjamin didn’t look her way but sat without fuss on a box indicated. She hoped they hadn’t been mistreating him, but what she could see of him looked perfectly fine—physically, at least. The men filled all but two seats. Coral stood with the women, next to Mondra against the far wall, waiting to see what came next.

Tithing said, “It looks delicious, Brynn.”

It was a dismissal. Brynn jerked her head at the door to the kitchen, and the women all filed into that room. Coral, surprised, trailed after them. Apparently the men ate alone...and first.

The women—six of them including Polly and Coral—all stood in silence, waiting. Polly was the only child. The youngest male was about Coral’s age. Coral shifted from foot to foot, bored with waiting, but at a sharp glance from Brynn, she made herself stand still.

The men didn’t talk much. They must be busy eating. The occasional noise of a fork hitting a plate came through the wall. After a quarter-hour, she could hear the scraping of chairs and boxes. Brynn waited until the dining room fell silent then glanced into the room, pushed through, and the women all walked into the dining room behind her. Plates were gathered, stacked in the kitchen, and new plates and utensils put out.

The women ate as quietly as the men, their breath steaming in the cold air. The big pot had held the heat well, so the food was still warm. Coral had to exert self-control to keep from asking more questions, but she managed to mimic the women around her: quiet, meek, obedient. That was so unlike her, the thought of her ineptness at keeping up the act for long drew an involuntary smile. Joli saw it and frowned, and Coral lifted her spoon, mouthed the word “good,” as if pleasure at the food was the source of her smile. And the food was good, and hotter than anything she’d eaten in a over a month. The men had made such a dent in what they’d cooked, there wasn’t enough for the women to have seconds, but the edge was off her hunger by the time the serving spoons were clicking on the bottom of the pots.