Each Elder sets down the chair they’ve brought. There’s none for me.
“Shall we start?” Mother takes her seat and looks at the other three. They follow her lead, arranging their chairs in a rough circle.
Where do I go? Uncertain, I settle on the floor, behind Asa, and ready myself for what they have to say.
“Leave us,” Boone says. It’s the first word he’s said to me all night.
Nobody disagrees. Asa leans back in his small chair, folding his arms. The wood creaks under his weight.
I stand up and look at each of them. “Leave?” I ask.
“Yes, that’s right. You’ll have to find another place for the night.” Mother stares straight at me with a strange, too merry smile on her face. Hope won’t look at me. And Boone—Boone, who healed Mother countless times with me—gives my arm a shove. It’s none too gentle.
“I’m your Leader,” I say. “You can’t make me go.”
“You’ll do as we say,” Asa growls. “We made you Leader, and we can take it away too.”
I feel like a small girl again.
“Go, Ruby,” Boone says. “You can return at sunrise.”
“It might not take that long—” Hope starts, looking up at Boone.
“It’s best that way,” Boone says.
Hope draws in a deep breath, then nods, dropping her eyes to the ground.
“I wanted to explain,” I say. I’d been ready to answer their questions, had been thinking about it all day as I worked. I was going to tell them about Ford’s kindness, his horror at how we lived, how we were treated. I wasn’t ready for this.
“There’s nothing you need to tell us,” Mother says. “I’ve told them everything.”
She’s told them everything she wants them to know. But what of my side? Words tumble over my lips. I sound frantic, but I don’t care. They have to listen. “I want to explain. I want to tell you why I didn’t leave. I want to tell you about Ford—”
“Don’t say his name,” Hope says, her voice gravelly. Still she doesn’t look at me.
“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Asa says to her. Then he turns in his chair. “Get out, kid. Don’t come back until the morning.”
They are pushing me from my own cabin. They don’t care what I have to say. They hate me, it’s clear. It’s not just Mother who can stop loving me. It’s all of them.
I chose them, and they don’t even love me.
“Take some jerky,” Mother says, pointing at the chest.
That tiny bit of kindness stings more, somehow, than the rest of this.
“I’m not hungry,” I choke out, and then I turn and hurry out before they can see any more tears on my face.
Softly, I settle on the ground beside the door, my back to the cabin. I turn my head and press my ear to the wall.
Never have I had to eavesdrop on the Elders before. Always they let me stay in the room. I heard them talk about all manner of things.
It’s not easy to hear them. We’ve mudded the walls well, and the logs are thick. I hear the rumble of Asa’s voice, and Mother’s laugh—strange, high-pitched. But mostly it’s quiet.
The fall chill settles over the bare parts of my skin like a wet spiderweb. I shiver, rubbing my arms for warmth. It will be a long night without fire. I wonder if I could follow the smell of the woodsmoke to find shelter, maybe even some friendship.
But I stay where I am. I might catch a little of what they’re saying. And the cabin—and the people inside it—are my home. They are the people I’m meant to be with. I’ll stay out here, if I must.
But then the door opens. Hope peers out, catches sight of me almost right away. Her eyes widen and she puts her finger to her mouth. A signal: be quiet.
“I’ll be but a minute,” Hope calls inside. Then she shuts the door.
“What are they saying?” I scramble to my feet and take an eager step toward Hope.
She holds up both hands, warding me off. “Why do you ask when you were listening?”
Finally our eyes meet. But her look does not hold any warmth. What happened to the girl-woman I played with in the woods? What happened to the person I whispered my secrets to?
“No … I …” I look down at my feet. There’s no use in lying. I was lurking only a few footfalls from the door. “Yes. I was listening. I’ve never been sent away from an Elders meeting before.”
“You never did … this before either.” Hope looks over her shoulder. “I’ll have to tell the others I found you.”
“No. Wait. I’ll go.” Things won’t go any better for me if all of them know I was here.
“Go to Ellie’s cabin. I’ll get you there when it’s done.” Hope jerks her head in the direction of the road, her mouth a grim thin line.
“At sunrise?” I ask her.
“Sooner, I hope. But … I don’t know.” Hope draws in a deep, shuddering breath, and for a moment I think she’s going to cry.
“I’ll go. I’m sorry, Hope.” I want to touch her, hug her, but I can tell I shouldn’t, not right now.
“Promise me you’ll wait there,” she says. Now a tear slips down her cheek.
If she’s upset, it’s because of me. “I’m terribly sorry,” I say again.
“Just go,” Hope says.
So I do. I hurry up the road; when I look back, she’s still watching me. Then she looks back into the cabin, as if someone has called her. I don’t wait longer to see what she’ll do, or if Boone chases me even farther away.
There’s still a streak of sun on the Lake when I reach Ellie’s cabin, but already gloom has settled over it for the night. It never seemed so dreary when Ellie was alive, not even when she was sick.
When I push open the door, the hinges creak. A damp smell rolls out. I open the door wider, and fan at the air with my hands. It’s wrong for Ellie’s cabin to smell like this.
All her dried flowers are growing mold, and her mattress is streaked with it too. It’s as if the walls have been weeping since she died.
Nothing is left of Ellie here. We took her things, yes. But now I can’t even close my eyes and breathe in. The woods and the mold have already started to reclaim the cabin.
The cabin lets out a creak; the sound sends chills down my arms. I feel like I’ve invaded a place where I’m not wanted—worse, a place where I don’t belong. I can’t stay another moment.
Ellie. I’ll go to her, just for a little. I’ll be back before Hope comes to find me.
And if she finds me missing? Well, maybe they deserve it, a little, for the things they said. Let them worry they’ve lost me.
Even though the sky is blue with sunset, the woods are nearly as dark as the middle of the night. The lights aren’t on tonight, of course. We’re not harvesting. I wonder if Darwin will push us to work day and night after the Visitor brings fresh, empty cisterns. Or will he wait until the heat of next summer to do that?
Tomorrow the Visitor will come. He’ll have the Overseers put the full cisterns on his long truck, after taking the empty ones off. Everything will start over again.
But tonight they’re full.
Would Darwin let them sit unguarded? He hasn’t trusted us all summer. Why now?
And would he still send Ford to do it?
I feel the tug of Ford’s presence. He might be in the woods now. If I turn left instead of right—if I swing around that tree instead of ducking through those bushes—I could be with him.
But no. I made my choice. I have to live with it.
As I walk to Ellie’s grave, nothing feels right in the woods. I hear noises that push my feet forward, send my heart racing—noises that any other night I might have not even noticed. Skittering. Crunching leaves. Scrambling. It’s only animals, and small ones, I know. But none of it feels friendly.
The Elders are against me, Mother is against me, and that makes it feel as if all the world has decided I deserve to be punished.
But not Ellie. Ellie would never do that. I ignore the noises and press forward, even when
a sapling branch whips me straight across the face. I know every tree in the forest, but this one seems to have picked up its roots and set itself in my path. After one branch surprises me, they all feel out of place. Three more lash me before I finally slow my pace.
What are they talking about, back in the cabin? Are they thinking of a punishment for me? Or maybe even deciding I’m not a worthy Leader, like Asa said they could?
A root plucks at my toe; I stumble, my ankle twisting, and barely manage to stop from falling. But then another step, another root, and I go sprawling across the forest floor.
My chest lands on the hard knob of the root. It pushes all the air from me in a whoosh. I gasp, desperate for air, and at first nothing comes.
The air seems to shimmer around me. I imagine I see someone standing ahead—Ellie.
Finally I can breathe. I suck air into my lungs, lying on the dirt, and the figure I imagined is gone as suddenly as I first saw it.
Every part of the forest has fought me tonight. Why do I keep fighting back? Ellie is gone. I know I can’t really talk to her there—if she is listening, she’d be listening everywhere, not just by the patch of dirt where they discarded her.
I should go back to her cabin. I should wait. If Hope goes there before I do, she’ll think I ran, maybe. Or at least she’ll know I didn’t obey her.
But that’s not the way my feet turn. And now the forest is familiar again—the branches are where they are supposed to be, easy to push away or to duck. Stones and roots are vaults for my toes instead of blocks.
I’ll be at the cisterns in moments.
Maybe Ford will be there. Maybe he won’t. I’m not sure what I’ll do if I see him.
But I do know there’s nowhere else I want to be right now. And before I go back to living the same dreary Congregant life, I want one last chance for something more, just for one more night.
Chapter 36
I am nearly at the cisterns when I hear the scream.
It bounces off the birches, so loud I imagine it sets their leaves rattling. Is it a bobcat? A bear? Whatever it is must be wounded, or battling … or both.
When I can nearly see the tops of the cisterns, another scream echoes around me. I duck into the bushes and peer through the branches. There, ahead, is the dark bulk of the cisterns. I creep closer, and closer, until I am at the ridge of the hill that looks down on them.
There are shadows at the cisterns, ones that don’t belong. I crouch farther into the leaves before risking another look.
People, six or seven or them, are standing in the shadows of the cisterns. They are in a wide circle. I cannot see their faces, or what they wear. But I do see the glint of something silver cascading from a hand.
I force my breath to slow. Now I hear other noises: the sickening rattle of an Overseer’s chain. And then a hard thump.
A silver line arcs high above the people’s heads and lashes in the middle of their circle. When the chain finishes its arc, there is another scream. This one sends shivers down my spine, clenching my toes in my boots.
The chain passes from one dark figure to the next. Each arcs high and strikes hard. But the person they are beating does not always cry out. Perhaps it is because their victim is brave—or perhaps it is because he, or she, is losing strength.
I know I cannot stop them; I know they would only turn their chain on me. So I will wait until they are finished. I will creep out of the woods and get help for the Congregant who lies in the grass under the cisterns.
Another scream; another lash. I sink onto the ground and push my hands tight against my ears. This beating is lasting longer than any I’ve ever seen.
Congregants are strong, I remind myself. Our bodies can endure. This pain is temporary, and this Congregant will heal. I’ll make Water to help, if I need to. I don’t care what the Elders think.
The screaming has stopped. The chain falls once, twice, three times again. Then I hear a voice—a familiar, silvery, and impossible voice—come from one of them.
“Is it finished?”
It’s Hope, I know it. A gasp escapes from me, and I shrink back into the woods.
“He’s good and beat,” another voice says. Earl?
I dare to peer out again. In a flash, I recognize other figures too: Asa’s slight list to one side, Boone’s broad shoulders, Mother’s proud straight bearing. There’s Earl, next to her, holding the chain. There’s one more figure besides them: Zeke Pelling, maybe, or perhaps it’s another Congregant. Six of them, in all.
“But is he dead?” Boone asks.
Mother kneels, looking at the person or thing in the middle of them. “He’s got to be dead. He’s not one of us.”
Hope lets out a loud moan. “What have we done?” she cries.
“The right thing,” Boone answers.
“Go get Ruby, Hope,” Mother says. “Bring her home.”
Then she steps aside, and I see into the middle of the circle. A body, crumpled. White scraps of a shirt, darkened and shredded. Dark swirls of designs on skin torn and bloodied.
“No! No!” I burst out of the bushes and race down the hill to them. As one, the group turns and stares at me. Earl drops the chain. It makes a heavy terrible thud on the forest floor.
I shove my way between Mother and Boone. There is Ford, in the middle, though I can barely recognize him. He lies in a pool of blood. His limbs are bent in wrong ways; a dark river runs from the top of his head, down his cheek, to pool at his throat.
“You killed him!” I reach for him, but Boone grabs me roughly around my elbow, stopping me.
“We had to do it,” Hope says.
“You didn’t have to do this.” I fix Hope with a fierce stare.
She looks away.
I struggle against Boone’s grip; he grimaces, trying to hold me. “Let me. Let me touch him.” I don’t beg. I snarl, wild.
“Might as well,” Mother says.
Boone lets go of me suddenly; I stumble back and land hard against Mother. But I scramble away from her, fast as I can, and kneel beside Ford.
His body is entirely, shockingly, still. I take one of his hands in mine, trace my fingers over his palm. A shudder rocks my body.
“He’s dead,” I tell them. “Dead!” I scream it, loud enough to echo off the hills.
“Good,” Mother says.
Boone looks at me, his face blank. “Now you’ll stay,” he says.
“And he won’t tell anyone about you.” Mother’s eyes flick to Earl and Zeke. I wager they’re good enough for helping dole out a beating, but not good enough to hold all my secrets.
“He wanted to steal you,” Hope says. “He wanted to take you from us.”
“He only wanted to love me,” I whisper.
“You were both very selfish,” Mother says. “You left us no choice.”
“When did Otto ever say that killing was a choice?” I ask her. “You always said violence wasn’t our way.”
“Otto needs you here. We all agreed.” Mother looks at the others, one by one. Slowly, each nods.
“I told him good-bye. I told you it was over.” I look up at Mother.
“And what if you changed your mind, Ruby?” she asks.
“Love makes you do dangerous things.” Hope steps through the circle to come close to me; at first she moves to kneel next to Ford, I think, but then she takes a step back and looks up, quickly.
“Look at him, Hope,” I urge. “Look at what you did.”
She claps a hand over her mouth and dashes into the woods.
I try to smooth the scraps of fabric back over Ford’s broken chest; it seems even more indecent, his blood and guts exposed. A sob escapes from me; my tears drip over him, in him, but I only cry harder.
Asa speaks, finally. “Wasn’t us who made this happen.”
“It was you,” Earl adds. “Could’ve had my boy. None of this had to happen.”
“Instead you ran round with trash.” Zeke spits a wad on Ford’s battered cheek. I wipe it away, tende
rly.
“They’re wrong,” I whisper to Ford. “It wasn’t me who did this.”
I lay on the ground next to him, body in blood, hair nested in the leaves. But I don’t care. I only want to be close to him.
“We’re leaving, Ruby,” Mother says. Then she holds out her hand.
“Good,” I tell her. “Go.”
She pulls back as if she’s touched something hot. “You’ll thank me one day, Ruby. You’ll see.”
“Never,” I say.
Mother whirls on her heel and starts to the road. The others follow—all but Boone, who lingers for a moment.
“Visitor’s coming in the morning,” he says. “I’d clear out by then.”
“I’ll never forgive you,” I tell Boone. “Not any of you.”
“Maybe not.” He draws in a deep breath and looks up at the sky. “But you’ll stay.”
Boone walks away, feet crunching over leaves as dry as bones.
I pick up Ford’s hand—every finger at wrong angles—and trace my finger over his skin, the way he touched me once.
“Wake up,” I tell him.
And then I say it again, louder.
“Wake up.”
Then I feel it. There is the faintest of pulses, in the web of skin between his thumb and his pointer finger.
He is alive, but barely.
Chapter 37
He’s alive.
I sit up and look over Ford’s body again, this time to see what I need to fix first. There are wounds everywhere, his body sunken in the wrong places. Bones pierce the skin over his ribs and his thighs.
But there’s hope. And if anyone can save him, it’s me.
“You’re alive.” I chant it softly, over and over, as I gently press and examine. The words run together faster and faster until they’re one word. Alive. Alive. Alive.
He needs Water—but from where?
There’s no way to get water all the way up here from the Lake. I haven’t any buckets.
The leaves. I can get it from the leaves. I scramble to my feet and grab at the nearest bush. Dry. Ferns—they’ll be wet. A single tiny drop of water slides over my finger for a tantalizing moment … and then it drops onto the ground.