Drought

by Pam Bachorz

  “The game’s on soon.” The other Overseer gives Ford an angry look.

  But Ford shakes his head. “We can wait for a second.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper, daring to glance at him for a moment. But he isn’t looking at me.

  I reach one hand out to touch the sheet. I can’t make myself move one last inch and actually touch what they’re holding. That same night bird bursts into song, and a strange wave of fury overwhelms me. I hate that bird more than Darwin West and all the Overseers.

  Tears flow out of my eyes and drop onto the sheet, leaving large dots on the yellowed fabric. “Is that Ellie?” I whisper.

  “The, uh, lady that lives here died.” When Ford speaks, he keeps all the warmth out of his voice. His eyes go heavy-lidded and dead.

  The Overseer shifts their burden and turns his nose higher up in the air. “And she’s getting ripe. You smell that?”

  This is what I should feel fury for—are our lives worth so little to them? But I don’t feel anything now, even though tears are still flowing down my cheeks, into the corners of my mouth. I find the strength to touch the sheet, to trace my fingers over the length I think is her arm.

  “I love you, Ellie,” I say.

  “Let’s go.” The other Overseer starts walking, and this time Ford doesn’t stop him from moving. They trudge up the hill and I follow, still holding the sheet.

  She was alone when she died today. When did it happen? Was it after I brought her breakfast and found her still asleep—but breathing? I checked that, I know I did.

  Did she see the sun set today, or was she already gone? When did she give up waiting for us—and for Otto?

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” I tell her.

  Ford pulls in a deep breath and looks up at the stars.

  “Like I said, rank.” The other man lets out a harsh laugh.

  They’re near their truck. “Put her down while I open the tailgate,” the other man orders.

  Ford gazes at me while his partner yanks open the back of the truck. He gives me a tiny smile that vanishes only a second later.

  It gives me strength. “Wait. We’ll want to bury her.” I look over my shoulder. “Will you just take her to my cabin?”

  “We could do that,” Ford says, his voice quiet and deep.

  “Please. Please, she means everything,” I say.

  “Forget it.” The man wrinkles his nose and bends to lift Ellie. “You think the boss wants them Toads wasting burying time? Or energy?”

  “Right.” Ford stares straight ahead. He’s a lot gentler easing Ellie into the back of the truck than the other Overseer is.

  “You want this job? Keep your ideas to yourself.” The man shakes his head and gives Ellie’s body one last shove before he slams the back shut.

  “Right,” Ford says again.

  Ellie is lying next to all the dirty shovels we’ve used to dig our holes, next to the discarded wrappers and cups from the Overseers’ favorite food places. It’s like she’s nothing more than garbage.

  They’re walking toward the truck doors now.

  What did Mother say when the others withered? What did she say over their graves? Shouldn’t I say some of it, any of it, now?

  But I can’t remember.

  “Please just tell me where you’re taking her,” I say. My voice breaks over the words like a stream over rocks.

  There’s no answer. Two doors slam shut. Ford doesn’t look back.

  I go to his side of the truck and slam my open palms against the window. He jumps and looks at me. In the darkness I can’t see his eyes.

  “Where are you taking her?” I scream.

  The truck starts with a rumble and a blast of sound from the inside—music, loud music that sometimes we hear the Overseers playing in their cabin at the top of the Lake. My palms vibrate on the window. Still I shout. “Tell me! Please tell me!”

  Just in time, I step back before the truck jolts forward. The words from Mabel’s funeral come back to me.

  “Walk with Otto,” I say, just as Mother did when we sprinkled the first bits of earth on Mabel’s body.

  The truck spits gravel and dirt as it moves away from me, but I stay standing, even as a piece of gravel stings my cheek.

  “Otto will carry you home,” I say.

  They’ve nearly reached the curve of the road; I see red lights and reach out, as if I could stop them, wrap my fingers around that truck and pull Ellie back to me.

  “Otto will never abandon you,” I say.

  And then the truck is gone. Even the sound is swallowed into the night.

  I remember the bottle of Ford’s medicine in my pocket. I pull it out and fling it into the space the truck left behind. It makes a rattle and a cracking sound when it hits the road. And then that noise is gone too.

  All that’s left is the sound of my sobs.

  Chapter 11

  I stumble home to Mother.

  “Wake up,” I sob. “Ellie’s dead.”

  I shake her, none too gently, and call her name loudly. But she doesn’t stir. She only breathes, and breathes, and heals. Why did Darwin have to beat her tonight? I need her more than ever.

  I can’t stay here all night, as good as alone, thinking of that white bundle that was once Ellie being carried away. I can’t stay here wondering where she is, and what I could have done to keep her living.

  I can’t keep this secret from the rest of the Congregation. She is theirs too. And they were all her children—nary a skirt or blanket remains in the Congregation that doesn’t have some small mend or patch from Ellie.

  Until now, it was Ellie I would creep to for comfort—Ellie’s cabin I’d go to, at night, when I needed refuge from Mother, or just wanted company as she healed. Ellie always knew when to talk, and when to be quiet. Sometimes I’d come to her cabin and sit, no words in me. She’d braid my hair, or take my boots and brush them clean. We would embrace, and I would return to my own bed, ready for sleep.

  But no more. Ellie is gone. There isn’t any time left for visiting with her. How could I have had nothing to say, then? I have a million things to say now—and no Ellie to hear them.

  Hope used to come to Ellie’s cabin too, sometimes. She lived in her own small place, not so far away from ours, but it was lonely, she said. Once she married Gabe, though, I never saw her make a special visit at night.

  I’ll go to Hope. It is the easiest place to start, to tell the awful truth: Ellie is gone.

  The quickest way is along the road, but I’m afraid the truck will come back. Ford might be in it, but tonight he’s just another Overseer. He’s one of the men who took Ellie away.

  Instead I slide along the dried-up Lake shoreline, fitting my feet carefully around the stumps and rocks that usually sit at the very edge of the Lake. Not this summer: now the waters glisten, dark and sullen, about ten paces from my path. It smells like dead fish, and earth.

  Even water needs more water to thrive.

  Hope left her small cabin when she married Gabe. I pause by it, looking up the hill at the house—small, even for our homes. There are still traces of the gay red paint she coated it in one year, back in a time when Darwin was feeling indulgent.

  Ellie loved that red paint. Once she brought a pot of red paintbrush flowers so Hope would have red inside and out. Hope kept them alive until winter. Then she put them by the stove—but it was still too cold for a wildflower to survive.

  I have to tell someone Ellie’s gone. The secret bulges inside of me, makes it hard to swallow, hard to breathe.

  Gabe’s cabin is just a few past Hope’s old one—though I suppose it’s Gabe and Hope’s cabin, now. There aren’t any tall trees around the back of the cabin, on the side by the Lake; over the years Gabe has rooted out any sapling that’s tried to take hold.

  The cabins between Hope’s old one and Gabe’s are dark, and so is theirs. For the first time, I worry that I’ll be waking them, or worse, disturbing something private.

  But a voice ca
lls out to me before I even walk up the hill to their cabin.

  “Ruby! Come for a visit?” Hope’s voice, light and joyful, comes from behind the cabin.

  Instead of answering, I walk up the hill as if in a dream, my feet far too light and my head far too heavy. I stare at the ground, hot tears running down my nose and dropping on the earth below.

  Hope is standing behind the cabin. Gabe’s greatest secret from Darwin West winds up the wall that she stands near: vines, full of vegetables—or at least they would be, in a good year. Before he came here, Gabe was a farmer.

  She doesn’t look as I approach; instead she’s got her back turned to me, hands lightly traveling over the vines. “I was just trying to find some peas,” she says. “To tempt Ellie into eating.”

  I want to tell her Ellie is dead. I want to tell her I can’t stop dreaming of an Overseer. I’m afraid of what I’ll say, so I stay silent. I stop a few paces from Hope and wait for her to turn.

  “There. Six! Six whole pods. Remember how we had buckets of them last summer …” Her voice trails off as she sees my face.

  Then, without even knowing, without hearing what I have to tell her, her face crumples into tears too. She’s the one who closes the space between us; she’s the one who throws her arms around me.

  “Ellie’s gone, isn’t she?” Hope asks, her head pressed close against mine.

  I nod; she must feel the movement and understand, for her hug grows even tighter.

  “But I picked peas,” she sobs. The peas fall from her hand and land on the ground. Even in the dark, their green is so bright they almost seem to glow. Nobody grows things like Gabe.

  All I want is to cry, to be held. But I know I’ve got to tell her all of it—or at least all of it, except Ford.

  Gently, I pull away. Ellie keeps her arms around me, loosely; we stand like a couple waiting for their wedding waltz to begin.

  “I went to see her,” I say, “but there was an Overseer’s truck there.”

  There. I started. I swallow and remind myself: tonight, Ford doesn’t exist. I can’t say a thing about him.

  Slowly, carefully, I tell her how they carried her body out and put it in the truck. I don’t tell her how they wrinkled their noses at the smell of her, or how they shoved her beside discarded food wrappers and cups. Losing Ellie hurts bad enough. The rest of it can be my burden.

  “Did they take her things too?” Hope asks. “Filthy Overseers.”

  Ford’s not filthy. I know he would never take any of Ellie’s few belongings—or let anyone else do it. “Of course they didn’t,” I say. It’s the wrong answer, I know immediately.

  “They’re Overseers. Why wouldn’t they?” she asks.

  “They were in a hurry,” I answer, and it seems to be enough for her.

  Hope guides me to a set of low, weathered stumps set beside the wall. We both sit. Her shoulders slump, and they seem to pull the rest of her body down too.

  I reach out and take her hand, lacing my fingers between hers.

  “We … We can’t bury her?” Hope asks.

  “They wouldn’t tell me where they were taking her.”

  “Ellie was the one who said I should run away with the Congregation,” Hope says. Then she looks back over her shoulder, as if making sure nobody else is listening.

  “She loved you,” I say.

  “She protected all the women in Hoosick Falls—meals for the sick ones whose family couldn’t work a kettle or stove; shelter for ones whose husbands were too … rough.” Hope reaches up with a free hand to wipe a tear away. “That’s why she said I should come with her. Life with John would have been a short, hard one.”

  Instead she’s got a long, hard one. I give Hope’s hand a squeeze with mine, still linked to her. “Are you sorry?” I ask.

  “Sorry?” Again Hope looks behind her, but this time her look lingers on the plants that climb the wall behind us—and she smiles a little. “No. I’m glad I came here.”

  “Too bad Darwin West came too,” I say.

  Hope surprises me with her high, silvery laugh. “That was the fly in the ointment, wasn’t it?” Her face falls back into a frown.

  Then she slides her hand away from mine and bends to pick up the peas. She holds them out. “Ellie would want you to have them.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I say, even though the pea pods look so beautiful.

  “We’re always hungry,” Hope says. “We just forget what it feels like, after a while. Eat them.”

  I think of how Ellie always pushed me to take the extra apples, to eat the bit of food left on her plate. She wouldn’t want me to refuse this either, so I pop one pod into my mouth. It’s limp and not very juicy, but it’s very delicious.

  “You eat half,” I say.

  Hope puts one in her mouth and smiles again, her eyes half shut.

  “Will Gabe be angry?” I ask.

  “Gabe says what’s his is mine. He wouldn’t care,” Hope says. But she looks down at the ground when she says it. I don’t think she would have picked those peas for anybody except Ellie … or Gabe. They’re family, each other’s protector.

  Jealousy swirls in me. She can be with somebody, somebody she wants and loves. The only person who’s sparked anything in me is an Overseer. How could I choose so badly?

  “You’re lucky … and he’s lucky,” I say. “Having each other.”

  Hope bites another pea. “Gabe takes care of me.”

  I think of Ford offering me the food in the woods, pouring his water over the leaves—and I think of Jonah’s promises to provide. But neither boy is the right choice for me.

  “Are you lonely?” Hope shifts her legs so our knees meet, and she’s looking straight into my face.

  “I have Mother—and you, and Asa, and Boone,” I answer.

  “But you don’t have … this.” A shy smile curves the bit of plumpness in her cheeks, and she tilts her head toward the cabin.

  “Maybe I never will,” I say.

  “But you want it.” She lets out a small sigh.

  There’s so much I want to tell Hope about Ford: about how he cared about Ellie too, and how he tried to help in some small way.

  “Jonah asked me to marry him,” I confess.

  “Oh … really?” Hope ducks her head.

  “Is it such a surprise?” I ask.

  “No, I just didn’t know Jonah had set his cap for you,” she says. “But I don’t talk to him much anymore.”

  “I said no,” I tell her.

  Even in the dark, I can tell Hope is still smiling. “I wouldn’t expect you to say yes.”

  “What do you like about Gabe?” I ask.

  “He’s patient and he sees good things in people,” Hope answers. “And he’s strong.”

  I wonder what he loves best about Hope. She’s easy to love—easier than me, I think. Hope doesn’t have prickles or doubts anywhere in her.

  “What do you want—who would you love?” Hope asks.

  I hide my face so she can’t see the secrets in it. “Somebody brave, but gentle,” I say. “Somebody worth taking risks for.”

  “Sounds dashing,” Hope says.

  “He is,” I say.

  “Is?” She giggles, and only then do I understand what I’ve said. “Who’s your secret suitor, Ruby Prosser? Are you stringing along two men?”

  “There’s nobody. Nobody!” I stand up quickly and pretend to study the vines on the wall. “I think I see some more peas. You could pick some for Gabe.”

  “Shall I guess?” Hope teases.

  “There’s nobody,” I say—firmly enough that she doesn’t say anything more, but I don’t think she believes me.

  “You’ll find love, I promise,” she says softly.

  I can’t bear to talk about love anymore—and I can’t afford to let my secret slip out again. So I bring up Ellie, even though it’s far more painful to talk about. “We’ll have to tell people about Ellie tomorrow morning,” I say.

  “Ellie wouldn’t want any f
uss,” Hope says.

  She wouldn’t have minded a few prayers over her body, I know. She wouldn’t have minded if we all gathered to say good-bye.

  But the Overseers took that from us. Hate flares in me, strong enough to burn away any sentimental thoughts of Ford—for now, at least.

  “We’ll each tell one person and ask them to tell another,” I say.

  “And to say a prayer to Otto,” Hope adds.

  I should have thought of that—a Leader thinks of things like that. “She’d like that. So would Otto,” I say—then feel foolish, for pretending I know what Otto would really like.

  Hope stands and folds me into a hug. Her body feels warm, and softer than Mother’s angles and edges. I rest my head on Hope’s shoulder for a moment.

  “You can always come here to talk to me,” she says.

  I step out of the hug. “And you to us,” I add.

  Hope turns to inspect the vines. “You were right. We have a few more peas.” Then she reaches deep into the leaves and plucks.

  “Save it for Gabe,” I say.

  “Gabe has plenty.” She holds it out. “Take it.”

  “Thank you.” I slip it into my pocket and resolve to save it for Mother, for the morning. I’ll be sure she eats it before I tell her about tonight.

  I’ll give her that tiny happiness before she knows Ellie is gone.

  Chapter 12

  Mother didn’t cry when I told her that Ellie was dead. She only bowed her head and murmured a prayer to Otto. “Rest in peace,” she said. “Rest with Otto.”

  I’d sat up half the night crying and slept in fits the other half.

  “Your eyes are swollen,” Mother said. “Ellie wouldn’t want that.”

  It was all we said about her.

  But when we reach the clearing the next morning, everything feels different. The Congregants whisper to one another, many with bowed heads. A number stop to give Mother and me a nod; some reach out to squeeze our shoulders, or our hands.

  It’s all the funeral she will get.

  My grief makes me heavy, slow. I don’t notice that something else is different until Mother takes my hand and squeezes it—not in sympathy, but to wake me from my stupor, I think.