The Almanac

by E L Stricker

  Benja grunted and chewed on the corner of his lip. “Would have been good to find some parts for this heap,” he said and kicked affectionately at the bike, which still lay on the ground.

  They got back on the bike and turned around. As they left the tall buildings behind and reached the outskirts, the uneasy feelings began to fade.

  By the time the houses had started to spread out again, their worries seemed much more like the product of overactive imagination than reality. Not wanting to leave without looking a little bit, they stopped at a house at the bottom of the hill.

  The house was at least the size of the stone house in their village but was made from wood. It had no roof, and the door hung lopsided. The entrance had a drift of dirt across it.

  They walked through a small hallway into a larger room. Illya thought he could feel the echoes of the lives that once happened there. There were some pictures on the bowed walls and more that had fallen to the floor, leaving squares of darker color where they must have once hung. The floor was thick with old leaves. It almost looked like part of the forest, except for the broken glass and picture frames underneath the foliage.

  Benja bent down and picked up a photograph. Illya looked over his shoulder at it. Faded people sat beside a rectangle of blue water. Behind them was a house that looked like the one they were standing in and completely unlike it at the same time. The gray, collapsed walls bore hardly any resemblance to the walls in the picture—blue, edged with smart, white trim—but the overall shape of it was the same.

  Just like the pictures in Illya’s book, the scene was strangely perfect. The water was enclosed by straight white edges. Around it, unnaturally even, short grass grew. The people looked happy, holding up glass cups with bright decorations coming out of the tops. It was as if the Calamity had never happened and they were all still here, living their lives in this house.

  It made him sad for them, although they were people he had never met.

  “Let's keep looking,” he said. Benja nodded and wordlessly, gently laid the picture back in its spot in the leaves.

  Feeling somber, Illya walked down the hallway and went into another room.

  He was startled to see a face looking back at him beyond the door. It was in a frame, like the little picture, and fractured by spider-web lines of cracked glass.

  A boy was looking at him out of the glass, someone he didn't recognize with thick brown hair and very dark eyes. Around him was the same room that Illya was standing in. Confused, he looked around and the boy in the picture did too.

  The boy was him.

  A mirror. He had never seen one before, only heard of them in stories; like looking into a pond but so clear it was as if you faced yourself. It was incredible, hard to imagine that something like it could exist, yet here it was, right in front of him.

  Illya stared at his face. It looked younger than he thought it should.

  Benja appeared behind him in the mirror. As he had always suspected, the comparison between Benja and himself was not very flattering. Beside his cousin, he thought that he looked like a stick.

  “Whoa.” Benja stared at the mirror openmouthed. He stuck out his lower lip experimentally then, chuckling, began to contort his face into a series of poses, each one more hilarious than the last. Illya tried out a few himself. Looking at his own face was like seeing a stranger, and he felt disconnected from it.

  There were more rooms in the house with rusted metal bed frames and broken furniture. It looked like there had been scavengers here, because most of the rooms were empty. Nothing was as fascinating as the mirror. Illya almost wanted to strap it to the bicycle and take it back but knew that even if they could have, it would have caused a riot back in the village.

  Benja pedaled. To pass the time as they rode, Illya told one of the stories his family often told when they lay down before sleeping.

  “There was once a man as tall as the hills who had for his only friend a big blue ox that he called Babe,” he said.

  “How ’bout this one,” Benja interrupted him, breathing heavy as he pedaled up a short hill. “There was once a man who read a book and knew when it was going to rain before it did.”

  Illya froze, his voice caught in his throat. All day, he had been expecting Benja to say something, but it still caught him off guard.

  “It’s not the same thing, it’s nothing like a story, it’s just...” he stammered finally.

  “It’s just like magic,” Benja said.

  “Benj, there’s nothing magic about it. I’m the least magical person you’ll ever meet.”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t read that book,” Benja said.

  “Anyone could, anyone could have learned the rain signs too,” Illya said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “The Olders just knew a lot about things. Things that could help us,” he said.

  Benja laughed. “Maybe.”

  Illya grunted.

  “Go on with your story then,” Benja said after a few minutes of silence.

  “His name was Paul. He had a seven-foot stride and could cut down a tree with a single swing of his ax,” Illya said, picturing it in his mind. After seeing the mirror, everything, even legends, seemed possible.

  ***

  As they reached the gates, they heard a strange buzzing sound, like a swarm of bees. As they got closer, it got louder. The sound of hornets was more like it, Illya thought, recognizing angry voices and shouting.

  A thudding sound started, repeating itself over and over. Illya went through the gate, Benja close behind, pushing the bicycle.

  The air was thick with smoke, but it was not coming from the central fires, as he had imagined. Five huts were ablaze, their bones visible, black shells haloed in red. A crowd had gathered around the stone house. They held torches high into the air, and in the center, four men had a fallen tree trunk and were using it to batter against the door.

  “I’m going to hide the bike,” Benja said in a low voice.

  Illya nodded. “I have to find my ma and Molly.”

  The crowd yelled and shoved each other. Someone threw a stone and broke through the rotten boards covering one of the upstairs windows. The front door started to splinter under the relentless pounding of the battering ram.

  “We’re coming out. Back away, I warn you,” Elias yelled from behind the door.

  The men with the ram retreated down the steps, and the battered door inched open. A moment later, Elias came out, holding his hands up above his head. Impiri followed behind him with Sabelle.

  “There's no food in there, you can look for yourselves,” Elias said. The people did not answer immediately, and Impiri took advantage of their brief hush to yell.

  “I warned you all. The curses have fallen on us, and now madness has infected all of you.” She took a deep breath then pressed on. “The rotten must be pared away, or we will all be destroyed.” Her eyes settled on Illya as he passed, trying to skirt around the crowd. He could feel her hate driving into him like a spike and was suddenly very aware of the book in his pack and the seeds in his pocket, where he had kept them since the day he had found them.

  Jimmer, leading a small knot of men, pushed past the crowd to stand beside Impiri.

  “Maybe there’s food, and maybe there’s not. But she has the right of it,” he said. “You all know what we have to do.”

  Marieke was standing nearby. Jimmer hesitated for the briefest moment before grabbing her by the arm, pushing her to walk in front of him.

  “Pare away the rotten,” he said, relishing the words then hurrying on. “It’s harsh, but it’s reality, and we have to face it. Any that won’t survive have to be sent off, find their own way. Any who’s cursed can go too. We can’t afford the food they take out of all our mouths.”

  A strangled cry tore out of Charlie Polestad’s mouth. He leaped on Jimmer and started punching him in the face. The men who had been with Jimmer spread out and started to grab littles and old folks, dragging them toward the ga
tes with expressions of grim determination. Illya looked around desperately for Molly but didn’t see her.

  “Wait!” he yelled, his voice drowning in the noise of the crowd.

  His heart would not stop hammering. He pushed his way past people, heading for the stairs of the stone house.

  This was insane. They were going to chuck him out for madness, for curses, right now. He blinked. The picture from the house, of the people beside the blue water, came into his mind. Olders: with their magic, with their mirror and their sprawling city. Olders who had always had enough to eat.

  He couldn’t stand back and do nothing, he couldn’t wait for them to find Molly and throw her out, not when he knew something that could save everyone. He pressed his lips together.

  He needed to stop making such a habit of this.

  He climbed the stairs and faced the crowd.

  “I have an idea.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  SILENCE DESCENDED ON the crowd, rippling out from his words like the rings set off by a rock dropping into a pond. A sea of faces turned towards him one by one. He knew that the shock couldn't last long. He scrambled in his pack for the book.

  “I found something. It's a book, a real book of the Olders. Says how they used to live.” Illya rushed through the words then paused for a second, chewing on his lip before going on.

  “I can read it,” he said, looking out at the stunned faces.

  “This is how I knew that there was going to be a storm,” he said. “This is what saved all of us, and it’s going to save us again.”

  Impiri's mouth dropped open. Rage flared behind her eyes. The sound of the crowd started to build into a roar.

  “Wait, listen! I know that the Olders made some mistakes, but they never starved. Look,” he said. He flipped open the book to the picture of the fat man and held it up high.

  People jostled closer to see, for the moment their curiosity overcoming everything else. No one would be able to deny that the picture was spectacular. He saw their eyes widen as the people nearby got a good look.

  “This part says”—he sounded out each word, remembering them as he came across them—“‘The best time for planting is in the spring, a few weeks after the last frost. The soil should be workable. Pick an area that gets southern exposure and has access to plenty of water. Consider sprouting seeds in a warm, damp place before transferring them to the tilled soil.’”

  The people showed no comprehension of what Illya had said. He may as well have been speaking another language.

  “Look at this man. He's no different than any of us, except that he’s fat.” A few people laughed. Encouraged, Illya went on.

  Impiri stood back with her arms crossed, and her lips pressed into a thin line.

  “I've never seen a man as fat as he is. The Olders did some things wrong, but they always had enough food. Look at this.” Illya held up the page to show them the garden. “They ate plants from a garden, kept animals too. They didn't have to spend their days looking for food; it was right outside their back doors. That's why they always had enough.”

  “The seeds of the Olders' plants all died, but these are the seeds of our plants.” He reached into his pocket and held up a handful of the gray, wedge-shaped seeds.

  “They will still be the same plants, just the same as the ones on the wall. The same plants that my great, great grandfather, Jones Ph.D. told us to eat, but they would be here in the village. Do you see?”

  The people stared at him. His idea was so far from what anyone had ever considered that no one reacted to his words right away. Jimmer stood up, and Charlie let him, their fight forgotten. Jimmer wiped a smear of blood from his lip and advanced on Illya.

  “You want us to be Planters?” he said. “You got some idea from a bunch of dead people, and you think that we should just do it.”

  “We are going to starve,” someone said. Angry muttering surged up from the crowd.

  “Wait! What if there's something to this idea?” Charlie yelled above the din.

  “What does he know? He is just a kid.”

  “Garden plants die; wild plants thrive. Everyone knows that.”

  “That thing is cursed. That book”—Impiri nearly spat the words—“is the reason for—”

  “But these . . . These would be the same wild plants,” Illya said, stuttering. His stomach clenched into a knot, and his head started swimming as he looked out over the unfriendly crowd.

  “He’s the first to go, I say,” Jimmer yelled.

  “It's the way of the devil!” Impiri shrieked.

  “How do we know he can even read that thing? No one has been able to read since my grandad’s time,” a man called out.

  The villagers shifted, and scowled, their eyes clouded over with uncertainty. They didn't see a stroke of inspiration, a life-changing idea that could save them. They saw blasphemy and a crazy kid.

  Illya's knees started shaking uncontrollably in the force of the hatred he saw.

  “He saved us! He saved everyone from the flood with that book.” It was Benja.

  “We're not falling into an Olders' trap. Best we keep to our ways, always worked before,” Jimmer yelled.

  “Wait, I—”

  He swallowed his terror and tried to say something, but Conna Duncan spoke first, cutting him off. Illya's resolve crumbled.

  “What do you know about it? You're so drunk you can barely see past your face,” Conna said. “If you're going to throw out the weak ones, you're going to have to start with your own boy.” Conna mounted the steps and faced Jimmer down. He turned around and nodded at something over his shoulder. A smaller boy came out of the crowd and shuffled up the steps. It was Arro Duncan. He looked very pale, more so than hunger could account for. He crouched behind Conna, as if unwilling to come out of the relative safety of his older brother's shadow.

  “You would know if you paid attention to anything. Boy's been coughing up blood for two weeks,” Conna said; he looked down and met Illya's gaze with narrowed eyes. Jimmer pulled his youngest son out from behind Conna, and held him by the shoulders, studying his face with a frown.

  Illya broke Conna's stare after a few seconds. He tried to gather his thoughts. There had to be something he could say.

  “I think he's right,” Conna said.

  Illya's head felt like an empty cavern. The last words he had ever expected to hear echoed around it, bouncing off the walls. Conna gave him a strange half smile.

  “Look around you. We've been starving for years. We scrape by and get a little here, a little there, but it's never enough. We lose people every year.

  “The Patrollers go out and hunt every day. It's getting harder and harder to find game.” He nodded to the other Patrollers who stood in a little group nearby.

  “We can't move somewhere else, most don't have the strength, and there's nowhere to go if they did,” Conna said. The people were quiet again. They appeared to be listening.

  Even for the most irrational, it was hard to ignore Conna. He was one of the most successful hunters they had. With that and the pack of Patrollers behind him, he was growing into a voice to be reckoned with in the village.

  “We can’t throw out half of our people. We’ve only survived this long because we’ve stayed together, and I haven't heard a good plan from anyone until now,” Conna continued. “What he says is true, the Olders may have had their problems, but they always had enough to eat.”

  Impiri started to speak, but Conna cut her off.

  “We can worry about corruption and repeating the mistakes of the Olders later, if we make it through the winter. Burning things is not going to bring us food.”

  Impiri narrowed her eyes.

  “Let everyone remember that I said that book was cursed, remember that when the next plague hits us,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.

  “It could be a gift from the gods that it was found, it already saved us from the flood, who knows what else it can do?” Charlie Polestad said.

&n
bsp; “And it's another gift that we have someone who can read it!” Conna said. He clapped Illya on the back so hard that he had to stagger and catch himself to keep from falling off the steps. Conna smiled, a tight expression that seemed to hide more zeal than it showed.

  “Hear, hear!” yelled Julian Reyes. His words were echoed by several more of the young Patrollers, who had now positioned themselves as a barrier between the stairs and the restless crowd. With an almost maniacal gleam in his eyes, Conna raised his voice.

  “We need a new Leader, someone who has the vision to lead us through these times.” He turned his head and looked at Illya

  Illya felt his stomach turning over as Conna gave him a vaguely predatory smile. His thoughts felt slow, as if lodged in the riverbank mud. He could hardly comprehend what Conna was saying.

  “I nominate Illya! The man with the book!” Conna yelled.

  Cheering exploded from a surprisingly large portion of the crowd. Those who weren't cheering looked around, stunned. Elias himself was pale, staring at the ground as if he wanted it to swallow him up.

  Illya’s ears burned. He felt the pressure of their gazes shifting slowly from Conna to him as if the actuality of him was an afterthought to Conna.

  For a moment, he thought he was going to be sick and lose whatever was left in his stomach right there in front of all of them. Then he saw Benja standing with his aunt and uncle at the back of the crowd.

  They were all cheering. Benja was beaming and clapping his hands above his head. Samuel, who had come forward at some point in the commotion, and was looking Aaro over, looked up and gave him a small smile.

  More people joined in the cheering as it went on, swept along with the crowd and the feelings that Conna had stirred. In their faces, he saw the hope that he had been unable to spark in them when he stood alone. He cleared his throat.

  “I know we're afraid of repeating their mistakes,” Illya said, finally finding his voice. “But I think that if we're careful, we can learn from what they did. We don’t have a lot of choices. Either we can starve, or we can try something new. We risk making a mistake, but maybe we'll survive.”