The Tithe

by Elle Hill

  He was positively chatty today. “But you’ve only known me for two weeks. I don’t know about Lenwood, but in Barstow, it’s customary to wait at least a year after meeting to get married.” His skin felt warm and dry against her face. His pulse beat against her lips.

  She felt him take a breath.

  “I’ve told you this before: I loved you when I met you.”

  “You did not tell me any such thing!”

  “I used different words, but they meant the same thing. When I met you, I didn’t have the words I have now.”

  He had learned a lot since then, heaven knew. Yet, “You told me you didn’t want to court me.”

  “I didn’t understand what I was saying. I thought it meant a prolonged period of formalized courting rituals. Since I didn’t know the rules, I didn’t want to do it.”

  Silly and vain of her, maybe, but she felt much better about that exchange. After a moment, however, she asked, “But how could you love me? You didn’t even know me.”

  His response was prompt. “Joshua Barstow, I knew everything important about you when you saved us all that night.”

  She thought he had said something like that before now. “We can’t get married here, not really. The only person who might marry us is, well . . .” She chuckled.

  He remained silent.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “Loving me,” she almost whispered.

  “Always,” he said.

  They rose shortly afterward and tended to their morning rituals. When Josh stepped outside her bathroom, Blue stood, tall and silent, outside the door. His paranoia still annoyed her, but she couldn’t begrudge him her patience, not if it made him feel better.

  They rounded the hallway’s corner together. Josh halted, shocked.

  On the ground before them both, a plump, middle-aged woman and a thinner, younger man lay on the ground, naked from the waist down . . . copulating. The woman lay on her back, eyes closed, head thrown back, while the young man held her knees apart with his and thrust into her. They both made animalistic grunting noises. The woman’s fingernails raked against the coldness of the concrete floor.

  Josh squeaked in surprise. The couple didn’t even acknowledge her and Blue. Shocked, embarrassed, Josh tried to take a step back, but of course her unruly feet tied themselves in a knot.

  She pitched forward.

  The world shrank to a pinpoint as Josh toppled into the scene on the floor. The momentum of her body, as well as her flailing arms, knocked the man to his side. She landed with a squeal half atop the older woman.

  “Oh! Oh!” she cried in mortification.

  “Get off!” the woman yelled. Her eyes had opened, and she glared with much more anger than shame. To their right, the young man had scrambled a couple of feet away and was hiking his pants up.

  “Blue!” Josh gasped. She extended a hand. He took it, slid his hand down to her upper arm, and helped pull her to a standing position.

  “May we remain shielded from Her wrath!” Josh said, standing there, staring wildly down on the scene she’d just left. The phrase made no sense, but it steadied her a bit.

  “Get out of here, Joshua Barstow,” the woman growled. She laid there, half naked, tummy arcing like rising bread dough, legs still spread, sex glistening. “We were busy.”

  “Uh, sorry. Wait, why are you doing that here?” The scene felt surreal.

  The young man—Bran, she thought, or maybe Bren—rose to his feet. His shirt remained bunched around his waist and his hair poked up in unruly, light brown tufts.

  “Why not?” he asked, but his eyes pointed toward the floor.

  “We’re not done!” the woman snapped. “Get back down here.”

  Bran glanced from Josh to the woman, his eyes guilty, unsure.

  “Come here!” the woman commanded.

  With a shrug, Bran unsnapped his pants and started pulling them down.

  Josh tugged Blue out of the hallway, walking as quickly as her wonky legs would allow.

  They plunked down in their usual place, not fifty feet from the couple in the hallway. Had she sat a dozen feet to the right, she could probably still see them, writhing on the ground.

  Did no one else notice? Care?

  Without saying a word, Lynna rose and returned five minutes later with tea, aspirin, and water. She held the tea while Josh sipped. After a minute, Josh told Lynna what they’d encountered.

  Lynna nodded. “Bran and Joona. In the middle of the night last night—no, two nights ago, RJ had to use the bathroom. When she came back, she told me she’d seen them in the hallway.”

  RJ wheeled toward them from the direction of the kitchen. “I’m not making breakfast this morning,” she grumbled when she reached them. “Juss is happy to have the whole kitchen to himself, anyway.”

  “Something wrong, my sunflower?” Lynna asked. Realizing what she’d said, she glanced around their circle before dropping her eyes.

  “Somebody stole the blasted dried apples. I was going to make oatmeal pancakes with them inside.” RJ glared at all of them, as if perhaps one of them had done the deed.

  “Someone stole them?” Josh asked. “Why would anyone do that?”

  “Two days ago, somebody stole my honey,” she grumped. “Seven jars were there the day before, and the next day—gone! Probably doing all sorts of things with it I don’t want to think about.”

  Josh couldn’t even imagine. Then, thinking of Joona and Bran, she could and wished she hadn’t. She remembered Kadin, eyes empty of anything but animal hunger as he shoveled sugar in handfuls to his mouth.

  We deal with the terror, the uncertainty, in our own ways.

  Garyn tottered into the room, then, and squeezed between Lynna and Josh.

  As the day progressed, Josh counted herself lucky not to encounter any more coupling Tithes or thieves of sugary substances. The full group engaged in another tense group discussion about finding patterns in who had been taken. Avery argued vociferously that one existed, that if a sentient being was doing the choosing, the choices couldn’t be random. Several individuals proposed ways to delay being taken: saying prayers at least twice a day, sitting in a particular section of the Great Room, skipping dinner. One person even said loudly and with seeming sincerity that making friends with Josh seemed to work well, since all of her favorite people remained.

  Josh engaged the conversation at first, but soon she sat back and let the words blow around her.

  If there’s a pattern, she thought, we’re too small to see it.

  When the angel came, Garyn snuggled up next to Josh, who threw the cloak over her. Blue, Josh, and the little girl huddled together, the girl’s tiny frame wracked with trembles, while the angel swooped.

  The lights returned, and Mare, one of the Holies, the girl with the brain tumor, the newlywed, was gone.

  From her position on the couch, Josh could not see him, but she heard Kadin scream. His cry sounded like the shriek of a large bird of prey, high and shrill and completely wild. A moment later, she heard thudding noises, interspersed with screeches from the young man, and then the grunts and thumps of a scuffle. A moment later, the same woman and man Josh had seen in the bathroom the previous day—Kain and Isa, she’d learned—dragged a bloodied and grunting Kadin out of the room.

  They all sat in silence for a time. Gradually, the voices returned, although more subdued than before. As the moment dragged on, the room drained of people who left for the privacy of their own rooms.

  Josh lay with her back to Blue, staring at the dull, gray wall. He cuddled her from behind, warming her back. She almost didn’t mind when his feet brushed against hers.

  “Blue?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think, maybe, that the angel might have changed me somehow when it touched me that first night? Like maybe I am different now?”

  Blue shocked her by laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” she snapped, her neck and cheeks hot.<
br />
  After a moment, he said in his voice like ice water, “You weren’t joking?”

  She considered not answering but finally bit out, “No.”

  “Oh. Then no.”

  But why am I different?

  The following day, Garyn almost quit her lessons with Avery. “I like reading,” she said reasonably, “and Avery is the best teacher I’ve ever had. But there are no real books here.” In all the explorations, Tithes had only managed to unearth a few manuals and an old copy of Lucerne’s town ordinances. “Besides, none of us are going to be here long. Why should I bother?”

  Their smart girl. Josh leaned forward and whispered to her, “You’re right. But this isn’t just about reading. It’s also about making Avery feel useful and occupied. Everyone needs to feel they have something to contribute.”

  After a minute, Garyn nodded. “Plus,” she said in a low voice, “Kenna isn’t so quick at this. When I help her, she learns a little better. And I think it keeps her from bugging people.”

  “Thank you for understanding,” Josh said.

  Lynna and RJ played a game of “what if.” What if they hadn’t become Tithes? What if they escaped this place and made a life for themselves? What if they wandered outside the ten towns and found other people to live with? What if they had been born as Twelves?

  “Imagine that,” RJ marveled. “Doing whatever you want, working at whatever job you want, having as many kids as you want.”

  Josh thought about reminding her how that all turned out, for the planet as well as the people, but if the game helped them cope with the horror of waiting every day for death, who was she to steal it from them?

  “Do you think anyone lives outside the ten towns?” she asked Blue. It was an old question that children whispered to one another. She’d never had anyone to whisper to, but she’d pondered the question all the same.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Really? What makes you say that?”

  “The technology we enjoy, the plants and animals we eat: not all of it can come from the desert.”

  She’d heard this argument before—more precisely, she’d read it.

  “But some townspeople leave the towns and journey closer to the ocean to provide us with food,” she pointed out. It was true. She’d seen the trucks, laden with produce and other supplies, lumber through town. “They live outside the towns, but they’re still townsfolk.”

  “It’s a big world,” Blue said.

  “The Bit’ only mentions our ten towns, so how could anything else exist?”

  “Maybe every group of towns has their own version of the Bitoran.”

  Josh’s eyes widened at this borderline blasphemy, but someone behind her chuckled.

  “He speaks rarely but wisely,” Avery said, sitting just a few feet beyond Blue on her right.

  “You agree with him?” Josh asked.

  Avery shrugged, a gesture that moved down his arms in a refined wave, ending with upturned palms. “I can’t say for certain, but why not?”

  “The Bit’ says most of humanity died in Twelve,” Josh argued. “We are what’s left after the humans’ pride and stubbornness finally broke.”

  Avery smiled, just a little. “Our entire view of history comes from that book. She or he who recorded those words or tried their hand at editing before reprinting controls the minds of thousands.”

  “We’d know if others existed,” Josh said. “They’d come visit.”

  “And what about all the strictures against leaving one’s town? The ten towns hardly know about each other, let alone anything outside.”

  “Why?” Josh asked simply. She thought of all the books she’d read about the Twelves, how they’d numbered in the billions. She couldn’t even fathom that many people. And now, only hundreds of thousands remained, most tucked neatly into ten desert towns.

  Avery’s smile waxed into something gentle and brilliant. His teeth shone, white and even, in his narrow face. “What do you think, young Josh?”

  She shook her head. “I think Elovah’s scribes said many times in the Bit’ that, unlike the Twelves, we should never reproduce beyond our means, never seek to conquer the planet, should stay in our towns and treat townsfolk as our beloved neighbors. ‘The borders of the ten towns hold the remnants of what was once a wicked race,’” she quoted. She sounded prim, maybe even a bit like the Holies, but how could she question the towns’ basic understanding of humanity?

  Avery leaned back against the couch. “If I were to establish a ruling order, I’d build a failsafe into it: ‘Should you question or doubt, you’ll be punished.’ It stirs the internal gaol guard inside us all, does it not?”

  Josh lowered her head. Blue placed his hand on her shoulder, and she grasped it. “I know it’s convenient, and I agree with you that it maintains our obedience.” She raised her head and looked into his eyes, so dark brown she couldn’t see his pupils. “I won’t question this, Avery.”

  Avery nodded, smiled, and patted her knee. “I admire the ‘won’t,’ Joshua,” he said. “There’s a ‘can’t’ and a ‘won’t’ in every decision. Your honesty refreshes.”

  Well, hey, if he liked her honesty. “Do you still think the town leaders watch us?”

  Avery shrugged again. “Perhaps not the town leaders, but someone in the towns. The holy persons, maybe? I’ve read a lot of science. One person disappears every day. We react in all sorts of noteworthy ways. It has an experimental feel to me. If only I could discover their patterns . . .” His voice trailed off.

  Josh wondered, then, whether Elovah sat in heaven, notebook in hand, charting down their reactions to the daily threat of death. Although probably blasphemous, she smiled nonetheless at the image.

  They chatted about more mundane topics, and Avery even managed to draw Blue into the conversation.

  When the angel came a very few hours later, Garyn and Josh snuggled into the tent of Blue’s cloak. They emerged shortly thereafter and found Ryland, the smiling launderer, gone.

  The days drifted by, as slow and formless as fat clouds whispering across a blue sky. The occasional dramatic episode punctured the Tithes’ pale, sleepy days and their dread-filled nights. Kadin emerged from his room one morning, grabbed a bowl of oatmeal, and threw it across the kitchen, screaming at them for their hypocrisy. Netta and the Holies loudly and publicly berated couples for having unmarital sex; this time, four or five people loudly snickered. Juss caught three people stealing edibles from the kitchen. No one was punished. What punishment could they mete out to people whose lives would end in, at best, just over a month?

  Garyn remained devoted to Lynna and RJ. Come late evening, however, she gravitated to Josh and Blue and shuddered her way through the angel’s visits. She continued her reading lessons and became proficient at writing all of their names.

  The angel took six more people, none of whom Josh knew well.

  At night and in the morning, Josh and Blue continued their explorations of kissing. Always, they stopped before it led to something more, although it became increasingly difficult, almost to the point of pain.

  On the seventh night, after crushing themselves into a tight ball during the angel’s visit, Josh, Blue, and Garyn threw off the cloak. The light stung their eyes.

  The search for the missing person took longer than usual. It happened that way sometimes, particularly when a solitary person’s absence didn’t immediately get noticed. Five minutes passed. Ten. Josh asked the town representatives to account for their town people. Josh accounted for the four others left in her town. By the fourth town, Hesperia, they knew: Avery was gone.

  Later, Josh lay in bed, staring at the ceiling with dry, unmoving eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Blue said quietly, holding her against him.

  She wondered if he really were, if he’d learned enough about empathy to understand.

  “Will you miss him?” she asked.

  After a moment, Blue responded. “I enjoyed his company. He was a smart and good person. I
wish he hadn’t been taken for a while. Mostly, though, I hate that you’re in pain.”

  “I’ll miss him,” she whispered.

  Blue’s finger moved to her cheek and wiped the wetness away.

  For Josh, two big events shaped the texture and taste of the following day. By the time breakfast had ended, she realized Lynna and RJ had decided not to leave their room. Josh adored Blue, but she missed her close friend. Garyn bobbed uncertainly around Josh. With Avery gone and her surrogate mother hiding, she had nothing to occupy her attention. Finally, Josh suggested with as much gentleness as she could muster that the girl go play with Kenna, her sometimes-friend.