by Meg Elison
We stood with him as the sun finally pulled itself from the horizon. He struck flint to steel and Ina freed herself, too.
CHAPTER 22
The Book of Flora
Nowhere
Fall, in ash and ruin
104N
We’re leaving Nowhere tomorrow. We’re headed after Errol and Ricardo. Eventually, we’ll go my way and toward the Midwife’s home, way out west somewhere in the unknown.
There really is nothing here. The Paws made sure of that. There are two structures standing, and both are badly burned. One of them used to be the House of Mothers. The boys have decided to settle there, until they can build up something better. They have a moon or two before it’s too cold or too wet.
The tunnels are still in good shape, though moles and every manner of creeping thing have moved into them. The land takes things back so fast. There’s bear shit out near where they used to bake bread. That made us all pretty nervous.
It’s hard to be back here for me, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like for everyone else. Eddy is barely speaking, but what else is new? Alice, on the other hand, is falling apart.
She started crying at the gates and hasn’t stopped. She made her way out to her old place and cried over her garden, her greenhouse, her breezy little home that she loved so much. I loved it too, but I couldn’t take up her time or space with my small grief when hers is so large it’s swallowing her whole. I didn’t know whether to leave her alone there, but I couldn’t join her when she lay down in the dirt and cried over her plants.
“I raised them from seeds. From cuttings. Some of them were very rare. This is years of work. My whole life, really. I never, never should have left. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She laid her face in the charred stems and sobbed.
I know what she’d been thinking. I know what we’d been trying to do. I guess none of it seems like it was worth it now. Where am I supposed to go with that? Does she blame me for it? It was she who talked me into going to the Lion, not the other way around.
It didn’t save us. It probably just hastened the inevitable.
Tommy tells me the baths are gone, but there’s a basement to that building that may be salvageable.
“It’s all steel and tile. Nothing to burn. It stinks, and it’s full of ashes and charred timbers. But I think we can clean it out, and start the pump up again. There’s still water in the cisterns, and we can haul up more from the creek if it runs out before the rains. With nobody here to use it, though, we should be all set.”
He stands with his hands on his hips, looking around.
“Are you okay, being back?”
He squints at me. “I don’t know. Not really. But I’d rather be here than in Ommun.”
As if they heard their names, Gabe and Rei appear. Have I ever seen one of them without the other? Anyway, they’re obvious now. All over each other, always hand in hand. I guess they’ve been waiting a long time to do that. Tommy gives them a lot of sidelong looks. I wonder how that’s going to go, when it’s just them.
How does it always go? Someone gets frozen out. Eddy curls up against Kelda’s back at night, and Alice curls up against his.
I’ve been cold before.
I don’t want to stay here, but I don’t know about going out on my own. No horses. No trucks. Nobody to walk with me. If they stay, I stay.
I don’t know what I want. Yes, I do. I know exactly what I want, but I can’t let myself want it. Not when it hurts like this.
I’ll go where Eddy goes, for as long as he’ll let me. I’d have taken care of his baby, if he had wanted me to. I’d never have told him he had to birth it, but he could have left it with me forever, and it would have been my own.
What do you call it when you wish you could take someone else’s problem? Not only to help them, but to help yourself. I don’t think there is such a word.
We’ve been here six days and we have an accord, as Alma would say.
Eddy finally starts to talk. He says, “I’m going east. I’m going to follow Errol and Ricardo’s route, the two men who taught me to be a raider. They gave me their map. They had seen so much more of this world than I have. I have to see if there’s anyone out there. Going to live like a raider and travel every day. Anyone who wants to follow me needs to keep up.”
I know he wants Kelda and Alice to follow, but I don’t care. I stand right up. “I’m coming.”
Eddy nods. Not going to give me any more than that, I guess.
Alice doesn’t stand, but sighs. “I’m going where you go. It’s too sad here. I’d rather try something new than deal with all that’s lost here.” She wipes her nose.
Kelda looks at her shoes. “I don’t know if I can leave here,” she says.
Eddy nods at that, too. “It’s okay, Kelda. I can understand . . .”
He looks away, shifting his weight from one hip to the other.
“I don’t trust what’s out there,” Kelda says, and her voice quivers. “I want to go where you go, but leaving home has not led me to good places. I . . . I want to know if there’s anyone left in Womanhattan. I might . . . I might go back to Ommun.”
Eddy sets his jaw. I can tell he hates that idea, but he doesn’t want to say it.
Gabe says it for him. “There’s nothing back there for people like us. Just a more comfortable cage. I’ll take you to Womanhattan—I know the way. But don’t do that. Don’t give up who you are for a soft bed.”
Kelda’s whole heart is always on her face. She can’t help it. She looks at Gabe now with a child’s trust, the way she looks at Eddy. “Thank you,” she says.
Tommy half smiles at Eddy. “You know I’m staying,” he says. “I wish I could set you on the road freshly shaved, like you like. But my tools are gone.”
Eddy smiles back. “I’ll come back with new tools. Sharp and rust-free. You’ll see.”
Tommy holds out his arms and Eddy goes to him. They have an easy intimacy; Tommy never asks for anything, and Eddy never assumes the worst in him. I’m sorry that they’re going to lose each other.
All we do is lose. I badly want to have someone in my life whom I never have to lose. Never have to say goodbye to and mean it. Never have to take one last look, not knowing whether it really is the last.
Is that even possible? It isn’t. We’re all going to leave and die. But does it always have to be so soon?
CHAPTER 23
ON THE ROAD
Every day, Eddy would carefully lay out Errol and Ricardo’s maps. He would trace his finger along the routes, murmuring to himself about where he had already been. Sometimes, Alice could get him talking about the two men who had trained him when he was young.
Errol was the quiet one, the good planner. He saw the road ahead and knew exactly what was needed, what they would have to pack and what they could find along the way. Errol was never caught unprepared.
Ricardo, Eddy laughed about constantly. The adventurer. The trickster. He was useless until there was a crisis, and then he was the best man you could have along. And there was always a crisis, eventually.
Eddy had not seen them since he was a young man, but they were with him in spirit every time he set foot on the road, every time he checked his map.
The weather had become unbearably muggy, and they had taken to sheltering during the hottest part of the day, doing their traveling in the early morning and evening.
They camped along a crumbling old-world road, spread out from one another and testy. Alice was scowling over Eddy’s shoulder, looking down at his marked-up map. “Why count places you’ve already been?”
Eddy shrugged. “If they were there when I was in town, I’d know it. Besides, they told me where they were headed.”
“And where is that?” Alice laid her head to the side, against her own shoulder. The heavy air had frizzed her curls, making her look harried and irrational. But she wouldn’t let Flora braid it, or even put it up. It just grew and grew until she was a blonde shrub. She finger-combe
d it when she bathed, which was not often.
Eddy ran his finger along the coastline between the Republic of Charles and Niyok. “Somewhere here.”
Alice rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s too much territory. How would you have any idea how to find them, if they’re even still out there?”
Eddy laid his palm flat against the soft paper, trying to get a hold of himself. “Because they have signs that they left,” he said through his teeth. “They taught me.”
“Have you been leaving signs?” Alice looked around, her palms turned up to the rotting ceiling of the old-world building that shaded them. “Because I haven’t noticed you leaving any.”
Eddy looked away. “I don’t want to be tracked,” he said.
“Exactly,” Alice said, stalking off. “You don’t have a plan. We left Ommun like you had a plan. We left Nowhere like you had a plan. You’re just doing what you always do: raiding until you find an excuse to stop. Why? What is the point?”
Flora was sitting with her back against the spongy wall, wrists crossed over her drawn-up knees. “What’s the point of anything we do, Alice? Why did you come along in the first place? You could have stayed anywhere you wanted, with your skills.”
Alice swallowed. “Do you have any water left?”
What water they had gathered was swarming with bugs. It all had to be boiled and filtered, and the work was constant. Still, Flora offered her canteen without protest. Alice took it from her outstretched hand and drank without sparing. She looked down at the empty bottle when she had finished.
“I don’t know. I wanted something else. I thought we were on our way toward something.” Alice licked her lips.
“We are,” Flora said. “We just don’t know what it is.”
The air was too heavy to take in and push out fast enough to fight. Limp as a rag, Alice sank beside Flora and sat with her back to the wall. It was too hot to touch one another.
“I just hate that she always acts like she knows what she’s doing,” she said in an undertone to Flora.
“He,” Flora said back, insistently.
Alice looked away.
When night was falling and they should have been on their way, Eddy made no move to marshal them. Flora went out at twilight and wove a basket of reeds with the skill of a weaver. She pushed the basket into a narrow space between stones in a stream and waited. She did not have to wait long. She came back with a half dozen shiny silver fish, built a fire, and began to roast them.
Alice said nothing but brought her wild mustard seed and precious salt to season them with. She dug from her pack a small sack of flour and mixed it with water and salt. She baked them flat, unleavened bread on a stone she pulled close to the fire. Eddy came to the smell of the food and looked them both over.
“This is much better than being on my own,” he said, smiling. “I’m glad you’re both with me.”
Flora grinned up at him. It had been a long time since he had said anything to make her feel as though her existence was anything but an inconvenience to him.
The roof was rotten enough that Flora built the fire inside, positioning it below a hole that she thought would vent the room. The three of them clustered around it, passing tin plates and hot bread and the fish, sharing and looking one another in the eye for the first time in a long time.
Flora smiled as she watched the other two eat. It always pleased her to see someone happy with what she had made. She used to love clothing people, seeing them draped in her silk, delighting in the feel of it on their skin and the way it was like nothing else. Worm-wool, Eddy had called it. Feeding people was not so different from that. She gave them something that they could use, something that made them happy. She was always weaving the threads together, and sometimes it brought the pieces of her heart closer to one another. Sometimes she could feel it starting to heal itself.
This must be what mothering is like, she thought to herself. Always giving like this. Thinking of their needs. Showing them the world, because it’s always going to be new.
But it was Eddy who had shown her the newness of the world. It was Eddy who had taken her into the cave, away from Jeff City, back into a life on the road that she had nearly forgotten. It was Alice who had shown her the hips on a rosebush, or the seeds in a pod on the roadside, or the bark on a tree that would cure a headache.
So we are all Mother to one another, she mused. The fish in her mouth had a hot, crisp skin that was much improved by Alice’s share of her precious spices. I suppose we are father as well. But that made her think of her own father, and Archie, and her mouth puckered.
I cannot say that I was made wrong or raised wrong, she thought, trying to weave the threads of past and present. Only that I was made. So if I were to mother someone, could I do better? Could I keep any child safe? Surely I could do better than was done to me.
But I have had almost no example. Except moments like these.
She thought of Ina while she watched Eddy eat. Ina might not have known Eddy perfectly, or understood him. But she loved him. He came into the world knowing he was wanted and would not be sold. Maybe that’s enough.
Alice put a bite of hot bread into Eddy’s mouth and he smiled. The two of them seemed very close together all of a sudden. Alice smiled at Flora over Eddy’s shoulder.
I was not wanted, and I was sold. And yet I am myself, Flora thought with a sudden stab of jealous need. And I may have to sleep out in the grass tonight, damn it.
The space was wide, but there was no division in it for privacy. Flora ate faster, already planning how she would slip away. She stood up, gathering her tin plate and fish bones, pivoting toward the door.
Alice reached out and caught her hand. Alice’s gleaming eyes stared up at her, enormous in the gloom and framed by her mane of untamed hair. “Hey,” she said. “Don’t go.”
Flora slid into Alice’s arms almost helplessly, melting into the gut-clench of being wanted and suddenly allowed to want. Alice kissed her, and Flora moaned against her lips, unable to stop herself. Alice turned to kiss Eddy, and Flora dropped her mouth to Alice’s freckled neck, moving her hair away and bringing her teeth against Alice’s skin.
Eddy was not relaxed, not yet. Flora could feel his tension on the other side of the wall of Alice’s body. Still, he was incapable of resisting Alice.
Who could say no to that, Flora wondered as she saw Eddy’s long fingers spread over Alice’s breasts to squeeze them through her cotton Ommun-made gown.
“That’s it,” Alice sighed. “That’s exactly what I want.”
Alice got what she wanted, over and over. Eddy and Flora worked carefully around one another, pleasuring Alice and bringing forth her laughing, gasping climaxes in a torrent that never seemed to stop.
Alice took a minute to catch her breath and push her abundant curly hair off her forehead before rolling toward Eddy. “Alright, then, now you.”
Flora froze, unsure of what she should do. Curled against Alice’s back, she merely watched.
But Eddy did not want this. Alice tried to slip her hands beneath Eddy’s tight binder, but he gently and implacably pushed her away. She smirked and moved her hands to undo his trousers, but he stopped her there as well.
“It’s okay,” Alice breathed. “You’re safe here. All that’s passed. It’s just us.”
Eddy wouldn’t speak. He was trembling, growing smaller. Flora saw him receding, saw herself reflected in his dark eyes. She knew with the instinct of a thousand assignations that he was not able to say what he wanted. It was not her job to divine it, but she knew she could. She knew.
She reached over Alice’s body to touch Eddy gently on his still-clothed hip. “Lie back?”
Eddy looked at her. What she saw there was some noxious cocktail of fear and desire, and it almost felt like home to her.
“I know what you need,” she said in her most soothing voice. “It’s okay.”
Eddy did lie back, slowly. Flora put her mouth to Alice’s ear. “Tell
him you’re going to straddle his cock. Ask him if that’s alright.”
Alice turned to look at her.
Please don’t say anything, Flora begged silently. Please just try to get this.
Alice smiled and lifted a shoulder, then turned to Eddy. “Sweet Eddy, can I straddle your cock?”
Something flashed in Eddy’s face, some combination of shock and recognition as if he had seen something he had only dreamed was real. “Yes,” he breathed, almost involuntarily. “Yes, you can.”
Alice was fully nude, having stripped off every stitch in her long moment of doubled adoration. Gracefully, she came up on her knees and split herself across Eddy’s lap. Eddy drew his knees up and Alice settled down, root to root, exactly where she was supposed to be.
Flora heard her sigh as she slid down Eddy’s cock and knew she could do this. This wasn’t new to her, after all. Alice began to ride and Eddy’s hands came automatically to her hips, beginning the push and pull that created the delicious friction of this act. Flora came up on her knees behind Alice, biting and sucking at the back of her neck, reaching around to cup and squeeze at her freckled breasts.
“Just like that,” she breathed in Alice’s ear. “Can’t you see what you’re doing to him? That’s it. That’s my girl.”
Alice’s breath hitched in her throat as Eddy thrust upward beneath her, bouncing her whole body with his fucking.
“Tell him,” Flora said, sliding her gaze over Alice’s pale shoulder and locking eyes with Eddy at last. There he was. Right there. “Tell him how good his cock feels inside you. Tell him how beautiful he is. Tell him he should come inside you and be part of you, forever. Lose himself.”
Eddy gazed back at Flora with an intensity she found she could barely stand. Alice brought one hand down to her own clit and worked it quickly, sharply, rocking with Eddy as he worked himself into a fever. With the other, she reached behind her and pawed her way through Flora’s silks. Flora groaned as Alice’s fingers found her, slick and rampant, and slid right in.
