The Book of Flora

by Meg Elison

  “Look,” Flora said. She pointed out the airplane. Each of them took a turn.

  “They can’t fly it,” Hortensia said at once, somewhat triumphantly.

  “You were right about that,” Flora said. “Weren’t you going to go with some of the people refugeeing to Vashon?”

  Hortensia fixed her with a sickening eye. “Absolutely not. My place is here.”

  They waited. Carol put a hand on Eva’s shoulder, and Eva put her hand on top of that.

  They had moved everyone to the far shore of the island and advised as many as could to head elsewhere, to the other islands in the sound. There was no reason to lose everyone on Bambritch, and those who had refugeed that way agreed wholeheartedly. None of them wished to stand for the same assault again.

  Without warning, one of the tanks shot off a round with a boom like a tree falling in the woods. Everyone jumped, then cringed, bracing for impact. The projectile struck water, not coming close to the island.

  “A warning shot,” said Eva.

  “A test,” Zill corrected. “To see if they could hit us from there. They can’t.”

  The people of Bambritch became restless after the warning shot. They taunted the people on the other side, knowing that their taunts could not be heard. They milled and talked and watched while nothing at all happened. The army did not seem to go anywhere, or change its demeanor in the slightest.

  “Give me the spyglass,” Flora said, holding her hand out to Carol. He passed it over.

  Flora saw something moving through the crowd, held over the heads of several men. She knew it was a boat before it hit the water.

  “They’re sending over a boat,” she said. “A small one.”

  When it was on the water and on its way, Flora handed the glass over.

  “We have to go meet them,” Eva said.

  “I should go alone,” Flora said at once.

  “What?” Hortensia’s voice was sharp and cracked on the word. “Why?”

  “Because it’s my living child,” Flora said. “Connie. They’re the one who’s brought this army to us. They’ve come back to me.”

  “You can’t know that,” Hortensia said at once, ever the skeptic.

  Flora shrugged. “Nothing else makes any sense,” she said. “Everything the refugees have said makes it clear. They’re coming here for a reason. Some of the refugees tell me that they use my name. They have the same obsession Connie had.”

  “Connie was obsessed with frags?” Zill asked doubtfully.

  Flora nodded. “I never knew what to do about it. I didn’t know it would get like this.” She turned to Carol. “Can you please send for Alice? I think she might be able to help with this.”

  Carol nodded and began to climb down at once.

  Flora looked at the other three women. “I don’t know if I’ll come back from this. I don’t know what to advise you to do when I’m gone. I know you’ll do all you can to keep our people safe. Know that I’ve always loved you.”

  They pulled one another close and leaned their foreheads together. They spoke rapidly, in the clipped ideas that people who have shared important work use so well. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was better than nothing. In the end, they had all their bases covered.

  Down on the beach, the women who had volunteered to entertain an army were ready. They had painted and rouged, and several had reddened their hair like Flora did. She smiled to see them.

  “I don’t know if you’ll be needed, but I’m so honored that you’d try,” she called out to them. They offered her grim smiles and waves, shivering in the early light.

  Only the sound of seabirds overhead, the gentle lapping of the waves. The little boat was coming.

  Alice arrived just before the boat made landfall. Flora looked her over. She thought the years had been kindest to Alice of everyone she knew. Alice’s fair hair barely showed gray. The births of several children had softened her body, making it more generous and lovable than it had ever been. Her eyes crinkled at the edges, but they were no less lovely for that.

  Flora reached out and Alice gave her hand to her old friend.

  “It’s Connie,” Flora said.

  “It’s what?”

  “I’m almost certain.”

  Alice searched Flora’s eyes, her face working as she caught up slowly. Flora simply turned and led her by the hand toward the water, trying to anticipate where the little boat would land. It was close enough now that Flora could hear the whine of its deez motor and see that there were two people riding inside, rather than one.

  A guard, maybe. An assistant? A partner?

  The boat landed and two figures emerged, one young and one clearly struggling and obviously older.

  Flora and Alice held hands and did not move.

  As the other two came closer, it became clear that the taller of the two was Connie. They were broader now, in their full height and filled out like a man. They wore a red scarf over the lower half of their face, and Flora could tell at once that it was made of silk.

  She strained to see Connie’s eyes, to take it all in. It had been half a lifetime since she had seen her living child.

  Alice squeezed her hand agonizingly hard and made a sound in her throat. Flora looked over at her and saw that her eyes were huge in her face, locked on the person walking just a few feet behind Connie.

  And then Flora cried out involuntarily, feeling the air course through her body without her will.

  Because the other person who had been on the boat was Eddy.

  CHAPTER 42

  BAMBRITCH ISLAND

  Eddy raised his bound hands to them, but Alice was already running. She hit him so hard that they nearly tumbled into the rocky sand. Flora walked up slowly behind her, not watching their reunion. She had eyes only for Connie.

  And Connie, of course, could only watch the two of them embrace, shutting Connie out once again. They changed course to walk toward Alice.

  Good, Flora thought. That’s working as planned.

  She quickened her pace toward Connie while their attention was elsewhere. She got within ten paces and stopped. Connie’s head was turned at a deep angle, showing the muscles and cords in their neck. Despite everything, something in Flora was relieved to realize that they were well and healthy, and had obviously not been hungry all this time.

  They’ve been feeding themselves on all they could steal from the towns they’ve taken, the people they’ve killed. Get it together.

  Flora took a deep breath and watched Eddy and Alice break apart. Eddy saw her, finally, came to her next.

  Eddy came into her arms and Flora pulled him in, taking just a moment to see how his hair had gone gray, his face weathered by the years.

  And the sea? Has he been at sea this whole time? How did Connie find the Alexandria? How did any of this happen?

  Eddy was familiar and strange all at once, and Flora took a deep breath of his scent, holding him tight.

  Whatever else they came to do, Connie brought me the two things I’ve lost that I’ve missed the most. Whatever happens now, my heart is whole.

  “Tell her,” Connie said, their voice deeper than Flora had ever heard it.

  Eddy pulled back and put his tied hands on one side of Flora’s face.

  “Fragging is real. I’ve seen it.”

  Alice looked at Eddy, and then at Connie.

  “So? So why not go and find them, if that’s true? Why kill people up and down the continent, asking for them? What are you trying to prove?”

  Connie’s mouth twisted to one side in something that was not quite a smile. “It’s not enough to find the frags. We have to make way for them. That means that mistakes like Flora and me and Eddy here cannot exist anymore. We can make this world new and right and clean. We just have to make some space first.”

  Alice’s cheeks were red spots of anger. “There’s plenty of space, you murderer. Have you seen the empty cities out there? Nobody is trying to stop any kind of progress, if that’s what it is. Pe
ople are just trying to live. We don’t need any more men like the Lion trying to remake the world in the way they think it should be.”

  Connie unwrapped their red silk, and Flora could see how closely, how carefully they had shaved their beard.

  “You should untie Eddy,” Alice said reproachfully. “You’re just another one of them. Another little lion man.”

  “I don’t believe there ever was a Lion,” they said. “I think that’s a story you all cooked up to make yourselves into heroes.”

  Eddy’s jaw set. “You think what you want.”

  Flora held Eddy’s hands, not daring to untie them herself. “How did they find you? Where’s the Alexandria?”

  “I don’t know,” Eddy said, with real pain in his voice. “They caught me in a raid and the ship left without me. I know where they’ll be at midsummer, and I plan to meet them there.”

  “You’ll be dust in the wind by midsummer,” Connie said.

  The Midwife’s pistol is lying against my back right this minute, Flora thought. If Connie is armed, they aren’t showing it.

  As if they could hear her thoughts, Connie smiled. “Don’t get any ideas, old horsewoman. If I’m not back by sunset, my army will lay waste to your island.”

  “With what?” Alice asked tartly. “Are they all coming over in tiny boats, one by one? We’re ready for you, you know. Sending us refugees just meant you were sending us a wave of warnings.”

  Connie looked Alice up and down, hunger evident in their eyes. “You have no idea what we can do. What we’re capable of. There are weapons we haven’t used yet, things I’ve been saving just for this island. Just for this moment. Just for you,” he said, turning his gaze back to Flora.

  “Then what do you want here?” Flora asked tiredly. “I am not interested in the big show. If you came to kill me, then let’s get it over with. What could you possibly want, other than some petty revenge?”

  Connie’s eyes rolled back to Alice. “I don’t care about you, Flora. I never did. I’m here for her.”

  Alice froze, her face becoming a sheet of ice. “What?”

  Connie took a step toward her, and Eddy stepped back. Flora had never known him to cede territory like that in a fight, and was shocked.

  What must Connie have done to him to make him fear them this way?

  “You can do it,” Connie said, their voice suddenly much gentler. “I know you can. I’ve been studying about it for years, looking for the signs of fragging. You can do it, you just have to learn how. I’m going to take you to them, so you can learn how to do it. You’ll see.”

  Alice gave a little laugh. “Connie, it’s too late for me. I’m past the end of my blood; I’ve had all the children I’m going to have. With men, by the way. I had each and every one of them with a man. Because that’s how it happens. Every time.”

  Eddy sighed behind them. “They’re fucking crazy,” he said. “But they really are telling the truth. There are some islands, up by Laska—”

  “Shut up,” Connie said over their shoulder. “I don’t need you to explain this when I’ve always been right. When I knew from my own root and my own change that this was possible.” They fixed their eyes on Alice. “I’ll take you to the island. You’ll see. Everything is different there.”

  Alice and Flora shared a look. Flora thought of her gun. Alice turned back to Connie.

  “Will you tell me about this? Will you give me the choice to say yes or no?”

  Connie looked her over again, the hunger of a lifetime in their eyes.

  “I don’t know that I will give you that choice,” they said finally. “But let’s talk.”

  Quick as a fish, they pulled a pistol from their back. Flora moved at once to draw hers, but saw that they aimed straight up. They shot an orange-red flare and reholstered at once.

  “What was that?” Alice asked.

  “They just bought us some time,” Eddy said.

  Alice settled her nerves, laying a hand against her chest. “Come with me,” she said.

  Absurdly, as if from some other world, Connie offered her their elbow. It was clad in an old-world leather jacket that shone with the look of someone else’s labor. Alice, long used to this kind of gesture, accepted and threaded her hand through the crook of their arm.

  Eddy and Flora followed a few paces back. When Alice clearly had them engaged in conversation, Flora slowed up a little more.

  “Eddy, are you okay?”

  “I’m too fucking old for this kind of thing,” he said at once. “I was long past all this. Life in the library is so peaceful, Flora.”

  Flora squeezed his arm. “I keep a library, too. I know what you mean.” Quieter still. “Do you remember how Estiel fell apart when the Lion was gone? How we kept thinking someone would rise to take his place, but no one did?”

  “Yep,” Eddy said firmly.

  “Is it the same? Have you seen the army? Do they have enough leadership to go on?”

  Eddy looked at Flora, not speaking. At length, he found his voice. “Can you? Can you kill Connie yourself?”

  Flora looked at Connie’s back, seeing only the child she had bought off an auction block in some other life. “If it means this ends. If I have to. I can.”

  She watched Alice dawdle, pointing things out to Connie. Getting them to remember, to share stories with her. Wasting time. She tried to guess how long it had been, but she didn’t know.

  How long do they need? How long until Connie realizes what we’re up to?

  They closed the distance before they came to Alice’s house. Alice sat Connie down on her feather-filled sofa, her pride and joy. She took their jacket from them.

  They noticed at once that the house was filled with drawings. “Does one of your living children draw?” they asked.

  “Calyx,” Alice said as she stoked up the fire and filled a teapot with water. “Not as good as you once were, though.”

  Connie flushed a little in their neck. “I was just wasting time,” they said. “I didn’t know what I was meant to do.”

  Flora sat on a chair opposite the sofa and gestured to Eddy to do the same. Connie had eyes only for Alice, watching her moving about her cozy little home.

  Alice was accustomed to eyes upon her and moved gracefully, sensuously, disguising her years with a languid ease in her joints. She knew what she was doing.

  Maybe Connie hasn’t had any experience with women at all, Flora thought, watching them fall headlong into her trap. Or maybe it’s just that it’s her.

  Flora’s hands had begun trembling as soon as she had said it out loud to Eddy. That she could do it, if she had to. That she’d be the one to kill the tyrant this time, and save them once again. She gripped her silks and tried hard to still them.

  “And what you were meant to do is murder people in some crusade,” Eddy said to them. “You sure followed your destiny toward glory. You have so very much that you’ve built to be proud of.”

  Connie turned toward Eddy and smiled. “You know I only brought you here so that I could kill you in front of her, right?”

  Alice dropped something. Flora seized up, not sure if she should draw the gun or not.

  Do it. DO IT. THIS IS THE MOMENT. Don’t hesitate now.

  But she could not. She had said that she could, and meant it, but she found that she could not move a muscle.

  Eddy did not look away. He did not beg for his life and he didn’t even look dismayed. “I am fucking done with all of this,” he said clearly. “Done with the misery people make for each other. If you’re gonna do it, shut the fuck up and do it. I always knew you were a fucking coward.”

  Connie didn’t move. They looked at Eddy, but spoke to Flora.

  “I brought him back to you because I wanted to show you that you mean nothing to me. I could bring you one last moment of grief before ending your life.”

  Flora swallowed. “You brought me grief with your own face, Connie. You didn’t need to go to any extra trouble.”

  “You never l
oved me,” Connie said, faltering a little. “None of you did. Because I was a mistake. Because I was something you couldn’t understand.”

  “No,” Alice said clearly. “That’s why you couldn’t love yourself. Is that what all this is about? Are you just taking your own pain and spreading it around, rather than finding a way to love and be loved? You really have become a man.”

  Connie did move then, lashing out with an arm and slapping Alice to the floor, where she sat for a moment, blinking, her hand to her ear.

  “Oh, Alice,” they said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just . . . I can’t control it sometimes.”

  “That’s obvious,” Alice said, not cowed one bit. “It’s fine. I’ve had worse. Listen, let me serve us some tea before you kill my oldest friends, alright? Let’s have one more minute together, then be done with this.”

  Connie looked down a moment, composing themselves. They pulled their gun and laid it on the table. They pointed their finger at Eddy.

  “One more minute to say goodbye. Then all the mistakes in this room will be corrected.”

  “Does that include you?” Flora asked.

  Connie’s nostrils flared and their eyes went wide.

  They’re nothing but skinless pain. They’re too volatile. This isn’t going to work.

  “You said you need to fix this. To make room, so that the frags can take over. That would include you, I’m pretty sure. You could just tell Alice where to go, or tell your army to take her there. The three of us could end right here. Rather poetic, right?”

  Couldn’t do it myself, but I could talk them into doing it. Look at them, they’re halfway there now. A stable mind does not do things like this. Maybe I just topple them and end it here, now.

  Connie tapped the gun on the tabletop. Alice walked back into the room with the tea tray.

  Elegantly, wordlessly, with magisterial slowness, Alice made them each a cup of golden tea, one of her own blends. She passed out arrowroot cookies from a neat stack. She smiled above the rim of her teacup at Connie.

  “I can do better than that,” she said. She put a hand into Connie’s lap and they took it at once.

  “Why don’t we have Flora and Eddy get out of here, and leave us alone? I still have a Hive, you know. It used to be that you were too young, but that’s all over now. Why don’t you stay here with me and I help you find what you’re really looking for?”