by Helen Brain
I’M TERRIFIED OF telling Micah about the general’s decision.
I come home from the meeting, tell Aunty Figgy I’ve got a migraine and go straight to bed to curl up next to Isi. When Micah comes in later to see if I’m okay, I pretend to be asleep. But all the while I’m thinking how Samantha-Lee wouldn’t have made such a mess of things, how she would never have impulsively signed a document without first discussing it with Micah. Hundreds of people in Boat Bay are going to go hungry, and it’s all because I wanted Pamza to like me again.
Micah has dedicated his life to helping the people of Boat Bay, and in an instant I’ve gone and undone everything. If I have ever given him a reason to leave me, this is it. I’m going to have to tell him first thing in the morning. It’ll be worse if he hears it from someone else.
The next morning everyone is chatty at breakfast, while I sit hunched over my cup of tea, wishing they’d all shut up.
“What happened at the meeting yesterday?” Fez asks. “Any new decisions?”
I swallow, hiding behind my mug as I try to figure out what to say. “Nothing,” is all I can manage. “Nothing important.”
Fez is satisfied, but Alexia looks at me curiously. She reaches over and feels my forehead. “How’s your head today? You don’t look well.”
“Sore.”
They leave me alone then. When breakfast is over and everyone is going off to start work, I call Micah. “Can you come with me? I need to … I need to tell you something.”
Immediately he’s on alert. “What? Does it have something to do with the council?”
“Just come, please.”
I lead him into the sitting room, sit on the sofa and pat the cushion next to me. “Sit here.”
“What’s wrong? Something happened at the council yesterday, didn’t it?”
“Micah, I …”
“What, Ebba? What have you done?”
“It’s –” I’m interrupted by horse’s hooves.
Irritated, Micah gets up and peers out the window. “It’s Mr Frye. What does he want?”
I say the first thing that comes to mind. “He’s – he’s here to help me with some legal documents.”
“What kind of legal documents?”
Mr Frye has dismounted, and he’s tying his horse’s reins to the hitching post. Aunty Figgy is going outside to greet him. Now they’re turning towards the house. I can’t think fast enough. Micah cannot hear this news from Mr Frye. Panic is gripping my throat.
“I can’t tell you.”
He takes my shoulders and shakes me. “Of course you can tell me,” he snaps. “Ebba, what is he here for? What have you done this time?” His voice is cold.
I’m grasping for an answer. “It – it’s … for my will. I – I’m writing my will.”
“Why can’t you tell me that?”
“Because … because I’m leaving everything to you. I’m making you my heir,” I blurt out.
He takes a step back. “You’re kidding me.”
“No. You already said we’ll be married one day. And – and I have to leave it to someone.”
“But Leonid … Alexia …”
“They’re not citizens. They’re not allowed to own land.” I’m getting better at this – the details are starting to roll off my tongue.
There’s such a swift change in his mood, I almost faint with relief. “Okay,” he says, grinning. “In that case, thanks, babe. Don’t know why you made such a song and dance about it, but that’s great.”
Mr Frye is standing in the doorway now, his usually sleek face etched with worry. “Ebba,” he says, “we have to talk.”
“I know,” I say. “Thank you for coming all this way. Micah’s just leaving. I’ve told him that he’s the main – um, what’s the word – beneficiary, so he can’t be a witness. That’s right isn’t it?”
Mr Frye looks at me like I’m mad. “What are you talking about?”
“Micah, can you go and get two girls from the potato field?” I say, ignoring Mr Frye. “They need to collect firewood in the forest. Please find them a saw, and show them the fallen acacia tree near the river.”
“Sure thing, babe.” He pecks me on the cheek. “See you, Mr Frye.”
I watch him walking off around the front of the house. There’s a skip in his step.
Aunty Figgy is standing in the passage. She’s overheard it all, and she’s got a face like a storm.
THE MEETING WITH Mr Frye is short and ugly. He’s angry about the general’s decisions, but even angrier that I signed with the Syndicate without talking to him first.
“There are going to be serious repercussions,” he tells me. “Serious political ramifications. Without the transportation contracts, many boat people are going to go hungry. And hungry people are desperate people. There’s already talk of an uprising. Really, Ebba, you’ve done a very foolish thing.”
I ask him about the will and he tosses it aside. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t leave Greenhaven to a boy – an employee – you’ve only just met.”
“It’s my farm,” I mutter. “I can leave it to anyone I like. Anyway, it’s not like I’m going to die anytime soon. I just want you to write up the papers.”
He’s in no mood to hang around, and leaves as quickly as he arrived. When he’s gone, I go for a long walk. I pick up a stick and whack the grass as I pass, knocking off the seedpods.
Damnit. I really have screwed everything up.
IN THE LATE afternoon I pack some sandwiches and fruit and a bottle of lemon cordial into a basket, along with a blanket. Aunty Figgy ignores me as I potter around the kitchen – her jaw is set tight, and her beady eyes avoid mine, although all her angry energy is directed my way.
I have to tell Micah the truth about Boat Bay. And I need to do it away from everyone else, so nobody interrupts.
I find him in the shed.
“I’ve made us a picnic supper. Um … surprise,” I say weakly, trying to sound light-hearted.
“Where are we going?” he asks as we cross the meadow. The horses come running over to the fence, whinnying in greeting. I stop and give them each an apple.
“To the pond.”
“Ah.” He twists his arm around my waist. “Are we going skinny-dipping again?”
I think wistfully back to that day in midsummer, when I first realised I loved Micah, not Hal. What I would give to go back in time.
Instead I say, “It’s too cold these days, Micah.”
He grins. “Oh, but I do love a skinny-dipping girl.”
I can barely raise a smile. Now that the time has come, I can’t find the courage to raise the subject. Instead I begin to obsess about Samantha-Lee. I bet she skinny dips all the time. Even in the middle of winter.
Anxiety is gnawing my stomach. He’s going to be so disappointed in me. And then he’ll get angry. I know he’s going to leave me. He’ll go back to Boat Bay and work full-time on the resistance. He’ll go back to beautiful, sophisticated Samantha-Lee. Why would he stick with a gawky, big-footed, red-haired sixteen-year old who keeps doing everything wrong?
I can’t stop myself. As we stride down the path towards the river, the words just tumble out. “Tell me about your old girlfriends. Was Samantha-Lee one of them?”
“Ag, Ebba,” he sighs. “Don’t go there. We’ve talked about this.”
“But I want to know,” I say. I can hear the whine in my voice. “Alexia tells me you and Samantha-Lee were together for years. She says she saw you with her just a few weeks ago – after you escaped over the mountain. She says you stayed at her house in Boat Bay. You told me you were camping in the hills.” My throat is so tight I can hardly get the words out.
His hand squeezes my waist.
“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to gauge what he’s feeling. “It just makes me so insecure.”
He stops and turns to me. He puts his hands on either side of my face and pulls me towards him for a kiss, his dark eyes pouring love into mine. They are the exact deep brown of
the richest topsoil, and fringed by impossibly thick lashes.
“I love you, Ebba den Eeden,” he says when we pull away at last. “You and you alone.”
In relief I lean against his chest, enjoying the feel of his strong body holding mine. “I love you too.”
He strokes my cheek with his fingers. “You’re so beautiful, babe,” he murmurs.
He runs his long fingers down my neck, pressing them into the hollow of my throat, and I can feel the heat rising from him.
I know what he wants. Maybe if I give it to him, he’ll know how much I love him, and he won’t be so angry when he hears about the general’s decision. We’ve come to a soft patch of grass, and it’s quiet, and out of view from the house.
“Let’s have our picnic here.” I shake out the blanket and drop it to the ground. I’m going to do it. I’m going to go all the way, to prove my love for him. My body is tingling, sweat prickling over my skin.
But Aunty Figgy’s words are stuck in my head as loud as if a thousand people were shouting them: Don’t give up your virginity. Focus on the sacred task. Time is running out.
Rubbish, I think, imagining I’m saying what I wouldn’t dare to say if I were face to face with her. You’re just an old lady. What do you know about love?
Micah lies down next to me. Within moments, his hand has moved down from my throat and is running across my chest bone, teasing downwards towards my breasts. I reach over and pull his tunic over his head, flinching as I catch sight of the network of scars on his back.
I’m remembering something – something from long ago. It’s almost in my mind, but then he nibbles my earlobe, and a shudder runs through me and it’s gone.
“Your skin is the exact golden brown of the pecans in the orchard,” I tell him, tracing my little finger along the curve of his top lip.
He reaches up and bites my finger gently. My belly turns over as he draws my finger into his mouth.
“Hold on,” I whisper, pulling my own robe over my head. I lie back down on the blanket, cradling my right arm behind my head.
He rolls over so he’s up against me. He runs his hand up my ribs, around the curve of my breasts and stops at the key hanging from the chain around my neck.
“What’s this?”
What am I remembering? Something about a bunch of keys? About older girls tricking me. I reach up, and as my birthmark touches the key, Dr Iris appears, standing squarely on the path behind Micah, hands on hips, glaring at me over her small wire-rimmed spectacles.
Come along, she says, patting her grey hair to make sure nothing has escaped from the tight curls. We have work to do. Don’t waste time getting boy mad.
I glower at her. “I’m not boy mad.”
Micah shakes me. “Ebba? What’s wrong with you? Who are you talking to?”
I turn my back on Dr Iris den Eeden and roll over to face him. “I’m not talking to anybody.”
He starts kissing me again, but I’m finding it hard getting back in the mood. And then there’s her annoying high-pitched voice again: Come along, girlie. Tempus fugit. There will be plenty of time for gallivanting later. Right now, there’s a job to be done.
I ignore her, refuse to look in her direction, but I can’t exactly make love to Micah with her watching me. I sigh, and sit up slowly.
“Sandwich?”
“Seriously?” Micah scowls at me from under the lock of hair falling across his forehead. “We were just getting started.”
I pull on my robe, all the way down over my legs. “Don’t be cross … It’s just that … I don’t think I’m ready just yet.”
He sighs and rolls over. He’s thinking I’m one of those girls who like to get a guy all worked up and then turn him down at the last moment. And I’m not like that. I’m really not.
But everything’s wrong. He’s angry, and he’s going to be even angrier when he hears about the general.
I can’t tell him about the council meeting now. I need to find a moment when he’s calm and everything’s good between us.
He doesn’t say much as we eat our sandwiches. I pick at the crusts, wishing I knew how to make it all better. This is the second time this has happened. Being interrupted by Aunty Figgy was one thing, but I can hardly tell him my long-dead ancestor just pitched up to tell me not to make love to him. I can almost hear Samantha-Lee’s guffaws.
The whole thing is a disaster. We have nothing to say to each other. We eat quickly and pack up. But as we reach the house in the early-evening light, I know what it was that I was trying to remember. “Hey, Micah, do you remember that time Bonita took Mrs Pascoe’s keys?”
“Vaguely.” His voice is cold.
He follows me into the kitchen and dumps the basket on the table. Alexia is washing up the dirty dishes.
“It was just after our sabenzi group started work in the plant nursery. Soon after we found out that I could make plants grow faster.”
He ignores me and marches off down the path. He doesn’t even say goodbye, or wait to hear me finish what I was saying.
“What’s got into him?” Alexia asks.
I keep my head down and focus on unpacking the basket so she can’t see my rising tears.
“What happened when Bonita took Mrs Pascoe’s keys?” She pours me a cup of tea and I settle down at the table.
“It was when I’d just turned six. It was the first time Jas, Letti, Fez and I had been sent to join the rest of our squad in the plant nursery. Mrs Pascoe was in charge of us.”
“What’s a squad?”
“In the colony we were split into sabenzi groups, right? They consisted of four kids of the same age. Then they took one sabenzi group from each year, and put those groups together in a squad with the same housemother. So there were twenty of us in the squad, in five different age groups. And we got the same work assignments.”
“So you were in a squad with Micah?”
“Yes, until he disappeared. Anyway, the Years One to Four in our squad were already working in the nursery, and then we were sent to work there as well. That Year One girl Bonita was in our group, and she was Mrs Pascoe’s favourite. She was always put in charge whenever Mrs Pascoe left the room.
“So I’d been there for about two weeks when Mrs Pascoe noticed that my trays of seedlings were growing much faster than everyone else’s. At first they thought it was a fluke, but when it kept happening, she started making a fuss about it. Bonita was really pissed off. She was eleven, and here was this piddling six-year old doing better than her.
“One day Mrs Pascoe had to go to see Mr Dermond and she left Bonita in charge, as usual. Bonita’s friend Vanessa came over to me all friendly, and asked me to take her plant trays up to the front for her. I was so happy that they were being nice to me and I wanted to be helpful, so I did as they asked. Meanwhile, Bonita had stolen Mrs Pascoe’s keys and hidden them under my bench.
“Then Mrs Pascoe came back. She wanted to unlock the store cupboard and she was furious when she found that her keys were missing. She called in the guard, and Bonita and Vanessa both told her they’d seen me walking near her desk.”
“Why was it such a big deal that the keys were missing?”
“In the colony, stealing is the worst crime. You always get beaten for that. Anyway, by then I was terrified. I was so small, and everyone was staring at me, and the guard was coming closer with his sjambok. Mrs Pascoe searched my table, and there were the keys. Bonita and Vanessa pretended to be shocked, but I could see them whispering to each other, and I knew they’d done it. The guard was about to whip me when Micah said that it was him. That he’d taken them.”
“Micah said that?”
“Yes. He said he had hidden them there as a prank. It was terrible – the guard gave him three lashings across his back in front of all of us. It could have been me getting whipped. He saved me.”
“Hm.” Alexia picks up the pile of plates and pushes past me to the dresser. Her voice is hard. “Ebba, how do you know that he didn’t take them?�
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CHAPTER 14
The next morning, I’m working in the office when I see Leonid storming out of the pigeon coop with a message. He yells for Micah and hands him the message which must have come via one of the homing pigeons.
I sit dead still at my desk, watching, and wishing I could hide. But it’s too late now. I’m stuck.
Leonid is waving his arms and yelling, but Micah stands still, his body tense like an animal about to attack.
Isi comes over to me and puts her head on my lap.
“What am I going to do, girl?” I whisper, stroking her nose. “What am I going to tell them?”
Turns out I don’t have to say much, because they’re both too angry to let me get a word in. They storm into the office like black clouds pouring over the mountain.
“How could you? How could you do this?” Leonid rages. “It’s your fault. You knew about this, didn’t you?” He jabs his finger in my face, his jaw jutting like a rock.
Isi growls and he takes a step back.
“Did you know about it?” Micah’s voice is low but that’s more frightening than Leonid’s bellowing.
“I – I – the general announced it at the council meeting,” I splutter. “I told him it wasn’t fair, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
“So you were there, in council, when they decided it, and yet you did nothing,” Leonid rants. “You don’t care that hundreds of people will starve to death because of you.”
A stone is lodged in my throat. I try to speak but my voice comes out like a squawk. “I do care. I told him he couldn’t do it, but he yelled at me.”
“So you just buckled,” Micah says, shaking his head. “After all I’ve told you about standing your ground and using your power, you just folded up like a little girl and let him walk all over you. Really, Ebba. I’m appalled.’”
I’ve failed him. I’ve failed everyone. My eyes fill with tears.
Leonid looks at my face and starts yelling again. “Oh, yes, that’s right! Cry like a baby so that everyone will feel sorry for you.”
“Stop it, Leonid,” a voice says behind me. It’s Alexia, coming to see what the shouting is about. “You’re being a bully. Whatever Ebba did, she didn’t do it on purpose. Just give her a break.”
