The Book of Etta (The Road to Nowhere 2)

by Meg Elison

  “From the slaver you worked for?” Eddy asked.

  “Yes. He taught me so that I could read to him. He liked having stories read to him by one of the children at night, so he could fall asleep.”

  “Why didn’t you run while he was asleep?” Eddy asked, as if it were obvious.

  “Because I didn’t know where I would go, or how I would live on my own,” Flora said with only a little edge in her voice. “I was only four or five, you know. I don’t really know how old I am. But I know I was tiny then. Not big enough to make a run for it.”

  “How many years before you got your blood?”

  “What?”

  “Well, if it was six years before you got your blood, then you were probably four. I mean, it’s not exact, but it would give you a range.”

  Flora was silent for a long time. “I don’t remember.”

  Eddy was still staring up at the slice of stars. “Oh, come on, what about how ‘being a woman is sacred’ and all that nonsense? Wasn’t it celebrated?”

  Flora didn’t answer. Eddy looked over and saw that she had turned her back to him.

  Must have fallen asleep.

  He wanted to get the story of her first blood. That was always a way to get to know a woman.

  Maybe. Maybe I’ll tell her. When we get to the cave.

  The rabbit stew was everything Eddy had hoped. He ate two platefuls and asked Flora if he could drink the stock from the pot.

  She held up a finger to him while she drank from it herself. She handed the cooled pot over to him when she was full enough. “Finish it off,” she said.

  They loaded their gear back into the truck and looked at the map. Flora pointed out the road that led south, all the way to Nowhere. Eddy stopped her, putting his hand over hers, stopping it about where he wanted to be.

  “This place is kind of hidden,” Eddy said. “But we’re not far now.”

  He pulled his hand back slowly and she looked at him with a little smile. The heat that passed between them might have radiated from the truck, but he knew it hadn’t.

  “We’ll be there before midday.” Eddy looked away, hoping for the morning air to cool his cheeks. He looked at Flora as she pulled up her balaclava and cast her slitted eyes out on the road.

  Flora nodded, squeezing her eyes shut and starting the truck. “More than anything, I wish we had goggles. My face hurts from holding this scowl all day.”

  “Mine too,” Eddy said. But his words were lost in the roar.

  The Unnamed told Jodi, the girl that she loved, the truth about what she was. I read that story over and over. She just took it off and showed her. Jodi didn’t want her, but she might have. It could have worked out.

  It could.

  Beneath the balaclava, the curve of Flora’s jaw was concealed. Eddy could see the glowy skin of her neck. Her right-side collarbone was showing above a sweep of her silk, and all he could think of was his mouth on it.

  In the cave. I’ll be able to tell her in the cave.

  He itched beneath his binding.

  They came around a corner past an old car wreck, seven or eight rusted-out hulks with moss grown over the whole mess.

  “I know where we are,” he yelled to her. “Turn left up here.”

  She nodded, excited. Her balaclava fell down and he could see her grinning.

  The billboards still stood, but they’d been bleached blank long ago, only the broken frames remaining, outlining nothing. Behind them, a short brick building stood with an enormous brass sculpture of two men in strange hats, tarnished but bright in the sun.

  Flora shut off the truck and they took their packs, leaving the rest in the vehicle. Eddy got out ahead of her and ran to the statue, smiling at it like it was an old friend.

  She came up behind him after a minute and bent to the nameplate that sat before the two figures. Much of the writing was obscured by black and green tarnish, but Flora read the name aloud.

  “Jesse James. Who is that?”

  Eddy shook his head. “I read about him in a book once. A famous criminal in the old world.”

  “A slaver?” Flora turned to him, confusion on her face.

  “No, he stole money.”

  “What’s money?”

  Eddy shrugged. “It was paper that people used to trade for food. My mother tried to explain it to me, and some of the other teachers tried, too. Nobody really understands it. It was like an idea that people fought over, and that made it valuable.”

  Flora shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t you just trade the food?”

  “Like if you had to trade for a whole city,” Eddy tried again. “You couldn’t carry it all with you, so you’d carry the paper and the paper would be like a promise that they could turn in for the food.”

  Eddy reached forward and touched the knee of the kneeling, bearded man. “I came here on my first trip away from home with the raiders who trained me. I was just a kid, and I had no idea there was anything like this in the world.”

  “Who trained you?”

  Eddy frowned. “Two men. Errol and Ricardo. They were sent out west a few years ago. Nobody has seen them since. They were good men.”

  Flora put a hand on his shoulder and there it was again. That same baking heat, and this time nothing to blame it on but the steadily rising sun. He reached out and cupped the side of her face. She was warm and smooth and the two of them inched closer to one another, like magnets.

  “So is this what you wanted to show me?” Flora asked.

  The moment broke again, and Eddy pulled his hand away. “No, this isn’t it. It’s this way.”

  He led her up the stairs toward the brick building. When he looked back, he saw her face was unsure. He reached out his hand and she took it. “Trust me.”

  Inside the building was darkness. Only a little light came through the windows, some of which still had crazed glass in them. The shelves inside were still filled with junk, and Flora dragged him toward a stack of rotted plastic bags that were furry with dust.

  “There’s cloth in these,” she said as she ripped one apart and the gloom began to swarm with the gray particles.

  Eddy coughed in response, but Flora was unfolding a cotton shirt. Even without much light, Eddy could read the words printed on the garment.

  “Meramec . . . Caverns. Route 66.”

  “What is that?” Flora was rubbing the cloth between her fingers.

  “Cavern is an old word for cave,” Eddy said. “And Meramec was the name of this place. I don’t know what it means.”

  “And the numbers?”

  “It’s what they called the big road. It’s on the old maps, if you look close. In this shape, right here.” He stepped in to point out the shield design that held the numbers.

  “Why would a road have numbers instead of a name?”

  “I think it’s because they used to have so many,” Eddy said.

  “Well, there’s a whole lot of these here. Before we leave, I want to load some up. Even if only for scraps, old-world fabric is always popular.”

  “Okay,” Eddy said. He was busy pulling an old torch out of his pack. It still had enough oily cotton on it, he thought. He nicked flint and steel until his torch caught. Then he took her hand once again.

  Eddy led them to the back of the building, where a staircase loomed in darkness below them. They groped their way to the bottom, feeling the temperature drop. Eddy lifted his torch. The light seemed to open up the recesses all around them but only illuminated a little. Flora flinched from the enormity, shrinking into herself and closer to Eddy.

  “Whoa, what the hell? It feels like a big empty . . . something.” She looked suddenly frightened.

  Eddy grinned at her, the torch held high. “It’s only a little scary,” he assured her. “After that it’s just really exciting.”

  She didn’t look convinced, but she followed.

  The path led down and down, and Flora gasped the first time she saw that the rock above their hea
ds was hanging down in long, jagged spikes.

  “It’s going to fall!” Her voice was rough and high, not far from shrieking.

  Eddy’s hand gripped hers tight, keeping her from bolting into the blackness that surrounded them.

  “No no no,” he said. “It looks like it’s falling, but look, see?” He pulled her to the side of the passageway where the spikes hung low and put his hand on one. “This is just the shape that the water made, by dripping for thousands and thousands of years. Errol told me. It’s been here since the world was new. It’ll be here long after us.”

  The cave smelled sharp and salty, and Flora’s face was strained in the low light. When they finally came to a stop, they could feel that they were deep beneath the place where they had started.

  “Sit down here,” he told her, helping her lower herself to the rock floor. He trailed a fiery circle around the space with his torch, locating a few others and lighting them as well. They sat in a circle of firelight, and Flora looked around. Eddy saw her realize that they were on the edge of a blue-green pool. Flora put her fingers into the water and tasted it. Eddy knew it would be bitter and metallic on her tongue.

  Eddy laughed a little. “We can swim if we want,” he told her. “But it’s no good to drink. There’s a spring near here where we’ll fill up on water. But drink from your canteen, if you’re thirsty.”

  Flora took deep breaths. Eddy put a hand on top of hers, full of irrepressible good humor.

  “Errol and Ricardo told me that caves are sacred places, especially for women. Because they’re secrets hidden away, like a child in the womb. They said that in some places, a girl’s first blood is celebrated in a cave like this, in the secret dark.”

  Flora looked away from him, her face stormy. He gently brought her back around to face him.

  “It wasn’t like that,” Flora said.

  She looks guilty. But why?

  “What wasn’t?”

  Flora shook her head, pushing Eddy’s hand away from her.

  “It wasn’t celebrated when I . . . My womanhood. We didn’t . . .”

  Eddy sighed, seeing the shine of firelight in Flora’s eyes.

  “So I brought you here to tell you something,” Eddy began. “A secret. My secret. Because I like you and I want to be honest with you.”

  Flora shook her head again, tearing up.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing. Go on, tell me.”

  He smiled nervously. He pulled his shirt up over his head and showed her the long strips of bandages wound around his chest. He reached to his side and, with a long, practiced hand, untied the knot there. He unwound and pulled and worked until at last he could breathe, every inch of her skin exposed to the cool, wet cave air. Her nipples popped free of their flattening bind and peaked in the slight cold. She was nervous, but it felt right.

  “I don’t know how people in Jeff City feel about it,” she began shyly. “But two women cannot live together in Nowhere. It’s . . . People say it’s a waste, that women need to form Hives and share their wealth, but I only . . . I’ve never . . . Flora, I feel for you. Something like love.”

  Etta knelt, leaning forward, and kissed her. Flora stiffened all over. Her face was wet and she trembled.

  “What is it? Is it the cave? Is it me?” Etta drew back, worried.

  Flora shook her head and lunged forward, kissing Etta hard and bringing both hands to her revealed breasts, squeezing them fiercely, petting her with pent-up hunger.

  She pulled back only an inch, pressing her forehead to Etta’s beneath her. “It’s not love,” she said heavily. “You don’t know me well enough. But you do want me, and I want you, too.” She bit Etta’s lower lip and Etta felt herself tighten up all over, cramping in a hot rush of pleasurable agony. “But you don’t understand, you don’t understand.” Flora was moaning against Etta’s neck, nibbling and licking as she went.

  “Have you ever been with a woman before?” Etta panted, pulling at the endless loops of silk draping that covered Flora.

  “Yes. No. Kind of.” Flora still sounded fearful, and Etta could not think why.

  Just get it off and let me see you, I’ll show you. I’ll show you how.

  She pulled again at Flora’s infinite garment, finding nowhere that it began or ended. She gave up on pulling at her back and caught her beneath the armpits, hauling her up and throwing the weight of her leg over to reverse their positions. Flora turned breathless, and as she came face-up in the torchlight, Etta saw that she was still crying.

  “Is this okay?” she asked, peering down into Flora’s gray eyes. “I want you, but I can stop. Do you want me to stop?”

  “Don’t stop,” Flora sobbed.

  Etta dropped her mouth to that beloved collarbone and kissed her softly at first, then gathering intensity and biting her, trying to slide down and find her breasts in the curtains of silk.

  “Eddy . . .” Flora barely breathed it.

  “Etta,” Etta said.

  Flora said it over and over, tongue flicking fast.

  “Help me,” Etta murmured against Flora’s skin. “Help me find you.”

  She reached down and slid her hands up behind Flora’s knees.

  Here, she thought as she ran them both up Flora’s legs, feeling her muscles jump below the skin. She brought her thumbs to the insides of Flora’s thighs and stared her in the eye, licking her lips, knowing where she would go.

  Here, I am. Here.

  When Etta’s hand first touched Flora’s throbbing swell, confusion crossed her face. Horror quickly followed as she brought both hands swiftly to it, feeling out the whole of its shape, and understanding ran up her arms and reached her disbelieving mind.

  She backed up off of Flora in a flash of silk, long expanses of fabric falling back over Flora’s thighs, returning her modesty. Flora sat up, reaching for her.

  “Wait! Wait, please. Wait.” Flora was begging.

  Etta found her shirt and put it back on, standing a few paces away.

  “What the hell are you?” she asked, graceless and mean.

  “I’m a horsewoman,” Flora said, miserable. “I know you heard that word more than once. Do you really not know what it means?”

  Etta crossed her arms. “How could you?”

  Flora sniffed and tried to laugh. “You tell me, Eddy.”

  “That’s not the same! I do it for survival.”

  Flora really did laugh that time. “It’s exactly the same,” she said. “I never saw your real self coming through, though. I have to say, you’re very good at this.”

  “Yeah, that’s because my life depends on it,” Etta said as she gathered up her bindings.

  Flora hitched a ragged breath. “Can we please talk about this?”

  Etta laughed shortly. “I’m leaving. You can find your own way out of here.”

  Flora was on her feet and beside Etta in seconds. “A minute ago you were in love with me. Now you’re abandoning me in a cave?” Her voice dripped with accusation, leaving rock spikes hanging from the ceiling of her mouth.

  I turned him over in nothing flat. I could take him. I’m safe here. Where are you right now?

  Etta took a second to get control of her breathing. “Alright, let’s talk. But you do not touch me. Understand?”

  Flora nodded, looking at the firelit cavern floor. She sat. Etta turned her back and began the slow business of binding once again.

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  “What do you mean?” Flora’s voice was small.

  “Pretending to be a woman.” Etta was dropping her voice down again, as low as it would go.

  “I’m not pretending,” Flora said. “This is all I’ve ever been.”

  Eddy said nothing but kept his back to her.

  Flora pulled a thick cloth bundle out of her bag and laid it in front of her. She waited. When Eddy turned, she gestured with both hands. “Can you sit with me, please?”

  Eddy crossed his legs and s
at, his hands in his lap.

  Flora gestured to her kit. “I have a good razor and I keep hair under control. I use this rinse to keep the hair on my head this color red. I use this metal pincher to pluck out my eyebrows. I do everything I can to be beautiful.”

  “A beautiful man,” Eddy said waspishly.

  Flora bit her lip and tears returned to her eyes. Her voice shook as she went on.

  “This pot is full of a special cream. The horsewomen who saw us off brought me as much of it as they could spare. It’s made by pregnant mares. The women process it in big basins and mix it with fat and . . . I don’t know. Most of it is secret. It’s a remedy from the old world, for people who need help being womanly. Being women.”

  “You aren’t a woman,” Eddy said, flat as a stone. “What’s your real name?”

  Flora’s eyes spilled tears now. “My name is Flora. It was given to me when I was free. Before that I had no name, I had nothing.”

  She took a minute to get control of her breath. “I was never a boy,” she said. “I was sold and sold again as a girl. I was taught everything by a woman who trained other women to service men. But I hated it. I knew I was a girl, and I knew that I loved other girls. I wasn’t like the girls or the boys. I was . . . something else.”

  I was something else, Eddy thought. I knew that I loved other girls.

  Sympathy bloomed in him, small and fragile. He tried to stomp it out.

  “I’m like one of the silkworms,” Flora said miserably.

  “What?”

  “You saw them. Born as worms, eating leaves and raising up to your fingers when you touch them. That was me. I turned into something else. I got my wings, but I stayed blind. I can’t fly, you know. I’ll never really . . .” Flora cleared her throat and looked up at Eddy, focusing on his face. “You know?”

  I turned into something else. Eddy remembered what Athena had shown him in the mulberry tree, the way that the little worms spun them and changed in their private darkness into something else.

  Eddy thought of the chair and felt himself enclosed in a cocoon of rust and dirt and time.

  I turned into something else.

  “So you were broken. So you’re not anything.”