The Book of Etta (The Road to Nowhere 2)

by Meg Elison

“No, not like that. I don’t steal anybody.”

  “No, you just get them by murder instead of by arrangement for tribute. How noble.”

  “That’s rescue! There’s a difference between taking a crying child away from its terrified mother and depriving a slaver of his wrongful property. If you can’t see that, then we have nothing in common at all.”

  “We have plenty in common,” Flora said in a voice like flint. “And you have plenty in common with them.”

  Eddy felt like his chest was filled with boiling heat, that if he spoke, his words might burn them both. “I couldn’t take you to Nowhere, anyway. They’d see right through you, and they’d never accept it.”

  “You didn’t.”

  Flora was closing the distance between them. Eddy found himself edging backward, sliding away from the fire.

  Flora’s voice was flat. “You didn’t see me because you think there are only two kinds of things in the world. Men and women. Good and evil. Slavers and rescuers. You’ve seen more of the world than I have, but you know less about it. There’s more in this world than you can even dream about, Eddy. You’re only not seeing it because you won’t.”

  She was outlined with the fire behind her. She was blacking out the stars. Too close. He hit her clumsily, warding her off more than trying to hurt her. It happened before he realized his hand had moved. He was out from under her and on his feet a moment after that.

  Eddy spoke to her dark outline. “Don’t. Touch. Me. I told you that. If you can’t remember, then—”

  “I know. I know. I just thought . . . I just . . .” Flora was blinking fast, trying not to cry.

  “I’m going to sleep,” Eddy said.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “In the morning, we’ll head for Nowhere.”

  “If we go there, you don’t need to tell them who you think I am.” Flora’s voice broke and Eddy knew she was crying.

  “No, I don’t.”

  They said nothing more.

  CHAPTER 8

  In the beginning, Nowhere had meant only the fort itself. When the Unnamed was alive, everyone lived within the walls and each household lived off its own garden. A century later, the town was surrounded on all sides by farmland. People kept sheep, goats, pigs, and a small number of cows and buffalo. Potatoes, corn, cotton, hemp, wheat, and sorghum stretched out on three sides. What herbs weren’t grown on the grounds were semicultivated in the woods, and dedicated hunters brought down deer, turkeys, and geese in season. The approach to the town was paved with food and looked completely undefended.

  Eddy knew that each farmhouse had its own guard. He knew the warren of tunnels, just wide enough for a man to crawl through, that ran under the network of meeting places under these farms. None of them had marks and there were no maps. Children were taught to navigate them from memory, in drills every summer until they were left alone with instructions to find the one door that was open to get out.

  A few gave up and cried until someone came after them, but most found their way to the correct trapdoor.

  If travelers or marauders saw these farms, they might steal and they might burn, but human casualties would be few.

  During harvest, all other work was suspended and every man was dedicated to the work of bringing in the crops. Every woman who wasn’t pregnant or bringing a child into the world worked in drying, canning, and preserving the harvest inside the fort.

  No women worked outside the walls.

  Eddy refueled the truck in motion, pouring deez through the tubing they’d been given, before coming back through the truck window. He pointed to an avenue between two tracts of land and Flora turned them onto the rough road. Clouds of hot dust kicked up behind the truck’s wooden tires, and Eddy knew they’d be met. He reached up under his shirt and unwrapped his bindings quickly, deftly.

  Through the blind of the old cotton shirt wrapped around his eyes, he saw three men in the road ahead of them. He reached over and patted Flora on the shoulder, pointing ahead. She eased up on the throttle and the truck coughed to a stop.

  Eddy got out first, unwrapping his head. He held both hands up. The three men were not armed.

  Rob, son of Marcia, was one of the men who met her.

  “Etta? Is that you? How did you get a truck?”

  For the benefit of the other two, she identified herself. “Etta, daughter of Ina. In the truck is Flora, from Jeff City. We came from Estiel.”

  Behind her, Flora slid off the board behind the steering wheel. “Eddy? Is it okay?”

  Etta shot her a look over one shoulder.

  “Etta?” Flora’s voice was rising, unsure.

  “It’s fine, Flora. Welcome to Nowhere.”

  They drove the truck into town, past the House of Mothers. On her side, Flora saw a pregnant woman walking past them, and she watched the swollen woman’s waddling swan’s gait until Etta worried she would crash the truck. She reached over and patted Flora’s arm.

  “Shut it off. Park it.”

  People had begun to gather and stare at the vehicle. A line of young boys spilled out of the old school building, their hands all spotted with ink. Behind them, Mother Ina walked stately, her wooden belly carving out the air before her.

  Etta saw Sylvia the Midwife, daughter of Sylvia the Mother, elbowing her way through the crowd. Sylvia was short, with very short brown hair. She was going gray in a few isolated spots, but she had a fierce face. She came close to the truck first.

  “Etta! Who have you brought me this time?” Her smile was broad, and for a moment, Etta smiled back out of the simple pleasure of seeing familiar faces. Her smile faded as Alice appeared in the crowd.

  “Where did the truck come from?” Alice was addressing herself to Etta, but looking Flora up and down in a frankly appraising way.

  Etta held up both hands. “I’ll answer questions at dinner, for anyone who wants to join me in the hall. Right now, I just want to get settled in. Okay?”

  There were murmurs and grumbles, and Sylvia was not in the least dissuaded. She approached Flora, who offered her both arms after the custom of Jeff City. Sylvia, not understanding, gripped her hands and spread Flora’s arms wide.

  “You look good! Not like the starving little ones that Etta brings me sometimes. Full-grown, too.”

  Flora pulled her arms back and rearranged her silks. “I’m Flora.”

  Ina had closed in on them, after shooing the boys back inside. “Flora? Good woman, I am Mother Ina. Etta is my living daughter. I welcome you.”

  Ina held her arms wide and took Flora into them. Etta watched dispassionately.

  Ina turned herself toward Etta. “You’re back early. Again.” Her brow was not wrinkled in concern, Etta saw. She thought there was something there like arch contempt. Still, when her mother held out her arms, Etta stepped in and pressed her belly against the wood.

  “Mother.”

  “My living child.”

  They held each other for a long moment.

  “I need to go to the bathers.” She turned her face to Flora. “Do you want to come?”

  Flora clutched reflexively at her clothes. “No, I’ll do that myself.”

  Sylvia held out one arm as if to steer Flora. “You can wash at the clinic, after I’ve had a look at you.”

  Flora contracted like her whole body was a wound she was trying to bandage. “Look at me?”

  Sylvia smiled. “I’m a Midwife. Etta will tell you, if you’re worried. You can trust me. Tell her, Etta.”

  Flora looked at Etta with naked terror. Etta sighed.

  “She won’t examine you if you don’t want her to, Flora.” She turned to Sylvia’s confused blue eyes. “She’s alright. I didn’t liberate her, she was free in Jeff City.”

  “Oh. Okay, then. I guess. No chance that you’re pregnant, is there?”

  Flora shook her head. “I’m not . . . I can’t . . .”

  “Oh, that’s fine,” Sylvia said in a hurried voice. “Don’t worry about coming to see me, unless you’
re sick or hurt.”

  Flora relaxed visibly. “If someone will house me and feed me,” she said, raising her voice to the crowd, “I have silk for trade.”

  “Silk?” It was Alice, her blonde hair and fair skin like a beacon in the sunshine.

  Flora held a hand above her eyes to see. “Yes. Several yards, in my bag.”

  “That’s a deal.” Alice grinned and winked at Etta.

  Oh shit. Alice moves fast.

  The two of them disappeared arm in arm. Etta sighed and stalked away, muttering.

  The bathers were surprised to see her again, but they said nothing. They had been trained never to speak to women who came to see them unless spoken to first. After Etta had been shaved and scrubbed for bugs, she was left alone with Tommy, one of the youngest men who worked in the bathhouse.

  He rubbed her bare back with the minty lanolin preparation. Etta felt his long fingers on her skin, light and careful, and she turned around to face him.

  Tommy was clean-shaven, with a face as pointed as a fox and red hair to match. He raised an eyebrow to her but did not speak.

  “Tommy, can I ask you something?”

  He put his sticky palms together and looked her studiedly in the eye. “Yes.”

  “You live with another man, don’t you? With . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know his name. He’s tall and black and has that tattoo?”

  He nodded carefully. “Yes, Heath. We live together.”

  “You never wanted to be part of a Hive?”

  I’m scaring him. Pull back a little, find something to share.

  “No, I never did. I don’t know about Heath, but he doesn’t want that now.”

  She held out an arm and he went back to his work, automatically and obviously grateful for something to focus on.

  “Do you know Breezy? From the codex?”

  He stifled a small laugh. “Of course I know Breezy.”

  “Why ‘of course’? He’s only in one little section.”

  He looked levelly at her. “Breezy means something to me that I don’t think he means to you.”

  Easy now. Easy.

  “I hear that. Do you . . . Have you ever?”

  He switched arms and did not look at her. He waited for her to say it.

  “You know how in the book, Breezy pretended—”

  “Pretending is worthless. No man can be a Mother or a Midwife.”

  “Those aren’t the only things a woman can do,” she snapped at him.

  He shrugged. “They’re the only things that matter. Anyone can be a raider.”

  She drew back as if slapped.

  Anybody can be a bather, too. You asshole.

  I scared him. That’s all it is.

  “Hey, I’m not asking you because I want to accuse you of anything. I’m asking you because I met some people out there . . . People like Breezy, who pretend. You know?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “And I wondered if there were any people here in Nowhere. People who have secrets. We all have secrets, you know. Tommy.”

  Tommy’s foxlike brown eyes locked on hers, and for a second she felt as if he were challenging her. She stared back, trying to look harmless and interested. He looked away first, with something like embarrassment.

  “We all have our secrets, yes. You’re all set.”

  Etta went and lay down on a linen towel until her skin was dry enough to dress again.

  I shouldn’t have asked him that. If there are any like Breezy around, word will spread and I’ll never know about it. I should have asked Flora . . .

  She went home. Still thinking of Flora, she fell asleep.

  She dreamed of the chair.

  In her dream, the stirrups weren’t rusty enough to break. In her dream, she strained and strained at it, but the exultant relief of her one free leg rising never came. She could not rise. She could not breathe.

  She woke up tangled in the featherbed, wool blankets kicked to the floor. She was tearing air in and out of her lungs, a high whistling sound accompanying every breath. Both of her calves were knotted with cramps, toes curled in and thighs locked together. She tried to get out of bed and fell heavily to the floor, bouncing one high cheekbone off the wood there.

  She struggled to pull her knees under her, screeching wordlessly. Finally she got her feet on the floor and began the shuddering struggle to bring her toes up to break the cramp. She slammed her palms against the wall, panting, forcing her right foot into the corner. Her left thigh seized in protest and her knees buckled.

  Ina was there in a flash of candlelight. She helped Etta get one leg up on the bed frame, cupping her withered hand beneath her daughter’s heel, pushing her foot back with the flat underside of her forearm. Etta cried out, sweat beading on her forehead. After a few minutes, the cramp subsided.

  Mother Ina helped her back into bed and together they stretched Etta’s legs, keeping her feet flexed. When the spasms had truly passed, Ina left the room and came back with a glass of water and a dish of cold spinach with congealed bacon grease flaked across the top.

  Etta forked the dark-green food into her mouth tiredly, washing each bite down with a little water.

  “You need potassium, child. What do you eat when you’re on the road?”

  Etta swallowed. “I eat what I can find, Mother.”

  Ina shook her head, as if no matter the answer it wouldn’t be good enough. “You’ve been having these since that year you came back in the winter. Every time you’re out, nightmares and cramps.”

  Etta swallowed an enormous bite and went back for more, her fork viciously stabbing the plate beneath the spinach. She said nothing.

  “In the morning, I’ll make some more greens with some mushrooms. And then at dinner we’ll have yams. Where are you going tomorrow?”

  She’s talking past it. She’ll let me forget it.

  Relief washed through Etta when she realized her mother really only wanted to help, not to make much of her daughter’s weakness. She softened, scooping the last of the spinach off the plate.

  “Thank you, Mother. I’m going to speak to the council tomorrow.”

  Ina stood and picked up the empty glass, held her hand out for the plate. “Is something wrong? You know they’ll find a home for that woman. Flora.”

  “It’s not really about that,” Etta said, trying not to think of Flora sleeping in Alice’s low, wide bed. “I have news for them that I think they might need.”

  “Alright, child.” As Ina lifted the candle and made to leave, Etta could see the lines in the old woman’s face, like the paths marked on a map. She saw the way her eyes crinkled and the lids drooped. She reached out and put her hand on her mother’s arm.

  “Thank you. You’re always taking care of me.”

  Their eyes met and Ina smiled just a little. “My living daughter. You were like a wrapped-up present. I didn’t know what would be inside, but I wanted it so much.”

  Etta smiled back and settled down. She didn’t dream again before dawn.

  Nowhere’s council was made up of five, and at least three had to be women. Individuals were nominated and voted on by current members. Those sustained held office until they wanted to be done.

  The council that Etta knew was four women and one man. Bronwen, daughter of Judith, was the current head. She was the oldest woman in Nowhere, a mother and the head of a Hive that was rumored to include fifty men. Janet, daughter of the Road, was the youngest woman on the council and, the last Etta had known, was about four moons pregnant. She had been brought in by raiders, Julio and Chase, when Etta was a child. Janet had been barely a toddler when they discovered her, eating fallen apples and hardly able to speak. No one had known where she came from, and she remembered nothing. Carla, daughter of Petra, was a stately forty-year-old Mother and chemist. Jenn was the Mother of two living sons who both worked as guards. She believed she was not yet past childbearing and she kept a Hive of ten, trying every moon for a girl.

  Emory was the only man on the cou
ncil. He was a son of Judith, but nearly ten years younger than Bronwen. Emory was tall and strongly built after years of work as a lumberjack and carpenter. He had fourteen apprentices and they were regarded as some of the most skilled tradesmen in town. Emory had been part of four or five Hives in his life, and he privately believed that he had sired living children all over Nowhere. He couldn’t claim paternity—no man in Nowhere had that right, even in monogamous families. Nevertheless, most of his apprentices had a certain resemblance, and a rumor persisted among the Mothers that children gotten by him were charmed with health and easy fertility of their own.

  Etta knew each of them. Since her career as a raider had begun, the council had heard her reports of the wider world and applauded her successes. She was known as a singularly skilled seeker of particular goods and a reliable bringer of women. The council made things easy for her because of this, encouraging tradesmen to deal fairly or even preferentially with her, and reminding the people of Nowhere whenever possible that their female population was flourishing thanks to raiders like Etta, and Errol and Ricardo before her.

  She knew where the council would be. She headed for their shared office, a single room dominated by a huge, wide table and ringed around with deep carved-wood chairs. Two young boys stood silently just outside the door, unmoving as Etta passed them. Though it was not long after dawn, she saw that the table was strewn with sheets of hemp paper and stacked with the hides of small animals on one side. Bronwen stood with her palms against the massive table, her forehead deeply furrowed.

  “How hard is it to keep raccoons out of a corn silo? How many have they shot?”

  Jenn gestured to the stack of animal skins. “They can’t shoot enough of them. Rax said there’s thousands of them. They’re going to need poison.” Jenn’s voice was testy, as if she were being made to repeat herself.

  Carla was shaking her head. Etta watched her, seeing Alice’s features in a rougher, older face. Carla’s hair was still golden and curled into wild ringlets like her daughter’s. They had the same freckled, fair skin and the same strange eye color that broke mid-iris from brilliant blue to muddy greenish brown. Carla was going deaf and relied on an ear trumpet, forever cocked on her left side. When she shook her head, it wavered slightly.