by Meg Elison
Timothy took her bowl, green eyes gleaming. Jarod pointed down to the right. “Bathrooms are just down there, first hallway on your right.”
Etta walked slowly, glancing to both sides.
Closed doors. No windows. A fort? Secure, anyway.
She turned the corner and found a room of indoor toilets. She poked around a little and found that each was its own composting unit.
Emptied often. No windows and almost no smell.
Looking up, she realized that air was blowing through a vent above her at a constant rate.
Wonder how that runs.
Instead of walking back the way she had come, she kept going down the hall. The walls were decorated with fabric art, Etta saw.
Embroidery, with big stitches in color. They have enough cloth and thread and dye to make things just for the look of them.
Words were spelled out in the stitches, like FAMILY IS FOREVER and RETURN WITH HONOR. Some of them looked old and yellowing, but many were fresh and new.
She was distracted from the artwork by a sound. She shook her head, still feeling not quite herself.
Can’t be. Must be goats or something that sounds like it.
Etta passed by a mural painted in muted tones: a man in a strange, draped costume holding a stack of flat, yellow objects like books.
The sound persisted. Etta cocked her head, listening.
Can’t be. Can’t be. It’ll be a trap, watch.
She followed the sound to the door it was coming from, drawn toward the impossible cacophony. She laid a hand on her gun as she came close.
Etta stood in the doorway, openmouthed.
Babies. She looked around at the toddlers and cradles, the tiny ones held in the arms of young women.
Twelve. Thirteen. Not one of them over three years old. So many.
The girls who held the babies looked stricken and tired.
“When is the next leaf coming in?”
The girl was tall, with bushy black hair that framed her face like a mane.
“I think we have another hour,” answered a very pretty albino woman, her pink-edged eyes looking exhausted.
Most of the smallest babies were crying; the squalling sound had woken or disturbed the others until they all joined in. The toddlers took advantage of the chaos, running wild and causing upheaval of their own.
Etta saw that two of the small children were albino, as well.
The women noticed her finally, calling out over the noise.
“You must be the one they fished out of the Misery!” The albino girl smiled, her teeth whiter than her skin. “Would you like to hold one of them? We’re trying to quiet them down.”
Etta came forward without thinking, arms outstretched. The black-haired girl put a blue-eyed baby in her arms, turning to a gaggle of toddlers at her feet.
CHAPTER 14
Etta held the baby tight as she slid into a chair. The kid squirmed a little, making a noise like a goat.
She tried again to get a count, but they wouldn’t hold still.
Like the locusts in Meramec. So many, shedding their shells and moving on.
She shook her head a little, as if to clear it.
Buzz buzz.
“Blblblblb,” said the baby in her arms, drool running sideways and down the child’s cheek. “Brrrb.”
The black-haired girl stepped in closer. “That’s Sarai, she’s teething. I think there’s an amber bracelet here . . .” She looked away, distracted.
“This is a girl child?” Etta resisted the urge to check the baby’s diaper.
“Sure, sure.” White hands ran through black hair. “Seven girls, ten boys, all told. Only four girls and five boys today, a bunch are with their mothers. I’m Eliza and that’s Lucy.” She gestured noncommittally to the alabaster woman, who turned around with her marble-white breasts bared.
“Pleased to meet you,” she said, scooping up one of the squalling children and helping it latch. The second child had a harder time, but Lucy tried patiently and tirelessly until the latch was strong.
“Are these . . .? Who are the . . . Are you two the Mothers?”
Lucy nodded toward one of the towheaded toddlers. “Judith there, she’s mine. And I have a three-year-old and another on the way around Christmas.”
Eliza reached for the baby in Etta’s arms and Etta let go. “Sarai is my child. And Brigham, over by the toy box. He looks just like his daddy, no guesswork there.” She had found a piece of amber for Sarai to chew on. The child locked it in her jaws, spilling ever more spit onto her mother’s arm.
“How were they born?” Etta stared around the room, trying to remember when she had seen so many children in one place.
Jeff City was close . . . but that was a whole city.
“In the usual way.” Lucy smirked above the two suckling children.
“No, I mean . . . How many people are here? How many women?”
“Two hundred and twenty-nine, counting the preexistence,” Eliza said, rubbing her low belly. “Seventy-eight women and girls.”
“That’s not possible,” Etta breathed.
Eliza and Lucy tittered. “Of course it is.”
Lucy pulled a child off her pale nipple with an audible pop. The baby began to fuss.
“You’re full of bubbles, silly.” Expertly, she laid the child over her forearm while balancing the other, and gently joggled the baby until two small burps came up.
“How many die in childbirth?”
Eliza looked at her sharply. “None, in our time. Some of our mothers did, but that was before the Prophet.”
Lucy swapped the children and burped the other.
“The Prophet?”
“Alma. Did she not visit your sickbed?”
The woman with the long hair. The smell of milk.
“She did, yes. How did she fix it?”
“Oh, not her,” Lucy said with an air of indulgence. “Heavenly Mother. Alma is just Her Prophet.”
Etta leaned back in the soft chair, suddenly heavily tired.
“Sister, you’re very pale.” Eliza put a soft hand on Etta’s arm.
“Well . . .” Lucy smiled, crinkling her pink eyes.
“Oh, hush!” Turning back to Etta, Eliza smiled. “Do you need help getting back to bed?”
Etta started to answer but she was asleep before the words left her mouth. The two nursemaids covered her with a crocheted blanket and went about their work.
When she awoke, men and women were filing in the doors to pick up the children. Lucy was smiling down on her.
“Are you ready for dinner, sister?”
Groggy and sore, Etta rose. “I’m not sure I can . . .”
Lucy reached out and took the arm of a tall, bearded man. “Of course. Oliver here can help you, all you have to do is take his arm.”
“But Miss Lucy, I came to get my boy.”
“One of your brohuz can get him.” Lucy dazzled him with a smile. “Like Naham there.”
A young man looked up at the sound of his name, blushing. “Yes, Miss Lucy?”
“Can you take Korah with you as well?”
“Yes, Miss Lucy.”
Oliver offered his arm to Etta.
Might as well.
She took it and rose stiffly. “Lead the way.”
Out in the hallway, clear of the noise of children, Oliver spoke first.
“So you were the one drowned in the Misery?”
“Yes, I nearly did.”
“What’s your name, miss?”
“Etta.”
“Miss Etta. I’ve never heard that name before.”
“It’s the name of an old poem that my mother liked.”
Oliver grinned, good white teeth above his beard. “That’s right lovely. And where are you from?”
“South of the Odarks.” The lie was smooth by now. “I was traveling and I ran into trouble in a strange place called Manhattan.”
Oliver chuckled. “Oh, I know Manhattan, sure. My mish took me through ther
e. Almost got summoned, but the local menfolk were too upset to let it happen. Think they liked me on account of I’m so tall.”
“You know Manhattan?”
“Sure, sure. My second or third mish, I think. And then I stopped by that way again on my fourth mish on the way home, to get something to eat. They were good brothers there, but unlucky.”
“That’s about right,” Etta said.
Oliver had led them to a huge, open room. Long tables stretched across the space, laid with overlapping tablecloths in blue and green. Candles were lit at regular intervals, making the large room seem warm despite the steel floor and high, vented ceiling.
“My seat is over there, near my wife,” Oliver said. “But there will be space there, with the mish boys. I’ll introduce you.”
He led Etta slowly and gently toward a table of young men. “Gabriel, Rei. Can you two steward this young woman, please? I’d like to go join my wife.”
Gabriel rose from the table. He was a strikingly beautiful boy with fine bones and long blond hair that fell straight over his shoulders and down his back.
“We’d be honored, Miss Etta. Please join us.”
Rei was olive skinned and shy looking. He grinned a little, half rising from his seat. “Miss.”
Etta sank into a chair and took a long drink from a glass of water at her place. It tasted sweet and clean.
“Is your water from the Misery?”
Gabriel reached for his own drink. “It’s from the cisterns, down on the lowest level. Plenty of rain this year.”
Etta drank again.
“The Leaf Society needs to hurry it up,” Rei grumbled. “I’m starving.”
As if called, young men began streaming out of the kitchen carrying bowls.
“Oh, thank Heavenly Mother,” Rei said.
Food arrived in bowls and tubs, covered with napkins and towels. Smells hit Etta in the face: eggs, butter, spinach. She reached for the one nearest her before she realized that no one else had moved yet.
Rei looked at her with sympathy. “I know, miss. Only a minute now.”
Etta’s mouth watered. She waited.
Alma glided into the center of the room, golden and serene.
“Bow your heads, children. I’m going to offer a blessing.”
All around, people crossed their arms and bowed their heads. Etta was too fascinated to do the same.
“Dear most generous Heavenly Mother, we thank thee for this food and for our life together. We ask you to bless the hands that prepared it and bless the food so that it may strengthen and nourish our bodies. We thank thee also for sending us the stranger, Etta, so that she may speak unto us, as was promised to us. We pray these things in the names of thy children. Amen.”
“Amen” chorused around the room.
Rei whipped the towel off the platter nearest him. “Scramble, miss?”
He held out a huge spoonful of eggs mixed with vegetables. He could barely take his eyes off the food.
“Thank you,” she said, proffering her plate. With grim patience, Rei served her cornbread and fruits, some of everything on the table, before serving himself. Gabriel waited for his own turn.
No one spoke for a while. Etta found that she was very hungry, but watching Rei wolf his portion down made her think he had been a long time on the road.
“Seconds, miss?”
Etta swallowed, washing the fluffy eggs down with a swig of water. “I’m not even sure I’ll finish what I’ve got here. But thank you.”
Rei piled more on his own plate, nodding. “I put in a long day in the fields, miss. I’ll finish anything you leave behind.” He smiled as he began shoveling again.
Well then.
In the end, she left only a few bites uneaten. True to his word, Rei scooped them up. Gabriel stacked their plates and put them at the end of the table. “Make it easier on the leaf,” he said, smiling.
Young men rose up all over the room, collecting the plates and serving dishes that they had distributed. Etta watched it.
So organized.
Something about the scene teased her memory. She thought she had seen something like this before. Or not seen, but . . .
“Come out, you cooks, come out!”
People around the room were taking up the song, clapping their hands in time.
“We won’t shut up ’til you come out. Come out, you cooks, come out!”
A small group of middle-aged women emerged from the kitchen at the far end of the room. They all made the same gesture: right hand palm to the chin and then away from the face. There was a burst of polite applause and the women disappeared again.
“Would you like to come with us to Deseret tonight?”
Rei was standing and offering his arm. Gabriel rose hastily, looking slightly ashamed. “Yea. You could come along, since you don’t have a group of your own.”
Etta glanced around, seeing everyone group and pair. “I’m actually pretty tired . . .”
Not sure I can find my way back to where I was without help, though.
“Oh, it isn’t long!” Gabriel was solicitous. “Just prayers, really, before bedtime. We can walk you back after. You don’t look so strong just now.”
Etta managed a weak smile. She thought about the Mothers of Nowhere, who wove and knit after supper, sometimes telling stories to anyone who joined them.
Not homesick, exactly. She insisted this to herself.
Just unfamiliar.
She accepted Rei’s arm. Gabriel passed his through her other one and she started a little, feeling very penned in.
“Lean on me,” Gabriel said. Up close, his eyes were two colors, like Alice’s. Blue with an inner rim of gold.
Eight in, eight out.
They’re too nice. That was Eddy’s voice. You know they want something.
Where are you right now?
I don’t know, actually.
She let herself be practically frog-marched to a smaller room with old-world upholstered chairs. The two men helped her into one and sat on either side of her, looking pleased with themselves.
A pregnant woman welcomed everyone by name as they came in. Her voice was low and musical, but Etta saw that her top lip was seamed off center, and her speech was not quite clear.
Born cloven. They must have doctors here. Cutters, even. Maybe that’s why—
“Our traveler, Sister Etta.”
Etta’s head snapped up at the sound of her name.
The cloven woman was beaming at her. “You are welcome here among us. The Prophet said you were foretold to her. She told every priest and bishop that you would be a blessing to our people.”
Bishop.
The word made her think of suicide and for a moment her mind groped blindly at the thing, feeling its contours and unable to find its name.
Mormons. Just like the ones the Unnamed lived with, the couple. Honus. Jodi.
Her mouth hung open for a moment before she thought to close it. She tried to run through the details of the story, but only the most personal parts really stood out.
The Unnamed loved Jodi but settled for sleeping with Honus. Honus thought he could have two wives. Loved Jodi and the Unnamed both, but neither of them would have it. A man with two wives. What an idea.
She tried to focus on the cloven woman’s blunted, cottony speech but found that she could not. When Alma swept into the room, the hush got Etta’s attention first.
Every head turned to face Alma. She had changed into a long white nightgown. Etta could make out the darker spots of her areolae beneath the translucent material.
“Forgive the intrusion, Sister Moses. I wanted to give our visitor a blessing before I went to bed.”
“Not at all, Prophet Alma. You bless us with your presence.”
Everyone turned to stare at Etta as Alma drew near. Etta looked up, unsure.
“If you two young men will assist me?” Alma said.
Gabriel and Rei were out of their seats at once, standing at Alma’s sides. Alm
a placed warm and gentle hands on Etta’s head.
“Sweet Heavenly Mother, we ask thy blessing on this woman as she heals from mortal wounds, that she may speak unto us the truth that only she knows. Let her be strengthened and fortified in our fellowship. Let her . . .”
Alma’s voice died away for a moment and Etta opened her eyes, wary. Beneath the gown, she could see Alma’s belly contracting hard. Alma let out a long, gentle breath.
“Let her guide us as Moroni did the Nephites. In the name of thy children, we pray. Amen.”
The names meant nothing to Etta, but they elicited sighs from around the room. Etta glanced about her, feeling embarrassed. She looked back at Alma to see that Gabriel and Rei had each unbuttoned a corner of Alma’s bodice. Alma squeezed both her own breasts with a sigh, and a tiny jet of warm milk hit Etta in the face.
What in the living fuck?
She was too stunned to wipe her face for a moment. Then Alma, rebuttoned, crushed her in another fragrant embrace.
At least I can wipe it off on her.
Alma whispered to her softly, “I know our ways are strange to you. Don’t you worry.” She moved her hands from Etta’s head to her biceps and once again Etta felt the flow of that curious warmth, flooding toward her injuries. She felt comfortably sleepy again.
No som tonight.
No som here at all, Eddy’s voice corrected. It isn’t safe. I can’t believe you did it in the first place.
She thought she wouldn’t sleep, but exhaustion stole over her the moment she fell back into bed.
Etta did not dream.
She woke with her heart pounding, her body panicking without her. The room was too dark to see anything.
Early? Late?
She hadn’t seen the sun in days. For a moment, she had a steep feeling of vertigo, not knowing which way was up.
Maybe we’re miles beneath the ground.
She thought of the deep but wide-open sensation of being underground at Meramec.
She kicked the covers off and thrashed herself to the floor. Her ribs sang out in agony at the sudden exertion, and dizziness rolled after. On all fours, she shook her head.
Eight in, eight out. Eddy’s voice, calm and secure.
She concentrated on breathing in and both legs locked into rigid cramps. She sucked whistling breaths through clenched teeth and flipped over, trying to pull her toes up.
