The Divide

by Jeremy Robinson

  “Last I saw him,” I say, though I am concerned for what might have befallen him if my husband concluded the Modernists had his help. “He and Grace are together.”

  “You didn’t know?” Salem says.

  “You did?”

  He smiles. “I caught them once. In the woods. When I was ten.” His smile becomes a laugh, and then an uncomfortable scrunch of his lips. “I promised not to tell.”

  Since I’d rather not picture my father buck naked and humping sweet Grace in the forest, I reverse course a bit. “So…when a Golyat’s…juices gets in our blood, maybe it changes our DNA? Makes us into something else?”

  “That’s one theory,” he says. “Of mine. Since Holland. No one would have ever guessed that the Golyats had been human once. Hell, we thought there was just one of them. Our ancestors used to say ‘ignorance is bliss’, but I don’t think so. Ignorance leads to death, or enslavement to a person, or a system.”

  “You Modernists... All conversations lead to freedom,” I say. “The concept, at least.”

  Salem smiles in a different sort of way, like he’s proud of me. “I didn’t even realize that’s what we were talking about, but yes. Ignorance binds people as easily as chains.”

  “Or a Divide.”

  He nods.

  “Is that why you crossed?” My raised hand stops him from answering. I crouch and wave him up beside me. Then I point to the ground, where a lump of corn has been peeled open and chewed.

  “We’re not alone,” Salem whispers, a statement I agree with by drawing my machete.

  36

  We creep closer to the shredded corn. There are small yellow nuggets scattered on the ground, along with the peeled leaves and what looks like hair. But most of the yellow has been gnawed away. After this quick examination, I relax. “Tell me what you see.”

  “Three ears of corn,” Salem says. “All eaten.”

  “Ears?”

  He picks up one of the forearm sized corn pieces. “This is an ‘ear’ of corn. When you peel the leaves away, what’s left is a ‘cob.’”

  I look around at all the intact ears around us. I’m about to complain that there isn’t a creature with ears like that, but then I remember the lynx native to New Inglan. The cat has similarly shaped ears, including little tufts of hair at the top.

  “What else?”

  “I don’t see anything else,” he says.

  “What don’t you see?”

  “Tracks.”

  “And?”

  When he doesn’t answer, I say, “Shit. You don’t see shit.”

  “You’ve spent too much time with Dyer.”

  “I was being literal,” I say.

  His eyes widen a touch. “Oh.” Now he’s looking. Really looking. “No tracks either.”

  “Which means either a bird did this,” I say, “or an animal light enough to not leave tracks.” The ground is covered with centuries worth of decaying corn crops from countless previous summers. In the dry heat, the mixture of packed down decay and plant fibers makes a strong surface. Even I have to dig my foot in to leave a trail for the others.

  “Find the stalks missing ears,” I say, and I set about searching. I find the first. Salem locates the other two. “Not a bird,” I say.

  “How can you tell?”

  “The missing ears are all lower to the ground. A bird wouldn’t care about height, but an animal on the ground, whose neck only stretches so high, would.”

  “Why wouldn’t they just tear the plant down?” he asks.

  “Same reason we’re not,” I say. “Either way, I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

  “Unless mountain lions eat corn,” he jokes, but it’s not a bad point. Cats don’t leave a lot of tracks, especially on terrain like this, and it’s not unheard of for them to munch on vegetation when food is scarce. Out here, a meal larger than a squirrel might be impossible to find.

  I keep my machete in hand as we strike out again, not as tense, but still ready. If a cat is nearby, I have no doubt it’s already stalking us.

  Stalks rattle to our right. I tense and listen. Something is moving through the field, in roughly the same direction, and not in a hurry.

  We press on, despite the noise. I’m more curious than fearful now. A predator would have never revealed itself in such a careless way, and I have no doubt the creature is aware of us. We’re nearly to the tree when I spot an aberration on the ground.

  When I see the dark lumps for what they are, I relax and sheath my machete.

  “What is it?” Salem asks.

  I wave him up, and take a handful of the dark lumps. “Still warm.” I hold my hand out to him.

  Nose scrunched in revolt, he says, “Is that…shit?”

  I nod and raise the nuggets to my nose, breathing deeply. “Deer shit.”

  “Deer?” He looks around like he might actually be able to see something through the endless maze of stalks.

  I drag my foot through the dirt, continuing our trail, and then move toward the tree. “Slow and quiet.”

  As we near the tree, the corn thins. I pause when I spot a break in the field ahead. I slip out of my backpack and draw my machete again. The corn made me hungry, but the thought of a deer kill makes me ravenous. I part the last stalks of corn and peer through, ready to attack.

  Deer, dozens of them, react to my appearance by looking up, gazing at me and then lying down. They’re smaller than deer in New Inglan, their feet wide and perfect for distributing their weight to not leaving tracks. The males have small sets of antlers, curved in over their noses in a way that would prevent them from catching on cornstalks. All of the animals have what looks like green moss, or mold, growing on their backs. From above, they would be disguised from birds, or from Golyats.

  “What are they doing?” Salem whispers.

  “I have no idea.” I slip out of the corn and the deer don’t react. I stand to my full height. Still nothing.

  “These aren’t normal deer,” he says, and he’s right, both in action and how they look. “I’ve studied books about animals in the world before. These deer aren’t in them.”

  “Their DNA has been changed,” I guess.

  He smiles and nods. “Natural selection.”

  “What is that?”

  “You remember what survival of the fittest is?”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Right. So, over the past five hundred years, all the deer with antlers pointing outward, or with fur not appropriate for the growth of what I think is algae, or so big that they were easy to spot, were killed and never had babies. Their DNA was never passed down to their children. But those that survived, possibly because of a fluke of nature, reproduced. Over generations the changes would become more dramatic until we have a whole new species of deer.”

  “That also don’t fear people,” I say, stepping further into the clearing beneath the tree. A few of the deer watch me. Most go back to resting in the shade.

  “Mom,” Salem says, as I approach the nearest deer, machete in hand. “Don’t.”

  “What?” I ask, struggling to resist my instinct to kill and eat the animal on the spot. “Why not?”

  Salem moves past me, to the deer I intended to slay, and puts his hand on its neck. The creature sniffs, and then closes its eyes when Salem starts petting it. “These animals have lived on this side of the Divide for five hundred years. They have no fear of us because there haven’t been people here during all that time. To them, we’re just fellow survivors, hiding from the sun and the Golyats. You have to respect them for that.”

  “We also need to eat,” I point out.

  “We can eat the corn. And squirrels. But let’s leave the deer in peace. I just…eating them makes me feel a little bit like a Golyat.”

  His words sour my stomach, not because thinking about the Golyats disgusts me, but because I can see his point. “Or like the Cull.”

  “Exactly.”

  I use the machete to lop off a few ears of co
rn and hand a few to Salem. We find seats against the tree, surrounded by deer who are far more interested in us now that we’ve got corn in our hands. Unsure of how to eat the plant, I tear away the leaves and hair, exposing the bright yellow insides that had been eaten by the deer. Then I take a bite and taste a flavor that surprises me with its intensity. “Oh,” I say. “Oh, that’s good.”

  Ignoring the juice running over my chin, I take three more bites and chew, while Salem digs into his. When a young deer approaches me, I hold out the corn and let it take a nibble before taking a few more bites. Some of the other deer, seeing an easy meal, stand and join their friend. Soon we’re surrounded by the small animals, partaking in our meal and making me smile. A few minutes earlier, I would have killed and eaten them. But now they are kin.

  “Holy hellcakes,” Dyer says from the edge of the clearing. “What’s this?”

  “We made friends,” Salem says.

  As the others file into the clearing and deposit the stretchers of rope on the ground, they look at the deer with a mixture of hunger, and delight.

  I point my thoroughly chewed corncob at Dyer, who’s drawing a knife. “We’re not eating them, by the way.”

  “Why the hell not?” she asks.

  “We don’t eat our friends,” I say, feeding the nearest deer and getting a laugh out of Salem. “There is plenty of corn, and it tastes better.”

  Shua cuts an ear of corn from a stalk and tries biting it, leaves and all, which makes Salem laugh harder. The sound transports me through time for a moment, sitting by a lake as Salem threw large stones into the water, laughing with each kerplunk.

  “Peel it first, Father,” Salem says.

  Shua listens to the instructions as Del and Dyer gather their own ears and start eating. Soon, all but Plistim are seated with the deer, enjoying a feast. While Plistim seems relaxed, a long respite was not planned for. With daylight still with us, we should be moving. But this is the first truly pleasant experience we’ve had since arriving in this land. The corn will sustain our bodies for a time, but the memory of this moment will sustain our morale far longer. So I say nothing as everyone, including the deer, share a meal.

  I peel a corncob and hold it toward Plistim. “Hey.”

  When he looks, I toss the corn to him. He catches it, nods his thanks, and takes a bite. He seems to relax a little more with each bite, wandering around the tree trunk. When he stops, his jaws tight, his body locked in place, our group and all the deer tense.

  “Did you not search the whole clearing?” Plistim asks.

  I did, I think, but then not where he is looking. I’d inspected every bit of the clearing, but not the tree itself. I’ve only looked at the side where we sat down.

  We move slowly to keep from startling the deer, and gather on the tree’s far side, staring down at words carved into the bark. The cut isn’t fresh, but neither is it old. Within the past few years. I reach my hand out, touching the text, trying to connect with whoever wrote it. “What does it say?”

  “Queensland,” Salem says. “The rest is numbers. Two. Five. Three. Two.”

  37

  “Queensland?” Dyer says. “Is that like Kingsland?”

  Salem nods. “One of the five safe zones established by our ancestors. In Alaska. There are notes about them in Lew’s journal, but not many details about their founders. I think they worked together. Like a team.”

  “Like us,” Del says.

  “But far more powerful,” Salem says. “Powerful enough to create the Divide.”

  “But not stop the Golyats,” Dyer says.

  Then what chance do we have? That’s the next logical question someone should ask. No one does. Just thinking it is hard enough. Giving it voice…making it real… The answer would undo all the positive morale provided by our small friends. The answer—no chance at all—would become prophetic the moment it was uttered.

  Salem takes it in the other direction, spinning hope into his words. “I haven’t finished reading yet, but Lew hints at possible solutions in the works. Said they would take decades to perfect. Perhaps, over time, they were simply forgotten?”

  “The Prime Law would have prevented anyone outside their inner circle from knowing the truth. If they found a way to defeat the Golyats, they died before sharing it.” Plistim’s words are sobering, but he puts a positive spin on them, saying, “Which means the knowledge is still out there, waiting for us to find it, and utilize it.”

  “What are the numbers?” Dyer asks.

  “Two. Five. Three. Two.” Shua reads the numbers and guesses, “Directions of some kind. What did they call them? Coordinates?”

  “Not the right kinds of numbers, and there are no decimals,” Salem says.

  And just like that, I’m lost. Coordinates? Decimals? They’re speaking another language. A forgotten language.

  “It’s the year,” Plistim says. “Two thousand five hundred and thirty two.”

  “The year is five hundred and thirty four,” I point out.

  Plistim shakes his head. “When the Prime Law was put into place, the yearly calendar was reset so people would feel less of a connection to their past. We consider the year to be 534 P.D. That’s Post Divide.”

  He says that last bit to me.

  “I know,” I grumble, but most people in New Inglan wouldn’t.

  “By the ancestors’ calendar,” Plistim says, “we would be in the year 2534.”

  “This was carved two years ago,” Salem says, his voice reverent. “There are people beyond the Divide. People from Queensland! And they’ve traveled all this way.”

  “But why?” Del asks. “Why come here if they had their own protected land?”

  “To be free,” Plistim says. “To find us. Perhaps to free us. Despite the time and distance, they are still our kin.”

  “Or,” Shua says, his jaw tense. No one’s going to like what he says next, and he knows it. “Their own lands were overrun, so they fled, and went out in search of new lands. Human history from the time before, is essentially one war after another, each side defending or claiming land. For resources. For food. For the simple loathing of their neighbors. We don’t know the people of Queensland. They might not even have a Prime Law.” He motions to the carving on the tree. “For all we know, they’re as much of a threat as the Golyats.”

  “I refuse to believe that,” Plistim says.

  “That humanity can be violent, envious, and self-destructive?” Shua plants his fists on his hips. “You of all people know that these evils did not die with our ancestors. And they won’t, even if we succeed. We need to be cautious.”

  “This is two years old,” I say. Even if Shua’s paranoid theory is correct, whoever carved the tree’s bark is long since gone, and I’m not a fan of paranoia. “Salem, you said the deer here weren’t afraid of us because they hadn’t been hunted by people in five hundred years.”

  “Yeah,” my son says.

  “Which means that whoever carved this tree, like us, had the mind and heart to not kill these animals.” I turn to Salem. “Just like you. And if the people who did this are anything like Salem, I would like to meet them.”

  “Perhaps,” Plistim says, “after reaching our goal, and achieving our great end, we will search for our brothers and sisters scattered across the continent and help set them free as well.”

  Everyone but Shua is pleased with the idea. Before we can dream up theories about the people of Queensland, and before Shua can turn them bleak, Plistim says, “But we will achieve nothing if we do not stay the course. If the deer can eat in the cornfield without fear, so can we. Have your fill while we walk, but take none with you when the field ends. Its smell will stand out once we’re back in the forest.”

  When we set out again a few minutes later, after scarfing down several more ears or corn, I am now the last in line, carrying a stretcher with Shua. In front of him are Salem and Del, also carrying a stretcher. Plistim and Dyer are in the lead, which given the field’s relative safety
and lack of Golyats, I’m okay with.

  “Why so pessimistic?” I ask after a few minutes of walking. The small deer keep me company, strolling through the field beside me, sniffing the ground. The little creatures make me happy, and in some ways remind me of how Plistim’s family has accepted me.

  “Realistic,” Shua says. “It’s easy to get caught up, thinking like my father, seeing opportunity and hope everywhere, but without a dose of realism, the dream can become a nightmare.”

  He’s talking about the Cull. Or the deaths of all the people who followed Plistim across the Divide and disappeared. Including his brother and his niece.

  “What about ‘freedom or death?’” I ask.

  “There has to be a point where the price is too steep,” Shua says. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost you or Salem.”

  My inclusion in that statement nearly trips me up. It’s because I’m who he’s talking to, I decide, and let it go.

  “But I know none of this will be worthwhile if I do. Even if, in the end, we succeed.” He looks back over his shoulder. “And yes, Vee, I meant to include you.”

  Despite the dire words pre-empting his last, Shua smiles and turns forward again, leaving me to stew in his pot of emotional turmoil. When verbalization beyond a few stutters escapes me, I say, “Asshole,” which gets a laugh out of Shua and extinguishes the smoldering worry that’s been eating him up.

  “I can live with that,” he says, plugging along, strong hands on the stretcher, maintaining the swift pace set by Plistim. “Could have been worse. A skunk’s taint. A Golyat’s shriveled scrotum.”

  I snort, then I’m embarrassed by it, and laughing along with Shua over the course of a few seconds. “Don’t listen to him,” I say to the deer, looking down. But where I expected to see small, half-interested eyes looking back at me, I find only empty ground and cornstalks.

  “Hold up,” I say, coming to a stop and tugging Shua back.

  “We should at least wait until its dark,” Shua says, his mood still light. “Also, if I remember correctly, you’re a little loud when you—”