by Cadle, Lou
“Sit,” he said again. He stood and faced her, his face blocked from Tithing’s view. His expression was begging her to cooperate.
Why? Stop, Coral. Stop panicking, and think.
Damn it. She knew that they couldn’t up and run this instant, with no supplies, with a mob of fifteen chasing them with rifles. But Benjamin’s response felt like a betrayal anyway.
She was pissed to find herself fighting back tears as she looked up at him.
Benjamin said, “It’ll be okay. I promise.” And he sat and pulled her down beside him.
“We won’t force you, my dear,” said Tithing. “We don’t even know yet if you’re right for the work. It could be—” and his expression suggested that he was thinking this could indeed be the case “—that you aren’t Seed, and we’ll let you go.”
Coral thought that was unlikely in the extreme. Benjamin, they could toss out. There were too many men already and…. Suddenly, she realized that her outburst was putting Benjamin at risk more than her. She, obviously, had value as a brood mare. They’d choose her for that, she believed, no matter what she said or did, and they’d find a way to justify it.
But Benjamin—he was only another mouth to feed with their dwindling supply of food and a 2:1 male to female ratio. “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling a chill that went much deeper than that from the cold air. “I was just so shocked, and after Pratt hit me….” She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself, for Benjamin’s sake. “Please, go on.”
Tithing looked slightly mollified. “I can see that, just as Pratt’s test is anger, yours is impatience.”
“I think you’re right.”
“That’s part of the plan, too. We are all purposely given a fault.”
“So when will you know? If I’m appropriate for this, um, honor? With the waiting Seeds and all.”
“By next meeting, I should think,” said Tithing. “The one after, at the very latest.”
“And they’re once a week?”
“That’s right.”
So she had seven—no, six—days to devise an escape plan and put it into action.
He frowned. “Now I’m afraid I lost my train of thought.”
“My fault,” she said. “You were saying about the accidentally destroyed bodies, and needing to be back in bodies because…”
“Right.” He smiled. “I’ll be honest. We don’t know exactly why we need to be in human form for the final Reaping. But we know we do. The Ancient Sowers, the most venerable leaders, are coming. They’ll be here soon, and we will be ready to rejoin them.” He pointed at her again. “The question is, will you be ready?”
Sudden enthusiastic converting at this moment would not be believed. The best she could manage was a shrug.
“If you are Seed, I’ve already had a request for you—for marriage.”
Oh, shit. “Who?”
“Alva.”
“He’s nice,” she managed to say. And he had been pleasant enough to her. Of all the men to be raped by in the group, she supposed he was the least objectionable, if a person could rank such things. In the new post-Event world, she supposed a woman had to. The poor girl with the Army, for instance, probably had ones she truly dreaded and ones she only slightly dreaded.
“We don’t share women here. If you are to marry him, you’ll be his wife in every sense. And you’ll create a vehicle for a needful Seed.”
She stared at him. Vaguely, she was aware she had gone emotionally numb. Aliens, rape, weapons from Mars, incorporeal interstellar travel. All perfectly reasonable. Lalalalalalala. She knew she might start laughing at any moment, or screaming, or weeping and rending her own hair…and she couldn’t afford to break down in front of him. She needed to appear strong. “I feel a little woozy,” she managed to say.
“Probably you need to eat,” said Tithing, slapping his legs. “So. Any questions?”
She shook her head.
He stood. “I can let you get over to help the ladies in the kitchen, then.”
She twisted her mouth into something she hoped resembled a smile. She stood, and Benjamin did, and he leaned toward her and rested his hand on her back for two seconds before moving away.
It helped, a little. He was still there. They were both alive. Where there is life, there’s still hope.
At least the brief touch kept her from running out of the compound screaming, willing to take a bullet in the back rather than stay here and wait for what was coming.
*
The rest of the day, Coral moved like a robot through her assigned tasks. She tried to stay on task but failed—not their tasks, which were doable in a mindless state, but her own, the task of formulating a workable escape plan for her and Benjamin. She thought he was doing the same.
After dinner dishes were done, Brynn walked her and Polly over to the animal pens. The wire fence surrounded a small enclosure that had a metal shed for the animals to hide from the wind.
There was bagged grain to feed them, and Polly showed Coral how to do the chores involved with keeping the goats alive. Polly squatted on the ground behind the gray and white goat and began milking it, as it bleated softly. The other goat was almost all white. Both had thick hair, or fur, whichever you called it in goats. As a gust of frigid wind cut through Coral’s skirt and jeans, she wished she had fur, too.
“Getting much?” said Brynn, from outside the fence. She was probably there to make sure Coral didn’t run off.
“Not much,” said Polly.
Brynn said, “We might have to butcher them.”
“We still have mutton,” said Polly.
“Once the goats are gone, we could cook the grain they’re eating.”
“They need to be bred in spring,” Polly said. She unclipped the goat from a leash and it bounced back through the snow.
“That’s unlikely to happen.”
“Then I guess they won’t last until spring.” She glanced at Coral then back at Brynn. “Do you want me to teach her how to milk?”
“You can try.” Brynn looked doubtfully at Coral.
“I have no idea what I’m doing. It is possible to hurt her?” she asked. “The goat, I mean?”
“No,” said Polly. “Come on over. I’ll talk you through it.”
Coral stopped and petted the white goat’s head. It studied her, cocking its head like a puppy. Pretty eyes. She didn’t plan on being here long enough to eat it, so she supposed she could risk feeling kindly toward it.
Polly put a bucket of grain down and hooked the goat to a leash near the shed. “Get down next to me, and watch,” she said. “Okay, you wipe your hands first. Next you need to warm the wipe for the goat.” She pulled an antibacterial wipe from a packet of them she’d carried out here and watched Coral clean her hands. She pulled out a second, handed it to Coral and took out a third to ball up in her own hands. “Warm yours up too. When it’s warm, wipe her. Get off any poop.”
Lovely. Coral wadded up the ice-cold wipe and held it.
Polly took her own wipe and drew it over the udders. “Now you,” she said to Coral.
Holding her breath, Coral wiped down the wobbly things the best she could.
“Don’t be frightened. I mean, don’t push or squeeze or hurt her, but you can touch her firmer than that.”
“Okay,” said Coral. “Can I, um, stabilize it somehow, like hold on to the nipple?”
“No, you shouldn’t need to.” She watched as Coral finished wiping off the goat. “Okay. So to milk them, you do this.” She held her hand in the air and moved her fingers one at a time. “It’s like every finger pushes it along more.”
Coral mimicked her, hand in the air. Her hand was getting very cold, very quickly.
“First squirt goes on the ground, then move the bucket up.” She matched actions to words. “Never, ever pull. That hurts her. Your fingers are, like, pushing it down. Then you wait, let it refill. Go again.”
Coral bent down to watch closer as the girl moved her hand to the udder and began
to milk the goat. Milk splashed into the bucket, and steam rose from it. “The udder is getting smaller.”
“Well, yeah. That was milk in there. Now it’s in the bucket.” She stopped and pulled the bucket back. She asked Coral, “You want to try the other?”
“I suppose.” She was afraid of hurting the poor thing with her ineptness.
“Remember, like this.” Polly moved her fingers in sequence again.
Coral rubbed her hands together briskly and blew on them, hoping to get them warm enough that the goat didn’t jump out of her own skin at the first touch. Polly scooted aside and Coral moved up. The udder was warm and soft to the touch, like a good leather purse.
“Use your left hand on that one. You’re pinching it off the first time, with your thumb and forefinger. That traps the milk in the teat. Then you’re pushing it out.”
Coral mentally sent an apology to the goat. She squeezed with thumb and forefinger, and then tried to close the other fingers one by one, as Polly had shown her.
“Wait. Not hard enough,” said Polly, touching. “You need to be firm with that first pinch. Trap the milk down there.”
“Okay,” said Coral. “Sorry, goat, if this hurts.” She squeezed a bit harder, then brought her next finger down. She could feel the milk trying escape back up, so she adjusted her grip. A squirt of milk came from the end of the teat, and Coral was so surprised, she snatched her hand back.
“Well, it can’t hurt you,” Polly said, exasperated. “It’s only milk.”
“It surprised me, is all.”
“Get the bucket up there, now.”
The goat tried to turn her head and look back at who was messing with her. Coral sympathized more than she wanted to. The thought of a strange man from this place putting his hands on her made her shudder. And here she was, molesting this poor goat.
Polly must have seen the shudder. “Getting cold?”
“I’m fine,” said Coral. Were she the goat, she’d be bleating and kicking at a stranger’s presence.
“Think you can do it?”
“I’ll try.” She leaned forward again, took hold of the udder, and squeezed off the teat. The thing Polly did with closing the fingers felt very odd, and she was moving far slower than the girl did. But milk was coming out, one slow squirt at a time. If she tried to go faster, she had a hard time keeping her finger and thumb together. It would take practice to learn to do it all at the same time, and to speed up her fingers.
When she’d gotten eight or nine squirts out, Polly said, “Let me finish.”
“Probably a good idea.” She backed away.
“I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Nor do I.” Coral wiped her hand on her skirt and jammed her gloves back on. She stood by the head of the goat, leaned over and whispered to her. “I hope I didn’t scare you. You hang in there, sweetie.”
The goat tossed its head, as far as the leash would let it.
Coral rested her hand on its head, and it pushed up against her in a friendly way. She stayed there until Polly was done. “Good girl,” she said to the goat.
“You can unclip her now.”
Coral found the leash’s end and unclipped it from the goat’s collar. The animal danced away and headed for the other goat. The sniffed at each other and danced around a moment before settling back down.
Polly handed the milk bucket to Brynn, who peered inside and said, “We’ll be able to make cheese again in a day or two.”
Coral perked up at that. “You have cheese?”
“We give it to the men to carry while they’re doing their work. We don’t get any.”
“Shame,” Coral said. She wondered where it was kept. It would be a great sort of food to steal when she left: edible while on the run, and didn’t need to be cooked like oatmeal or beans or rice or potatoes.
Next, they fed grain to the donkey, Jubilee. It had been tied while the milking went on. Coral knew next to nothing about horses and less about donkeys or mules. Polly said, “Let it smell your breath.”
Coral wasn’t sure she’d want to smell her own breath after this many weeks without toothpaste or floss, but she did as Polly said. Then she took off her glove, put some straw onto her palm and let the donkey eat off her hand. The animal was surprisingly gentle, its lips barely kissing her skin.
“Does it ever bite?” she asked.
“Has to be provoked pretty bad. For a donkey, he’s easy-going.”
“Good,” Coral said. In the corner of the animal yard, there was a small two-wheeled wagon. In the small enclosure where the animals could get out of the wind, she saw there was a bunch of leather harnesses hung there that no doubt attached the donkey to the wagon, plus a soft saddle.
She glanced at the donkey again, realizing that this could be their way out. She had been worrying about escaping, about how to outdistance a hunting party of ten angry men with rifles. If they couldn’t get a rifle themselves, they couldn’t fight back. But if they could move faster, they’d outdistance their pursuit.
How long could a donkey run, pulling two people in a wagon, without rest? How many miles per day? Could it do two sessions a day with a rest in between? Would it? And how long could it live, without grain or grass to eat? If she stole the donkey, a bag of its feed would be as important as food for her and Benjamin.
The fence had a single gate. She watched more carefully as Polly unlatched it. Simple enough closure, and no lock, so that wouldn’t be a problem.
As they left, the donkey brayed at them. The poor thing was lonely, she thought. She’d volunteer to care for the animals and make a point of making friends with the donkey. They had carrots—horses liked carrots, right? She assumed a donkey would, too. She’d pocket a few next time she had to chop some and bring them to the donkey, hand-feed him, hoping to make him her friend.
As they approached to the central clearing, she asked, “What does the donkey do, exactly?”
Brynn said, “He hauls supplies to and fro. And we have a plow for him in the cave, for when winter ends.”
“You still think you’ll be around when winter ends?” Coral asked. “Or will the final Reaping come before then?”
“Whichever way, we’re prepared for it,” said Brynn. “Now you can help Ellie haul water.”
Coral walked slowly to the big cabin, thinking hard. She might well be able to sneak out at night while Brynn was asleep. With only two people sharing the cabin with her, that should be simple enough. She had her pocket knife. She’d have to grab it the night before the escape, so as not to risk waking Polly by jostling her cot. She needed to know where the cheese was stored. That and a chunk of the meat, which she guessed was stored in the cave, would serve as food for the road.
On the right night, then, she’d get Benjamin, collect the supplies, perhaps hook up the donkey to the cart, and go. She’d need a candle or two so that they’d be able to see how to hook up the harness and wagon. Lucky thing that the donkey wasn’t too near the cabins. If she could make friends with it, would it do her bidding?
If only she could get a weapon. What had they done with her bows and arrows? Benjamin might have seen. They probably wouldn’t be guarding them the same way they would a rifle. It wasn’t much, but any long-distance weapon was better than none. And what of her fishing gear? Where was that?
She had to find a way, an excuse, a job assignment, some way, any way to get her to the cave, so she could see what they had stored there. It seemed the most likely place to find her own confiscated gear.
She wanted out of this crazy place before the next meeting, when she feared she’d be declared an eligible breeder and handed over to Alva. She had six days at most to make an escape plan, set up for it, and find a way to communicate her plans with Benjamin. Now that she thought about it, she should pick a day before then. If they got caught, they might get a second chance. Maybe three or four nights from now.
She was glad she was being fed, but she wished she was getting more calories. Benjamin was, at least,
for the men were allowed to eat until they were full. If she could fill up these next few days, then they could run hard for a week, not need to stop to hunt or fish, and survive off whatever she was able to steal from the supplies here.
No one else was in the dining room. She squatted and looked at the front door lock. There was no key in there, but maybe Brynn—it’d most likely be Brynn—carried one and probably locked it at night. If so, she couldn’t just swing by and steal food. Hopefully the cave had no door or lock.
She stood and walked into the kitchen and pantry area. No one was there, either. “Ellie?” she said.
“Down here.”
Coral followed the voice and found Ellie in the small back room, wedged beneath the desk that held the radio. “You stuck?”
“I’m scrubbing. Be done in a second.”
Coral looked at the radio while Ellie worked. Off-on switch, easy enough. She supposed there was something to press on the microphone to send, or a switch on the console there. I wonder if I called for help, is there anyone close enough to come rescue us?
Would anyone out there care? Maybe they would, but they likely had troubles of their own. She had never really thought before about how police, and courts, and jails in the old world kept people in control. She’d been lucky enough to never have the need to interact with them, except for the sheriff’s deputy who’d brought them the news that her parents were dead. But she sure missed them all now, missed the option of calling someone to make the bad people stop.
Ellie crawled out with a damp rag, pushed her hair back from her forehead and smiled at Coral.
It was hard to think of her as a bad guy. But she was.
“Meat tonight,” she said.
“Terrific. Brynn said I was supposed to help you.”
“We’ll braise it tonight, then slice it up. Second and third nights, stew or soup.”
“I’ll be a nice change from beans. What do you want me to do?”
“Hang on while I get rid of this cleaning stuff.” She stooped, picked up a bucket, and walked through the kitchen and toward the front door. For a moment, Coral was alone.
