Fallow

by Jordan L. Hawk

  Christine switched to Arabic and described Mr. Tate’s ancestry, sexual habits, and general cleanliness in increasingly derogatory terms. “He’s a vile excuse of a man,” Iskander agreed, once Christine had run out of steam.

  Iskander was right...and yet, more people would hold Mr. Tate entirely justified, and Griffin and I entirely in the wrong.

  The moonlight showed us the darkened buildings of the Reynolds farm. We climbed down from the wagon, and I opened the barn doors while Iskander and Christine unhitched the mules. There was no sign of Griffin. Perhaps he’d decided to sleep in the house rather than the loft with me? I couldn’t help but feel disappointment as I seated myself on a convenient hay bale and removed the pie from the basket.

  “As for myself, I spoke to Parson Norton,” Iskander said as he led the mules into their stall. They both put down their heads and began to investigate their feed immediately. “I inquired as to any local legends, which might give us some clue as to what we’re facing.”

  Christine pulled up a milking stool and sat down. “Share the pie around, Whyborne,” she said. “Did the parson have anything interesting to say, Kander?”

  “Just the same stories about the fallow place Griffin already told us.” Iskander took out one of his knives and sliced the pie, using his handkerchief in place of a plate. I passed him my handkerchief, and Christine did the same. “Here,” he said, handing me a slice. “We might not be able to correct all the injustices of the world tonight, but we can enjoy a dessert made by the award-winning pie maker of the county.”

  “Who would knife her best friend in the back for a chance at Whyborne,” Christine added with a grin.

  “It isn’t funny, Christine,” I said. “I thought I might have to fake my own death to escape them.”

  “Now that would have livened up the evening.” She took the second slice from Iskander. “You should have pretended illness and vomited on Mr. Tate.”

  “If I encounter the man again, I may do it anyway,” I muttered. We had no forks, so I lifted the slice to my lips—

  “Whyborne! No!” Griffin shouted from the door.

  ~ * ~

  Before I could react, Griffin struck the pie from my hand, sending it flying into the dirt. “Dear God! Has anyone eaten any?”

  His eyes were wide and wild, his skin so pale his freckles stood out like drops of blood. “No,” Christine said, and cast a worried glance at Iskander. He shook his head.

  “Thank Christ.” Griffin leaned heavily against my shoulder and passed a hand over his face. “The pie...it’s corrupted.”

  I stared at the dessert in horror...but it looked perfectly ordinary to my sight. “Corrupted? Like Odell and Marian?”

  Griffin nodded. “Seething. It’s...not something you wish to see, believe me.”

  Bile rose in my throat. “I don’t understand. How is that even possible? I thought it was something the Fideles, or their pawns, had done to themselves. How can a pie be corrupted?”

  “Clearly, we’ve misunderstood what the corruption is,” Christine said. She took the rest of the pie and set it on the ground, well away from the hay bales. Taking Griffin’s lantern from him, she shut it off, then splashed oil over the pie. Iskander used the mucking shovel to scoop up the piece Griffin had struck from my hand. Once he stepped back, I lit the oil with a word.

  Only when the pie was reduced to charred fragments did Griffin seem to relax. “That appears to have destroyed it. There’s no trace remaining in my shadowsight.”

  “Bloody hell.” Iskander sank down onto the hay bale and put his head in his hands. “Was Miss Norton trying to poison us?”

  “Christine’s right. We’ve misunderstood.” My heart beat almost painfully hard. “What if this is how the corruption is spread? Like a disease?” I looked up, saw expressions of horror on my companion’s faces. “What if Odell, Evers, and Marian haven’t sided with the Fideles in whatever awful scheme the cult has concocted? What if they’re unwilling—unknowing—victims?”

  Just as my friends were of the maelstrom’s manipulation.

  “If you’re right, Miss Norton might be corrupted as well,” Iskander said. “Or she might be a sorceress, or the apprentice of one. She made the pie with a corrupted pumpkin, intending Whyborne should eat it and become infected as well.”

  Christine looked uncertain. “But to what possible end?”

  The pieces snapped into place. “Mind control,” I said. “Odell and Evers’s behavior, the fact they all keep repeating the same words to Griffin...”

  “And we know from last July that the Fideles are more than willing to use mind control to achieve their ends.” Christine said with a shudder. She’d been one of Bradley’s victims, taken over for a short time in order to isolate her from the rest of us. Iskander put a comforting hand to her arm.

  Griffin stared at the cooling ashes in horror. “God. If I hadn’t looked out the window and seen you’d returned...”

  “I was surprised to find you in the house, instead of waiting in the barn,” I admitted.

  He sat on the hay bale beside me. “I had an adventure of my own,” he said. “Mrs. Reynolds heard a sound outside. When Lawrence and I went to investigate, I was attacked by another corrupted man.”

  A hiss of worry escaped me. “Are you unhurt?”

  “Quite.” He patted my hand reassuringly. “Although if Lawrence hadn’t been there, I might have fared far worse. I didn’t recognize the man, but he repeated the same words to me that all of the other corrupted have. He escaped, but not before Lawrence recognized him as one of the unfortunates from the poor farm.”

  “Odell was from the poor farm,” I said.

  Griffin nodded. “There’s more. The superintendent, Mrs. Creigh, has only been here a few months. She came when the old superintendent died rather suddenly.”

  “You think she’s one of the Fideles?” I asked. “She killed the old superintendent and took over, while the other members of the cult were drilling?”

  “If the corruption is a form of mind control spread through food, they could easily use it against the inhabitants of the poor farm.” Griffin’s mouth narrowed with suppressed anger. “They already have no one able to look after them, no one to complain if the Fideles transform them into—into minions to serve their dark purposes. Whatever those might be.”

  Iskander frowned at the ashes of the pie. “But Marian has no connection with the poor farm. Nor does Miss Norton.”

  “The poor farm is close to the Kerr farm, though,” I argued. “Just on the other side of the fallow place. And Miss Norton’s father is the local preacher; no doubt his ministry takes him there often.”

  “She may even have made a special trip to get the pumpkin,” Griffin added. “Given it’s one of the few places with flourishing crops, thanks to the new wells.”

  Christine met my gaze, and I knew we were thinking the same thing. “The wells,” she said. “And the sphere.”

  My fingers felt cold as the implication settled on me. “Delancey called it a transferal sphere. And you said something had burned it out from the inside.”

  “The corruption?” Griffin asked, his eyes going wide.

  “Possibly?” I spread my hands apart helplessly. “What if something was released from the sphere ages ago? It lurked beneath the field, poisoning the land—or, more likely, feeding on the life of anything that tried to take root. Perhaps they searched for the sphere merely because it was an indicator of where the main body of the corruption lay, rather than an end unto itself.”

  “The water is contaminated,” Christine said, going pale. “Spreading the corruption through the crops.”

  “Then why aren’t Mrs. Kerr and Vernon corrupted?” Iskander countered.

  “Because the house garden is still watered from the old well.” Griffin rubbed at his eyes. “Dear God. If it wasn’t, would they be infected as well?”

  “If Christine is right, their corn harvest will be infected.” I felt as though something with a thous
and legs walked down my spine. “Oh, curse me for a fool. The elevators and shipping were taken over by Loyal Grain.”

  “Loyal,” Griffin said. “As in Faithful. Fideles.”

  “Yes.” I met his gaze, and the metallic taste of fear filled my mouth. “The corn. As soon as the harvest is done with, they mean to ship it.”

  “To where?” Griffin asked with a frown.

  “Widdershins.”

  Chapter 17

  Whyborne

  I awaited Griffin in the loft while he locked the door behind Iskander and Christine. “Griffin?” I asked when he joined me. “Is something wrong? Other than the obvious, I mean.”

  The hay crackled softly as he sank down beside me. His green gaze fixed on his hands, folded in his lap. “I can’t stop thinking. If I’d been just a minute later...Last July, when Bradley stole your body...looking at you and not seeing you...it was horrible. If this corruption had taken you, I don’t know what I would have done.”

  Oh. I reached out and put my hand over his. “Don’t torture yourself over what didn’t happen.”

  His fingers remained limp beneath mine, rather than curling to meet my grasp. “Benjamin is dead. Suicide.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Tate’s words came back to me—his concern for my reputation, his willingness to spread slander against Griffin. My stomach clenched, and my scars drew hot and tight.

  “He was my friend,” Griffin went on, his eyes distant. “I wanted him, and he wanted me, and...he’s dead because of it.”

  “It isn’t your fault.”

  “Isn’t it? They didn’t let him forget. Lawrence said as much.” Griffin shook his head wretchedly. “Someone sent him letters, anonymous ones. And the papers kept the scandal alive.”

  Why had I let Tate speak to me as he had without consequence? I should have bound his tongue with ice, sent him fleeing into the night to wander the plains alone. “It still wasn’t your fault.”

  “We knew we couldn’t afford to be caught, and yet we fucked in the barn anyway.” Griffin’s voice grew harsh. “And I left, Whyborne. I thought we were lucky not to end up in jail, so I left him here to face the consequences, while I flitted off and enjoyed my life in Chicago.”

  “You didn’t know,” I insisted. “And the two of you did nothing wrong.” Mostly, anyway—Benjamin had been engaged to Marian at the time, after all. But if she’d forgiven him, then the matter should have been over and done with. “He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

  Griffin swallowed audibly. “I was glad he stayed behind. I thought, maybe, without him...oh God.”

  I caught him up in my arms, held him tight. He tucked his face against my shoulder. “I can’t lose you, Ival,” he whispered. “I can’t.”

  “Shh.” I kissed his hair. “We haven’t lost one another yet.”

  Yet. So much for my foolish hope that he’d find a home here, once I told him the awful truth. Could I tell him, when he already felt so abandoned, so adrift? But if I didn’t, he’d return to Widdershins with me. He’d never escape the horror and pain he’d spoken of to the Mother of Shadows.

  It wasn’t a problem I could solve tonight. So I only held him, and wished there was some way to change things. Or, failing that, some way to make those who’d tormented Benjamin pay for what they’d done.

  ~ * ~

  The ear-splitting caterwaul of the rooster awoke me the next morning.

  I’d slept poorly yet again. Even after I fell asleep, curled deep in the hay at Griffin’s side, my dreams had waked me several times. I couldn’t recall the dreams themselves, but they’d left me with the haunting sensation of a half-glimpsed pattern to...something.

  Now Griffin shook my shoulder. “Time to wake up, Ival. Diablo is saying he misses you.”

  “More likely he’s summoning the legions of hell to do his bidding on the earth,” I muttered.

  By the time I finished washing up, Griffin and Lawrence were already at work in the barn. Griffin had taken the milking stool and tin pail, and gone to the stalls holding the cows. “Care to try?” he asked me.

  I eyed the first cow’s swollen udder uncertainly. At least she seemed unlikely to attempt to murder me, but I wasn’t entirely sure I was up to touching that part of her. Would it feel rubbery, or...?

  “Of course, you could feed the chickens again,” Griffin said with a grin. Lawrence tried to cover a laugh with a cough, rather unsuccessfully.

  I put my shoulders back. “Very well,” I declared. “I shall.”

  Lawrence nodded. “That’s the spirit. Don’t let the chickens win.”

  I left them to their puerile snickering and filled the feed bucket. Griffin thought to have a laugh at my expense, but I’d show him. Yesterday, I’d simply been taken by surprise. Today, Diablo would learn I wasn’t about to be bullied by a rooster.

  ~ * ~

  I fled into the front yard, Diablo in full pursuit. Somehow, he managed to gain enough altitude to strike me about the head with his wings. I windmilled my arms, trying to protect myself from his merciless assault.

  “Hit him with the bucket!” Simon shouted from the porch.

  I waved the bucket wildly. It swung unexpectedly on its handle and struck me on the side of the head.

  “Go away!” I shouted. “Get back, you infernal creature!”

  My foot caught on a stone protruding from the desiccated ground, and I sprawled into the lane. I flung up my arms, certain the Satanic fowl would latch onto my head.

  When no attack came, I cautiously lowered my arms again. Apparently satisfied with my humiliation, Diablo strutted back the way we’d come, no doubt returning to his hens with a tale of his heroic battle.

  There came a derisive snort from close by. In my agitated state, I hadn’t noticed the rider sitting in the lane in front of the house. I blinked as the horse drew closer, then raised my gaze from its legs and found Vernon smirking down at me.

  I scrambled to my feet. “What are you doing here?”

  His gaze went to the dusty knees of my trousers. “You ain’t nothing to worry about,” he said. “Don’t know why anyone would bother to get worked up about you.”

  I blinked. “What? Who...?”

  But the answer seemed obvious. Nella had surely had any number of harsh things to say about me. And Vernon doubtless knew the accusations James had made, that I was a devil who practiced the blackest of magics.

  “As for what I’m doing here, I wanted to make sure my cousin saw this,” he said, tossing a rolled up newspaper at me. I tried to catch it and missed.

  He turned his horse and cantered away. I scooped up the newspaper from the dust and shook it out.

  The Fallow Tribune was a slim volume, no more than four pages, and most of that taken up with advertising. The largest headline was dedicated to the Columbia’s successful defense of the America’s Cup. Beneath it ran a notice of a meeting for the local Poultry Association. But the article Vernon had no doubt meant us to see occupied a prominent space near the bottom of the front page.

  LUNATIC RETURNS

  Disturbs Peace at Kerr Farm

  Yesterday a known lunatic made an unexpected appearance, after an absence of some years. The initial departure of Griffin Flaherty is a matter of local memory. If the wholesome air of Fallow did not prevent him from moral insanity, Chicago only compounded his mental instability. This paper has learned that his secretive return to Fallow four years ago was not due to illness, as had been put around at the time, but instead came upon his release from an Illinois lunatic asylum.

  We have spoken to his family and can say whatever cure the doctors attempted does not seem to have taken hold. Moreover, Mr. Flaherty has returned with very curious traveling companions. Among them are Mr. and Mrs. Iskander Barnett: Mr. Barnett is an Arab and his wife is a white woman. They are staying on the Reynolds farm.

  Also with them is a man of some breeding, who ought to know better. We wonder if his father is aware of the company he keeps?

  “Whyborne
?” Griffin called from behind me. “Was that Vernon I saw riding away?”

  I desperately wanted to hide the newspaper from him. To protect him from yet more pain. But even if he hadn’t already seen the paper in my hand, I owed him the truth.

  “Yes,” I said heavily. “Fetch Christine and Iskander from the house, if you would. They’ll want to see this as well.”

  Chapter 18

  Griffin

  “I’m going straight to the farm and giving Vernon a good thrashing,” Christine snarled, crushing the newspaper in her hands as though imagining it to be Vernon’s neck. “And once I’m done with him, the editor of this rag will be next.”

  “Agreed,” Whyborne said. Someone who didn’t know him would have mistaken his impassive expression for calm. But the very impassivity of it, save for the tightness at the corners of his mouth and the flare of his nostrils, betrayed him to be in a high fury.

  “No,” I said. The four of us gathered near the wagon, while the Reynolds went inside for breakfast. Whatever appetite I’d had was gone now, replaced by a sick, sinking feeling.

  It was one thing for Vernon to throw me out of the home I’d grown up in. Certainly it hadn’t made me happy, but I could do nothing about it if Ma made no move to stop him.

  But this? To contact some friend on the newspaper—probably the editor Mr. Carson—and use it to smear not only my reputation, but to insult my friends as well?

  My old family, attacking my new one. And all because of me.

  “Why the devil not?” Christine demanded. “They both deserve a horse-whipping.”

  “Because it will do us no good if you and Whyborne are in jail,” Iskander pointed out. His dark eyes flashed with anger, but he held up a calming hand. “Please try to remember we have far bigger worries.”