Whim hooked the basket under her arm as she arrived at the Brambles’ home. Mirth was at the sink washing dishes while Neste and Enid played keep-away with Loew’s Sunday hat. They laughed as the hat flew back and forth across the room. Mirth turned around and saw the game. Her eyes widened.
‘Enid! Neste!’ They handed the hat back to Loew, and Enid mussed his hair. He ran off. ‘Sunday visitors might arrive any moment,’ Mirth said. ‘If you have so much time, you can help me tidy up. Oh, Whim,’ she said, noticing her at last. ‘Hello, dear.’ She came over and gave her an absent-minded kiss on the cheek. ‘I’ll have the table set soon. Enid, Neste, go brush your hair again. You look like a pair of ragamuffins.’
‘Come with us, Whim,’ Neste said, always unruffled. The girls’ room was up the ladder. Its wooden walls were decorated in clippings from newspapers: singers and actors they had heard at the phonograph parlour in Kegonsa that they saved their money to attend. The parlour was a tiny place, a dry-goods store during the day. The sisters were absolute experts on these phonographs, insofar as they could be.
Enid sat on the bed while Neste looked at her hair in the battered mirror and took her comb from its case. It was bone and had been her grandmother’s, given to her on her sixteenth birthday. Enid – two years her junior with Elwyn in between – said it would have been awful to be the second daughter if she had been unlucky enough to have any interest in things like combs.
‘Have you heard from our brother lately?’ Neste asked pleasantly. ‘He hasn’t written to us.’
‘Horrible brother. I’d hate him if I didn’t miss him,’ Enid said.
‘I hear from him,’ Whim said, looking out the window at the leafy world.
‘What does he say?’ Neste asked, fixing her hair in a complicated bun. ‘Enid, how does this look?’
‘Like a deer’s ass,’ Enid replied.
‘I don’t think he’s gotten much of a welcome. Your cousin sounds especially unkind, though Elwyn doesn’t say it outright. You know Elwyn – he always tries to make things sound bright,’ she said. ‘Your uncle pays Elwyn a lot of attention, but it sounds like it’s mostly focused on a book he’s writing. He has Elwyn on a very strict schedule – a lot of memorisation, a lot of studying, a lot of rules.’
‘Well, that’s what he gets for leaving us and acting so high and mighty,’ Enid said.
‘And he keeps writing about his first day there, how through all these strange circumstances he wound up visiting a big house on a hill. He said it was like something out of a dream…’
‘Oh, I’m tired of hearing about Elwyn’s dreams,’ Enid said.
Whim sighed. ‘Me too.’
Neste looked at Whim from the mirror.
‘Are you all right?’ Neste asked.
‘She’s still upset with Elwyn for leaving us. We all are,’ Enid said. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, turning to Whim. ‘The second you two are old enough, he’ll be back and you’ll run off and get married. We all know it.’
Whim’s cheeks flushed.
‘Enid,’ Neste said. ‘Leave them alone.’
‘It’s a good thing, too,’ Enid went on. ‘You are one of the few girls we could tolerate our brother marrying. Not like that awful Posy who weaselled her way in with Allun.’
‘Mam will hear you.’
‘Let her hear.’
‘It’s nothing to do with Elwyn leaving. It’s about my father,’ Whim said, suddenly flushing. ‘Elwyn says not to trouble myself over those trucks. He said my father is “wonderful, but also mistrustful and sort of intense”. He thinks it will pass.’ Whim swallowed. Enid and Neste were for once silent, listening. ‘Elwyn’s probably right,’ she went on. ‘But he’s not here. He doesn’t have to see what I see every morning. My father doesn’t sleep any more. He doesn’t go to the distillery. Liberty seems further away every day…’
Mirth yelled for them to come down to eat. Whim was relieved not to have to finish explaining herself. On their way to the table, Neste put a hand on Whim’s shoulder.
‘It will pass,’ she said.
The Brambles’ table was a big round one that had belonged to Elwyn’s paternal great-grandmother. It was decorated with table linens that Mirth had brought with her when she married, and loaded with acorn bread, a pile of cured meats, wild berries and strong dandelion coffee. It was a lot of food for not many people – Allun was visiting his fiancée’s family, and Dewey, Teilo and Teilo’s chicken had tagged along with him; Posy had two pretty younger sisters, one with a tame sparrow.
Old Finchy filled one of the empty places. She didn’t spend much time outside her house any more, except to sit on a little bench with her lace and bobbins and a long tobacco pipe. Her skin was weather-worn and leathery, but though she was very old, the oldest woman in Badfish Creek, her hair never greyed. It was still thick and dark, pulled into a large knot that looked too heavy for her head.
Finchy inspected the plates while everyone else ate. She took a pollen cake, smelt it, then took a bird-sized bite and chewed slowly. She made a face of displeasure and swallowed a gulp of coffee before taking another tiny peck.
‘Is it true what they are saying about Aelred?’ Loew asked into the silence that had come over the girls as they enthusiastically ate.
‘Shh,’ Neste said gently.
Loew went on, ‘I heard he thinks the world is going to end.’
‘Quiet, Loew. Mr Moone doesn’t think the world is going to end,’ Mirth said and looked cautiously up at Finchy, whose small nearsighted eyes were fixed ahead as usual.
Whim looked over at curious Loew, everyone’s favourite Bramble kid. She took a sip of her dandelion coffee for a bit of courage. ‘He doesn’t think the world is going to end. He just thinks that our world is going to end,’ she said. ‘That is, if we don’t do anything to protect it.’
Loew’s face screwed up. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked through a bite of bread.
‘Watch your manners,’ Mirth scolded.
‘If the world is going to end, life will end for all people everywhere,’ Whim said. ‘Every community in all four territories will be gone. The Collective will end. The whole world. That’s not what my father’s worried about.’
‘What’s he worried about, then?’ Enid asked.
‘There are rumours that some small towns like ours have been broken up. And the land has been taken,’ Whim said, a slight tremble in her voice. The words she had heard so often from her father sounded strange in her own mouth. ‘There was a river town in the south like ours. They say that there were a lot of trucks seen in that part of the country, and then the people were told they had to leave.’
Loew, Neste and Enid were listening attentively now. Mirth was watching Finchy, and Finchy looked down at her plate as though she was falling asleep.
‘My father is afraid the same thing is going to happen here, happen in all the forest homesteads.’ She paused. ‘He has been keeping track of the comings and goings of any trucks, keeping in close contact with some underground newspapers for word from other communities. He doesn’t want anyone to catch us off-guard.’
Finchy’s face was still looking down at her plate, her shoulders bent, when she spoke. ‘Your father is a troublemaker,’ she said. When she looked up, her tiny eyes were dark.
‘What?’ Whim said.
‘My great-great-grandmother was one of the founders of Badfish Creek after the Second War. She carried three children through the woods to this place, and my great-great-grandfather pulled the wagon. The Second War – do you even know what war means, girl? Blood. Blood was spilt for this land. It was earned.’ Finchy’s chin was trembling. ‘I’ve lived a long time. And the only trouble I’ve ever seen hasn’t been from people out there. It’s been from fools like your father stirring people up.’ Finchy’s face began to look younger, ire bringing colour to her dark, worn cheeks. People like your father aren’t happy unless they are making fools of themselves and everyone around them.’
Whim felt her face
reddening. ‘Take it back,’ she said with a firmness that surprised her.
Finchy smiled toothlessly. ‘Your father is a fool, and he is making trouble for us all.’
‘Mam, can I go to my room?’ Loew asked. Mirth nodded, her eyes quickly returning to the scene at the table. Her body was tense.
‘My father loves Badfish Creek. He wouldn’t do anything—’ Whim began.
‘He is always up to something. Schemes. Conspiracies. He and his ideas are not welcome here, I can tell you that.’ There was a look of disgust on Old Finchy’s face, a look that seared Whim.
‘Who are you to judge what does and doesn’t belong here? You who sit in your big old house and make lace you never sell or give to anyone. You just put it up in your windows and go out on Sundays to eat at other people’s tables without ever inviting anyone to your own. I don’t have to listen to who you think is of use or isn’t,’ Whim said, face flushed and words pouring from her. She looked around the table at the astonished faces. ‘Excuse me, Mirth,’ Whim said and she left the house.
‘Whim—’ Mirth called after her, but Whim didn’t turn. Her eyes burned with angry tears. Her walk turned into a run, tears flowing freely now. Finchy was touchy and difficult, not someone whose opinion Whim held in high regard. But seeds of doubt had been growing in Whim’s mind. Though she had spent her life admiring her father, it didn’t make much sense. Why, again, was it such a bad sign to see a few automobiles? Why would they trust second-hand news about a distant homestead in the south?
Like she often did when something was too much to bear, Whim left town to walk along the marshes and low hills. The afternoon heat was oppressive; by the time she returned home, beads of sweat were rolling down the back of her neck. The house felt cool and pleasantly dark and quiet. She retreated to her room and shut the door behind her. Her space was decorated with fabric and polished stones. An easel stood in the corner. She picked up her paints. The sun came in low through the window, alighting on a tiny glass prism that sent hundreds of little dancing white lights around the room.
She was finishing the purple-white of a cloud when she heard a knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ she said.
Her father stepped into the room and stood behind her for a while, watching the brushstrokes and paint on canvas.
‘You always remind me of your mother when you paint,’ he said.
‘It makes me think of her,’ Whim said.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t been here, Whim.’
She put down her paintbrush and turned to look at her father. He looked worn, but there was kindness in his tired eyes and drooping limbs.
‘Even when I have been here, I haven’t been here,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry. I won’t do that again.’
‘Did they tell you?’
He put a hand on his daughter’s head.
‘She’s an old woman, Whim. Let her think what she will think. Let her talk. What I worry about is my own soul. And it won’t let me rest if I do you wrong. And me neglecting you and my work? That’s doing you wrong.’
Whim stood and threw her arms around her father. She didn’t often show affection so strongly or abruptly, but she did then. The world felt right for the first time in what seemed like so long.
‘Father?’ Whim asked, returning to her chair and holding the paintbrush in her fingers.
‘Yes, little Whim?’
‘Do you really think that our world is going to end?’
Aelred knelt down beside his daughter and looked at her directly.
‘I don’t know. But whatever is in store for us, from now on, we will face it together.’
Her father stood and walked out of her room of dancing light.
‘Did you eat dinner?’ he remembered, turning around in the doorway.
‘I wasn’t hungry.’
‘Can I bring you something?’
‘I’ll come out. We’ll eat together.’
Whim cleaned her paintbrushes, and Aelred prepared the dumplings. And as the sun set, they ate a large dinner with the doors and windows open to the sounds of other meals and laughter, and the sounds of frogs and crickets; and the lights of the fireflies beginning to blink on and off.
The next day, the relocation notices arrived.
CHAPTER 9
Hunger
AFTER TWO WEEKS at the Blackwells’, Elwyn found he was hungry. The hunger was like a fire inside him. He was hungry when he woke. He was hungry when he sat down to breakfast. He was hungry when the maid cleared the plates, and he and Timothy sat down in the library – Timothy’s library – and worked through hours of books, tests, exercises.
‘Your future lies before you, an improved self, a civilised life. One musn’t be distracted by anything,’ Timothy said and wrote ‘Trouble concentrating’ in his notes. Elwyn tried to ignore the feeling, but it kept burning in him. And also burning in him, distracting him from the work at the desk, were Elwyn’s memories of the Rhoad house. He had only been there a few minutes, but every detail cast a vivid impression: the light through the glass, the light on the girl’s hair, the light off the vases. The images danced in his mind, growing and growing. Every day Elwyn worked with Timothy, glimmers of that place would appear like the sun reflecting off the chandelier. It made an ache in his chest like the ache in his stomach.
Elwyn didn’t bear it entirely quietly. Between workbooks and recitations, he’d ask his uncle questions: Who is Rhoad? Where did he come from? What is his daughter like? Timothy mistook these questions for an interest in civics, and answered them gladly. He told Elwyn that the house he had seen was the Rhoads’ summer residence. The rest of the year they spent at an equally gaudy house in St Louis, where Rhoad ran his business and, now, his political campaign. After making a fortune in lead mines, Rhoad was entering public service, campaigning for the Chancellorship of the Central Homesteads, campaigning with Mrs Rhoad, who was his third wife, and their daughter Hestia, who was a year older than Elwyn.
Timothy also loaned Elwyn a book on the lives of prominent businessmen in America. It had a section on Rhoad, but Timothy encouraged his nephew to look at the stories of less garish examples – there were plenty of people who made their fortunes more slowly, deliberately, traditionally. But it was Rhoad’s story that Elwyn read again and again. Rhoad, like Elwyn, came from poverty: his father had worked on riverboats, his mother had died young. Rhoad ran away when he was fourteen and began trading on the river. At sixteen, he drove lumber down the Messipi from the Northwoods to New Orleans, then walked the river north again and used the profit to buy part of a lumber mill, then lead mines, and on and on. There was colour to the stories: floods, fires, bandits, wife-wooing.
It was colour much needed on summer days that seemed long and dim. Study was constant, broken only by meals – and those meals were observed in silence. Occasionally Piety and Timothy talked business – menu plans, instructions for the housekeeper, clothes that needed pressing – but even this was done in reserved tones. Elwyn was used to a loud home: Enid and Dewey arguing, Teilo trying to bring his chicken to dinner, Neste’s laugh, his mother’s scolding. He never thought the noises would be the thing he missed most from home.
But the days went on. He studied. He didn’t break the silence at dinner. He didn’t return his cousin’s glares. He didn’t complain about the hunger in his stomach, in his heart. He followed all the rules.
Then one night, Elwyn’s stomach woke him and wouldn’t let him back asleep. He stared up at the stars through the skylight, then finally got out of bed and walked the dark halls to the pantry, which was beautifully stocked with rows and rows of jams and dried meats, cheeses and breads – all forbidden between meals. Elwyn grabbed what he could and began slicing away in the empty kitchen, tossing piece after piece into his mouth, hungrier and hungrier with each bite. He was so busy with this slicing and eating, he didn’t hear anyone enter the kitchen until he heard the kettle clank on the stove.
Elwyn jumped. Aunt Piety faced him, chin high,
arms folded. His mother had the same way of standing when Elwyn was in trouble – like when he once followed a passing caravan going downstream and returned two days later with his skin scraped and his clothes ruined. Mirth was more formidable than her sister: taller, wider, like a bear. But Elwyn was used to his mother. Her anger often made him laugh. His aunt was a stranger. He froze for a minute. Then, thinking, he turned back to the food and kept slicing.
‘Can I get you some?’ he said. ‘This cheese is good with the jam, I think.’
He felt his aunt staring as he found another plate and made a large sandwich. He turned to her, holding out the food and trying to look friendly. The kettle was steaming, but she hadn’t moved. Elwyn couldn’t read her like he could read his mother. She stared at him, not taking the plate, not smiling. Then, without saying anything, she walked over to the pantry, took a jar down from the top shelf and held it out to Elwyn.
‘Blackcurrant,’ she said, ‘is better with that cheese.’ Her lips were tight, but there was a spark of humour in her eyes. She took the plate and poured the hot water into a teapot. ‘Follow me,’ she ordered, picking up the tea. The two of them took their sandwiches to Piety’s parlour, which had lamps nicely arranged and lit, a plate of crackers. ‘I’m fond of a midnight snack myself,’ Piety said.
‘Isn’t it against the rules?’
‘A person should take pleasure where they can find it.’
Elwyn smiled, though his aunt did not. The room was cool, and Elwyn relaxed into his chair. He felt comfortable for the first time in weeks. ‘I see why you spend so much time here,’ Elwyn said, looking around at the pictures on the walls, the plants in pots.
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