by V. K. Ludwig
“Uh-huh.”
“Then why did you plan on scaring me with this bullshit story?” Now I was the one pacing the room, stepping with my bare feet onto sharp crumbs of dried mud his boots had left behind.
“Do you remember when you stepped into that rusty foot trap when you were seven? In the shrub right by the chicken coop?”
“What about it?”
“I had to give you a tetanus shot, and you shook like a pile of leaves. So I showed you the syringe dad used for draining puss from the pigs and llamas.”
“That thing was huge,” I said and picked up my toe, staring at the dark red scar it had left behind. “But in the end, you came with a much smaller needle. I still don’t get what this has to do with anything.”
“The story with the chieftain was the huge needle.” He pushed himself away from the fireplace and turned on his heels, his eyes staring into mine. “Because I have to ask you to do something else, and I know you’re not gonna like it.”
Chapter 3
Autumn
“Don’t you dare sting me,” I said, slowly pulling the frame out of the hive. I ignored the communal hymn of buzzing all around me, staring at the half-empty hexagons between my hands. Low on that thick, amber fluid, this one wasn’t good for anything but a handful of candles.
I pushed the frame back and took in the floral sweetness in the air it had left behind. Buckwheat perhaps, although some wildflowers might have made it in there, too. In any case, this hive wouldn’t survive winter without a helping hand.
Flower heads had died off weeks ago, and cold mornings turned the bees lazy. They flew about in a random and chaotic pattern, searching for those last specks of pollen, in a desperate attempt to make it till spring.
“What good is a beekeeper suit if you’re not wearing it?” someone asked.
No, not someone.
My pulse kicked up gear, and I couldn’t help but squint my eyes.
Like the rushing of water, his soft, calm and mindful voice made turning around unnecessary. You heard it, and it was unmistakable — Adair!
Blood pumped into all those vessels dedicated to embarrassment: cheeks, earlobes, neck. They all turned hot from the inside, and I bit back the urge to scratch. How much did he hear last night?
“Those girls are too cold to sting me,” I said, grabbing the glass container from the hive’s lid next to me. “Besides, we are best buddies and they know I’m just here to give them a little kick-start for the winter.”
I screwed the container onto the extension tunnel and placed the lid back onto the hive. Pale yellow, the water, and honey solution would feed the colony through the coldest weeks.
I turned around, taking in the man in front of me. He stood leaning against the trunk of a massive red oak, his long blonde hair put into a loose bun on top. He had his arms crossed in front of his chest, his body looking more ripped than the bark he leaned against. He pushed one foot against the trunk, giving me a humiliating I-heard-everything smirk.
Damnit! My stomach bottomed out somewhere close to my toes.
“I saved your life last night,” I said, turning, pushing pulling and shoving parts. Trying to make myself look very busy. Pathetic. But I just wanted him to disappear so bad. Wanted him to ignore me and whatever he had heard underneath that window.
“He wanted to come after you with his shotgun,” I added, my voice not nearly as cool as I hoped.
“Your brother knows it was me?”
No matter how hard I tried, the last frame wouldn’t slide back into the hive. I rocked it back and forth and wiggled it from side to side. After several failed attempts, I leaned against it with my arm. Still, it wouldn’t budge.
Adair walked up beside me and put his hand on my shoulder, gesturing me to step back. “Let me help.”
His smirk was still there, audible in the tone of his voice.
“No,” I mumbled, pulling away from his touch. “I’m fine. I got this.”
“But why make it harder for yourself if I’m glad to help.” He gave the frame a little shove with two fingers, making it slide right in. “There ‘ya go. Just a little something for saving my life.”
His upper body inched a bit closer to me, the heat which emanated from his body turning me an overheated kind of angry. I had to set the record straight.
One foot in front of the other, slowly and carefully placed, I sneaked away from the hive and over to the tree. A root of the old oak spread bare across the ground, saving my butt from getting soaked on the dense moss which surrounded it and grew along one side of its trunk.
“Thanks,” I said.
He walked over and sat down next to me. “Don’t mention it. It’s the least I can do for my future wife.”
Panic squeezed my chest like an ill-fitting bra, leaving me unable to take more than tiny gasps of air. Every. Single. Word. He had heard it all, except for the part at the end. The one that counted.
The way he sat there, cross-legged and with the biggest smile on his face, made me feel like the biggest idiot and the biggest bitch. Simultaneously. How the fuck do you dump a guy who wasn’t your boyfriend yesterday, and sure as hell wasn’t your fiancé today?
I quickly turned my head and gazed over the dormant field behind the line of brush, breathing back the wooziness that choked my throat. How to put this…
“Listen, um, funny story, but there is actually something I —”
He jumped up, positioning himself right in front of me. “You don’t have to explain, Autumn. No matter the circumstances, I want you to know that I would be proud to call you my wife.”
“But I wanted —”
“Wanted it romantic and old-fashioned. I know. That’s alright because I came prepared.” He pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled it back out as a fist tightly wrapped around something. “I will still scavenge you something nicer. Maybe a gem or a pearl. This is just temporary, ok? So here it goes…”
One leg planted in front of the other.
No, he wouldn’t…
Knee got closer to the ground.
Shit, he is!
The sight tied a triple-knot into my guts. This thing went from awkward to tits up faster than a buttered bullet.
“No!” My voice came out a shriek, making Adair’s knee stop less than four inches from the ground. He stared at me like a deer caught in headlights, but his eyes narrowed a bit more with each passing second. In the end, they were nothing but two narrow lines, shooting death rays at me.
“Is this some sort of game to you?” He pushed himself back up in a hurry and began pacing over the soaked moss, water bubbling from underneath his soles at every step. “Getting guys to propose so you can shut them down? Do you have any idea what time I went to bed just so I could have this fucking ring ready?”
He held up his hand, a creamy brown ring clasped between his thumb and index finger. Made of antler, the outside appeared brown, rough and bumpy. The inside was cream, rounded and sanded smooth.
The desperation in his eyes suddenly struck me. With a ratio of one woman per three men, even someone as strong and attractive as Adair struggled to score a wife.
“I wish you would have heard the entire conversation,” I mumbled and stared at his tan boots. “I only said what I said because I was scared of Rowan sending me away from here.”
He pushed his hands into his pockets, making the ring disappear, and kicked the tip of his boot deep into the moss. “Yup, and took me for the fool I was. Would have been too good to be fucking true in this fucked up place.”
Shame clogged up my throat like a brick shoved down sideways.
Thirty years.
That’s how long Adair waited to touch a woman.
To call her his own.
Half a day ago I dangled that in front of his nose like a long-lost key. Then I swallowed that thing, poured gasoline over the door and threw a lit match at it. For a moment — the fraction of a moment, really — I considered marrying Adair just to make it right. But I had m
ade Rowan a promise, and I intended to keep it.
“I am so sorry, Adair. It’s just… I can’t marry you.”
“Because I’m not good enough?”
“Because I don’t love you,” it blurted out of me. “And you don’t love me.”
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t pout. He just stood there, taking in a sharp-edged breath and releasing it as a deep sigh, as if he realized the truth of it.
Gravity pulled his shoulders toward the ground. “Yeah, I know. Guys don’t really have the luxury nowadays to hope for love. Finding a woman is hard. Finding a woman you love that loves you back? Yeah, right.”
“Shit, this is really embarrassing.” I face-dived into my palms, making at least some of myself invisible. “After you left he gave me another option. And I agreed.”
He shook his head, lowering his chin to his chest. “And that would be?”
“Going to the Districts for one year. It’s some sort of exchange they’re working on. They are sending us —”
“A teacher.” He flung himself down next to me, but immediately scooted to the side and onto the dark green moss, until there was enough distance between us.
“He told you?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “Well no. He mentioned the teacher and the exchange. He didn’t say he would send his own sister though. Fuck, you’ve got some balls, girl.”
None of us spoke for a long while until I broke the silence. “Sorry for giving you false hopes and letting you down so bad. You’re a decent guy, and one day you’ll find a wife.”
I gazed over the profile of this handsome man, a wave of guilt washing over me. His beard looked neat, almost as if he’d trimmed it for the occasion. He sat there and looked down at the ground, his shoulders slumped. My words had shrunk his height by a foot, and his ego by at least five.
“Adair, you’re not… in love with me, right?”
I almost choked at my own question, but I had to be sure. Had to know the magnitude of what I had done.
He let out a deep and long sigh. “We got along together, right? I mean, it’s not like we had the chance for deep conversations or anything like that, but there were good vibes between us. Don't you think?”
His words put me through the wringer. We got along well and all, but it just wasn’t enough for me. The only answer I managed to squeeze was an innocent “Uh-huh. You’re a nice guy Adair.”
“Ouch!” He chuckled, letting his gaze trail into the forest, bringing more distance between us. “Nice guy, huh? Totally got friend-zoned here.”
I swung around and reached out for his hand. “Adair, I am —”
“No need to apologize,” he said, pushing himself up before the tips of my fingers reached his skin. He took a couple of steps back but kept his gaze on me, his lips tightly pressed together. “I get you were in a tough spot last night. Don’t worry about the love thing though. To be honest, I almost shit my pants last night when I heard you say that.”
“Really?” I asked in a steady voice, putting enough emphasis on the doubt in my tone. Proud as he was, with no horizon to speak of, chances were he’d never admit his defeat. Perhaps not even to himself.
“I’ll just wait another thirty years,” he said jokingly. His cheerful voice stood in clear contrast to the way he rubbed the back of his neck as if I had called him out on a crime. He rocked back and forth, toes to heel, smacking his lips into a silly grimace. “Really, don’t worry about it. But hey who knows, maybe I can ask you out on an official date once you get back.”
“Yeah,” I said warily, “maybe.”
“It’s been a long time since we had an exchange with the Districts. Not even sure if my dad saw one in his lifetime. You think Rowan thought that through?”
I grabbed behind me and pulled the stained-white beekeeper suit across the damp ground and onto my lap. “He turned things around, didn’t he? I can come out here by myself without fear. We have been trading with them for almost a year now. Time to step up to the game, don’t you think?”
A wide grin reached almost up to his eyes. “Yeah, and gobble down that protein powder.”
“I don’t mind that. I’ve been eating protein powder every now and then. It’s not as gross as everyone says and actually kinda tastes like pecans.”
He pushed his tongue out and wrinkled his nose like most people did when it came to the ground up crickets and mealworms.
I brushed grass blades off the suit and slowly rolled it up so I would have it neat and ready once I returned. “Just not sure how I will deal with being away from my home and my family.”
My fingers turned cold and numb at the idea. I never ventured farther than Holmes City. The trip to the Districts’ most northern gate, steel-forged and almost fifty-five feet tall, people rumored, doubled that distance and then some.
I pictured myself driving down the old asphalt roads, cracked like the soil in summer after three weeks without rain. Each spin of the wheels would bring miles between me and my brother — the only family I had left.
“A promise is a promise,” I mumbled, stood up and pushed the suit into my back. “Trust me, I’m not thrilled about going there, but we don’t exactly have a lot of people to choose from.”
“Are you kidding? We have like… two hundred guys to choose from.”
I arched my brows as far as I could and stared him down. “As if the council would allow one of our men inside. How do you think that would go?”
I got up and flung my pack onto the back while Adair pondered over my question. He cocked his head from left to right, two deep craters forming between his brows.
“I don’t think it would go terribly bad. You’re making it sound like we would start dry-humping their women in the streets. May I remind you that our men are still alive because they can, in fact, control themselves?”
He clasped his hands behind his back, and together we weaved ourselves through the thick brush and back onto the leaf-covered trail to the village.
“What would you do if you would be surrounded by a hundred beautiful young women?” I asked.
We continued along the trail, the longhouse coming up in front of us just below the horizon. All the while, Adair sucked in his cheeks, taking my question much too serious.
“Sweep the craziest one off her feet and convince her to marry me,” he finally said with a convinced smile on his face. It was one of those smiles that carried conviction and enthusiasm as if he somehow knew he would make it happen one day.
“Why the craziest one?”
He quickly shrugged his shoulder as if he had no answer, just to reply the very next moment. “Two reasons. First, no woman in her right mind would want me. Second, …”
I waited for a while. “And second?”
Second never came, but he stopped in his tracks, his smile from earlier turned upside down.
Rowan stood in front of us, one eyebrow in an arch as sharp as a knife, and his hands cracking knuckles by his sides. “What are you doing out here?”
He trapped Adair between himself and a tree with his death stare, clearly taking me out of the question.
“I came across her by the hives,” Adair said, his voice strong and his tone convincingly steady. Even to me. And I knew the truth. The fact alone made my skin crawl. “Thought I’d walk her back to the village. Just to be safe.”
“Just to be safe, huh.” Rowan turned his head and spit on the ground. “Well, she’s back now. And I need you to come to the longhouse with me. I’m about to give the council a conference call to discuss a few… details.”
Chapter 4
Before the exchange…
The Districts
Max
I slammed my fist on the podium, struggling my brows into a serious furrow.
“We have to act now, or we will meet certain extinction.” I slowed my tongue at that last word. Emphasizing the ks-sound and dragging it out like judgment day. No. Too dramatic. I was a damn scientist; not a presidential candidate.
Fast paced
and anxious, my foot jittered against the podium. This was tougher than wiping your ass with a sheet of sandpaper.
I gazed over the empty chairs of the auditorium, upholstered in blue and fanned-out in a triangle before the platform.
If I had to be the bearer of bad news, I figured I’d best stick to numbers. Boring, yes. But also alarmingly reliable.
Tremors went through my limbs, almost making the data chip break in two when I pushed it into the projector. The hologram beamed into the room like the old Manhattan skyline, with a chart growing sky-high in the reddest red I found.
I forced my lungs to take a deep breath. It’s not like I didn’t come with a solution as well. All the council needed to do was authorize the trial — bam, problem solved.
The large door beside me swung open, letting a shudder climb across my back. Hasty steps clip-clopped through the room like they always did from one meeting to the next.
“Max.” Councilwoman Kenya held her age-mottled arm out in a formal handshake. “I fear it has been too long since we spoke with each other, but we are all the more anxious about this mysterious problem you discovered. Please tell me we will not be growing tails soon.”
Her heartfelt laugh hollered against the walls. I gulped and forced a smile on my face. Tails would be neat. I’d prefer that over district-wide infertility any day. “Well, no tails involved in this meeting, that I can promise.”
I peeked over to the female next to her. Couldn’t call her a girl, but calling her a woman made me feel like a perve.
“Max, I want you to meet our newest council member, Svea.” Kenya pointed at the gangly girl, cursed with all the side effects of puberty from pimples to oil-polished hair roots. “She currently holds the highest IQ in our community across all districts, and I do not expect this to change anytime soon. I brought her here so she can get a better understanding of our science and research department which, after all, is of utmost importance.”
I shook the girl's hand, and she gave me a shy smile, her light-gray eyes sparkling underneath the glass dome above us. Uneasiness crept up my skin. The kind nature programmed into your DNA. An unexplained warning — completely erratic and unfounded.
