Naturals (7 page)

McNair gave a swift nod.

I had a lot I wanted to ask of them. I wanted to plead for Louisa. But not that night. I didn’t know what kind of people stood before me.

I had been foolish thinking I would merely be a symbol.

Chapter 8

My legs burned. No rest for the weary. Before the sun had risen, there was a pounding on our door and a command to get up. No bath. No time to explore. I pulled my hair back as tightly as I could and tied it with a ribbon I had somehow managed to hold onto during the journey. There was no way to fix my clothes, but I had a feeling the people on the farms wouldn’t care so much.

Henry and I fell in line behind the group heading out from the camp. Following alongside the workers were men with guns. I wasn’t sure if these escorts were there to keep us safe as we exited the camp or to make sure we didn’t stray from the path. I liked to think it was the first option.

The group was comprised of mostly teenagers. The signs of desperation that marked the elders of the community showed on these younger members as well. Though their bodies were hard and lean from years of strenuous work, their faces held the truth. Sunken cheeks. Sharp bone structures. Clothes more tattered and torn than mine. Some of the girls even wore pants, and I wondered if this was by choice or because they had nothing else to wear. They made small talk with one another as they walked in the brisk morning air, but they didn’t bother to introduce themselves to us. Some seemed to be sleep-walking—their feet knowing the way without having to see ahead of them. Blindly following the mass of people.

I reached into my pocket and felt for the book I had hidden in there. I was thankful the pocket was deep enough to keep it concealed. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving it alone in my room. These people didn’t seem like the type to care much for music, art, or literature, but I also didn’t know if they would just burst into my room and take what they wanted. They were, after all, a group who sought to make their own laws. Perhaps the book would be a one of a kind. Maybe they hadn’t ever seen a book. Maybe they didn’t even know how to read.

Besides, it felt nice to carry with me a small part of the world I had left behind.

As we reached our destination, the members of the herd scattered into different directions. Spring meant planting, and while to me it still seemed too cold to grow anything, the urgency of their movements suggested otherwise.

“Where do we go?” I asked Henry, standing in the middle of the dirt road, trying, often in vain, not to get bumped into by the people who rushed to their jobs.

“No idea. You’d think there would be someone here to meet us,” Henry replied, crossing his arms and surveying his surroundings.

I let out a small laugh. “Yeah. I didn’t read about this in our welcome pamphlets.”

“Like these people know how to read and write,” Henry muttered.

“Maybe we can ask one of those boys with the cows?” I asked, pointing to the front of a barn.

“Cows. Great. I’m not touching one of those things,” Henry replied.

“What if I dared you?” I asked, cracking a smile. I purposefully bumped into Henry with my shoulder. “Come on, you always loved a good dare when we were little. Tell me you didn’t have fun that time I challenged you to eat that earthworm without making a face. You did it, too. And you’re afraid to touch a cow?”

As much as I knew he didn’t want to, Henry grinned. “I really hate you sometimes,” he said with a laugh.

“You!” yelled one of the boys as he pointed in our direction. He stalked over to us and placed himself between Henry and me. The lanky boy wasn’t much older than I was. “You’ll partner up with Lockwood,” he said to me. “He’ll show you how to milk the cow.”

I assumed Lockwood was the second boy who stood by the barn, looking at us.

“Um. Isn’t there something else I could do? Something to clean? I used to be a maid,” I said. I glanced at the cows. They were larger than I imagined they would be. I’d never actually seen one in person, and while they seemed pretty lethargic, the unfamiliar beasts still frightened me.

“I’ll learn how to milk the cow,” Henry offered, seemingly sensing my apprehension.

“You’ll do what you’re assigned. If you got a problem with it, you can speak to the leaders, though between you and me, not a great way to start your stay here. Besides, this is a job given to the weaklings. You weak?” the boy asked Henry, sizing him up.

Henry bit the inside of his cheek. Despite many years in the compound, he could have taken this boy out without much effort. He wasn’t the strongest, but the beanpole before us was an obvious weakling himself—nearly starving. Too frail to work the fields, so instead they made him a foreman. “You okay with this, Tess?” Henry asked.

I gave a quick nod, unwilling to show this jerk any more of my nervousness. Henry touched me lightly on the hip. “I’ll see you later,” he promised. He motioned for the kid to lead the way.

I watched as he left me. I wished we could have worked together. Back in my life before I knew what it was to feel, I would have wanted to work alone, but now I wanted my friend. I wanted Henry.

“It’s really not that difficult,” Lockwood spoke up.

I took a deep breath. The boy in front of me would be considered handsome by most naturals’ standards. His hair was down to his ears, brown with bits of red, depending on how the sun hit it. His eyes were bright blue. “If you say so,” I replied, hoping to call forth the stoic girl I had once wished to leave behind.

“I’ll do it this morning and you can watch me. Maybe you can even try it once if you’re feeling really crazy. I’ll talk it through while I do it. Sound fair?” Lockwood asked.

“Fair?” I laughed. It was a relatively new question. Lockwood raised an eyebrow at me and I cleared my throat, a nervous habit I must have picked up from James “Fair. Yes. It sounds fair.”

“All right. First thing I like to do is say good morning.”

“To the cow?” I asked.

“Of course to the cow. We’re about to get pretty intimate. Figure the nice thing to do is to wish her a good morning.”

“Um, right. Of course,” I replied.

Lockwood didn’t move on to step two. Instead the increasingly odd boy stood staring at me.

“What?” I asked, wondering if I had suddenly grown a second nose.

“Aren’t you going to…”

“Say good morning to the cow? Now?” I asked in disbelief.

Lockwood didn’t reply, instead choosing to cross his arms and wait me out.

I sighed. “Good morning…cow?”

Lockwood grinned. “Much better. Now time for step two. See this stool right here?”

He waited for my response. It took everything in me not to roll my eyes. Did he think I was an idiot? I nodded.

“Good. You want to put this at about a ninety-degree angle from your friend. Once you sit down, you’ll put your cheek right against her. Like so,” he continued, moving to take a seat on the stool. Once there, he placed the side of his face against the cow’s torso. It surprised me how gentle he was.

“I…I have to get that close?” I asked.

Lockwood grinned again. “Yep. And make sure the pail is right under the girl’s teat.”

At the word, my whole face went red. It didn’t help that Lockwood full out laughed at my response. I crossed my arms and looked away.

“Sorry…sorry…I’m being rude,” he said. “It’s just I forgot you came from occupied territory. I’m sure life in one of those compounds is a lot different than life here. You’ll see as time goes on.”

“And the next step?” I asked, hoping to move the whole presentation along. I was starting to long for Gwen, my old supervisor—at least she got right to the point. Of course, she’d forced me to clean up dead bodies, so I guess Lockwood wasn’t all bad.

“Yes. Right away. Okay, so now you’re ready to squeeze the top here with your thumb and forefinger. Like so,” he replied. In a quick succession of movements, he had the cow producing milk. He looked up at me. “Now you try.”

“You said I would just be watching,” I quickly reminded him.

“Yeah, well, guess I lied. You looked scared as hell. Now is as good a time as any,” he said.

I would have preferred scrubbing every window in Templeton a million times over to milking that cow, but I had to earn my keep. Lockwood stood up and motioned for me to take a seat on the stool, and after sitting down, I hesitantly placed my cheek against the cow’s side. Much to my surprise, it was soft and cool on my skin. “Good morning, cow,” I whispered, hoping Lockwood didn’t hear me. If he did, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he repeated the steps as my hands went to work.

But nothing happened.

Lockwood crouched next to me. “Try again.” He didn’t sound mad or even like he was making fun. He sounded like he wanted me to be able to do this. He sounded like he believed I could.

I nodded.

“Look, she can’t milk it!” someone called from behind us. “Can’t get the cow to produce. And here I heard that’s all she’s supposed to be good at.”

I turned to see a teenage boy and girl. A couple. Or at least I assumed they were by the way the girl draped herself over the boy’s arm.

“That’s
her
?” the girl asked skeptically.

“Not much to look at, is she? I wouldn’t touch her. Even if it meant I’d get to carry on the family name. Besides, I hear she’s tainted anyways. Liked to spend her time with those abnorms.” The boy sneered.

The girl grinned, pleased, no doubt, that her boyfriend didn’t find me attractive. “I heard that, too. That she let one after another have their way with her. That she might even be pregnant with one of their spawn. And she promised to bear as many children here as there were men who wanted her.”

“There won’t be much of a line. Looks like Sharon’s gonna have to keep it going a few more years,” the boy joked.

“Leave her alone,” Lockwood snapped.

“Did you hear something?” the boy asked the girl in a mock-serious tone.

“No. But let’s go. I’m bored and break’s almost over,” she purred, running her fingers up his neck to his hair. The two sauntered off, their giggles echoing in my ears.

“People like those two know how to make us feel like we’re nothing. Like we’re not real. But I see you. You’re here. I just wanted to remind you.”

Lockwood was kinda weird, but I couldn’t help feeling thankful all the same.

I turned my attention back to the cow. I was ready to push the moment out of my mind and get back to work because it brought up other memories—memories of the different names people had chosen to call me, and how James had rushed me from their hatred. I wondered if a day would ever go by without a thought of James.

I looked over at Cow Boy and locked eyes with him. I wanted to make sure he heard me. “You know how you said that life here was entirely different than life in the compounds? I’m not sure it’s as different as you think.”

Late in the afternoon, as the bright orange sun melted into dark purples and violent pinks, the men and women who worked the farm began to file past me.

“Time to go. Do you mind grabbing the stool and I’ll get the last of the pails?” asked Lockwood. As I picked up the stool, I miscalculated which direction he was going to take and we collided. Both the stool and I fell to the ground, and to make matters worse, the pail of milk he was carrying sloshed over and spilled onto my blouse.

I looked up, drenched in milk. This was not a good day.

I could tell Lockwood was fighting the urge to laugh, and I wanted to tell him to go right ahead. It must have been hilarious—the sheltered compound girl can’t milk a cow.

Girl who is supposed to be able to produce—can’t.

But the smile fell from his face and he squinted his eyes. “What’s that?” he asked, bending down and picking up the object before I could react.

My book.

I bolted up. “Give me that back,” I commanded.

“Here. I wasn’t going to steal it,” he said, holding the book toward me.

I snatched it and held it to my chest. My heart was pounding. I had come so close to losing it.

Losing her story.

Losing mine.

“
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
. That’s a great one.”

I shoved the book back into my pocket. “You’ve read it?” I asked, unable to keep the disbelief from my voice.

“What, you think we don’t have books here? We’re not heathens. Have
you
read it?”

“No,” I mumbled, my cheeks tingling with embarrassment.

There it was. That grin. “Well, when you do, you’ll look at being a milkmaid in a totally different light.” And with that, he winked and walked off.

Chapter 9

The first time I got it, I thought it was a stomachache. When I’d arrived at the compound it took a while for my body to adjust to the heavily processed food. What we’d eaten before then had been gained through barter, and we’d never had any to spare, so if the food was chemically enhanced, I didn’t get enough of it to make much of a difference.

I guess that was one similarity I had with the people of this new place—we both knew what it was to go without. But that was before the compound. At the compound, though someone dictated our menu every day, at least we never went hungry. I’d gorged myself on food my first week there, and as a result, spent quite a bit of time sick as a dog.

So when the pains first came, I was sure it was just another instance of my body not agreeing with my new home. I woke in the middle of the night, my nightgown drenched in sweat. I pulled my knees to my chest and braced my body for another one—a sharp pain that seemed to radiate from the lower half of my stomach and shoot up my back.

I pressed my palm against my mouth in hopes of stifling my groans. I didn’t want to wake Emma or Louisa, and besides, my body embarrassed me, and I didn’t need my sisters to know I had to use the bathroom.

After a lapse in the waves of pain, I managed to get to my feet. I stumbled down the hall, but before I could open the stall door, another rush of pain ran through me. I squeezed my eyes tightly, refusing to let a single tear fall. This wasn’t something worth crying about.

There were far worse things in the world. Of that I was sure.

“Is that you, Tess?”

I braced my hand against the door of the stall and lifted my head up. I took a deep breath and managed to open my eyes.

My mother. Staring at me through the mirror.

She had been doing this more and more often. She would disappear at some point in the day, and one of us would find her in there—just staring at herself in the mirror.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought she actually sounded concerned. I couldn’t remember the last time she pulled off that act. It was probably a few weeks before, when she cussed out a kitchen worker for not ordering her booze.

It was a ridiculous request. Booze wasn’t allowed. But she still wanted it all the same.

That was a family trait.

I tried to manage words but the pain was too much. I shook my head, praying that she would somehow understand that I neither wanted nor needed her help. If anything, I would have asked Emma, but I didn’t want to bother her with this. She already had too much to worry about.

My mother went back to staring at herself in the mirror as if I had suddenly stopped existing. Like she couldn’t see me. She ran her fingers gently over the wrinkles on her cheeks. She wasn’t old compared to many of the mothers around her, but despite being in her early fifties, life had taken its toll on her. Maybe she was trying to erase the lines on her face, or maybe they were like a map to all the places she’d never been—each one a reminder of what her life actually was.

I managed to get into the stall and close the door behind me. As I went to lift up my gown, I noticed it. Blood. Bright red blood. Something was wrong. Terribly and utterly wrong.

I was dying.

“Mama!” I squeaked. Somehow the word slipped out—a word I could probably count on one hand the number of times I had used in my whole life. But it came from me without a thought. My body demanded her presence—it needed her. Wanted her. Just as much as she wanted to drink.

To my surprise, the door came open in a matter of seconds. I held out a shaky hand toward my mother and her eyes went wide. “What’s wrong with me?” I asked, tears pricking. My knees buckled and I fell forward. My mother caught me in her arms before we both were on the ground. Her hands found my face, pushing the hair off my forehead. “Shhh, no crying, Tessie.”

“It hurts,” I managed.

“Of course it hurts. You’re becoming a woman,” she replied.

I stilled. No. It was too soon. I wasn’t ready. “I’ve started my cycle?” I asked shakily. My mother nodded. This was what the videos warned us about, how women ruined everything we touched with our natural repugnance and wantonness. According to the videos, the moment this happened, not only would my body change but so would my personality. I would no longer be able to think logically. The boys would notice, and I would want them to notice. I would want them to touch me, and I would want to touch them. It would be wrong. It would be deadly.

“Mama, I’m scared,” I admitted.

Her eyes narrowed and she grabbed my face by the chin. “You should be scared,” she replied, her voice cold.

Any pretense of motherly comfort was gone. I wanted her to be a mom then, to hug me and tell me everything was going to be all right. Insist that I would be different than the other girls. Even if it was all a lie.

“They’ll come for you now. They want to rip you apart from the inside. Twist you up till you won’t even recognize yourself. Make you a freak, just like them. And you won’t exist. Not to them. Not to your own people. You’ll be different,” she promised.

“Go away,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Don’t be angry at me. It’s better you know the truth now. It’s important that you know—”

I slapped her hand away from my face. “ Get. Away. From. Me!” She didn’t wait to be told twice. She was gone before I could wish her back.

I would never wish for her again.

I stayed there in the bathroom until a few girls appeared in the morning. I held the door to the stall firmly closed; I didn’t want anyone to discover my secret. When one of them asked if I was all right, I called out for Emma. And once she got there, she became the mother I always wished I had. She helped me clean up and told me what to expect. She assured me change wasn’t always bad.

But I never believed her. Or at least not until it was too late to tell her she was right.

I stayed in bed that day. My mother never came to check on me.

It was the last conversation we had before she killed herself.

The night after my first day at work, I couldn’t help but stare at myself in the antique mirror that stood in our living quarters. I looked and looked and wondered how long until the lines appeared on my face. Would they tell the story of the things I’d never done, or would they be a map of the places I was brave enough to go?

How strange that us girls were defined so much by what others could see rather than the thoughts and feelings they could not.

“Um…what are you doing?” Henry asked, coming up behind me.

I turned away from the mirror and faced him. I pulled my book from my pocket and handed it to him. “Would you mind reading with me tonight?” I asked.

Henry’s face lit up and he nodded.

I wasn’t going to let anyone twist or destroy me. Maybe I
was
different. Perhaps even a freak. But they wouldn’t erase me. It was time I started living not in the past or the future. It was time to exist in the present.