Seed (6 page)

“C
ome on,” Kate says, once the last of evening meal has been cleared away. “Now you’re a woman, you have to come with us.”

I hesitate. I can’t go into that hole again.

“It’s good,” she says, taking my hand. “It’s in the Eagle Room.”

Together we walk across the hallway and down the corridor. The door is open and the red of the Eagle Room spills out. The heavy curtains are already closed, even though it isn’t yet dark outside. The deep red of the walls glow in the light. Elizabeth is standing by the table, lifting the cover from a sewing machine. Behind us, Rachel comes in and closes the door.

Instantly, the air changes. This somehow feels like a secret place, cut off from the rest of the house. Where we are all women. Excitement dances within me and I want to run and throw my arms around Elizabeth. But I stay standing quietly, waiting.

Kate goes toward the wooden trunk tucked in the corner. I have often looked at it and wondered what’s inside. She lifts the lid.

“Careful, Kate,” Rachel admonishes. But Kate doesn’t seem to hear. She’s pulling out some material decorated with large, green circles. She wraps it around her body and starts to dance.

“But that material is patterned,” I say, looking at Elizabeth for an answer. “It’s forbidden.”

“We make these for the women on the Outside,” Rachel says as she reaches into the trunk and takes out bundles of thread. “We write words that Papa S. has spoken, on pieces of paper that we sew into the hems. To help purify people from the poison around them.”

“But we aren’t allowed to do writing in the summer,” I remind her. These warmer months are for working outside. It’s only during the winter that we can read and write.

“Papa S. knows,” Elizabeth reassures me. “It is his wish.”

Kate has picked up a half-finished skirt, made from material that is covered with silver stars. She holds it, laughing, to her face, her eyes peeping through. I laugh with her.

So this is where Kate sometimes disappears to since she has become a woman. I can’t believe that all this has been hidden from me. And now I’m here.

“Enough now, Kate,” Elizabeth says, although her voice is kind. “Choose some material and start the panels of a skirt. Come here, Pearl, I’ll teach you how to work the sewing machine.”

For years I’ve watched the women sew our clothes. I have
never been allowed to help. Now I’m so happy that I want to run around the room like a child. Instead, I go to sit with Elizabeth. Her chair is pushed back slightly, but her pregnant belly still presses against the table. I nearly bend down and whisper to the baby inside. I want to tell it that I am here, that I am a woman.

“Watch,” Elizabeth says. And I do. She threads the needle, picks up a piece of forbidden material, turns the handle, and begins to sew.

“Does Papa S. know?” I ask, above the gentle stabbing noise of the machine. “About the material?” Although the door is closed, I wonder if anyone can see us, can hear me speak.

“Of course.” Elizabeth smiles. “They’re not for us to wear. And our messages might save an unloved person.”

Her fingers move gently on the cloth. It seems almost alive, the deep green covered with bamboo sticks and birds. I reach out to touch it.

“What’s Papa S. got against patterns?” Kate asks quietly. Her legs are tucked under her on the sofa, her sandals on the floor.

Rachel scowls at her. “You know that it’s not Papa S. It’s Mother Nature who tells him.”

Kate stares back. “So why does Mother Nature find nice material so offensive then?”

Elizabeth turns to her and there’s a second of silence as the
sewing machine stops. “All patterns are false, unless created by Nature.”

She doesn’t notice Kate making a face at her as she turns back to the sewing machine. I hope that the anger I feel is clear on my face. I can’t bear that Kate is making fun of Elizabeth. Why is she being like this? But I won’t let the magic disappear.

I watch the needle dig through the material, joining it together. Elizabeth has swept her hair over one shoulder, her eyes fixed on the work.

Suddenly she stops, sits back. “The baby is kicking.” Her smile is wide as she takes my hand and places it over her stomach. Straight away, I feel it. A pushing against my palm. If it weren’t for the skin in between, I would be holding a tiny foot, or a hand.

How will we hide that you are Elizabeth’s?
No one else is growing a child, yet I’ll have to pretend I don’t know.
Maybe, when you are old enough, we’ll run together to the lake, and in the shadows of the trees, I will tell you. Then you’ll never have the empty place I can’t get rid of.

The sewing machine spills its thread in a line. Elizabeth’s fingers push the material along.

“Do you get upset?” I ask, before I can convince myself not to. “That it won’t know you are its real mother?”

Elizabeth looks surprised. Because I have dared to ask? Surely the thought must have found its way to her before. Has she never thought it about me?

“I am only happy. I’ve been chosen by Nature to carry her child.”

“Will you love it differently, though?” I persist. “Do you love your own children differently?”

“I do not have children, Pearl. I have birthed children, but they are not mine.”

Her words are jagged in me.
Say it differently,
I want to beg her.
Tell me that I am the most special to you.

But Elizabeth turns, puts her foot on the pedal, and the sewing machine starts again.

“Here,” Rachel says. She has taken a pen and paper from the drawer and she puts it in front of me. The white of the paper is smooth under my fingers. A bolt of excitement stings my skin. “Write some of Papa S.’s words on here.”

“Which ones?” He says so many wise things.

“Anything to save the unfortunate people on the Outside.”

It doesn’t take long to choose. I pick up the pen. It has been a long time since I have written and I watch carefully as the ink makes the words on the page.

Listen only to Mother Nature,
I write.
She will save you.

Rachel takes the paper from me, carefully folds it and tucks it into the hem of the skirt she has made. Swiftly, she pulls the thread behind it, locks it inside.

Will anyone find it? Who shall wear the skirt of silver stars?
Somewhere, on the Outside, a woman will feel the material against her legs. And hidden away, touching her ankles, my inky words will try to save her.

So I watch. And I listen. But I hear very little through this thick, dirty glass that separates me from the outside world.

I see the children. They run across the fields, laughing. I watch them disappear into the trees.

And I wonder.

After all these years, I still wonder.

Each day I imagine that a different child is mine. One day it is the boy growing into a man. His gentle ways. One day it is the girl with hair like the sun. Today, the wild girl is my daughter.

Most days it is her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“I
have some good news,” Papa S. says.

He is standing at the head of our tables in the meadow.

The grass around us is dry, as Mother Nature hasn’t sent rain for over two weeks. The morning is cold against my back.

“We are to welcome three new members to Seed.”

No one moves, but surely they feel the same shock as I do. There is only
us.
This is our family. We are complete, safe from the Outside. But now Papa S. wants someone else to come in.

“Don’t be afraid.” He smiles warmly at us. “I have asked Nature and she has agreed.”

I look at Kindred John. His face is still, but his eyes don’t seem happy. Elizabeth is smiling, but it doesn’t look right.

Papa S. motions his hand toward Kindred Smith, who stands up. “Mother Nature guided me,” Kindred Smith begins. He coughs slightly. “I have a good friend, Linda. I hadn’t seen her for many years, but then Nature led me to her. Linda needs me. She needs us. Her heart belongs at Seed.” He is beginning to speak quickly as he spreads his arms wide. “She will live here with
her two children.”

My mind is stuck. Strangers at Seed.

Elizabeth kisses her palm and faces it toward Kindred Smith. “We will welcome them,” she says softly as she gets up.

Heather stands up next. “We will welcome them.” Her voice is strong in the air.

We all rise. I kiss my palm and face it toward Kindred Smith. His smile is wide.

“We will welcome them,” I say with my family. I try to mean it and ignore the doubt that is creeping around me. I look to Papa S., but his mouth is closed and I don’t recognize the expression in his eyes.

We watch the car from the window, Kate, Ruby, and I. From here it looks so small, like a ladybug crawling closer. Slowly, it creeps up our long driveway. We never have visitors and Ruby has gone silent, standing on the chair beside me. Kate’s hands go still in the sink as we hear the rumble of the car’s engine. It comes to a stop outside the main door of our house.

A woman gets out. Her hair is pulled back from her face. Her trousers are blue, her top black, and she looks nervous. Even from here, I can see the bones through her skin. I have never seen anyone who looks so fragile, as though she could break. She bends to
talk to someone in the back, just as the front door to Seed opens and Kindred Smith walks out. He is beaming, and the woman seems to relax slightly as he goes toward her. They kiss each other on the cheek.

“I’m so glad you decided to come.” Kindred Smith’s words are muffled through the glass.

“So am I.” The woman smiles nervously and hesitates, before she opens the back door of her car. A little girl steps out, about the same age as Ruby and Bobby. She doesn’t smile, but her eyes are wide as she looks around at the beauty of Seed.

“This is Sophie,” the woman says, and Kindred Smith smiles and bends down and says something so quietly to the girl that I cannot hear.

“And this is Ellis,” the woman says as a boy gets out of the car. A boy from the Outside. On the front of his T-shirt is a faded, wide-open mouth with a tongue sticking out. He must be Jack’s age, but he has already grown his hair and his curls fall into his eyes. He puts his hands into his back pockets as he looks at our home. His eyes move slowly across the bricks, the ivy, the windows. Then he’s looking at us. He makes me feel uneasy and I want to duck down under the sink, but I don’t move. He smiles a lazy smile and seems to nod before he looks away.