Seed (8 page)

We walk without speaking. There’s just the sound of dry leaves under our feet. When we get to the lake, I watch Ellis’s eyes and I know that he’s impressed. How could he not be? Surely there’s nowhere on the Outside like this. The water is still as ice, patterned with striking sky blue and deepest greens. Patches of bugs hover and swoop and fly.

Ellis nods his head slowly as he looks around him. Kate and I are watching him as he bends down and picks a thick, flat piece of grass. He puts his thumbs hard on either side of it and brings it to his lips. A high, raspy call fills the air and shoots through the forest.

I stare at him. Did I just hear Mother Nature?

“How did you do that?” Kate asks. She seems uncertain of him, suddenly.

“You’ve never seen anyone blow grass before?” He’s chuckling at us. And I realize now that it’s a trick. Mother Nature wasn’t working with him after all. And why would she? This strange boy with long hair has an edge that makes me mistrust him.

“No,” I say strongly. I bet there’s plenty at Seed he’s never seen before. Things much more magical than making grass sing.

Ellis’s expression changes slightly. “Have you lived here all your lives?” he asks. I don’t think he’s mocking us now. He seems curious. The change in him confuses me.

“Of course,” I say.

“Yes,” says Kate, more quietly.

“So you were born here?”

“Yes.”

“So, whose mom is whose?”

It’s only a few words, but they make my thoughts stumble. So it’s Kate who speaks. “Papa S. says that Nature is our Mother.”

“What, you grew out of the ground?” Ellis laughs, but when he looks at me, his expression changes. “Do you not know who your real mom is?”

A knot of anger is building in me. “We don’t need to know,” I say. But I know that’s not true. Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to know. It’s forbidden, but it pulls me, and almost every
time I’m with Elizabeth, I long to really be hers.

“Teach me how you do that,” Kate interrupts, pointing to the grass in Ellis’s hand. He looks at me briefly. I think he’s worried that he’s upset me, so I hold my head high and smile at him.

“Here.” Ellis bends down and picks two more pieces of grass. His hand touches mine as he passes one to me. “Put your thumbs like this. Hold them down hard. Leave a little gap, though.” He reaches over and separates Kate’s thumbs slightly. She doesn’t say a word. “Then bring them up to your mouth and blow gently.”

We do as he says. All I can hear is my breath, but straight away from Kate there is a high-pitched sound—faint, but definitely there.

“I did it,” she says, laughing.

“Do it again,” Ellis says, so she does. And this time it’s louder, a confident call to the birds. She doesn’t stop. Her head is tipped up to the treetops, her thumbs and lips making music.

“You try again, Pearl.” Ellis isn’t looking at Kate. He’s watching me. “It’s easy.”

So I do. I press my thumbs hard onto the flat strip of grass, and watch as the skin around my nails turns blotchy white and red. I want to be able to do it. I want to show Ellis that I can make the grass sing too.

“Like this,” he says, and I copy him as he puts his grass to his mouth. I blow gently against my skin, and the sound makes me
jump. So sudden, so definite. A higher sound, it stretches up from my piece of grass and snakes off through the trees.

We stand like this, calling to Nature, trying to change the sounds we make. Our own, strange tune.

Eventually Kate throws her piece of grass down. She takes off her sandals, walks to the bank of the lake, and sits to dangle her feet in the cool water.

“Come and sit down, Ellis,” she says. “I want to know about you.” He seems a bit surprised, but he walks over to her and takes off his shoes and socks. I put my piece of grass in my pocket and follow them.

The water sends a bolt of cold through my feet.

“It’s freezing!” Ellis says, dipping his toes in and out.

“You’ll get used to it,” Kate laughs.

“Wait until you swim in it,” I say.

“I don’t think I’ll ever do that.”

“You will.” I smile at him. But he’s staring at his feet in the water, keeping them down. It’s strange that it feels so right that he’s here.

“So, where do you come from?” Kate asks him. She pulls her hair back and drapes it over her shoulder, tips her head slightly to shield her eyes from the sun.

Ellis keeps looking at the water. “Near Southampton, most recently,” he says.

“Where’s that?” It’s only a small question, but when he glances at me, his eyes have changed again.

“You don’t know where Southampton is?” He’s not laughing at me. It’s something more than that.

“No,” I reply, looking at Kate.

“How are we meant to know if we’ve never left here?” Her voice is strong as she glares at him.

“What do you mean, you’ve never left here?”

“What don’t you understand?” She pulls her feet out from the water and starts to dry them with her hands.

“We go to the market,” I say. I don’t like the way he’s looking at us, a sort of mixture of disbelief and pity. “We don’t need anything else.”

“How do you know what you need if you’ve never seen it?” He’s taken his feet from the water too. He’s trying to pull his socks back on, but they’re sticking to his skin.

“If it’s so great out there, how come you’re here?” Kate’s leaning toward him, making him look straight into her eyes.

“Fair point,” he says and shrugs his shoulders. “I guess at least I don’t have to go to school.”

“What’s school?” Kate asks.

Ellis has got that look again. “Have you seriously never been to school?” he asks.

Kate and I don’t answer him. He knows what we’d reply.

“It’s a place you have to go to learn things.”

“Then school is here,” I tell him. “We learn everything we need.”

“I don’t know whether to feel jealous or sorry for you,” Ellis says. I can tell by his eyes that he’s not being cruel.

“I know I’m happy for you that you’ve come to Seed,” I say, summoning a smile for him.

We’re silent again. We watch Ellis tying the laces on his shoes.

“So why are you here, then?” I finally ask.

“I told you. That Smith guy makes my mom happy.”

“What do you mean?” Kate asks.

Ellis clears his throat. “She says it all makes sense, now she’s met him again. That this is what will make her better.”

“Better from what?”

“She’s been in a bad way.” He’s looking at the ground, scratching the dry mud with his fingers. “Smith said he’d help her.”

“He will,” I tell him. “We will.”

“What was wrong with her?” Kate asks.

I think that Ellis is uncomfortable, but Kate won’t let it go. He picks up a piece of grass, rolls it tight between his fingers. “She’s been really down, that’s all.”

“She’ll be happy here.” I want to touch Ellis’s arm, to reassure him.

“But why was she in a bad way?” Kate won’t leave him alone. “Is that what happens on the Outside?”

“It does to people who’ve got a dad like mine.” Ellis seems to say it to himself.

“Your dad?”

Ellis stands up, brushing leaves from his jeans. “Aren’t I meant to be in the work barn?”

I think Kate has finished her questions, because she gets up, sandals in her hands. As she makes her way out of the woods, we follow.

I watched the red car as it drove up the long, winding driveway. A woman got out, a girl, a young man. And I wanted to shout to them and break my window glass. Run! I wanted to scream. Run while you still can. But my dry mouth stayed clamped shut.

Flickers of memories reach me. They lick around my shadow and slip inside. My mother, my sister, and me, driving up that driveway. But before, before that. In a shop, where I had wanted the blue shoes with the rainbow strap. My weary mother and the stranger who came up.

“Are you all right?” he had asked her.

“I’m fine,” she answered. But she wasn’t, and somehow he knew.

“You look unhappy,” he said, and touched her arm. He was younger than my mother. His face was warm and handsome, but already I didn’t like him.

“I’m fine,” she said again.

“Really?” He persisted. “I can help you.” And that was all it took.

The next day, we were driving up this same driveway, with everything we owned in the back of our car.

The next day, everything changed.

CHAPTER NINE

“H
ave you met him yet?” I ask Ellis. We’re waiting at the table for evening meal to begin.

“Who?”

“Papa S.”

“No. What’s he like?”

I look down the table. Kindred John has his chin pressed into his hands as he watches us. There is a strange expression on his face and it is not one of warmth. Linda is sitting next to Ellis, but she is turned away from him, talking quietly with Kindred Smith. All the time, she scratches at the red skin under her sleeve.

Ellis lowers his voice. “I mean, what’s the setup here? He’s the leader, right?”

“Of course.”
Please hurry up, Papa S.
I want the meal to start.

“So he tells you what to do?”

“No.” I look at him. “Nature tells us what to do. She chose Papa S. Through him, she tells us.”

“Like what?”

“Like everything. She tells us when to pick the crops. And
when we need to choose something to worship in the morning. She knows what we should wear. Things like that.” I touch the fabric of my skirt.

“How long has he been here?”

“Twenty-seven years. Nature built him our home and led him here.” Pride begins to grow in me. “We are the lucky ones.”

The door to our house opens and Papa S. comes out, with Rachel by his side. I watch Ellis. I want to see the moment that he first glimpses Papa S. I know he will love him instantly.

But his face is expressionless.

“She’s his Companion,” I whisper. I wait for him to have this moment in silence. But then something in his eyes changes.

“Have you ever been his Companion?”

“Not yet.” I smile and I look down at my skirt. Soon, I hope. Now that I’m a woman, I hope it won’t be long.

It’s at the end of evening meal when Papa S. raises his hand, and we’re all quiet. The sun is losing its heat, but it’s not yet cold.

“It seems that there is much to be thankful for today,” Papa S. says, gazing at us all, “for today, our family has welcomed new members.”

I smile at Ellis, but he doesn’t see me. He is watching Papa S. Already, he looks like one of us. I know he’ll be happy here.

Papa S. turns his face toward the sky and holds his hands up high. “Show us a sign, Nature,” he calls into the air around us.
“Show us that this is your doing.”

I hold my breath. Many times Nature has heard Papa S. and answered him. I will her to do it now. To prove to Ellis the power that she has at Seed.

We wait. The sky is settled. The grass is still. No one calls from the trees. Nothing stirs.

But then, a flock of starlings appear. They glide toward us as one and swoop above our heads. I can almost hear their beating hearts nestled under their feathers, as they fly together just for us. Papa S. is joyous.