How do you feel? You tell me, says Mercy.
I feel awful about my family, I says. Why choose me above them? An I’m grievin them, I miss them, but I gotta hide how I feel. I cain’t talk to nobody. I hate the boy they paired me with. I hate him touchin me. He’s mean. But if I don’t have a baby, he’ll turn me in an I’ll be slaved. I feel afeared. I feel alone.
That sounds about right, says Mercy. An I’ll tell you somethin. Girls givin birth, they always call for their mother. Your mother did. So do them Stewards. Not one wants her baby to be took from her. They try to hide what they feel—after all, the Pathfinder knows best, it’s for the good of New Eden an Mother Earth—but I seen it in their eyes, their faces, every time. They cry in the night. An the ones who birth weak babies? They know ezzackly what’s gonna happen. They know the child of their flesh, that they carried in their body, will be left out of doors to die. If the cold don’t take it, some animal will. Maybe to feed its own young. Them poor girls, it just about kills ’em. One took her own life while I was there.
She killed herself, I says.
They don’t let that get out, says Mercy. Not good for morale. Them Steward girls, they’re breeders. Their wombs belong to New Eden. Natural feelins an inclinations don’t come into it. Did you know they’re expected to produce a child every two years?
Two years, I says. I didn’t, no.
If they fail, they’re slaved. An the boy ain’t never to blame, she says.
What about them? I says. The boys?
They pretend to be men, she says. I can only imagine how they feel about never seein their own child. The Chosen of New Eden, they’re all tryin to be who DeMalo says they are.
Pretend. That trigger in my head clicks agin. Things ain’t always what they seem. People ain’t who they seem. They’re all tryin to be who he says they are.
So that’s the Stewards an the babyhouse, Mercy’s sayin. I cain’t say about Edenhome, I don’t know it. Only, babies go there once they bin weaned.
Edenhome. Where they raise children to serve New Eden. Kids who was stolen from their folks. Weaned babies. When they turn fourteen, they become a Steward of the Earth an they’re paired by the Pathfinder to breed an work.
Then there’s slaves, says Mercy. Most like me, shanghaied. Some who used to be Chosen ones. Them that fell from grace with the Pathfinder.
One moment they’re a Chosen one, the next they ain’t, I says. That must give ’em food fer thought.
It don’t go unnoticed, let’s put it that way, she says.
An there’s the Tonton, I says. Don’t fergit them.
I ain’t likely to, she says.
When you start to pick it apart, I says, when you start to look close, New Eden ain’t what it looks like. But it’s workin, isn’t it? The Pathfinder’s plan to make a new world.
In some ways, maybe, she says. The Stewards are well fed all the time now. That means more of the girls carry to full term. Word is that crop yields are up.
DeMalo’s voice runs through my head.
I’m making difficult decisions every day. Allocating what scarce resources there are to those who can make best use of them. I’m behaving morally, responsibly.
Mercy an me sit silent fer a time, there by the coldwater pond. The sun on my skin feels softly, rarely kind. The same words churn in me, over an over. Mothers an children. Fathers. Brothers. Sisters. Family. People ain’t who they seem to be. On the whole, we’re stronger fer love. DeMalo’s weakness. Our strength.
I realize that Mercy’s watchin me, her eyes sharply curious. I take her neatly folded tunic an hand it to her.
You’ll be buildin that pyre one day soon, I says.
There she is, by the twisted tree. Allis, my sunlight mother. We’re alone, her an me, on the wide flat plain. In the grey at the edge of the world. The clouds hang low. The wind wails high. The tree gleams, bare an white.
At the foot of the tree is the gravepit. Rough an narrow an deep. Then we’re standin beside it, my mother an me. I know what lies within. The body in rusted armour. Laid out in the pit full length. The head wrapped around with a blood red shawl.
Golden Allis. Gone fer so long. Sun hair, sky eyes, bright soul. But the dark-past-the-edge has vanquished her light. She drifts. She shifts. She fades.
Her feet of air step into the grave. She beckons, come with me. It’s empty now. I follow her down. Into the down-dark earth.
Then water. On the rise. Up my bare legs. No, not water. Blood. It rises quickly. Blackly. Thickly. To my thighs, my waist, my chest. It grips me, I cain’t git away. I slip an I’m chokin, I’m drownin, I’m chokin, cain’t breathe, I’m—
With a jolt, I’m awake. Scrabblin at my throat. Pullin frantic at what’s chokin me—
Saba, wake up! It’s Molly’s voice, urgent.
I cain’t breathe! I gasp.
It’s off, okay, I’m takin it off. Saba, c’mon honey, open yer eyes. Sit up.
She pats my hand gently. I blink. Made stupid by the sudden glare of sunlight. Blasted to life while lost in the darklands of dream. Molly kneels beside me. She holds the red shawl.
Uh! I shrink back. Take it away!
Okay, calm down, okay, it’s gone. She pushes it behind her skirts, outta sight. You got yerself tangled in it, that’s all.
My rattleheart slows to a rackety gallop. That was in the bottom of my pack, I says. How’d you git it?
Emmi gave it to me, she says. When Mercy told me she left you fast to sleep, I came to cover you, make sure you didn’t die of sunstroke.
I stare at her dully. I didn’t mean to drop off, I says.
I’m bone weary. My head feels thick. My body’s heavy, like I’m weighed down by stones.
I’m sorry, says Molly. I didn’t mean to disturb you.
No, no, I says. It’s good that you did. I got thinkin to do. A lot to work out.
You hardly sleep at all these days, she says. You bein tired won’t be good fer none of us. Here, lie down. Cover yerself with this. She slips the knot on her headscarf an hands it to me. It smells richly of the rose oil that softens her skin, that scents her hair. As she shakes out her curls, I make a point of not lookin at the W brand on her forehead. She sees me not lookin. She says, It ain’t often I git a chance to air the war wound these days.
How can you make light of it? I says.
What should I do? she says. Cry fer the rest of my life? Molly of the Many Sorrows?
No, but—after everythin else … Gracie an Ike an then—I dunno how you bear it.
You got battle scars. This is mine, she says. You know what it tells me? I’m a survivor. An if I ever need remindin why I’m here right now, why I’m doin this? One look in the glass does it. Not that I don’t got plenty of other reasons. Ike, of course. An Jack. She hesitates a moment, then she says, You never talk about him. Since he died, you ain’t so much as mentioned his name, not even in passin. I know you gotta guard what you say with the others, but you know you don’t need to with me. The hurt puzzlement in her eyes makes my colour rise. I know Jack’s impossible, she says. Was … impossible. I know it was complicated between him an you. An maybe yer feelins warn’t as strong fer him as his was fer you—I dunno, yer heart ain’t none of my business an love ain’t easy, I sure know that. What I mean to say is … what I’d really like, what I really need, is to talk about him. With you. That’s all.