Blight Read online

  I dream I’m walking in the forest. A branch cracks behind me, and I spin around. Nothing. But then I notice the ground is alive with snakes. Copperheads and water moccasins. Black rat snakes and timber rattlers. All coiled together and writhing where the dirt should be. I turn back, but the path behind me is covered in snakes, too. I can’t move either way. My throat spasms. I double over to retch, but what comes out is another snake, golden brown and mottled, with an arrow-shaped head.

  I wake with a strangled shout, kicking the sheets from my legs. I sit on the edge of my new bed, gasping until my heart rate returns to normal. Shit. My skin prickles. I look at the untouched sleeping pills and glass of water my mother left by the bedside. Maybe I should have taken them, after all.

  My head swims. I walk to the window and pull back the curtains. It’s night, and the streets far below are deserted, except for the odd patrol car slowly winding its way between the buildings. Red and blue signal lights pulse and dim along the spire of the neighboring skyscraper. Floodlights shine out along the highway barricades. I’ve always liked being up high—in a tree or the guard lookout—but this is too high. I keep imagining myself falling.

  I make my way to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face, then wander down the hallway, past the jellyfish, into the living room. A light is on in the kitchen. Isabel sits on the counter, swinging her legs and eating from a tub of yogurt. She pauses with the spoon in her mouth to tap at her com cuff, and it emits a burbling sound and a flash of pink light.

  I stop short. “Hi.”

  Isabel pulls the spoon from her mouth. “What are you doing here?”

  “I . . . um . . . I had a nightmare.” I step closer, into the isolated glow of the kitchen. The refrigerator senses me, and its glass doors light up from within, showing me its contents.

  Isabel holds out the yogurt container. “Want some?”

  The memory of my dream tightens my stomach. “Nah. I think I’ll just get some water.”

  Isabel shrugs and goes back to tapping and swiping at her cuff.

  I stare at the cabinets lining the kitchen walls. Which one has cups? I peek in one, then another. Jars of olives and tiny onions, spices, oils, syrups, and dried peppers, then boxes of crackers and bags of puffed corn dyed orange, green, and purple. I glance over at Isabel and find her watching me, one side of her mouth pulled up in a smirk.

  “Um . . .” Why is this kid making me feel so nervous? “Where do you keep . . .”

  “Glasses?” Isabel points to a cabinet to the left of the sink. “There.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter. I pull open the door and stop short. Crystal goblets and tumblers fill the shelves, top to bottom. I glance at Isabel to see if this is some kind of joke, but she gives me a confused look and takes another bite of yogurt. Her com cuff tinkles and sends up a cascade of blue light.

  “What are you doing?” I look at her cuff.

  “Bubblebop,” she says, her mouth half full.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  She swallows and gives me a look that says she thinks I’m dumb. “A game.”

  I fill one of the heavy glasses with water from the sink and lean against the counter opposite her.

  “Won’t you get in trouble for eating all that?” I nod at the yogurt.

  She freezes with the spoon halfway to her mouth. A small glob of yogurt falls back into the tub. “Huh?”

  “Isn’t it . . . I mean . . .” I flush. “I’m not going to tell on you or anything. I only . . . isn’t it rationed?”

  “Rationed?” Isabel looks at me like I’ve grown another head. “Nooo?”

  “Oh. I thought Dr. Salcedo . . . I mean, your mother . . . might get angry.” I look down at the water glass.

  Isabel sets the nearly empty carton on the counter and drops the spoon into it. “Mami doesn’t care if I snack as long as it’s healthy.”

  “Oh.” Of course. They have cabinets full of food and spices, all to themselves. If they have rations, those must be so generous they don’t notice. Those PSAs are real for them. “Right. Okay.”

  “You’re weird.” Isabel hops down from the counter and silences her cuff. “Are you really going to live with us?”

  “Is that what your mom says?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Isabel says.

  “Then I guess so.” I gesture at the yogurt. “Are you going to finish that?”

  “No.” She folds her arms. “And I’m telling Mami if you don’t stop picking on me about food.”

  I blink. “I’m not trying to pick on you, I just—”

  “Whatever.” Isabel turns and stalks toward the hall leading back to the bedrooms.

  “Watch out for the jellyfish,” I joke lamely.

  She stops and rolls her eyes at me. “Portuguese men-of-war aren’t jellyfish. They’re a colony of smaller creatures that look like jellyfish.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Maybe you should go back to school instead of hanging around here bothering me,” Isabel says, then spins on her heel and disappears.

  I stand staring at the empty doorway for a moment, then turn back to the yogurt container. There’s barely any left, but it seems a shame to waste it. I scrape it out and bolt it down, not really tasting it. Then I rinse the container and spoon and start back to bed.

  I stop in the middle of the living room, caught by the soft glow of the family pictures slowly cycling on the wall. My great-grandmother smiles out at me from one of them. She’s still gray-haired, but slightly younger in this one, with a man around the same age sitting beside her on a dock. My great-grandfather? My great-grandmother is holding up a fish as big as her forearm, pretending to kiss it. Her eyes gleam with mischief.

  I don’t think I’ve ever smiled like that. I doubt my mother has, either. I wonder what else she could have passed on if our family hadn’t chosen to fall in line with AgraStar. If we’d kept to the outskirts like Alder’s family, would I know the story of how she caught that big fish or what things were like when she was a girl, before the company-states? Did we have rituals for when someone died, like the Deacon did? For some reason, I find myself thinking about the Kingfishers’ contraband tomatoes. There are a million reasons AgraStar didn’t grow that variety. It tasted strange, but that was because it tasted so much more than the approved strains. It survived when those other strains didn’t. And it might save us. What if the Kingfishers hadn’t preserved it and passed it down all these years? What if they’d given in and only planted what AgraStar decided was best?

  I step back. What am I saying? I shouldn’t be questioning the company, not even in the privacy of my own head. That’s how treason starts. You’re just exhausted, I tell myself. Your thoughts won’t go to wild places like this in the morning.

  I go back to my room. Before I lie down, I take the sleeping pills and hold them in my mouth, feeling their shape with my tongue. I look out at the night, at the blinking lights atop the buildings and the pavement far below, and swallow.

  Morning comes out of nowhere. I get up and peek out the window. The sun is high, glimmering on the neighboring buildings. I’ve slept late, too late. Way to start off on the right foot, Tempest. I shower quickly and pick through the collection of clothes in my closet. I need something my mother will like. Something that will say, See how well I’m acclimating? I decide on the saffron dress with buttons all the way down the front. It reminds me of the sun and red clay. I feel strong in it, grown-up, like someone who can be trusted to look at security records and maybe even visit a sick scavenger boy.

  I find my mother at a round breakfast table in a glassed-in patio beside the kitchen, scrolling idly through a tablet. She’s as perfectly put together as the day before, only in a powder-blue suit this time.

  “There you are!” She looks up and smiles at me. “I like the dress.”

  “Where’s Isabel?”

  “At school.” My mother folds her hands across her lap. “I thought we could spend the day together.”

  School. Right.
Of course. I take a seat next to her. “I’m sorry about the yogurt.”

  “Oh, was that you who ate it?” My mother laughs. “I thought Isabel was finally learning to clean up after herself.”

  “Yeah.” I laugh along with her, but I sound nervous.

  “What would you like to do today?” she asks. “I thought maybe we could go shopping. I had some points transferred to your cuff, in case you want to buy something.”

  Points. Another weird city quirk. All AgraStar contractors earn a monthly point allowance for extras like alcohol or sunglasses, but hardly anyone bothered with them back at the compound. There wasn’t much to spend them on, so we mostly traded favors and food instead.

  “Actually.” I rub the back of my neck. “I was hoping maybe I could see Alder.”

  “I’m afraid he’s still not well enough for visitors.” My mother answers too quickly, as if she already has the words planned out. She glances at her com, not meeting my eyes. “Isn’t there anything else you’d like to do?”

  “Maybe . . .” I look at her cautiously. What I really want to do is sit in on a status update about the spread of the blight, or spend the day poring over my own files, trying to make sense of everything. But I don’t think she’d allow that. Not yet.

  “Could I see where you work?” I ask instead.

  She frowns. “Wouldn’t you rather go out and see the city? There are parks and malls. Isabel always wants to go to the aquarium. There’s even a Ferris wheel. Have you ever been on one of those?”

  I shake my head. I’m not a child. I can’t go skipping around some park when I know how much danger all of us are in.

  My mother stands. “We should go to lunch. There’s a rooftop bistro upstairs. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

  I nod, despite myself.

  “After that, I’ll take you for a manicure.” She beams. “And a pedicure, too. That will help you relax.”

  I stiffen in my chair. I don’t know exactly what’s involved in either of those things, but they have something to do with painting your fingernails and toenails, I think. The corpses of all the people at my compound crawl across my vision. I feel sick, like I’m going to vomit up that snake again.

  I shake my head. “I don’t think I want to—”

  My mother’s face is . . . crestfallen. That’s the word for the way she looks.

  “I mean . . . could we do that another time? I’m still real tired,” I say.

  “Very tired,” my mother says.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re very tired, not real tired,” she corrects. “You’re my daughter. You have to learn to speak properly.”

  “Oh.” My face goes hot. I twist one of the buttons on my dress. “Right. Sorry.”

  “Tempest.” She places a hand on my arm, suddenly all warmth again. “It’s not your fault, m’ija. You didn’t have the opportunities you could have had if you’d grown up here in the city with me.”

  “I went to school,” I say. “Till I was twelve, same as everyone else.”

  “The same as all the sharecroppers and rig drivers.” She cocks her head to the side and raises her eyebrows. “Didn’t you ever think about doing something else? Working in R and D or, I don’t know . . . strategic defense, since you seem fond of the security field? I saw your aptitude tests. You’re as smart as your father was.”

  I give her a half smile. I can tell from her face how much it costs her to say something nice about the man who took me from her. It’s an apology, of sorts, for snapping at me when I mentioned him yesterday.

  “So, not so smart, huh?” I joke.

  “Your father was incredibly intelligent.” My mother squeezes my arm. “All the irrigation systems we use from here to the Gulf are based on his designs. That wasn’t his problem. He simply couldn’t deal with the kind of compromises you have to make in the real world.” She pulls away and looks out at the city below me.

  My stomach twists. What kind of compromises? The kind that mean forgetting where your family came from? The kind that lead to developing a weaponized blight? The knowledge of who my mother is, what she does, rolls over me again.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, for what feels like the millionth time.

  “I’m the one who brought him up.” She shakes her head, and when she turns back to me, her smile is bright as ever. “Let’s forget about all of this and go have lunch.”

  We eat at a poolside café on the roof of her building, shaded by a red umbrella. Waiters keep bringing us fruit juices, fresh vegetables cut into roses and other shapes, and then chunks of raw fish rolled up in rice and seaweed.

  “Sushi,” my mother says, lifting a piece delicately with a pair of tapered sticks. The other tables, with their red umbrellas, and the impossibly blue pool reflect in her sunglasses. “So refreshing on a hot day.”

  I look at my plate and try to fight down the heat rushing my face. Everyone else around us is using the sticks, but I don’t know how, and I’m too ashamed to ask for a fork.

  “Is it really okay to eat?” I ask quietly. I’m starving, but everyone knows you should never eat uncooked meat.

  “Of course!” She laughs. “You’ll develop a taste for it.”

  I try to pick up my food, but I fumble, and the sushi plops back onto my plate. My mother stops eating and stares at me, lips pursed.

  I look down. Flecks of rice and sauce dot my new dress. I am hopeless, like a freaking toddler.

  “Here.” My mother reaches over and positions my hands on the sticks. “Like this.”

  “Thank you.” I am going to burst into flames. I don’t dare look up at the people at the surrounding tables. “Why do we have to use these things anyway?”

  My mother gives me a funny look. “It’s just the way it’s done. You wouldn’t use a dessert fork for your salad, would you?”

  I don’t know how to answer that. I didn’t know there were different kinds of forks for particular foods. I want to put my head down on the table, but I’m pretty sure that would make things worse.

  “It’s not your fault.” My mother pats my arm. “If you’d grown up here . . .”

  But I didn’t. None of the things I’ve spent my life learning seem to matter here. It’s as if the top of this building and the compound that was my whole world until a week ago are in different universes.

  I look at the other diners. Two middle-aged women, both wearing pearls around their necks and a ring on each finger, sit at the table beside us. A man and woman in business suits have the table behind them. Two children splash in the shallow end of the pool while their mother reclines on a chaise, flicking through pages on a tablet. They all seem relaxed. None of them are acting like a wave of blight and death is swallowing up the compounds to the north. If I were them, I would be frantically packing my things or, better yet, lining up to volunteer to save my company.

  Don’t they care? Or—another possibility strikes me—do they even know? Has AgraStar told them the same thing my mother told me, that the crisis is in hand, that everything will be fine? Are they distracted by PSA-perfect apartments and a never-ending supply of food?

  I look at my mother, and something cold settles in my gut. The more I get to know her, the more I don’t want to believe that she knew what the blight was, that she could have ordered it created. But how much do I really know her? How do I trust anything she says is the truth?

  I let my mother take me downstairs to get my hair cut after lunch. Haircuts are normal, I reason as the doors to the salon slide open and a waft of jasmine-scented air greets us. Everyone gets haircuts.

  The salon stretches out before me, a long expanse of blond wood floors and plump barber chairs separated by gauzy curtains. There’s a pond in the middle of the room, cut right into the floor, full of lily pads and the muted orange flash of enormous goldfish.

  A tall, dark-skinned woman with braids piled in an elegant twist on top of her head hurries to us. “Dr. Salcedo.” She smiles, but I hear the tension in her voice. “We weren’t expe
cting you until Wednesday.”

  “Margit,” my mother says. The two of them kiss the air beside each other’s cheeks. My mother places a hand on my back, urging me forward. “I’ve brought my daughter. I thought you could squeeze us in.”

  “Of course.” Margit shoots a look at her colleague, a mouse-boned woman with short blond curls sweeping hair clippings from the floor. Their look says it all. They know who I am. They’ve heard what happened.

  Margit turns back to us. “Will you have the usual?”

  “Not me today.” My mother smiles at me. “Just Tempest.”

  “Tempest!” Margit beams. “Don’t you look exactly like little Isa? Doesn’t she, Lally?” She looks over her shoulder at the other woman.

  Lally nods. “Spitting image. Two peas in a pod.”

  I squirm in my skin. They’re being so nice, but it feels like pity.

  “What shall we do with her?” Margit walks behind me and combs her fingers through my hair. It takes everything I have to fight my instincts and not flip her over my shoulder and then run out into the street. Except we’re still several dozen stories in the air.

  “So many split ends.” She tsks. “What have you been washing your hair with, child?”

  I don’t answer. Back on the compound, we all used the same gel soap for our hair and bodies. There were specialty shampoos and conditioners you could buy at the commissary, but hardly anyone ever wasted credits on those, so they sat on the shelves, gathering dust. I never really thought about my hair before, except as a nuisance when it got in my face.

  “Let’s do the full treatment.” My mother reaches forward and fingers a strand of my hair, too. “Straightened, same as mine. Maybe some highlights.”

  I don’t know if I want my hair straightened, or what highlights means, but she’s smiling, and Margit and Lally are smiling, so it seems best to grit my teeth and let them do whatever it is they want. Pleasant. Compliant. Unthreatening.

  Lally sits me in a reclining chair and tips my head back into a sink. She runs warm water over my scalp, then lathers strawberry-scented shampoo into my hair. I close my eyes. Her fingertips circle around, massaging my scalp, and some of the muscles in my shoulders unknot. My mother or father must have washed my hair when I was little, but I don’t have any memory of it. All I remember are the timed showers in the girls’ dormitory.