Blight Page 6

  Micah scampers off, and Alder marches me toward one of the larger hovels. I keep my head low and my eyes sharp, trying to remember everything I can. Six structures in a circle around the fire. About sixty steps across the circumference. Only two guards that I can spot, aside from the balding man down by the Humvee, who I’m guessing must be Eden’s father.

  “Hey!” one of the women shouts. She coughs. “She’s the one, isn’t she? She’s the one that killed Malcolm and Eden.”

  Mrs. Kingfisher and Alder don’t answer.

  A clump of muck and rotten leaves strikes the nape of my neck. The crowd’s muttering intensifies.

  “Murderer!”

  “Rén zhā!”

  Someone lobs a shriveled corncob and catches me in the lower back. Someone else hurls a chunk of peat.

  “¡Vete a la mierda!”

  “Butcher! Child killer!”

  Mrs. Kingfisher pulls me along. Child killer? That girl was no younger than I was. We both chose to fight. But somehow I don’t think these people will see it that way. Crake used to tell us stories about what a pack of shirks would do if they found you alone in the woods. I never used to give those tales much thought, beyond retelling them to scare the younger trainees, but now all I can think is that this mob might really flay me alive and use my skin as paper or hack off my limbs and roast them in front of me.

  Something foul splatters at my feet—dog or human filth.

  “Hey!” Alder lets go of my arm and rounds on the other scavengers. “We have laws. This isn’t what the Deacon would—” A poorly aimed hunk of moss and clay hits him in the gut.

  “Company whore!” a woman screams, and flings a handful of compost. Her face flushes red and her mouth twists in an ugly way. This frightens me most of all. I can see the twisted logic in calling me a killer. I’ve taken lives in the service of AgraStar, to keep our compound and our people safe. But whore? The most I’ve ever done is stare at Ellison across the mess hall, and now that will never happen again.

  A rock packed in mud grazes my temple. Enough. I’m not going to die here at the mercy of a bunch of shirks and children. I twist my arm from Mrs. Kingfisher’s grip and run.

  “Stop!” Alder shouts.

  I break into the brush, bound hands stretched in front of me in an effort to keep my balance. Ferns and low-reaching branches smack my face. I leap a fallen log and come down in a stretch of wet clay. It sucks at my boots, but I won’t stop, won’t slow down. Alder’s breath rasps harsh and close behind me, and the curses and shouts of the scavengers follow at his heels. I’m completely out of adrenaline now, feeling every sprain, every bruise, the rawness in my throat from breathing in that smoke. I splash across a shallow creek and grab on to the exposed roots of an oak to pull myself onto the opposing bank.

  A gunshot echoes through the wood. I drop into a roll—leaves, sky, leaves, sky—and come to rest in a shallow ditch. The sun streaks through the trees and catches in the pollen like fairy lights. I lie faceup, staring at the towering pines, trunks gilded by the late light. Am I hit? I scan myself for any pain, any numbness. No. The shot must have gone wide.

  “Up, then.” I hear Crake in my ear. “Up and run.”

  Too late. Alder crashes through the underbrush and stops short above me, breathing hard. He cocks his revolver and points it, shaking, at my face.

  “You ran.” Betrayal shoots through his voice. “Why did you run?”

  I freeze. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. Shaking hands don’t mean a person won’t fire. They only mean he’s more likely to pull the trigger by accident.

  “They were going to kill me.” I struggle onto my elbows. “What did you expect me to do?”

  “Nothing.” He steps back, closing his eyes, and uncocks the gun. “Exactly what you did.”

  Voices approach and boots splash through the creek.

  “She’s here.” Alder’s voice cracks. “I’ve got her.”

  The scavengers appear between the pines. The guards come first, with their shotguns, then the rest of them with sticks and rocks clutched in their hands. They stare down at me with the same blunt, dilated gaze cats get when they’ve cornered their prey.

  One of the guards levels her shotgun at me. “Step back, Alder.”

  Alder steps in front of me. “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?” Laurel pushes her way to the front of the crowd. “She killed Malcolm and Eden. Your Eden.”

  Alder drops his eyes to me. “I know.” His gaze rests on me for a moment before he looks away. “But she’s just a cog. The Deacon says they don’t know any better. The company trains them up to kill, and they don’t learn anything else.”

  The other guard spits in the dirt. “All the more reason to put her down now.”

  “No.” Alder tucks the revolver back in his belt. “That won’t bring Eden or Malcolm back. It won’t change anything.”

  The female guard, a towering woman with light brown skin and freckles, narrows her eyes. “Except we’ll all sleep better with one less cog in the world.”

  “No.” Mrs. Kingfisher steps forward, raising her voice. “Listen, we got bigger problems than her. Something went wrong out there.”

  Laurel turns to her. “How wrong?”

  “Bad wrong,” says Mrs. Kingfisher. “Something got out of that R and D complex—”

  The crowd breaks into murmurs.

  One of the men snorts. “More of AgraStar’s dirty tactics.”

  “It wasn’t us,” I burst out. “You’re the ones who’ve killed off our crops, you lazy-ass mother—”

  “Enough.” Mrs. Kingfisher cuts me off with a look that tells me I’m not doing myself any favors. “Something blew at the complex, maybe the ethanol processing plant or one of the labs close by, and something in the fallout killed the corn.”

  A shocked silence strikes the crowd.

  “The corn?” The woman guard repeats. “All the corn?”

  Mrs. Kingfisher nods. “I never seen a blight like that. It was spreading as we drove.”

  “What do we do?” Laurel’s voice edges over into hysteria. “Oh, God. What do we do?”

  Alder clears his throat and looks down at me as he speaks. The setting sun turns his hair to a halo of fire. “We wait for the Deacon.”

  .5.

  SPEAR THISTLE

  CIRSIUM VULGARE

  I lie on the dirt floor of the largest shelter, breathing deep and even so Mrs. Kingfisher will think I’m asleep. She and Alder agreed she was the only one who could be trusted not to slit my throat in the middle of the night, though I’m not completely sure she could stop someone else from doing it. She sits in an old lawn chair by a smoky oil lamp, mending clothes, while Mr. Kingfisher and the kids sleep on wooden pallets beside her.

  Every sound snaps at me: the crinkle of blue tarp walls as the wind moves them, the low pop of the logs in the fire pit, the rustle of the guards’ footfalls. A girl brought a plate of hot corn tortillas to the Kingfishers earlier, and the aroma still lingers in the air, making my stomach grumble. Flashes of sense memory come when I close my eyes—my father’s weathered hands patting a small tortilla into shape with practiced turns, the sizzle of lard in a cast-iron pan nestled in the coals of a campfire.

  “These taste funny, Papi. I like the ones Mami makes better. The ones from the bag.”

  “Well, we’re camping, cielo. This is special camping food.”

  I remember a pair of boots stepping over a log. Riding high on someone’s shoulders, my father singing to me in words I couldn’t understand or can’t remember. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to smother the memories. I need to concentrate. I need a clear head so I can escape.

  Somewhere outside, maybe in that praying tent, there are people singing, too, all together in one voice.

  “I sing because I’m happy,

  I sing because I’m free.

  For His eye is on the sparrow,

  And I know He watches me.”

  Then again, the same tune,
but in another language.

  “¡Feliz, cantando alegre,

  yo vivo siempre aquí;

  Si Él cuida de las aves,

  cuidará también de mí!”

  My mind scrabbles at the words. There’s something faintly familiar about them, their cadence, but I can’t quite latch on to their meaning. It’s as if I’m trying to climb a rock wall, but I keep slipping on slick stones. Dammit. I want to kick something, hit something, but I remember in time that I’m supposed to be asleep. I squeeze my eyes shut. This was the language my father spoke to me. I know it in my bones. And that means it’s dangerous. I shouldn’t want to remember it. So why am I still trying?

  Footsteps approach, and then pause on the other side of the tarp beside me, scattering my thoughts.

  “Grebe.” A familiar voice. Alder.

  “It’s done,” the older man says. “She and Malcolm are both in the burial tent.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry I couldn’t . . .” Alder’s voice falters, and he clears his throat. “I’ll come help wash her when you’re ready.”

  “Thank you,” Grebe says. “She would have wanted you there.”

  “Did she tell you where she wanted to be buried? She always said—”

  “Beside the sitting oak, yes.”

  They both fall silent.

  “Listen.” Grebe coughs. “I know you two were . . . I know what Eden meant to you.” He drops his voice when he says her name, as if it were burning his throat.

  “Don’t—”

  “No, let me,” Grebe says. “I only want to say, I’ve thought of you as a son for a long time. And you’re still a son to me, even with her gone.”

  “I shouldn’t have let her go.” Alder’s voice is muffled. “I should have told her to stay behind.”

  Grebe laughs. “You think she would have listened? Not my Eden.”

  “No,” Alder says. “No, she would have tried to get me to stay here instead, with my hand and all.”

  A knot rises in my throat, and suddenly my heart is pumping rage instead of blood. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault.

  “What do you think the Deacon will do with her?” Alder asks.

  “The cog girl?” Grebe’s voice goes hard. “Put her down, most like. I don’t think the camp would stand for anything else, even if there was another option.”

  Silence. “I guess not,” Alder says.

  Grebe laughs. “Don’t tell me you want her alive.”

  “No. Of course not,” Alder says. “It’s only . . . I killed some of them, too.”

  “They fired first,” Grebe says. “They had the Kingfishers. You had no choice.”

  “I know. I just . . . I didn’t think it would be like that. It was awful. And it doesn’t change anything. Eden’s still gone.”

  “It’s hard.” Grebe’s voice softens. “Especially the first time. All the things you make yourself do to protect your own. You’ve got more restraint than me, son. If it had been me out in the field today, I would’ve left that cog girl with a bullet in her belly.”

  Danica’s face floods my memory, her body lying still in the corn. I pull against my restraints.

  “Eden wouldn’t want you beating yourself up. She would have been proud of you.”

  Alder is silent for a moment. “You’re right.”

  Grebe clears his throat. “Did you get through to Charlotte?”

  “Yeah,” Alder says. “The sat phone’s almost dry, but I passed along the basics. They’ll get it up on the Latebra Congress site, but I don’t know if some of the more remote camps will be able to get a signal.”

  Charlotte? Does he mean a person, or the city to the north of us? AgraStar has a strong hold there, so strong they host trade talks with our competitors in the shiny office towers and never worry about jackers inside the freeway loop. The idea that there could be shirk sympathizers there is crazy. And what the hell is a Latebra Congress?

  Mrs. Kingfisher’s chair squeaks, and I realize I’ve forgotten to breathe. I let out my breath quietly and feign sleep again.

  A distant rumble builds in the woods, overwhelming the soft sounds of night. Diesel engines. I sit up. The rest of the Kingfishers blink awake. The shirks surely haven’t got that many vehicles between them. My heart surges. AgraStar? Harry Kingfisher stares blearily at me from two blackened eyes, but Juna bolts for the flap of tarp that serves as a door.

  “Juna!” Mrs. Kingfisher casts a quick look at me and hurries after her. “Get back here, girl.”

  Outside, the camp quickens with shouts, footsteps running, lamps flaring, flashlights scattering their beams across the walls.

  Alder pulls up the tent flap. “Get up.”

  I draw back. “Why?”

  “Because otherwise I’m going to drag you out.”

  I struggle to my feet as best I can with my hands tied in front of me. “What’s going on?”

  Alder checks my bonds. “We’re walking.”

  He’s too calm. If AgraStar were here, he wouldn’t be this calm. Something’s wrong.

  “Come on.” Alder marches me out of the tent into the firelit clearing.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To see the Deacon.”

  The black wall of forest looms beyond the edges of the firelight. The engines rattle the night, and the thick smell of corn diesel drifts up from the other side of the rise. Below, two ancient pickup trucks, a jeep, and a van with the roof sheared off sit idling, headlights flooding the base of the incline. A man standing in the bed of one of the pickups shakes a rifle over his head and whoops something, but the grumble of the engines muddies his words.

  “Deacon Ward!” Alder pushes to the front of the crowd with me in tow. “Deacon!”

  The drivers kill their engines, and one by one, the lights die out.

  “Deacon Ward!” Alder shouts again.

  “I hear you, boy.” A woman’s voice, low and roughened, surfaces in the shadows below. “We’re coming.”

  Car doors slam. My eyes adjust to the darkness. A line of figures trudges up the rise and slowly resolves in the fire pit’s glow. They all haul hundred-pound cornmeal sacks, stamped with the AgraStar emblem, over their shoulders. A tall, muscular woman leads the group. Her skin is browned with dirt and sun, her hair pale silver. Beneath a faded company flak jacket, sweat and blood stain her shirt and the damp bandanna tied around her throat. A pair of pistols is strapped to her sides. Her skirt kicks out with every stride, revealing thick leather boots and canvas trousers underneath.

  She stops before Alder and pulls the bandanna from her neck. “You got the Kingfishers out, then?” Her voice is raspy.

  Suddenly it comes slamming home to me who Deacon Ward must be. The moon-pale hair, the command in her voice, the confidence in her step. In every way, she’s a match for the girl I killed today, if that girl had lived another twenty years.

  Shit. Instinctively, I try to back away, but Alder yanks me closer.

  Deacon Ward turns, taking in my uniform and bound hands, before dismissing me and looking back to Alder for her answer.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Alder hesitates. “It cost us, though.”

  Deacon Ward nods and scans the crowd. “Where’s Eden?”

  A heavy silence falls. Alder opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He tightens his fingers around my arm and stares down at the dirt.

  The Deacon looks behind Alder. “Grebe?” Worry breaks her voice. “Where’s Eden? Didn’t she come back with the rest?”

  The crowd shifts around me. I feel their anger buzzing in the air again, their eyes boring into me. I take a deep breath.

  “She’s dead.” My voice ricochets through the silence. “I shot her.”

  Deacon Ward’s face goes blank with shock. She blinks at me, then at Alder and Grebe. “What?”

  “We got bogged down trying to get the Kingfishers back,” Alder says quietly. “Eden went in and . . .”

  The Deacon closes her eyes. For one terrible moment,
I think she’s going to break down like Grebe did, shout the girl’s name and fall to pieces. But no.

  “Take me to her,” she says.

  Alder starts to hand me off to Mrs. Kingfisher, who’s surfaced again, Juna in tow, but the Deacon stops him.

  “No, bring her.” She turns to me, and her expression stops me cold. “I want a word with her.”

  “Everyone else . . .” Deacon Ward raises her voice and points down the hill to the vehicles. “We have food stores to be unloaded and wounded to tend. Lend a hand where you can.” She winces and rubs her throat.

  “You were there,” I mutter at Alder. “You know I only—”

  “Shut up.” Alder stops me. “Just shut up.”

  “Que Dios te mate,” one of the women spits at me as she brushes by.

  Grebe leads the way into the camp, the Deacon a step behind. When they think no one is looking, she doubles her step and they grab tightly on to each other’s hands. Alder walks me after them in a parody of their embrace. He would have held Eden’s hand like that. I stare at their clasped fingers. Ellison might have held my hand that way, too.

  Stop, I tell myself. Thinking like this doesn’t do anyone any good, least of all me. She had a gun on you. You did what you had to do. You did your duty to the company.

  Grebe leads us to a tent on the edge of the camp. It’s woven from strips of plastic bags and old packing material; they come together like a quilt. A lamp burns inside. The tent’s fabric catches the glow and bleeds it out into the night, so it looks as though the plastic itself is radiating light. It’s almost beautiful.

  Alder hurries us forward. “Deacon.” He speaks low and casts a look behind us to make sure no one is following. “I know now isn’t the time, but we need to talk—”

  She stops. “The crops,” she finishes for him.

  “They turned to ash before our eyes,” Alder says.

  “I know,” she says.

  “I mean, thank God you got the food, but next year . . .”

  “Alder.” Her voice is weary. “I promise we’ll talk it over. I know what it means. But give me a moment now, okay?”

  “Of course.” He backs off. “Of course. I didn’t mean to . . . Sorry.”