Untitled Agenda 21 Sequel (9781476746852) (19 page)

“Tea, anyone?” Ingrid asked in the chirpy voice she had when she talked about cooking.

“Ingrid makes the best dandelion tea! Watch how she does it.” Ingrid beamed at Paul's compliment.

She had a pile of plants heaped in front of her. They were the
same yellow flowers I had seen on our first day outside the Compound. Ingrid rinsed the plants, roots and all, in a pail of water, then set about crushing the roots between two stones. I moved closer and watched.

“May I try?” I asked. She moved aside and I crushed some roots while she picked the smallest leaves off other plants. The smell of the roots was like wet wood; the sound of stone against stone was grating, like grinding your teeth. When we'd finished with all the plants, Ingrid scooped everything up and dumped it all into a pot of hot water on the fire pit.

“A watched pot doesn't boil,” she announced, like she was giving a cooking lesson, then sat next to Paul. “It'll be ready in a bit.”

We sat quietly, waiting for the tea, watching the stars appear, one by one, like shy children tiptoeing across the sky. The trees were dark silhouettes around us. Most birds had roosted for the night; an owl let out a lonely call from one of the nearby trees. Far away, a fox yip-yip-yipped.

Ingrid served the tea proudly, breathing in the steam and giving a satisfied nod of approval to each mug, before handing them to us. The mug was warm in my hands; I wrapped my fingers around it. I thought I saw movement in the trees, something, I didn't know what. George? It couldn't be, not with that ball and chain. Maybe a guard from the commune had seen me? Even worse, could it be one of the Earth Protectors? Startled, I spilled some hot tea on my leg. Paul quickly got a dipper of cold water and poured it on the burn.

“You jumped.” He bent down and looking into my eyes. “Why?”

“I thought I saw something.”

He stood, gazed into the woods, then turned back to me. “I don't see anything.” He stared at me for a long moment; I had to look away. I felt like he could read my mind.

“Something is bothering you, Emmy,” Paul said with quiet conviction.

David looked at me, his face concerned. “Are you okay?” I nodded yes, I was okay.

Liar. I was a liar.

“What makes you say something's bothering her?” he asked Paul.

Paul hesitated. He gazed into the woods again.

“Well?” David said.

“Just a feeling.” Paul sat back down by Ingrid and picked up his mug of tea.

“What kind of feeling?” David rested his hand on my knee.

“Yes,” I said. “What kind of feeling?” Had he seen George? Or was it just his uncanny ability to know what someone was thinking? I hoped it was neither.

“Last night, at the commune, we were spread out. I was down field; Micah was in between us, and Emmy was at the start of the row, near the tents.”

“Why did you let her near the tents alone?” David asked. “That doesn't seem very safe.”

It bothered me how they were talking about me as if I wasn't even there.

“I should have known better. But nobody was around. The guard must have been asleep somewhere. They do that, you know. Sleep on duty. When it was time to start back, I gathered up my sack. It was full. Got Micah and his sack was full, too.” He took a long drink of the tea and looked up at the sky.

“When we got to Emmy, she was shaking like a leaf, and her bag was only half full and there were spilled peas on the ground around her. She tried to help us pick them up and put them back in the sack, but for every one she picked up, she dropped two. It was as if she had seen a ghost.”

Oh, how I wanted him to let go of this! But Paul continued.

“On the way back from the commune, she kept looking over her shoulder. She was practically walking backwards. I was afraid she
would trip. And today, she's been jumpy, and even cried out in her sleep. I heard her saying ‘No, no, no.' What did that mean?”

“She was just tired,” David said.

“Really?” Paul said. “Tonight she thought she saw something in the woods and jumped so bad she spilled tea on herself. Something's on her mind.”

“She's been through a lot. That's why she's jumpy tonight. That's all.”

Oh, David, if only you knew, I thought. If only you knew. A knot of indecision tightened in my chest. Then I remembered: No secrets. That was our promise. The knot loosened.

I set my mug down and reached for David's hand.

“Paul, you said I looked as if I had seen a ghost.”

Paul leaned back, a knowing look on his thin, old face. David peered at me, his brow wrinkled in puzzlement.

“That's because I did.”

“G
eorge? That's impossible. George is dead!” David said after I'd told him the whole story.

I heard Micah stirring inside the cave, the rustle of his bed linens, a small cough.

“I saw him. He was standing right in front of me.”

“He died in the bus-box accident,” David said. “You couldn't have seen . . .”

Paul raised his hand and interrupted David. “Who is this George?”

“He was my partner, before David. He is Elsa's father.”

“Emmy, you're tired. You haven't slept. You walked through the woods at night, probably frightened every step of the way, and completely exhausted. Maybe you fell asleep and dreamt it,” David said.

“Let her talk. She was there; you weren't. Emmeline, what did you see, what did you hear? Go through it again, tell us everything.” Paul was trying to make me relive that night and I didn't want to. My mouth and throat felt dry as paper. I remained silent.

“Well, Emmeline, only you can tell us. Could you have been hallucinating,
perhaps?” Paul, with his patient voice and gentle presence, invited me to speak as only he could.

I took my last sip of tea. It had grown cold and bitter, but it still soothed my parched throat. I set the mug down on the ground beside me and looked up at the sky. Should I say, yes, I was just hallucinating? That would be the end of it as far as David and Paul were concerned. Maybe then they would quit talking about it. That would be the easy way out.

Easy, yes, but it would still be in my head, a tarnished memory that would haunt me, a black secret.
No secrets between us, ever
. That was a promise David and I had made to each other, and I had to keep that promise.

“It wasn't a dream, David. He was real and alive.” I leaned against him, wanting to be as near to him as possible as I talked.

“What did he look like? What did he say?” Paul urged me forward.

“He's thin now. He said Father saved his life by falling on top of him, taking the full weight and force of the bus-box.”

Micah coughed again, and small echoes of that cough bounced off the walls of the cave.

“He has a ball and chain on his ankle.”

“A ball and chain?” Ingrid exclaimed. She was following this conversation with unusual interest. “It sounds like he's a slave.”

“From what I've learned about the conditions in the Compound, the whole thing sounds like slavery, or worse,” Paul said with a grim look on his face.

“What did he say?” David asked.

“It was sad. He said he stopped caring, and that he wished he had died that night along with my father.” A feeling of mourning washed over me, the same feeling I had when the Enforcers told Mother and me about the accident.

“What else?” Paul was still pushing for more.

“He didn't know they had taken Mother away. He had no way of knowing about that.” I paused. “When I told him, he said, ‘It never ends, does it?' ”

The weight of those words settled on my shoulders. Would it ever end for me and my family, either?

“Then he would have had no way of knowing about Elsa being with you, either,” David said, with some hesitation.

Bats swirled over the stream, dipping and turning, making occasional high-pitched clicking sounds that sounded like tsk-tsk-tsk. It was funny what I could focus on when my whole world was turning upside-down.

“I told him. I told him about Elsa.”

“Why? Why would you do that?” I felt the tension in his body.

“What would you want her to do in that situation?” Paul asked David.

“I guess she did the noble thing, but telling him about Elsa was risky. He is her father and he might do something dangerous to try to see her. He might lead danger right to us.”

How that hurt me. Clearly he was saying that I had put us all in danger. I had to defend myself against those hurtful words. “I told him because he asked how and why I escaped. The
how
was the hole in the fence and the
why
was Elsa. I escaped because of Elsa and I told him that. I wasn't being noble; I was being honest.” I tried not to sound angry. I tried to be calm. But it didn't work. My voice trembled, as fluttery as those bats. “And after I told him, he said he was glad he hadn't died. He was glad he has a daughter. He said he finally had a reason to live.”

“There's more, isn't there?” Paul leaned forward. For the first time, I wanted to tell Paul to leave me alone.

“Yes. I had my knife with me. I could have at least tried to cut through the collar on his ankle, to weaken it a little, but I didn't. He almost died for me and I didn't set him free.”

“Good,” David said. “That was the right decision.”

“But did you hear what I said? I could have set him free and I didn't. I walked away from a man who simply wanted to see his daughter one time. I left him as a slave. What kind of a person does that make me? And you think that was
good
?”

“This isn't about good or bad. This is about keeping Elsa safe. Keeping you, all of us, safe.”

David stood up, stiff and tall, and walked to the edge of the clearing, his back to me. I went to him. I ran my fingers through the dark hair that curled down over his neck.

“Are you worried that I have feelings for him? Gratitude, that's all I feel. He was kind to me, and gentle. And he and Father risked their lives to get me out of the Compound. But it's you I love. And I love you of my own free will.”

His lips brushed my forehead. “Thank you.”

Free will. That's the secret. That's the answer. You can tell someone who to pair with, but you can't tell them who to love.

We walked back to the others.

“This is not my business,” Paul said. “But I have to ask this question. Isn't freedom what you are looking for, what you're sacrificing everything for? Yet you would deny someone else theirs?”

I felt David shrug, his shoulder moving against mine, but he remained silent.

Micah's cough was a little louder. Was he getting sick?

“What is your decision, Emmy?” Paul asked quietly.

“I don't know. I don't know what the right thing is. I have to keep Elsa safe. I have to! But he is her father and . . .” My voice trailed away.

“It's the danger that I worry about,” David said, putting his arm across my shoulders. “That's all.”

“Everything is dangerous. Sitting around here and not moving on is dangerous. I just want to do what's right.”

“If I could see my father just one time, I would want to.” It was Micah! He had been listening, but hesitant to interrupt. His little cough was his way of telling us he wanted to be heard. “So maybe Elsa should, too.” He walked over and sat down next to David and me.

I put my finger under his chin and tilted his face up toward mine. “Elsa is too little to remember if she sees her father,” I explained to him.

“But you could tell her about it when she got older. You could give her the memory.” Micah spoke with the sincerity of a child. He had grown around my heart like a vine.

Give her the memory
. Father gave me the memory of my learning to walk just by describing it to me. Telling me how I would fall, laugh, and pull up clumps of grass with joy. Things I would never have known about if he hadn't told me when I was older.

I sat there, quietly thinking. What was the right thing to do? Was there any way to keep Elsa safe and at the same time honor George's request? What would Mother have done? Or better yet, what did I
wish
Mother had done?

I wished she had told me everything, taught me everything.

Had Micah, little Micah, given me the answer?

Give her the memory
.

“You and David are the only ones who can decide if that man, George, sees little Elsa. I know you'll make the right decision. I have faith in you.” Paul stood up and extended his hand to Ingrid, helping her up. She groaned slightly, and stood slowly.

Paul must have sensed we needed time alone. “It's late. Bedtime for us old people. And little people, too. Come, Micah. Let your mother and father talk alone.”

“Come here, Micah. Let me give you a kiss good night.” He came to me, smiling his crooked little smile. I kissed his smooth forehead and he kissed mine. What a little mimic.

They went into the dim interior of the cave, leaving David and me
alone. Silence settled over us, like a heavy blanket. A ghostly pale barn owl, its heart-shaped white face visible even in the moonlight, settled on a nearby branch.

“Something important did happen when I spoke with George,” I said softly.

“What?” David asked warily.

“I saw him change from a man who had no reason to live to a man who had something to live for. That's no small thing. And Elsa is the reason for that change.”

A long, heavy silence fell between us. Fireflies flitted, blinking on and off, here, there, little flares of light in the darkness. If Micah were awake, he'd try to catch them. In the distance, from the direction of the field, a small animal screeched. The barn owl must have found dinner.

“Sounds like you already made up your mind.”

“No, I haven't.”