Sign Here(31)
The girls’ voices shot out beyond the trees before their bodies did.
“That’s not fair; you ran cross-country!”
“Nobody likes a sore loser, Mick!”
Silas stood up and walked to the edge of the porch.
He watched Ruth fall against the biggest oak tree in the yard, her outstretched hand making contact first and the rest of her body following, eager and panting. She wore a white bathing suit, the kind that ended in bows on each hip and had one in the middle of the chest. Her skin was lighter than his daughter’s, pale like that of the good girls asleep in fairy tales. Her auburn hair was wet and darker for it, stuck against her neck as she caught her breath. She didn’t have any shoes, and she kicked up one leg to inspect the sole of her foot, twisting her body effortlessly. Everything about her was spun long and lovely, and so very new.
“You should know, Ruth, we’ve never taught Mickey how to lose with grace. Parental oversight,” Silas said. Mickey stumbled out of the tree line, her cheeks red.
“Shut up, Dad.”
Ruth turned to the porch where Silas stood and, holding the tree with one palm, gave him a deep curtsy. “I’m honored to be the one to teach her this lesson, Mr. Harrison.”
Silas chuckled and leaned his hips against the railing.
“Just don’t hold her mother or me responsible if she bites off an appendage.”
“Do you bite?” Ruth asked Mickey, laughing.
Mickey came to a stop in front of Ruth.
“Whatever,” she said. “I’m going to get our towels.”
Ruth put her hands on her hips and watched Mickey walk down toward the dock, huffing. She looked up at the porch, and Silas caught her eye. Ruth’s face was flushed from running, and her eyes glittered from winning. Silas knew the feeling. Even when it was just a silly thing like that, winning never got old. She smiled, a big, wide grin, and Silas smiled back. Then she turned and chased after Mickey, threw her arms around her shoulders and hoisted herself up to wrap her legs around Mickey’s waist. The girls fell together into the grass, their shrieking laughter echoing off the covered porch.
He watched them, lying there tangled together, until he went inside to pour himself another drink.
PEYOTE
HUMAN’S RESOURCE FILE
Name: CALAMITY GANON
Current Location: FIFTH FLOOR
Calamity Ganon, human name redacted, got her taste for blood the first time one of her brothers beat another to death in front of her. To be fair, her brothers had all been given time to prepare. They trained for this. If one couldn’t survive, he was meant to carry on the battle in the afterlife. And clearly, Cal thought as she yanked the warm soda tab from around the defeated boy’s neck, this one was destined for that side of the fight.
It wasn’t until she was older that she understood “brother” wasn’t exactly the right word. The boys the General brought home and fed and trained alongside her weren’t technically her brothers, despite what he called them. The Pigs showed her their “missing” posters—the ones who had people missing them, at least—in the station the day they stormed the barracks and carried her out, kicking and screaming, wrapped in a gray blanket meant to put out fires.
When the Pigs approached her, with their quiet words and new crayons, she did as her father taught her. She spat in their faces and said nothing. No matter what they told her about his record, about his mental health issues and pattern of paranoia and violence, she said nothing. When they pointed out her brothers and called them names she didn’t recognize, names their first fathers gave them, she said nothing. When they asked after their bodies, where their families could at least find their bones: nothing.
“Brother” might have been the wrong word, but “father” was not.
No matter what the Pigs and the social workers and the foster parents said about him, she had a father. No matter how few people wanted her, how few people would even meet her after reading her file, at one point, she had belonged to someone.
And thanks to him, Cal was a fighter.
The first person Cal killed on her own was her fourth foster mother. She had an idea of how Cal could pay her own expenses, and it involved belts strapped to bedposts and a revolving door of houseguests. Over the days she was held there Cal worked one of the posts loose, twisting her wrist raw until she felt the wood give. When the woman came to collect her for her bathroom break, Cal pulled the wood free and cracked her straight across the face. She didn’t even bother to bury her. She just took the sharpest kitchen knife that fit in her jacket pocket and all the cash the woman had and set out on her own.
She was twelve.
She spent her next three years on the road, looking for the Farm.
He told them stories about the Farm. About the fresh vegetables and meat grown and harvested right there, so that everything tasted like the wide-open Arkansas sky. About the schoolhouse with enough books for everyone and the bunks with real mattresses, one per person. The way everyone worked together to keep it safely hidden from the Pigs, an Eden for the worthy. Cal’s favorite stories, besides those about what comes after the Almighty War, were the ones about the Farm’s weapons caches, which the General said were wider and deeper than they could possibly imagine. Much bigger than their meager stockpile in the unplugged fridge at the barracks.