“Greta?”
There was nothing for it but to contradict Elián: he was wrong, and the Abbot would surely know it, and expect better of me. “His fate is not known, Father. The discipline of the slave army broke, and they were entirely routed, and all but six thousand were killed on the battlefield. Spartacus himself was presumably among them.”
“So this crucifixion business?”
“The six thousand captured were crucified, Father. They lined the Appian Way from Rome to the coast.”
“Ah,” said the Abbot, and smiled.
I was standing, and Elián was standing. I felt as if we were connected by a cord. I could almost feel it closing around my throat. The spiders moved under Elián’s shirt. No one said anything.
The Abbot looked at us each, one by one by one.
He did not order. But everyone stood.
“Good,” said the Abbot. “Good.” I thought for a moment— I do not know what I thought. I thought something radical was about to happen.
But the Abbot only nodded. “I’ve taken enough of your time, Children—be about your day. I will count on you to show our newest colleague the ropes, as it were.” He spread a hand. As if he’d conjured them, bells began to ring.
And so Elián joined us properly.
Outside he took three stumbling, running steps into the sunlight, then stopped. He tilted up his face and took a deep breath. Sidney told me once that domestic turkeys can drown while watching the rain. In that moment I believed it. We all stared at Elián while he stood there with his gullet tipped open. If it had been raining, he would have been doomed.
After a moment he swallowed and looked over at me. “Well, that was great, Greta. Thanks a lot. Now I know who to cheat off when we get a test.”
Spiders pulsed under his clothing. I saw the muscles jump in his arm where the electricity hit, saw the flash of widening in his eyes and mouth. It was gone almost instantly. I wasn’t sure the others saw.
“Apples,” said Thandi. Her voice was tight with . . . something. Anger? Fear? “We can put up the windfall apples. Let’s go, before he gets us all in trouble.”
The eleven-and twelve-year-olds had already gathered the apples into peck baskets, and set up the grinder in the shade of the toolshed. They looked to be about half-done. Bushels of bruising apples sat on one side of the grinder, and pails of coarse apple meal sat on the other. Bat Brain the goat had her head stuck in one of the pails. Her tail lifted; she appeared to be turning apples directly into excrement. “Hhawu!” shouted Thandi. “Get out of there!”
The goat lifted her head, working her jaw from side to side like a man chomping a cigar. Lacking upper incisors, goats cannot eat apples without comedy, but this does not stop them from trying. Bat Brain looked at all of us looking at her, remembered that she cherished freedom, and took off like a suborbital rocket.
“Han, you catch her,” said Thandi. “You’re the one who likes them.”
“I don’t like them—I just like cheese.”
“Just catch the damn goat,” said Thandi. So Han and Atta went to catch Bat Brain, and the rest of us—Grego, Xie, Thandi, Elián, and I—picked up the full pails and went into the shed.
Inside, it was close and sticky with cobwebs, cluttered with coiled ropes, stacks of baskets, hoes and forks and spades in racks, scythes hanging from the rafters with more symbolic import than any of us were comfortable with. The light was sepia toned, coming through the warped slat walls in lances.
Grego and I carried our pails over to the ancient hulk of the apple press, but Xie and Thandi stopped just inside the door.
Elián ducked under the lintel and found himself between them. He blinked. “You girls aren’t gonna beat me up, are you?” His voice was soft, free of the braggadocio that seemed characteristic of him. He put his pail down and stretched upward, wrapping his fingers around a low rafter. He was startlingly tall. “Got no doubt you could take me, but, no offense—” He cupped a hand loosely over his heart, the nursery spider there. “The job’s already covered.”
“Of course not,” I said. “It’s—we’re merely pressing cider.”
“Yes,” said Grego. “Certainly there is no subtext.”
“The Abbot would have us show you the ropes,” said Da-Xia.
“Ropes?” said Elián. “We just met, Xie—sure you don’t want me to buy you dinner first?”
“Stop it,” said Thandi tightly.
“Stop what, fighting?” said Elián. “When pigs fly.” Spiders twitched. The bolt must have been stronger this time, because Elián made a sound, a kind of helpless exhalation. He raised a hand to his heart, and his voice was suddenly breathless. “Or when they kill me. Gotta say, that seems more likely.”
“The cider—” I tried again.
“We have to explain to him, Greta,” said Xie. “The Abbot said—”