“You can do it, Ruby. If you can’t sleep, wake me up and we’ll talk again.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” A tear spills over onto my cheek and I wipe it off.
“Aww,” she soothes. Against the moon’s purple silhouette, I see her brush back her long hair and settle in.
Curling into a catlike ball, I explore the cool, dry sheets with my toes and drift off softly, fearlessly.
Chapter 16
Even Vesper is nice to me for a few days. She picks me for her team in soccer, but I can’t exactly play with a swollen ankle. She doesn’t whisper any hateful things when I pass by her, and she compliments me on a stew I make.
But it doesn’t last. As soon as my ankle heals, and Bea asks me to model her newly designed Fireseed leaf clothes, Vesper turns ugly again.
Bea has designed a Fireseed trench coat and the cutest red hoodie with a built-in mask. They are quite fashionable! I try them on while she pins them up, which I’m happy to do.
“Turn a little to the right,” she says, her mouth full of pins. “Now to the left.” Finally, she stands back, bobbing her head in satisfaction. “You look great in it.” She comes forward and feels my ribs like a worried mom. “Don’t get too skinny on me now, or the jacket will be swimming on you.”
“She’s a scarecrow already,” Vesper snipes. “I can model that hoodie for you at the Axiom finals.”
“Maybe so,” Bea says. “But I’ve already fitted them to Ruby.”
This makes Vesper fume, and I notice that for her project, Vesper has basically copied Bea’s idea. She’s making backpacks out of the pressed leaves, and glider covers that can withstand any sandstorm. Her items aren’t exactly clothes, but still, she cuts the patterns from templates and sews them together like Bea does.
Vesper hates me more than ever. She corners me in the halls and hisses spiteful comments of all stripes. “Your skin has ugly moon craters,” she’ll say, or “You’re shriveled like a dead lizard,” which doesn’t bother me. When she says, “Your brother’s a real troublemaker. We’ll get rid of him yet,” this bothers me. I never answer her. That would egg her on.
Thorn spends all of his time out in the western quadrant, coaxing the Red from its perch, high in the tallest plant that juts above the tarp.
Sometimes it sits on his narrow shoulder and preens its leaf-like wings. I ask him all about it: “How big will it grow? Has anyone else aside from the two of us seen it? What does it eat?” But he’s stopped talking again. There’s compensation though, because the ever-present humming in my head fills in some of the blanks. We’re growing, we’re growing, we’re growing it hums.
What’s growing? I ask silently.
Babies, babies, babies, babies is the answer.
Babies, huh! Yet, I only see one Red, flopping around in the high branches, poking its beak out of the tarp, blinking its huge brown eyes at Thorn with something like admiration. How is this even possible? I’m just glad that no one else from The Greening has seen the Red. Surely they would want to steal it, claim it as their own project. I again warn Thorn to keep the Red concealed. He nods and grins, nods and grins.
Blane returns from sentry duty one morning, claiming that he’s seen a hovercraft repeatedly cycle by. His pistol is still tucked in the hip pocket of his burnsuit, and the sight gives me a ripple of furtive desire mixed with dread. Blane and guns—a worrying mix.
“What color was the ship?” I ask him.
“Don’t remember,” he says as he lays the pistol down on a dining room chair, lifts off his mask and climbs out of his burn suit. His wide, rocky face gleams with sweat.
I swallow hard. My bad dreams had hovering ships, but those weren’t real, they were sick, coma dreams. “Were there hairy men with beards in the ships?”
Blane sniggers. “Hairy men? You have a filthy mind, Cult Girl.” I don’t like that he’s reverted to his early disrespectful nickname for me, and the glint in his eyes makes me furious.
“My name’s Ruby,” I remind him. “And I have a serious reason for asking.”
“Ruby,” he echoes, with bite. “What could that be?”
“Never mind.” I won’t tell him about my strange dreams. I’m tired of his teasing, and his insults. He had a nerve being hurt when he saw Armonk helping me walk.
Blane marches toward the kitchen. I hear him guzzling from the precious store of water, and I have a mind to scold him for drinking from the jug, to tell him to wipe off his mouth prints, but I hold back. Snapping at him is as unfair as him teasing me.
Instead, I call from the dining room, “If you see the ships again, let me know.”
“You’re going to help me shoot them down?”
The urge to scold is on my tongue for a second time. Something like, Is all you can think of ways to be violent? But I may need his protection again in this dangerous place. “Maybe so,” I say cryptically.