“Go on,” Bello says. “Try it.”
I open my mouth to take a bite, then pause. This pig was rooting through coffins. That means it probably fed on bones, human bones. I don’t know much about how these things work, but does that mean the pig meat I’m about to eat is made up, at least in part, from people?
Maybe. And maybe I don’t really care.
I take a big bite. Hot juice squirts across my tongue. I wince and laugh, my mouth full. The meat is rich and delicious. It’s not just the taste, which is amazing, it’s that Bishop and I hunted this animal and killed it. We killed it to provide food for everyone. For reasons I can’t explain, that knowledge fills me with a peace I have not yet felt.
Pig…pork…pork chops. That’s what my dad used to make, at least as far as I can tell from my spotty memories. Did he leave me in this place, or did someone take me from him?
I would give anything to know what he looked like.
Bello runs off to her piles of fruit. I take another bite of pig before I’ve even swallowed the first. She returns with a double handful of food: one of the round orange fruits, a long green one, and a purple one that’s curved like a shallow C. I can’t wait to eat them all.
“The purple one is best,” Bello says. “It’s very sweet.”
Everyone nods in agreement.
“Those are so good,” Spingate says. “They make me think of ice cream.”
Ice cream? I remember what that is. I gulp down the mouthful of meat, then take a big bite of purple fruit. It is cool and soft, sugary and sweet, so delicious I need to close my eyes and focus all my attention on how it tastes, how it feels in my mouth.
“See?” Spingate says, delighted. “Good, right?”
I nod even as I take a second bite. I tilt my head back and chew, savoring the moment.
The green fruit is next. It’s very spicy and it makes my tongue burn a little, but the flavor is incredible.
O’Malley points to the chunk of pig still in my hand.
“Squirt some of the green stuff on there,” he says.
I do, squishing juice from the green fruit onto the meat before taking another bite. Each of these foods is amazing on its own, but together, they are perfect.
Spingate peels the orange fruit for me. It has a thick, soft hide, with orange pieces inside that I can pop in my mouth one at a time. Cool and bright, they taste like sunshine.
The others seem content to watch me eat, which I do until my stomach is so packed it’s hard to take a full breath.
I am happy—until I hear another boy speak.
“Well, isn’t this nice.”
It’s Aramovsky. He must have crept closer while I was eating. I wonder if he washed his shirt like everyone else did. Not that I’d be able to tell—the boy never seems to get dirty.
“Good to see you awake, Em,” he says. “It’s nice you can smile and laugh when the dirt is still fresh on Latu’s grave.”
Everyone stares at him in disbelief. Everyone except me. I look at the ground, because he’s right. How can I enjoy myself when Latu is dead?
“Aramovsky, you’re a real jackass,” Gaston says. “Em finally gets a moment to relax, and you have to say something horrible like that?”
The tall boy tilts his head, like he heard something he didn’t quite understand.
“I didn’t mean it to sound cutting, Gaston,” he says. “Since Em has been the leader, two people have died. If I was the leader, I imagine those deaths would haunt me so badly I could barely function, but here she is, eating and laughing, carrying on like nothing happened.” He shrugs. “Perhaps a short memory is a good thing for a leader to have.”
I’m not hungry anymore. I let the fruit and meat slide from my hands.
Spingate looks at the dropped food. She sneers, strides to Aramovsky and stabs a finger in his chest.
“You ate your fill of meat, Aramovsky. And fruit, and drank plenty of water. Know why? Because Em found this place.” Her hand sweeps from left to right, gesturing to the expanse of the Garden. “You point out that two of us are dead. You like numbers? I like numbers, too, so how about the number twenty-three. That’s the number of us that are still alive, you ungrateful idiot. Em did a good job.”
“No…I didn’t.”
My voice is flat and emotionless. I feel numb inside again. Spingate is wrong. If I had been a better leader, Latu would be here, eating fruit that tastes like ice cream. Yong would be here, too. He’d pretend to be bored, and he’d huff a lot, I’m sure, but at least he’d be alive.
Through the fruit trees, not that far away, I see the place where Bishop and El-Saffani buried Latu.
“Latu was brave,” I say. “Much braver than me.”
I see the others trading glances—they think I’m the brave one. They don’t even know what a pretender I am.
Aramovsky smiles. “You haven’t visited her grave yet, have you?”
I shake my head.