During that evening’s Church meeting, Micah told everyone that Cal was helping him in the mornings, as if everyone didn’t already know. He also announced that he was pushing back the Vote until all the winter preparations were finished and August had returned from his latest trade rounds. August seemed to have left unexpectedly, but Frida wasn’t sure how often he usually came and went.
“This will give you all more time to consider the decision,” Micah said, and from the last row of pews someone yelled, “More time to eat that killer bread!” As far as Frida could tell, everyone laughed, even her brother. Anika grinned at her from across the aisle.
After the meeting, when she and Cal were lying in bed, Cal assured her that no one had complained about the postponement. “Everyone wants August here—his opinion matters.”
“Where did he go this time?” she asked.
Cal said he didn’t know the details.
Was that true? He still hadn’t told her what happened during the meetings.
“You’re so CIA,” Frida teased. Let him be sly, she thought. He had no idea what she had planned; he had overlooked Anika, and Frida’s mornings with her. Men were stupid to forget what good sleuths women could be.
The next morning, Anika brought a bag of coconut from the root cellar, along with the now-familiar baking crate. “This must have fallen behind the shelf,” she said, and handed it to Frida. It was a plastic bag knotted closed, as if from a bulk bin, the flakes lab-coat white. Smelled like Thai soup, or like a high school girl’s shampoo.
“I love coconut cake,” Anika said, and took the bag from Frida. She shook it as if it were a snow globe. “There’s a whole box of these bags downstairs. I totally forgot. August got them last time.”
“Last time what?”
“On his last trip, months ago. To Pines.”
Pines. Anika didn’t even stumble over the word.
Frida didn’t know much about Pines, except that it was one of the earlier Communities to be established, not long after Bronxville, Scottsdale, Amazon, and Walmart. It was the first to be named not for its original city or neighborhood, nor after the corporation that had put up the money to build its hospitals and schools, its borders and security teams. Its name was meant to summon images of nature and greenery. “And also stability,” Toni had told her once. Pines was one of the smallest Communities, but it had a decent amount of money. Or it used to.
“I see,” Frida said to Anika. She wondered if this was what Cal had been learning in the meetings.
With rounded cheeks, Anika blew the air out of her lungs. “We give August a list every couple of months, and he returns a few weeks later with everything we’ve asked for. Or almost everything, at least. It’s been like this ever since Micah got here, though how he persuaded Pines to work with us, I have no idea. I wish I knew. Actually, no, I don’t wish that. I don’t want to know anything.”
“Ignorance is bliss?” Frida asked.
“Something like that.”
So that was how it worked. August went into a Community and returned bearing gifts. Was it like driving a car or sending an email, not having the least interest in how the science worked? Might as well be magic, because even if someone explained it to you, it still wouldn’t make sense. Or was there another reason Anika preferred to be kept in the dark? Maybe it was dangerous to know how the Land worked.
Micah had once hated the Communities, and now he was trading with them. Frida wondered if Cal had pointed this out in the meetings.
Without speaking, Frida poured the bag of coconut into a bowl Anika had handed her, and swirled her fingers through the flakes. She’d never cared much for the taste, but she loved how it looked: as if a cake had grown fur. She imagined August buying the coconut from a supermarket in Pines. Did he use money? If so, where did he get it from? Why did they let him in? Were there even markets there?