“But I’m not sick.” She makes herself cough once or twice, experimentally, but all feels as it should.
“It will keep you from getting sick. Mother and Ben will take them too, and me.”
Vanessa stares at Father. “Thank the ancestors! You can give them to everyone now.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Why not? Why is it secret? Why can’t we give it to everyone?”
Father sighs heavily. “I can’t discuss that with you.”
“Why?”
“Because the decisions of the wanderers are not for little girls to judge,” he says stiffly.
“But you could save everyone.”
He shakes his head. “Not the dead. Not even the sick. I can’t save everybody. I don’t have enough of them.”
“But how do you decide who gets them?” He’s silent. “How many are there? How do you decide?”
“You and Mother and I and Ben, and that’s all I can tell you.”
“The other wanderers, their families are getting them?”
He doesn’t answer.
“It’s true, isn’t it? They’ll get them. But who else? Anybody?” His face is rigid. “Nobody?”
“I can’t discuss that with you.”
“Where did they come from?”
“The wastelands.”
“Who made them? Somebody must have made them, was it the defectives? Or are they from before the scourge? What’s in them?”
“I don’t know, Vanessa. I need you to take it.”
“Are they making things in the wastelands?”
“Enough. Please, just take it.” Father’s tone is firm and he sits tall, but he cannot seem to look at her.
“No.” Vanessa crosses her arms over her newly soft, abhorrent chest.
“Vanessa.”
“I want to know why there aren’t enough for everyone, and who made them, and how you found them, and how you know what they’re for.”
“This is not a discussion. I am telling you what to do, and you will do it.”
“You can’t make me.”
“Vanessa, I will not stand aside and watch you die.”
His face hardening, Father grabs her face and digs his fingers into her jaw. Clenching her teeth, Vanessa plunges her face into the pillow. She feels a tearing pain in her neck as Father tries to turn her around, but she brings her arms up over her head to keep it hidden. He grabs the span of her shoulders and forcibly twists her about, and she shoves her fingers into his face. They wrestle hotly, and finally he pins her wrists under one hand and forces his fingers into her mouth. Some deeply planted instinct keeps her from closing her teeth on him. The pebble slips in over his fingers, bitter and powdery, and when she tries to spit it out, he clamps a hand over her lips. Back arched, hands trapped, his palm pushing into her mouth, she feels a surge of nausea and a flicker to another time, long ago. Inhaling sharply, she starts coughing.
Immediately Father is off her, sitting her up and pounding her back. Vanessa chokes and gags and brings forth the remains of the pebble, ragged and slimy, into her cupped hand. Father slips his hand under hers and slowly but firmly guides it to her mouth, his eyes on hers. She swallows the bitterness convulsively and then curls up in a ball on her bed.
“Go away,” she says. “I took it, so please just go away.”
“If you won’t take it tomorrow, we’ll do this again.”
“Go away.”
She feels the weight of him on the bed for a while. His footsteps recede, then come back. Quietly, he lays a copy of Just So Stories, one of her favorites, on the bed and leaves again. Vanessa waits until she can’t hear his steps anymore and then screams impotently into her pillow and kicks the book onto the floor.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Caitlin
Caitlin wakes up in Mother’s bed alone, with a faint memory of Mother feeding her a thin soup. The sheets are damp and smell of sweat and blood. Raising her hands, she feels the curves of her face, and then her neck, trying to ascertain if she’s still alive. She is weak, her hands floating like feathers, but she’s fairly sure she’s not dreaming. Carefully, she swings both legs over the side of the bed and tries to stand. She has to wheel her arms to get her balance, but after a moment can stay upright.
The effort of standing drains her, so she crawls back under the sweaty sheets and falls into sleep. She wakes to Father’s voice saying, “How are you feeling, Caitlin?”
Opening her eyes, she sees his face inches from hers. His beard is straggly, the whites of his eyes bloodshot and yellow. Blossoms of small, dark veins begin at each side of his nose and twine into his large-pored cheeks. Alarmed, she flips and rolls away from his heavy foul breath, sliding on the sheets and falling on the floor on the other side of the bed. Curling into a ball, she waits for kicks and slaps, but all she hears are footsteps. “Are you all right?” Father says, standing over her.
“No,” she says carefully, peering at him from between her fingers. He stands above her, legs planted firmly.
“Well, get back into bed, then,” he says. Moving slowly and watching him carefully for sudden movements, she crawls back into bed. Closing her eyes, she waits for a touch, or a weight, but nothing happens. Opening them again, she sees he’s still staring at her with tired blue eyes.
“Where’s Mother?” asks Caitlin. She remembers snuggling into Mother’s delicious coolness and falling asleep, but can’t remember her getting up.
“She’s out,” says Father.
“Out where?” Mother never goes out.
“She’s taking care of someone,” Father says. “She’ll be back soon.”
Caitlin feels betrayed that Mother would leave her alone with Father. She’s always in the house somewhere. But maybe he’s been sick, or maybe everyone else is so sick he made Mother go.
“Are you hungry?” asks Father. Caitlin shakes her head. “Thirsty?” She realizes she is thirsty, and nods. Father leaves and comes back with a pitcher of water and a clay cup. Caitlin gulps the water, feeling its cold nourishment trickle down her throat and into her gut, drinking cup after cup until her belly feels tight as a drum. Her fingers are shaking with effort.
“Try to sleep,” says Father. “You were very sick.”