Laughter.
“Let some of the older men go to the summers of fruition. The younger men can wait a year.”
“We’ve never had older men or widowed men at the summers of fruition. For good reason. That could be a catastrophe.”
“That also doesn’t fix the problem, and we don’t want unmarried young men roaming around.”
“If we could bring in couples with older daughters—”
“Remember what happened to the Josephs all those years ago, the new ones, and she was only eight!” That’s Father.
“But in these times—”
Mother swats Vanessa’s behind and sends her to her room, threatening severe punishment if she stirs again. Vanessa waits a few minutes, then darts past Mother’s back toward the library once more.
“We have the room to bring in new families. Many new families. This is a very unusual opportunity.”
“We don’t want to throw everything out of balance. The carver Adams were a complete disaster and they were only one couple. We can’t make sure everyone is suitable, and if they outnumber us…”
“The Adams were a disaster, but almost every family we’ve brought in throughout the generations hasn’t been.”
“And the Jacobs?”
“All right, they haven’t been perfect, but they’ve stayed. We need people.”
“The ancestors came with ten families.”
“We are not the ancestors! Nor are there any like them to choose from out there.”
“That many people, all at once, their knowledge will spread. It can’t be kept when half of us are—”
“Not half.”
“No, listen to him. Can we persuade everyone not to discuss the wastelands among themselves, when they’ve all come in from outside at the same time? Can we keep it from spreading?”
“Yes, if we choose the right men.”
“But do they have the right women?”
“All women can be taught what is right.”
“They most certainly cannot. Look at what our daughters did. That Janey Solomon, she didn’t just lead them all out onto the beach, did you know she gave secret sermons?”
Vanessa’s heart contracts with a painful jerk, and she has to breathe deeply and remind herself that nobody knows she’s there.
“What’s this?”
“My daughter was acting so strangely, I had to force it out of her. Janey is saying that there are other islands, she knows about Amanda Balthazar—I thought it was just the Gideon girl and that nobody would believe her, but—”
A long exhale. “That’s why they went to the beach, then. I thought it was just Janey Solomon convincing them they didn’t need parents.”
“It was Janey Solomon. But how did she find out?”
“I don’t know how these girls thought they could do such a thing. They are going to be the next wives, in a year or two. We can’t have them going to the beach to escape their husbands. Nothing like that has ever happened. If it wasn’t for the illness, they would still be out there!”
“Nonsense, as soon as it got cold enough they’d have crawled back, whimpering for mercy. It was a game, but it’s over.”
“You call that a game? They wouldn’t listen! I had to beat my daughter so badly that—”
“I don’t know why you take the Solomon girl so seriously. In a year she’ll be dead or married.”
“Yes, let us fear the girls! They will bring war against us!” There’s general uneasy laughter, but some sighs of frustration.
“And the sickness?” asks one wanderer bitterly. “Their disobedience brought it down from the ancestors, worse than war.”
“Who knows what more Janey will tell them in a year? She’s already sown distrust and disobedience. She’s the only one old enough to piece anything together. I say we—”
“You underestimate the older girls, thirteen and fourteen. I always said we should marry them younger.”
“The ancestors said—”
Mother digs her fingers into Vanessa’s arm, marches her upstairs, pushes her into her room, and drags a table over to block the door. Sitting with a frustrated snort, Mother does her sewing right there, sitting at the table.
After peering out the door a few times to see Mother either yawning or scowling, Vanessa catches her nodding off. Eventually Mother sighs and puts her face in her hands. Quietly, Vanessa squeezes through the door, crawls around her, and heads down the stairs on her hands and knees.
“I’m sorry, James, you’re outvoted.” James is Father. “We need new people. We need parents to take on the children who have no parents!”
“There are only ten who lost both mother and father, and we have enough families who lost children to take them in,” insists Father.
“We need to replenish our stock anyhow. More and more defectives each year, women bleed out—have freaks—and sometimes they die of it. The ancestors warned us of this, and we’ve ignored the warnings. Remember what Philip Adam wrote about diseases, how they flatten a herd unless—”
“People aren’t goats,” interrupts another wanderer.
“They breed like them, and we’ve had as many generations of the same people breeding as we can stand. We’re starting to breed wrong. For all we know, this disease could have been avoided. We need new blood.”
“Fuck new blood and fuck breeding. This is a message from the ancestors. We have slipped, and our standards for everyone have slipped. How can you think that now, now, when the girls have rebelled beyond anything we’ve ever seen, when they are asking dangerous questions—”
“It has to be done, the defectives are the ancestors’ way of—”
“James. We already voted. The decision is made. We will take in new families, as many as we can find.”
“Then,” says Father, “this is the end for us. This is the beginning of the end of everything we’ve ever worked for.” His voice sounds bleak and ragged.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Do you remember what I said about the Adams, first thing? And that man—”
“What he tried to do to your daughter was terrible, but he didn’t succeed. And he’s been more than adequately punished.”
“That’s not my point.”
“We need your help. We don’t need your arguments, we need your help.”
“So what about the men and women who remain?” says another voice. “Do we assign husbands and wives?”
“Perhaps we should have a second summer of fruition for them.”
There’s a bark of laughter, and someone else clicks his teeth.
“I think it’s best—”
Father interrupts. “I can’t believe you don’t see what you’re doing, what you’re risking.”
“James, I’m sorry to say this, but you are a weak link among us and it has to stop.”
A long, incredulous pause. Vanessa’s jaw drops. And then Father says darkly, anger brimming in his voice, “What did you say?”
“You are faint of heart. We have to keep decisions, actions, secret from you, telling you after the fact, when you should be helping us! Your reaction to Amanda Balthazar’s—”
“If you had told me, we could have found another way!” Father pleads. “She was with child! She—”