Dry Souls Read online

  Of course, wanting to see roses is impractical. I know that. And above all, the Garner Home for Girls is a very practical place. The staff are real nuts-and-bolts types, determined to teach us the lessons we need to get by in a dying world.

  In the upper classes, sometimes the computers teach us and sometimes Matron does. She pulls down maps showing all the places I’ve never seen, the territories around Xeta and the Biospheres, where most of our food is grown and our clothes manufactured.

  History class is my favorite. Last week I learned that before the Devastation, before the chemicals got deep inside us and the planet heated up, people used to worry because they were fat. Isn’t that funny? For all the problems the Devastation brought, it solved that one. From the youngest child to the oldest citizen—and there are few among us who are truly old—everyone is lean and dry and weathered to a dusty brown, just like the landscape.

  “What’s with you two?”

  “What?”

  I frown at the group of girls standing in front of me and Mary. The noise level in the common room tapers off as heads turn our way.

  “What’s with you two sitting over here being all chummy all of a sudden?” Crystal glares at us, her eyes moving from Mary to me.

  I suppose it was only a question of time until we were confronted. Until Mary and I started sharing responsibility for the flower, no one talked to me much. It wasn’t like I cared, I told myself. I preferred my own company to the senseless chatter of the other girls. But, well, things are different now. “We’re just…” my mind scrambling, I glance at Mary.

  “We’ve found a common interest,” she says quickly. “That’s all.”

  Thank goodness Mary’s got her wits about her, “It turns out, we’re both fascinated by…um…” I grab a book from a pile on the table. “Xeta history.”

  Mary shoots me an incredulous look then nods vigorously. “That’s it,” she says, “Xeta history.”

  Crystal and her friends look disbelieving. I don’t blame them. From the time we were children, Mary and I have had as little to do with each other as possible. We were resentful of each other’s qualities. I have admitted to her my resentment toward her appearance. Her skin is a little too clear, her hair too fine and glossy; her manner too vain. She has admitted that she resented my marks in class, my solitary nature; my tendency to punch first and ask questions later. We’re over it now.

  The girls stand there, staring at us. We stare back, our eyes wide and innocent. When Matron pokes her head into the room, they grumble and wander off, but I can tell they’re suspicious. This is the last thing we need.

  With the prospect of confrontation removed, the other girls resume their conversations. Mary bends her head close to mine. “Do you think they’ll leave us alone?” she whispers.

  “It’s probably a good idea to be on our guard.” I warn. “Don’t trust anybody.”

  “Right.”

  She gets up and heads for the kitchen, and I sit there, staring at the wall. I haven’t told Mary about that moment behind the shed. Why would I? Surely, I imagined the whole thing. I haven’t tried to wish for water again either, but suddenly it’s urgent that I do. Was it really a hallucination? Or maybe I’m coming down with something, something toxic and deadly. I shudder, remembering the girl last year who fainted one day in the middle of science class and never woke up.

  Cautiously, I glance around the room. Everyone’s occupied, wrapped in their activities. Crystal and her crowd have gone to their quarters. I slip out of the room unnoticed and head out back.

  Xeta is a landscape with a subtle palette. The outbuilding stands stark against a large sky. The colors of brown and beige and tan and every variation in-between fill my eyes. When everything is always brown, brown, brown, a splash of pink can be a wondrous thing.

  I take a furtive look around, then turn the corner and drop to the ground to check the flower. The leaves have curled up and the green edges are starting to crisp. It’s heartbreaking. I can almost feel its struggle.

  I quell the butterflies in my stomach. Okay. Here goes. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. “I wish for water,” I whisper. I open my eyes and glance at the ground. Nothing. Nothing moves. Nothing appears. All is as it should be, brown and dry. I relax, sitting back on my heels in relief and give a soft laugh. It’s nothing after all. Then suddenly, it’s there, a dark stain growing against the dirt, soaking up the top layer of soil, working its way around the base of my flower’s green stem.

  I collapse against the wall, my eyes fixed on the small puddle. What is wrong with me?

  The next couple of days I spend in a vacuum, numbly going about my daily routine. I don’t notice what I eat or who I’m speaking to or who speaks to me.

  I stop saving my spit. The container beneath my bed stands empty. There no longer seems a reason to hack up my saliva when I can water the flower at will.

  But where does the water come from?

  I have no idea, and it worries me. Water can’t be conjured out of thin air. It has to come from somewhere. I draw it up out of…what? Some deep reservoir, perhaps? That doesn’t make sense. Every hidden spring and aquifer has long since been uncovered by technology.

  Do I draw it from the sky? I stare upward, but the sky’s cloudless as always. Maybe the Garner Home for Girls rests on a bridge between our world and a parallel universe, and I’m drawing water from the other side. I laugh weakly. Yeah, right.

  Mary watches me with worried eyes. I see her holding her swallow of water at the end of each day, then slipping out of the room to spit into her jar.

  I’m still in a worried funk when a traveler shows up at the door of the Garner Home, requesting a meal and water in exchange for repairs to our outbuildings. Travelers are a rare and resilient breed, men and women who walk from one outpost to the next, driven by something inside them that won’t let them sit still. Travelers are especially short-lived, constantly exposed to toxic areas and to the threat of dehydration. I think they prefer it that way, living life on the edge.

  As discreetly as I can, I watch him throughout the day: repairing a screen, reattaching loose molding, cleaning the rotors in the algae pond. His features are tired and weathered, but kind. Once, I bring him a glass of water from Matron, and he thanks me. I heave a huge sigh of relief when none of his repairs take him behind the shed. At the end of the day, he joins us at the table for dinner. He eats with relish, his attention concentrated on his food, before leaning back in his chair to tell us about the places he’s been; the boundaries he’s crossed. Crystal is openly disbelieving.

  “It’s impossible to get through Delta Territory on foot,” she says, her tone filled with scorn. “Everyone knows that territory is completely toxic.”

  The leathery man laughs.

  “It’s hard,” he concedes dryly. “But not impossible.”

  Delta Territory is where I was born. I know that much. My mom died there. Somewhere. And Crystal is right. Everyone knows it’s completely toxic.

  All evening, I listen avidly to his stories about crisscrossing the ‘Big Dry’, the travelers’ term for the draught-stricken lands of the unified territories. His tales are full of unyielding landscapes and resilient peoples.

  “Why do you travel?” I ask, staring into his eyes, trying to make sense of the strange light there that, even in this small room, seems to look beyond concrete walls to some greater spaciousness beyond.

  “I travel to find the place where the Earth remembers.”

  “Remembers what?”

  “Remembers what it used to be,” he says softly, his eyes calm.

  Crystal snorts. “I’ve heard this garbage before. It’s a fairytale for children. There’s no such place.”

  “Where is it?” I ask the man.

  He scans the faces in the room, his eyes moving slowly from one girl to the next. My skin is tingling and I’m holding my breath. I resist the urge to stamp my foot, impatient for his answer.

  “No one knows,” he says finall
y, his words sending a wave of desolation through me. He swings his eyes back to mine. Perhaps he senses my feelings of hopelessness. His gaze bores into mine with grave intensity, as though he were trying to convince me of this place through the sheer force of his will. “It’s not a place on any map, but it exists. I believe it. I know it.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “Think about your own mind inside you,” he says, reaching over to tap gently on my forehead. “What’s there? Grey matter, right? Just like the land around us. But there are also memories, bright and poignant places that live inside you. You feel them, you can relive the experiences in vibrant, sensory detail, but you can’t map them on your brain. You just know they’re in there. It’s like that.”

  “But the earth isn’t alive.”

  “It’s dying, yes, but it’s not gone yet. And neither are we. We’re all constructed of the same stuff, you know. Atoms and molecules and invisible subatomic particles that animate us, that animate the world. We’re all vibrating pieces of the universe. Even the iron in your blood comes from supernovas, those brilliant blasts of elements that formed the basis for all life. That’s real. And it binds us together in ways that are invisible to the human eye. The earth and the people on it, we’re all connected.”

  His words leave me confused. I have no reason to believe in any of this. It’s foolish and fanciful and, these days, a girl needs to keep her wits about her. But just for a moment, I suspend my disbelief and let myself imagine that such a thing is possible. Because it makes sense to me. Everything I know evolved from this earth and on it. And a tiny cell can’t see the whole body, can’t see how it all works together. And maybe the earth does have a sort of consciousness, and memories, good memories somewhere that survive.

  The traveler wipes his mouth and stands. “Now ladies, the sun is going down and I need to hit the road. This is the best time for walking. I greatly appreciate the meal and the company.”

  He shakes hands with each one of us, even Crystal, and says a polite good-bye. His grip feels warm and solid and, even though I don’t know this man, I’m sorry to see him leave. As soon as he’s gone, I slip out of the room. Mary corners me in the hallway. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing. What’re you talking about?”

  “You’ve been acting weird.”

  “I might be coming down with something,” I say, giving a small cough for added effect.

  A cough isn’t something to be taken lightly, and she backs away slightly, just in case. But she continues to pester. “I know why we’ve had so many visitors lately.” Her voice is smug and I can tell she’s bursting to share her secret.

  “Okay. Why?”

  “We’re being tagged.”

  “What?”

  She nods her head sagely. “All the girls in the orphanage. It’s a new policy for population management. We’re having microchips embedded. So the Territory Council can keep track, I guess.”

  I can’t believe it. Chips are for prisoners, the occasional captured felon who at some point hacked into a Council computer or tried to steal more than his ration of water. Chips aren’t for kids.

  “Orphans don’t get chips,” I whisper.

  “They do now. I overheard Matron talking.” She tugs on my sleeve, breaking through my growing unease.

  “What?” My voice is impatient, I know, but I want to be alone with my thoughts. I want to think about what the traveler said, and now there’s this crazy microchip business. What does it mean?

  “There’s no water in your dish,” says Mary. “I checked under your bed. Did you water the flower today?”

  I glance around, grabbing her arm to pull her closer. “Hush, Mary. Someone will hear you.”

  “No one’s listening.”

  “Does the flower look like it needs water?”

  “Well,” her face registers momentary confusion. “No.”

  “Fine. Then I’m doing my part. Stop bothering me.”

  She yanks her arm back, her face flushed. “I was asking to be thoughtful, Kira. In the future, I won’t waste my time.” She stomps off, leaving me with a vague feeling of shame. For the first time in my life, I have someone who’s being nice to me and, even though I’m inexperienced at this friendship business, I know I’m not keeping up my end of things.

  Quickly, I gather my cushion and head out to the shed. Even in the fading light of dusk, I can tell the flower looks great. If possible, it looks fresher than when it was a new bloom. Whatever’s happening, it must be a good thing, I decide. Otherwise, why would the flower be doing so well? I’m being a worrywart.

  I lean forward, resting my arms on the pillow. I’m tired and confused, and I hate this feeling that things are going on around me I can’t control. I need to think things through and this is my best spot for thinking. First, however, I need to take care of something.

  “I wish for water,” I say softly, keeping my eyes on the flower, waiting for the familiar dark stain to make its way across the dirt.

  Hearing the rattle of pebbles followed by a quiet gasp, I snap my head up and see Mary. She’s gazing at the ground in horror, her eyes round as she watches the water now forming a puddle around the slender green stem.

  “Mary, let me explain,” I stammer, hopping up. Of course, there’s no explanation for this, and we both know it.

  She backs away, her eyes darting between me and the damp ground. Abruptly, she turns and runs to the house.

  I’m frozen in place, dismayed that I’ve been caught and embarrassed to have my ability—or freakish disability—known by anyone. Then I remember the flower. Mary’s going to give it away. Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! I have to catch her. I have to get her back on my side before she ruins everything.

  I move now, dashing after Mary. But my pause cost me. Halfway back to the house, I encounter Matron, followed by Mary and the other girls. Matron’s face is purple, her expression one of unqualified rage. Panic-stricken at this turn of events, I pivot, ready to dart away, but Matron grabs hold of my shoulder and pushes me toward the back of the shed.

  I hear Mary’s sniffles behind me and shoot her a dark look. That crybaby. Why did I ever think she was my friend? She cowers behind Matron, gawking at me as if I were something evil.

  When Matron reaches the back of the shed, she lets out a low growl, her grip on me tightening. What is it about a flower that would make a person so angry, I wonder.

  Pinning me with a furious gaze, she points toward the flower. “Yank it,” she says tersely.

  My jaw drops and I shake my head slowly. “I will not,” I whisper, horrified

  “It’s illegal. It doesn’t belong here. Either you remove it, or I will.”

  I continue to shake my head, blinking back tears. I’m vaguely aware that I’m trembling, but it’s like something outside myself, totally unconnected to me. Vainly, I press my hands against my stomach and the anguish beginning to seize there.

  Matron moves forward and grabs the flower by the base of the stem. With one savage tug, she rips it out of the ground, damp soil clinging to the roots. A small squeak behind me has her turning a heated gaze to Mary. “Brace up, girl,” she barks. “It’s only a flower.”

  “It’s only a flower,” I repeat softly, dully, but I can feel my mind rebelling. It was more. It was beauty and it was life and for me, for a short while, it had been a thing of joy and purpose.

  Grounded!

  I hurl my book at the closed door, followed by a shoe and a hairbrush. No one responds to my fury. I’m alone in the room, forbidden to step outside the door.

  Of course, Mary blabbed everything. Matron focused on the criminal presence of the flower, attributing the rest of Mary’s hysteria to adolescent melodrama and stress brought on by my bad influence. After all, Matron said, the truth of my transgression was bad enough without Mary adding a bunch of hogwash about me being able to conjure water. And yet…and yet, Matron had sent me the strangest look. For just a moment, it felt like she was afraid of me.
>
  Nah.

  Throwing myself back onto the bed, I plot how to get even with Mary Castle. I begin with simple tortures, a lizard in her underwear drawer or a well-timed rumor to discredit her among the other girls. I should never have let her near me or my flower. My flower. Gone now. My breath hitches and I can feel the anger slipping away. I reel it back. I need my anger. I need it to keep away the other stuff.

  Slowly, a new worry grabs hold of me. Matron had promised that after one more infraction, she’d send me away. Would she? My stomach churns and I press my hand against my belly, willing what’s there to stay there. I force myself to breathe slowly, and it passes. So what if she does send me away? I give the bed a good kick. It’s not like the Garner Home for Girls has been doing me any favors lately.

  Suddenly, an idea pops into my head. It’s so outrageous that at first I can’t get my mind around it. It’s too huge. But what if—I feel a shiver of anticipation—what if I left on my own? That would show them. Matron would learn that she doesn’t have power over me. I don’t need them. I don’t need anybody.

  I stand and start to pace. The traveler who’d shared his stories, he’d traveled everywhere. It wasn’t impossible. But, where would I go? How would I survive?

  I can make my own water, of course. That’s something. Whoa! I halt mid-step, suddenly light-headed. I can make my own water. The ramifications of this slowly sink into place. I can do something. I can do something huge, something that will impress everybody. Watering my flower, that mattered, but it mattered only to me. What if I did something that mattered to others, to a lot of others, in fact? What if I could make more than just a puddle?

  Desperate to reassure myself I can do this thing, I run to a cupboard and pull out a cup. I pull it close and wish for water. Nothing happens. I drop the cup with a clatter and kneel on the floor.

  “I want water,” I whisper. Nothing happens. “I wish for it,” I say, my voice breaking. “I wish for water.” Not a drop appears on the hard floor.