“What was that?” Lewis sits back on his heels and squints across the rows of purple bagrava to the colorful patchwork of fields beyond.
There are squares of corn, beans, soy, and wheat as far as the eye can see, but Lewis and I, like the two other master gardeners Earth Mother blessed with the ability to cultivate bagrava, are always here—meticulously tending our most precious crop. If we fail to harvest the fleshy purple fruit and return it to the earth to enrich the fallow soil,nothing else will grow. Our beautiful farmlands will once again become as desolate as the surrounding Tomb Flats and our people will starve.
No pressure.
“I’m sure it was nothing,” I say, waving my trowel in the direction of the noise.
But Lewis continues biting his lip and peering into the distance. “That didn’t sound like nothing, Indira. And who would be so careless this close to harvest?”
He has a point. Even Tashiri toddlers know how finicky the bagrava seedlings are. They must be constantly coaxed with Earth Mother’s sacred incantations until the stalks are mature enough to form leaves. Then the fruit must be left to grow in relative silence until harvest. Any disturbance will cause it to wither to half its size—and half its strength.
“I’m sure it was just a baby or an animal,” I say. “Have you considered all your worrying is just as loud?” I toss a clot of soil at Lewis’s chest, but he doesn’t even crack a smile.
“It sounded…distressed.”
I give him a blistering look. The one Rowenna insists is to blame for my lack of friends. But I don’t have time for friends—other than her—and “the look” is good for productivity.
“I didn’t spend the last two weeks slathered in turkey dung, singing until my voice ran out, for the fruit to wither now—over nothing,” I scold. “This field needs to be sown with peas by the week’s end, but that can’t happen unless it’s conditioned first—which means we need to do more harvesting and less blustering.”
Lewis shakes his head and mutters, “I thought this crop of bagrava was headed to Vanzador?”
“Half of it is,” I say bitterly. “Which is precisely why we don’t have time to sit here and fret. Harvest is going to be tight.”
“Harvest is always tight, thanks to those rock pushers,” Lewis grumbles as he gets back to work.
I do the same, spreading my arms over the bagrava like a motherhen, enjoying the comforting rhythm of scraping trowels and our murmured incantations. The beat is so steady, the smell of freshly churned soil so soothing, I almost forget the scream. Almost convince myself we imagined it.
But then it comes again—more of a wail this time.
The hairs on my arms lift one by one. Lewis and I lock eyes, and this time, I don’t bother trying to invent an excuse. The shrill, mournful voice is too drawn out to be a child. Too early in the evening to be the shrieking bats that wreak havoc on our mango trees. And too familiar to be anyone other than my mother—the unflinching queen of Tashir—screaming.
I shoot to my feet, heart pounding like a fist in my chest, trying to make sense of what I’m hearing.
What Ican’tbe hearing.
Mother’s like Ro. She isn’t the sort to scream about a mouse in the pantry or an impudent servant. In fact, she alone remained calm when floods swept through the hillock palace the summer I turned seven. And during the blight-filled year I turned ten. Yet her earsplitting cry is unmistakable, carrying across the fields even louder than the noisy crows that always perch on the fence. Even they have fallen disconcertingly quiet, heads cocked toward the palace.
Go, my pounding heart urges.Make sure everyone is safe.
But an old, infected splinter of a thought keeps my boots rooted to the soil.
Would Mother come running ifIwere the one screaming? Would she even hear me? She and Father have hardly glanced in my direction since Rowenna left. Growing up, I always—naïvely—assumed they loved us equally. Isn’t that what all parents say?I could never choose between you!But there’s no denying the discontinued family dinners, the forgotten banquets and birthdays…
Stop this, Indira, Rowenna’s voice snaps like a twig in my ear, as clear as if she were standing beside me.This is no time to get caught up in silly comparisons.
It isn’t the first time my sister has spoken to me. I’ve been hearing her for a year now. Since the day she left for Vanzador. It’s the only way I’ve been able to cope with having half of my heart ripped out and dragged across the Tomb Flats.
Mother screams again, and now the Rowenna in my head is screaming to.
If you’re so eager to be like me,move!I would be home already.
Swallowing the bitter lump clogging my throat, I take off running, careful not to trample the bagrava Lewis and I have nursed more lovingly than a newborn babe.
“Indira, wait!” he calls after me. “We’re not finished! And it might not be safe. At least let me escort you!” He gives chase—as if he truly cares—but his big clumsy feet can’t navigate the planting rows as quickly as mine. And everyone knows it’s Rowenna he loves. He only glommed on to me after she left because I look like her—same curly brown hair and freckle-dusted cheeks. He’s accidentally called me by her name more times than I can count. I’d have weeded him out ages ago if I didn’t require a planting partner and if he wasn’t the second-best master gardener in Tashir.
Lewis continues shouting, but I quicken my pace, my haversack thumping wildly against my back. It’s probably hanging open and spilling seeds, since I didn’t stop to buckle it. The thought of daisies pushing up through the carefully-manicured stone pathway and lemon balm sneaking into the lettuce beds would normally make me twitch. But another cry blasts across the fields, and I run faster. Trowels and spades swing wildly from my hip belt. The vials of plant food strapped across my chest rattle and clank.
In the surrounding bagrava fields, the two other master gardeners sit still as scarecrows, their eyes wide and their faces turned toward the green knoll of the hillock palace. Instead of murmuring to the bagrava, they speak to each other, uttering words we were never supposed to hear after Father signed the treaty with King Soren of Vanzador:
