“That’s the yard,” she says.
Cold sunlight illuminates a stretch of empty hardscape, ostensibly a patio, beside which sits a rectangle of dirt, untended and riddled with weeds. There’s a low, wooden fence containing this sad sight, a dilapidated gate leading to a vast, common green space rolling into the distance beyond, where the sun is painted off-center in the sky. A withered plant sits in a cracked, plastic container near my feet. It’s been knocked sideways onto the hardened soil, rotting quietly. What’s left of the leaves makes me think it was once a tomato vine.
My eyes focus; unfocus. Dilate and constrict.
I blink and hold. Release.
Blink and hold.
“And this one, Rosa?” Clara’s grubby fingers pinch a needlelike leaf, holding it up.
I reach forward to wipe her nose, but she jerks out of reach.
I’ve started taking Clara on hikes through the forest, strapping her to my back with a few twists of a bedsheet, releasing her into the wild as soon as we find a stream. The blue glow of her eyes assures we’re always being watched, which means we can never eat or drink anything we find or else suffer severe punishment. But Clara loves the burble of the water. It’s the only cure I’ve found for distracting her from hunger for minutes at a time.
“This one, Rosa,” she says again, batting me on the chin with the leaf.
“That’s from a hemlock tree,” I tell her.
She tries to repeat the word, shaping her mouth around the sound. “Hammock.”
“Hemlock,” I say.
“Hemmock.”
“That’s right.”
Clara searches around herself, grabbing another: “This one?”
“Maple,” I say.
“Mable.”
“Perfect.”
She fishes around in the dirt and finds a reddish-blue berry, her eyes widening with astonishment as she rolls it between her fingers. She presents it to me in an open hand, as if it were a jewel. “This?”
“That’s—” I stiffen. “That’s a huckleberry.”
She frowns at me. “It’s poison, Rosa?”
I stare at her small hand. “No.”
She gasps happily, then shoves the berry in her mouth. Her eyes flash a brighter blue before a red sniper dot appears on her forehead. I grab her face and scoop out the berry before she can eat it, then chuck the berry into the heart of the forest. I turn back to face her, my heart pounding.
Clara stares at me, stunned.
Then bursts into tears.
“I’m sorry,” I say breathlessly. “I’m so sorry—”
My right hand begins to tremble and I press it flat into the dirt. “I’m sorry,” I say again. I look around frantically, terrified they’ll still try to punish her. Sometimes they hurt her remotely—they can activate pain from within the mind.
I feel myself begin to panic, my eyes threatening heat, and I kill the feeling, kill myself, disappear. I don’t want Clara to witness my fear. More than that, I know they’re watching me through her eyes.
I don’t want them to see my weaknesses.
“I know you want to eat it,” I say to her, steadying my voice. “I know you’re hungry. I’ll bring you bread tomorrow, okay? How does that sound?”
