The Hybrid Project

Chapter 3: A Good Price

May's POV

The rain came in the late afternoon, exactly when I’d said it would.

Well---!

When I’d thought it would...

I’d brought the animals in before the first fat drops hit the dust. The Ladies of the Parish went into their coop in a single outraged line; Mrs. Higgins went into her stall with the expression of a goat who had personally warned everyone. And Mr. Tolliver stood in the doorway with his ears forward, watching the sky roll down the valley like a lid being slid over a pot.

I fetched Gretchen last, from the green hollow by the creek, and she walked beside me through the first of the rain with her head low and her breath steaming, unbothered, as though weather were a thing that happened to other creatures.

John came in from the north field an hour later, soaked to the bone and in a temper, with every stalk of hay he’d been cutting going to ruin behind him. He stood in the yard and glared at the clouds, as if they’d done it on purpose.

For a moment I thought he might actually blame them and leave me out of it...

"Mary!"

Eve’s voice split the air from the porch, and I snapped my head towards her.

“Firewood! The box is empty, and your father’s about to catch his death!”

I bit back an annoyed sigh...

Of course it was empty!

I had filled it before dawn. But Eli had been in the kitchen since his nap, building something in front of the stove. And nothing that the emperor of Sweet Arce built should ever be touched by the soiled hands of mere mortals...

I pulled my shawl over my head and went out into the rain.

The woodpile lived under the eaves along the back wall of the kitchen, in a lean-to John had thrown together the first winter we lived here.

It kept most of the water off...

The wall was warm on my side, because the stove sat just behind it. A thin ribbon of heat came through the old boards and wrapped around me like something almost kind.

I made the trips.

Armful after armful, from the pile to the kitchen door, over and over. My boots squelching and the rain hammering the roof above me.

It was on one of the later trips, when the light had gone the color of dishwater, that I heard them come home.

I knew the sound of that wagon the way I knew the sound of my own heartbeat. It came up the lane long before I saw it, creaking and splashing, with Dean’s whistle floating ahead of it.

Three men climbed down in the rain and didn’t hurry. They never hurried, going from the wagon to the house. Their grey coats were buttoned to the throat, and their boots left prints the size of dinner plates in the mud. And each of them wore, pinned high on the collar, a small silver badge.

A cat!

A little sitting cat, with its tail curled around its feet and a ring through one ear. I couldn’t read the word stamped under it. I’d never been able to read any of the words. But I knew the shape of that cat the way I knew the shape of every pattern I’d ever stared at long enough.

It was the one thing I knew about the place where my brothers went.

Up the valley, a long walk or a short ride from the farm, there stood a big pale building with a high fence around it. The windows were small and set high, and the gate never once stood open. It had a name that the villagers said in low voices, and a sign with a cat on it.

On the market days when Eve took me along to carry baskets, I heard what the women said, behind their hands, in the shade of the cheese stall.

A clinic, they said.

For ladies.

For the ones who can’t have babies.

And then they’d stop talking when anybody got close.

I wanted to ask them if the ladies couldn't find their children and how they'd lost them. I also wanted to ask where babies came from or maybe if they were made in the "clinic" my brother's guarded.

At least that way the guards made sense.

But I pitied any small thing that was at the mercy of my brothers...

Calvin had gotten the work first. He’d come home from an interview in the spring with a new coat and a very pleased expression. And within a month he’d found places for Harlan and Dean as well. They were guards, he said.

Security.

A strong back and a clear head, that was all it asked...

John said that the pay was better than the farm and a damn sight less muddy.

And there was never any more talk after that.

But they came home smelling different.

I noticed it that first week. Beneath the old smells of sweat and horse and tobacco, there was something sharp and clean. The sort of clean that isn’t soap, or lye, or anything that grows. It clung to their coats and got into the corners of the kitchen.

It made my nose sting.

If a bad idea had a smell, I thought, that was it!

I kept my head down and stacked the wood.

The back door banged, boots scraped, chairs dragged across the boards, and the low, easy noise of a family sitting down to supper came rolling out through the kitchen window, which Eve had propped open to let the stove smoke out.

I should have gone straight in with the wood.

I know that!

But I knew the rules...

And one of the rules was: when the men are talking, you do not walk into the room!

You wait!

You make yourself part of the wall.

And you let them finish...

So I stood against the warm boards, under the dripping eave, with an armful of kindling.

And I waited...

“---nearly took Mercer’s hand off,” Dean was saying. He sounded delighted. “I’m telling you, one second he’s lying there like a rug, and the next he’s on his feet, and the chain’s the only thing between him and the whole ward.”

“They doubled the chain,” finished Harlan, sounding equally amused.

“They need to double it again after he killed---!” Dean wanted to finish.

"That’s enough of that!" Eve cut in. “I won’t have talk like that at around my big, baby boy!”

Her voice softened, and I could mentally see her stroking Eli's hair or cheek. And him soaking it all up.

“Whatever pays,” John muttered, and I heard the scrape of his mug. “Let ’em talk. Let ’em say what they like, long as the money keeps coming.”

“It’s not real talk, Ma,” said Dean. “It’s work talk. You should see it. They’ve got a whole row of ‘em down in the lower ward. Rich folks’ problems and freaks. They keep the freaks in cells with concrete walls and thick metal doors. You know what I mean. The doctor says it’s for their own good.”

I frowned.

Freaks?

I'd once seen a picture of a man in a newspaper who was being arrested. As far as I could tell, he was some kind of bovine beastfolk, and it had taken five police officers to drag him away. In the picture, the man was screaming, his eyes bloodshot and foam spilling from his crazed, smiling mouth. And the people reading it pointed to the deranged man and called him a freak.

They kept people like that alongside children?

That sounded--- dangerous!

“And the screaming?” Eli said excitedly, his mouth full. “You said there was screaming.”

“There’s always screaming,” Dean replied in a creepy, low tone that had a shiver running down my spine, that had nothing to do with the rain or cold.

“Doctor Marlow doesn’t like it quiet,” Harlan replied, and chuckled.

“That’ll do,” said Calvin.

He hadn’t raised his voice. He never did. But the kitchen went still, the way a barn goes still when the weather changes. Even through the wall, I felt it. A single quiet, deliberate sentence, like a latch dropping.

“We don’t discuss the lower ward outside the building," he warned his brothers. "We were told that.”

“Only family,” said Dean.

“Only nobody!" He stated firmly, and the subject was dropped.

A pause.

A spoon, scraping a bowl.

And then---

“But there’s something that does need discussing,” said Calvin.

I should have gone then. But something in the way he said it - slow, with that gentleness - made the small hairs on my arms lift.

I stayed where I was...

“I spoke with Doctor Wren today.”

“And?” said John.

“He’s satisfied!”

“Satisfied?”

“More than,” my oldest brother agreed, and there was a smile in my brother’s voice. I could hear it, like the shine on the edge of a knife.

“It’s a good price. A very good price.”

“You’re sure?” John asked again, sounding genuinely excited. The way he got when someone offered him free alcohol or cigarettes.

“I wouldn’t have brought it to you if I weren’t," Calvin continued. "Dr. Wren said she’s exactly what they’re looking for.”

My heart gave a single hard knock against my ribs.

She?

She!?

“Young,” Calvin went on, unhurried. “Healthy. Nothing wrong with her that anyone wouldn't pay to fix.”

“How much?” Eve asked.

And then a sum.

I’d never in my life had a use for numbers, and I didn’t understand it then. But I understood the silence that followed...

John set down his mug.

When he finally spoke, he said the sum back, slowly, like a man tasting something rich he’d been told he could keep. And Eve drew in a sharp little breath through her nose, and I knew that it was more money than the whole farm had ever made in a year.

“For that?" said John.

“For that,” Calvin confirmed with a smugness in his voice I knew all too well.

“Can I have a new saddle?” Eli jumped in.

Dean laughed. “You don’t even have a horse, you great lump.”

“Then I want a horse!”

“You’ll get your horse,” Eve replied, soft and fond. “Everybody will get something. And as an added bonus we’ll finally be rid of that---”

Everyone spoke on top of each other then. Eli kept shouting things he wanted, and John and Claving kept talking about "conditions" and "expectations".

“When do they want her?” Harlan asked, cutting through the noise.

“By the end of the week,” Calvin replied. “Dr. Wren wants to get started before autumn. And I think there is some pressure from the higher-ups to produce results before the election.”

I didn’t hear the rest...

I’d stopped hearing anything. The rain on the roof was suddenly very far away, and my own pulse was loud in my ears. The kindling slid out of my arms and scattered across the wet ground, and I didn’t notice.

Young.

Healthy.

A very good price.

Gretchen!

It was so obvious I could have wept. She was the best milker in three villages. Everyone said so. Even John said so, with that sour, grudging pride he kept for things he owned. And the clinic, my brothers’ clinic, with all its doctors and its babies and its ladies who couldn’t have them---

The doctors wanted milk!

Everyone knew that. For the little ones and for the sick ones. It had to be fresh and rich and good! And who better to supply it than a strong, healthy, sweet-tempered cow like mine?

I don’t remember turning from the wall...

I know I dropped the last of the wood. I know I was running, and my shawl came off and was gone, and the rain hit me in the face like a slap.

The mud sucked at my boots.

The yard stretched out forever...

My heart hammered in my chest, and I knew that once I was discovered, I would be severely punished.

But Gretchen was my family...

She was the only one I could really talk to. The one who listened and heard me. She was the only thing in this whole damned world that felt like MINE!

No matter what, I HAD to save her...

I crashed against the barn door so hard, it knocked the air out of my lungs. But I couldn't care! With my hands shaking from fear and the rush of my pulse in my ears, I swung the door open...

Gretchen was in her stall, where I’d left her, with the straw pulled up about her knees. She raised her head when I came through the door. Mildly, the way she always did, and a strand of hay hung from the corner of her mouth.

Mmmwh?

Gretchen!

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely work the latch.

Gretchen, we have to go.

Come on!

Now!

Please...

I got the rope around her neck.

Tugged---

She came a single step. And then she stopped. She looked at me, puzzled. With those dark, patient, sweet eyes...

I pulled harder.

I had never had to pull. That was the thing. In all the years we’d been together, in every morning and every field and every long, slow walk to the creek, I’d never once had to pull the rope.

A tilt of my head.

A movement of two fingers.

That was all it had ever taken!

She’d always, always come...

And now she stood in the middle of the barn like a boulder, with her hooves planted and her breath rolling out of her in warm clouds.

And she wouldn’t move!

Please, I pleaded with her. I pointed at the door. I pointed past it, at the dark line of the trees beyond the pasture. Where the creek ran, and the wood grew thick, and there were places a cow could be hidden for a day.

Or a week...

Please!

You need to get away from here.

I’ll find a way to get you back, but please!

Just come with me.

Please!

She didn’t understand...

How could she? She only knew that I was afraid, and it was her job, as it had always been her job, to stand beside me.

To be steady...

She leaned her great warm head against my shoulder and sighed. As if to say:

It’s all right, May.

Everything is going to be all right...

My face crumpled. I pressed my forehead against her cheek, and I begged her with everything I had.

I have to get you out of here...

Even if I can't save myself---

I have to save you!

But she just gently nudged me, the way she always did to provide comfort...

That was where the lantern found us.

They’d come out the back door of the house in a loose, laughing line.

I heard them before I saw them!

Dean’s high whoop carried across the rain. Harlan’s heavy boots, sloshing against the mud. A lantern swung from somebody’s hand, and the light came bobbing over the yard, throwing long shadows that jumped and shrank.

I turned, with the rope still in my fists. My heart sank, and my stomach was tied in knots. My whole body shook with fear, and my bones trembled.

Oh no!

They’d stopped just inside the door in a rough half-circle, their grey coats gleaming wet. Calvin stood in the middle, holding the lantern. Dean was bent double with his hands on his knees. Harlan was grinning with his whole broad face. And at the back, with a heel of bread in one hand and rain dripping off his nose, was John, staring at me with his mouth open.

“Oh, look at her,” Dean wheezed. “Look at her face!”

“She heard,” John sighed, as if this was a huge inconvenience. “She was at the window the whole time. Weren’t you, Mary?”

I didn’t move.

I couldn't!

I was completely frozen in fear. Like a wild animal trapped in a snare and waiting for the hunter to make his move...

“Where were you going?” Dean was crying with laughter now, wiping at his eyes. “Where were you going to take her? Into the woods? Were you going to hide in the woods?”

“In the rain," Harlan added, and howled.

I looked back at Gretchen, who, with her sweet eyes and gentle nature, observed the people in front of us. She knew them, of course, but they were essential strangers to her. She tilted her head and looked at me as to say:

Why are they being so loud?

I felt tears press against my eyelids. She didn't get it. She didn't understand what was happening here.

But I did...

An image of Captain Dawn flashed before my eyes. Even when the odds were against her, she always stood up for what was right. She always protected the weak.

And I would protect my family!

My whole body was still shivering with fear. My heart beat so fast I feared it was going to crack a rib. But stubbornly, I held out my arms, lifted my head---

And met my brothers' gazes!

NO!

For a stunned second they all just stood there staring at me, as if their brains couldn't wrap around what was happening. Then suddenly, the silence was broken, as John threw his head back and laughed so hard I felt it in my spine.

“She thinks---!”

John laughed, but he couldn’t finish. He had to hold on to Harlan’s arm so he didn't tip over. The other brothers looked confused and watched him as if he might have had a stroke.

Well---

Except for Calvin, whose eyes had never once left mine...

“She thinks we’re selling the cow,” he explained.

That was when the others finally burst out laughing too. As if someone had said something funny that I wasn't a part of.

And just like when Dean told his jokes at the table, I didn't understand...

Only Calvin wasn’t laughing.

He never did. He only stood there, in the light of his own lantern, and he smiled. A slow, warm, delighted smile, as if I had finally done something he’d been hoping for, for years.

“Oh, Mary,” he said, almost gently. “You poor, stupid thing.”

I stared at him, a small glimmer of hope that they weren't going to get rid of the only family I had in this household...

“Sell a good cow?” Harlan shook his head, hiccuping. “How dumb are you, you stupid slut! She’s the best milker for miles. Pa’d sell Eli before he sold her."

“Don't tell your mother that, boy,” John grinned, which wasn't disagreeing.

“We’re not selling the cow, Little Mary,” Calvin said in that low, gentle tone he used for the people in church. He took a step toward me.

Mud sucked at his boots.

The lantern swung, and the shadows swung with it, and I felt my own knees begin to go soft.

“We’re selling you!"