Lush

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

The next week, I prepared for an exam that would raise my status from adult child to full Citizen and earn an ability to travel around the quadrant. Alone in my room at night, I often dreamed about seeing the mountains and the gray-green Raidho River that divided Naudiz from the rest of the quadrant. And there were cities on the other side, some of them ancient, others reconstructed, the streets lined with museums and shops. They could only be accessed with an automobile, and only those with special stations were allowed to drive.

The only such person I knew personally was my teacher, Ms. Hardin. She was the teacher for all areas of Naudiz, which included the town as well as the farming zones. Earlier in the year, she’d introduced our class to a girl visiting from the Center for Research on Ecological and Intellectual Advancement—the CREIA—an institution known for its vast library and creative research laboratories. Hundreds of young women from around the quadrant went to their recruitment ceremony every year, but only a few were selected to stay for the teacher certification training program.

“At the CREIA, all girls selected for the long program are expected to complete an extensive course of study,” the girl had said from behind Ms. Hardin’s wooden desk.

I’d been transfixed by her clothing, a blouse in the deepest crimson I’d ever seen, a slim black skirt, and boots that reached her knees. The girl’s face was broad and sensuous, full lips and dark eyelashes, and her neck was thin and delicate, so pale that the veins beneath were visible in the afternoon light.

“And we offer many programs,” she’d said, looking over to me and Esme. “You can choose to study a topic that interests you, one that you may teach later.”

“You could learn to teach something too,” Esme whispered to me.

Ms. Hardin glanced over and held a finger to her lips.

When I daydreamed about my future, I was never in my corset and petticoats but in modern clothes like Ms. Hardin wore. I loved our farm and all the animals, but I often thought of leaving for a while to try my luck in town or in one of the cities. Esme was set on being a teacher, but I found the role too limiting. I wanted to have children someday, but only if I loved the person I married. That person was definitely not Archie Thimm.

After the girl finished speaking, Ms. Hardin let us go up to meet her.

“Will we see you again if we come to the ceremony?” Esme asked.

The girl turned to gather her things and my eye was drawn to a strange spot in her skin, a patch of ink that appeared when she slid a bag over one shoulder. Although I couldn’t see the entire shape, it seemed the same as the LUSH certification seal, the mark of goods that were above-average in quality or exceptionally hard to obtain. But I’d never before seen the stamp on anyone’s body, so doubted my observation. More likely it was another stamp or seal I didn’t know of.

“I’m afraid I won’t be there,” she told Esme. “You see, my role is to travel from school to school throughout the quadrant, explaining to girls like you what we offer at the CREIA. As you know, only the best are taken in. Finding that best requires an extensive search. I have to run off now, girls. Hope to see you soon.”

Traveling around in a car alone and visiting schools was an impossible fantasy to me. It seemed that the CREIA was a place of hidden opportunities.

Esme was also captivated, going on about the things we’d see and do if we went. The CREIA housed the Library of Ages, a collection of books and media from history, and it was also where Papa’s almanacs were stored. How peculiar it would be to see them in a completely different place—I was the only person in our family who could even think of such a thing because the CREIA only admitted girls.

“The library is larger than our fields, Isla,” she reminded me once we were on the bus home. “Filled with many important stories and poems we haven’t read in school.”

“What kind of stories?” I asked. As usual, she was more knowledgeable than me about the world; some of this perception came from having a television hidden in her bedroom closet.

“Such as a series called Harry Potter. It’s about a boy who became a wizard. The whole world was influenced by this tale,” she claimed. “That’s just one story out of so many. I’ve heard also of a novel called To Kill a Mockingbird, which is very beautiful, the type of story that makes you cry but feel better at the same time. And so many more—romances and crime stories and detective mysteries.”

“I do want to see the CREIA,” I admitted. “But I’d prefer not to become a teacher and give up marriage and children. Not for all the LUSH in the world would I do that.” The white-haired Mother Cordish held firm that all teachers should dedicate themselves fully to the profession, so, just as in the very old times, they weren’t permitted to have families.

Esme laughed and pulled a pair of gloves over her smooth hands. She wasn’t required to work often at her farm chores like I was. Her mother, a seamstress, preferred her to stay inside and study.

“Don’t worry, Isla,” she said, gently condescending. “They will hardly pick you, especially if you do poorly on their tests. They’ll have hundreds, even thousands, of candidates to review. With your misfortunate past, you will likely be sent home with the first group of rejects.” She flipped her long braid to one side and turned to me with urgency. “But please try your best to score well on the Citizen test. I need you to come with me. Without you, I’ll be terrified and lonely.”

I knew she was manipulating my decision. Throughout our lifetime of friendship, I’d learned that Esme thought mainly of the moment at hand, often failing to consider how her actions impacted others. She was up and down in her moods and could lose her temper in an instant. But she was immensely proud of her intellect and would lament for hours if she underscored on an exam. She had very little interest in boys and had long ago laughed away the proposition of marrying my brother Perrin and merging our farms together.

“Perrin is a slave to his ambitions,” she’d said many times. “We are incompatible.”

Perhaps she was right. Perrin’s mind was entirely focused on developing new formulas with the cheather seeds he’d discovered in the hidden lot several years before, developing and deriving extracts to cure the range of sicknesses around Naudiz and throughout the quadrant. He ignored the girls who tried to get his attention. I knew he’d never recovered from my mother’s long illness and slow death. By curing others, I suspected he eased his own inner pain.

I couldn’t blame Esme for not wanting to pair with my preoccupied brother because I was firmly set against matching with her cousin Archie.

“So you will come?” she persisted.

“Maybe. I suppose even if I was selected to be a teacher, I could always change my mind and excuse myself to leave. But what would I wear to the ceremony?” I knew we were expected to dress up in our very best clothes, but I only had hand-me-downs from my mother and sister.

“I’ll ask my mother to make you a dress. We’ll take your measurements soon.”

The bus driver, Staris, steered to the roadside and opened the door for us.

“Good night, my beauties,” he said as we descended the narrow steps to the gravel road, holding up our skirts to avoid dirt and mud. We didn’t heed his flirtatious remark—he was a wild character, harmless enough, with unevenly cut hair and a broad, greasy face. Sometimes when I was the only passenger, which happened often on Sundays when I was taking cats to town for delivery, Staris would pull out of a battered box of illegal music tapes and play them on a device hidden in his dashboard. I liked the haunting voices and the complicated rhythms of the ancient recordings. They would linger in my mind afterward, sometimes for days and days.

After Esme and I parted at the bus stop’s bench, I walked down the road home a few yards and stopped to visit with the two old dappled horses who grazed inside the fenced pasture owned by one of our Cherish neighbors. The neighbors were inattentive and lazy, leaving the horses out at all hours, often in the cold with little to feed upon. The two beasts lived together like a married couple—the wife smaller and more blonde than the husband, who was thick and gray. They trotted over to eat the sack of wild carrots I’d brought for them, a ritual that occurred with each bus trip to and from town. Their fondness was so deep they allowed me to brush the long bangs from their spotted foreheads and gaze into their black eyes.

“Should I leave you for a spell?” I asked them. “And take a small adventure to the CREIA?”

The husband snorted and they both ran off toward the setting sun, hooves thumping soundly into the moist dirt. It was early in May and their field was sprouting with fresh clover and grass.

“You will miss my carrots,” I called out, folding the empty sack into the satchel I carried back and forth to school. Inside was an item I’d hidden in the lining. One of my classmates, Marta Klein, had given me a case of eyeshadow she’d bought at the LUSH market but didn’t like on herself. In exchange, I’d promised to bring her a bag of onions. The eyeshadow fascinated me and I couldn’t wait to try it on. Cosmetics weren’t allowed in Cherish, but since no one was closely monitoring us, I took the occasional dare. Walking home in the dim evening, I saw lamps flickering through the windows of my brother’s workshop. There were patients inside, I assumed, sick Citizens from the quadrant who’d heard of Perrin Kiehl and the indigo syrup that healed wounds, viruses, moods, and maybe even cancer. My brother never took tokens for the cheather syrup, only trades, because he cared more for the Citizens than for his own wellbeing and wealth advancement. A law passed by the Polity many years before my mother died had decided against treating illnesses with science and technology. All such resources went instead into modeling human DNA to be fully resistant to illness. I’d heard many people complain the Polity was playing like a god, dismissing death and suffering for an ideal that could never be, but there was no means to send such complaints over the peaked crest separating us from Peorth, the only city in the quadrant that conducted acts of state.

I crossed the long brick path to the workshop door, opening it quietly. Inside was a man with pocked cheeks and a dark beard standing with a woman, plainly dressed with her hair tucked into a loose cotton hat. Between them was a blanketed figure, a child maybe, propped in a wooden chair. My brother was on one knee, his intelligent face flickering in the lamplight, looking beneath the hood that covered the child’s head.

“You really can’t help?” the woman asked. “I heard that your syrup could cure even the worst of conditions.”

“Not this. No, not this.” Perrin stood up. “I’m sorry you traveled so far, my friends. You can take some tincture home as my gift. Use it as you will.”

I slid behind the cluttered table, catching his gaze over the mess of bottles and plant stems. The child cried—a thin, slobbering cry—and I saw a pair of small hands reach for the woman, who covered them with the jacket fold. The man looked at me, suspicious.

“My sister,” Perrin explained, motioning me toward them.

“I’m Isla,” I said.

“We call her Zasha at times,” Perrin added. “Our mother was Russian.”

I wondered why he mentioned my pet name but sensed he was trying to send the couple out with light conversation. The child kept on with its odd crying. Curious, I stepped into their circle, thinking I might help my brother set them out the door. The child again reached forward with both arms and the hood fell away from his face.