Scarlett Hopper's Arc

Chapter 13 of 33

Scarlett stood at the edge of the new bed. The leaves moved in the low wind. She looked at John's hands, then at the ridge. The scavengers scouted this district on a rotation. Bern's grandson had been at the split rock two days ago. If any of them crested the rise and saw a waist-high crop where yesterday there was dirt, the pact would break by nightfall. "They'll come," she said. "They'll see this and think I've been hiding stores. They'll come with the rifle." John looked at the bed. He wiped his palms again. "Then they can't see it." "They already might. I need to know what you are before I stand next to you when they show up. I need to know what to say." He was quiet a moment. "I grew up on a farm before the collapse. My father's father had the same hands. We kept it in the family. I don't know why it works. It just does. I've been walking a long time looking for someone. Trading the gift for scraps. Two weeks here bought me nothing yet, and I stopped caring." She waited. "That's all of it," he said. "I won't leave. Not unless you tell me to." She took one breath. She believed him enough for now. "Get the netting from the porch. The camo mesh. And the barrow." He went. She pulled her mask down around her neck and studied the sky. An hour, maybe less, before the ash wind. They had to move. John came back with the mesh bundled under one arm and the wheelbarrow rattling behind him. They shook the netting out over the new bed first, tying the corners to the lattice windbreak and the thorn wall. The loose weave broke up the shape of the leaves. From ten paces off, the row read as brush. "Harvest the mature bed," she said. "Fast. Leave the small ones in the ground. A picked-clean row tells them more than a full one." They worked the rows on their knees. He pulled, she trimmed, the dog watched the ridge. The barrow filled twice. She wheeled it around the house to the cellar door. Moss hung off the frame. Vines climbed the stone. She had cleared the inside herself last spring, hung the shelves, oiled the lock. They stacked the tubers on the shelves in the dark. Two barrow loads. Enough for a month, plus the scavengers' next ration. She pulled the door shut and turned the key. She put the key in her pocket, not on the hook by the stove. Back at the beds, the netting sagged right. The crows had settled along the wall again. The ridge was empty. "They didn't see," she said. John nodded. He was watching her, not the ridge. She kept her hand on the key in her pocket. The garden was hidden. The harvest was locked. And a man who could do what he'd done was sleeping in her house tonight.