Reap (The Harvest Saga Book 1) (4 page)

I finished my chores for the day. It was Saturday and tomorrow was a day of rest. Mr. Preston came home about an hour ago. He didn’t work very late on Saturdays, apparently, but he retreated to his study and I hadn’t seen him since, so I couldn’t complain. Mrs. Preston wasn’t home. I wasn’t sure where she went or what she did all day, but she didn’t work in or near the orchards. That was for sure. She was much too clean and put-together when she came home. Maybe she worked for the council–definitely an indoor kind of girl.

I checked the last item off of my list and placed the cleaning tools in the small closet before heading down to the creek again to dump the water, now tinged with dirt and dust mixed with the sweat from my brow. How the water came out so dirty today after I just cleaned the floors earlier in the week, was beyond me.

My tennis shoes carried me down the flattened path toward the creek. It looked so wonderful. I could hear the trickling of the water flowing over the rocks before I could even see it. I kicked my shoes and socks off and waded in, letting the lukewarm water flow over my feet. Soothing and calm. The sun was still strong at this time of year and the water had not yet turned cold. But, before long, the cool mornings and nights that were slowly creeping in would change all of that.

I rolled up the bottom cuffs of my jeans to my knees and the sleeves of my white and navy button-down shirt, or Ky’s rather, to my elbows. I didn’t need the shirt to ease my back anymore, but it was comfortable and easy to wash. Uneven brown stripes stained the back of it in places anyway and I assumed that he wouldn’t want it back now anyway. I sat on the bank swishing my feet back and forth, leaning back on my palms, face aimed toward the sun, taking a moment to relax and enjoy the welcome warmth washing over my body. I would certainly enjoy spending the day with Lulu tomorrow.

A shadow fell over me, blocking the sun. Shielding my eyes, I looked up to see Zander standing beside me. His arms were folded across his chest and his oh-so-humble smirk sat upon his lips. “Go away, Zander.” I closed my eyes and tried to pretend that he was already gone.

“Now, is that any way to speak to your boss?”

“
You
are not my boss.”

He laughed. “Oh, I am. You think my mother and father are the ones who write your little lists? The first day, maybe. Who do you think talked Norris into having you come work for us?” His eyebrows raised along with the corners of his mouth.

“Whatever. Norris wouldn’t listen to you.”

“He did. In fact,” he said as he sat down next to me. “He was perfectly content to let you heal at home for a week before sending you back into the orchards. But, I told him how delicate your flesh was and how deep your wounds. I told him that you’d be able to heal better and be more useful working in our house ‘helping’ my mother with the chores, where she could keep an eye on you, make sure you healed properly.”

I sat up straight. My hands trembled as I held them back, clenching them hard. I wanted to choke the life out of him. I could almost feel the flesh of his neck. “Why?” It was the only thing I could grind out.

He lifted his hand and fingered a strand of my hair. The auburn, not quite red and not quite brown, looked strange in his hands. I smacked his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

Zander looked at me for a moment and then laughed, shrugged and dropped my hair. “I wanted to see you.”

“You wanted to see me?”

“Yes. I wanted to see you. Is that so hard to believe?”

I scoffed. “It is. Why on earth would you want to see me? Why would you ask Norris to make me serve in your house? Why do you have to look down your nose at everyone in the village? Do you enjoy keeping me under your foot?” I was getting more irate with each question.

His icy blue eyes flashed, turning cold and the smile dropped from his face. He snarled, “Under my foot? You are nowhere near under my foot, Abigail. But, I can make that happen.”

“Zander, you’ve bullied me since I was a child. You still make jokes at my expense. All of your little followers snicker at me every time I walk by. Now you pull this crap with Norris? I am most definitely under your foot.”

He leaned toward me and before I knew what was happening, his fingers wove their way into the hair on the back of my head. His face moved quickly to within a half inch of my own. “I pick on you for a reason.”

I tried to pull my head away, but couldn’t. “What reason?” My voice cracked.

“If I make you undesirable, no one else will want you.”

Wait. What? “No one
else
?”

“No. One. Else.” His warm breath mingled with my own. “My father will speak with your aunt. I plan to make you mine.”

My eyes went wide. “What? You hate me! No! There is no way I will marry you.”

“You will have no choice. Nor will your aunt. So, get used to the idea. I have plans for you.” Smiling and with that warning left hanging heavy in the air between us, he let go of me, stood and stalked away.

What just happened?

I’d been avoiding Kyan. I
hated the thought of feeling awkward around him, but after the intimacy we shared, wasn’t sure it could be avoided. He was getting married, and I didn’t want him to go into his marriage with any doubts at all, especially about me. I wanted him to be happy. He has to marry Paige. He needed to accept that fact. He needed to accept her, and once they were married, he would have to forget about me and about our friendship, which would be virtually nonexistent.

I hadn’t told him about Zander and his threat of marriage. And that’s exactly what I considered it: a threat. I wanted nothing to do with him. Especially in the way a woman should want her husband.
Never going to happen.

Another week had passed. My back was almost completely healed. I had ugly raised pink scars of tender flesh crisscrossing my back. Most of the time now, I could forget about them altogether. The harvest had begun without me. But, there would be plenty of work for me, for everyone, for many more weeks to come. It took our entire village several weeks to pluck all of the ripe apples from the trees.

They would be packed into crates and bushel baskets, driven by truck to the train tracks that rested a few miles away. Old trucks rumbled back and forth, to and from the depot all day and long into the night. Train horns sound loudly as they stop only long enough to receive their loads and then again as they pulled away toward the Greater cities.

There were five cities in all. Each was situated along the coast lines. Five cities spread out like fingers from the palm where we resided—one in the far northeast, southeast, northwest, southwest, and south center of the country; the bottom of the world as far as I knew. They said that the glass and metal of their boxy structures stretched as tall as the clouds, as far as the eye could see. I’d heard that some were so high, they would block out the sun completely, blanketing the earth below in perpetual shadow.

There were factories and stores for shopping. Sometimes the trains brought shipments to the village. Sometimes we received shoes, clothes, blankets, and vehicles. We also received shipments of food that we couldn’t grow here, from other villages nestled in the heart of the land, from other Lessers, like us.

It was said that every child in the Greater cities received an education. Lessers did not. We were taught to read and write, to add and subtract. Taught the only skills necessary to properly account for the food we produced and provided the Greaters. And, we were taught to be meticulous record keepers, because as our bodies aged, we would relinquish the work of the fields to account for the crop.

Beyond the basic instruction, there was little room for further education. Even the days of children were filled with work.  Our importance lay in the hard work we could provide our community. Pride in our efforts was established early, and rewarded. Laziness was punished. No excuses were allowed or accepted, and we learned quickly and early not to bother making them.

Sunday was our only day of rest, if you could call it that. In reality, it was our one day to tend to our own houses and crops. We still worked from dawn until dusk. The dawn this morning was angry and bruised purple and red. Lulu was on the front porch scrubbing the planks. I went to get fresh water from the stream that was about a quarter of a mile from our house. Some people were fortunate enough to have wells on their property, but the Kelley property was dry as a bone.

The bucket handle bit into my fingers and seemed to get heavier with each step, even though water sloshed out with each one, actually lightening the load. I’d switched hands a dozen times on my trip back. It’s a trip made so often, I could make it in the dark. As I rounded the house and Lulu looked up at me and smiled, blowing some of the hair from her face. I hoisted the heavy wooden bucket up onto the porch and smiled back at her.

“Lulu, has anyone asked for my hand?”
Best to cut right to the chase.
She dropped her brush in the water and looked up at me from her hazel eyes. I’d imagine the inner roots of a strong deciduous tree to look this color, brown crusty outside, but vibrant green within, guardians of hidden secrets and a lifetime of wisdom. She was really quite young, or her personality made her seem so. Though older than her brother, my father, she was only forty-two. She sighed and the smile eased slowly from her face. The parentheses around her lips sank a bit deeper, along with the creases in her forehead.

“Well. I had an interesting conversation with a certain Councilman, but it seems as if you were expecting that. I thought you hated Zander.”

“I do.”

Confusion further knotted her brows together until one lifted higher than the other. “Then why on earth would he ask to marry you?”

“I have no idea, but I think he’s up to something and I don’t like it.”

“Why do you think he’s up to something?”

“He’s a snake in the grass.”

She laughed lightly. “My dear, he may be a snake in the grass, but snakes are not born blind. Snakes can see quite clearly.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Lulu?” She laughed wholeheartedly, the skin in the corners of her eyes radiated outward happily.

“You’ve turned out to be quite a beauty. You’ve blossomed.” My cheeks were on fire. Lulu never talked about the way that I looked. In fact, she often spoke against vanity, beauty.

“Abby. It’s true. You have turned into a woman—a beautiful one. And sometimes, beauty is coveted by others. Perhaps, Zander feels that with you on his arm, he’ll be more, somehow— made greater than his current station with you by his side.”

“We are Lessers, Lu. He needs to accept it. And, I am no one’s arm candy.”

Lulu’s eyes lit up and she burst into laughter. “No, baby girl. You’re beautiful, but you’re fierce. And, I cannot imagine that you would be happy as anyone’s ‘arm candy.’ Above all things, I wish for you to be happy. I’ll not consent to the pairing.”

I exhaled deeply and felt the tension ease from my shoulders. “Thank you, Lulu.”

“Don’t look so relieved, child. I didn’t say you’d marry for love, although that’s what I’d give you if you could. But, I’ll not force the likes of Zander Preston upon you.”

I smiled lightly. Love. No one married for love. But if I were to marry Zander, my heart would be filled with such hatred that love would certainly never have a chance to blossom. If I were to be paired with someone more mild mannered, and well, normal, maybe love could grow in time. At the very least, there would be respect. And, I supposed I could live with that. Or learn to, anyway.

Lulu started scrubbing the muddy planks again. I took my own brush and start scrubbing opposite her so that we would meet in the middle. “No. I suppose if I wanted you to marry for love, I would have pushed to have you marry Kyan.”

“What?”

She grinned up at me. “Kyan. That boy has loved you from the moment he laid eyes on you. He certainly doesn’t love Paige. That girl’s voice is enough to drive even a bobcat mad. Like metal on metal, I swear.”

I giggled. She was right. Her voice was incredibly shrilly and very annoying. Poor Kyan. He would have to listen to her voice for the rest of his life. I did not envy him. But, would I want to marry Kyan? It wasn’t an option. Not at all, now that the pairing has been made and announced. He was my best friend and we would get along. We would have fun. Could we be happy as man and wife? I didn’t know. It wasn’t so bad to have him stroke my back. It was strange and thrilling at the same time, but I wasn’t not sure if it was because it was Kyan or because no one had ever touched me so intimately before.

“Kyan doesn’t love me. I know he doesn’t love Paige, but maybe he will one day. I want him to be happy. He’s my best friend, but he’ll never be more, even if he would want to be.”

It was as plain and simple as that. Lulu just nodded and continued with her work. She knew I was right. It didn’t matter now and wasn’t worth discussing any further. Dwelling on it wouldn’t help. Neither will worry. And I was almost as worried about Kyan’s marriage to Paige as I was about the lingering feeling that I hadn’t heard the end of the Zander Preston proposal.