The World Without Flags

While I plan, I peel. I peel potatoes and carrots and apples. I peel turnips and parsnips and beets. I peel until my fingers are red and my right forefinger is bleeding a little from a blister. Then I help boil the peelings down into a base that Crystal uses for soup. The slop that’s left goes to the pigs. Crystal is brilliant when it comes to efficiency. She uses everything. Crystal says she doesn’t cook food so much as maximize food. You don’t have to work for her for long to know what she means. When I was about thirteen or so, she banned me from the kitchen for throwing out “a perfectly good stem of broccoli.”

Because of the Worm, Crystal sets the vegetable base for soup to boil. It seems to boil a long time before she takes it off the wood stove. She looks at me through the corner of her eye, and I can tell she has questions about Eric. Everyone does. I keep my façade of anger. It seems to discourage people from interacting with me, from bothering me with any of their questions.

Finally though, Crystal can’t help herself. When she puts the vegetable base on the counter to cool, she crosses her arms over her ample breasts and looks at me. She has great, fleshy white arms, dotted with moles. Her hands are red from washing dishes all day in hot water. I keep looking at her hands. I can tell the questions are going to come and I hate lying to these people I’ve lived with my entire life.

“Do you know when Eric’s coming back?” she asks finally.

I shrug with one shoulder like I’m so angry with him that I can’t even stand thinking about him.

“Do you know where he went?”

“Who knows where he goes?” I say this with as much acid as I can muster.

Crystal stands there watching me quietly for a long moment. Then she sighs and picks up a towel and begins wiping down the countertop. “Hell of a time to leave us,” she says. “We’re hardly holding ourselves together.” The acid I had a hard time conjuring comes naturally for her. I grunt and nod like I agree, but it hurts. Eric is up there dying and it’s like everyone is stabbing him in the back. I get a little angry about that, which is useful. I can use it to seem like I’m angry with Eric.

“He can do whatever he wants,” I say. “Like I care.” I don’t meet her eyes, but I can tell by the way she pauses for a moment to look at me that she pities me a little. This statement seems to be just jerky enough to be convincing. The great thing about being young is that people assume you’re selfish and ignorant. That can be annoying, but it can also be handy.

“He’ll be back, dear,” Crystal says. I can tell that she has interpreted my anger as anxiety, which is great. If some of my anxiety is showing through, I hope people interpret it the same way. The conversation has become sufficiently emotional. I see my window.

“I need a break,” I say. I look up at her. “I need to go for a run.” It’s the first time I’ve looked at her during the whole conversation, so it’s got the power I need it to have.

Crystal walks over to me and takes my shoulders. “Of course, dear,” she says. “Anything you need. I can finish up here. You take all the time you want.”

Which is exactly the amount of time I need.

With a quick nod of thanks, I turn away from her and stride outside.

As I leave the farmhouse, I feel a great sense of relief. I’m not used to manipulating and lying and it’s not much of a consolation that I’m good at it.

In fact, it feels like hell.

34

The rhythm of running feels like thinking to me.

My breathing is one rhythm and my feet moving is another. It’s like keeping one thought in mind while you work through another. Like braiding. Or music.

I can’t run straight back to the Rover. I can’t be that obvious. Instead I run down past the back fields where newly-planted crops are budding and leafing despite the death all around it. I run past the lookout and then turn around, brushing away the memory of Artemis and I up there together, studying the southern road. Meanwhile I keep myself busy thinking. Planning.