“Then you’re not paying attention.” Letta prodded a magenta-polished fingernail between her eyes. “Try again. Really try this time.”
Joanie closed her eyes, chilled. Had Cello followed her instructions early? Without telling her? It wasn’t like him to be so enterprising. She hated these checks that Letta insisted on; she hated that Letta watched her. Letta started her foster daughters on these inspections as soon as they started bleeding, once they were old enough to give to and take from the Vine.
If she let her insides go silent, she could feel the faint outline of every plot in the garden—the ones she had tilled herself were brighter and more pronounced in that jigsaw legacy, but they were all there, if she was quiet enough. She opened her eyes. “Everything looks fine to me,” she said, shrugging in Letta’s direction.
Letta rested her head on one arm of the stained, sunset-colored sofa. “Try again, Joanie. You’re being careless.”
Joanie heaved an exaggerated sigh with her next exhale of smoke and tried once more, entering the perimeter of each plot in her mind as though there were a series of gates connecting them all. She waited until she felt the tiniest shock, like the prickle of static on a fingertip against a doorknob. It did feel strange and wrong, but small—like a tiny, dashed break in the perimeter of one of the plots.
“Okay, there’s something,” she conceded, opening her eyes, straining every muscle in her face to stay still and calm.
“Yes,” Letta said, sitting up suddenly, “there is.” Her eyes narrowed, but her smile was harmless, even sweet. Joanie shivered under that look, despite her best efforts at control. “Can you guess what’s wrong?”
“Something’s missing?” Joanie said, trying to stay angry, understanding that this emotion was the only thing keeping Letta’s alligator-jaw suspicions away from her throat.
“Yes, honey, fucking bingo!” Letta stood up. “Something is most definitely missing. And I have to find it before Amberly gets a whiff that something’s wrong.”
“How’re you going to do that?” Joanie said with a very deliberate and obvious eye roll.
“I think you know exactly how. I’m gonna go light me a fire.” Letta took one last drag before stabbing her cigarette into the pink glass ashtray on the table. Fire was how Letta, how any of the girls, could get a closer look at the Vine. If it wasn’t growing quick enough, they lit a fire; if the blossom’s color appeared faded, they lit a fire. There was always some kind of answer waiting for them in the flames. Joanie clamped her fingers down into her palms before they could tremble and give her away. “Maybe an animal got into it,” she said.
“An animal?” Letta smiled coolly, incredulous. “Honey, in the forty years I been tending these plots, no animal has ever been where it shouldn’t have been.” She tilted her head as she looked at Joanie. “No animal with four legs, anyway.” Joanie stayed quiet, relaxing her mouth and resisting the urge to press her lips together. She waited for Letta to leave before she finished her own cigarette in a numbed panic and retreated to the yard where she’d left her son.
“What happened?” Sabina asked, holding the baby out to Joanie. “Did you get in trouble?”
“Why would you say that?” Joanie asked, mimicking Letta’s incredulous fury from inside the trailer.
“Joanie, I’m on your side. I’m always on your side. If something happened, you can tell me.” Sabina’s face twisted with concern.
“Nothing happened. It’s just this place. It makes everybody crazy.” Joanie stared down at the baby’s tiny, flushed face. “I’d do anything to get him out of here. I really would.” She tucked him more securely against her arm, jostling him nearly awake.
Sabina jolted back, as though struck. “Do you really think it’s that bad? Where else would we go?”
Joanie tried to force a kind smile for Sabina, but felt her face erupt, the tears already loose. “It’s not that bad exactly. It’s just...nobody has any choices here. Not even Sil and Letta, not really.” Joanie pressed her lips together until they hurt, and tried to swallow down that stinging feeling in her throat. “You better go,” she said. “Don’t give Letta any more reasons to be mad.”
“Can I just wait with you for one more minute?” Joanie nodded in response. The two girls bent their dark heads over the sleeping baby, and waited for a breeze to pass their way. Joanie waved Sabina along as soon as she detected the scent of smoke in the air.
* * *
Letta finally stalked back into the clearing in front of the trailers, a rough branch still smoldering on one end clasped in her hand. Her robe was covered in a milky layer of ash, and her face was open with active curiosity. Joanie wobbled with dismay at the sight of her—the Vine had shared a secret with Letta in that ritual fire, but Joanie couldn’t quite tell what. Letta swiped a sharp, puzzled glance over toward Joanie and the baby and narrowed her eyes.
“You should take him inside. It’s getting too hot,” she said as she strode out beyond the trailers toward the Vine’s first grove. She’d told Cello to take the cuttings at night, when Letta was tired and often drunk and wouldn’t notice the Vine’s throb of absence. Cello had taken something, but Joanie couldn’t understand why the loss felt so slight. Maybe he hadn’t taken as much as she had asked for. Joanie tucked the sleeping baby against her chest and trailed Letta into the oldest part of the forest, the place where the Vine had first climbed into their world. Letta stood among the cornstalk-height, mature plants and pointed the charred branch at the base of each one, directly, like a flashlight.
The baby began to fuss against her sweaty breast and Joanie bobbed a bit to settle him back to sleep. Letta muttered under her breath. One of the stalks began to glow wound-red, as though Letta had set fire to it. Letta threw the branch to the ground and looked down at her crossed arms, her mouth set in a stern line.
Joanie could feel the thrum of her heartbeat all the way up to her throat. Cello had done it, and hadn’t listened to her. She would have to think quickly and act faster—it was only a matter of time until Letta pieced together what had happened. Joanie prayed that she would at least have until that night. She prayed to the Vine, willing it to jam whatever signal it had transmitted to Letta, begging it to understand why she needed this so badly. I’ve served you my whole life, she pleaded, tipping her face forward in a humble bend over her baby’s head. I just need this one thing. But she didn’t feel that connection—the click of understanding was missing. Either Letta’s appeal was stronger than hers, or the Vine was deaf to her feeble plea. Joanie pushed the panic away, breathing in the scent of the child in her arms. It would be alright. She traced her sign of protection across the baby’s chest, and headed quietly back toward the trailers to salvage her plan—to salvage their plan.