Remembering

The Council took charge after the Erasure, when every plant was erased from the surface of the Earth. With no plants to hold the topsoil, the ground turned to dust. The rains were infrequent. The sun was relentless and the wind was fierce. When it did rain, the precipitation was full of the poisons that had accumulated in the atmosphere, made more toxic by the radiation from the sun. The rains came in torrents that made the flat places into a muddy churning and the places below the surface that had sheltered ancestors in the beginning were filled with poisoned water. What people remained took to higher ground.

The Erasure came gradually. It started with the Company encouraging new plants, made in a lab, made to be cheaper to grow, more resistant to insects and drought. They were genetically modified and cultured in a closed-loop of nutrient rich swill. The insects that adapted to the new plants destroyed them at a faster rate and so the Company sprayed poison to kill the offenders. The interdependent creatures that consumed, pollinated, and decomposed plant matter to sustain the land and the system of living things disappeared, species by species.

And then came the Scarcity. There was not enough food to sustain even the smallest of creatures and those at the top of the food chain began to overkill. And then they died, too, their bones littering the dusty ground.

The most and best food was reserved for the Company’s citadels and those inside, while those remaining below were made desperate and sick from starvation and the increasing amount of poison in the air, the water, the land and the food. The Company was pleased by the increasing prices and profits that the Scarcity brought and so they continued to develop new and improved synthetic food sources that required more poison and mechanical substitutions for the functions that insects and birds and bacteria once performed.

With the Scarcity came death and with the death came forgetting until the Erasure was complete. The Company became the Council and forgetting became the law. Remembering was certain death.

****

She loved the garden most in the early days of summer. The green of the trees and climbing vines surrounded the mossy path. The sunlight made dancing dappled shadows with each breeze that rustled the leaves. The fine grains of pollen, dust and spore sparkled in the shafts of sunlight that pierced the green canopy. Bees and butterflies, moths and mosquitos flitted and hummed and buzzed in ecstatic dances between fragrant flowers of gardenia and rose and the herbs and healing plants of the garden. The colored songbirds of summer flew between the branches of the trees singing exuberant tweets and trills back and forth across the garden.Tiny mushrooms poked through damp leaf litter and beetles scuttled in the garden beds. Her heart was filled to bursting. Breathing in the smells of rich earth, sweet honeysuckle, green herbs made her dizzy with delight. The life within her swam in her belly like a little fish. She wept at the overwhelming beauty of living.

The headache knocked her to her knees. It was sudden and felt like she had been hit in the head by a falling rock. The color went out of the world. She gasped for air and could not feel her limbs. She crumpled forward, her mouth open and filling with dirt. She never knew when the headaches would come or the visions. She didn’t know how or why they happened, but they did, and the visions were always true.

She had had them since she was a child. Her mother said it was her legacy, her birthright, to see things and know things. She knew the languages of living things best. She could heal animals, charm birds, and make even the most listless plants yield huge harvests. The tomatoes she grew were thought to have magical, curative powers. Her ancestors were known and celebrated for their abilities, most of them anyway. Some had been burned and some were outcast. This so-called gift was both a blessing and a curse.

In this vision, she glimpsed a barren world with hunger and death. A world she was not a part of, except for the heart-shaped locket that contained a lock of her grandmother’s hair. It rested between two flat stones in what was left of the garden wall.

The vision troubled her for days and weeks. With little rain, the garden was less green as the plants struggled in the heat. She struggled, too. The heat was especially oppressive as the child inside her grew. She found herself crying every day, knowing in her bones that she would not ever see her child grow up.

The days passed and her belly grew. She had to haul water to keep the garden alive in the heat. The hauling and the walking increased her strength. She whistled bird songs as she worked and walked, but she noticed fewer were answering her calls. There were fewer squirrels and rabbits to fend off. The garden soil held fewer earthworms. A scrawny vixen started visiting the garden. It came close, flicked its tail, looked her in the eye and then turned its head toward the north. For three days it made the same motions until she realized it wanted her to follow. She went north out of the garden to the river, which was turning into a dry bed. Then the vixen disappeared into the underbrush.

That night she dreamed she followed the fox into the underbrush. There were brambles and blackberry canes, vines and roots. They scratched her face and arms and ankles, stinging with every step. It was hard to breathe. She would soon give birth and she tired quickly, but she knew she had to keep going. She knew that it was the only way to protect her baby. The fox finally stopped in a grove of mother trees. She curled up on a bed of moss, nested in the embrace of old roots. The fox curled up beside her. Night fell like a black shroud, no moon, stars obscured by low clouds.

The next afternoon a hawk swooped into the garden and then screamed a piercing kee-aaarr. It pulled up short of the hedge and circled overhead. A crow appeared, cawing loudly and urgently, sounding the alarm. Then the vixen appeared at the edge of the garden. It was then she remembered the dream and understood she must prepare to leave her home, to follow the fox, for her safety and that of her child.

That night she gathered an assortment of seeds and dried herbs, a blanket, some honey, a flask of wine, and a bit of dried fruit. She wrapped them in a bindle and set it by the door. She stoked the fire and settled in to gaze at the embers with a cup of tea. The baby kicked and she rubbed her belly and smiled. A glint of gold caught her eye. She reached up on the mantle for the golden heart.

It had belonged to her grandmother and her mother after that. Now it was hers, the only object of value that connected her to them. The locket was gifted to her grandmother by her grandfather when they were young and courting. It was burnished and featured a smaller heart of red stones on the upper right. Her grandmother was a midwife and healer, who came from a long line of wise women. When her grandmother was dying, she instructed her mother to cut a lock of her hair and place it in the locket. When the locket closed, her grandmother closed her eyes, smiled, and breathed her last breath.

Her mother had kept the locket in her own medicine bag. Her mother had also been a healer, though her gift was communicating with animals. Farmers and hunters would come to her for healing and help with their flocks and herds. She could rid their lands of pests or attract wild animals for an easy hunt. Her herbs and potions helped cows give sweet milk and chickens lay many eggs. The younger farmers dismissed her skill, favoring the local veterinarian, but the old ones knew her gifts.

As the embers died down she retired to her small bed in the only house she had known, the locket still in her hand. She felt the presence of her grandmother and her mother and the ones who had come before. The baby kicked and rolled until she settled down, too.

At dawn she set out. She turned for one last look and tucked the locket between two flat stones in the low, stone wall that delineated the garden’s edge. She followed the river bed to the north, toward the mountains. Mid-morning the fox appeared and led her to a thicket of underbrush, just as she had dreamed, and she followed. They traveled until they came to the grove of mother trees and curled up together on the mossy ground, embraced by the earth and the roots under a moonless sky.

Searing, undulating pain shocked her awake. She howled and writhed, praying it would stop. The pain came in waves and she tried not to panic. When the wave of pain let up, the fox nuzzled her as if to comfort her, encourage her. And then the wave of pain came again. And again. When it ended mid-morning, she was exhausted and as she drifted in and out of consciousness, she heard the cry of her daughter.

---

Prim stepped outside of the Institute’s heavy walls. She looked down the hill toward the garden and saw the workers were already harvesting. The Company’s truck would be there before noon to collect their tribute and take it to the Citadel, where they would weigh the food and credit her father’s account for whatever the market rate was. She wanted the workers to glean everything they could, maximizing the week’s tribute portion. The workers were children. It was Prim’s job to supervise them. Her father, Dr. Mendel, had bargained with the old orphanage to take them to harvest the produce he created in the lab. With the Scarcity, the orphanage could not grow enough to feed the children and the Institute needed help harvesting. They had enough surplus to offer the children a small portion of feed. The children were also good subjects for the Institutute’s new food product trials.

Dr. Mendel was a world-renowned scientist who specialized in the biological engineering of plants. He had managed to maintain the Institute, his estate and research lab, on land in the high country that had so far avoided the worst impacts of the changing climate that were leading to the loss of plants, animals and habitats further south. The Institute’s location afforded him some insulation from the demands of the Company. As long as his work was producing plant materials that could be grown in labs instead of the barren earth of the southern regions, and as long as the Institute’s food production yielded large quantities for a tribute, he was rewarded with privilege and largely shielded from the Company’s reach.

Prim was his only daughter. He raised her to be curious, but obedient. She learned quickly and knew how to manipulate her father to get the few things she desired. She enjoyed the privileges her position afforded her: ample food, a nice home, and power over the workers, as well as the utter devotion of her father. She loved the freedom the Institutue afforded her and was not at all attracted to the more urbane amenities offered by the Company at the Citadel. It was a luxuury to step outside of the Institute to see mountains and forests and green, growing things, to hear bird calls and smell the fragrances of pines and wildflowers.

A murder of crows squawked and cawed, directing Prim’s attention to the edge of the wild land that bordered the Insitutute’s gardens. She detected a small figure moving in and out of the trees, probably a young bear. She watched as it lumbered over to the edge of the garden where the workers were gleaning. It was the same size as the youngest children. They turned to look at it and the older children admonished them to return to their work. No one wanted to be punished for not making the quota for the tribute.

Prim watched the creature as it watched the children, bending, picking, putting the beans in the baskets. Its head followed their motions. It was more curious than threatening. Soon, the creature stood upright, moved between two of the younger children and imitated them, bending, picking, putting the beans into the baskets, joining the rhythm of their work. When Prim approached, the children stood erect, with their eyes downcast, as they had been trained. The creature looked at the children, imitated them, and sensing their fear at Prim’s approach, growled and scampered back to the forest. This scene repeated for several days.

The children were not afraid of the creature. Prim came closer to the workers each day, observing the creature more closely. It appeared to be a feral girl-child, maybe three or four. Its hair was matted and its skin was brown. Its face and arms were smeared with mud and it was naked, with no sign of self-consciousness. It did not speak, yet seemed to understand the work of the children. Its entrance from the forest edge was always preceded by the crow cacaphony. The girl child cackled back and the crows flew away. It seemed to only make animal sounds, chirps and grunts and growls. They were not random, but part of a conversation with the creatures of the nearby forest and field.

Prim welcomed the girl-child’s efforts to increase the harvest. It appeared among the children and disappeared to the forest at its will and did not require anything of Prim, no food, no discipline, nothing. Prim was intrigued and tried to get its attention. She offered apples, which the girl-child snatched from her hand, without scratching her with its long claw-like fingernals. It sniffed the apple, one of the best from the lab, and then noticed the hunger in the eyes of the children. It gave the apple bits away to the children, who devoured them gladly. The creature chirped and clapped in response. This behavior only made Prim more determined to befriend it.

Eventually Prim was able to gain its confidence by engaging in short sessions of mimicry. When she laughed, it made a ho-ho-ho sound. When she frowned, it did, too. When she held out her hand, it did too, until they eventually clasped hands and then embraced. The girl-child made a purring and cooing sound which warmed Prim’s heart and made it possible to ignore the child’s intense odor of earth and urine. From then on, the girl-child followed Prim around the garden like a goofy puppy. Prim decided its name should be Eve, which was a sound it croaked back in response. When Prim called her, she responded, by saying her own name.

One afternoon, Dr. Mendel peered out of the lab window and noticed that there was an extra worker in the garden. When he questioned Prim about it at supper, she explained that Eve was a. great worker, did not speak and, most importantly, did not require food or a bed in the worker’s cabin. She begged her father to allow her to keep Eve at the Institute, assuring him that Eve slept in the forest and would not be a disruption to production or his work. He could not refuse her. He suggested that she might give Eve a rough frock so she would fit in with the other workers, in case someone from the Company noticed her. So Eve joined the Institute on her own terms.

As the Erasure advanced northward, the garden produced less and Dr. Mendel was pressured to develop more, better plant materials. His problem was that the original plant materials he had been cloning, no longer produced viable seeds, and each successive generation of cloned plants, produced less and less. The other Company labs began to complain of reduced production and an increase in unviable plant materials. They tried switching the nutrients in the closed system. They tried blending new strains from the cloned plants. Nothing worked and Dr.Mendel faced increasing pressure and scrutiny from the Company.

In an effort to solve his problems, he went to the garden to see what was working and maybe gain some insights, remember something basic to growing plants in the earth that he had forgotten. He was watching the children harvest, searching the underneaths of the staked plants to find bunches of produce hidden in the leaves. He watched Eve, working alongside the others. She gently touched the plants and drew close, breathing on them. Mendel could have sworn he saw the plants lean up to greet her face as a baby does its mother. Impossible, he thought. But then he saw that as Eve walked down the row, the plants seemed to reach out and turn to follow her as she passed. He called Prim and asked her to bring Eve to the lab.

At first Eve resisted entering the heavy doors of the Institute, but she was eager to please Prim, who coaxed her inside with a little silly dance, which Eve gladly imitated. As they walked down the halls, Eve felt of the smooth, cool walls and squinted at the overhead lighting. When Prim and Eve entered the lab, Eve squealed and cooed at all the plants, row upon row, held there. She whistled a bird song.

“Why did you call us here, Father?” Prim asked.

“I have a theory I want to test,” he replied.

They watched as Eve moved up and down the rows of plants. As she passed, the plants turned to her, as if she was the sun itself.

“Do you see that?” Dr Mendel said excitedly.

“Eve has a way with plants. All living things, really. She can call birds to her and wherever she is working in the garden, snakes and earthworms, beetles and butterflies appear.”

Mendel invited Eve to work in the lab. He showed her how to clone the plants, to create new plant materials in the nutrient swill and to separate the little rootlings and place them in the tubes where they would grow larger. Eve was a master of mimicry and soon the lab was teeming with new, robust plants that she had cloned.

Dr. Mendel then decided to teach Eve to extract plant DNA to create new genetic combinations. She demonstrated an uncanny understanding of plant properties and her breath and gentle treatment created a few successful new strains that were beautiful as well as nutritious. Her efforts were not enough to get ahead of the demands of the other labs and the Company.

“Where do you think she came from?” Mendel asked Prim over dinner.

“The forest somewhere, I suppose.”

“Does she still sleep in the forest?”

“When she doesn’t curl up in the tall grass by the garden, like a deer.”

Mendel thought for a moment and then realized a plan that might save the Institute and solve his issues.

“Prim,” he said. “I need you to go into the forest with Eve. I need you to follow her wherever she leads, maybe to her mother or a home. Watch what she eats and bring back the plants that feed her. Do you remember how I showed you to gather seeds and plant specimens in the wild?”

“For how long, Father?”

“Until she brings you back home.”

Prim and Eve went into the forest the next morning. At first Eve was confused by Prim’s moves towards the forest. Each time Eve tried to join the children in the garden, Prim called her to her side, and Eve, the devoted girl-child followed her into the woods, into her home. Eve was eager to show Prim all of the parts of her world. She hugged the mother trees and had Prim feel the softness of the mossy forest floor. Eve called all manner of birds to her hands and they followed in the treetops as the pair went deeper into the woods. Prim noticed that the big, old trees had brown leaves and many were standing and dead. They continued past the dead tall trees and came to a dusty field full of tumbleweeds and brambles. It formed a thick barely permeable mat of what had once been undergrowth. Eve guided Prim through the maze of brambles, kissing each scratch as Prim shouted with each painful surprise.

From time to time Eve would fix her gaze along the edge of their path until she found what she was looking for. She gathered berries and sweet grasses that they chewed as they traveled. When Prim stopped beside a brook to take a drink, Eve pushed her over and blocked her way. She knew the water was bad. Eve went over to a tree with a squishy bed of needles beneath it and began to dig with her bare hands. In a moment the hole filled with sweet water the two could drink.

Toward sunset they came to a low, stack of stones, once part of a wall. Beyond it was a thick stand of green overgrowth and an old cabin that was being reclaimed by vines. Prim investigated inside the cabin and found scattered parchments and a selection of small bottles filled with seeds. She could not read the labels as some were faded and she did not read much. She gathered up the seeds, knowing that this would help her father and the Institute.

While Prim was inside, Eve investigated the greenery and the garden wall. A glint of metal caught her eye and she found a small, heart-shaped locket between the stones. She looked around to see if Prim was nearby, sensing that this find was treasure and not to be shared with Prim. She rolled it inside her sleeve and hoped it would not be detected.

The two gathered plant samples from the greenery surrounding the cabin. At nightfall they huddled together and fell asleep to owls hooting and fireflies dancing. In the morning they ventured back to the Institute.

To say Dr. Mendel was thrilled by their haul would be understatement. He was giddy. He stood at the lab table and began to sort the seeds, trying to decipher the faded labels and comparing specimens to references in old books on botanicals. Eve was busy spinning up the plant materials and preparing it for cloning.

Dr. Mendel left the lab briefly to meet the Company truck with Prim for this week’s tribute. Eve could feel the warmth of the gold locket pulsing in her cuff. She covered the camera lens that was always watching the lab with a drawing she had made of the rows of plants. It gave her time to observe the locket, to feel it’s burnished finish and the braided wire outline of the heart, to count the tinny red stones. She whistled an old song, from a bird long gone, that rose from her own heart and ancestors long passed. She noticed the tiny hinges and gently opened the locket. Inside was a twist of gray hair. She drew a deep breath, inspired by this find, took a single hair, and began the process of extracting its genetic material. She smiled as she returned the locket to her cuff and was busily working when Mendel returned. Maybe remembering would keep her alive.