“Who do you think you are?” she burst out, yelling at him as loud as she could once they were behind the closed door. The door would, of course, do nothing to keep the entire village from hearing.
“As if Benja’s some kind of criminal! How could you?”
“You weren’t there, you didn’t see,” Illya said, scrambling for justification. “He was trying to steal the book.”
“And it never occurred to you that he could have a good reason?” It was as if he was a little again and he had just come inside after getting his clean clothes filthy. The knot in his stomach twisted tighter. He could handle her anger, but he was utterly defenseless against disappointment.
“He was with Impiri,” he said then straightened up, grasping for one last strain of righteous anger. “She wants me to fail. She has wanted me to fail since the beginning.”
His mother raised her eyebrows and folded her arms across her chest.
“I caught him with it in his hands!” Illya said, bristling, his voice rising to a frantic note.
“You have to let him go,” she said, now with infuriating calm.
“I don’t have to do anything,” Illya yelled. How could she question him like this? Didn’t she realize he wasn’t a child anymore?
“How can you throw away your family like this?” she asked.
“You think Impiri’s right too, don’t you? All of you. You all want me to fail!” he yelled. He could feel the beast in his chest stirring, starting to roar. Illya whirled around and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Not bothering to look where he was going, he nearly ran into Samuel on the path.
He backed up a step.
“What? You agree with Impiri too? Seeds are the work of the devil?” He glared at Samuel’s raised eyebrows. A small yellow butterfly flitted through the air between them as if it didn’t have a care in the world. Illya scowled at it.
“No,” Samuel said, frowning. “The thing that has driven you from your family; that is the work of the devil.” Illya narrowed his eyes. Samuel was against him too, just like everyone else.
“You are a fool to give in, to let it push you away from your friends and the people who care about you,” Samuel said.
“I have friends,” Illya snapped.
He left Samuel without another word and went back to the Enforcers’ camp and retreated into his hut.
His solitude did not last. After a few minutes, there was a knock on the door. Illya had opened the book and was staring at the page but was unable to comprehend a single word. He glared at the door, sure that it would be Samuel or his mother. He wished that he could stay mute and pretend the hut was empty until they went away. But he was supposed to be the Leader. He couldn’t hide like a frightened little.
It was Dianthe Morris, a friend of Impiri’s. He wondered if she had come to beg for Impiri’s release. Was he going to hear about it from every single person in the village? He stood up tall and tried to appear unruffled and wise.
She didn’t mention Impiri. Instead, she asked him to read to her from the book. He blinked at her stupidly for a moment. It was hard to believe, after everything that had happened the previous day, that people still thought he was a prophet. Of course, no one but him knew about the real disaster yet.
He invited her in, feeling a moment of dull gratitude that he had taken the time to make the hut presentable when he had moved into it.
He squinted down at the letters on the page, trying to regain his composure, deciphering them one at a time. Dianthe gaped at him.
“What was your question?” he asked.
“Will my son Brant find a strong wife and have sons?” she asked. Illya sighed inwardly and studied the passage he had translated.
Pertinent Possum Points: Its intelligence is on a par with that of a pig. It is similar to many cats in size, weighing 12 to 15 pounds at maturity. It is as fastidious as most cats. It has black eyes that may appear “beady” because they do not have an iris.
“Um.” He cleared his throat.
“Yes?”
“The Almanac is mysterious with this prediction,” he said.
“What does it say?” she asked, her eyes gleaming. Illya pursed his lips and stared at the black letters, stalling for time.
“It mentions good size, intelligence, black eyes,” he said. Dianthe breathed out.
“The book is so wise!” she said. “Does it say anything else?”
Illya frowned with what he hoped was an air of sober wisdom. “She will be clean, I think,” he said finally. Her eyes widened even more.
After she had left, Illya stared down at the book. The letters blurred together. A possum. He had just told Dianthe that her son was going to marry a possum. He supposed that they would have a litter of little black-eyed possum babies. Sons, naturally.
How could he ever have believed it when they had called him a prophet? The book was useless. It lay innocuous before him on the table, the smug rows of letters seeming to mock him with their perfect uniformity, their promise of untold wisdom. This book was the reason he had arrested his best friend.
With a surge of fury, he seized the book and flung it across the room. It hit the opposite wall and fell to the floor in a heap, open to the page that he had read more often than any other. Seed Saving: A Time-Honored Practice for a Bountiful Harvest.
There was another knock at the door. Illya closed his eyes. Why couldn’t people just leave him alone?
“Come in,” he said.
This time, it was Conna. His eyes skittered over to the book on the floor before sliding back to Illya. He smiled as if he hadn’t seen anything.
“Hey,” he said. Illya returned his smile weakly.
“You should come see some of those guys fight, getting pretty good with drilling every day,” he said. Illya nodded noncommittally. Privately, he thought that if he never saw fighting again for the rest of his life, it would be just fine with him.
“Things are going so well with the plants and everything, I was thinking maybe we should start clearing more land for next year’s planting,” Conna said.
“Next year,” Illya murmured. The idea that had once gleamed before him like a beacon now dropped into his stomach like a rock. If his plants got the disease, the villagers wouldn’t just be back to where they had started in spring; they would be worse off than ever. A whole summer wasted on a pointless endeavor, and winter was looming closer every day. Next year seemed hopelessly far away. He shook off the feeling, telling himself that there was no disease yet. It was possible that there never would be.
He took a breath.
“I don’t know if we are doing all of this right,” he said.
“It’s going great,” Conna said, looking closer at Illya.
“A lot of people are mad,” Illya said after a minute, swallowing then meeting Conna’s eyes. “They don’t like their jobs. They don’t like the arrests.”
Conna shook his head.
“They don’t have a choice. We don’t have a choice. You said it yourself: we have to do whatever it takes to make this work.” His scrutiny sharpened. “They won’t be around to complain at all if they’ve all starved to death.” Illya frowned, trying not to think of the dead plants downriver.
There was no going back now. They had gone so far that the plan had to work. There was no time left to gather enough food in the usual way. If it didn’t work, the people would tear them apart, and then they would all starve.
Illya looked at Conna and nodded. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right,” he said.
In the days that followed, Illya returned to the book with renewed vigor. It was very different than the excitement that had fueled his longing to read. Instead, he was driven by a frantic, almost obsessive desperation, looking for a cure. He couldn’t help but think that the book had betrayed him somehow. Logically, though, he knew that it had no mind of its own. It was and always had been only what it had been made to be. It was just a book.