Jeb did, too. “Saves me the trouble of finding someone to play guard. Keep the gun close and don’t forget it’s there,” he told Jamie.
I protested again, but both the man and the boy refused to listen to me. So Jamie slept with the gun on the other side of his body from me, and I fretted and had nightmares about it.
The third day of chores, I worked in the kitchen. Jeb taught me how to knead the coarse bread dough, how to lay it out in round lumps and let it rise, and, later on, how to feed the fire in the bottom of the big stone oven when it was dark enough to let the smoke out.
In the middle of the afternoon, Jeb left.
“I’m gonna get some more flour,” he muttered, playing with the strap that held the gun to his waist.
The three silent women who kneaded alongside us didn’t look up. I was up to my elbows in the sticky dough, but I started to scrape it off so I could follow him.
Jeb grinned, flashed a look at the unobserving women, and shook his head at me. Then he spun around and dashed out of the room before I could free myself.
I froze there, no longer breathing. I stared at the three women-the young blonde from the bathing room, the salt-and-pepper braid, and the heavy-lidded mother-waiting for them to realize that they could kill me now. No Jeb, no gun, my hands trapped in the gluey dough-nothing to stop them.
But the women kept on kneading and shaping, not seeming to realize this glaring truth. After a long, breathless moment, I started kneading again, too. My stillness would probably alert them to the situation sooner than if I kept working.
Jeb was gone for an eternity. Perhaps he had meant that he needed to grind more flour. That seemed like the only explanation for his endless absence.
“Took you long enough,” the salt-and-pepper-braid woman said when he got back, so I knew it wasn’t just my imagination.
Jeb dropped a heavy burlap sack to the floor with a deep thud. “That’s a lot of flour there. You try carryin’ it, Trudy.”
Trudy snorted. “I imagine it took a lot of rest stops to get it this far.”
Jeb grinned at her. “It sure did.”
My heart, which had been thrumming like a bird’s for the entire episode, settled into a less frantic rhythm.
The next day we were cleaning mirrors in the room that housed the cornfield. Jeb told me this was something they had to do routinely, as the combination of humidity and dust caked the mirrors until the light was too dim to feed the plants. It was Ian, working with us again, who scaled the rickety wooden ladder while Jeb and I tried to keep the base steady. It was a difficult task, given Ian’s weight and the homemade ladder’s poor balance. By the end of the day, my arms were limp and aching.
I didn’t even notice until we were done and heading for the kitchen that the improvised holster Jeb always wore was empty.
I gasped out loud, my knees locking like a startled colt’s. My body tottered to a halt.
“What’s wrong, Wanda?” Jeb asked, too innocent.
I would have answered if Ian hadn’t been right beside him, watching my strange behavior with fascination in his vivid blue eyes.
So I just gave Jeb a wide-eyed look of mingled disbelief and reproach, and then slowly began walking beside him again, shaking my head. Jeb chuckled.
“What’s that about?” Ian muttered to Jeb, as if I were deaf.
“Beats me,” Jeb said; he lied as only a human could, smooth and guileless.
He was a good liar, and I began to wonder if leaving the gun behind today, and leaving me alone yesterday, and all this effort forcing me into human company was his way of getting me killed without doing the job himself. Was the friendship all in my head? Another lie?
This was my fourth day eating in the kitchen.
Jeb, Ian, and I walked into the long, hot room-into a crowd of humans chatting in low voices about the day’s events-and nothing happened.
Nothing happened.
There was no sudden silence. No one paused to stare daggers at me. No one seemed to notice us at all.
Jeb steered me to an empty counter and then went to get enough bread for three. Ian lounged next to me, casually turning to the girl on his other side. It was the young blonde-he called her Paige.
“How are things going? How are you holding up with Andy gone?” he asked her.
“I’d be fine if I weren’t so worried,” she told him, biting her lip.
“He’ll be home soon,” Ian assured her. “Jared always brings everyone home. He’s got a real talent. We’ve had no accidents, no problems since he showed up. Andy will be fine.”
My interest sparked when he mentioned Jared-and Melanie, so somnolent these days, stirred-but Ian didn’t say anything else. He just patted Paige’s shoulder and turned to take his food from Jeb.
Jeb sat next to me and surveyed the room with a deep sense of satisfaction plain on his face. I looked around the room, too, trying to see what he saw. This must have been what it was usually like here, when I wasn’t around. Only today I didn’t seem to bother them. They must have been tired of letting me interrupt their lives.
“Things are settling down,” Ian commented to Jeb.
“Knew they would. We’re all reasonable folks here.”
I frowned to myself.
“That’s true, at the moment,” Ian said, laughing. “My brother’s not around.”
“Exactly,” Jeb agreed.
It was interesting to me that Ian counted himself among the reasonable folks. Had he noticed that Jeb was unarmed? I was burning with curiosity, but I couldn’t risk pointing it out in case he hadn’t.
The meal continued as it had begun. My novelty had apparently worn off.
When the meal was over, Jeb said I deserved a rest. He walked me all the way to my door, playing the gentleman again.
“Afternoon, Wanda,” he said, tipping his imaginary hat.
I took a deep breath for bravery. “Jeb, wait.”
“Yes?”
“Jeb…” I hesitated, trying to find a polite way to put it. “I… well, maybe it’s stupid of me, but I sort of thought we were friends.”
I scrutinized his face, looking for any change that might indicate that he was about to lie to me. He only looked kind, but what did I know of a liar’s tells?
“Of course we are, Wanda.”
“Then why are you trying to get me killed?”
His furry brows pulled together in surprise. “Now, why would you think that, honey?”
I listed my evidence. “You didn’t take the gun today. And yesterday you left me alone.”
Jeb grinned. “I thought you hated that gun.”
I waited for an answer.
“Wanda, if I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t have lasted that first day.”
“I know,” I muttered, starting to feel embarrassed without understanding why. “That’s why it’s all so confusing.”
Jeb laughed cheerfully. “No, I don’t want you dead! That’s the whole point, kid. I’ve been getting them all used to seeing you around, getting them to accept the situation without realizing it. It’s like boiling a frog.”
My forehead creased at the eccentric comparison.
Jeb explained. “If you throw a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will hop right out. But if you put that frog in a pot of tepid water and slowly warm it, the frog doesn’t figure out what’s going on until it’s too late. Boiled frog. It’s just a matter of working by slow degrees.”
I thought about that for a second-remembered how the humans had ignored me at lunch today. Jeb had gotten them used to me. The realization made me feel strangely hopeful. Hope was a silly thing in my situation, but it seeped into me anyway, coloring my perceptions more brightly than before.
“Jeb?”
“Yeah?”
“Am I the frog or the water?”
He laughed. “I’ll leave that one for you to puzzle over. Self-examination is good for the soul.” He laughed again, louder this time, as he turned to leave. “No pun intended.”
“Wait-can I ask one more?”