"Jesse was right," Celia said, pulling her broom back toward her. "Sheep are gross."
"That sack of Brahmin droppings wouldn't know gross if it hit him in the face," Cathy said, working her broom alongside. "He never had to catch them babies coming out, or clean up the mess after it."
The girls were cleaning out a stall where a Delaine had lambed early. Celia hadn't expected the process to be so wet; Brahmin, by comparison, were dry as a bone. She guessed it was all the lake water the Delaines had access to.
Cathy was Jesse's oldest "sister" at the farm. Celia had learned that the entire family, aside from Amos, Avery, and Ma Royce, were a collection of men, women, and children; they were all either lost, unwanted, or had nowhere to go, like herself. They'd come from all over the place, one even from Toskey, having been scooped out of harm's way by Amos.
Cathy had been living out of a hole in the ground along the Hi-Highway, to the east, forced to prostitute herself for caps, since she was quite young. She joked that in the eight years she'd been working at the farm, she could have saved enough caps to buy the damn place, if they paid her. Everyone at the farm worked for the food on the table and roof over their heads.
Amos and Avery were twins, she found out, and the only living biological children of Ma. Avery looked exactly like Amos without a beard, and they both were the splitting image of Ma. She was much more stern, an older, meaner, female version of them. Ma didn't stand for tomfoolery, and was not particularly interested in seeing her "children" come to harm. It explained why Amos had gotten Celia out of St. James, though.
She watched the young people on the farm with an iron gleam in her eyes, zealous about keeping them from trouble. Celia was a little intimidated. So was Lionel, she thought.
The first, last, and only time Lionel spoke with Ma Royce, his attitude had gone as soft as the Delaine's fluffy wool, and his voice humbled. Her scathing glances scored him to the bone.
He hadn't come back since.
Celia missed her alone time, but there was never any shortage of things to do around the forty acre farm. Eighteen "kids" of varying ages ran about, doing chores, cooking, picking apples in the orchard or tending the sheep. They were aged five through twenty-seven, Cathy said, and on the farm, age didn't matter for squat. Adulthood, she said, was something that only Ma could tell you, when you achieved it.
When Celia's birthday came―she hadn't kept track, but when someone tells you that it's your birthday, you shouldn't argue, she thought―Ma had made something similar to a birthday cake, only five times larger and tasting vaguely of hay. With a grand, sweeping motion, she declared that Celia was officially a Royce family member.
Lionel had not attended.
Jesse had, and he ate as much as three people, stuffing himself silly until Cathy had run him out of the kitchen with a broom. As many insults as Cathy heaped upon him, she clearly did love him, and would sneak food out to him on occasion, while Ma wasn't looking. Ma complained that Jesse alone could eat her out of house and home by simply staying on the farm for three days.
Celia slept with Cathy and two other girls, in the hayloft above the Delaines. She fell asleep to the low grunting of the sheep, the occasion bleat rousing her from slumber. It was indescribably nice to live on the farm, and not have to worry about feeling unwelcome. Someone would always be around to make her feel better, when she was down.
She tried not to think about Lilian. The woman's fight with her had broken her heart, and she couldn't bear to carry that weight around. She found she could tell Cathy all the things she had entrusted to Lilian, before, without being judged. Just like Lilian.
She missed Lionel, though. Sometimes, when she was lying in the hay, she would close her eyes and imagine Lionel was sleeping in the corner, jagged breaths causing his ruined shoulder to rise and fall. She tried not to imagine that too often, because then she would cry.
"He sounds like a real jerk," Cathy said, when Celia tried to explain how she met him.
"Sometimes, but isn't everyone?" Celia replied.
"Yes!" Cathy said, maliciously, and whipped a rotten apple at Jesse's head. He was in the tree, tossing down apples to their baskets, but only picking the bad ones.
Jesse was "the bad kid". Every family had one, Cathy said. "He counts for two, around here," she added, glaring. Jesse ducked and hooted at them, and climbed off into the orchard's trees.
Until he returned Lilian to Grayling, he'd been following Celia around the farm, keeping an eye on her, she supposed. She liked his company well enough, but Cathy was starting to get annoyed.
The meeting with Cameron Landis had been delayed. Avery had turned him over to the custody of Spalding's sheriff, who'd collected the caps he forgot to pay, and let him go. The last anyone had seen of him, he was headed east on the Hi-Highway. Celia didn't really care about it; she had too much to think about at the farm already, and she'd never known her father. And if it was him, she didn't know if she wanted to hear the reason he didn't come back to the Vault.
Jesse and Avery returned from Grayling, with important news. Calhoun had come up from Stockton, to speak with her. Celia's heart thudded in her chest, but she had a nagging feeling in her head. Why would he leave the people of Stockton, and why would he come alone? She would have expected Ed and Pesaro to come to get her, not Calhoun.
And she was right to have worried. When she stepped into the crumbling room that Ma called her parlor, she jumped out of her skin and flattened herself on the wall near the door. Wade!
"Hello, Celia," he said, politely.
"No," she whispered.
"I'm not here for you," he said. "I will tell you what happened after you left, though."
"I don't want to hear what you have to say," she said, gritting her teeth.
"Officer Pesaro and Jason Knowles are dead," he said, "along with an older woman and three young people who died on the trip down to Detroit."
Celia, who had been reaching for the door knob, froze. "What?"
"Sigma took them south to Detroit," he said. "Even your brother and his family."
She turned to look at him, angry. "Why are you pretending to be Calhoun?"
"I needed to find you," he said.
"I'm not going to Detroit," she said, nearly hissing.
"No, no." He sighed. "I'm looking for a metal box, shaped like a L-beam. Have you seen it?"
"No," she said, automatically.
"You're a terrible liar," Wade said. "Even in one word, it's obvious. I'll find it, Celia. Please, work with me?"
She knew he would find it. She remembered the feel of the prod on her stomach, how effortlessly he'd pushed Lionel's arm back into position. He was stronger than he appeared. But, she thought, this is a safe place, and she could yell out for any of the others and they would come running. "You can't have it," she said, "no matter what you might want it for."
He sighed. "Okay, Celia. You were right." He held out his hand, like he had back at the ant mounds. "I am a bad person, just like you said. But, if you give me a chance, I could explain to you why. I know, now."
"Get out," she hissed.
"You don't want to know why your family was taken into slavery?"
"Get out!" she shrieked, clapping her hands over her ears.
"Okay, time to go!" Jesse said, sing-song, as he bustled in and removed Wade from the parlor. Celia sank into a chair and sobbed.