On Acid Grounds

The strip came up orange again, edging toward red; a step closer to hunger. She took it to the shed and held the damp paper beside the faded color chart, only to confirm what she already knew. The scale, though, narrowed the margin they had left.

The others will find out when the sweet potatoes fail to sprout.

The handheld radio crackled on the bench.

“Mom?” Cyn called.

Her voice was faint, followed by a rush of coughing she couldn’t stop. The radio crackled again. Sally’s eyes filled with tears every time she heard it. The shaking, the folding in on herself, the fight for the next breath. She slipped a shaking hand into the side pocket and gripped the antibiotics she had just taken from the communal warehouse.

“Cyn, honey. I’m coming. Try not to speak,” she said, pressing the talk button.

She tapped the side pocket; it didn’t bulge. Outside, Ben walked toward her. She had hardly ever seen a man so large. His coats never quite sat right across the chest.

“Sally, what do your books say?”

His voice came through the fabric of the mask, muffled but deep and commanding.

“Not much, really. Removing the ash is helping.”

Sally raised her scarf to cover her nose and mouth. Her sister always told her she bit her lip when she lied.

“I spotted a lad who might make a good apprentice for you.”

Sally frowned.

“Apprentice?”

“Call it what you will, we can’t all rely only on your health.”

She nodded.

“I know.”

“I’ll send him to you later. Paul, that’s his name. He used to be a writer.”

He sure can read, she thought. Chemistry, probably not.

The radio at her waist beeped. She turned it down.

“I need to go. Cindy’s waiting for lunch.”

She lifted the sweet potato and the few herbs she’d gathered.

Ben nodded. “Feed the girl.”

Sally waited until she reached the last bench to turn the radio back on.

“I’m coming, Cyn. I’m on my way.”

— In ash-affected soils, acidity may rise quickly beyond the range tolerated by staple crops. Root development weakens first. Yield loss comes later, and is often mistaken for drought… —

Cyn coughed again behind her. A dry fit at first, then deeper, tearing through her chest. Sally marked the page and turned to help her sit up. She shuddered against her a few more times before the coughing eased.

“Hush, honey, hush,” she said, rocking her daughter slowly.

Sally laid a hand on her daughter’s head for a moment. She was sweating hard. She would need an excuse to ask Nell, the camp’s nurse, for some ibuprofen. She had some aspirin, but she didn’t trust it for Cyn.

“Hold on, I’ll get the soup.”

“I’m not hungry,” Cyn said in a faint voice.

Sally sighed.

“I know, but you need to eat to take the medicine.”

She brought the bowl and the honey pot, then set the tray beside Cyn. She laid a cold, wet cloth on the back of her head before lifting the hot bowl in both hands.

The girl whimpered, but opened her mouth when her mother brought the spoon to her lips. Sally made sure she got most of the soup down. Then she crushed the antibiotic in the spoon with the back of a knife. She mixed the powder with a little honey to help Cyn swallow it. When she fell asleep, Sally left.

The meeting started just like every other fifth day. They stopped calling them Thursdays once they realized they all had lost track. “Five for the fifth,” said Ben.

“Aye,” the others said, and the meeting began.

“First and most important, we must discuss the planting for the next crop,” said Ben before anyone else could get a word in.

“Sally just told me this morning the soil is fertile.”

“I —” began Sally.

She raised a hand to the scarf, only to realize they were indoors.

The others waited.

“If we keep taking care of the ash…” she began.

“Fertile?” Rick spat, staring at her over a fistful of dry bean sprouts.

“Beans are the weakest, sweet potatoes and beets might still make it.”

“They will, if the watering is right,” she added.

All of them turned to Pam.

Pam raised both hands and shook her head.

“Don’t blame that on me,” she said, pointing a finger at the sprouts. “The beds are watered just as they have been every day until now.”

“Well, if it’s not the soil, and it’s not the water, we should put everything we have left in the ground before anything fails,” Ben said.

“What? No way!” Rick pushed back from the table so hard it scraped against the floor. Red had broken out across his otherwise pale face.

“Rick,” said Kyle, “please calm down.”

Rick stood a moment longer, looking at them as if waiting for someone else to object. Then he sat down.

“Thank you,” Kyle said. Rick grunted.

“The book says—” Sally began.

Ben cut across her.

“We have a little margin and her books confirm it’s safe enough to risk one last planting.”

“I wouldn’t say as much,” Sally added.

Nobody turned to her.

Ben was making things worse. This time she would just let him.

“Aye,” said Ben, striking the table with his palm.

One by one, the others followed.

Sally withheld.

The meeting moved on to the rest of the camp’s needs: water, defense, medicine. Sally barely paid attention to any of it. She only nodded and said aye when she had to, especially when Pam spoke.

Something was wrong with the shelter. Sally knew it the moment she saw it from the far end of the street: the curtain on the window hung off to one side; the board that served as a door was propped against the wall.

She hurried past the other shelters, trying not to draw attention, not to kick dust into the air. As she stepped inside, she heard a man’s voice speaking softly. She stopped by the entrance and listened.

“Come on, honey, drink a little more. Just a sip.”

Sally couldn’t place the voice. She grabbed the bat from beside the frame and rushed in.

“Who are you? Who let you in? What are you doing here?”

At least three more questions came to mind before she could fully grasp the situation.

The man sat quietly in the chair beside Cyn’s bed. He held a glass to Cyn’s mouth.

She thought he looked comfortable, even out of place.

“Oh, you must be Sally,” he said. “She was coughing badly,” he added, without taking his eyes off the child.

Sally lifted the bat over her shoulder.

“You still haven’t answered me.”

“Mom?” Cyn said, her mouth parting as she looked from one to the other.

He set the glass down on the box beside the bed and stood up.

Sally saw too late that the space between them was too tight to swing the bat. She stepped back.

“My name is Paul. Ben sent me here to help you.”

“To help me?”

Cyn stared at them. She looked scared, but she was all right for the moment.

Sally set the bat down.

“So you’re Paul,” she said.

“Ben told me I’d be getting an apprentice.”

Paul nodded slowly.

“I see. He gave each of us what he thought we could handle.”

That sounded like Ben, she thought.

She gave Cyn a soft smile. The girl closed her eyes and lay back on the bed.

A couple of voices drifted in from outside, making Sally turn her head to the door.

“Hey, dude, what’s up?”

“Man, the council wants us all by the barn. You coming?”

“Sure…”

The voices dimmed into the distance, and Cyn remained quiet.

Sally noticed Paul glance briefly at the book on the table. The marker stood out, almost too obviously.

“So how can I help you?” he asked.

“What do you know about planting in acidic soil?”

Paul hummed.

“Nothing, really. I’m just a writer.”

She looked at his hands. They had not seen a trowel.

He reached toward the book.

Sally stepped between him and the table.

“Chemistry?” she asked, buying time.

“The terms, not the science.”

Sally let out a breath.

A horse neighed in the distance. A moment later, it snorted, then again—or maybe there was more than one. A cart rolled past the door, the gravel shifting under the wheels. They both waited in silence. Then two more carts followed.

“I suppose I’ll be the one doing the helping here,” she said, crossing her arms.

Paul gestured toward the floor.

“That should be part of the science, I guess.”

Sally turned to where he pointed. The red test strip lay in the bin where she’d dropped it.

She turned to him.

Not a hint of intention on his face. Just calm facts.

“That —”

Cyn pushed herself up in bed and started coughing, deeper this time. Her chest caught on the air for a moment before the cough tore through her, then another.

Sally went to the bed and held her daughter until it passed. She held Cyn’s head as the girl whimpered against her chest.

When she looked back at Paul, he was holding the book open.

“She can’t travel like this,” she said.

“I know.”

Sally nodded.

“And nobody knows about that.”

She nodded again.

“What else do you know?”

Paul stared at her. The book marker held between two fingers.

So he had seen it.

“I know that’s just part of the story.”

He bent over and took the test strip from the bin.

“Let me guess. All that noise out there…” he started.

“…means they’re putting everything in the ground,” she said, completing his words.

They stayed silent. A moment longer than felt comfortable. She stared at him. He looked at Cyn.

She heard him draw a long breath, then let it out through his nostrils.

“If you’re here to help,” Sally said, “start by forgetting what you think you know.”

Paul looked at the strip, flipped it around, and dropped it back in the bin.

When he answered, his voice was almost as quiet as Cyn’s had been through the radio.

“Maybe I did come here to learn after all.”

A cart rattled past outside. A sweet potato struck the threshold and rolled into the shelter, coming to rest between them. Paul picked it up and handed it to Sally.