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  Then, that silence.

  Nothing else.

  It was her, the same woman who has haunted my dreams since I was in this room when I was a child. The woman who screams in the darkness of my nightmares, as she beats on my heart and blocks out my breath.

  “Pearl,” Papa S. says. He is not here, but I hear his voice. “Did you hear those screams?”

  “Yes.”

  “These screams came from your bones. This time it was Nature calling to you, because you have displeased her.”

  What have I done that has made Nature crawl through my skin and scream within me? I have tried so hard to do everything right. To do all that I’m asked. But Nature is inside me and she knows my thoughts.

  I remember what comes next. The walls slowly begin to close in on me. Closer, closer. I stand with my feet on the ground, hold my arms out to the side, as if that will protect me. Slowly, they’re walking toward me, inch by inch.

  “You have done wrong, Pearl,” Papa S. says. “You must ask for forgiveness.”

  But I can’t speak. My voice is caught between the woman’s screams and the walls that are coming closer.

  “Pearl, admit that you have done wrong,” his voice says from beside me, above me, below me. “You are wicked. You must admit it to cleanse your soul.” But I don’t know what I have done wrong.

  The walls creep closer, touch my fingertips. But I don’t know what I have done.

  I hear his voice, I feel the walls, and I cannot escape. I push onto them, but they don’t move back. They force my arms down.

  And now it’s me screaming, but I know no one can hear. No one but Papa S., but he won’t help me and I don’t know why. I have been bad, but I don’t know how. I have been bad.

  “I have done wrong!” I scream, the walls pushing on my back, my front. “I have been bad!”

  “What have you done?” His voice fills my skin. The walls stop.

  “I don’t know,” I cry.

  “It is Nature moving these walls,” Papa S. shouts. “You must confess to Nature.” And so the walls begin to crush me again. I cannot move my head.

  “Try again,” he says. “Because I love you, Pearl, and wickedness will fester in you if you don’t release it in words.”

  “Ellis,” I manage to say, my voice barely my own. I remember Ellis’s body in the rain. The feeling when he touched me. “My bad thoughts are about Ellis.”

  The walls stop. They hold me there, just for a moment, before they begin to inch away, moving back to make the shape of the small room again.

  My legs can’t hold me and my lungs are still finding it hard to breathe. And lying on the floor, alone, I wonder at the words I said.

  Ellis? Are my thoughts really bad? Round and round, I wonder. I think of him talking to me, looking at me. It’s so different from Jack. Papa S. must have noticed and seen that somewhere deep within me, there were the roots of something he needed to drag out. Bad thoughts. He has helped me. He has wanted to cleanse me.

  I leave the Forgiveness Room and walk back to Papa S.’s study. He is here, waiting for me with his arms open and the warmth of the sunshine in his smile. I have pleased him and suddenly nothing else matters.

  “Pearl,” he says to me and I go to him and I am in the safety of his arms. His cloak smells of the lake. Gently, he strokes my hair. He kisses my head and then steps back to look at me. His eyes are like the brightest sky.

  Finally, he kisses his palm and rests it on my heart. Through my dress, through my skin, I can hear the shuddering as my heart replies.

  Papa S. kisses my forehead again, leads me to the door, and opens it for me. “You have been cleansed,” he says. And I feel such relief that I won’t have those feelings anymore. I shall look at Ellis as I do Jack. He is just a part of our family. One of us.

  “Thank you,” I reply, gazing at Papa S.

  And he is still smiling as he closes the door behind me.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I know, as soon as I see Ellis at the bottom of the stairs, that it hasn’t worked. In fact, everything is worse. Before, I hadn’t known my thoughts about him. Yet now, I look at Ellis and my skin flushes warm.

  “I’m meeting the others at the lake,” Ellis says. “Want to come?” He’s looking at me strangely. I feel the walls stepping closer. I can hear her screaming. “Is everything OK, Pearl?”

  I nod.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m fine,” I answer. But I don’t think he believes me. Do I believe myself?

  “I can wait, if you want to grab a towel,” he says. His arms have become more tanned in the few weeks he’s been here. His hair is a bit longer.

  “OK,” I say, although I don’t mean to. I’d meant to say no and then I would have gone to my room quietly, on my own. But now I’m running up the stairs, two at a time, my bare feet slapping the wood. The echo of the screams are drifting away. I grab the first towel I see and run back and I’m standing next to Ellis again. I try not to sound breathless.

  He laughs at me. “There was no rush. I wasn’t going anywhere.”

  I laugh back and tuck my hair behind my ear. We start to walk, so close our arms keep brushing each other.

  “Shortcut?” he asks. I don’t need to reply. We head for the strawberry fields and begin to step carefully over the row of plants.

  “Don’t step on any leaves,” Ellis says. “Papa S. might just take us up to the rocks and sacrifice us to the sun.” He’s laughing, but he’s shot up that barrier between us again. I can’t look at him.

  “Just a joke, Pearl,” he says, stopping and touching my arm. I carry on walking, so he holds me stronger until I stop. “Hey. It was just a joke.”

  “It wasn’t funny,” I say, finally looking at him. “It’s important to us. He’s important to us.”

  “And you’re important to me,” he says quietly. His words rest on me and then I let them sink inside.

  Ellis bends down and I watch his fingers pick a ripe strawberry from its leaves. “Here,” he says. And he holds it up to me.

  I lean my head forward but he moves the strawberry away. I don’t want to, but I smile. He puts the fruit nearer, so I grab his wrist and hold it steady until the strawberry is in my mouth. I feel his fingers on my lips and warmth shoots through me. The walls of the Forgiveness Room step closer, but I push them away. Ellis catches the juice with his thumb and as I eat, I watch him lick it off his skin.

  He has that look in his eyes. I turn away from him and begin to walk quickly, stepping over the plants, toward the lake.

  “You should try one,” I say over my shoulder, as though being here with him is the most normal thing in the world. “They’re delicious.”

  “I know they are,” he says. Then he’s at my side and we’re walking together again.

  I should say more. I should tell him that I think of him even when we’re not together. But I keep my words inside me and hope my breath will bring him my secrets.

  Kate and Jack are already in the lake. They’re at the deeper end, leaning back against the edge and lazily kicking their legs to keep their bodies afloat. The sun is striking through the trees and sits on Kate’s shoulders, yet it stops short of Jack. They’re talking together, but we can’t hear them from here. Ruby and Bobby sit by the bags and towels on the bank. Their little faces are a buzz of concentration as they pile small sticks on top of one another.

  “It’s a house for the ants,” Bobby says, before we even have to ask. He doesn’t look up as he balances a leaf for the front door.

  “A mini Seed.” Ellis grins and I know I’m staring at his lips.

  And you’re important to me.

  My breath feels short, but I remember that Papa S. has cleansed me and I will not let him down.

  I turn away from Ellis and stretch out the towel. “Your mother is very happy here,” I say. My words seem to surprise him. I don’t know what he was expecting.

  “Yes, she is.” He’s too close as he sits down next to me. I should move a
way.

  “And Sophie too.”

  “She loves it here. She thinks she’s on vacation.”

  “And you?” I ask.

  Ellis glances at me again, and as he shrugs his shoulders I can see what he must have looked like as a young boy. “Who cares what I think?” Then he’s off and running toward the water, diving into its cold.

  I look at his tanned back, his shoulders, the hair now wet on his face and I realize that I care. I care, Ellis.

  I take off my dress. Underneath is the new swimsuit that Elizabeth has given me. Bright turquoise with tiny straps and two red buttons down the front. She told me how it used to be hers, when she was my age. It fits me perfectly, as I knew it would. I can feel that my body is changing every day, but in this swimsuit, do I look like a girl, or a woman? What does Ellis see?

  I walk toward the water and hold my breath as it bites my ankles. I don’t know if he is looking at me, but I wade in gently just in case. As I swim to them, the cold burning my arms, I see that Ellis isn’t watching. He’s talking to Kate and she’s laughing and dipping her long hair back into the water, where it swirls about her shoulders like it’s alive. I refuse to feel envy. Ellis is not only mine to talk to. He is part of our family now.

  Jack sees me, though, and he waves. He pokes me with his toes when I get to him.

  “Where did you get to?” he asks. Such a little question, but it reminds me of the Forgiveness Room and the woman’s screams. I take a deep breath and push myself down under the water. Its electric softness numbs my brain, until I run out of air and have to come back to the surface.

  “You OK?” Jack asks.

  “Completely,” I lie, and I wonder whether I’ll be punished for this too.

  “Race you?”

  “Maybe in a while.”

  “Suit yourself,” he says as he pushes away from the bank and starts to swim. Instantly, I feel bad. Jack never speaks like that and I made him. But I don’t follow him. I hold on to the bank, slowly making circles in the water with my free hand.

  “Where were you, then?” Kate asks. In her bikini, she looks much more like a woman than I do.

  “With Papa S.” I won’t tell her more. Maybe they’ll think that Papa S. has made me his Companion. Kate raises her eyebrow at me.

  “Alone?” she asks.

  “Yes.” I smile and look away. I know that I have Ellis’s attention now.

  “You’re on the way up, Pearl,” Kate says, but her words aren’t filled with happiness, or even envy. It’s more like pity.

  “You’ll be his Companion one day,” I say to her.

  “What if I don’t want to be?” she says. What is she talking about? I look around quickly toward the trees. Anyone nearby could have heard. I don’t answer her. I watch as her defiance suddenly slips into sadness. “Because maybe I don’t,” she says, so quietly that it must be to herself.

  “Can I be his Companion?” Ellis asks, his face serious. But then he grins and rolls backward through the water. Kate laughs and tries to grab his ankles.

  I wonder what it feels like to touch Ellis’s skin. I could reach down now and touch his shoulders, his back.

  My thoughts make me swim away.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “You should take Ellis with you,” Kindred Smith says.

  “To the bees?” Ellis asks.

  “You’ll need to learn,” Kindred Smith tells him. He bangs the hammer down hard on the chair leg and it slots into place.

  “Come on,” I say. “Ruby’s coming too.” I put my hand on his elbow and start to pull him with me. “You’ve been here over three weeks and haven’t even seen the bees.” When Ellis stares at me, I wish I could take back my words. Have I been counting the days I’ve known him?

  “I’ll tell Kindred John where you are. He won’t mind,” Kindred Smith says. So Ellis has no more reason to hesitate.

  It’s a strikingly hot day. Everything seems dry and thirsty. Ruby runs ahead of us as we go around the back of the house. We walk through the East field, which is resting this year, and the ground feels knobbly under our feet.

  “Who is Cedar?” Ellis asks. “I heard Bobby talking to Sophie about him.”

  I hesitate. “He used to live here.”

  “Where did he go?” Ellis asks.

  I turn to him. He’s looking at me as he walks. “I don’t know. One morning they were just gone.” I had almost forgotten about Cedar, and the memory licking at me makes me feel uncomfortable.

  “They?”

  “Sarah and Cedar,” I say reluctantly.

  “What made them go?”

  I look down at my feet. Dust is creeping into my sandals. “Papa S. says she was poisoned by the whispers.”

  “What whispers?”

  “They come from Outside. There was a storm that night and the whispers were carried on the clouds, clothed in thunder. They made Sarah and Cedar run away.”

  Ruby has stopped. I walk quickly toward her, thankful that I don’t have to say any more. She’s holding something in her hand. When we reach her, she shows us the smooth, round stone with its swirls of poppy red.

  “Look,” she says to me. “The sun has painted it.”

  “You should borrow it,” I say warmly, and she puts it in her pocket.

  We reach the bee shed in the corner of the field. When I open the door, the smell of old honey rushes out. I love coming in here. As a child, it was always the job I begged to do. Elizabeth taught me everything.

  We walk to the hooks where the hats hang like fish skins. I reach up and pass one to Ellis.

  “Just this?” he asks. “What about the rest of the suit?”

  “This is all we use,” I say.

  “And gloves too?”

  “No.” I laugh at his expression. “The bees won’t hurt you.”

  “They sting.”

  “Hardly ever,” I say as I pick up the basket with the pine needles and matches. I pass Ellis the wooden box and Ruby reaches for his other hand as we walk from the shed across the field, to where the hives sit waiting for us. I can’t wait to show him. The world of the bees is magical and I want to be the one to share it with Ellis for the first time.

  As we get closer, we put our hats on so the veils cover our faces.

  Ellis laughs beneath his veil. “I feel like a spaceman.”

  “What’s a spaceman?” I ask.

  “A man who goes to space.”

  I don’t know what he means, so I just keep walking.

  “You know?” he asks.

  “No,” I say.

  Ellis shakes his head. I can see his eyes looking at me through the net over his face. “Have they never told you about people going to space? Walking on the moon?”

  I stop and look at him. The anger he has placed in me makes my head so hot. He is ruining it. Ruining everything. “I’m not stupid, you know,” I say.

  “I know you’re not,” Ellis says.

  “So why test me? Tell me stupid things to see if I believe them?”

  “I don’t,” he says.

  “Someone walking on the moon?” I raise my eyebrows at him. I hope he can see.

  “Yes. They did. They do. And they have helmets like these.” Ellis reaches up and touches the white surrounding his face. “But harder and with oxygen pumping into them.”

  “Then you’re the stupid one, Ellis,” I say. “Is that what you learned at the school? I wonder what other things you believed.” I laugh, the air warming my lips even more. Ellis just shakes his head and carries on walking.

  I forget about his words as soon as we get to the hive. I light the pine needles and hold them, smoking, into it. Then Ruby pulls Ellis toward us.

  “Watch,” I say to him as I reach for the first wooden frame. I pull it up and it’s heavy with bees. Their noise immediately fills the air. Thick, solid buzzing pushing right inside me. I look at Ellis, but it’s difficult to see his eyes. Have they got into him, the way they have in me?

  I hold the frame and wat
ch their black and orange streaks. Today they sound annoyed; they didn’t want to be disturbed. But I want Ellis to see them properly. I move the frame toward him, but he steps back quickly. Ruby shakes her head and laughs at him, and then carefully places her bare hand on top of the bees.

  “See,” I tell him. “They don’t sting.”

  “How does she do that?” he asks, his voice muffled.

  “You can do it too,” I say.

  “It’s all right, thanks,” Ellis says. “I’m fine right here.”

  Gently, I knock the frame against the hive until the bees fall off. Some fly around Ellis, and he stands still as a rock.

  “You can do it next time,” I suggest.

  “There won’t be a next time,” Ellis mumbles.

  When we’ve gathered enough frames, we walk back to the bee shed. Ellis keeps his hat on until he’s safely inside. His hair is sticky with sweat.

  “Can I go and play with Sophie?” Ruby asks.

  “Of course,” I tell her and she runs from the shed, the door closing behind her, shutting the heat in.

  I scrape the top layer of honeycomb from the frames and slot them into the machine to spin them.

  “You won’t be frightened of this too?” I turn to Ellis.

  “I don’t like bees,” he says. “It’s no big deal.” He watches me as I turn the handle faster and faster and the honey begins to drip into the glass jar below.

  “That’s pretty cool, though,” he says.

  Slowly, the jar fills. The flow of honey stems to a drip, so I reach for a lid on the shelf behind me and screw it on tight. When I hold the jar up to the window, the sunlight catches on it. I know that Ellis is impressed and I beam at him.

  “Can I try some?” he asks.

  “Of course not,” I reply. “You haven’t got the drops, have you?”

  “What drops?”

  “For the honey,” I say. Ellis is looking at me, as though he doesn’t know what to say. Maybe he’s never had honey before. Maybe he doesn’t know.

  “You can’t eat the honey like this,” I explain. “If you do, the eggs will hatch inside you and bees will fill your stomach.” Ellis looks shocked. So he didn’t know. “They crawl up your breathing pipes. They sting you on the way up, and they sting inside your mouth before they swarm out.”