Nature Rules - 2022 WATTY'S SHORTLIST

Grain of Truth

"Mom!!!!" wails Crinae breaking the spell. "Stop!"

Crinae runs down the hill to where our mother is standing and stops to stare at her being consumed by sparks. The blue eddies around my mother subside, fading from blue to green to nothing. She looks dazed but turns towards Crinae.

"Hush darling. It's fine. Come here." She beckons with her arms and Crinae goes straight into them.

"See Crinae. I am fine. I'm fine," she repeats as she strokes my sister's hair.

Elody darts away from me and towards Mom. I follow. Slowly. I have lots of questions that I'm trying to coherently form.

"Crinae, Naia, Elody, you don't have to be worried," she says as Elody breaks into her arms and fights for a spot beside Crinae. "Your father and I will explain everything to you. But we can't do it here. We have to get this work done and then we'll go home."

"You're an Aeternian," I say, pointing my finger at Mom. "You've been able to get water all along but you've been making me go get it."

I'm angry. Angry at my mother who didn't have to climb mountains and worry about Waterstealers. Angry at the woman who kept this secret from me. Angry at the woman who might have been able to save Jude. I'm so angry that I don't notice I'm walking on the recently sowed seeds, pushing our hard work into barren darkness.

Dad walks towards me from the other corner of the field.

"Naia," he calls. "Do you see what you're doing to your sisters?"

Elody and Crinae have moved behind Mom, covering their eyes with her shirt. They're scared. Of me.

With each step, I'm not only killing our chances of growing wheat but I'm also about to drown all of us. A giant wave of water is trailing me and growing larger by the second. Oh oh.

"Mom, help!" I yell, shouting over the noise of the sloshing of water that I can hear clearly now. I turn to look at the wave and it towers over me. My hot anger is put out by the cool water as the wave bends towards me. It hits me in the face as it loses steam and plummets to earth.

"Urgh!" I say as watery dirt splashes into my eyes and nose. It even gets into my mouth. I spit it out as quickly as it came in.

Mom is laughing. Dad is laughing. Then Crinae and Elody are laughing. I am not.

"If you were younger, I'd say you just ate mud pie," chuckles Mom.

So that's what mud is. Okay. I'm still not feeling great about Mom being Aeternian and lying to us about it. Guess I'm one now too.

"Not sure what you all are finding so funny," I say. "It's not going to be a laughing matter when the SCM get here."

"What do you mean?" asks Dad.

"There are tire tracks all over that side of the ridge," I say. "Fresh ones."

Mom turns pale, as pale as the glacier on top of Queest.

"Girls, put the markers around the perimeter of the field," she says. "Push them in the ground hard."

Crinae doesn't move. She stays beside Mom and holds her hand. Elody and I do as we're told. The wet soil has turned black and momentarily blends in with the rest of the surroundings: the burned trees and charcoal floor. Soon, the sun will suck all the moisture away again and the seeds will have to be watered daily.

Finishing my task, I help Elody with her markers. We've been told these rocks signal my parents about anyone coming onto the wheat field. If a rock is moved, it shows someone has entered the zone. I'm not sure if the markers have ever worked but I guess it's also a project my parents made up for us so we wouldn't see what they were doing.