Intrigue by Aaron Patterson

Author:Aaron Patterson [Patterson, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Short Stories (Single Author)
ISBN: 9780615571683
Publisher: StoneHouse Ink
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

[email protected]

K.C. Neal

Kate Copsey Neal grew up in Boise, Idaho, spent 10 years moving around California and the Northwest, and then came to her senses and returned to Boise. She holds degrees in chemistry and health science, and sometimes wonders how that happened. Look for The Pyxis, her debut novel and the first book in a young adult series, in Summer 2011.

Pre-IQ

THE ONION SEEDLING FELL from Dania’s hand. Pain bloomed through her abdomen, and her heart thumped with apprehension. This was just another bout of those false labor contractions, she told herself. She sank into a nearby chair and squeezed her eyes shut. She was still five weeks from her due date, and this was just her body making adjustments, readying for labor. But this wasn’t it. Not yet. Jasper would be on the ground in just a week. Dania knew it was unlikely that the birth would happen during Jasper’s ground time between shifts on the carbon dioxide scrubber. But still, she hoped.

After a minute that felt more like half an hour, the pain ebbed and Dania took in a deep breath—as deep as her crowded midsection would allow—and tried to peer around her belly for the onion seedling she’d dropped.

“No, no, let me,” Molly appeared at Dania’s shoulder, and stooped to rescue the small plant from the greenhouse’s gravel floor. She tucked it into a cube of growth medium, her fingers curled protectively around the plant’s roots. Sweat and condensation slicked Molly’s face, forming ridges of moisture in the deep lines of her forehead, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her short-sleeved gray smock, the underarms already saturated with sweat, hung suspended from the horizontal line of her bony shoulders.

Dania wore an identical smock, except hers was shaped to allow for the extra bulk of her belly. The thin wicking fabric always felt slightly cool on the skin, like the underside of a linen-cased pillow, even in the pressing heat of the greenhouse. The smock helped a little, but at this point in her pregnancy the greenhouse might as well have been a steam sanitizer, every breath like drawing air through a wet block of growth medium.

“Another gut pincher, eh?” Molly tilted her head and smiled, her eyes crinkling in sympathy.

“Just a bit,” Dania said. She shifted and the feet of the chair crunched against the gravel under her weight. For the past few weeks, Molly had helped her drag the rusted folding chair along with them as they worked, so Dania could rest her swollen feet every so often. She patted the edge of the seat under her thigh. “Good thing you found this for me. Wouldn’t want you to have to pull me up off the ground.”

“Why don’t you take a minute there? You need to rest,” Molly said. She walked to the end of the raised row of growth medium cubes and rounded the end to her side, where she resumed planting onion seedlings. The air was heavy with the smell of wet soil, and the earthy-sulphurous scent of onion wafted from the flats whenever someone passed nearby.

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