The Book of Flora by Meg Elison

Author:Meg Elison [Elison, Meg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542042093
Published: 2019-04-22T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

The Book of Flora

Ommun, where the sun never rises and there is no weather

104N

The minute I saw Alma, I knew she was up to something.

Alma always dresses like a person who has no labor to perform, though that isn’t true at all. She works constantly, in supervision and assignment of tasks. People seek her out daily for judgments and advice. Her word is the last in any dispute, and the people of Ommun trust her to literally speak for God Herself. I’ve seen her nursing two babies, obviously exhausted, pregnant, and listening patiently to a group of mish who wanted to know whether they could bring back someone who wanted to help farm sweet potatoes, but would only agree to live on the surface and not in the city below. I’ve seen her use reason and divine revelation in her own strange braid of leadership, making it nearly impossible to tell what is her own opinion and what is the word from their final authority.

She works hard, and maintaining that image is an obvious part of the work. She has to look larger than life so that they will believe in something larger than life. So every day, she wears one of her long, white, gauzy dresses. I’ve touched it—it’s just woven cotton. My fingers itch sometimes for my old silk tools. I could make her something that would convince people that she is God, rather than just speaking for Her.

But tonight she was wearing her whitest, most otherworldly gown, with old-world threads of some shimmery golden stuff worked through it so that it caught the light when she moved. She had had someone dress her hair into intricate braids that piled on either side of her head, with loose escaped curls draped down in front of and behind her shoulders. No one in Ommun paints their face, but I think Alma has a secret stash because her lips looked berried and her eyelids seemed yellow-gold like she used crushed flower petals. Just looking at her tonight in her braids and her regal mien made me miss the horsewomen so much that my throat closed up.

But once I got past it all—her beauty and her power and being awestruck by her—I realized that it’s never just pageantry with someone like her. It’s politics. I suppose the way we present ourselves always is, but for leaders it’s even more important. I know before she says anything that she’s got something to say.

It’s the usual feeling when Alma says we all need to join her at her fireside. The people from Ommun are excited and everyone else is wary. But we go, and we sit and stand all around the room and wait. Alice sits beside me on cushions on the floor. I can see Eddy and Kelda, standing beside a column, half-hidden, across the room.

Alma stands before us, beaming. There’s no fire lit; it’s too warm this time of year. Instead, someone has filled the fireplace with tallow candles, and their glow lights up the translucent material of Alma’s gown.

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