The Devouring Land by Joshua David Bellin

Author:Joshua David Bellin [Bellin, Joshua David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Mostly Wind Books
Published: 2017-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

Angelica’s waiting for me at the library the next morning—another surprise, since she’s been late every other day except the first. Her hair is piled atop her head in an elaborate configuration I have no words for, and there’s something more than usually sweet in the scent she leaves as she flits around the room. She keeps touching her hair, and finally, I get the idea that I’m supposed to say something about it.

“I like your hair,” is the best I can come up with.

She smiles. “Yours is nice, too.”

“I guess.” Leah showed me the result of her labors in the mirror last night, and she did a decent job, considering what she had to work with. It’s nothing like Angelica’s, though. “Why no books?” I ask, nodding at the bare table.

She claps her hands. “I have a special present for you.”

She darts to the shelves and pulls a book free. When she approaches the table, she moves slowly, holding the book in both palms and placing it in front of me with exaggerated care. I take the book in my hands. Its faded green cover is nibbled at the corners by time, with gold capital letters imprinted on the green: SILENT SPRING. I look at Angelica, who smiles.

“She lived close to where we are right now,” she says. “In a town called Springdale.”

“Is that why she wrote about things that spring?”

She laughs. “She went to college near here, too. A college only for girls. But that one didn’t make it through the Ecosystem. This is a first edition that somebody salvaged from their collection.”

“Oh.”

She sits, and a wave of sweetness washes over me. “Take as much time as you need. I’ll be right here if you have any questions.”

I open to the book’s first page. There’s the title again, with Rachel’s name and a black-and-white drawing of a nest with four eggs. The pages feel extra thick as they move beneath my fingers, and they carry a musty smell missing from the other books. The first page has its own title, A Fable for Tomorrow, and there’s a drawing of what the world must have looked like in Rachel’s time: level fields sprinkled with small square houses, sparse clumps of trees, a branch with flowers in the foreground. I look at Angelica. “What’s a fable?”

“A make-believe story,” she says. “One that teaches a lesson.”

“So this book isn’t true like the others?”

“It’s true,” she says. “It’s hard to explain. Just read and we can talk later.”

I lower my eyes to the page. There are so many words, I’m momentarily flabbergasted, forgetful of where I’m supposed to start. Then I find my place and read:

“There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields….”

I settle into the rhythm of reading, and though some of the words are new to me, I don’t ask Angelica for help.

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