boy. You’re soft.” He said it, but once again, I could hear that note of fear.
“You think so?” I said. “Come try me. Hitting a woman is easy. Come try me instead. Pussy.”
A few seconds, and he said, “Will you bring a shovel this time, too? Easy to threaten an unarmed man when you’re carrying a shovel.”
“No,” I said. “I’ll bring my fists. They’ll do.” And rang off.
Would it work? Not if he thought he could sneak up on me. Not if he could set a fire and run. But it might shift his anger and his focus to me, and that was where I wanted it to be.
Call four, now. Call four would be the tricky one. Another number I’d written down.
Three rings, and a cautious, “Hello? Who’s this?” I could hear talking in the background. Kids’ voices.
I said, “Gray Tamatoa.”
“Who?”
“The man who took your nieces out of Mount Zion last week.”
“Who are you?” he said. Uncle Aaron, whose number was in Daisy’s phone. “What’s your interest?”
“I’m a friend,” I said. “And I think you’re a friend as well. Is it safe for you to talk?”
“I’m always safe,” he said. Not proudly. Stating a fact. Plenty of lower-register in his voice. A calm man.
I said, “I’d like to tell you two things. First, I’d like you to get a message to your leader.”
“The Prophet,” he said.
“Your leader,” I said again. “Tell him that he has no power away from Mount Zion, but I do. And that if he doesn’t hold Gilead back, it won’t just be Gilead I destroy. I’ll break his elbows badly enough that he won’t work for months, yeh, but that isn’t all I’ll do. I’ll make it my life’s mission to shut your community down.”
“Others have tried,” Aaron said.
“I have a unique set of advantages,” I said. “A public profile. Three personable young women who will press charges, and the contacts to hook them up with the media and let them tell their story. I’ve got the financing to make it happen, and a powerful will. If he crosses me, he’ll pay. Will you pass that message along?”
Silence, and then Aaron said, “I’ll do my best.”
“Thank you,” I said. And rang off.
Daisy
I didn’t see Gray in the morning. I didn’t see him in the afternoon, either. That was because I had exactly forty-five minutes after I woke up to get ready.
I’d gone to sleep to the sound of the roosters crowing, the birds calling, the wind in the trees. I’d woken, then slept again to the whine of power machinery up by the road and cupboard doors opening and closing as somebody worked in the kitchen. To the scent of new-mown grass and yeasty bread and cinnamon. To all this life around me. And I found, when I drifted up to the surface for real, that I’d slept for eight and a half hours.
When I made it out to the kitchen at last, Honor was sitting at the dining table with Frankie and Oriana. There was something meaty cooking in the oven, and a half-consumed Sally Lunn on a cutting board on the benchtop. Thick white icing, coconut sprinkle, fluffy, rich bun studded with golden raisins. Too many kilojoules and not enough nutrition. I flipped the switch on the electric jug, dropped a teabag into a mug, and said, “Somebody’s tempting me again, and I don’t have time to run today.”
“That was me,” Oriana said, surprising me not at all. “Honor had some ideas, too, though. We did lemon zest in it. It turned out quite nice. Have some.”
Frankie said, “I haven’t cooked at all since I’ve left. Not sure whether to feel bad about that.”
I waited for Honor to answer her, but she was quiet, so I said, “Well, there’s your ankle, of course. But do you miss it?”
“No,” Frankie said. “I don’t miss any of the work rotations. I didn’t hate cooking as much as laundry or cleaning, and I didn’t hate knitting much at all, but that’s all I can say. I didn’t even always like looking after the kids. Maybe Gilead’s right after all, and I was made wrong. Not enough of a woman. Maybe I’m actually a man. Like Iris.”
“Iris isn’t a man,” Oriana said. “She used to be a man. She always felt like a girl, though, since she was little, so she switched. There’s medicine you take, and surgery, but it’s in your head, mainly. It’s how you feel.”
“If she feels like a woman,” Frankie said, “why does