the stem was broken and she hauled the pumpkin into her arms, she didn’t drop it on the ground this time but held it for a few seconds as the man approached. He leaned down to her as he took it from her hands. If she spoke to him, we had no way of knowing. He gave no sign of it, but when he walked to the wagon I noticed that he placed the pumpkin carefully, the right way up, on the side of the cart farthest from the soldier.
We scanned their every movement while they emptied the corner of the field. Each time one of the women took a while freeing a pumpkin, I imagined her stealing glances at the messages we’d carved. Once, the dwarf woman called the taller woman across to help her. It might have been because the pumpkin she was lifting was larger than the others, but I wanted to believe that she was whispering to her companion. That our carved words were spreading. Either way, the soldier nearby gave a shout when he saw that the women had drawn close, and they sprang back to their allotted places in the row of workers.
The last of the pumpkins were harvested. Snow was mounting on the vegetables stacked in the wagon as it was towed back through the gates.
“Even if they haven’t seen the messages yet,” I said, “there’s a chance they could still be seen, when they unload them, or store them.”
“A chance they could be seen by the soldiers, too,” said Zoe.
The gate was drawn closed again. We could hear the distant thud of the wooden crossbeam being dropped, as final as an executioner’s ax hitting the block.
chapter 17
Back in the camp in the marshes, I dreamed of blood. A flood of it rose over New Hobart like the tank water had risen in all my earlier visions. Elsa was there, sinking beneath the red tide. When she was fully submerged, she opened her eyes to stare at me. She opened her mouth. Nothing emerged but bubbles.
When I woke, long before midnight, Piper and Zoe were sleeping back-to-back. Zoe was facing me, her mouth open, and her slumbering face looking younger and less guarded than her prickly daytime self. On the far side of Piper lay Xander. Sally was taking the lookout shift that night, and without her Xander slept restlessly, half-formed words tipping from his mouth each time he rolled over.
I crept from the tent, moving nearly as slowly as we had in the pumpkin field. Outside, the snow had added another layer of silence to the sleeping camp. To the west was the single path of reeds that was the only way out of our camp. Halfway along it, I knew, was the sentry post where Sally was on lookout. Beyond her, in the swamp, more lookouts were stationed. I headed to the far side of the camp, where the reeds were deepest, and crouched to assess the water’s icy crust. When I prodded it with a foot, the ice creaked. It wouldn’t hold my weight, so I braced myself to crack the ice and swim. It was only a hundred yards to the next island of reeds, but the cold would be more of a risk than the distance.
“If you don’t drown yourself, you’ll freeze to death.”
The shock of the whispered voice sent my foot jerking through the ice, and I had to throw myself backward to avoid falling in. The cold of the water forced a sharp intake of breath from me.
“I wondered if you’d go to him tonight.” Sally stepped from amid the reeds.
“What are you talking about?” I said. “I just need a walk, and some time alone.”
She sighed. “Haven’t you figured out yet that I don’t have time to play games? Why do you think I volunteered to take the lookout shifts these last few days? I’ve been watching you ever since you raised the question of the Ringmaster and got shut down.”
Silent, I bent to wring the water from my soaked trouser leg, avoiding Sally’s eyes.
“Can you really think a Councilor would help us?” she said.
“He wants to stop the tanks,” I said. “I know that.”
“Enough to take up arms against his own people? Enough to start a war?”
It was strange to hear talk of war in her breathy, whispered voice.
I wished that I could answer her with any certainty. “I think he’s a man of principle, in his own way. But his principles aren’t