Free Seed by Lisa Heathfield

clinging to his chest. Ellis laughs, but he looks unsure.
    “Come on, Pearl,” I hear Kate say to me through the noise of the downpour. And so I reach for my buttons, undo my shirt all the way down, and take it from my shoulders and my arms.
    “You too, Jack?” I smile at him. And Kate is laughing, pulling down his suspenders, tugging his shirt free. Jack pushes her hands away, but I’m sure he’s shaking as he takes off his shirt, then his shoes, his trousers. He puts them on the wet rock. And they’re dancing, Kate and Jack, half-naked in the rain, the water spilling on their skin as Ellis and I stand there.
    I step out of my skirt. And I feel free. Ellis doesn’t hesitate for long, and he takes his shirt off. His trousers stick, but he yanks at them. I look at Ellis’s body. His skin is paler than Jack’s and he’s slimmer. The rain is falling on his bare stomach and I can’t look away.
    Kate and Jack take our hands and we’re turning again in the rain. But we don’t look at the sky this time. We watch each other, still laughing, the rain cold, but warm. Thunder cracks and Kate screams, but we keep on turning.
    Ellis looks at me. I feel his eyes on my body, seeing myunderwear, seeing my skin, almost all of my skin. And a feeling rushes to my belly and fizzes down my legs. But then he turns away and I feel Jack’s hand in mine.
    Time rushes and stops and rushes and stops and gradually the rain slows down. The water now just taps me slightly. And then we’re standing still, holding hands, soaked to our bones. Suddenly exposed. Suddenly aware. And I want to stay like this, but I want to cover myself too. Part of me wants it never to have happened, but I don’t know why.
    Jack is the first to put his clothes back on. He struggles to pull his trousers up, laughing as he tumbles to the wet grass. Kate smiles as she watches him with her hands on her hips. I reach for my shirt, pull it over my arms, fumble with the buttons.
    “Getting dressed already?” Ellis asks me. That mocking smile is on his lips.
    “I’m cold,” I say. But I’m not. And I don’t understand the feelings I have.
    Kate is the last to put her clothes on. She’s watched us struggle with the wet material, and now we watch her. She’s slow, and doesn’t look at us, as she bends over to pick up her skirt. She puts her legs in, pulls it up. I see the look on Jack’s face and it makes me know that he is changing. Am I losing him?
    And then we walk, in silence, away from Dawn Rocks, the last of the rain squeezed out of the sky.

    He knows that I am here. The little boy. He watches me and he knows.
    He speaks to me when no one sees. But I do not understand what he says. I do not know what he asks.
    There are footsteps outside my room. I step down from the window and sit quietly on the chair. And I wait.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

    P apa S. has called me to him. I was hoping for good news, hoping for the words that make me his Companion. But as I stand in his study, he has barely spoken to me. He is sitting in his chair behind his desk, with his back to me, his face toward the window.
    “Pearl,” he says, his voice so quiet. “You have dissatisfied me and Mother Nature.” I want to ask why, but the word doesn’t come out. “You must ask for forgiveness.”
    I know, as soon as he says that word. I will be in that room again.
    He says nothing else, but beckons for me to follow him. Walking toward the room, I can hear the sounds of the children outside. And I’m walking, my bare feet on the wooden floor, toward the door. I reach out for the perfectly round door handle. I hold my hand there and I wait for my legs to run. But they don’t, because I trust Papa S., and I’m turning the handle. The door breathes as it opens itself to me and I step inside.
    I close the door and there’s silence. It’s like the world outsidehas disappeared and I’m the only one left. I walk into the small room and I want to run away, but I know that Papa S. loves