Free Lost Harvest: Book One of the Harvest Trilogy by Joe Pace

combustion automobiles that still ran in the back alleys of the city, writing her daydreaming poetry. This was where she had gone to school, first kissed a boy, and first broke a boy’s heart. She had been happy here, mostly, but had left when the first chance came. She was back now, and still mostly happy, but knew she would leave again soon. And where will you go then, Christine ?
    A sound came from behind her, a glass door sliding open, disturbing her reverie. Her grandfather closed the door and walked out to stand beside her at the railing. He was older, she noticed, but still a robust, arresting man, straight and erect, with silvery hair and coppery skin. His loose-sleeved white shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, a white-black thicket bristling into the gap. In one hand was a glass much like hers, in the other, the bottle of opal rum, orange-yellow in the half-light. He refilled her glass and then his own, and held his out in salute.
    “Good romo, girl.” His voice had the old, lilting accents so many islanders clung to, a rare mark of identity in a homogenizing global Kingdom where everyone watched the same vids, ate the same foods, spoke the same language. At least they could make that language their own. And if their islands were no longer truly islands, all the more important to sound like true islanders. Miguel Diego Ochoa held the drink under his nose for a moment, his eyes closed, then slowly took a sip. The delight was evident on his face, and it made Fletcher smile.
    “Anything for my Papi.” She took another drink herself. A quiet voice from within told her to take it easy, but a louder voice laughed at the caution. This was hardly her first drink. She was an officer on a commercial cargo ship, after all, and often had a tot or two with the crew. Besides, she was home, and there was hardly a safer place for her in all the galaxy than in this house. Her mother’s father was the only parent she had ever known, and along with her sister, the only person in the world she truly loved. He leaned against the railing, looking at her from underneath bushy eyebrows, studying her, and in that moment Fletcher felt that she might be twelve years old again.
    “You’re unhappy,” he said, and she laughed.
    “Of course not, Papi.”
    “Girl, please.” His rich baritone was kind and loving, but firm. He took another swallow of the rum. “You can lie to whomever you want, your sister later tonight, yourself even, but don’t try it with me. I raised you from a baby, and I know your lying face.”
    “I’m not unhappy,” said Fletcher, and she meant it. “I’m just…just…restless, maybe?”
    “That, too.” Ochoa smiled, and his teeth were as white as hers. “You always were a spranskious thing, Christie. I can still remember that boy you brought around when you were what, sixteen? Nice boy, good family, but he never stood a chance. He might as well have tried to wrap his arms around a hurricane. Do you remember him?”
    “John Crawford,” she muttered with a sheepish smile.
    “Yes, that was it. He knocks on my door one night, this John, and he says, ‘Mr. Ochoa,’ – polite boy, this John – he says, ‘Christie’s not like other girls.’ Polite boy, but maybe not that bright, I remember thinking. I told him, ‘No, there’s none other like her on this spinning Earth.’ He replies, ‘I know, sir.’ Then – and this is the part I’ll never forget – he says, ‘Do you think she’ll ever settle down for me?’”
    “He said that?” Fletcher asked, horrified.
    “He did. He did. And I said to him, ‘No, son, she won’t. But don’t feel bad. She won’t settle down for me, either.” They both laughed then, and drank their rum, and looked at the stars they could see.
    “Poor Johnny,” murmured Fletcher after a while. I haven’t thought about him in years . She wondered, idly, what might have become of him. Married, most likely, with children of his own by some nice, proper girl