Gabi’s mouth dropped open. Hoarding was a high crime in the fellowship. If he got caught, he and his family could be excommunicated. She couldn’t believe Jordan trusted her enough to tell her. She would never divulge his secret, of course. Defending the fellowship was nowhere on her list of priorities, but how could he know that?
“But what if you get caught?”
“Why, are you going to tell on me?” Jordan challenged. “I thought someone who would risk the fury of Ruth to sneak outside and stare at the sky might have a little more spunk than that.”
“Of course I won’t tell, but hoarding is a serious thing. Aren’t you scared?”
“I’m scared of watching my parents starve. Living in Spruce is like being excommunicated anyway. We barely get anything except flour, oil, and powdered milk. What we do get, my parents insist on giving to me, and my sister when she’s around. They barely eat, and it’s worse since my brother died. We get my sister’s ration when she’s on a Witness mission, and they make me eat that too. That’s why I look like this.”
“But why don’t you at least eat while you’re here?” Gabi pressed. “There’s plenty for you to take home and still have as much as you want for yourself. I think they’re actually throwing stuff out at the end of the day!”
Gabi struggled to make sense of Jordan’s story. All the branches were supposed to get the same allotment. Why were the fellows in Spruce getting such meager rations, especially when they had less capacity to grow food than almost any other branch except barren Cottonwood to the south?
Jordan opened his mouth to speak, then clamped it shut and shook his head. “I’d rather not say. It’s a personal choice.”
“Not to eat the whole weekend?” Gabi sputtered. “You’ll pass out, especially if all you’re eating at home is flour and oil and milk.”
“I’m getting what I need,” Jordan insisted. “Don’t worry about it, okay? I know what I’m doing.” His voice was firmer than it had been all day.
“Okay,” Gabi conceded, but when she finally found her way back to her bunk, it was with more troubling questions than ever before.
“ASIDE FROM our willingness to surrender to the One God, purity in mind and body is the greatest gift we can offer him,” Ruth intoned, locking her gaze on each bleary-eyed girl in turn. “It’s how we perfect our vessels to receive and translate the Word, which is his greatest gift to us.”
The bunks in the girls’ dorm had been shoved against the walls, and the group sat in a candlelit circle in the middle of the planked floor. At the center of the circle was a bowl of water, a white candle, a ceramic dish of what looked like sugar or salt, and a knife. Ruth rose from her cross-legged position and began to pace around the inside of the circle, shapely calves flashing beneath her white cotton shift. Her mahogany hair flowed down her back in loose waves, and her face had the fresh, alert quality of someone who’d just slept fourteen hours, then had a pot of strong tea.
The other female counselors were also clad in white cotton shifts, though none exuded the same effortless radiance as Ruth at this hour. It was four thirty in the morning, after all. For their part, the campers hunched in their pajamas, eyes at half-mast, faces puffy with sleep. Even the members of the pretty-girl clique looked like they’d been punched in both eyes. Gabi was sure she looked no better, having crawled back into her bed just after 2:00 a.m., then lain awake puzzling over the enigma of Jordan’s confession until the counselors rang the bell to rouse them. She wasn’t tired, though. On the contrary, the intake of delicious oxygen from her time among the trees still fizzed in her lungs.
The time outside had cleared a smog in her brain that she hadn’t realized was there until it was gone. It reminded her of the way her medication fuzzed everything at the edges and robbed her of any quickness or strength, but the smog was different. It was seductive, like the smell of rich food, and noticeably warmed her toward everything and everyone. When the smog cleared, she cringed to think of her response to Luke. She wasn’t chagrined because he was so out of her league but because his interest in her was so obviously contrived. Had she actually been attracted to him? The thought made her shudder. When she pictured him now, it was with a mouth full of shark’s teeth.
The dorm room was cold, and Gabi’s stomach rumbled. Her outdoor adventure had ramped up her appetite, and it was hard to focus on Ruth’s words as visions of fluffy pancakes and omelets oozing with real cheese played through her mind. Hot chocolate, french toast drenched in syrup, fried potatoes with onions. Gabi had never been one to obsess over food, but her body wanted things now with a ferocity that astonished her. It wanted to eat, drink, move, and there was still never enough air. It even, as she had discovered the day before, wanted touch, and not just the kind shared between friends.
As if reading her thoughts, Ruth spun on her heel and looked at Gabi. “Anyone?” she prompted, appending the question to one Gabi had missed entirely. “Come now, don’t be shy,” Ruth coaxed. “We’re all sisters here, right? Trying to help each other? Trying to raise each other up?” A flush crept up Gabi’s neck. Ruth was padding toward her, eyes sparking violet flame. Gabi couldn’t ask Ruth to repeat the question, or the fact she hadn’t been listening would be obvious, but it would be equally obvious if she tried to pretend she
