The Fire Sermon. Francesca Haig

garlic. When I first followed her instructions, and learned to crush the garlic with the flat of my knife so that the clove slipped from its dry husk like a sweet from its wrapper, I felt closer to Alice than to any of the others in the settlement.

      In those quiet evenings, I thought often of my mother, and of Zach. At first, Mum wrote to me a few times a year, her letters carried by Alpha traders who wouldn’t even dismount at the settlement to drop them, instead tossing them from their saddle bags. Two years after I arrived at the settlement, she wrote that Zach had an apprenticeship at the Council, at Wyndham. Over the next year or so, more news filtered through: that Zach provided good service. That he grew in power. Then, after five years in the settlement, Mum wrote that Zach’s master had died, and Zach had taken over his post. We were only eighteen, but most Councillors started young. They died young too – the rivalries and factions within the Council were legendary. The Judge, who’d been in charge as long as I could remember, was a rare exception, as old as my parents. Most of the others were young. Stories reached us, even in the settlement, of the rise and fall of various Councillors. In the brutal world of the Council fort at Wyndham, it seemed, ruthlessness and ambition counted for more than experience. It didn’t surprise me that Zach had been drawn to it, or that he should have done well. I tried to picture him in the splendour of the Council chambers. I thought of his smile of triumph when he’d exposed me, and what he’d said afterwards: Nobody’s going to be throwing rocks at me now. Not ever again. And while I feared for him, I didn’t envy him, even in the year the harvest failed and we went hungry in the settlement.

      By that stage Mum’s letters were rare – a year or more between them – and for news of the rest of the world I had to rely on the gossip picked up at the Omega market to the west, or shared by the itinerants who passed through our settlement. Along with their small bundles of possessions, they carried with them stories. Those heading west were seeking better land to farm, as the bleak land closer to the deadlands in the east barely produced enough to pay the Council tithes, let alone to live on. But those coming from the west spoke of Council crack-downs: Omegas forced out of long-held settlements, where the land was now deemed too good for them; Alpha raiders who stole and destroyed crops. More and more people forced to seek out the refuges. Rumours of harsher treatment of Omegas came steadily. Even in our settlement, which had decent land compared to many, we were feeling the impact of the ever-higher tithes demanded by the Council collectors. Twice, too, Alpha raiders had attacked us. The first time they came, they’d beaten Ben, whose cottage was at the edge of the settlement. They’d taken everything they could carry, including the coins he’d put aside for the next month’s tithes. The second time they came was after the failed harvest; not finding anything to steal, they’d contented themselves with setting fire to the barn. When I suggested to my neighbours that we should report it to the Council, they rolled their eyes.

      ‘So they can send some soldiers out to burn down the rest of the settlement?’ said Claire.

      ‘You lived too long in that Alpha village, Cass,’ added Nessa. ‘You still haven’t got it.’

      I was learning, though, with each story of brutality that found its way to the settlement. There were other rumours, too, though these were rare, and were shared more furtively: murmurings about Omega resistance, and whispers about the island. But watching my neighbours’ resignation as we rebuilt the barn, these ideas seemed far-fetched. The Council had ruled for hundreds of years; the idea that there could be any place free of their control was nothing but wishful thinking.

      And why bother with the resistance, anyway? The fatal bond between twins was our safety net. Ever since the drought years there’d been more and more restrictions on Omegas, but at the same time as we griped about tithes, or the limitation of settlements to ever poorer land, we knew that the Council would ultimately protect us. That was what the refuges were for – and after the failed harvest, more and more Omegas considered them. That winter had left my bones straining towards the outside of my skin. It had worn us all down to bones and teeth, and finally one couple from our settlement left for the refuge near Wyndham. We couldn’t persuade them to stay, to gamble on the promise of new crops in spring. They’d had enough. So the whole settlement stood together in the dawn light, watching them lock up their cottage, before trudging off down the rock-strewn road.

      ‘Don’t know why they’re bothering to lock up,’ said Nessa. ‘They won’t be coming back.’

      ‘At least they’ll be fed,’ Claire replied. ‘Only fair that they should have to work for it.’

      ‘For a while, sure. But these days they’re saying that once you’re in, you’re in for good.’

      She shrugged. ‘It’s their choice to go.’ I looked again at the retreating figures. The meagre packs they carried looked bigger on their wasted bodies. What choice did they really have?

      ‘Anyway,’ she continued. ‘You can’t tell me you’d rather there were no refuges. At least we know the Council wouldn’t let us starve.’

      ‘Not wouldn’t.’ Ben, the oldest at the settlement, joined in. ‘They would if they could get away with it. But could not. There’s a difference.’

      *

      In spring, when the new crops had come in and the hunger was receding, my mother arrived in a bullock cart. When Ben showed her to my cottage, I didn’t quite know how to greet her. She looked the same, which only made me more aware of how much I must have changed. Not just the inevitable growth of six years, but the fact that I’d lived as an Omega for that time. That had changed me more than the hunger ever could. I’d encountered a few Alphas since coming to the settlement – the Council’s tithe-collectors; the shady merchants who sometimes came to the Omega market. Even amongst Alphas there were the outcast and the poor, passing through the Omega settlements in search of something better. All of them looked at us with contempt, if they met our eyes at all. I’d heard the names they called us: freak, dead-end. More hurtful than the words was their manner, the small movements that revealed their contempt, and their fear of Omega contamination. Even the most ragged of the Alpha merchants, those who stooped to trade with Omegas, would wince at the touch of an Omega hand when passing a coin.

      Although I’d been branded an Omega when I left the village, I hadn’t really known what it meant. I remembered how hurt I’d been when my mother hadn’t hugged me goodbye. Now, as she stood awkwardly in my small kitchen, I knew better even than to reach out to her.

      We sat opposite each other at my kitchen table.

      ‘I just came to give you this,’ she said, passing me a gold coin. Zach, she said, had sent her six of them, each one worth half a year’s harvest.

      The coin warmed quickly in my hand as I turned it over, then back again. ‘Why give this to me?’

      ‘You’re going to need it.’

      I gestured at the cottage around us, at the vines, heavy with figs, visible through the small window. ‘I don’t need it. I’m doing fine. And you’ve never cared, before.’

      She leaned forward, spoke quietly. ‘You can’t stay here.’

      I dropped the coin on the table. It spun noisily for a few seconds, settled with a clunk on the scratched wood. ‘What do you mean? Wasn’t it enough for you to drive me out of the village?’

      Mum shook her head. ‘I didn’t want to have to do this. Maybe I shouldn’t have. But you have to take the money and go. Soon. It’s Zach.’

      I sighed. ‘It’s always Zach.’

      ‘He’s powerful, now. That means he has enemies. People are talking – about him, about what he’s done at the Council.’

      ‘What he’s done? We’re nineteen. He’s only been on the Council for a year.’

      ‘You’ve heard of The General?’

      ‘Everyone’s heard of The General.’ Omegas in particular. Each time a new anti-Omega policy was rumoured, it was her name people were whispering at the market. When the tithe-collectors had demanded higher rates