“This way,” Reed says, stepping from the dirt road onto a network of paths that snake through the fields. I follow him through a patch of melons, then tomatoes, peppers, and squash. Stalks of corn. Potato and turnip plants that look twice as healthy as ours back home, and another patch of vines with deep green leaves and orange flowers the size of my hand. The petals are long and slender, almost paper-thin. I’ve never seen such a plant, and I wonder what sort of fruit the flower will yield.

It’s a miracle, all this food. Not only that it is growing, but the sheer variety of it. More than I’ve ever seen in a single settlement. More than seems possible to maintain.

Overseers patrol the fields, flicking switches at workers who dawdle. Reed steps around them, nodding to the guards but never bothering to look at the people huddled near his feet.

Women workers easily outnumber the men, and they range from young to old, whereas most of the men appear elderly. Probably because the Loyalist army absorbs the younger, agile men. All the workers wear threadbare clothes stained with sweat. The backs of their necks have darkened to deep russet and brown. A few wear broad-brimmed woven hats to fend off the rays, but what they really need is the protection the guards get; brush-made canopies shield the overseers, allowing them to bark orders from the shade.

The General claimed that everyone is here willingly, but no one with choices elects to get whacked with a switch.

“Almost there,” Reed says, stepping over the heels of a young worker who has knelt to gather pea pods. She glances up at me, and when the brim of her hat lifts, I’m struck by the lifelessness in her eyes. They don’t communicate fear or helplessness. They’re not even tired. Her eyes just look . . . empty. As if she’s already left this life and is halfway to another.

“Do you want to see them or not?” Reed snaps.

I look up, realizing that I have stopped in my tracks. Reed is several paces ahead, beneath the shade of the next canopy. The overseer is even deeper in the fields, jabbing his switch into the side of one of the workers.

The woman straightens, brushing sweat from her brow with her forearm. Her clothes are caked with dust, and the yellowed remnants of a bad bruise encircles one of her eyes.

It’s Ma.

I run, leaping over the legs of workers and straight into her arms. With my cheek against her chest, I listen to the thrum of her heart, the very realness of her. She’s okay. Her arms come around me, and she holds me for a moment before pushing me back so she can cup my face with her hands. “Indie?” she asks.