“Currency?” I pulled the pouch tight, till the cord cut into my skin.

“Trust me. Seeds will be more valuable than gold, and the one who can grow them? She’ll be a queen.”

5

Grayson had managed to get one of the last tanks of propane. But the sky was darkening by the time we loaded it into the truck. Sunset was coming: a cold surprise. Dusk fell earlier and earlier, unnatural and white. Snow was in the future like a distant, glowing city.

One more night, I promised Grayson. He could sleep on the couch in my shack. I would spend the night packing up, leave first thing in the morning, drop him home on the way.

We went back to the farm. I tried to tell him about the Pumpkin King, but the words stuck in my throat. The man had scared me, and I was ashamed to be scared. I was not sure I could name or explain what had happened.

Cleaning up after our meal of wizened apples, eggs, and fried potatoes—Grayson had cooked, better him than me—I washed the plates and set them in the rack. I scraped the burned bits of potatoes into a bowl, wondering how to best to describe what I had seen at the market: the knives and chickens for sale, the woman in the stinking fur coat, the man with a pouch of seeds.

Every evening, I would dump the bowl of kitchen scraps and eggshells into a bucket beside the back door. When the bucket was full, I would pitch the contents onto the compost heap near the farmhouse. It had always been this way.

But, thinking about the market, my hand froze on the spoon. Why was I wasting my time doing this? Collecting food waste, keeping it in a pile, carefully turning it, and monitoring the temperature—that was what my mama and Lobo had done. That was what they had taught me to do. We had used the compost for growing vegetables. But nothing was growing in this ground. Nothing would sink its roots into this rich soil.

“We should just pitch this shit in the woods,” I said. “Give some animal a chance at a few more days.”

Grayson was fiddling with his ham radio, trying to tune in the president’s speech, and didn’t answer me. I hoped he never got that thing working. I didn’t want to hear her say she didn’t know. I didn’t want to hear her apologize again.

I was still wearing the Pumpkin King’s pouch. I set the spoon down, reached for the string around my neck, and removed the pouch from beneath my shirt. Inside the leather bag, the seeds looked as if they were cupped by weathered skin, a farmer’s palm.

“What is that?” Grayson asked.