“Nope.” Rufus grinned as he peeled an orange. “Courtesy of our fine neighbor. We’re showing him: he can’t control what we do with our land, or we’ll control his.”

“You just took all this? Does Micah know?” Sero asked, as Ericka and Zoe joined them in the kitchen.

Rufus looked up at her, one eyebrow raised. “Whose idea do you think it was?” He popped a slice of orange into his mouth. “Mmm, these blood oranges are awesome! Try.” He offered some to the three women.

“No, thanks,” Ericka said. “I’m fasting a little while longer.”

“Still?” Sero asked.

“Me too,” Zoe added. “It was such a high yesterday, and our focus really worked, you know, to support Micah?”

Sero skipped breakfast to go along with the others, but by noon, her hunger got the better of her and she came up from the basement to get something from the kitchen. Rummaging through the fridge, she found a package of pre-sliced cheese. The wrapper bore the name of the monster chain with new stores deceptively called “neighborhood markets,” but which still sold the mass-manufactured food they shunned at the Sanctuary. Curious, she pulled out a slice and nibbled on the corner. It was flavorless and had the texture of smooth plastic. Where had this come from, and why was it in their otherwise wholesome kitchen?

Looking around, she found more anomalous grocery items: blueberries and apples that weren’t organic, bottles of vinegar and almond butter from the same mega-market. She took the vinegar bottle in hand, intending to find Micah and ask him who was doing the shopping, but then reconsidered. He was under so much pressure these days. Some nights, he laid his head on her shoulder in bed and confessed that the problems with the house and landlord were weighing heavily on him. Sero wanted to continue to be his place of refuge, not another source of worry.

* * *

Ericka began to lead regular fasting days at the Sanctuary every Sunday. After meditation and yoga, when they would normally eat breakfast, she instead led them through a visualization exercise to imagine all the energy their bodies normally expended in food preparation and consumption being redirected toward building their vision of the Sanctuary and out into the universe toward the collective good of others. “We can sustain ourselves on much less than we do. Don’t be greedy in taking from the universe. Teach yourself to step back, take less, leave more for others. Self-restraint will make you stronger.”

Serotina grew accustomed to the fasting days, especially since she had not been eating lunch for months now. She knew there would be a wall of hunger in the late morning, and another in the late afternoon, and she pushed through them by steadily drinking black coffee and tea. She found it remarkable that her body could go an entire twenty-four hours without food, when all her life she had fed it every few hours without even thinking about it. Sometimes she felt drowsy or a little dizzy in the sun, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle.