Page 77 of The Trap by Catherine
“About what?”
She sat down opposite him and pulled the mug of coffee toward her.
“Seed yields,” he said, grinning. “What do you think?”
“I’d happily talk about seed yields.”
“Are you going to tell me what happened last night?”
She took a sip of the coffee. It was strong and bitter and instantly made her feel a little better.
“I had the audacity to go for a swim in the lake after dark,” she said. “Because the temperature in that bloody cottage was about a billion degrees, and we were all in danger of dying from heatstroke. We need somewhere else, Jamie. We can’t stay in there any more. I won’t.”
“And he saw you? At the lake?”
“I fell asleep on the grass afterward. He found me there and lost his goddamn shite. For no reason.” Her voice was rising. “He seems to forget we’re alladults. This is supposed to be a community we’re building together, not a fucking dictatorship. I mean, what am I doing in here?” She waved a hand, indicating the caravan. “Am I beingheldhere? Is this some kind of jail cell? Under what law, exactly? Under whose authority?”
Jamie sighed. “You know what I’m going to say.He’dsay—”
“—that this is his land and he makes the rules and we can fuck off if we want,” she finished. “Yeah, I know. But that doesn’t sound verycommunity-spiritedto me.” She plucked a strawberry off the plate, took a bite of it. “You know, I’m beginning to think all he’s interested in doing here is getting free labor. That once everything is built, he’ll kick us all out anyway. Make us suffer now,convinceus to suffer now, by dangling the promise of getting to live in utopia for the rest of our lives, but actually his plan is to evict us all off his land once we’ve helped him build it.”
Jamie sighed again.
“Try and think about it from his perspective,” he said gently. “Nothing is more important to Bastian than building this place. But the bigger his ambitions, the more people he needs to help him realize them, and the more people come and stay here, the harder it is to let them live free. Things happened. There was the fire that completely destroyed the main house. Then that couple show up, become best friends with everyone, and run off in the night with everything worth taking that wasn’t nailed down. And then poor Tom—”
“—got drunk and drowned in the lake,” she interrupted, impatient. “I know, Iknow. I’ve heard all this before. But none of it gives Bastian the right to be an absolute prick. I should be able to sleep where I want and do what I want. Otherwise, what’s the point? And things happen. He can’t stop them. If someone accidentally cuts themselves while chopping the veg for dinner, what will he do? Ban all knives?”
“He hasn’t banned knives, though.”
“Yet,” she muttered.
“He’s banned fires in the sleeping quarters and swimming in the lake unaccompanied, especially at night. I don’t think any of those things are especially unreasonable, given what’s happened.”
“What about forcing us to sleep in what feels like an oven?”
“I think that’s more to do with showing your commitment to the community than anything else.”
“Oh, fuck off.” She took another sip of coffee and slammed the cup down a little too hard on the table, spilling some of it over the lip. “He can’t prevent every bad thing. And he’ll be living in his little sustainable paradise alone if he doesn’t stop this. We came here to live a better life, not suffer through an even more uncomfortable version of the ones we had out there. I came here to getawayfrom rules.”
“Speaking of rules,” Jamie said then. He glanced toward the open door. “I came here to tell you... Bastian loves making them, but he doesn’t always follow them himself.”
She scoffed. “We know that. I’ve seen him swim in the lake by himself numerous times. That’s what really irks me about—”
“No,” Jamie said. “I’m talking about the bigger rules. The biggest one.”
But she didn’t know what he meant.
“When he goes into town,” he continued, “Bastian reads all the papers. Sometimes he even goes into the pub and watches the television. Football matches, mostly. From what I hear. But sometimes... Well, sometimes he watches the news bulletins.”
This, technically, wasn’t a rule-break. The community was supposed to be free of news from the outside world, because it was justnoise, and that was also why phones and computers were banned. They were here because they’d all agreed to live simply and peacefully, but they weren’t disconnected from the outside world entirely. They couldn’t be. People had to leave to fetch supplies, and the funds for materials and the utilities and such came from selling produce at local farmers’ markets, and sometimes people had to visit a doctor or leave for a family funeral or whatever. You just weren’t supposed to bring anything you heard out there back in here, although there had been exceptions: dire weather warnings, a global pandemic, a good deal going on some material or tool they needed. Consumption alone wasn’t a contravention.
Itwassurprising, however, that their great leader, the founder of this place, wouldwantto consume it.
“How do you know this?” she asked.
“I hear things,” Jamie said. “From our regular customers.”
“What else did you hear? Has he been”—she gasped theatrically, pressing a palm to her chest—“consuming single-use plastics as well?”
