Page 83 of Harvest Moon

He came over to Linden, squatting down beside him, waiting for him to pull the stethoscope out of his ears before speaking. “Do we need to go home right this minute?”

Linden looked up at him, lips pursed and brows drawn in confusion, but shook his head. “I’d feel better if we could let Claudia lie down for a while first. Her pulse is high, but the baby sounds fine, so rest is about all we can do.”

“Can I borrow your car? I need to go get something for Mrs. Mena.”

For... my mother? What the hell?

“Of course,” Linden agreed without hesitation, pulling out his car keys and holding them out to Ridge. “Could you stop and get some orange juice for Claudia? Make sure it’s pasteurized, but it’ll say on the container. Most of it is.”

Ridge nodded, pulling out his phone on the way out. I looked from Linden, to Claudia, to Ridge, and seeing my concern, Linden waved me off. “You should go with him. He might need help carrying something, and all you can do for Claudia right now is sit there and worry.”

I nodded and rushed off after Ridge.

“What’s going on?” I asked, sliding into the front passenger seat next to him.

He looked up from his phone, startled, but when he met my eye, there was something excited on his face. It wasn’t exactly a time to be excited, but it reminded me of a really hot summer when the farm had lost a lot of their tomato crop to sunscald, and he’d finally figured out a way to shield the plants and salvage what was left.

He started the car, handing me his phone and putting the car in reverse. “I have an idea about how we might help Mrs. Claudia, and your ma too.” he told me. “Your ma said she’s been feeling a little off since the Sterling farm came in, and—”

“And Claudia practically collapsed when the sprayers got close,” I finished for him. Could it be that simple? Maybe Claudia didn’t have the Condition at all, just an allergy to some chemical? “Was that, like, some kind of pesticide?”

“At a guess, yeah, but farms like that use lots of different chemicals on their stuff. There’s no telling which is the problem without making her sicker by exposing her to more chemicals.” He made the turn onto the county highway—but not in the direction of the farm store as I’d expected.

I cocked my head, then turned back to him. “Are we going to the department store?”

He nodded. “We can stop at the grocery store on the way back for the orange juice. But if the chemicals are making your ma sick, we might be able to help with that too.”

Was I missing part of this conversation? Yeah, my mother had said she felt a little off, but it was nothing like Claudia’s issues. My mother would have been much more dramatic about it if she’d been as ill as Claudia, and she’d have been the first to suggest bed rest for herself.

“You think my mother has the same problem as Claudia? I mean, I get it, the stuff is nasty. The smell of it made me nauseous too.”

Ridge yanked the car over to the side of the road, slamming on the brakes and turning to stare at me in horror. “You feel sick? Should we take you back to Alpha Grove?”

“I’m fine, Ridge.” I reached out and put a hand on his arm, squeezing to show that I was as sturdy as ever. “It made me nauseous for a minute and now I’m fine. It was a reflex reaction, like smelling it when someone got sick.”

He didn’t stop looking nervous, even going so far as to reach out and check my temperature with the back of his hand, and the pulse in my neck, as though he couldn’t hear my heart beating steady and strong.

Finally, he turned back to the road, taking a deep breath and pulling back out. “We’re gonna get your ma an air purifier and see if we can’t take some of the particles out of what she’s breathing all the time. If I’m right, though, your parents are gonna need to move.”

That was when I got it. I froze in my seat, staring at him, wide-eyed. “You’re not saying that Claudia has an allergy instead of the Condition.”

He turned and met my eye. “No. I’m saying I think that stuff is causing the Condition.”

50

Ridge

Lex kept looking at me with wide, wary eyes. His pupils widened until I could only make out a little sliver of warm brown around all that startled black depth.

But I couldn’t fix it—not right when I was driving and my attention needed to be on the road.

Once I pulled into the empty parking lot of the Sears department store, I turned off Linden’s car and twisted in my seat to look straight at Alexis. He’d gone sort of pale, nibbling his bottom lip. His thick brows furrowed in the middle.

I reached across the seat and set my hand on his. “It’s going to be fine,” I promised him. “All I’ve got right now is an inkling. I might be completely off base, but Mrs. Claudia seemed just fine until the particles were close enough to touch her. A large amount, up close. If we were eating a bit in food, just a little over time, it—I don’t think it’d be so bad.”

Alexis made a choked sound like a protest, his cheeks hollowing out.

“It’s okay.” I swiped my thumb across his knuckles. “Alpha Grove’s looking after Claudia, and this is good. Well”—I grimaced—“maybe not good, but better. If it is something Sterling puts in their food, well, it wouldn’t be the first time a big corporation like that’s hurt people by trying to cut expenses and increase production. But it’s a liability. They’ll have to stop, whether they want to or not.”

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