Oswald called the staff to a meeting when they got back from the pond. They had been milling around the courtyard shivering in the early spring evening, hungry and tired, but this couldn’t wait. Jacob slipped in and found a seat in the back row. His head was full of troublesome thoughts. Who had been screaming? What was that mysterious delivery about? Maybe Oswald would explain everything. And hopefully he wasn’t angry. Jacob had gotten the barn in order, but there was no room for further disasters.
Oswald’s lecture didn’t start out so well. He gripped the podium and didn’t say anything for a long time, which typically meant he was collecting himself and trying to hold back an outburst of rage. The room was quiet aside from a few scattered coughs. His voice thrummed with irritation when he finally began to speak.
‘It’s truly unforgivable that you made such a mess of everything while I was gone. Today I actually thought about firing the entire staff, sending you back to the mainland, and finding new workers. I’m serious. I’m at a loss for words, here.’
The staff squirmed in their chairs. Shame spread throughout the room. Jacob snorted inwardly – no one had ever been allowed to leave ViaTerra voluntarily. But most people were tormented by the idea when Oswald threatened it. Then again, Jacob wondered how many secretly hoped he would make the decision for them. End their suffering in one fell swoop.
‘There was an inspector here today while you were away,’ Oswald went on. ‘I thought there was an odd smell in the cellar, and sure enough, it’s gone mouldy. You let the rain come in last fall, no one did a thing about it, true to form. So now it’s crawling with mould. Nice, huh?’
Jacob couldn’t help but picture the whole staff scrubbing the cellar. But now he wondered if the object under the sheet could have been some sort of mould-destroying apparatus.
‘It’s too late for you to do anything about it,’ Oswald continued. ‘And besides, I don’t trust you. A company will come and take care of it. Until then, the cellar is off limits. No one is to go down there. Or even go near it. Understood?’
Jacob felt himself relax. They wouldn’t have to work in the cellar. That meant time to care for the animals. Time to sleep. Maybe only a few nights, until the next disaster happened, but still. At ViaTerra, time was more precious than gold.
Oswald shook his head and shrugged in resignation.
‘And do you know what the worst part is? The way you stare at me. Like a bunch of goddamn vacant zombies.’
He turned to the blackboard that hung behind the podium, picked up a piece of chalk, and drew a smiley face without the smile. A circle with two eyes and a straight line for a mouth.
‘This is how you look. Like blank, expressionless lumps of dough. So today we are adding a new word to ViaTerra’s vocabulary. Doughface. And yes, it will count as a transgression to respond to me with doughface. And the water at Devil’s Rock is pretty fucking cold right now.’
Jacob frantically tried to rouse the muscles of his face to life, but it was all wrong – now he was smiling, and surely that didn’t fit the situation. Instead he tried to bring some fervour to his eyes, but now he was certain he must look insane. Luckily Oswald wasn’t looking in his direction. He just shook his head and sighed.
‘No food for you tonight. I can’t stand the thought of you all sitting around the dining hall and laughing. In fact, I can’t stand the thought of you being on my property at all.’
So they would be sent to bed without their supper, like disobedient children.
But Jacob had made an extra sandwich in the kitchen earlier that day, to be on the safe side. And he could always get milk from the cows.
He stayed put as the staff rambled out. Typically, everyone stuck around when Oswald was in a rage, but after Bosse’s escape no one had taken charge of the staff. Besides, everyone was tired and cold and no one had the energy to order anyone else around.
Jacob was last to leave the dining room. He didn’t rush as he walked across the courtyard; he soaked in the chilly air. He felt that it was time to leave. The day after tomorrow I’ll see Simon, he thought. And we’ll make a plan. I’ll go to an animal-rights organization when I get out. Get them to rescue the animals.
He imagined what it would be like to be free. To be able to call his parents and tell them that this hell was over, that he was no longer a cult member whose only contact with them was found in cryptic, meaningless letters.
Just as he turned the corner around the manor house, he noticed that there was a light on in the cellar.
And then he saw something that made his skin crawl.