White-clad Protectors were everywhere, but oddly, they didn’t seem to be doing much. Since she’d arrived at the Colonists’ camp, every day was a constant flurry of activity, with people weeding the garden, collecting firewood, chasing after the children, or building new structures. What did these people do all day?

There were at least some signs of actual life in the center of the building, which the woman called the “Heart of the Stone” as she led them toward it. It was a tiny forest—maybe a courtyard once—now full of trees, some of them bearing fruit. Glass breathed in the smell of ripening apples and pears, dimly hearing the woman’s droning explanation of something about religious ceremonies and offerings to Earth. The group started out again before Glass was ready to leave the comforting green canopy.

“Now I will take you all to meet our leader and see our bounty,” the blond woman said reverentially, leading them back through the building. “Soren has returned from a long spirit walk and is eager to meet you all.” Glass and Lina exchanged nervous glances. Meet felt like an odd word to use with girls who’d been drugged and kidnapped. And this was the person in charge, who’d given the orders and approved the Protectors’ violent actions.

The building opened up onto a huge vista, so sprawling and bright that Glass nearly staggered from the scope of it. An enormous rectangular field full of planters stretched out before them, and beyond that, a river basin, glittering in the midday sunshine. As her eyes adjusted, she took in more details: the remains of fallen buildings along the far horizon, the crops in the field. There was a lone woman in a white dress picking through the crops with a careful squint, her black hair falling over one shoulder.

Something strange caught her eye, and Glass stepped closer to get a better glimpse. There were wheels underneath one of the planters, this one full of potatoes and other root vegetables. As the blond woman started a speech about Earth’s bounty, two realizations struck Glass: that potatoes grew under the ground, not in heaped piles, and that every single planter here had wheels.

They weren’t planters at all. They were carts. This wasn’t a farm, just a place to sort through the food these people had looted.

Anger swept aside her fear as Glass thought about how hard everyone had worked getting ready for the Harvest Feast. The weeks spent working the fields, the hours spent hunting, the days spent gathering and drying fruit.

“You’re just thieves.” The words tumbled out of Glass’s mouth before she had time to stop them. Next to her, Lina gasped and shook her head, but it was too late.

The woman stopped talking, eyes narrowing, as everyone turned to stare. “How dare you speak about the Protectors that way.” Glass recoiled as the woman strode toward her, hand raised.

But then the dark-haired woman from the field strolled up, wiping dirty hands on her white tunic dress. The blond woman stopped in her tracks.

“Peace, sister,” the dark-haired woman said. “I’d like to hear what she has to say.” Her eyes were crinkled at the corners, and bright with curiosity. She smiled at Glass, and there was only warmth in it.

“Please, tell me,” the woman said. “How are we thieves?”

An alarm rang in Glass’s mind, warning her to be careful despite the woman’s gentle demeanor. But then she thought about the anguish in Luke’s face when he saw her dragged away. The terrified screams and shouts of pain that filled the clearing after the explosions went off.

“This bounty isn’t some gift from the Earth. It’s food you stole from communities who worked hard to feed their people, their children. You have a field here,” Glass said, motioning to it. “Why aren’t you growing anything? Do you people not know how?”

The older woman nodded earnestly. “We do know how, actually. But Earth has not yet given permission. We can’t disrupt the soil for our own selfish needs until we find the place where we’ll plant our civilization’s roots. Earth must first send us a sign. Then and only then will we evolve from foragers to farmers.”

“How big a sign do you need?” Glass asked, feeling as though she was walking a dangerous line. “You’ve got an enormous fortress. A perfect space for planting. You’ve even got fruit trees growing in the middle of the grounds—the Heart, you call it? You could easily turn that into an orchard. Then you wouldn’t need to attack innocent people and steal their food.”

The dark-haired woman was reaching out for Glass’s hands. Confused, Glass let her take them, and the woman pressed them between her own rough palms.

“I appreciate your passion,” the woman said, looking into Glass’s eyes. As she released Glass’s hands and backed away, she nodded to the woman in gray and pointed to Glass, some kind of signal that made Glass’s stomach twist. Then she turned to the rest of the group. “Greetings, new friends. It is such a pleasure to meet you all. My name is Soren.”

A cloud drifted past the sun, rearranging the scenery as Glass’s mind scrambled to make new sense of everything surrounding her. She was Soren. Their leader.

“I go by a number of names here,” Soren went on, reaching up to tie her gray-streaked dark hair into a bun at the nape of her neck. “Some call me High Protector, others prefer Mother Protector, or Mother, for short. Most people just call me Soren, though, which is my real name, and that’s fine too!” She laughed, a refreshingly normal sound after all the strange rituals and chanting. “I’m not fussy about titles. The important thing is that you know what my purpose is, and that’s twofold: helping you find a home here, and serving Earth with all of my soul.”

Soren closed her eyes for a long moment. When the older woman’s eyes opened, they looked even brighter and more peaceful than before.

“We’ll have time to get to know each other as we go about our work,” she said, greeting each girl in the line with a smile. “But today, I’d like to leave you with a few thoughts about mothers. I consider myself the mother of everyone here.” She stopped in front of Lina, and smoothed her glossy hair. “You included.”

To Glass’s surprise, Lina blushed and looked at her feet.

“Mothers are wise,” Soren went on. “They care for others, and giving this gift gives them one in return—they’re connected to the soil, to the air, to their intuition in a way that’s special and important.” She laced her fingers together, pivoting to face the others. “Mothers are also strong. They don’t bend to their children’s whims. They instruct. They shape them into the best people they can be.”