Vern was not a sentimental person. Things had their time. The world rushed and moved. Everything and everyone was forgettable, compostable.
But she was practical, and leaving camp meant leaving any semblance of security, even if that security had been a lie. It meant leaving gear, for she couldn’t carry everything as well as the children. Weight wasn’t the issue—she was confident she could bear the load of that easily. It was a surface area problem. She had only so many hands and arms, so much back, so much shoulder.
“Here,” Vern said to Howling, holding her hands up to him. He jumped into her grip, and she swung him onto her back, letting him ride low on her hips and fastening him to her tightly with soaking wet linen cloth. Next she held her hands up to Feral, who slid off the branch into her embrace. The lighter of the two, he would go on her shoulders for now. Once steady, she stepped out into night and headed north.
She was sure that was the direction Lucy and her mother had gone after leaving the Blessed Acres, toward Lucy’s auntie’s place. The phone number to that house was out of service, but maybe they still lived there. Vern wouldn’t leave the woods—not with Cainland folks still looking for her—but she’d get herself and her family closer to the only safe place Vern knew. She’d never been there, but Lucy liked her auntie’s, and Lucy didn’t like anything.
“You ready?” Vern asked the children, checking that they were secure to her.
“Ready,” they said.
Both wore thick hooded fur cloaks over their clothes, and Vern swished a wool blanket over the three of them, clasping it at her neck as if her hand were a brooch, then walked.
She wore her knives around her neck, her thread and so on in the pockets of a pair of pants she’d made.
“Mam?” asked Feral. He was still shy with words, his little voice a tinny bell of sweetness in the evening air.
“Not now, baby,” Vern said.
“Coyotes,” he said in a scared whisper.
“They’re all tucked up in their dens. They don’t want nothing to do with us.”
“Sure?” he asked.
“Sure,” said Vern.
“Mean it?” asked Feral.
“I mean it.”
“No trick?”
“No trick,” said Vern, shaking her head. A person looking on would think she was always teasing him, but Vern never did any such thing. She was not a playful person, and when she said something, she meant it. She didn’t have time for foolishness.
“Cross your heart?” Feral asked.
Howling, on the other hand, had a mischievous streak thick as bone. Feral’s intense skepticism had developed in response to his sibling’s frequent antics.
“I cross my heart,” said Vern.
Satisfied that they would be unlikely to run into coyotes, Feral started howling. “Aooooooooooooooooo!” he called. “Aooooooo! Aoooo!”
Howling joined in. The two of them sang to the sky, enchanted by the dark and the rain. “Our pack roams this here land! We are its brethren! Its subjects! Its children! Its family! Its mams!” said Howling, and though most of his words were verbatim copies of things Vern had said herself, the content of his mimicry revealed a dazzling brightness. Like Vern’s brother, Carmichael, had been as a young child, Howling was disgustingly astute, assimilating the makings of his world with an uncanny ease. “And when we die, to the land we will return!”
“Aooooo!” said Feral, content for his sibling to do the speechifying.
“The forest is ours! Aoooo!” Howling said.
“Aoooooooooo! Aoooo!” Feral howled back.
“And we are its!”
“Aooo!”
“She hears us calling!” Howling continued, so young and already a skilled showman. Cynically, she wondered if it was Eamon and Reverend’s blood in him but quickly dismissed the thought. Howling was his own entity. “But do we hear her?” he asked.
“Aoooo! Aoooooo!” called Feral, joyful as a firecracker. That was who he was, sweetness, gentle curiosity, and endless cheer. “Do you hear me, coyotes? I love you.” Vern heard him blow them a kiss.
“Quiet now, I can’t take all that shouting,” Vern said, shaking her head.
“Then say a story,” demanded Howling. “A scary story.”
“Scary story! Scary story!” echoed Feral.
Vern’s feet made a squelching slurp noise with each step.
“Please, Mam?” Feral asked.
Sighing, Vern cleared her throat. “I might have a scary story.”