“Shamed?”
“Don’t you think this beauty deserves some tears?”
“Cry, then, Mam!” said Howling from up in a tree where he was snagging down thin branches. “You cried after you kilt that man who tried to burn us!”
But Vern hadn’t been crying for Ollie. She’d been crying for Vern, feeling sorry for herself and her lot.
Vern laid her hand on the dead deer’s cheek and closed her eyes. She willed tears to fall for this perished animal, and they did come in time. “Him so still,” said Feral.
She forced herself to stop lest she get lost in it, then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Feral’s face scrunched up in concentration as he watched her clean the deer.
Howling gathered kindling into a bundle, then asked Vern for her knife so he could make tinder. She handed him her smallest one. She’d been thinking about giving it to him as a present, but then she wouldn’t have one to give to Feral.
The children made themselves wooden blades frequently with knives and sticks, which were good enough for dressing fish and squirrels, but they were ready for more. Proper knives, not like the ones you could make crafting in the woods. She’d make them more permanent ones out of rock when she had the energy for it.
Howling scraped the inner bark off one of the surrounding trees. “Can I have the flint stone, Mam?” he asked.
He was always trying to make sparks like Vern did, to start the fire, hitting the knife against the flint. “Go ahead,” she said, and fished it out her pocket, tossing it to him before returning to the deer. “Remember what this is called?” she asked Feral, holding out an organ close enough so that he could get a look at it. She let him take his time. Like her, he sometimes needed extra time to process what he was seeing because of his low vision.
“Liver?” he asked.
“And this?” she prompted.
“Intestines.”
“Good bear,” she said, then swung a glance toward Howling. He was flicking the knife against the stone over and over, but he had yet to make a spark. “That’s enough now, Howl. You’re gonna hurt yourself. Give it here.”
“I almost got it!”
“You’re not strong enough yet. Leave it,” Vern said.
“I am strong,” he said.
“I didn’t say you wasn’t strong, just not strong enough.” Vern sighed anticipating the quarrel coming.
“I can do it.”
“You can try again tomorrow,” Vern said, and reached for the flint and knife, but Howling took a step back, knife out. “Child. Don’t you dare.” Howling went running.
Because his vision was so keen compared to hers, she couldn’t easily outpace him. She didn’t always get her bearings fast enough, especially not in a new woods with unfamiliar ground and unexpected slopes.
She was bigger. Vern grabbed her babe by the hood and yanked him backward. He fell flat to the ground. “You stupid, Mam,” he said, lying on his back as he looked up at her, lips shaking because he was about to start wailing.
She took the knife and stone from him, then picked him up. He buried his face in her chest. “I want to do it!” he cried out.
“I know.”
“I hate you,” said Howling.
“It hurts my feelings when you say that.”
Howling whimpered. “You don’t have feelings,” he said. “You killed that deer and didn’t even cry. You kill things all the time. And you burn yourself, and it don’t even hurt you, even though the fire scorches your skin. I seent it.” He writhed in her grip until she put him down. “I bet I could throw this rock at you and it wouldn’t even hurt,” he said, reaching down to the ground and picking up a hefty stone, big as a skull in his two hands. He hoisted it toward her, but she dodged it.
Howling was an observant child. She’d always thought she’d been private with her burning, but she should’ve known he’d seen her, had put together the things she’d done to her body.
“I do hurt, Howling, matter of fact,” she said. “I hurt thinking of you cutting yourself with the knife because you get too eager with the flint.”
“Nuh-uhn,” he said. “You’re gonna throw me in the fire till I burn. You aint gonna care at all. You aint gonna cry when I burn up. You was gonna let that man burn us up.”
Feral, never sure how to handle it when his sibling unraveled, hugged Vern’s thigh and started to cry. She appreciated the heft of him, the feel of his squeezes anchoring her.