Howling and Feral didn’t know how to sit still, how not to ask questions, how to smother every impulse, how not to talk back, how to shrink. They didn’t know what elders were and that they were to be respected at all costs. They knew only Mam, Mam who they’d decided they liked okay, who seemed in most cases to ensure their pleasure, who rarely dictated how their lives should go on a day-to-day basis. Most elders were not like Mam. In the world beyond the woods, these wild-hearted babes would never get by.
Up ahead, a carnival of lights disrupted the dark. The children’s eyes demurred at the flashes of white and yellow and red and pink. Not firelight. Not sunlight. Not starlight. Not moonlight. “Electricity,” said Vern, when the children asked if it was hoodoo. “Just stay close.”
The road they’d been walking along met with a highway. Cars eased through the gas station like machines on a conveyor belt, and mams rushed frantic children to the toilets. “It smells nice,” said Feral, sucking in a wad of cool air through his nostrils. The aromas of a fried-pie shop and barbecue joint scented the evening. “What is that?” asked Feral, tugging her toward civilization, where the blackness dissolved and wires sparked with vitality.
“The smell?” asked Vern. “It’s food.”
“Can we get some of it?” asked Feral, his natural exuberance for all things novel dwarfing his cautious side.
“I’ve got some jerky and dried blackberry,” she said, fishing into a pouch she carried.
“But I want that food,” Feral said, pointing to the lights. “The electricity food.”
“Not me,” said Howling, being contrary for contrary’s sake. “I want the venison.” Vern handed him several strips of the berry-sweetened jerky. They’d been out of the woods for only a little while, but the two had declared sides. For Howling, the world would be his adversary, something to conquer. For Feral, it would be a platter of delicacies to try and love.
Judging by the heavy darkness, Vern guessed it was around eleven, maybe midnight. Despite the hour, the rest stop bustled with coffeed-up drivers. It was busy enough that she might go unnoticed, even with her getup of hides and furs.
“All right, children. Listen to me carefully. I need you to stay exactly right here,” she said. She squatted down and pushed them backward into the bushes.
“You leaving?” asked Feral.
“Just going up ahead to where the electricity is to get us a few things, find us one of those cars that can drive us to our next stop,” she said.
“You coming back?” Howling asked. It was more accusation than question.
“What reason would I have not to come back to the two creatures most precious to me in this big world?” she asked. It came out defensive, not sweetly as she’d intended. She had left them before, abandoned them for Ollie. Maybe Howling remembered that.
“Don’t be long,” Howling said, grumbling.
“I won’t,” she said.
“And bring me electricity food,” said Feral, excited.
“I will. But you got to swear you won’t move an inch.”
“Not a one,” said Feral.
“And Howling? You swear?” Vern asked.
He shrugged.
“Howling.” He turned his head from hers and sat down cross-legged in his designated spot, obscured by the branches. Vern sighed. “I’ll be right back.”
The food mart surely had bagels and donuts, perhaps foil-wrapped hot sandwiches rotting on a warmer. Vern had been to places like this with Sherman before on their mission trips from the compound, traveling the forty miles into town. Cainites didn’t engage with or support the white economy in any way, so instead of buying Vern the machine-made hot cocoa and plastic packet full of six powdered mini-donuts she wanted, he’d encouraged her to steal them or otherwise use her wiles to obtain the items.
It was white people food. Junk made by robots, no human touch, grown on scorched earth greedy for the sustenance summarily stripped from it. But he allowed her occasional tastes of the outside world, if only to remind her how good Cainland had it.
Under Sherman’s instructions, Vern had walked up to the man at the cash register and told him her mam had passed out in the single-stall bathroom, which was locked. Really, Vern had jammed it. While the man ran down the long hallway to go help, she’d taken what she needed, including a few snacks and drinks for her little brother. Vern had been twelve or thirteen when she’d done that. Older now and rougher-looking, she doubted such a ruse would work for her anymore.