“I was actually going to go on a little walk,” said Vern.
“Oh! A walk? Where to?” Feral asked, sounding positively delighted. “Just let me eat my breakfast first, then we can leave. I will keep you company.”
Howling yawned and scratched his head. “Unless you prefer to be by yourself,” he said in challenge. Vern sighed. It was one of his little tests to make sure she really loved him, and though she didn’t often go along with it, it had been a while since she’d spent time outside with them. Generally, they preferred to go on their traipses alone, learning the world at their own speed.
“In fact, I would love company,” said Vern. “Thank you for the offer.”
* * *
THE CHILDREN had come to think of the cabin and its surroundings as home. They moved through the steep woodland with confidence and ease, pointing out treasures to Vern: dissected owl pellets, special stones, sticks in curious shapes. “Mam, it’s the letter Y,” said Howling, pointing to a fallen branch.
“Do you know the golden ratio, Mam?” Howling asked. “Do you know pi? Did you know that there’s negative numbers? It’s like digging a hole.”
“And imaginary numbers, too,” said Feral.
“And do you know who Stephanie Yellowhair is?” Howling asked, as if her knowledge of this person were of the utmost importance.
“Why don’t you tell me about her?” she said. He did, repeating almost word for word the things he’d been told by Gogo, who gladly indulged the children’s endless questions. She spoke to them about things Vern had only inklings of, like:
“Do you know what the universe is made of?”
“Have you ever wondered if thoughts are real? You can’t touch them. You can’t feel them,” Howling explained.
“And they aint got atoms,” Feral finished off.
“A atom is a—”
“I know what an atom is,” said Vern.
“You do?” asked Howling. “Can you explain it to me, then?”
“A atom is a dot,” Feral offered sagely.
Vern wondered how they would’ve fared at Cainland. Like her, they were know-it-alls, discontents, and busybodies. Their curiosity was a well as cavernous as time.
Gogo was all too happy to share her knowledge with them, impressed rather than annoyed by their intense precociousness.
Sometimes Vern found herself engaging Gogo, too, though she wasn’t sure why she bothered. Gogo’s answers to questions as simple as, “What are you reading?” intimidated Vern, for the titles of the books Gogo read contained words like biosemiotics, racial assemblages, anthropic mechanism, and libidinal economy.
Vern was a brutish woman with brutish needs. She couldn’t parse philosophy, theory, economics, sociology, not the way Gogo could. Vern’s realm was that of the purely physical. Bone. Water. Dirt. Viscera. She and Ollie had been perfect for each other. She’d never live up to Gogo’s intellect, her propriety.
“Look,” said Vern, squinting, relieved to spot a distraction. The children followed her gaze toward a patch of ice-frosted bushes up ahead near the clearing, where the canopy of conifers was at its thinnest and sunlight slid through down to the forest floor.
“What, Mam?” asked Feral, who couldn’t see how the bush before them was different than any other.
“I’m not sure,” Vern said, and walked toward what she suspected was wild rose based on the size of the bright red blurs.
“Berries!” cried Howling and ran ahead, his sibling chasing after. They squatted and examined the hard ovals spread generously throughout the bush. “Never seen this kind before. Can you eat it?” Howling asked.
“They’re rose hips,” said Vern as she caught up to the twins and knelt to have a closer look at the bush. Each sphere of orangey-red fruit was cocooned in a shell of cracked ice. “Very rare to see them this late.”
“But can you eat it?” Howling pressed.
“Not like this, but yes. We can make jam or syrup. I bet Bridget would like that.” It would be a good way to pay back Bridget for how often she helped with the children. Rose hips were difficult and time-consuming to process, and Bridget would appreciate the effort that went into a good jam.
“I will pick fifty-hundred-five-million-and-one,” said Howling.
“I will pick fifty-hundred-five-million-and-two,” Feral countered.
“You’ll do no such thing. We only need a couple pounds,” said Vern, and tore off a piece of her shirt and tied it into a bag. “Mind the thorns. They’re long and sharp.”