It was novel to feel moved by a stranger’s words, and Vern regarded this rousing feeling with suspicion. Was this what it was like to be a Cainite? To hear the words of a sage and actually believe them? To find in their message a small truth?
Vern had always loved stories, but years of listening to Sherman disguise lies with rhetoric on the pulpit had made her less generous in her attitude about writing.
“Go on,” said Vern, cautiously curious.
Gogo turned the page. “Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing—instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there. Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls,” said Gogo, finishing.
Darkness was Vern’s country. It was all she had by way of a homeland. It pleased her to think it could be a place that nourished. Everyone was always going on about light this and light that, but what of dark?
“Who said all that?” asked Vern.
“Ursula Le Guin,” said Gogo. “What I just read is a section from a commencement address she gave in 1983. You would like her work, I think. Anyway, this book is a collection of graduation speeches. I’d be happy to loan it to you if you want to read it yourself. There’s a lot of good stuff in here.”
Gogo didn’t know that Vern couldn’t read, and Vern didn’t want to disabuse her of that notion. “All right,” she said, swallowing.
“I have most of her novels and collections, though I’d have to dig them up,” Gogo said. Vern rarely saw Gogo this excited, and, stupidly, she felt jealous. Jealous of literature and philosophy and how it made Gogo light up. “You’ll love her books. I know you will.”
Vern turned away and ripped off the white head of a stalk of bear grass. “How do you know what I’ll love?”
Gogo became thoughtful. “I suppose I don’t know for certain.”
“Then why say it? You’re always acting like you know everything. You’re not better than me,” said Vern.
“I’m sorry. I won’t presume anymore,” said Gogo.
Vern was only bitter because she’d never be able to read these books that she should theoretically love, but that wasn’t something she could say to Gogo. Her outburst had succeeded only in cutting off her one access point to books because Gogo had since stopped her read-alouds.
Which was fine. Gogo could be that way if she wanted. Fuck her and her ceaseless pretenses.
Days stumbled one into the other like a toddler into its mother’s ankles. Howling learned to read. Bridget found someone to examine Feral’s eyes, and soon after that he received glasses. He, too, was starting to read, though the process for him was much slower than it had been for Howling. Mostly he was learning his letters. He used a magnifying glass to practice the sounds, and to figure how to write his name. He drew pictures, occasionally signing them with a giant, distorted F. When he was feeling particularly literary, he scribbled along the bottoms of his drawings in pretend writing, then would narrate what he “wrote” to Howling.
Vern was thankful for the part Bridget played in the children’s lives. Bridget liked to take them everywhere, to spend every spare moment with them. Vern wondered if she herself was being neglectful, but then she saw how much the twins’ world opened up after spending an afternoon in Cold Springs with their adopted aunt. They liked to be doted on by Bridget’s friends. They met other children. Some days it seemed Vern hardly saw them. They knew her too well. They wanted to learn about all they didn’t yet know.
Besides, after Vern had asked one too many times whether the children were any trouble, Bridget confessed that she couldn’t birth children of her own. Sterilized. Something else we can thank Uncle Sam for. Caring for other people’s kids was the closest to mothering she ever got, and she cherished it.
As the children softened to civilization, Vern pulled further from it. She continued to waken before dawn for her hour of peace outside, but these days she walked to the wooded areas beyond the clearing, where she didn’t have to worry about disturbing anyone. Today, she bathed in a mud puddle before scrubbing herself clean with packed snow. She sat in the high branches of a fir and pretended to be the sky.
And as the sun rose, she lamented her necessary return to the cabin, where she’d be forced to confront her inadequacies. The forest didn’t mind illiterates and mad girls. Didn’t mind that screaming was sometimes a person’s only language.