18

The old man’s words have etched a ravine into Adelaide’s brain. She is rattled, undone, and even attempting breakfast proves too difficult this morning. She worries for River. Adelaide couldn’t protect herself from this man all those years ago, and now she must find a way to protect them both.

They have sat like this for a while—Adelaide and River, side by side on the floor, their backs to the sofa. One gray bun coming loose from its clip. One dark mane of curls vibrating with every trembling breath. A barrier of uncertainty has formed between them. Doubt has crept in. It’s been like this since the pill incident.

It took awhile for Adelaide to lure the girl closer. She began with pieces of beef jerky from Catherine’s grocery stash. When the meat didn’t work, Adelaide resorted to a spoonful of peanut butter, which should have been her first guess all along, as River slowly made her way across the living room, skirting the edge of the rug like a cliff’s edge. And when Adelaide patted the floor beside her, River obeyed. A glorious victory.

And so here they sit, two girls licking peanut butter from spoons. Morning light streams through the small window by the door, and though not much can be seen from this angle, Adelaide knows it isn’t snowing.

She reaches for River’s hand, but the girl pulls away.

Okay, Adelaide thinks, I deserve that.

“You aren’t my only little girl, you know,” Adelaide states with the rise of an eyebrow. “That woman who was here last week—that’s my little girl. And she brought her little girl.”

River listens, tilting her ear and seeking more. Adelaide wonders how many words the girl understands. She wonders what the girl could say if she tried.

Adelaide fluffs out her hair, and it lies heavily across her shoulders. She doesn’t know if she should continue this discussion with River. Some topics aren’t appropriate for children. But it feels good to talk to somebody. She could use the distraction. Besides, River doesn’t understand, anyway.

Adelaide takes a breath so deep her chest hurts and prepares to say the one thing she has never allowed herself to admit.

“I fear I never truly loved my daughter.”

Adelaide peers at River to gauge a response, but there is none, so she continues.

“If I loved her, I wouldn’t have been relieved when she left, right? I would’ve chased her down, begged her to stay. But god, she hated me, hated this place, this life. And when she left, a weight was lifted from my shoulders, even though I was angry at her for leaving. I just read her letter, over and over, grateful that it was finally done.”

Adelaide shakes her head, hates herself for speaking the words aloud.

“Of course I loved her,” she corrects. “I shouldn’t have said that. We never understood each other is all. We are a different breed, me and Catherine.”

River does not respond, but she does hiccup, and somehow that is enough.

“You don’t understand what I’m saying, yet I keep talking. And then I feel foolish for saying more.”

Adelaide feels River’s small hand on her knee. Somehow, this mute, feral child understands her better than her own blood. She places her hand over River’s and squeezes it.

“You know, little one, I thought I’d been alone in this valley all these years, but you were out there all along, weren’t you?”

Adelaide moves her hand to River’s head, mussing her unruly hair, and hopes the girl won’t pull away. She doesn’t. Adelaide curls a lock around her finger, and River inches closer.

“There is a bad man in these woods, River. An evil man. He thinks you belong to him. And in a way, I suppose you do, and I’m sorry for that. How your mother kept you two safe, I do not know. And now I’ve failed you both—you and your brother—and I don’t know how to live with that. He’s coming for you, little one, and we don’t have much more time together. I don’t know how to protect you, and it just breaks my heart.”

The silence stretches on for the longest of moments before River finally speaks. But when she does, the language of her feral tongue floods from the girl’s mouth. Adelaide nearly shrieks with surprise.

Just as River does not understand Adelaide, neither can Adelaide understand River. But she listens to the girl’s sounds, and the lilts in her speech, and the change of tones near the end of her sentences as River carries on, word after mysterious word.

There is anger in the child, but also laughter, and though the girl speaks of things Adelaide cannot know, she is grateful for the exchange.

When River points to the kitchen window, Adelaide knows she speaks of Little Bird, and she listens for clues to the girl’s understanding. River speaks softly, with a touch of resignation, and she knows the girl does not blame her.

Like an opera, River sings—telling nothing but giving away everything. Adelaide feels the vowels and the consonants and the squeaks and the chirps somewhere deep in her heart. Somewhere she hasn’t accessed in a very long time. The last time she felt this way was as a young woman with a swollen belly, knitting a butter-yellow cap that could be for either a little boy or a little girl. Adelaide felt many things back then, before it all became too difficult. Before she began to expect hardship. The days when every morning brought new blessings, and old age existed in some parallel universe she would never know.

As River expresses her feelings in a secret language, Adelaide closes her eyes and listens to the child unburden herself. And for the briefest of moments, uncertainty and fear also exist in some parallel universe they will never know.

The following day brings a moist chill to the air that is as merciless as the old man’s words. If Adelaide were a warrior, she would plan for battle. If she were a king, she would rally her soldiers. But Adelaide is neither of these things—she is an old woman. She holds a child, not a weapon.

And she has already lost a day.

A thud at the front door startles Adelaide.

Not yet.

Adelaide sprints to the living room window, knowing that if someone is on her steps, her presence will be self-confessed. She sees nothing but ignorance is no longer an option. Adelaide snatches a knife from the kitchen, grips the hilt, grips the doorknob, grips her nerves, and pushes open the door.

A small breeze rushes past her and flutters the curtains. There are no men outside her cabin door. And no wild woman. But there is something at her feet.

Nearly camouflaged against the hazel wood of her front step are four small, yellow eggs the size of beechnut seeds. One has cracked, thick fluid seeping from a jagged fissure.

Adelaide is reminded of the cats her family owned when she was a girl. They would often bring small dead animals into the home—lizards, mice, cockroaches. Her mother assured her that they were gifts of love, even if unwanted.

Adelaide doesn’t recognize the kind of eggs she holds in her hands, but she does know one thing for sure—they are gifts.

But gift or not, something about the eggs bothers Adelaide. A bad omen written in spilled yolk.

She should be more optimistic. The wild woman has left a peace offering, and this could be the beginning of a partnership, should Adelaide be so bold to assume. Perhaps in the enemy of her enemy, she could find an ally.

Adelaide peers into the barren trees beyond her property line, and smiles.

“Thank you,” she whispers, grateful for her unexpected friend.

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs, Adelaide sits on the couch beside River, brushing the girl’s long, curly hair.

She tries to feel the old man, somewhere in the woods. In her woods. She wants to believe that he will not come early. But she knows better than anyone that his word cannot be trusted.

Where are you? How can I stop you? When will you be here?

The clock ticks loudly from Adelaide’s bedroom, echoing through the small cabin like a fist upon her door, her windows. Soon-soon-soon.

Beside her, River grows sleepy, and once the child’s breathing becomes slow and steady, Adelaide leaves the girl on the sofa to nap, and retreats from her cabin. Far away from the ticking clock.

She gathers her hair into a bun at the nape of her neck as snow dusts her shoulders, and she gazes across the landscape, relieved to find no men on her property. Yet.

She circles her cabin with hesitant steps. This will be the first time since Little Bird’s burial that Adelaide has entered the garden. She doesn’t know if her heart can bear it, but she can delay no more—it is time to visit her son. While she still can.

Her garden is no longer a garden. It is a graveyard, and the very earth beneath her feet seems to have changed to reflect its new state. The sky is darker, too, as though the sun has granted a reprieve.

Adelaide had intended to sit by Little Bird, speak to him, apologize, cry. Howl. Anything. But she is not ready. Perhaps she never will be, and she will avoid the garden forever, like a secret buried beneath a floorboard.

Adelaide dawdles among the planters, appraising what remains of her beloved garden. The weeds have become brown and stringy, and Adelaide uproots a handful, tossing them over the fence. Little Bird deserves more respect than this, and Adelaide rips out every weed she can find. She clears fallen branches and splintered willow, and is planning where she will plant flowers for Little Bird come spring when she trips over something concealed in the dirt—a steel rod that once secured the trap that nearly killed his mother.

She’d buried the trap itself, but the rod is still lodged in the dirt, mocking her, impaled in the ground beside her Little Bird. Adelaide can think of nothing more cruel.

Adelaide loosens the rod and skirts the fence until she is outside of it, standing before the mound of dirt that conceals the trap itself. She doesn’t want to see it, doesn’t want to touch it, but Adelaide must rid her conscience of this awful thing once and for all.

She claws at the ground with her fingers, tossing dirt and leaves behind her like a hound unearthing a burrow, until the trap crowns through the soil with one final tug.

Adelaide gathers the trap, chain, and rod into her skirt, and she stands. The air is warm today despite the morning snowfall, and if the river has thawed, it will all sink to the silty bottom, swallowed forever. She walks faster, impatient for the water, eager for the splash.

But when Adelaide arrives, the river is still frozen solid. This will not do. Suddenly the warm air feels like a lie, and she curses the sky.

There is only one place to hide it, and she shudders to think of it there, in her home. But there is no other way.

Adelaide hauls the trap back to her cabin. She will hide it under the floorboard that pulls away from the nails, until the ice thaws, and then she will chuck it into the center of the river.

Adelaide steps gingerly across the living room with the contraption in her arms, careful not to wake River.

She circles the sofa and kneels behind it, wedging her fingertip beneath the floorboard that pulls away from the nails. The opening beneath is dark and thick with shadow. For years, this one floorboard hid the most sentimental and regretful secrets of her past.

And now, its black, cavernous hole will hide just one more.

Adelaide lowers the trap into the space below, slips the chain and rod beside it, and replaces the board. She then stands and pulls the sofa toward her, watching the floorboard—and its final secret—vanish beneath the frame. And just like that, the trap disappears as if it’s not even there.

Roused by the motion, River sits up and looks around, laughing at Adelaide. It seems she has enjoyed the ride.

In another life, Adelaide would take the child to a playground, push her on a swing set. She would teach River to throw her legs forward and shift her weight and sail high into the air. Wouldn’t that be something? That’s how it would be. If Adelaide were a different woman. And River were a different child. And this were another place altogether.