19

The sun has melted all but the most stubborn snow, and as Adelaide stares out the kitchen window, she wonders how long a reprieve she’s been granted.

She wraps an apron around her hips and fills the pocket with the last few days’ worth of food scraps. The chickens will be pleased. But Henry and Zelda are not the only reason for her visit to the kitchen.

Adelaide opens her cutlery drawer and surveys the weaponry. If an old lady needs to carry a knife in order to protect her family, so be it. Adelaide grabs a large, dangerous blade, but it is too unwieldy in her grip, and she returns it to the drawer. Below a few dull butter knives and a potato peeler, she finds it. The paring knife—slim blade, curved at the end. Rarely used, and still very sharp. Small enough to hold, but angled in the right way, she could do some damage. Yes, this is the one, and she drops it into her pocket.

Adelaide leaves River to a breakfast of griddle cakes, and she walks into the afternoon. Henry and Zelda rush toward her, clucking at her feet, and she disperses chunks of apple and bread onto the ground. The chickens chortle their gratitude.

Adelaide peers around the trees but sees nothing, hears nothing. Still, she is tense and ready, and she grips the knife handle tucked inside her apron pocket. Even something as rudimentary as feeding the chickens now feels a bit precarious.

Adelaide needs to figure out how to handle the old man. She must prepare. Because it’s going to take more than piss and mousetraps to protect River.

She will not wait in limbo for men to decide her and River’s fate. For men to come. For men to take. Adelaide will have to make an offensive move in order to win this battle with the old man. She must strike first.

The tip of the blade cuts into Adelaide’s finger, and she winces, wiping the blood onto her apron. She reminds herself that if she is strong enough to make life, she is strong enough to take it away. Maybe that’s why she is on this earth—to protect River, no matter what. Maybe that’s why she took a pocket full of pills to the river only to find herself in her cabin that evening with nothing more than a hangover.

The sun warms Adelaide’s skin. Her feet are warm, and her heart is warm, and it feels like a blessing. The forest is once again on her side.

Tonight, when the sun goes down, and River is asleep, Adelaide will go to the farm. She could walk there in an hour’s time, give or take. She hopes the weather holds.

As Adelaide returns to her cabin, she traces her bleeding finger across her apron, like the chalk outline of a body.

Adelaide grasps her tea which has already cooled on the table. Sips it. Thinks of the old man.

She doesn’t know his name. She’s never been able to quantify him with vowels and consonants. He exists to her only as a presence, the stain of a memory she’s tried to forget. It is no less true today than all those years ago.

Adelaide feels the passage of time like a wound, gashes lashed across her skin.

She’s tired of waiting. But the sun is still high in the sky and she forces herself to calm down. She wants to go. Now. Before they come to her instead.

Before she chickens out.

Adelaide can’t remember the last time she was this warm in the middle of winter, sweating, her breath like a sandstorm whorling in and out of her lungs.

She listens to her clock, echoing from her bedroom wall. Tick-tick-tick. Today, the clock is the voice of better judgment, whispering, wait-wait-wait.

Adelaide stands outside her cabin in the dark. The night is quiet, and though a chill has settled in her bones, no snow fell this evening. This will make her trek easier. The house keys jangle in her hand as she locks the dead bolt from the outside—another new thing she has become accustomed to over the previous weeks.

She wears a housedress, her heaviest coat, and the apron. Of course, the apron. And in the apron pocket, she has her paring knife and a box of matches to keep lit the oil lantern she carries.

One step outside her door is all that is needed now, and then she will be on her way to the farm. But Adelaide has no idea what she is going to do when she arrives. She is an old lady. What harm could she possibly do to these men? She has a knife in her apron pocket designed for slicing fruit, not throats. She has no gun, not even a bow and arrow. And she carries an oil lantern, forgodsake. She’s practically a cavewoman. But primitive tools or not, she can sit and wait no longer. She must try. If she can sneak up behind one of the men (boys, really), maybe she can take them out, one at a time. She’s hunted before. This is no different. No different. If given the opportunity, she must do it quickly and quietly, before they can cry out for help.

One at a time.

Something moves through the trees. Are the men here already?

Dear god, they know, and they are here already.

Adelaide’s heart is a drum line across her chest as she watches the figure, merely a black shadow slipping through the darkness of a nearly moonless night. And then the shadow halts, stands, and Adelaide is breathless as her eyes adjust to the gloom.

The wild woman stands at the edge of the tree line. Adelaide has never before seen the woman upright, was unsure it was even possible. But here she is, elegant, thin, and much taller than Adelaide imagined. More beautiful, too. A relic better suited to a natural history museum than the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The long, muscular body of the wild woman pulses with each breath she takes. There is something different about the wild woman—she stands at attention, mere yards from Adelaide, not even a hint of malice in her eyes.

Tonight, the wild woman is no beast. She is simply a woman, a mother. And together, beneath a dark and barren sky, the two women acknowledge each other as allies.

Adelaide walks cautiously toward the edge of her property and turns, fearful she has misread the situation, and the wild woman will be on her heels, teeth bared and ready. But Adelaide has nothing to fear from the wild woman this night. She stands guard beside the cabin, obscured beneath the shadow of the eaves. For the very first time, Adelaide is comfortable leaving River alone. No harm will come to the girl as she sleeps. Not tonight. And for the first time in many years—decades, even—Adelaide has a friend.

Adelaide stands just outside the property line of the old man’s farm and places her lantern upon the ground to avoid being seen. In her fist, she grips the paring knife. It has been in her hand for the last hour of her trek, and her knuckles are stiff and strained. She stretches her fingers as she waits for her heart rate to slow.

Adelaide’s knees hurt and her shins are scraped. She took a hard fall near the end of a dirt road, nearly losing her oil lantern in the process. She shudders to think of a trek back to her cabin, devoid of light.

She surveys the land, expecting sentries, guard posts, men with guns and high beams, that sort of thing. What she finds instead is a dilapidated trailer, a few parked vehicles, and ceaseless rows of plants. Some have succumbed to the winter, while others still hang on, radiating green, yellow, purple. She knows the smell. On a summer’s day, the scent drifts all the way down into her valley. But now, at the beginning of winter, the smell is already dusty, old. It is still strong enough, however, to be in her throat, on her tongue; she can taste it.

A chain-link fence safeguards the crops, and she follows its length toward the trailer, slinking through the darkness like the mountain cat she tried to trap in her garden a month ago, more like a lifetime ago. The lights are on in the trailer. Figures pass by the window.

Adelaide marvels that she has gotten so close without detection, but then wonders if there is a man in a tree, or on the roof, watching her advance, waiting for her to get closer, closer, closer. She would be a fool to assume she’s gotten away with anything at all.

Adelaide steps on a fallen branch, and when it snaps, the sound echoes across the field. From inside the trailer, a dog barks, and Adelaide ducks toward the ground, smothering the lantern.

She holds her breath.

Adelaide doesn’t belong here. This is madness.

She takes a slow and steady step backward, disappearing into the trees. She retraces her steps down the length of the fence, gingerly, as if every move she makes has the potential to rain tragedy down upon her.

By the time she approaches the front of the men’s property, she is at a trot, every cell in her body begging to run fast and far away from this place.

Adelaide steadies herself against the fence post, gasping for breath and struggling to stay upright. She surveys the land, the trailer in the distance, the bordering trees, the chain-link fence, and the field of plants, many still raging against the end of the growing season.

She wants to hurt the old man, like he hurt her. She wants to take something away from him. Her attack plan may have been reckless and impulsive, but her retreat was equally rash. She must do something.

Adelaide plunges her hand into the apron, trading her knife for matches. The sulfur ignites, and Adelaide brings the matchstick down onto the first plant she can reach over the fence. The leaves curl beneath the heat, brown from the fire.

And the flame goes out.

She lights another match and holds it to the plant.

“C’mon, c’mon,” she whispers to the flame.

The leaf smolders before the cold and damp snuff this one out as well.

Adelaide curses beneath her breath and lights a third match. There aren’t many left in the box, and she protects this little flame with her palm, willing the plant to burst into flame, send fire and maelstrom through the fields, engulf the trailer and the men inside. There may have been no snow this evening, but there is plenty of moisture, and the flame struggles to stay aglow as she waves it beneath the tip of the leaves.

In the distance, a door slams and two men step onto the porch. Adelaide hunkers below the plant line, rising just high enough to see their heads. It is the brothers—those two young men that seem to ricochet from each other in opposite directions. They each light a cigarette and then share a laugh before one places his hand on the other’s chest, pushing him back. He smells the air and peers across the fields.

Adelaide panics, and blows out the small flame that has erupted on the end of a leaf, fanning the air as she peeks over the plants once more. The young man reaches for something on the porch, taking it in his hands.

A shotgun. He lifts the weapon to his shoulder, scanning the fields.

Adelaide’s chest constricts, and for a moment, she fears she may never breathe again. What will she do if they see her? What can she do? She feels stupid now—so stupid—for ever coming here in the first place. She wants to run back to her home. Back to River asleep in the cabin. Back to safety. But if she runs now, they will see her for sure.

“Hey!” His voice echoes through the still of the night. A blast rings through the sky as the man fires a warning shot.

The hounds erupt from inside the trailer.

Adelaide steadies her nerves and stands erect before their field. Tonight, she will let them know she is not easy prey. She is a force. A goddamned feral beast.

She strikes a remaining match and holds it to the lantern wick.

So many sounds at once. Shouting, doors slamming, men running, dogs barking.

Adelaide can’t think. She can’t see anything before her. All she sees is River. The child will suffer because of her. Because of her failure. Dear god, she’s done it again. The lantern swings in her hand, casting twisting shadows across the landscape, as she pitches the lantern into the center of the field.

It erupts.

Fiery oil coats plants, soil, fence. The shouts of the men turn from anger to panic as the scent of burning foliage fills the night air. They are coming for her and she needs to run. Now. Now. NOW!

Adelaide runs down the dirt road, blinded by fire and terror, and into the darkness.

It is nearly morning by the time Adelaide collapses onto her front step. Though her return home was slow and humbling without her lantern, she gasps as though she has run a marathon. In her mind, she saw herself attacked by dogs, run down by trucks, fired upon at every turn.

Her clothes, which last night were shades of peach, are now stained beyond recognition. Her skirt is muddied, her shoes soaked black.

The early morning is remarkably silent. Not even a branch groans in the breeze.

Adelaide scans the shadows for evidence of the wild woman, but it seems she has abandoned her post.

As Adelaide unlocks the door with a clatter and enters the stillness of her home, she is consumed by a feeling of safety and protection that she immediately recognizes as false. These walls protect nothing. Mere hours ago, she set fire to a field, and the men are probably hunting her down right now. Yet she is in her home, and nothing is amiss. She smells her fingertips to make sure it was not a dream. The scent of smoke reveals everything.

It is darkest in her bedroom, farthest from the glowing embers of the fireplace. Adelaide halts in the doorway. Her bed is empty.

She scans the room and finds River on the floor, tucked into the corner beneath the window, forehead pressed against the glass. She is fast asleep, snoring a slow, child’s breath.

Adelaide smiles and creeps closer to the girl, wondering if she could scoop her up and move her back to the bed without waking her. Adelaide reaches for her, angling her hands toward the child’s waist when she sees something outside the window. Just beyond River, the wild woman sleeps as well.

Forehead pressed against the glass.

The wild woman hadn’t abandoned her daughter—she had found her.

Adelaide feels like an intruder in her very own bedroom, and a knot tangles in her throat. She is the keeper of the glass barrier that separates them. Little more than a monster. But River is better off on this side of the window. The safe side. She must not lose sight of that.

Adelaide curls up on her sofa, nearest to the fireplace, and warms her hands against the heat. She tucks a pillow beneath her head, beating it into a malleable shape, and she listens for tires, voices, dogs. But sleep takes her fast, and she is not awake when the light of a new day pours through her window.

This morning, there are more gifts at Adelaide’s front door. The wild woman is nowhere in sight, left no sound and no footprint. But she left breakfast. This morning, a young red fox, its neck torn out, blood staining the wood of her step.

A terrible sight. Adelaide groans, hangs her head. She aches to think of its grieving mother in the woods.

But Adelaide does not wish to offend the wild woman, nor allow the meat to turn to rot. So she skins and debones, and she and River feast in the stillness of the morning.

After breakfast, the girl grows restless, clawing at the windows, barking commands at Adelaide. When Adelaide takes her to the garden and cleans the debris from Little Bird’s grave, she hopes the girl might be curious, or grateful for the outing. But she is neither of these things. She chirps into the forest, running from tree to tree. When that is not enough, the girl drops to her hands and feet, galloping from one corner of the garden to the other. Adelaide is convinced the child might dash into the woods, never to be seen again. And for a moment (just a small moment), Adelaide wishes she would. She cannot keep River safe. Especially now, after torching the old man’s farm. Thanks to her, the men could be here at any moment. She wants to tell River to run while she still can. Back to her real mother.

But despite herself, Adelaide slowly approaches the galloping child, and is relieved when River allows herself to be carried into the cabin. And though she does not resist, the wail she leaves in their wake rattles Adelaide throughout the rest of the afternoon.

Tonight, Adelaide retrieves a spare lantern from the kitchen cupboard and fills it with oil. She lights it, and places it on the side table by the sofa. When she sits, River tucks into Adelaide’s chest, and she wraps her arm around the little girl—her little girl—as together they watch the fireplace.

Adelaide plucks a few leaves from River’s hair, letting them fall to the floor. She tries to memorize the girl’s face. Her dark, bewitching eyes. Every strand of her mane. Her knees, which poke from her spindly legs like apples on a stick. Adelaide doesn’t know why the girl suddenly looks up at her and smiles, but she takes it as an opportunity to memorize the dimple just beside her lip, the glisten of her eyes, the fuzz on her jawline, haloed by the flames.

Adelaide smells River’s hair, the side of her face, taking the scent into her lungs. Today, for just a moment, she had hoped the girl would run away, but Adelaide is glad she did not.

The cabin shakes, and the canopies whistle, and Adelaide tells herself it is only the wind. Something bangs against the roof, and she tells herself it is only a fallen branch. Because it has to be. She is not yet ready for anything else.

The clock ticks from the bedroom, echoing through the cabin. Tick-tick-tick.

Men-men-men.

She hugs River closer.

A flash of light fills her window, and Adelaide holds her breath before hearing the distant roll of thunder. Lightning. Only lightning.

Beneath the sofa, under the floorboard that pulls away from the nails, the trap rattles and clangs against its chain, the sound echoing through the small cabin.

Adelaide cannot allow River to fall into the hands of the men. She won’t see that happen, not while there is still breath in her lungs. But if she were to release the girl back to the wild, back to her feral mother, what kind of life awaits her in the wilderness? Hardship. Danger. She thinks of River outside, sleeping in the dirt, rain soaking her until she is shivering, wondering why Adelaide no longer loves her.

No. She won’t allow it.

Adelaide thinks of the red fox, dead on her doorstep. Was it a threat from the wild woman? Will Adelaide’s throat meet the same fate?

She worries they are no longer allies. Perhaps it was all a trick so that Adelaide would lower her guard. Perhaps their truce came with a time limit, and Adelaide has delayed too long. Perhaps there was never a truce at all. The fox was a bad omen. The second one in days.

Adelaide doesn’t know what the wild woman has planned, if anything. But she knows one thing for sure—the men will soon be here. When she torched the old man’s farm, she made her choice, and she must accept whatever comes next. If this is her last night with River, it will have all been worth it. Because right now—finally—the child is hers.