21

Adelaide feels protected by the kitchen window as the wild woman continues to stalk her property, but it is false protection. If the wild woman were to throw herself against the glass, it would break. If she punched or smashed a rock against the glass, it would break. Adelaide can only hope the wild woman does not discover the truth of this.

River wears the wool shirt, belted at the waist. It had not been an easy task, but Adelaide was quick, and the girl was draped and cinched before she could holler. River could’ve fought it, but she didn’t. Perhaps the girl understands that they will be traveling today. Or perhaps she’s grown tired of fighting. Adelaide accepts the victory, either way.

The wild woman, on the other hand, is problematic. Adelaide can’t risk leaving for town while she is still circling the cabin, teeth bared, eyes trained on the window. But the sun will be setting soon, the journey even more strenuous in the dark.

And the men. They could be here at any moment.

She must think of something now. Now. Goddammit, now!

Adelaide pounds her hands against the sink, rattling dishes and startling the child.

“I’m sorry, little one. Keep eating. We’ll need our strength today.”

Behind her, the clock ticks away, useless-useless-useless. Will the mockery never cease?

She wants to grab the basket and take River’s hand and run. But Adelaide needs to be patient. The wild woman has been here all day and will surely tire soon, retreat to the forest. Wherever it is that she goes. They must wait until the wild woman leaves.

But right now, the men are foremost in her mind.

If the men come for River tonight, they will likely arrive after dark, when they can make a silent and stealthy approach. Adelaide must be on the lookout for the perfect timing. After the wild woman, but before the men. It will be tricky, and Adelaide tries to dismiss her fears of everything going wrong. For all she knows, the men are surrounding her homestead right now, an angry mob armed with torches and pitchforks. Kill the witch!

Adelaide is focused. Ready. If she has to slash her way out of this forest, branch by branch, she will do it for the child. River deserves better. She deserves everything that Adelaide can’t give her—a family, a safe home, a childhood. Catherine was right. This is no place for children.

The wild woman squats outside the garden and watches Adelaide through the window. She does not blink. A shadow blooms beneath the wild woman, and the dirt runs black as she urinates against the post, eyes locked on Adelaide. When she is finished, she does not stand. She is a gargoyle in the forest, her knees hooked, her back rigid.

Adelaide knows this game, and her fingers twitch at the blatant display of aggression. She feels for the paring knife in her pocket, with half a mind to leap through the glass and dispatch the wild woman right here, right now. Sometimes we must do savage things to protect our children. The wild woman has laid forth a challenge, but Adelaide must refrain.

For now.

The sun has lowered in the sky, but still, Adelaide must wait. There will soon come a time. But not yet.

No, not just yet.

Night has finally fallen, and the wild woman is nowhere to be seen.

Adelaide needs to extinguish all light, not only to help her eyes adjust to the night, but to prevent outsiders from peering into the cabin. She and River will need all the cover they can get. Obscurity. Safety.

Adelaide lays the heaviest firewood atop the embers in the fireplace to snuff them out, and she peers through the living room window one last time, grasping the curtains. River pulls the fabric from Adelaide’s hands.

“No,” the girl says.

Adelaide balks. “River! You will say no such thing to me!” She softens her voice and kneels to the girl’s level. “We’ll be leaving soon, little one, and it needs to be dark and quiet, so we know when it’s time to go.”

The girl glares at her, but ultimately relinquishes the curtain.

“Thank you,” Adelaide says, as she gathers the fabric in her hands.

She pauses. Streaks mar the living room window—on the outside of the glass, tracing the frame. The wild woman has been testing the cabin’s boundaries and is getting closer to figuring something out. Something she shouldn’t. Something that makes Adelaide very nervous. Ever since Adelaide torched the farm, she’d been preparing for men. The wild woman has always been a burden, of course, but tonight, she is a threat.

And Adelaide doesn’t have another plan.

She draws the heavy curtains shut, blows out the lantern, and the cabin goes black.

The woman is taking the girl back to mother tonight. She can’t wait to show mother the soft animal that isn’t real, and her hat, the color of sweet honey.

The girl is heavy. Heavy as a stone in the water. The woman wrapped something around her, and although it is soft against her skin, the girl feels like she can’t breathe, can’t walk. She can’t see her body anymore and wonders if it is still there. She pushes her fingers against the fabric, feels her belly, her knees, her shoulders. The girl is relieved. She is still there, even though she can’t see herself. She holds out her arms, examines the fabric that is the color of a tongue. She looks more like the woman now, and less like mother.

The girl doesn’t understand why they are still inside, and she turns to the woman.

“Sheet,” the girl says.

But the woman is in the food room and does not respond.

That wasn’t the right word. That is the word for the sleep cave. The girl tries another word. “Chic-ken.”

No. Those are the round birds that don’t fly.

The girl scratches her head, bangs her fingers against her eyebrow. It’s a new word that she’s trying to remember. The word that will make the woman bring her back to mother. It made the oww sound. Brother would have remembered. He’s better with the woman’s words than she is.

The girl shuffles closer to the food room but walking with the woman’s clothes on her body is hard, and she has to kick the fabric in order to move. She stands beside the hutch.

“Town,” the girl says.

The woman looks at her but turns quickly away.

“Soon,” the woman says.

The girl turns this new word around in her mouth. Sooo-nn.

“Soooon.”

“Yes,” the woman says.

“Yes.”

The girl is learning many new words. She likes the way soon sounds but doesn’t know what it means. She thinks she knows what yes means, and this makes her happy. Yes. Town. And then she will be with mother.

The girl watches the woman in the food room. The woman who is a pretend mother. The woman looks different from the way she looked when she first took the girl and brother. Smaller. Thinner. Like she hasn’t eaten for many days and many nights. There’s a darkness around her eyes the color of a rain cloud. And her hurt has changed. The girl can feel it. Now, the woman’s hurt is a tight, empty space, like a chest that can’t breathe, like a burrow under the ground, collapsing with sand.

It feels like it might be the right time. Adelaide stands at the door, counting the cracks in the wood like she hasn’t memorized them a dozen times already tonight. In one fist, an overflowing basket. In the other, River’s petite hand.

The disadvantage to covering the windows is that the outside is a mystery to them. Adelaide won’t know who, or what, is outside her door until they emerge. But right now, all is silent, and this may be their only chance.

Adelaide wipes the sweat from her brow, and her chest rattles so furiously that she fears a sudden heart attack, just when River needs her most.

Adelaide smiles at River, who clings tightly to Little Bird’s gray elephant.

So now they are ready.

Adelaide takes a moment to reassemble her bun, but yes, they are ready.

River grins at Adelaide and bounces on her heels, so she is ready.

And they have to be ready.

The clock behind her screams, go-go-GO.

Adelaide takes a deep breath, in case it is her last, and is reaching for the dead bolt when the doorknob moves. Her hand freezes in midair as someone tests it from outside her cabin.

Men. Beasts.

One and the same.

“Get away from the window,” Adelaide whispers to River as the girl yanks the curtain aside, eager, expectant. Adelaide lunges for her, but River resists, pulling her wrists from Adelaide’s grasp as a howl breaks the silence.

The wild woman.

River is no longer safe in these woods with the men after her. A good mother will sacrifice everything for the safety of her children. Adelaide knows this. And surely, the wild woman knows, too. If only Adelaide could speak to her, beg her to be reasonable. But Adelaide cannot speak to the wild woman, and she must do everything in her power to protect River, even from the thing she so desperately seeks.

The wild woman howls once more.

These walls have held her off before, and they will do it again.

“Please,” Adelaide pleads. “Please.”

Before she can utter another word, or grasp at the child once more, gravel peppers her cabin as vehicles tear into her clearing, and her home floods with brilliant white light. It pours through every window, slashing through the drapes. Chalky light, more dazzling than the sun itself, blinds Adelaide, and she stumbles backward, shielding her eyes. River throws herself against the floor and covers her head, barking syllables in her feral tongue.

Adelaide crawls to the girl, throwing her body upon her as a shield. Beneath her, River trembles.

There is no sound from outside. No more howling, no noise of any kind. There is only the light. Adelaide forces open her eyes.

“Stay down,” she tells River.

Though Adelaide knows the child does not understand her words, she obeys, and Adelaide crawls to the window, keeping her head low to the ground.

Shielding her eyes with her hand, she peers through the fissures between her fingers. There are trucks on her property—two that she can see, perhaps more that she can’t. Hunting lights mounted to their hoods throw beams of light against her home.

The men.

They are here.

The howling she heard earlier had not been a threat—it had been a warning.

Adelaide anticipates footsteps, hollering, breaking windows, but there is none of this—only silence. And the light.

She returns to River, circling her arms around the girl, and pulling the child around the back of the sofa.

Adelaide checks for the paring knife in her apron and then reaches for the large knife on the side table, tucking it against her thigh.

So this is the night they rip River from her arms. Let ’em try, she thinks, gripping the knife tighter. Let ’em try.

But there is no pounding on Adelaide’s door. No barking dogs. No threatening words from enraged men. Only silence. Minutes go by like this, maybe hours.

When the lights finally abate, Adelaide and River are left in a blackness so complete that Adelaide can’t see her fingers inches from her face, and she blinks against a darkness that is more harrowing than the light itself. She locates the side table, replacing the knife, and then lifts a trembling River from the floor.

With the girl tucked safely in her arms, Adelaide peers through her living room window. The lights may be gone, but the trucks remain. Adelaide feels a path through the dark cabin, laying River into a nest of blankets on her bed, nearly falling atop the girl.

River is motionless, her eyes vacant. Adelaide shakes her.

“River,” she says. “Come back to me, little one.”

Nothing.

“We have to leave now, and I can’t carry you. Town, remember?”

A blink, and a tilt of the head.

“There we are. Sit up. Good girl.”

Adelaide rushes to the living room and grabs the basket, slipping the large knife inside, before returning to River.

“I wanted this to be easier,” she says as she unbolts the latch and pushes open the bedroom window. She lifts River and helps her through the gap, one leg at a time, and then drops the basket to the earth beside the girl.

Adelaide has one foot on the ground and one foot still inside the cabin when she smells the smoke. It is unmistakable.

Something is burning.

Adelaide hopes it is only a figment of her imagination. But there, beyond her bedroom window, near the back of her property—fire.

The chicken coop.

No.

Black smoke smolders into the air, the flames a russet glow.

Adelaide slips into the night to stand beside River against the cabin. The window slams shut behind her, and she knows the men have heard it, but she can’t bring herself to leave the shelter of her home just yet.

River squeals, and points to the garden, which is now aflame as well.

Adelaide can do nothing but stand beneath the eave of her cabin and watch it burn. The moist air has already begun to choke the outermost flames, but the center of the fire is a boiling crimson. Smoke billows upward, breaking through the forest canopy.

Somewhere in the distance, Henry’s gravelly cry shears the night in two.