22

The breeze slams against Adelaide’s shoulder as she watches the fire in her garden soar toward the canopy. River pulls away, but Adelaide holds firm to the girl’s hand.

Adelaide cannot breathe. The wattle fence, the garden beds, the mulch, the vines and the weeds she pulled from the grave—and Little Bird, oh god, Little Bird—all ablaze, fire licking the night sky, the heat evaporating the tears as they fall down her cheeks.

Henry emerges from the shadows and stumbles toward the cabin.

Zelda is not with him, and Adelaide cannot bring herself to look back at the burning coop.

Henry stands beside Adelaide in mourning. His feathers, usually white and plum, are now gray and charred, lying in clumps across his already ragged body. She squats beside her beloved bird, her calves screaming, and brushes ash from his feathers, smoothing them across his back.

“Oh, Henry. What will become of us now?”

He chortles, despite his heartache.

Adelaide wants to comfort the bird, but they can wait no longer.

She pulls River away from the cabin and sneaks into the clearing at the back of her property. The child stumbles, cries out, but Adelaide does not turn back. She is scared they’ve waited too long already, and they’ll be attacked halfway down the road to town, lights in the distance offering freedom, but not for them. Not for a frightened old lady and an uncivilized child who didn’t leave soon enough, didn’t run fast enough.

Adelaide glances behind her. There are no men on their heels. But that could all change in the time it takes her to swallow the lump in her throat.

Adelaide and River move quickly. Away from the cabin, past the burning chicken coop, through a small clearing and toward a cluster of trees near the mountain road.

She yanks on River’s arm to pull her closer, and together, they bound over roots and disappear into the shadows.

Adelaide can almost see the road now.

Yes, there it is. Just ahead.

They are almost there. Almost free.

A roar echoes all around them, and Adelaide freezes in her steps, River crashing into the back of her legs.

The wild woman roars again, no breath in between, and Adelaide tries to cover her ears. The sound—like an infant, like a tornado—surrounds them, so deafening that even little River flinches and closes her eyes.

Adelaide doesn’t know where to look. The wild woman could be anywhere.

Adelaide curses the moonless sky. Blackness is all around her, but the wild woman must be able to see her because the sound begins to circle them.

When Adelaide looks up, the gravel road is farther away than ever before.

River pulls from Adelaide’s grip, but the old woman holds firm.

“No!” she whispers. Or maybe she screamed. Adelaide cannot tell in the silence that follows. River twists her fingers, and Adelaide fights to hang on to the child. Her daughter.

“Please, no.”

The wild woman, merely a shadow, darts past Adelaide so fast that the air rushes around her. She drops the basket and it tumbles away. Adelaide clutches River’s hand with both of her own. The air is bitterly cold, but even in this chill, River’s fingers sweat and slip, digit by digit, from Adelaide’s grip. She squeezes until her knuckles pop, until her fingertips throb with pressure. But the child is strong and determined, and with a whoop and a grunt, River pulls free.

Adelaide collapses to the ground in the near-perfect darkness, breathless, listening to two little feet disappear into the forest.