23

River vanished so quickly. Adelaide listened for as long as she could, but as the girl ran farther, the sound of her footsteps dissipated like a dream in the morning.

Adelaide spins her head from side to side, looking for River, her cabin, or even the gravel road so she can orient herself, but every direction is exactly the same. There is nothing but darkness, as if she has lost her sight completely. She swings her arms all around her but finds nothing, hears nothing.

Adelaide drops to her knees and inches forward, fumbling over boxes of food and other basket debris she cannot see.

Behind her, another roar. If she didn’t know better, Adelaide would swear there is a mountain lion in her woods this night.

Her breath tides in and out of her throat, deep, dry swallows that satisfy nothing.

The sound of the wild woman tunneling through the trees is replaced by the sound of approaching trucks. The darkness is replaced by brilliant white light.

This night is not yet over.

The men have found her.

The girl stands with mother and looks to the woman one last time.

Even though she is with mother now, part of the girl wants to stay with the woman. The girl does not understand why she feels this way, because the woman is not a mother. But lately, the girl’s heart can barely tell the difference. She holds the woman’s shirt tightly around her body and smells the fabric. It smells like the woman, and everything in the woman’s home all at once. It smells like the food room, and the fireplace, and the sofa, and the round birds that don’t fly, and the woman’s own breath and skin.

The girl hears a loud sound and looks up. In the clearing, there are big shapes and big light—light brighter than the morning.

The girl wants to help the woman, but mother holds her tight, leading her backward, into the brush.

The girl cannot take her eyes off the woman in the middle of all the light. She is like the fire inside the cabin. A piece of tree glowing like the sun.

River is gone, and there is nothing left for the men to take.

Adelaide shields her eyes against the barrage and faces the two men before her. The brothers stand side by side, hands on their hips, leaning away from each other as though ricocheting from the same point in opposite directions.

Adelaide squints through the headlights, seeking the old man. She knows he is here; she can feel him.

Goddamn it, show yourself.

She detects a third car—an old sedan parked on the road, no lights; a black hole in the otherwise brilliant clearing.

There he is.

From the back of one of the trucks comes the sound of furious scratching, shaking metal. A cage of hounds.

“There’s nothing for you here,” Adelaide chokes out, spittle falling from her lips. “Not anymore.”

The brothers do not respond. She can feel their rage, their fear.

She reminds herself that these men—these boys—are merely following orders. They are not the ones in charge.

Adelaide speaks again. “I’m alone. The child is gone.”

The figures look to each other, an odd spinning of the heads.

“What’d you say, witch?”

It’s impossible for her to tell which man spoke.

“There is no one else here. You’re wasting your time.”

“We’ll see ’bout that. And don’t go thinkin’ we’re stupid. We know there’s two.”

Adelaide grasps her abdomen as though punched. Her Little Bird, in the garden. On fire, yet safe from these men, nonetheless.

“Get off my property,” she says, her words less forceful than she had intended.

This is a battle she cannot win, and there is nothing left to fight for. Not anymore. Adelaide puts her hands in the air, a surrender.

“Look,” she begins.

One of the young men lunges forward, plowing into Adelaide’s shoulder. If she were a younger woman, she could’ve taken the blow, perhaps dealt one of her own. But she is an old woman now, and she did not have time to brace her tired bones against it. Adelaide spins through the air, colliding with the ground. All she can see is white and black, and a few sparkling stars that trail through her vision.

A growl emanates from the brush. Not a woman’s growl, but a child’s growl, high in pitch and edged with panic.

The man turns to his brother, smiles. “And there we are.”

Adelaide gasps for air. She claws at the ground, bits of rock ripping her fingernails, as she hauls her body from the dirt.

“Get away!” she screams into the forest, at the men, at River.

Adelaide pulls herself to her knees, her head spinning. She stands and looks for the brothers, finally spotting them within the thicket that borders her driveway. Trees block the light from the trucks, and even this close, Adelaide can barely see the men.

One of the brothers squats to the ground, hand held out as though luring a feral cat. His voice is high and lilting, but Adelaide can’t make out his words.

The lights illuminate the basket and Adelaide rushes to it, fetching the large knife tucked within. She stumbles toward the men, toward the shadows, thrusting the blade forward, left and right, everywhere.

“Leave her alone,” she pleads.

But Adelaide’s words are like smoke, evaporating into the air, ignored. She steps closer, peering into darkness.

She soon spots River, leaning forward on all fours, teeth bared, growling. She is a nocturnal animal—no longer Adelaide’s daughter, nor the little girl holding a stuffed gray elephant in front of the fire.

River lunges forward but is pulled back into shadow as the wild woman clutches her daughter. But River is determined, and she struggles against her mother, barking threats at the men. The wild woman tries to stay hidden, while River strives to be seen, heard, feared.

A figure emerges from the old sedan. Thinner than the boys, frailer. But as strong as he ever was.

The old man is a black silhouette against the beams. He leans against his car and lights a cigarette, bringing it to his mouth. Watching. Waiting. He shields his eyes, struggling to see across the clearing and into the trees.

River spits. Hollers. She ticks and screeches—all the sounds of her feral tongue at once. She throws her weight forward, pulling against the resistance of her mother.

Adelaide cannot allow River to put herself at risk, and she shrieks into the night, rushing toward the men.

Her feet stumble over stones, and she falls, unable to keep her footing. She swings the knife in her hand, but it lands on nothing, spinning from her grasp and into the trees as she crashes atop them, biting, scratching, kicking.

The element of surprise has given her an edge. She has won this small battle.

And then she has lost.

Suddenly, Adelaide is on her back, the night sky spinning above her, a fist landing in her gut.

Mother lifts the girl and carries her through the trees.

The girl fights mother, and kicks mother, and pushes her body against mother, and they fall to the ground like the woman fell to the ground.

She can’t leave the woman by herself with all the hurt. But mother says, No. Mother says, We must run.

The girl breaks free of mother’s arms, heading back to the clearing, but mother is quickly behind her, grabbing her, and they are on the ground again, under a sky with no moon.

Mother holds her so tightly.

Mother doesn’t know the woman who sleep-breathes loudly, and who makes sweet things to eat, and who taught her and brother to say new words like, fire and chicken and sheet. Or who gave her a special name that no one else knows.

The girl tells mother everything at once. She tells her about the fat flowers that are the color of the sun, growing upside down in the woman’s window. She tells mother about the small river that comes out of a shiny thing in the food room. And that the woman can make water whenever she wants, and make daylight whenever she wants, like a piece of sun in a jar.

She tells mother how the woman kept her safe. And that they stayed up all night in the snow trying to save brother.

That she held them, like a mother. And loved them, like a mother.

Mother looks surprised when the girl says this, but she listens as the girl cries.

Then she does not need our help, mother says, because she is very strong.

And the girl says, Yes, but not as strong as you.

The girl pushes herself up, but mother holds her back. She growls at mother—just for a moment—and mother’s eyes get big, and they get mad, but the girl doesn’t care. She has to take the woman’s hurt away so she can stop hurting, too. Mother pulls her to the ground and stands above her. She puts a hand to the girl’s chest, and when the girl hears mother’s words, she can breathe again because mother is going to make everything better.

Mother says, Stay quiet, stay small, stay hidden. I’ll be back for you.

The girl watches mother bound through the forest, by hand and by foot, back toward the clearing. Back toward the woman with all the hurt.