Fierce Little Thing

by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

  126

  The sounds of the Texas apocalypse buzzed open our sleep—first one man’s voice, then another, frantically recounting: “Two CEVs have been deployed into the Branch Davidian compound. A battering ram has broken a hole ten feet in diameter just to the left of the building’s front door. Shots fired! I repeat, shots fired!”

  We awoke like soldiers, the battle begun without us. It was light outside, plenty into morning, but the rhythms of Home—breakfast just past dawn; days of manual labor—had relaxed now that teenagers made up a significant portion of the population, and Ephraim and Butterfly had left, and Sarah had given up on all kitchen activities. We were becoming so lean. Abraham stuck mostly to his radio, and Gabby to her cabin, where she subsisted on a stockpile of nuts and whatever Nora swiped from the kitchen. Our meals were indistinguishable: pintos, navies, or limas over rice, which Amos stirred to oblivion. Every morning, the previous day’s beans slipped from our bodies into the latrine, fast and wet and stinking.

  We were surprised to discover Abraham crouched on our porch, hands arced over the tinny, talkative crank radio like it was a source of heat. His shotgun leaned against the railing, in quick reach. Through the filigree of pine branches, the sun offered warmth. “They’re going to gas them.”

  Cornelia opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. “Maybe they’re rescuing them.”

  Gunfire again, peppering the Texas morning, and ours, too. “That sound like rescuing?”

  “How do you know about the gas?” Issy looked like she might cry.

  “It’s what I would do.”

  Ben met my eye, for just a moment. The touch of his gaze filled me with vain hope, as though it, and the feeling it swelled in me, might be enough to save those strangers’ lives. The radio crackled with people turning the destruction before them into a story. Cornelia curled into Issy. Xavier put his hand on my shoulder.

  Abraham led us to the water, holding the radio like a beacon. Spring ephemerals poked up between the wet pine needles. The modest blossoms only existed before the leaves came in on the deciduous trees; when bare branches allowed the sun to hit the forest floor. Sweet little trailing arbutus; wood anemone, dancing in the wind; and wild columbine, electric and fuchsia. Marta had trained me to find them, but it had been all study—I’d never seen them with my eyes.

  It was hard to imagine a sunbaked Texas morning, but the ice was finally out, after crackling around the edges of the lake for days, loosening from the shore, then breaking up, like congealed grease skimmed from a cooled pot of Sarah’s bone broth. The air was still cold enough for shivering.

  “The CEV to the right of the building appears to be using a battering ram. One hesitates to speculate, but these appear to be steps toward introducing some kind of weapon, perhaps gas, perhaps tear gas, into the compound.” How could a place so far away seem so much closer than town? I closed my eyes and Unthinged myself of my body and let the sounds of that world carry me to the children huddled inside, walls quaking, burning gas filling their lungs. I willed them to look at me, a kind face that could carry them out of their story.

  Amos joined us, propping himself on a stump. He whittled a rabbit into a piece of driftwood. Abraham stood to face the expanse of the lake. He spread his arms wide. “Observe the scope of this changing season.” His voice carried over the radio’s ricocheting gunshots. “Observe the vastness and perfection of our world Unthinging.” Abraham ululated his white breath into the bitter blue sky. Sarah joined us, wrapped in a shawl. Before she killed the Mother, she’d have brought rolls. Nora crouched behind a stump, firing pebbles with a makeshift slingshot.

  Was that Marta moving above us, along the path? Something about the Branch Davidian children hunkering inside those walls made me long to go back to the era before I even knew her, so that I could be small enough for her to take me into her arms. But no, it was just a chipmunk, out at the first scent of spring.

  “Who wants to practice?” Abraham said. He meant the shotgun. The news kept churning. It would be our backdrop all day. “Xavier?”

  “Yeah, okay.” Xavier shuffled up.

  Abraham handed him the weapon. “Treat it like a wild animal.” Xavier’s fingertips repelled from the machine. He lifted his eyes to Abraham, and all his own vain hope was clear—perhaps the man would praise him.

  “Well, maybe less like a wild animal,” Abraham said, chuckling, “and more like someone you hope to make your friend.” Abraham placed his hands over Xavier’s. Ben watched the careful touch. His expression reminded me of my own longing.

  “Put down the gun.” Gabby’s arms were crossed. She was only ten feet up the path. Sarah’s gaze darted between Gabby and Abraham as he lifted the shotgun from Xavier’s hands. He pointed it, not exactly at Gabby, but in her direction.

  “No!” Sarah shouted.

  Abraham offered Sarah a smile. He lowered the gun. “Just having fun.”

  Amos kept whittling.

  “The children shouldn’t hear this.” Gabby pointed to the radio.

  Abraham capped his free hand on Xavier. “They’re warriors.”

  “You’re children,” Gabby said. She was speaking to Issy’s turned back. “The people in that compound are brainwashed. The adults are brainwashed. Those poor kids will pay the price for their parents following a child abuser.” She turned to Sarah. “The fact that Abraham is siding with David Koresh means he’s forgotten every single thing we dreamed of doing up here. You know I’m right. You know it’s time to leave.”

  “So then leave.” Abraham’s voice flared. “You keep talking about going, Gabby. So why don’t you just get the fuck out?”

  “This isn’t about the goddamn feds.” She turned to Amos. “He’s telling you it’s about upholding ideals and whatever else bullshit, but he stole food from your mouths because he’s a gambling addict. Now he’s got you gunning for some apocalypse because he’s bored. His boredom is going to get you killed.”

  There was something in that last bit that Sarah agreed with. But Abraham cut her off before she could say so. “You can go now, Gabby. Issy already knows you didn’t want her.”

  “Baby.” Gabby shook her head. “That’s bullshit.”

  “Issy doesn’t want you either.”

  “Baby, give me a few minutes—”

  “Tell her.” Abraham turned toward Issy. “Go on. Tell your mother that I’m not the one who forgot the meaning of this place. Every day, thanks to you”—he meant us, the five of us, gathered close—“I get closer to understanding what we are capable of here. The bounty of our gifts.” He stepped toward Issy. He lifted her chin. “Go on. Tell your mother what you want.”

  A single tear curved down over Issy’s broad cheek.

  “Baby.” Gabby’s voice had gone gentle. “My sweet baby, let’s talk. Just you and me. Like it used to be. If you want to stay here after that, we can talk about that, too. Please. Oh please, just a minute. That’s all I’m asking. A minute of your time.” Gabby held her free hand open. It kept itself steady even though it had intentions, desires, to push through the empty space between them, grab her daughter’s shirt into a fist, and pull her close. “It was just you and me.”

  Something about that statement brought Issy back to herself. She moved across the open bank of wet snow, right toward that outstretched hand. She was more than full head taller than her mother, but when she neared Gabby, she drew herself even higher. “And it wasn’t enough.”

  “It was more than enough.”

  Issy shook her head. “You said we’d be stronger when it was more than just us. We’d be happier.” She ignored her tears. “You said a family shouldn’t only be two people. Well.” Issy gathered us toward her. “You got one thing right.” What she said next came out in a low growl: “Go. Now. And don’t come back.”

  Gabby’s breath went shallow. But she didn’t plead. She didn’t grab her girl. She didn’t give us a last, careful look. She simply stood there for a moment, on the cusp between what had bee
n and what would be. Then, with squared shoulders, she went up the path. Sarah stood to follow, but Abraham’s narrowed eyes were enough to make her sit back down. Amos was still whittling.

  “This is a full-on military assault the likes of which has rarely been seen on American soil,” went the excited newscaster, his babble filling up the space Gabby left behind. A chipmunk stuck its head out of the hole right beside Abraham’s foot, darting back into the ground with a squeak. Abraham smiled down at the creature, then lifted his eyes and pointed out at the fishing cabins on the opposite shore, still boarded up for winter. “They’re lying in wait.” He meant the sheriff. He meant the cops and the feds. “They can see we’re well defended.” We were down to one shotgun and a hatchet, the kitchen knives, Amos’s knife, and, somewhere in the forest, Nora’s slingshot.

  “Remember”—he pointed at the dark windows across the lake—“the law protects them if they take you. Saskia, Cornelia, Xavier, and Issy—you’re on your own here, at least in their eyes. You are ‘underage’—whatever that’s supposed to mean. The Thinged World doesn’t recognize that we are family. They’re gassing those kids in Texas, right this very second. I want to keep you safe. I’m going to keep you safe, no matter what they try to pull.”

  It was hard to wait, in fear and anticipation, in readiness, in calm. Abraham watched me until I offered a smile of appreciation. Then he turned around, putting his back to the lake. He lifted his parka. He unbuttoned his pants. He dipped them down over his bare bottom, and mooned the opposite shore.

  Cornelia’s giggle lifted musically, manically. Nora flitted back from her hiding spot with a darting need: “What? What? What’s so funny? Tell me!” At the sight of Abraham’s ass, she was laughing, too, and then even Amos put down his knife to chuckle, and Sarah was shaking her head as if Abraham was a naughty boy who amused her, Gabby’s departure forgotten.

  But Ben didn’t laugh. He looked out at the icy spot out on the lake where he had taken my hand. It was a place that would soon disappear, and then never exist again.

  “You don’t need her.” Abraham gathered Issy close. “You don’t need a mother.”

  Ben’s eyes lifted to Sarah. Without him looking at our spot, I knew I’d never be able to find it again.

  127

  We spread out to wait for Abraham’s summons—Issy and Cornelia to their motherly concern on the porch of the Main Lodge, Xavier to muse on the steps of our old cabin, Ben to kick at the rotting beds where the garden used to be, no doubt imagining Abraham’s head under the tips of his steel-toed boots. Tomas is somewhere lurking. Teresa stands on the steps of the Main Lodge, arms folded, watching us move away.

  We should wait until she finds us boring. We should gather when she goes inside. We should whisper. We should plan. I should stick close, so they don’t decide without me.

  But I am free. The Unthinged World opens itself: the Tamias striatus—chipmunks—skittery when I move even an inch their way; the silvery green lichens, gradations of fuzz and scale atop granite rocks and running up the trunks of every tree; the relentless falling patter of the pine needles, slipping from their branches down over the forest floor. Every frond, every pinecone, every wing is fringed with light, and it’s dangerous, my footsteps leading me away from the others, into the heart of the bounty. I am giddy now, when I should be grim. I’m girlish and alive and curious. It’s inappropriate; that’s the word Cornelia would use. I think of how she looked at me when she called me happy. The breeze is a whisper from your lips. You kiss my eyelids when they close in the sunlight.

  “What’s with you?”

  Ben. How he got down to the water before me is a mystery. He glances up the hill. We’re alone. He takes a step closer. Every inch of me flushes.

  “I figured it out.” His voice resonates in my skull, as though it was made to live there. “You, um, you forage something. Right? You know what I mean. You forage something and then we…”

  Oh, to be back in the moment before. Before this, before the smell of him, before the reminder of the brutality he will always demand of me. He wants Jenny. Jenny, sweet and trusting and fertile.

  “Where are you going?” he says. “We need a plan.”

  You, you, you.

  128

  Dawn was drawing its purple line along the horizon when they came. It was blackfly season, that space between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, holidays none of us wanted to celebrate. They came without fanfare or guns, and there were only two of them: Sal and a young cop, who’d been told to keep his mouth shut. I didn’t see them arrive. I was sound asleep and then next thing I knew Nora was telling us to run, hide, her untied shoelaces scattering along the floor of the hallway, a vision in her nightgown with a snarled braid.

  We stumbled into the chilly morning. Issy wore her blanket as a shawl. Cornelia trembled. Xavier’s forelock rose like a rooster’s comb. Ben’s eyes startled wild. Voices carried down from the driveway. I fleeted through the woods, off the land, needles crunching, branches crackling, heart a gallop of terror and, yes, excitement—the cops would be upon me any minute. Gunshots would ring out, surely. There was a twinge of disappointment when it became clear the showdown wasn’t delivering as quickly as predicted. But it was good not to be shot in the back, or be incinerated like those children in Waco. And you had to remember: even without firepower, they would take us if given the chance. One could never lose sight of this. I turned back to say as much, but Cornelia and Issy and Xavier and Ben and Nora were gone.

  I knew they hadn’t vanished, but for a moment, it seemed that way. The forest frittered with life—the squeaks and toots of the red-breasted nuthatches as they gossiped; and up above, far up above, an osprey—bearing the regal name of Pandion haliaetus—chirping on its hunt. But without my friends, it seemed that I was the only human left in both the Thinged and Unthinged Worlds.

  129

  “Saskia. Hey, Saskia. Saskia. I know you can hear me.”

  I couldn’t, actually. Or didn’t. Or didn’t want to. But now Issy has gotten me to pause, out on that peninsula along the water, where we spoke for the first time when we were still girls.

  “What the fuck?” She reaches for my shoulder.

  “You need something?”

  “I need us to figure out what we’re doing so we can get out of here. You know Ben’s going to use his gun unless we talk him out of it.”

  “Have you tried? Talking him out of it, I mean?”

  “By ‘we’ I mean ‘you.’ He’s only going to listen to you.” She’s up close now, as close as she was that first day. She scrutinizes me as clearly as she did then. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Looking.” The Unthinged World sparkles, even if we’re not supposed to call it that anymore. Blueberry Island is just where we left it, floating on the water. You’re here somewhere. It’s just a question of being in the right place at the right time.

  “Are you all right?” she asks.

  “Of course I’m all right.”

  “You’re not telling me something.”

  If I had a nickel.

  But whatever my face does changes her face, too—she’s no longer curious. “I felt so bad for you, back in Connecticut. You seemed so scared of everything, and I thought, there’s no way she’s going to survive this. But you don’t even seem … cautious here. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re glad. Glad to be back.” She’s been talking to Cornelia.

  “Of course I’m not glad.”

  She crosses her arms.

  “Well, it’s not so terrible, is it? I mean, there’s a reason we literally … killed someone to stay.”

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me. Three days ago, I wasn’t even allowed to say the word ‘kill.’ Now you’re just throwing it around? Justifying it?”

  “I’m not justifying it, I’m saying—”

  “No. You know what? No. Fuck you. My kid is crying for me in the arms of a stranger because I am being blackmailed for murder, and the only solu
tion is to commit murder again? No. You don’t get to sit out here, having googly eyes at the fucking water, full of romantic memories of the worst thing we’ve ever done.” She breathes in, then out. “The worst thing I’ve ever done, at least.” I let that go. She turns around now, toward the forest. “What do you keep looking at?”

  “I’m not looking at—”

  “You keep looking behind me. Is Abraham back there?”

  “I’m just distracted, okay?”

  “Distracted? No. No. You don’t get to be distracted. We are literally in a life-or-death situation and you’re admiring the view. You are so out of touch. You’ve been out of touch for years. In a castle on a hill with a fucking gate and a moat—”

  “I don’t have a moat.”

  “And yeah, I get it. You’re crazy. You’re sad. Some fucked up things happened to you when you were a little girl. But guess what? Really bad shit happened to me, too. A lot of the bad shit that happened to you happened to me at the exact same time! Only you only see what it meant for you.” She turns again, toward the forest. “What. Are. You. Looking. At?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  She’s not going to let it go.

  “Look, it’s doesn’t make sense.”

  “Yeah. I know.” She steps closer. “Say it.”

  “Sometimes, I think … sometimes, not for a long time, except when we were first up here, right after Tomas pulled the gun on us … I saw … a sign. Of him.”

  “Yeah, no shit, he’s up there in that cabin twiddling his thumbs as he ruins our lives.”

  “Not Abraham.” Here it comes. I’m actually going to say it. “William.”

  Issy just stands there. She stands there for a long time. First I think she will say something nice. Then I think she will say something mean. Then I think she won’t speak at all, ever again. Then she says, “Even your madness is selfish.”

  We stand like strangers, across a great distance.