by Melissa Gunn
“Sure, Tammy, but you could try sticking with one guy for, oh, a few months. Just for the novelty. Though I guess given we’re moving again soon, there’s not much point in my suggesting that.”
“No point at all. Cheer up, Freya. One day you’ll be as old as me, and think of the fun you’ll have if you lighten up a little.” Tammy pretended to toss a plate Freya’s way. Freya grabbed it out of her hands.
“I don’t think I want to lighten up that much. I’d float away. I’ll just grow into a little old cat lady, thanks.”
“You’re going the right way about it. From what I hear you only talk to people about that cat of yours.”
“Sure, but what else can I talk about? It’s not like everyone at school knows we are demis. Not even the trolls know that. And Mum always tells us not to let anyone know, in case they try to take advantage of us.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Frigg knows what she thinks they would do, apart from say we’re crazy. Maybe she just doesn’t want us committed to a mental hospital. Or given medication, or something. But seriously, try talking about something else. It might even get you some friends.”
Freya turned away, feeling tears prick at her eyes. She desperately wanted friends. She just didn’t know how to get them. Somehow, she always said the wrong thing at the wrong time. She talked about her cat because it was a normal thing, something other people might relate to - unlike their foraging ventures to stay fed, their hasty removal from the bed and breakfast before their paid time was up because Tammy had offended the kobold lady who ran it, or worst of all, their mother’s certainty that their house had been washed into the sea by an angry North Sea goddess. OK, that last bit was probably reality too, but she didn’t have to like it.
“Oh, never mind, Freya. You’ll get there one day.” Tammy put her arm round Freya’s shoulders in an attempt to cheer her up. Unfortunately, her dishcloth was still in her hand, and it dripped over Freya’s top.
Freya shrugged her arm off.
“Tammy!”
“Just figure out what mask you’re prepared to wear, one that people can relate to, and you’ll be fine. That’s what I do.”
“A mask? What, like paint and papier mâché? I don’t see you doing that.”
“No, dummy, not an actual mask. A pretend mask. One in your imagination. You, know, like playing charades, just keeping your character going all the time.” Tammy demonstrated, passing her hand over her face and changing expressions.
“Gosh, how comforting. So, I just have to not be me, and I’ll find some friends? Not what I need to hear, Tammy.”
Freya tossed her tea towel at Tammy and stepped away from her sister, balling her fists hard enough that her nails bit into her palms. Surely, one day, she could find some friends who accepted her for herself. Surely.
CHAPTER SIX
A FAMILY FRACTURE
As they reached the door of the chalet, gratefully lowering their heavy bags to the slightly damp ground while they removed their muddy shoes, a burst of off-key song reached their ears.
“Dad!” yelled Tammy, without reducing her volume to allow for nearby ears. “When will you learn to sing in tune?”
Freya rubbed the ear nearest to Tammy.
“When will you learn not to yell with us beside you?” she muttered.
“Dion, have you been to work today?” Danae’s tone was sharp, as it always was when their Dad had obviously been drinking on the job.
“No work to go to today.”
“Well why not? You had a job yesterday, didn’t you?”
“Been let go. Not enough vintners in this part of the world, apparently.”
“Surely no fewer than there were last week? I thought vineyards were a growth area, what with the warmer climate? You didn’t say anything about this, this morning.”
Their mother’s voice was strained, her rising anxiety apparent.
“Nothing to say, was there. I guess all those vintners think they can sell their product themselves. Let ’em learn. They’ll come crawling back when they find no-one wants their vino. I give them a week. Or a month. Not long, anyway.” Dion’s voice was slurred, one word blending into the next.
Freya looked at her Dad in horror. She’d never heard him sound as bad as this.
“Girls, take our food into the kitchen. Get yourself something to eat. Dion, come outside. We’re going for a walk. Take an anorak, it’s chilly out here.” Danae was sharp, commanding as she rarely was.
To Freya’s surprise, her father did as he was told, pulling on his shoes and a coat from beside the door. There was a lost look in his eyes that was unfamiliar, and deeply worrying. She stepped back to let him pass her.
“Go on in, Freya. See what you and Tammy can make that tastes good. Think of it as a challenge,” said Danae.
“But I want to talk to Dad-”
“Make the dinner, please, Freya. Your father and I are going to have a bit of a talk.”
Her mother was determinedly positive now. Freya took one more look at her Dad, and scurried inside. Whatever they were going to talk about, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to hear it. As she closed the door, she could hear her mother’s voice rising, anger or anxiety or both lending a sharp edge to her tongue. She blocked her ears as she ran to the kitchen. It didn’t help.
FOR WEEKS AFTER THE shopping day, Freya’s Mum and Dad hardly talked. Family meals were tense, Tammy’s comments about her day falling on apparently deaf ears, Freya’s hesitant queries unanswered.
Freya came home from school one day to find things missing from around the chalet.
“Mum! We’ve been burgled!”
There was no answer from Danae.
“Mum’s not back yet, obviously. What’s the problem?” Tammy appeared, still wearing her high school uniform.
“There’s things gone.”
“Who would bother to burgle us?” Tammy said rhetorically. “It’s not like the thrift shop wants their things back.”
“But there’s stuff missing.”
Tammy accompanied Freya on a tour of the small house.
“You’re right. There is stuff missing. But it’s a weird selection. I don’t think a burglar would take some cans of baked beans and the tin-opener.” Freya bit her lip. Tammy was right - but that meant something big was wrong.
A hunch struck her, and she went to their parents’ room. There, she opened the drawers on Dad’s side of the bed. Empty. Freya gazed at the bare wood of the bottom of the drawer, hoping that it would be a trick of the light, and in a moment, she would see it magically refilled with her father’s worn clothes.
Freya had no such luck. Staring at the dusty wooden drawer, Freya wished fiercely that they lived in a world where that sort of magic existed. Instead, it was all hiding talent, pretending to be normal, while struggling to get enough to eat. She blinked back tears as she heard her sister enter the room. Together, they stared at the empty drawer. Its emptiness seemed a betrayal.
“Did he hate living with us so much?” she whispered.
Tammy replied in a tight voice.
“I think he just hated being poor. And jobless. Maybe he found some way to support himself in the lifestyle he wished to be accustomed to. Without us. Oh, Freya.” Tammy’s voice wobbled. The girls exchanged a rare hug. “What will Mum say?”
Freya snorted.
“Probably something like ‘pass the salt, Tammy, you’re the closest one’. It’s not like she’s said much more than that, recently. I’m sure you’ve noticed the deadly silence at dinner.”
“Hard not to notice. I wonder what Dad did, to annoy Mum so much?”
“Somehow, I don’t think Mum’s going to tell us.”
In the event, their Mum didn’t say anything, at least not to Freya. Freya wondered if she talked to anyone about her husband’s disappearance. Her mother was tight-lipped and grimly silent for a long time afterwards. As predicted, Danae refused to answer questions about Dion.
“But will he come back?”
“I doubt it.” Dirty dishes plunged into the sink with a violent splash.
“Will we get to visit him? Where is he, anyway?” Freya took the clean dish thrust at her and wiped it dry.
“I doubt it, and I don’t know.” Another dish plunged to its watery fate a little too hard, and cracked in two.
“Gaia wept, now look what I’ve done.” Conversation closed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AUTUMN
“Yum, sheep sorrel!”
Freya pounced on the tiny leaves half-hidden in the short grass, and picked one leaf off each of several plants before stuffing them in her mouth. The delicious, sour tang was one of her favourite flavours. Certainly, better than the dreadfully bitter dandelion salad their Mum had made last week. They’d been supplementing the family’s now-single income by foraging for food, led by Danae, who had substituted herblore for their usual after-school lessons with barely a blink.
“Freya, leave some for me.” Tammy shoved her sister aside to gather her own mouthful.
“Don’t be greedy, I’m hungry too, you know.”
“You’re always hungry, even after we’ve had a charity food box delivered,” Tammy said.
“I’m growing faster than you.” Tammy couldn’t argue with that, thought Freya. Tammy hadn’t gained height in a year.
“Outwards, yeah.”
“You’re not one to talk.”
The sisters’ casual bickering was interrupted by a distant call.
“Freya. Tammy. Make sure you bring something home.”
They sighed as one.
“Yes, Mum.”
“OK, Freya, back to the job then. If you can keep yourself from eating everything,” Tammy said.
Freya picked just one more tangy leaf to soothe her empty stomach. She loved food foraging when she wasn’t hungry, but there hadn’t been any food in the community pantry yesterday, so there had been nothing for breakfast this morning. A handful of sheep sorrel was tasty, but hardly filling. She dutifully picked a few leaves for her bag. She looked ahead along the flat country road they were following, overhung with shrubs, and was rewarded with a much tastier sight.
“Look, wild walnuts!”
“Hardly wild if they’re beside a road leading to the local hall,” Tammy said.
“I don’t care, they’ll taste good.”
A car approached from the distant town, and Freya averted her eyes, pretending to be just enjoying a country walk with her family.
Nothing to see here, we’re not freaks eating wild food.
Freya hated people thinking she was odd. It was bad enough being odd.
Once the car had passed, Freya ran along the road towards the leaning old walnut tree, which had evidently kept growing after being partially blown over in some earlier storm. It was pinning a fence almost to the ground, in addition to overshadowing the road they were following.
“Thank goodness it’s autumn, I don’t think I could have waited for the nuts to fall if we’d found this tree in summer.”
“In summer we had a house and a garden. And normal food.”
“Well, yes. But walnuts are pretty normal. Hazelnuts, too.”
Freya gave up on arguing with Tammy, putting her efforts into collecting as many of the smooth, green-husked nuts as she could. The high winds last week had obviously blown a lot of walnuts off the tree, as the husks were beginning to split, revealing glimpses of a pale, wrinkled brown shell underneath. Freya pulled the husk off one nut, and cracked the shell between her teeth before prying out the nut meat. Tammy asked her dryly,
“You know they have to dry before they taste good, right?”
“This tastes good even if it’s not ripe yet.” That wasn’t quite true, thought Freya, grimacing at the faintly bitter skin around the nutmeat, but she was hungry enough not to care. Walnuts, even not-quite-ready walnuts, were much more filling than sorrel. She noticed that Tammy had also paused to open a nut.
“This takes me back.” Their mother’s voice was bemused. Both girls turned to see their Mum had caught up to them. “We went foraging all the time during the pandemic.”
Freya sighed to herself.
Here we go again.
“We know, Mum. You’ve told us a million times, that’s why you know how to forage, you would have starved without whatever that book was. Blah, blah, blah,” said Tammy.
“Don’t be rude, Tammy. And aren’t you glad of it now? We’d be much hungrier if I hadn’t taught you how to find your own food,” said Danae. There was a wobble in her voice that made Freya’s insides squirm.
“I suppose. But it’s not a pandemic now, we just lost our house. And couldn’t we have called on a house hob or something? They’re supposed to keep the occupants of their houses fed, aren’t they?” Tammy said.
“Well, if we had a permanent house that might work.” Danae’s voice had a sarcastic edge now as well as a wobble. Freya wished Tammy hadn’t mentioned anything. But her Mum continued, voice rising.
“If you don’t mind being fed on earthworms, then yes, I suppose we could have done that. Personally, I prefer not to rely on a supernatural being with badger taste buds, that we don’t even have around right now.”
Danae turned away, her lips so firmly pressed together that Freya was sure she was trying not to cry. After a moment in which Freya could hear her breathing heavily, she turned back, apparently pretending nothing had happened.
“And I’m just as glad it’s not a pandemic again, it was so crowded with foragers back then. Plus of course, there were people getting ill everywhere so we had to be extra careful with washing our gleanings. With just us out here, we have more to choose from, and we’re unlikely to get ill unless some angry demi with pestilence in their past curses us. Here, fill this bag with nuts, this tree could keep us in protein all winter if it comes to that.” Danae thrust a large paper bag at Tammy.
Freya shuddered. She hoped it did not come to that, however much she liked walnuts. The last few weeks had made her acutely aware of how much she liked regular, store-bought food. In contrast to her daughters, their mother seemed to be revelling in the opportunity to revive her old skills, and she reminisced constantly.
“You know, now is one of the best times to be foraging for food. There’s so much still available. Now spring, that’s the real hungry season. You wouldn’t think so, would you? But it’s too early for most things to be ready, just a few greens and suchlike. I never thought I’d be sick of asparagus, but I was that year. Now, look, here’s another treasure!”
A little way past the walnut, Freya saw her mother reaching over a fence to a short bush with large leaves and small brown roundish things on it. “What’s that one?” asked Freya warily. Treasures these days were not always what they seemed.
“It’s a medlar!” Her mother smiled. “Something sweet to eat, if we wait for the fruit to blet.”
“What does blet mean when it’s at home?”
“Er... hmm. To soften with age.”
“You mean rot, don’t you?” Freya scowled at the innocent-looking brown fruit.
“Well, in a way. But it’s good. I’ve had it before.”
“Mum, that’s so disgusting. You want us to eat rotten fruit, now? Ugh!”
Tammy made exaggerated retching noises. Freya snickered. While she didn’t want to eat rotten - no, bletted fruit either, Tammy’s reaction was so typically overstated.
“What if that wildlife-tending friend of yours offered you bletted medlars. Would you eat them then?” she asked Tammy.
Tammy lifted her chin airily.
“Dan wouldn’t offer me rotten fruit in the first place. He has higher standards.”
“Well, Miss high standards, how about Freya finishes collecting walnuts while you and I get those hazelnuts further along. They should be ready by now. If you are lucky, we’ll find some pheasant berries too. You can be the taste tester. If you’re extraordinarily lucky they’ll be ripe. And meanwhile, how about you tell me about this Dan character? I d
on’t believe you’ve introduced me.”
Tammy looked daggers at Freya for bringing up Dan in front of their mother. Freya looked the other way, and continued collecting walnuts. She wondered what pheasant berries were like. It sounded like an unripe one would not be a treat. She could hear her Mum and sister arguing as they advanced towards the hazelnuts. She didn’t like Tammy keeping secrets from their parents, but she didn’t want to be a snitch, either. Tammy had explained several times in the past that such actions were frowned upon, especially by big sisters.
“Dan’s just someone I met at school, Mum,” explained Tammy.
Freya opened her mouth to protest this lie, but shut it again. Tammy would definitely call her a snitch if she told her Mum that.
“And what sort of demi is Dan, then?” Danae’s voice was alert.
“He’s not a demi. Or a were, or a troll. Just a human.”
“Well, that’s a rarity. I hope he’s a nice boy, not hanging with vamps or anything?”
“Ooh, Mum, I would never go out with someone who was ‘hanging with vamps’. Anyway, no-one says that anymore. You’re so out of date.”
“Well, what do they call it now? Update me.”
“It’s called bleeding up, Mum. And anyway, I don’t know anyone who does that. It’s a gross idea, who wants to be food?”
“I’m glad to hear we are in agreement with that, at any rate. So, speaking of food, that’s all the hazelnuts picked.” She called out to Freya. “Have you got the walnuts?
“Yes, Mum.”
“Good. Freya, have we got enough salad leaves yet? No? Then everyone on the lookout for fathen or nettles, we can have cooked greens at least. Though it’s a bit late for nettles. And there could be apples in the hedgerow, that would be better than pheasantberries.”
“You want us to eat nettles now? That’s taking hunger a bit far, isn’t it?”