by Kevin Lawler
Winter let loose a magical swirl of color, but the alligator only stopped for a moment, sizing them up. It wasn’t enough.
Winter ran at the alligator and kicked it under the snout. It flinched to the side, unsure of what to do. It opened its mouth to growl again and Winter kicked it in the snout again, interrupting it. The alligator stumbled. It looked once more at the pig before slinking back towards the lake.
Winter’s heart was beating hard. She could feel it in her arms. Winter had surprised herself with that. She hadn’t time to be afraid of the alligator. Well, now she did, but the moment was past.
Winter turned to see the pig. He was elated. He hopped on all fours and ran circles around Winter’s legs. His bottom half was covered in muck and he was getting it on Winter’s legs.
“OK, OK,” Winter said, trying to move him aside with her hands. He ran his circles even closer.
“That’s enough, you’re filthy,” Winter said. Pigs were disgusting animals. “I saved you. You’re happy. Now off you go! Back into the swamp!” Winter told him, but he didn’t listen. Pigs were not the cleanest of animals to start with, and the swamp itself was gross. Winter didn’t want to get any closer to this.
The pig bounced. He continued to dance around her. Winter tried walking away and the pig followed her. She tried shooing him, but that didn’t work. So she walked on for a few minutes ignoring him, hoping he would forget about her and go away. He didn’t. He kept following her just as closely as at the start.
Ugh, Winter thought. She was going to have to get rid of him at some point, especially before she got back to camp, but for now she would let him follow her. She could use the company in the lonely swamp.
Maybe he would even get tired of her first, and then she wouldn’t be forced to send him away.
He came up to the back of her hand and sniffed, his pig nostrils widening as he took in the scent. His nose craned up as he sniffed, figuring out what he was dealing with. He looked up at Winter with intelligent, blameless eyes.
She walked on and the pig followed her. He was a pink pig with mottled black splotches, with an inquisitive nose, and cute, Winter had to admit, in his own pig way. He had a short coat of hair that gave him his pink and black coloring. He looked, you could say, like a Dalmation or a cow, but a lot shorter and bouncier.
He had a tail that hung straight down, or sometimes looped up in a single curl, and wagged or poked out straight when he was excited. The trotters at the bottoms of his legs gave him the appearance of always walking on tiptoe.
He was energetic. He roamed freely in front of Winter, foraged for food when he could, and returned to his position at her side whenever nothing had his interest captured. If Winter paid him no attention, he didn’t seem to mind. After some hours of hiking the ground changed the ground changed from marsh to drier grass and cheerier trees, and they were free of the swamp.
In the woods they rejoined a game trail, what Winter hoped to be the path back to camp, and she celebrated by sitting under a boulder to rest her legs and eat what food was in her pack. The pig seemed more tired than she was. He panted heavily and flopped down beside where she was sitting. She had a white foil bag of crisp raisin bread chips, which she hated, and a whole banana. She munched on the chips and the pig merely sniffed, looking askance at her with his eyes to see if anything was coming his way. But when she pulled the banana out the pig stood on all fours in front of her and stared expectantly. Winter was conflicted on whether to feed him, since it was going to make it harder to get him to go away later. She gave him half the banana though and it was clear that he had needed it. He tried to nestle under Winter’s leg snout-first into the boulder to sleep, but Winter moved aside to keep her distance.
She waited until his breathing grew heavier—he was soon snoring loudly—and Winter quietly got up from her place under the boulder and tip-toed around to leave the sleeping pig and be on her way. After fifty quiet paces she figured she was far enough away to relax, and she began walking casually.
She was back on the path and forgetting all about the pig when he came bounding up from behind, oinking in a panic. Winter turned around and looked at him guiltily. He seemed too scared and relieved to realize she had ditched him.
She walked in silence with the pig along the path until they came to an abandoned chapel sitting in front of a graveyard. On the right side of it sat a mound of supplies, stretching nearly up to the roof, hoes, rakes, and other horticultural tools. Nice tools, but generations old, and rusted to death from the rain. Winter hated it when people mistreated their tools like that. The pig waited by her as she looked over the tools. She tugged on an old shovel stuck in the pile and worried about tetanus. Then she went around to the front to see if anyone might actually be in the old building. There was no one in through the window. Winter decided to play it safe and knock on the door.
The pig waited in his spot by the tools as Winter knocked on the door. As he waited, a crow landed quietly behind. The crow crept towards the pig. When he had gotten near enough, the crow nipped at the pig’s curly tail and hopped away. The pig spun around, but the crow was already out of range. The pig saw that it was only a crow, and so he went back to his business of waiting. The crow also waited. Then he snuck up and again nipped the pig’s tail. Then he did it again, and again. Winter wondered if she should intervene, and then the agitated pig was chasing the crow in circles, and there was not much she could do.
Winter tugged on the handle: locked. She wasn’t ready to break in and so she walked over to the graveyard to inspect while the pig chased the crow.
The graves all bore stone markers. They had names like “Barrings,” “Metcalfe,” and “Grassdon.” The carving had been done by hand instead of machine, and it was expertly done. Winter looked at the differences in the characters to make sure. Whenever she had to hand-stitch for too long she always got bored and made irregular stitches and had to swap in her sewing machine. Winter noticed several tombstones in the graveyard all bore the same date of death, seventeen years ago. Winter counted the tombstones: three and half rows, fourteen in all. She wondered what had happened, some kind of accident maybe. One of them had died at fifteen, younger than she was.
The crow kept nipping at the pig. The pig tried to play sly, to catch the crow, but when he got too close the crow took flight and perched on top of the roof the chapel. Winter hoped that would be the end of it and went back to looking at the inscriptions on the gravestones.
Winter heard the pig’s hooves poking at the tools, trying to find a way up. Winter laughed and looked back at the gravestone she was tracing with her finger: there was no way the pig could get up there with his stubby feet. This stone was about 150 years old, carved by a different hand. Winter wondered if it was the oldest in the graveyard. She heard scratching on the roof and backed up to get a good look.
The pig was up there, stalking the crow who was perched over the eave of the door. Winter could see where this was going, and she ran back to the chapel door. She saw the crow take flight, and the body of the pig hurtling through the empty space where he had lifted off. Winter held out her arms and winced as she saw the pig leave the edge of the roof through her squinted eye. Whoof. The impact at her midsection knocked her over. She stood a moment later, not yet able to breathe. The pig was walking around like nothing had happened, looking for the crow. It took another moment before she was she able to breathe again.
Winter felt the anger welling up inside her. It was painful in her core where he had jumped on her and she had caught him. Jumping off the roof was stupid and could’ve gotten him killed if Winter wasn’t there to break his fall. How could she be seen coming back to camp bringing a filthy, stupid pig? Worse, what if they thought the pig was her familiar? When she was going to have something elegant like a bird? The pig thought he was her pet now, like he was trying to replace Oatmeal. She did not ask for this or want this. As she marched down the path unhappily all of the thoughts closed in on her at once.
T
he pig trailed behind her. “It’s time for you to go,” Winter said, and she shooed him but of course he didn’t listen. So she started whacking him in in the jowls with the back of her hand, but he didn’t get the message. So she starting popping him on the mouth with the tips of her fingers. Softly at first, and then harder, until she was really smacking him on the tender snout, and he bared his teeth and backed off, looking at her and then trotting off in to the woods, and then looking back at her betrayed.
Chapter 8
Winter rested under a pine tree, idly prying off pine chips with the butt end of a ballpoint pen from a gift bag. The browned pinestraw she was sitting on was cozy enough but every now and then it poked her through the fabric over her legs. She regretted what she had done the pig. She looked up under the tree and the green branches of the pine obscured the sky like a pipecleaner. She grabbed a handful of straw and laid back to look up under the tree.
She missed the pig even. A pig wasn’t so bad. She could’ve let him follow her longer without sending him off. It wouldn’t have done any harm. It seemed to mean so much him, and Winter could’ve given it to him for free. She could’ve had a good companion in the process, maybe even someone to play games with. What was with her lately, she seemed to be faced with more and more decisions and botching all of them. She winced, feeling the weight of her mistakes. Then she heard something in the woods.
Winter sat up and looked. There was no movement, and then she she saw it. A man, a young man, in rugged clothes, racing towards her. She got up to her feet as fast as she could, almost stumbling back down. Then, when she was upright, she got a good look at his face and who was coming, a handsome young man. Tall and brown-haired with blue eyes. The thoughts flashed in an instant. Did he want to talk to her? No, to harm her. Winter looked to see which way she could dodge to. She took a few quick steps out of the path of the tree. Then when she looked back she saw him pull back his fist in a brown leather glove. It sailed towards Winter’s face.
She was on the forest floor looking up. There was a dullness on her She couldn’t see that good yet. Then the pain registered, her nose where she had been it, and the deafened ringing. That concrete smack of falling off your bike, except onto her face this time. The tears and the wailing started coming as if they were coming out of another person.
She could see the bottoms of three pipecleaner trees this time, and then in the center of her vision, still blurry, she saw the face of the young man. It was then that she felt the pressure on her chest and her arms being held down by his knees. Where his knees dug into the muscles of her arm was quite uncomfortable.
Through the numbness Winter felt blood running from her nose. The young man grabbed her jaw with his gloved hand.
“Answer me,” he said, “Where is your familiar?”
Winter kept wailing.
He softened for a moment but kept his hand on her jaw.
“Answer me,” he said.
“What?” said Winter, her speech garbled through the grip.
“Your familiar, where is he?”
“I don’t have one... Let go of me!”
“I saw it! Your pig, tell me.” He loosened his grip on her jaw to let her speak.
Winter’s voice was back to normal. “The pig is not my familiar.”
The man made he face. He obviously thought she was lying.
“I’m telling the truth! I’m supposed to get a hummingbird, but he’s not here. I don’t have one yet. The pig was just following me. He’s a stray. I sent him away.”
“Summon him.”
“What?”
“Do it.”
“I don’t know how to do that! I don’t even have a familiar.”
The young man scanned the forest area around them, looking for the pig, paranoid even. He didn’t seem to believe her anymore than he did before. “Sure. Whatever you say. How dirty of a witch are you that your familiar is a pig? It’s better than a bat or a goblin I suppose. Filthy people, filthy pets. Maybe you changed a man into a pig. Get up.” He lifted himself off Winter and dragged her up by the arm. He tied her arms flat against her sides and then her wrists close to each other. “No spells.” He went through her bag and confiscated her knife. He slung it through the side of his belt.
He forced her to march. “What are you doing near the Old Mine? You know you’re not supposed to be here.”
“I don’t even want to be here!” Winter yelled at him. She could taste the blood that had dripped from her nostril. She scrunched her chin in to look down at her top and, sure enough, there were bloodstains on it. Winter tried to move her arms to pull on the fabric, but couldn’t. She struggled against the cord. She was so angry her brain misfired. The young man pushed her to keep walking.
“How much did you take from the Old Mine?” he asked.
“What are you talking about?” Winter said.
“They’ve spotted you since a couple weeks ago.”
“I just got here. I haven’t even been here since then.”
Winter walked along steaming. Time was moving very slow for her, but she tried counting heartbeats to get a read on how long it had been. Then she lost count. So she waited as long as she could, and when she thought he wasn’t paying attention she broke into a run into the forest, her wet shoe gurgling the whole way. She didn’t get far before she felt a shove against her back, and then she tumbled, no arms, into the pinestraw on the forest floor, landing on her shoulder. The man grabbed her by the cord around her arms and turned her around. Winter didn’t say anything.
“Listen, you’re dangerous, or you might be, so I have to,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced. “You have no idea about any of this, do you?”
Winter looked at him. She twitched as the pinestraw in her hair poked against her neck.
Then he made her to stand and marched her back to the path. They followed the path for maybe forty-five minutes, Winter couldn’t say, and then they left it. The way they were going was not the way she had planned.
Act II
Chapter 9
Agnes sat in a tall black chair in the conference room on the forty-eighth floor of the Spécieuse Générale building. The outside sky filled the carpet-to-ceiling windows with blue, and the sun lit the surface of the desk and the crop of Agnes’s blonde hair.
Across from Agnes sat Jeff, a boy in his early 20s. He had on Old Navy blue jeans and Vans sneakers. Agnes had tried to get him new outfits but he had resisted. She suspected from laziness. Or fear. Jeff was nervous, but underneath his nervousness he had a certain energy. Perhaps that’s what made him underweight. He had been eating more to gain weight unsuccessfully. In diet as in many other basic human pursuits he was underexperienced. When he saw Agnes he was nervous. In front of them was a giftwrapped box, which Jeff handed over the table to her.
Agnes accepted the gift graciously. She opened it, and inside she found a uninspired platinum bangle, intended to match her others, and yet even for something so unambitious when it came to fashion, Jeff had still managed to screw it up. It was, at least, expensive. Agnes took it from the padded box and put it on. The harsh design of the bangle clashed with the others on her wrist. She could see it, Jeff could not. It should’ve been obvious.
“Thank you, Jeff, for the gift.” She gave him a warm smile that welled from the deepest part of her. It must have been the first time in weeks Jeff had received an uplifting human emotion. Agnes could feel him wanting to reach out and touch her. He wanted to be close to her and feel her smile against his cheek.
“For all the help...with the Ecks-plus,” Jeff said, “Getting the motions down was easy. But the final part...the thinking piece... I never thought we were going to get it to work. I thought we were doomed. I was completely kicking myself for pivoting from ad-tech. We had the best coders on it hacking till dawn every night and we still couldn’t. I thought for sure our investors were going to shut us down. How could I face the room down the hall after that? You saved us.”
“Don’t look at it that wa
y. That is kind, though, but the partnership we have is something that’s helpful to both of us. That’s how this works. That’s how all of it works. You have your backers, I have my backers. They also want to see me progress. We help each other, you, me them. Without your development manpower we’d risk shutting down, too. With your help now we’re getting so close to finding the next class of cadets.”
“Here, look” Jeff said, pulling his tablet up excitedly, “I brought the latest version for you to test.” He swiped through the menus and the dots came up, too few, tracking the hopefuls in real time. The app glitched several times. Finally, it crashed. Jeff tried to reopen it. It crashed again. “That happens still,” he said, stowing the tablet to divert attention, “We’re getting better coverage now, and better profiling on the hopefuls. How young do you want it to go? Tracking privacy for under-13s is a gray area in the US...”
“Same as before. Keep it set to over-eighteens,” Agnes said.
Jeff’s work definitely still needed tuning. One of the recent outings had set them on the trail of a civilian.
“This is great, Jeff. We’re getting so close. I think my team just needs to give it a little nudge there at the end. We’re going to be working on solving your problem today. And then...think of the value we can provide. Think of the immense value we can provide to each and every one of these women. Scholarships, education, training. Only a few years ago it would’ve been unthinkable. All through the power of marketing.”
Jeff was visibly moved. Agnes had seen him mimic her in trying to inspire his own team. He had the conviction for his craft, certainly, but couldn’t translate it into moving speeches for his team. It was a life of being underwhelmed, artificially stimulated, detached from people and from life. Jeff had looked at her after his failed pep talk, shamed at first and then envious.