Chapter Eleven
It had been nearly three months since Bernadette had left the Mármaros behind. Three months since she followed a boy into the unknown jungles and lay with him in a cave while wild boys danced by the fire. Bernadette still longed for Alexi at night when the moon was brightest and lowest in the sky. Otherwise, she was resentful for his absence.
Massive, hairy cow beasts with tusks roamed the grasslands in the early morning. The antelope noted them with interest, but the cow beasts showed no opinion whatsoever. They shared the same pond as the wildlife, and Bernadette looked at herself for the first time in a long time. The reflection was the same, perhaps a little less kept as she had been back at the Mármaros. Her shorn dress was no longer ivory, stained with various shades of brown. It blended in with her surroundings. She rather liked it. What she didn’t like was the way her belly swelled underneath.
Adam was the first to point it out over dinner one evening. “Birdie,” he said while absently chewing on a piece of game. “You’re getting fat.”
Otto’s face went red as he glared at Adam, but the small boy was oblivious to his offense. They made jokes about Cal all the time and he usually went along with it. Otto only knew better because she gave him a dirty look for pointing it out a few days prior. Her belly seemed to come out of nowhere.
Another emergence seemingly from nowhere was the rolling hills. Bernadette asked how close they were to these famed hills for days because there were no hills to be seen. Gabe had given up on his trees and jungle and was forced to walk with the pack. She wondered if her disposition had slowed them down that much.
“How close are we today?” she asked, ignoring Adam’s comment.
“Any day now,” Jon answered while loading up another skewer with meat. “It comes to you, not the other way around.”
Bernadette had no idea what that could mean. There wasn’t a hill for as far as the eye could see. She wondered if the boys were lost and didn’t wish to admit it. To say so would offend their male sensibilities, so Bernadette kept her suspicions to herself.
“Your appetite is finally returning,” Cal said as he handed her his leftovers. “You had us all worried.”
He meant well, but she fought the urge to eat more after being told she was fat and that she was eating more in the same conversation. She didn’t need reminding, but at the same time, Bernadette was ferociously hungry. She couldn’t stop even if they told her that she was as big as one of the cow beasts on the plains.
Tom came back from his short hunting excursion, eyes wide. He was visibly shaken and empty-handed. We all stood up to see the boy trembling.
“What is it?” Jon asked. His twin’s distress caused him anguish. He, too, began to tremble as if he had seen whatever frightened Tom so.
“There were tracks,” Tom said, looking at them.
“My people.” She nearly dropped her food.
“No,” Tom shook his head. “Wolves. Great big ones, too. A rogue pack of four.”
She looked to Otto, not quite understanding, “They’re following us?”
“We leave no scrap of food. Any leftovers burn in the fire tonight,” Otto ordered.
There were seldom leftovers thanks to Bernadette’s renewed appetite. That night, when she got under the covers, Bernadette laid between Adam and Gabe and drifted off to sleep.
Somewhere in the night, her eyes snapped open as if her brain lit up with possibility. How could she have discovered it sooner?
Bernadette was pregnant.
#
“You have a person in your belly?” Adam asked while they walked barefoot on the sandy earth.
Bernadette nodded and watched Adam’s little mind try to work out just how such a thing could happen. “Well, when a male and a female mate, the male fertilizes a woman’s egg with his seed...”
Adam halted and crouched down low to observe a line of ants marching across a moss-covered boulder.
“Perhaps you’re too young to understand,” Bernadette said.
“One time I buried a dead muskrat in the ground,” he said as he put a small rock in the ant’s path. The ants recovered quickly enough, setting a new path around the obstruction. “But nothing grew from it.”
“That’s not quite what Alexi and I did...”
“Is it like a fruit seed? Like when the fruit goes bad and the pit grows green spikes?”
“Yes,” Bernadette said. “If allowed to grow fully, that seed would make a whole new tree. I’m making a whole new person.” The idea was overwhelming. She could understand why it was such a big concept for a little boy.
“But is it going to be like you or like Alexi?”
Bernadette hadn’t thought of that. In truth, when she thought about the baby, she imagined it would be just like the rest of the boys. She only made that association because they were children, but what if the baby was like her? The prospect made Bernadette sad. Perhaps the only safe place for a child like herself would be the Mármaros.
“Birdie has a person in her belly!” Adam announced to the group as they caught up with the rest of the boys.
All the boys froze to look at her for confirmation. Bernadette nodded. “It’s true.”
She didn’t know what this meant for any of them, what it meant for herself. Bernadette knew her people would not accept the child. They would hate the baby and would never forgive her for getting pregnant with an outsider. She caressed the swell of her belly with her hand. To them, this would be a waste of their precious genetics. They would tolerate it at best, much like how they tolerated her, but it would be better than shouldering her child on the boys.
The boys now had another burden along with her. She couldn’t ask them to stay by her side and care for her and her child, but without proper shelter, she had no way of caring for herself and the baby. She hadn’t seen Alexi in person since the night the baby was conceived. Did he know she was carrying his child? Judging how many children he had and left uncared for, she didn’t think he was all that reliable.
It was Tom who spoke. “Well, that makes a lot of sense.”
Around her, the jungle boys all nodded in Tom’s assessment, even Adam who was oblivious to the situation just moments ago. They accepted the addition to their family and thought nothing more of it. To Bernadette, this meant more than the highest tower or the most extravagant shoes. It was inclusion for who she was, not what she could give.
Bernadette bit her cheek to keep from crying, but she couldn’t help it. Her fists bawled in frustration from her body’s betrayal as she sobbed in front of six wild boys who were, in fact, the most beautiful people she had ever met. “I just,” she choked.
Gabe, too, began to cry because she was crying. His little face twisted and puckered, and Cal picked him up. Adam also needed to be soothed because of her sudden emotional outburst.
“I’m sorry. I’m not sad, I’m just so happy,” she promised him as she lifted him into her arms.
“I’m just so happy that I am with you, all of you.”
Something happened then. There was a movement from within her stomach. The baby was kicking Adam as if to let him know that this was now their domain. He looked down then looked at her and smiled, his beautiful eyes lined with the darkest of lashes.
“We’re at the rolling hills!” he announced.
Bernadette shook her head. “No, Adam, that’s the baby kicking you.”
“Wow!”
The rest of the boys gathered around to feel the baby’s kicks as well. Of course, once they placed their hands on her belly, the kicking stopped, but Adam insisted that it happened, and no one had reason to doubt him. Bernadette thought about the baby often throughout the day. She’d pause every time she thought she felt the baby moving, but it seemed the baby was done moving for the day.
When Bernadette closed her eyes that night, she silently prayed that Alexi would come to her in her dreams. She wanted to tell him the news. More than anything, Bernadette wanted him to be happy to hear it. The boy
s insisted that before she came, Alexi visited frequently, but that wasn’t enough for her. He needed to be present in their lives for this to work.
#
The alpha moon had finally reemerged that night, though, on the plains, the light was rather annoying. The lesser moon loomed along the horizon dimly, but the moon was at its fullest and seemed to bear down on them on this night. Without the jungle foliage, there was no hiding from its brightness. To make things worse, they needed the heat from the fire, which was also bright. Bernadette felt like she was trying to sleep in daylight.
She clenched her eyes shut and refused to open them until she heard him call her name. Bernadette opened her eyes to find herself back at the waterfall. Alexi crouched down with his hand in the river and was looking at the river divided before him.
“It wasn’t always this way, you know,” he said.
She folded her arms and tried to figure out the best way to tell him. It was Bernadette’s dream; it should be on her terms. Alexi could babble all he wanted on his own time. She couldn’t help but wonder just what he was referring to. It must have been the river. The abruptly pointed rock separated it, forcing it into two streams with the waterfall between it.
“Nothing remains the same indefinitely.”
“Things were more consistent. There was only one night a month where the moon wasn’t in the sky. But that rock,” he said, pointing at the waterfall. “That thing hit the moon and knocked it out of orbit, and alignment has been off ever since.”
Bernadette didn’t see why Alexi was so upset about a rock hitting the moon before falling to the planet. “There’s nothing anyone can do. No point in being worked up.”
“This is not what you wanted to speak to me about.”
Bernadette could feel his breath along her neck and let out a longing sigh. Her body ached for things she had forgotten she needed. When did he get so close? He was behind her and his arms were around the front. They traced her arms, neck. He caressed her breasts before finding his way to her stomach.
She forgot all her anger. Alexi was here. What more could Bernadette want of him? For a fleeting moment, she told herself she was stupid for being so easily seduced, but it wasn’t her fault. None of Bernadette’s books or scrolls told her how to love. She had no father figure to speak of, no idea as to what love looked like. She only knew what she could feel at this very moment and the love she knew for the children.
“The boys,” she said suddenly before breaking away from Alexi. “They need you. They need a father.”
Alexi’s eyes darkened. “You worry I won’t be there for them or you?”
Bernadette could see the pain in his eyes but refused to back down. There was too much at stake. Lifting her chin defiantly, she said, “I haven’t seen evidence to suggest otherwise.”
He came at her as if he were angry but stopped short of arm’s reach. He took her face in his hands and kissed her hard. Bernadette’s head swam and she forgot where she was for a moment.
“I’m away to make sure this never happens again.”
Bernadette opened her mouth to ask what that meant, but before she could, her eyes shot open and she came face to face with the cratered moon beaming at her. Night animals skittered across the moonlit planes. An owl swooped down and screamed a terrible scream as it caught a large mouse before flying into the distance. She let out a frustrated growl and rolled over to once again fall asleep.
#
The next morning, the group awoke by the very ground they lay on. It moved beneath them gently as if it were waves of an ocean. Tom and Jon sat up at the same time while the rest of them looked around to see just what was happening.
The quaking was so strong that the plains appeared to be foothills in the distance. The hills were indeed rolling. She finally understood why the boys wanted to bring her here. The baby within her seemed to feel the commotion as well and fluttered within her stomach as if it was responding to the quaking.
“How often does it do that?” she asked from their bed.
The boys didn’t seem to know much about it. “Cal, Jon, Tom, and I have only been here once,” Otto explained. “It constantly moved when we were here.”
“Even in the night,” Cal agreed as he shewed us off the furs to roll up the bedding.
“How long are we going to stay here?” she asked.
“We’re not,” Jon answered. “Tom saw more tracks this morning. The wolves seem to have picked up on our scent.”
Bernadette didn’t like the sound of that. Jon’s voice always carried the tone of worry, but the rest of the boys wasted no time in dissolving the camp. Otto smothered the fire with dirt while Cal and Tom packed up the mass of fur blankets they had accumulated since leaving the jungle. The open grasslands did little to shelter them from the wind, and with each gust, the air grew colder and the sky more overcast.
“Is that normal for wolves?”
Tom shook his head. They usually steer clear of people, stay in large packs. These wolves are different. There’s only a few of them. Sometimes if you get too close to their lair, they give chase, but there’s no lair out here. Most animals don’t like these lands due to all the movement. They won’t come here unless they must. These wolves are stalking us.”
She felt the prickles of fear along her groin and feet. They needed a place they could reinforce and reside in defensively. She was worried about the boys as well as the baby in her stomach. “Is that ship you mentioned a real ship?”
“The crashed one? Yeah, it’s real, it’s not all that far from here either.” Cal looked to Otto, who nodded.
“Only a few days’ walk.”
“We don’t have a few days,” Tom warned.
“Then we shall run,” Bernadette said, scooping Gabe into her arms as Adam strapped himself to her back.
They ran as fast as they could. Bernadette had never really run before. She never needed to at the Mármaros. She assumed she would be too slow and rigid to keep up with the boys, but once she picked up momentum, the real trouble lay in slowing down.
Bernadette’s calves pumped and her footfalls made hard thuds against the arid ground. She left a trail of dust several feet high in her wake and grinned at the discovery. What else was this body capable of? No one in the Mármaros mentioned this.
For the first time in her life, Bernadette was aware of how strong and powerful she really could be. Her gallop forced the boys to the sidelines, but they were so impressed with her ability that they cheered and hooted as the plains fell away to the dried-up lands before them.
The grasses and bushes were wicked of all moisture and grew sparse as the group followed the sun’s trajectory. The ground became hard and cracked but there were still signs of life everywhere. Bugs and small critters burrowed in the earth. There were even deer and rabbits among the dead bramble.
“How can so much live here?” she said over the sound of her charge.
“I don’t know,” Adam whined. The poor boy was exhausted from trying to keep himself steady while she ran. Looking down at Gabe, Bernadette noticed he was a little green as well. They were not accustomed to moving at this speed. Neither was she, for that matter.
In the distance, Bernadette could see something. She had to lean her whole body to the left to steer herself in its direction. It was a tail end of a vessel of some sort. She squinted though it didn’t help her focus. She couldn’t just stop without possibly falling over and hurting Adam and Gabe. She slowed gradually and, in doing so, she overshot the vessel, but it was worth coming to a complete stop safely.
Adam and Gabe both squawked protests that she could not pacify no matter how she assured the boys. “I know, I know,” she insisted. Gabe patted her shoulder and grunted while he pointed at the ship. Both were far too excited to see the ship and probably wished for their ride to be over. Bernadette turned around and approached the ship at a walk. The boys detached from her, happy to have their feet on the ground at last as they moved to get a closer look.
&nbs
p; The older boys were still a mile off yet Bernadette ran so fast. The ship looked as though it was made of wood like the ships that she had seen in her books. Those ships floated in the water and needed to be manned by dozens of people. It was wrecked and beached along the banks of a dying lake.
The lake alone couldn’t provide enough water for the animals and plant life in the area, but she suspected everything made do with what it had. Even still, the ship was not what it seemed.
Chapter Twelve
She boarded it through the porthole opening and noticed the grain of the material gave the illusion of. , wheels and cogs were painted earthy colors to mask their true nature, but the machinery was not of this world.
The cabin had a central pillar that had gears and pullies built within the post. The backside of the ship had blocks of machinery with written words Bernadette could not read. Off to the side, dense stairs led up to the top deck and did not attempt to appear like a sea ship. Bernadette was amazed by what she saw and formulated theories as to just what these people were.
It was indeed a ship, but it did not always dwell in the lake. For one, why would anyone build a ship like this? Even when the lake was at its full glory, this ship would still be excessive. Secondly, it was created to give the illusion that it was a nautical ship, but sea ships were buoyant due to the wooden material and the hollowness of the cabins. Bernadette knocked on the outside and determined that this was not wood at all, but rather metal.
This thing was indeed empty inside, but they came upon large, bulky mechanical devices that were too sophisticated to serve any purpose on a sea ship beached on a lake without access to the sea. “What do these do?” Adam asked.
Bernadette examined the cogs and wheels. “I have no idea.”
Most of the things were beyond her comprehension. The newness of it all towered over her ominously as if it wanted to remind her of how little she knew of the universe. Nothing worked, thankfully. From what she could tell, it was intentionally deactivated by people who understood its mechanics—exposed wires cut with precision, cogs that once aligned with others now missing. She tried pulling another lever just in case and something jolted from the door.
Daughter of the Mármaros Page 9