“You learned all this stuff before, but your people gave you that water,” Jon said. “They didn’t want you to survive on your own?”
Bernadette nearly poked herself with the needle. “They wanted me to stay with them just like you want me to stay with you.”
“I’d never put you in stupid shoes that nearly kill you and lock you in a tower to make you stay with me,” Tom said.
She thought back to the ridiculous shoes and laughed. “No, perhaps you wouldn’t. They are far more insecure than you. I’ve left them far too many times.”
“You’re not thinking of going back, are you, Birdie?” Adam asked.
Bernadette took a deep breath. “I must. It’s the only way to put an end to all of this.”
“How?” Otto demanded. He was angry at the idea. “How would that make things better? They will trick you again.”
She shook her head. “Not this time.”
Jon looked at Otto and back at her. “I agree with Otto. Those people can’t be trusted. They will try and hold you captive. They’d sooner kill you than let you go.”
Adam pawed at her bare arm, pleading with her to calm the situation. Jon was considered the voice of reason among the boys. If he didn’t agree, it meant that none of them did. It didn’t matter what they thought would happen. They would see it soon enough. Bernadette set the tent aside and said, “I must sleep now.”
Gabe and Adam joined her under the furs. She fell back into a deep, dreamless sleep. Bernadette wished the moon were out, but it hadn’t been for the last several days. It was far away from the planet now. Winter brought the promise of the moon eclipsing the sun. Soon the moon would rise during the day, and the world would change like it did when the meteor first fell from the sky.
Chapter Seventeen
The leaves that had once been in the trees were all dead and rotting on the ground. Bare branches clawed at the ash-cloud skies as the damp air clung to their skin every morning. Bernadette opened her eyes to this scene enough mornings to know that it was time to move on.
Her belly was massive. Her skin stretched so taught that it itched and felt as though it would crack. Bernadette knew it wouldn’t. Countless memories suggested that not only was her skin fine, but she still had a way to go yet. The baby rolled and kicked in her stomach, making the boys laugh as they interacted with it. They all took turns talking to it once she told them the baby could hear them.
“It can hear us? Even in there?” Adam asked.
Bernadette nodded. “I’m going to get quite large and the baby will grow more still as it runs out of room, but it can hear you.”
“You’re going to get bigger than you already are?” Tom asked. He looked disgusted and amazed at the same time. Jon glared at him as if to remind him that calling her big was not polite, but at this rate, big was the only way to describe Bernadette.
“You can’t get up without help as it is,” Cal said. “That just can’t be practical.”
Tom laughed. “She waddles so bad now.”
“Shhh!” Jon threatened.
Bernadette laughed. “It’s all right, Jon. It is rather funny.”
Adam didn’t seem to think it was funny. He also seemed to avoid all conversations about the baby when even Gabe showed interest. Bernadette suspected Adam was afraid of the new arrival and that it would divert the attention away from him. She supposed he was right. The baby would get more attention, but hopefully, if things played out, Adam would have the security he needed to thrive regardless.
The boys still fought her on any mention of going to the Mármaros. She could overhear glimmers of discussions about it when they thought she couldn’t hear them and when they thought she was asleep. It changed nothing. That night the father moon was merely a sliver in the darkness. She hoped it would be enough to allow Alexi passage to her dreams. She needed to know when they would make their move.
Her dream was a snow-filled world with thick clumps of snow falling from the sky. They stood on the cliff’s edge with the Mármaros, pastel pink with white frosting on the top. It looked like a little girl’s dream dollhouse. For her, it was a prison. “How much longer?” she asked, assuming Alexi was nearby.
“Three days from now. The moon will be full during the day,” he said from behind her. He stroked her arms gently and kissed her shoulder. “Perhaps I should go without you.”
Bernadette let out a sarcastic chuckle. “You’re worse than the boys.”
“You’ll be close to giving birth. I don’t want to risk anything happening to you.”
“Yes, I’m sure they will just do as you ask,” Bernadette said. “You don’t understand. Thius is the high councilor now. He was young when all this started. I’m not certain he even knows who I am. He believes that by being with me, he will be king. He considers all else to be pawns.”
Alexi paused. “I never told Adam he was a pawn.”
“No” Bernadette shook her head. “Adam has gifts we don’t understand yet. He heard or saw something he didn’t understand in his dream and assumed it was you.”
She didn’t know if she intended for it to be an apology or not. Alexi was too busy beaming with the pride of knowing one of their children had abilities that surpassed their own. He was never the gloating type, her lover. He stroked her enormous belly and held her while the snow fell in her dreams. They landed on her eyelashes and lingered on her marbled skin.
“When the first snow falls then?” she asked.
Alexi nodded. She could feel the heat of his breath along her shoulder. “Just a little bit longer, then this will all be over for good.”
Bernadette nodded and lingered in his arms with her eyes closed. She remained there until she opened her eyes and found herself under the furs with the canopy tied above them, shielding them from rain. It happened a lot lately, the rain. The morning was damp, suggesting it had rained while they slept. Bernadette looked around and found she was the first to awake.
She took the opportunity to throw wood on the fire to stoke it back to life in hopes that the boys could sleep a little more comfortably. It was easier to crawl on all fours than it was to get up her current state, so Bernadette did just that. She crawled on hands and knees to the pile beside the fur, grabbed some logs, and tossed them on the dying fire.
#
They had three days to get from the jungle near the Rambling Bush back to the Mármaros. It was fortunate that Alexi had them heading in the direction of the cliffs that overlooked the Mármaros. It would only take a few days to reach it from where they were. Little did her people know she had come full circle. While they still hunted the jungle for her, Bernadette would be walking through the front doors with her memories restored.
Tom woke up first, excited to check his traps. Bernadette smiled at him and said, “Go quickly. We must leave after breakfast.”
“You talked to Alexi?”
Bernadette nodded. Tom sat up and shook his twin. Jon woke with a start and swiped at Tom. “Birdie talked to Alexi,” Tom explained. “Help me check the traps.”
The twins hardly spoke enough for other people to understand their conversations. They seemed to know what the other was saying. Tom and Jon were so different but had a profound understanding of one another that developed an unshakeable bond. Now that she remembered, Bernadette missed having that deep of a connection with someone.
Bernadette grabbed hold of a tree to help herself up on two feet before waddling off to start the day’s chores. Breakfast needed to be found and prepared, and freshwater required fetching. They had gone through the last of the dried fish. Bernadette hoped Tom’s traps yielded results. Otherwise, they’d be eating nothing but winterberries for breakfast.
Excitement caught on early at the camp. Everyone woke up, packed, and prepared for the departure from the campground they had called home for the last few months.
“Did you see Alexi last night?” she asked Cal as he rolled up the blankets.
He shook his head. “Nope. Did you?”
Bernadette smiled and Cal gave a toothy grin before running off. She had asked the same of Otto, but he merely shook his head, groggy from sleep. When she asked Adam the same question, his response was different from the others.
“I saw him,” Adam said. “But I don’t think he saw me.”
“What makes you say that?” she asked.
“He was lying on a white ground staring at the sky with all this white ice falling on him. When I waved my hand over his face, he didn’t do anything. He didn’t blink or move when I kicked him.”
She realized that Adam had never seen snow before. He probably didn’t know what he was seeing. Even more disturbing was the way Adam depicted Alexi. If she didn’t know better, she would say that he saw Alexi dead. The idea made her feel sick to her stomach. Her son was too young to understand what he saw, which was a blessing for him but left her with the burden of worry.
“We should get going after breakfast,” she told him.
“We’re going to the cliffs?” Otto asked.
Bernadette nodded. She left out the part about going to the Mármaros. The boys would remain on the cliffs for safety, but she would need to leave them to face her people. Otto saw the look on her face and stormed away furiously. It seemed he had an idea of what was to come and did not approve. She understood, but they would have to learn to trust her.
Tom and Jon came running over the hillside, each with a rabbit in hand, and Bernadette grimaced. With winter on the way, there would be fewer options for food. The fruits and berries had mostly withered away, save a few native to this area specifically. The game was becoming leaner and harder to find.
Winter had fallen around them, and Bernadette felt as though she were oblivious to its onslaught. She had been too absorbed in her past to notice the autumn. Bernadette had finally emerged from her depression in the winter only once everything had died.
The boys wasted no time skinning and cooking the hares. There was hardly enough meat on the bones for a single boy, let alone six and a growing mother.
“Perhaps we can chase the end of the autumn if we move quickly enough,” she said. “But we can’t stay here. There isn’t enough food.”
“I bet you miss the dinners at the Mármaros now that you can remember them,” Otto pouted.
The heads of his brothers turned one way only to jerk another, ready for her reaction. Bernadette wouldn’t give them a response. “Would you rather go hungry?”
“I’d rather not be made into a slave.”
Bernadette lost all composure. Her nostrils flared as she hissed. “I’d never let that happen. You know that.”
“Why do you think they’d give you a choice?” Otto asked.
Five little heads jerked from left to right. Bernadette was angry but she couldn’t deny that from Otto’s perspective. His point was more than valid. All he knew of her people was that they trapped and enslaved his brothers and perused them to no end. There was no reason to believe they would listen to Bernadette as far as he could tell.
“I know them,” Bernadette said, “better than they know themselves.”
The mystery of what she had been through was enough to win over most of the boys. Their heads nodded sagely as Bernadette did indeed seem to know them better than they expected. She knew when they lied about washing between their feet. When Tom took Jon’s food and Jon said nothing, she knew. At the Falls, when Cal ate bad mushrooms and soiled his trousers, Bernadette had suspected something was wrong and left Cal clean clothes at washed the soiled ones without a word. She indeed knew them more than they thought a person could, so when she said as much, they believed her.
“Besides,” she said. “I won’t be alone. I’ll have all of you. I’ll have Alexi.”
Otto shrugged.
“Go on,” Bernadette said. “You have the right to criticize your father.”
Five little heads jerked back to the left.
Otto threw a pebble into the distance. “He’s just not the most reliable person.”
There was a moment of silence around the campfire. Bernadette pitied Otto; he had taken on far too much responsibility at such a confusing age. His acne scars were beginning to fade, and he was coming into a man. He deserved love, a life to make entirely on his own.
“I put suspicion into your mind about your father,” she said. “I’m to blame for that, but with my memories back I—”
“You still haven’t told us anything since it happened,” Cal interjected shaking his head.
“First, you love him,” Otto said. “Then you don’t trust him. You keep secrets with him from us.”
Bernadette nodded as she forced back the tears that rimmed her eyes. They were right. She and Alexi had done nothing but interrupt their lives since the night she stumbled into the jungle. Their lives and devotion had been taken for granted for far too long.
“What I want,” Bernadette said as she choked back the tears, “is a place where we can all live in peace...”
“There’s no such thing,” Jon said from where he sat on the ground, shaking his head. “I don’t doubt you want what’s best for us. For the first time in our lives, we have someone who wants what’s best for us. Can’t you see that all we need is you?”
Bernadette saw Jon’s face break, and she had to cover her own to keep from crying in front of them. “You will stay with me,” she promised. “But it’s not just you that needs me.”
Otto was at a loss. He didn’t understand. Bernadette wanted to assure him that he would soon, but he needed to understand that on his terms.
It was Adam who stood. Sweet little Adam. “I’ll come with you, Birdie.”
Cal was torn between staying with Adam or with Otto. Tom stood by Otto’s side and Bernadette nodded to let him know she understood and forgave him. Gabe followed Adam to Bernadette’s side. It was Jon who was the last to decide. His sullen little face winced in pain as he moved to stand beside his twin and his two brothers.
“You will leave me, then?” she asked.
Jon and Cal looked away. It was Otto who answered, “We’re leaving you before you leave us.”
Bernadette wiped her eyes and looked to Adam and Gabe. “You should go with them then. I’ll find you when I’m done.”
Adam shook his head. Gabe observed Adam’s movement and began doing the same. “No,” Adam said defiantly.
“No,” Gabe repeated in the same tone.
“I’ll come to find you,” Bernadette promised Otto’s group.
Cal wouldn’t look at her, as if he regretted his decision already. It probably pained him to no end to leave the little boys. Jon looked distraught and forced himself to look at them as if he were punishing himself. Tom looked distracted because he probably was. It’s easier to be distracted than in pain.
Otto nodded. “I hope you do.”
Chapter Eighteen
With Adam on her back and Gabe in her arms, Bernadette’s trek was a slow one. At this stage of her pregnancy, she had a severe waddled and her legs swelled thick around her ankles. The weight of the boys upset her none. They were both insecure about the change and so was she. Bernadette would struggle to provide for them the way Otto, Tom, Jon, and Cal did.
The young boys clung to her and she wore them proudly. They were the only ones she’d won in the fight against Otto.
Self-doubt lingered with every step she made, but Bernadette couldn’t let it alter her course. She had to get to the Mármaros when the moon was visible in the day. So she marched onward. Adam said nothing but would look back occasionally as if he was expecting the older boys to change their minds and come running back.
“We’ll find them again,” Bernadette said.
That night, Bernadette managed to build a fire by the grace she had left. It took much longer than if the boys had made it, but Adam and Gabe didn’t complain. Gabe scampered off and returned with a few garden snakes. Those and the winter berries were what they ate for dinner.
While they sat, Gabe bolted upright and looked ar
ound wide-eyed. His hearing was more acute than hers or Adam’s.
“What is it, Gabe?” she asked. Bernadette strained to hear what he heard, but she heard nothing at all.
Gabe put his head to the ground and listened for a moment. Adam and Bernadette looked at each other, wondering what he was doing. Gabe was growing more frantic. He itched and scratched at his head and panted like a dog.
She looked at Adam. “Do you have any idea what he’s doing?”
Adam shook his head.
Gabe stood up and paced while mouthing something in silence.
“Are you trying to say something?” she asked.
His brown eyes were wet with frustration and fear.
Bernadette felt fear prick at the back of her neck and stood. “Can you show me?”
Gabe squatted down and tried to itch his ear with his foot but fell over in doing so. He was panting overtly with his tongue hanging out before he howled loudly.
“Wolves,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah!” he said.
“They are coming here?”
He shook his head so hard a twig fell out of his matted hair. He pointed in the direction they had just come.
Bernadette went numb for a moment. She looked up at the distant hills and knew what Gabe was trying to tell her. “The boys.”
With Adam in one arm and Gabe in the other, Bernadette began to run. She left the fire and the few items they had behind and ran in the opposite direction. She no longer cared about meeting Alexi at the Mármaros in time. Everyone in that palace be damned. Her boys were in trouble.
Her legs pumped steadily, gaining momentum until they took on a life of their own. With each step, the ground beneath them quaked in protest. Bernadette could hear the wolves now. They were calling to one another, a whole pack circling fresh meat. She pushed harder and she went higher in the air with each lunge. Please don’t be too late, she thought.
“We’re flying, Birdie,” Adam shouted.
“Where are the boys?” she asked Gabe.
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