“What?”
“He knew.” Peter shoved the clipping across the table. “He knew. This is twelve days old. So my father knew this when we left Pax.” It hurt to take a breath, like knives to his lungs. “When I asked to leave Pax on that old mill road because it would be safe, he knew.”
Peter’s hands burned. He looked down. They were balled into tight fists. He forced them open. “How could he have done that?”
Vola came over, eyeing him carefully. “I’m sorry. That’s a very bad thing.”
His jaw clenched—could teeth shatter? He forced it open. “How could anyone have done that?”
“I know you’re angry. . . .”
Peter’s fists had balled up again, the nails gouging his sore palms. He jammed them between his knees. “No. I told you. I don’t get angry. I’m not like him. I won’t be like him.”
Vola sat down across from him. “Oh. I see. I see now. But I don’t think that’s going to work out. You’re human, and humans feel anger.”
“Not me. Too dangerous.”
Vola threw back her head and barked her startling laugh. “Oh, let me tell you, feelings are all dangerous. Love, hope . . . Ha! Hope! You talk about dangerous, eh? No, you can’t avoid any of them. We all own a beast called anger. It can serve us: many good things come of anger at bad things; many unjust things are made just. But first we all have to figure out how to civilize it.”
Peter felt his wiring begin to snap. “Just one time, could you not tell me I have to figure something out? Just once, would it kill you to help? Come on, I’m leaving. You’ve got all this”—he waved his hand up to the bulletin board—“this wisdom. Would it kill you to send me off with some advice?”
“What, you want me to give you a philosophy bingo card for your trip? Like: When you smell honey in the woods, run because the bear can’t be far behind.”
“Yeah. I guess. But for real.”
“Well, for real, I don’t have any magic truth to guide you. It’s your trip, not mine. But now that you bring it up, I do have a card for you.” She pulled one off the board and handed it over.
“It’s blank.”
“It is now. But a trip like this? You will find something to fill it with. A truth of your own, that you discover on your own.”
At that, Peter felt suddenly exhausted, as if he’d been holding himself rigid for years. He had been on his own for so long.
Vola studied him. “Oneness is always growing in the world, boy. Two but not two. It’s always there, connecting its roots, humming. I can’t be part if it—that’s the price I pay for taking myself away. But you can be. You can vibrate with its heartbeat. You may be on your own. But you won’t be alone.”
“What if I get lost?”
“You will not get lost.”
“I think maybe I already am.”
Vola reached across the table, cupped his head, and pressed. “No. You are found.” She got up, and Peter felt her brush a kiss on his hair as she passed.
The tractor wasn’t actually that uncomfortable. But it was slow and bumpy and loud—too loud for them to talk easily, even though Peter was sitting right next to Vola. That was okay with him—he had a lot to think about. Even after they turned onto the smoother highway shoulder, Vola was quiet, and Peter figured she had things on her mind, too. But when she pointed at a hawk wheeling overhead, he remembered something he’d always wanted to ask.
“What is it with you and birds? The feathers?”
Vola patted the feathers on her rawhide necklace and smiled. “Ti Poul. When I was born, I reminded my parents of a bird. My hair stuck up like feathers, I had a scrawny neck, and I squawked for food all the time. I’m part Creole, part Italian, and part a dozen other things. But all people who revered birds in their cultures, my parents realized. So they named me Vola—it means ‘fly’ in Italian. But they called me Ti Poul—‘Little Chicken.’
“My chickens grace me with feathers, and I wear them to remember that when I was born, someone saw me as a bird. That’s all, not much of a story.”
But it was a good story, Peter thought. And it explained the look she always got on her face when she lifted the Roc. It would be the hardest for her to give away.
He looked behind him at the four crude pine crates the marionettes were packed in, strapped to the back. Peter hoped they didn’t remind Vola of coffins. Her amazing puppets were going to live now. Really live, out in the real world, not just exist to perform as some kind of penance.
And maybe Vola would, too. But maybe that was too much to ask. He was still wondering about that when the tractor sputtered to a stop in the library parking lot, hunkering over three spaces.
Vola climbed down and hoisted one of the boxes. Peter followed her, but at the wide brick steps he stopped and tapped Vola’s shoulder. “You know,” he whispered, “you have to be a little careful in there. . . .”
“Careful?”
“About . . . language. You know?”
Vola looked at him blankly. He was going to have to spell it out for her. “It isn’t the kind of place where people say dyableman a lot.”
“Oh, please. I think I know that, boy.” Her tone was withering, but it held the hint of a grin. Peter opened the door and swept her through.
The librarian looked like a tossed handful of jewels: bright coral scarf, gold silk blouse, sapphire blue skirt. She smiled as Vola came in and set her crate on a table, and when the top was lifted, her mouth fell into a perfect O. Peter remembered he’d been speechless, too, the first time he’d seen those puppets. He backed out the door to give Vola some privacy.
The morning’s clouds had lifted, and the sky was so bright that it hurt his eyes. The sounds seemed brighter than usual, too, or maybe it was just because things had been so quiet this past week. A barking dog, two women chatting, bike brakes squealing, children shrieking in a playground beside the parking lot—he had missed these sounds. He had missed the world. He wondered if Vola missed it all the time.
He headed over to watch the little kids playing for a few minutes. Most of them were tearing around, jumping onto and off benches and slapping the swings in some kind of made-up game. A frowning girl with a straw-colored ponytail was digging by herself in a sandbox, earnestly moving shovelful after shovelful from one pile to another. Sitting on the sandbox corner, looking bored, with his head propped in a baseball glove, was a boy in a faded red T-shirt.
The shortstop. From the ball practice.
Peter moved closer. “Hey.”
The boy looked up, then stood, as if readying for a fight. He nodded at Peter’s crutches. “I wondered why you didn’t show.”
“How did you do?”
The shortstop scoffed. “Like you don’t know you creamed us.” He took the little girl’s shovel and handed her a pink sweatshirt. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
“Wait.” Peter felt a crazy rising panic. Maybe being a hermit for a week had made him weird already. But the boy was lifting his sister out of the sandbox and they were going to leave, and he couldn’t let that happen yet. “Wait! You know when you’re on the field and you know what you’re supposed to do, and you’re ready? When the game’s about to start and the glove turns into part of your hand, and you know you’re exactly where you should be? That feeling? Do you think that’s peace?”
The boy scowled at Peter. He shook his head as if he wanted to shake off the whole encounter, and then started walking away, pulling his sister by the hand. Peter could only watch as they left the playground, feeling that something valuable had just slipped away.
At the gate, though, the shortstop turned. He was pretty far away, but it looked like maybe he wasn’t frowning anymore. He lifted a hand and shot two fingers up in a peace sign. Peter lifted his own fingers back.
Inside, the librarian was unpacking the last crate. Half a dozen kids had materialized, and they gaped and grinned as the she lifted out each marionette. Vola stood off to the side, watching. She turned to leave when she caught sight of P
eter.
Peter stabbed out a crutch to block her. “Condition number three?” he asked with a glance back to the librarian.
Vola gave him a look that was half irritation, half grudging defeat. She turned back to the librarian. “I forgot to say, Bea, that I’ll come back once a week. To teach the kids how to use them.”
Bea Booker smiled—a slow smile that reminded Peter of melted caramel. “That’d be awfully nice.”
Vola set out for the door, but Peter blocked her path again.
Vola threw her palms up. “What now?”
He raised two fingers.
“What? Oh, for . . . Fine.” She walked back to the table. “Bea. Twice a week. I’ll come twice a week, teach the kids.”
The librarian broke out into a wide grin. “The children would love that. Be good to see you more, too, Vola. Maybe we could go for that coffee afterward.”
A little girl with a fountain of beaded pigtails tugged on Vola’s overalls. She pointed to the elephant. “How do you make him dance?” she demanded.
Peter held his breath. But instead of lecturing the girl about figuring things out for herself, Vola crouched down to study the elephant. Peter noticed that the movement was smoother with the prosthesis. She had an ankle joint now—such a simple thing, to be able to flex. How much she had given up.
“What makes you think he wants to dance?” Vola asked.
“Red toenails, like mine.” The little girl wiggled her toes in her sandals. Then her hand drifted up to stroke the feathers at Vola’s neck.
Vola startled at the touch, and Peter held his breath again. But she only reached out and patted the girl’s own necklace of yellow pop-beads.
Then she pointed to the clock over the desk, which read almost eleven. “I’ve got something important to do right now, but I’ll be back in half an hour. If you’re still here, we’ll figure out how to make him dance.”
By the time they grabbed Peter’s pack and crossed the street, the bus was already idling at the station. While Vola went to the ticket counter, Peter made his way to the group waiting to board. A shiver of current scurried up his spine. It was the same thrill that juiced him every time an umpire called, “Play ball!”
Vola handed Peter the ticket. Lying in his hand, it looked too small for the power it contained. “I’m going to get there, and I’m going to find him. Thank you.”
The bus door cranked open and Vola leaned in. She pointed a warning finger at the driver. “Robert, this boy is family. He’s been visiting and now he’s going home. You see that he gets there safe and sound.”
She stepped away, and an elderly couple began their shaky climb aboard. Peter shifted his backpack and crutches. He took a step toward the bus. Then he turned back. “I’m family?”
“That’s as true a thing as I’ve ever known. Now get on that bus.”
The steps were tall, but Peter hoisted himself up with ease. He took a seat up front and gave Vola a thumbs-up through the grimy glass. He was strong now. He was prepared. But when the air brakes hissed their release, he gripped the armrest. It was going to hurt a lot to watch her getting smaller and smaller.
Vola motioned for him to slide the window open when the bus growled into gear. “Boy,” she called up as it lurched away from the curb, “I’m going to leave the porch door open!”
Pax dug.
Since moving Runt up the gorge, Pax and Bristle had taken turns guarding him—a pact of protection. They would be his strong hind legs; they would be his ears. Runt was safe and sleeping inside the abandoned groundhog’s den that Bristle had enlarged for him. Still, Pax felt anxious. Something was coming. He dug as he kept watch in front of the burrow. The pads of his paws were toughened. They did not bleed.
When Bristle returned from hunting, she dropped a chipmunk in front of him. Pax turned away, although he had not eaten since the cheese two nights before. He would not take food from Bristle or Runt.
Bristle buried the chipmunk and then stretched out beside the den for her watch.
Pax left to pace the perimeter of the clearing again. The location was good: although it was near the encampment, it was high enough above it to feel safe from the exploding earth down near the river. Juniper bushes ringing the clearing would provide cover. More important, they would help disguise the foxes’ scents. A short distance away, a clear spring trickled from a cleft rock, and the grass was full of game.
But something was wrong. Something was coming. Pax bounded the short distance through the trees to the ridgeline above the encampment.
The encounter with his boy’s father had left him too wary to attempt another raid. But at the same time he was more drawn to the camp. The man’s motion—that sweeping kick of his boot through the doorway with its conflicting messages of goodwill and threat—had reminded him that he needed to protect his boy. And if the man lived at the camp, surely Peter would find his way there soon.
It was midafternoon. Pax watched the war-sick spread out along the riverbank, rolling more wires, digging more holes, and burying more dark boxes under the hot sun. The odor of their sweat was spiked with a new aggression.
The danger he sensed was more immediate than that, though. It was more primitive. He ran back and paced the clearing again.
When he saw Runt emerge blinking from the den, Pax hurried over to examine him. No blood seeped from the wound, and it smelled clean. Runt ignored the meal Bristle dug up for him. Pax could see that he was thirsty. I will take him to the spring.
Bristle began to follow, but then she sat back down and merely watched intently as they left.
When they returned, Runt tumbled back into the den. Pax settled himself in front of it—the groundhog’s burrow entrance felt too large, too open, and he felt better when he kept guard there—but Bristle called. Come with me. Watch.
She picked her way into the grass, paw over silent paw, head low and cocked to the ground. Pax followed as carefully. In the middle of the clearing she stopped short, ears perked forward, and shot a quick glance back at him.
Pax heard it. A light scurrying under the netting of dried grass that matted the ground. Bristle tracked it as if she could see its movement. Then she sprang into the air and jacked straight down, paws over her nose, and emerged with a mouse in her jaws.
She ate it in a few bites and then angled back across the clearing, searching again. She dropped to her haunches, head cocked to her left. Now you.
Pax listened until he felt sure he had located the tunneling rustle. A high leap, and then he tucked his paws over his nose to dive just as Bristle had. He landed hard. No mouse. He turned away from Bristle to huff out the dirt.
Bristle stalked off. Pax followed, his head hanging, until she perked her ears toward another faint scurrying.
Again she backed away while Pax tried the pounce. Again no mouse.
Bristle studied Pax as he pawed the dirt from his cheeks. Follow me.
Pax padded behind her until she stopped abruptly and dropped to a crouch. Before them was a hole in the thatch. It was warm with the fresh scent of many mice. Bristle warned him to stay back. Don’t move. Watch.
Bristle crept forward. In front of the hole she dropped and laid her head on her paws. She closed her eyes to slits, and her whole body relaxed, as if in deep sleep.
Pax was surprised—he had thought she was still teaching him to hunt. He stood. Bristle tapped a warning with her singed tail. Stay. Pax settled again.
For many moments, nothing happened. Then Pax caught the faintest stirring at the opening of the warren. A quivering nose tested the air, then retreated. Another long moment, and the mouse reappeared. Its movements were so light, so alert, that Pax knew it was a whisker away from flight. Bristle didn’t stir, except for the flicker of an eyelid as she cut a warning glance at Pax.
The mouse emerged and retreated twice more. Then, assured that the fox was asleep, it made a run for cover. Bristle’s swift paw swept out and raked the doomed mouse to her jaws.
Pax understood.
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Bristle retreated to guard Runt, and Pax trotted into the clearing, eager to find the telltale hole that would allow him to try the move himself. He found one beside a rotting log and drew in the thick scents of a colony of field mice. He settled himself a foreleg’s reach away.
His excitement made it hard to stay perfectly still, but at last a mouse came to the entrance and tested the air. Like Bristle’s quarry, the mouse darted back in at the sight of the fox. Like Bristle’s quarry, it reemerged until it was convinced Pax was asleep and then made a run for it.
Pax wasn’t as quick as Bristle. But he managed to knock the mouse over, and as it scrambled to its feet, he swiped again. And caught his first prey.
It was a small meal, but each bite sent a hot current through Pax’s body. The mouse’s life now merged with his own. His muscles brimmed with energy.
He sprang up and tore a joyful path around the clearing, running by Bristle in a blaze of red fur. She got to her feet to watch. Pax sped by again, scarcely skimming the ground, but it wasn’t celebration enough.
In the center of the clearing stood an old, crooked sweet-gum tree. Its lowest limbs reached out over a hollow; its upper branches glinted blue with feeding jays.
Pax flew at the trunk. He scrambled easily onto the first low branch and balanced there. Then step by cautious step, he began to walk along its length.
Leaves rustled around him in welcome like fragrant green stars. Through them, he looked down in astonishment. The world had changed. From this vantage point he could see through the ridgeline trees to the encampment and the river in the distance. The meadow grasses, which just a moment ago had brushed his shoulders, now seemed flattened to a broad green bowl. Jays flew down to scold him.
Pax recalled Runt’s flight. He coiled himself. Then sprang, stretching out and out, feeling the air ruffle his belly fur. He landed lightly and threw his head back and barked his happiness.
This new world was his. He could travel through it, and he could feed himself on its bounty whenever he wanted. He was part of it all, free. But not alone.
Pax hurried to where he’d buried the peanut butter jar and unearthed it. He carried it back and dropped it in front of Bristle and Runt, who were drowsing at the burrow entrance in the last rays of afternoon sun.
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