Wandering Wild

by Jessica Taylor

  Wen stands at the edge of the dock, his toes inches from the edge. “Is it cold? It looks cold.”

  I wring my hair out, holding back my shivers. “Like bathwater.”

  Wen jumps off the dock and disappears beneath the surface. He comes up shrieking. “My junk shrunk down to nothing!”

  I tread farther away from the bank. “Like I want to hear about your junk.”

  My legs kick hard, harder than they had to last summer at the ocean. The salt makes the water denser and bodies more buoyant—Wen read that in one of his encyclopedias. B for buoyancy, I guess.

  “It’s getting warmer,” I say.

  His teeth chatter. “You’re just getting numb.”

  We both float on our backs and stare up at the fathomless sky. As the waves sway me back and forth, I close my eyes. I’m in a trance or half-asleep when Wen says, “Look at all those houses.” He points at the homes dotting the horizon. “That’s the life.”

  “A markie’s life. You’d really want to live in one of those prisons?”

  His silence is as good as a yes.

  After a moment, he says, “We really could leave.” His voice is a small, nervous thing using those forbidden words. “Stay put, I mean, when the camp moves on.”

  Chills stab at me as I right myself. I plunge lower, submerging everything beneath my neck.

  Wen swims so close I can see beads of water clinging to his eyelashes. “We could make it. You’re street smart. I’m book smart.”

  Wandering sings to me, maybe too much, and Wen knows it plain as day. Sometimes I think the continental US is too small. I want to see places the Chevy can’t go, fly in planes, and cross the limitless ocean. At least wandering keeps us seeing something new every few weeks or months.

  We couldn’t run our scams, just me and Wen. The camp will protect us if our cons head south. Scamming without camp would mean foster homes for Wen and me both.

  But it’s more than that keeping me tied to camp. It’s living out in the wild, sunrises and sunsets, dancing under the moonlight, and never being tied down to monthly payments or institutionalized learning.

  Wen doesn’t share those loves.

  Before I can stop myself, I say the one thing that might change his mind: “What about Mom?”

  He springs away from me like I’ve bitten him. Instantly, I’m aching with regret.

  Mom will be joining us soon. That’s the lie we’ve been telling ourselves for over a year now. She was in prison from the time Wen was five and I was six. Pyramid scheme, a felony.

  When they set her free two years ago, the state boundaries of Ohio became her jail. That is, unless she broke parole. Law-breaking is no stranger to us, but according to the judge, if she violated her parole again, her hair would be whiter than snow before he’d let her see daylight.

  We said our good-byes, and she got a job as a waitress while her friend from the inside rented her a room in a duplex. Mom couldn’t wander, and her friend didn’t have room for two kids, so we stayed with the camp under Rona’s care, the way things had been for nine years at that point—the three of us waiting.

  That was fine by us, until the truth came out last year.

  Camp had been silent the night the voices in our heads started driving us crazy. Wen said we should visit Mom, break away from camp for a few days. We left a few minutes past midnight.

  But when we got to Ohio the next afternoon, the duplex was vacant, and the manager of the diner had never even heard of Mom.

  Wen didn’t say anything the whole way back to the Kansas state line. As I drove, I told him she must have gotten restless, joined up with another camp, and couldn’t make it home to us yet. That’s what I said, even though I didn’t believe it myself.

  He stared at the rotted-out floorboard and watched the asphalt passing through the holes between his shoes all the way back.

  The lights of camp were twinkling from the way-off road as Wen turned to me. “I don’t want to keep rehashing this, Tal. If we keep talking about Mom running off, it’s going to become more real, and it’s going to consume us, and I want to bury this in a box and forget it ever happened.”

  “We have to at least ask Rona if she knows something.”

  “No. Rona will make excuses for Mom, like she always does.”

  There was nothing truer, so I said, “All right,” and, for the love of money, I hoped Wen’s acceptance of the whole thing would last. Not two seconds later, I remembered why I didn’t believe in wasting my time on hoping.

  His lips quivered. “Mom will start to feel bad for what she’s done, and then she’ll come back.”

  “Oh, Wen.”

  “No, she will.” His knuckles were white as he gripped the dash. “I know it.”

  So between us, we let Mom become what she’d been before, someone who was coming back soon, after parole or after a scam or after whatever she was doing. That was the way Wen and I talked, maybe even the way Wen felt. But it wasn’t how I felt then, and it’s not how I feel now.

  Three days later, I realized I couldn’t keep my promise to Wen.

  After he went to sleep, I crept through the trees, where birches bleached the forest a stark white, all the way to Rona’s trailer.

  “She’s never ever coming back,” I said, pacing across the creaking floor while the rest of camp was sound asleep. “Is she?”

  Rona sat in her bed with one of her nighttime turbans on her head. “You can’t blame her. Greta—your mother—she couldn’t be trapped up there—”

  “But what about us? Why didn’t she come back for us?”

  “You shouldn’t have to know this, but there’s no way around it.” Rona wrung her hands and tapped her foot against the trailer floor. “She couldn’t stand being held back, by camp or nothing. Even you and Wen, you were anchors to her, and the responsibility became too much.”

  “You say it like that’s normal. We’re her kids! You can’t make excuses for that.” I went for the door, but realization washed over me, and I turned around. “Rona, did you know she was going to run?”

  She didn’t speak for a long time. Her silence said everything.

  “The responsibility of two kids, it would have killed her,” she whispered. “She’s my best friend. She did the best she could for as long as she could, and you’re going to have to accept her for what she was.”

  That was when I decided Rona had been poison to Mom. She would be poison to me, too—if I was stupid enough to let her.

  “Fuck Mom,” I said. “And fuck you, too.”

  It wasn’t just a few hateful words that ruined our relationship, but that moment marked a change in the way we looked at each other. The fault line had been there for months, a hairline crack that grew into a ravine and kept spreading until Rona and I were standing on different continents.

  I never said a word about it to Wen. To this day, I’ve stowed it away in the darkest valleys inside me.

  The water feels colder. I can’t stay stagnant in the lake a moment longer. I look around, and it’s not too far to the opposite bank. “Hey, I’ll race you!”

  Before he has a chance to accept the challenge, I wedge my feet into Wen’s stomach and spring off him like he’s a diving board. I’m at least twelve feet ahead before I hear him splashing.

  My muscles burn, pushing through the water fast enough to keep my lead. First to touch down on the other bank is the winner—always the rules of engagement. Being three inches taller, Wen’s got an advantage. I kick, and my foot connects with his shoulder.

  Before long, my feet touch a slippery, sludge-covered rock. I stand and yell, “Loser!”

  “Cheater!”

  “Cheater?” I plant my hands on my hips, right above the waterline, and grin. “You know there aren’t any real rules.”

  Something rustles from behind the trees, followed by the sound of twigs snapping.

  Wen opens his mouth, and I say, “Shh.”

  Two girls pop onto the beach, carrying neon-colored pool noodles and
metallic beach bags, wearing sunglasses that are too big for their faces, and speaking in voices that sound like money.

  Wen tilts his head toward the far bank. Isolation has become his crutch, and he’s not good at casual conversation unless he’s scamming someone.

  “No, let’s stay.”

  “What’s the angle?” he whispers.

  “No angle. I’m not going to let a couple of markies run us off.”

  One of the girls tiptoes close to the water’s edge. She wears a one-piece bathing suit, red with navy polka dots and a thin navy belt cinched around her tiny waist.

  “You’re on your own,” Wen says. He swims off into the middle of the lake before the girl even dampens her knees.

  “Hey, there!” she calls from the bank. I straighten and run my palms over my tangled, wet hair. She stays planted, so I swim closer. “You’re not from around here.”

  I tell the standard lie we give everyone who asks us for an explanation: “No. We’re on vacation with our parents.”

  “I’m Whitney.” For all her interest in me, you’d think I had a mermaid tail instead of two tanned legs, kicking beneath the surface.

  “Rachel,” I say.

  Girls like this are the kind I used to work alongside Sonia. She adored making small talk with markie girls while we stole a twenty or two from their wallets. Sonia said it was as close to markie life as she ever wanted to get, but for an hour or so, she loved walking the tightwire between our worlds.

  Whitney points to the middle of the lake where Wen is floating on his back like a broken starfish. “Who’s that?”

  “My brother . . .” I run down a list of past aliases. “Elliot.”

  This pleases Whitney. I can tell by the way her dimples deepen. “You guys want a beer? My cousin bought us some.” She winks and adds, “She’s in college.”

  “Elliot,” I call. He doesn’t open his eyes. “Elliot!” I scream. He sinks into the lake and turns. “You want a beer?”

  He shakes his head.

  “He’s real shy, but I sure wouldn’t mind one.”

  “Ow!” She yelps, and hops on one foot, rubbing the bottom of the other one. “Don’t these rocks kill your feet?”

  My red toes are splayed on a pile of sharp stones. I never even noticed. “I guess I have tough soles.”

  “Guess so. I need a pedicure just looking at these rocks. Cozumel this is not.”

  Cozumel. I file it in my mental list of places to look up in the encyclopedias.

  “This is Rachel,” she says to a girl with a cell phone pressed against her ear. “That’s Nya.” The girl with the cell phone lifts her chin.

  The can of beer is lukewarm, but I gulp it anyway. Whitney and I sit on the edge of her towel as Nya struts between the trees in search of better reception.

  Whitney holds her legs so we’re calf to calf, her milky skin next to mine. “Your tan is so pretty. Is it a spray tan?”

  “No, it’s real.” There’s no denying that I carry the warmth of the sun on me.

  She looks to the other side of the lake where Wen now stands on the dock. “Did you access the lake from that side?”

  “We sure did. My brother parked his Beamer on the dirt road.”

  “I didn’t think people still used those old dirt roads.”

  “Well”—I smile—“we did.”

  She scans me, from my toes to my bikini and back again. She removes her oversized sunglasses, crinkles her eyes in the sunlight, and grins. “I’m having a party Saturday night.” She points to a house at the top of the hill, one with a big wood deck that extends way outward. “Right up there.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s a back-to-school party. I always throw the best one. Think you can come—you and your brother, I mean?”

  Oh, that’s an opportunity for moneymaking I can’t pass up. “We might be free Saturday night.”

  She squeezes my hands like we’re destined to be the best of friends. These townie kids have been warned against strangers with candy and seedy school janitors, not people like us.

  “We’ve been cordially invited to a party on Saturday night. A markie party. I think you know what that means.”

  Wen places his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Walking to camp through the brush isn’t as easy as it was on the way down. “Saturday night is my show?”

  “Damn straight.” Saturday night, Wen’s in charge of the con. “I’m Rachel,” I say, “and you’re Elliot.”

  He rubs his wet hair. “What happened to Amy and Joel? Should have used those names from the Chicken and Billiards hustle back in Pike. Joel and Amy.”

  “Pike is two hours away.” Two hours separating me from that pool hall, and more importantly, me and a boy named Spencer Sway.

  “You used to make us cross state lines before switching aliases. You’re losing your touch.”

  My foot catches something, and before my face smacks the dirt, I break my fall against a tree. The piece of plastic between my toes has come free from the socket on my flip-flop. As I try to force the piece inside the hole, I realize Wen’s bent over something in the grass.

  I hop closer and notice the chocolate-colored feathers. It’s dead.

  “It’s an owl,” Wen says like he can’t quite believe it.

  Our people tell stories of long ago, when a man called the Falconer was the greatest Wanderer huntsman. He and his falcons provided enough prey to feed his camp until the markies started building homes that outright destroyed falcon habitats and hunting grounds. Faced with a starving people, the Falconer trained owls.

  When the Falconer passed from this world into the next, the owls came out in droves, flocking across the sky to guide him into the underworld, or that’s how the story goes. Now they say the Spirit of the Falconer protects Wanderers, sending owls as warnings. The stories are like oxygen in camp. Everyone believes them and always has. But in my heart of hearts, I don’t.

  “Shit,” he says. “I don’t want to leave yet. We just got here.”

  As soon as we tell others about this owl, they’ll throw together our belongings, and we’ll all be flying down the road again. I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t for Whitney’s party—if the seeds of my con hadn’t already been planted.

  A thought occurs to me, a sinister proposition in the eyes of camp.

  “Wen, what if we don’t tell?”

  “What do you mean don’t tell? Someone else will see it.”

  “Let’s bury it. Nobody has to know.”

  He stares up at me, squinting against the sunlight. Finally, he nods. To agree to be my accomplice in this, he must hate the road more than I ever imagined.

  We use broken branches to dig a hole beside a hawthorn tree. Wen lifts the owl into the grave, and, as we’re covering it, a weight builds on my chest—the gravity of what we could be hiding. I could be wrong about everything—omens and the Spirit of the Falconer, too. But I don’t think I’m wrong.

  I step away and let Wen drop the last handful of dirt.

  CHAPTER 7

  We’re idling beside some markie school in the middle of town when I notice Wen looking longingly out the passenger window at a group of teenagers swarming from double doors.

  When we were kids, we’d drive through big cities and small towns, through the swamplands of Louisiana, through the Rockies, and one sight appeared over and over, no matter the landscape outside the Chevy. Kids our age would be lined up at bus stops or waiting in crowds outside of schools, all loaded down with backpacks. The longing would catch me for a few seconds, and I’d wonder how it would be to spend my mornings standing on the asphalt beside them, spilling gossip, and trading secrets.

  That feeling always floated away from me. Not Wen, though. He’d press his small hands against the window, trying to erase every inch of distance between him and them.

  “Padding, it’s all padding,” Rona would say. “That’s what those markie school lessons are. Organized day care’s all it is. You kids are too smart for those mark
ie schools. Those teachers would waste your time.” Then she’d reach over and pat my leg. “And you, Tal, you’d eat those other kids alive.”

  “Look at these people,” Wen says now. “Those backpacks are probably full of books.”

  “Must get heavy.”

  His shoes scrape against the rusted-out floorboard.

  I dance my fingers against the steering wheel, willing the light to change colors. “You’d miss so much if you stayed in one place, you know?”

  So quietly I almost don’t hear him, he says, “You don’t even think about what we leave in our rearview mirrors.”

  He read to me once—in E for Earth—that the world spins at a thousand miles per hour, but we don’t even feel a shudder. Sometimes, it seems we’re running right along with it. I know what he wants. He wants to sit still for a while and watch things go by—the things we don’t stay long enough to notice.

  There’s a small part of me, the part I try to ignore, that wants to kick back and watch the world carry on around me, too. I almost tell Wen, but the light turns, letting me gun it through downtown and away from the school and all those foolish temptations.

  Between the drugstore and the post office, I park the car. “We need batteries. But, first, we need money.”

  We case the sidewalk from the truck, our clothes sticking to our skin as we wait for a markie—an opportunity—to walk on by. Soon a man wearing a sport coat and starched-and-ironed jeans heads our way.

  “I got this one,” Wen says.

  “Why, thank you.”

  “Save your gratitude.” He spills some bottled water in his hands and runs them through his hair. “The last time you took lead, we lost out on a pizza.”

  Wen struts down the sidewalk, heading straight toward the man. I lift up on the steering wheel, craning my neck to watch the exchange closely. Especially the critical moment their bodies meet.

  Wen never slows his steps, and the man’s pockets don’t crinkle as Wen lifts his wallet then circles the block before heading back to the Chevy.