by Janel Kolby
“Your box?” Jessiebel says. “Okay, never mind. That doesn’t matter. You could keep it outside.”
“Well . . . then, yes. We could share it.”
“Share?” Jessiebel asks. “That food isn’t for sharing. Right, King? I mean, who really likes to share anyway?”
King shrugs.
Jessiebel steps lively. “Yep, that food is for storing in pantries, basements, behind false walls, under loose floorboards and beds. For storing. Like everything else around here. Waiting. Plenty to share, but it’s not intended for sharing. Most of it eventually gets thrown out. The Winterfolk—you share with them?”
My breath catches. “I’m part of them.”
King pushes Jessiebel into the empty road and dashes me a harsh look. “No, you’re not. Don’t listen to him.”
“What?” Jessiebel smiles. He lines up behind us. “That’s what you want to know, right? What it’s like to have enough?”
He and King lock eyes until Jessiebel breaks away. “How long have you lived here? Do you go to school? Study?”
“Shut up,” King says.
My stockinged feet were black. Now gray. “I read, but I don’t write.” I look to King, but he ignores me.
“I could help you,” Jessiebel says.
Jessiebel gets shoved into the street again. He holds up his hands, his smile gone.
“Stop pushing him,” I say. Harsher than I meant. “You’ve had a lot of school, haven’t you?” I ask Jessiebel.
“Almost graduated. I’m not exactly welcome back. Not there. But I’ll test out. I’ll do it when I’m settled.” He looks at King. “Done pissing? How much farther do we have? I need to sleep, and maybe cry a little about my kilt.”
King points at a trail that knifes through green hills.
My shoulders shiver on their own.
“There,” he says. “The camp’s through there.”
And beyond the trail is the Winterfolk.
I replay freeing Hamlet’s hamsters on the bus. “Hamlet’s not going to be happy.”
King shrugs stiff. “When is he?”
I peer through the blackness of the trail’s end. “You think anyone’s searching for us?”
King squints, too. “No. Look, there’s Sabbath.”
“Who’s Sabbath?” Jessiebel asks.
“Heck’s dog,” I say. “He’s good protection.” Sabbath stands up between the trees and wags his tail. “He watches out.”
“Still worried about the police?” Jessiebel asks.
I open my eyes wide at him. I did not want King to know about that.
Jessiebel mouths, Sorry.
Too late.
King cranks his head. “Police?”
I clear my throat and keep my hands steady. “What if someone saw my book? Like Police. And called the library?”
King reaches for my book, and I let him take it. He opens the cover. “What if?”
“Yeah, what if.”
His eyes weigh on the library stamp. “Police saw this? Called the library?”
“When I was rescued. From the ocean.”
King’s lips seal together. I know he wants to say something. Maybe about whose fault this really is. But he won’t.
“Would they know you?” I ask. “The library? Police?”
He shakes his head, but it’s not convincing. He gives me the book. “We can’t go back to the library.”
I thought as much, but didn’t believe it until he said it. No more books. “But we gotta return this. You said so. I’ll do it this time.”
“It’s too risky. Might as well keep it.”
“I’ll do it,” Jessiebel says. “They don’t know me.”
I cling to the book. It’s mine.
“I’ll find someplace else to get books,” King says. “After we move.”
“How long will that be?” I ask.
“Don’t know, but we shouldn’t be standing out here.”
And we all know it.
He leads us across the road to the start of the dirt trail. That ends in my circle.
And that’s when my feet stop working. Not numb or anything, they just won’t go. Back to that circle. The beginning. I haven’t done enough for people to see us. All I got were words on sidewalks and a blurring train.
“C’mon,” King says.
I want to. “I can’t.”
King looks down at my torn and dirty leggings. “Hurt?”
I shake my head.
“Hey, Jess, give her the boots back.”
“I don’t want them back,” I say.
Jessiebel puts the hoodie over his head. “She doesn’t want them.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I dunno.” Everything should be fine. Almost home. Dad waiting. Probably hand me a bag of beads. Take me all day to sort.
Maybe he’ll still teach me the bracelets, and I’ll pretend not to know.
I can wash the city out of my feet. Change out of these clothes—stiff with salt and the remains of seaweed. Eat an apple. Forget about MoonPie. Feed the hamster, if it’s really there. Pack. See if King can find some thread. I still need to mend the tent. And we need water. We didn’t get any supplies, and I’m thirsty. I gotta lot of things to be doing.
“You don’t wanna go?” King says.
“I want to go.” My feet don’t. “Maybe we should get the laundry first. Half my things are in there.”
“We already decided to go this way,” he says.
“But we forgot the thread. And water. And toothpaste.”
“I have some money left. I’ll get it after we get to camp. When I call Matisse.”
“Let me go with you,” I chance again.
King stuffs his hands in the pockets of his blazer.
“Please don’t tell me you keep her in chains,” Jessiebel says.
King laughs his fake laugh—the one that dances in his throat, not his face. “We use thorny vines.”
Jessiebel raises his eyebrows at me.
I can’t look at him. Instead, I find words that were never my own. “For my protection.”
The point of his mohawk has a sharp edge. “I think you need to convince yourself of that.”
King glares, then turns and walks off the path. Examines the ground. He stoops down and picks up a rock. Turns it in his hands.
Jessiebel steps back. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything. It’s none of my business, anyway. Listen, I’m tired. All I want to do is sleep.”
“Don’t be stupid,” I tell him.
I walk to King. My feet working now.
He shows me the rock—dark brown and oval. Nearly polished. “You ain’t got one like that in your garden.”
I nod. “Looks like a seed. Or a bean? Maybe I’ll take it with me. Bury it. See what comes out.”
“Naturally.” He considers the rock. “Anything you want.” His eyes chisel into the rock. Then they chisel into me.
He puts the rock to my ear, and I listen for it to tell me what it wants.
But all I hear is what King said. Anything. That’s a full word. A filling word. I try to swallow it whole, but it’s too much for me.
He lowers the rock from my ear.
“You don’t have to go back,” he says. “I mean it. We’re supposed to leave today, anyway. I’ll take you wherever you wanna go. Without Jess. Right now. You want to leave?”
My stomach tightens, and I can’t look away from him.
“Rain,” he whispers. He wants to tell me something. About him and me. But he won’t. His eyes are pushing down everything he wants to say, and I know what’s going to come out won’t be enough.
So I don’t let him.
“What do you have against Jessiebel?” I ask. “Can’t you see he’s like us? I want to go home. I already told you. Home.” The word comes out, but I don’t know he understands the meaning.
HOME.
Not the kind that will be gone tomorrow. The home that’s meant to stay.
I wiggle my toes. I can’t f
eel my words, but I can feel my toes. My big toe is strangling through the stocking, and I can’t stand it no more.
I hand King my rock and my book.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
I double over and pull off my leggings. One leg at a time. The whole pair of leggings.
“That’s not . . . ,” he says.
My feet breathe.
I wad up the leggings and give those to him, too.
He hides them in his hand. “This isn’t . . . ,” he tries again.
I dig my toes in the moist earth and look at him. “You said anything.”
He meets my eyes. “Yes.”
“Then let’s go home.”
21
WINTERFOLK IN FALL IS worse than in winter, since cold preserves. Unwashed bodies and waste. Hits us before we reach the camp. It stings more than it stinks. You get used to it. I’m reminded of that when Jessiebel holds his blanket to his nose, the baby.
“Despite how tired my legs are,” he says, “I really hope your camp is far from here.”
I want to tell him how he didn’t smell all that better yesterday before the witch made him clean himself. Instead, I hold my finger to my lips for him to hush. We’re getting close, and my heart pumps fast. I push my rock inside one of the stocking legs and swing it loose at my side.
“Sweet Mary,” whispers Jessiebel.
King looks behind at us.
I hold my weapon up for him to see.
What are you doing? he mouths.
I mouth back: Taking care of myself.
His long hair hangs in his face. “I’m going straight through,” he says. “You two walk around. I’ll meet you on the other side.”
I shake my head, and he comes over to me. “You can put that down.” His eyes move to the rock in my stocking. “If I go through the camp, I can distract, and you two can go on up.”
“I’m not scared.”
“Yeah.” His lips lift in a smile. “I can tell.” But then his head tips toward Jessiebel. “You know they don’t take to newcomers. You got to look out for him.”
I don’t put down my rock. “Okay.”
He straightens my cap to keep the cross straight, then turns his back. Walks away.
“Where are we supposed to go?” Jessiebel asks.
“Hmmm?”
King’s nearly disappeared through the trees, and I almost can’t catch him.
Jessiebel snaps his fingers in front of my face. “Where. Do. We. Go?”
“Follow me.”
I fold my arms across my body, my book tucked in close and the rock down by my side. Jessiebel folds his arms the same. In front are branches, needles, and leaves, and all the spaces between them. You got to know the right spaces not to cause notice. I’ve lived in these spaces.
I duck my head to avoid the trees before they tug me with their arms and fingers to welcome me home. They don’t mean harm, but I motion to Jessiebel to avoid them. He ducks the branches as rainwater does. Eluding. He’s a trickster, too.
Soon, we see spots of blue plastic through the trees.
Jessiebel keeps his blanket to his nose. “How many tents are there?”
“Twelve, but more come in winter, like we do. There are other camps around, but I don’t know them.”
He rubs his nose. “Why do you join them?”
“The rain. You’ll see. We’re up where it’s steep. The mud slides in wintertime, the ground’s unsteady. I don’t get out much in winter. Winter numbs—have you noticed—inside and out. Puts everything on hold.”
He nods in understanding. “Winterfolk.”
“You know what it’s like now, don’t you? That perfect moment. When you don’t gotta worry about where to put your head or what to put in your stomach. To want to freeze that moment? Sleep like snow forever.”
“But then you’d miss the spring.”
My heels sink in a spot of loose soil.
Jessiebel nudges my arm and points through the trees. King’s not walking straight through as he said. He’s standing still. I move so I can see him better.
King and Hamlet.
“Why is he talking to Hamlet?” Jessiebel whispers.
I strain to see. “I don’t know.”
Leaves rustle behind, and I jerk my head. A squirrel comes out from a bush and scampers to the bottom of a nearby tree.
“Hey, there,” I say.
Jessiebel turns to the squirrel.
“It’s my friend,” I tell Jessiebel.
Jessiebel nods, and I look back at the camp. There’s more coming out from their tents. “See over there?” I tell him. “That tall, skinny guy with the long beard is Piper, cuz he got his windpipe broken one time being choked in his sleep. Scary, huh?”
Jessiebel points at my throat below where my gold beads hang. “Yeah, it’s scary. But your windpipe isn’t a bone. It can’t be broken. It’s the rings around it that probably got damaged.”
“Well, then you go tell him his name shouldn’t be Piper.” I brush his hand away. “That woman in a red dress is Lady-in-Waiting.”
“Who?”
“On the left. Away from all the others.”
He searches and shakes his head. “I don’t see her.”
I point his hand to her. “There.”
His eyes search again, then he turns to me.
“Stop it.” I bump him with my shoulder. “That’s not funny.”
He presses his lips together. “What is she waiting for?”
“King would tell you to stop asking questions, but I want to know, too. To be saved, maybe.”
“You see her a lot?” he asks.
Something skittles across my foot and I rub at it.
King points up the hill toward our camp and jabs his finger at it.
I hear him say my name.
“Do you?” Jessiebel asks.
“Be quiet. I can’t hear what they’re saying.” Hamlet grows in height and steps closer to King. “Can you hear what they’re saying?”
“I think King told him to stay away. Are they going to jump him?”
Hamlet leans his head down to King. Hunches his back. Rests his hands together in front of his chest like a rat.
“Of course not,” I say.
At the farthest tent, someone else climbs out—young and dark.
“Who’s that?” Jessiebel asks.
“Heck. King’s friend. Remember Sabbath? He’s over there. Look how sweet he is.”
Jessiebel eyes Heck. “Yeah, he’s sweet.”
“I meant Sabbath—over there at his bowl.”
“Maybe I should introduce myself.”
“No, you shouldn’t. Hamlet doesn’t want to see me. I’m sure of it.”
Heck pats King’s shoulder, and the gesture is like a pause in the wind. Their bodies all relax.
Something catches King’s eye in the fire pit. He bends down and picks up a yellow paper, then another, and another. All part burned.
“What are those?” Jessiebel asks.
“Our eviction notices,” I whisper.
King drops them back in the pit, and his whole body sighs.
Piper and the others go back to their tents. Hamlet waves King off and heads off to his own. Just Heck and King are left. Not saying anything.
“Everything looks fine now,” I say. “Let’s go meet King where he said.”
Jessiebel scans Heck again, and I pull his arm to tear him away.
I say good-bye to the squirrel, and we move through the spaces, not making a sound. Soon the Winterfolk camp is behind us.
We stop at the steep hill that leads to our tents. Now that we’re close to home, I can’t wait no more. My tent. My garden. My Bruces and Evergreens. Dad. “We might as well go up,” I say.
“I thought we were supposed to wait for him here. I’m feeling a bit nauseous.”
“It’s just right up there.” I point. “You’ll feel better with fresh air. It’s nicer up there.”
“Okay.”
We
drop to all fours and start the climb. My weapon drags behind, and I hold my book snug to me. The sting in my nose fades.
I pause to catch my breath. “How long . . . how long have you been—”
“A conniving slut?” Jessiebel asks.
“Without family.” I breathe hard. A tiny rock pricks my hand.
“A long time. A few months.”
I laugh and rub my palm. “I should take back my boots.”
“Hey, I hitched across three states to get here.”
“Why here?”
“I told you. I spun myself, and this was as far as I could get from them. Plus, the weather’s supposed to be mild.”
“Sure. Wait until you’re wet for nine months. I bet you didn’t learn that in school.” I look up to find my bearings. “We’re almost there.”
“Bless Mary, I hope so.”
“We’re on a flat part of the ridge up there. Our tents are green. You won’t see them right away.” I keep an eye out for anything moving that shouldn’t be. “See those trees up there?”
“Way up there? You’re kidding me. I think I’m going to . . .” Jessiebel holds his hand to his chest and heaves deep.
“Do you need water? Your face is pale.”
“No. I just need to—” He crashes to his hands and retches without much of anything coming out.
I’ve seen Dad like that outside our tent when he thought I wasn’t looking.
Jessiebel wipes his mouth and stands. He nods to me. I turn and keep going up.
“I need sleep,” he says.
“Almost there.” My bean rock bounces against the ground. Excited to be part of my garden.
“Where’s your tent?”
“Above King’s. Through the trees. Can’t see it yet.”
He sinks to the ground. “Too far.” He presses his palms in his eye sockets. “My head is killing me.”
I sit next to him and pet the feathery top of his mohawk.
“I’m trashed.” He lays his head to his knees. “I just want to rest for a bit. Let me sleep. Here. This is fine. Wake me in a couple hours.”
I pull at his arm. “We’re almost there. We have water. I think. There’s an ant crawling across your wrist.” I show the ant where to walk so it hits Jessiebel’s tickle spots, but it ignores me.
“Seriously. I don’t care.” Drool drips from the bottom corner of his mouth. “Sleep.”