Pluck (The Woodswalker Novels)

by Emilia S. Morrow

  “No one will tell us anything about Aster,” her uncle began.

  “Where was she when you two were separated? Was she okay?” Trudy added, gripping the hem of her plaid shirt with both hands.

  Briars stomach dropped. Her hands clutched the railing of the bed. The police had yet to notify them, somehow. Perhaps they were waiting for confirmation that the body was found. Maybe they did not believe what she told them.

  “Aster must have gotten into an accident too.” Briar’s voice raised a full octave. “She did not survive her injuries.”

  “How do you know she was injured but not what happened?” Trudy asked, as if the reality did not set in. “How do you not know?”

  “I found her.” Briar said. Trudy still looked hopeful. “I found her body.”

  Trudy shuddered, as if the news travelled down her skin to wreak havoc. She did not cry at the finality of it. Briar could not help but think of all the tears she had already shed for her daughter. Her body could not stop moving, despite the stillness in her face.

  Christopher did not feel the same. Briar avoided looking at him. Although he was more willing to show emotions than her father, he still did not want anyone acknowledging them.

  “At least now we know.” Trudy said, grasping one of each of their hands.

  “That doesn’t make it any better,” he said through sobs. Briar could not help but agree. “It’s not okay.”

  “Eventually it will be okay.” Trudy said. “I’m not saying it’s okay now.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” Briar said, weak words meant for strangers and distant relatives. These were her parents, Briar’s best friend and cousin. There would never be right words.

  Almost immediately her Aunt and Uncle absolved her of her sins. It does not mean a single thing, Briar thought. She did not deserve these people or their love. Aster struggled for weeks, to escape just long enough to get her hopes up before dying. They don’t know the truth of what their daughter went through. They can never truly forgive her for what they didn’t understand.

  “You finally outran Aster, didn’t you?” Christopher said quietly.

  ***

  They stayed by her side through a full nurse rotation, a full bag of slow drip IV fluid, and a brief nightmare filled nap. Trudy passed the time with stories of past trips that went better than this one. Christopher more or less sat there, staring at Briar when he thought she wasn’t looking.

  “We want to be here when your parents arrive.” Trudy had said. Unspoken, they want to mediate in case it got ugly. In the best of times they were not very forgiving.

  This was not the best of times

  “I’m going to grab some food from the cafeteria. Do you want anything sweetie?” Her aunt asked with a carefully placed pat on the knee.

  “Coffee.” She practically shouted. She was ready to immerse herself back into the grips of caffeine addiction. “Please.”

  “And food.” Trudy chastised. “You need something in your stomach, you’ve lost enough weight as is. I’ll see if I can find something fattening.”

  “Anything for you sweetie?” Trudy asked the pastel blue curtain separating the room.

  “No thank you ma’am. I appreciate it,” Eric said. Trudy did not ask her husband if he wanted anything. Instead, preferring to leave the room quicker than she had entered.

  Alone, Christopher did not make good company. Every few minutes he would look up at her with a queasy sort of half smile as if he wanted to lighten the mood. It was a sick imitation of the man she had seen just last Christmas.

  “I’m going to call Henry,” he said. Briar shut her eyes tightly.

  “I think we should just leave them alone,” she said. “Maybe they just need time to adjust all over again.”

  “I’m not going to let them stay away,” he said, voice rougher than intended. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Briar did not have an answer for him. Christopher reached for the thick beige corded phone resting on the bedside table. Her dread grew with every cheery tone as he punched in their home number.

  “Why aren’t you here yet?” He asked without a greeting. “The drive isn’t that long.”

  Briar tried to think of anything other than the conversation they are having. She counted the ceiling tiles above them. She watched the curtain sway in the soft breeze of the air conditioning. Anything but look to the man poking the bees nest.

  “Oh come on now.” He said, his voice growing more hushed. He pulled the phone cord as far as it went, but it did not take him far from her bedside. “She’s been here waiting.”

  Briar shut her eyes against the guilt. She couldn’t help but slip back into her old habits. How could she make their day any better? Could she hold her breath long enough to drift away? Could she get directions to the den of the bear who died because of her?

  Barely heard on the other end “We buried our daughter.”

  Christopher shook the phone in his fist so hard the cord whipped audibly against its surroundings.

  “Well unlike yours, our daughter is actually dead.” He growled into the receiver, louder than intended. “So fuck you.”

  He slammed the receiver back into the cradle. When he turned back to her bed his eyes were glistening.

  “I’m going to go see if Trudy needs help carrying the coffee,” he choked out before leaving the room.

  Eric pulled back the curtain the moment the door clicked closed. He was crying thick ribbons down his gaunt face. She had seen him cry directly after being tortured, being confined, seeing a dead body. This was the first time she had seen him cry.

  “It’s alright,” she said. “It’s fine.”

  “Like hell it is,” he choked out. “Do you even have a place to go after this?”

  Briar had not thought that far ahead. Or really, any length ahead. All she thought to do was lay in her sterile bed and get better.

  “If my parents buried me I don’t think I have an apartment anymore. Death usually gets you out of a lease,” she said in a small voice.

  “I’m going to see if my parents will let you stay in the spare bedroom until you figure out what to do,” he said. Eric tried to steady himself against the railing of his bed.

  “I don’t think I deserve that,” she said.

  “At the very least, you deserve more than this,” he said.

  ***

  “Wake up,” he whispered, breath hot in her ear.

  She awoke disoriented. The room was dark. Various monitors around them winked in the gloom. The only major source of light came from under the door. Her bed didn’t feel real to her anymore, like some strange dream. She felt too comfortable, like she was going to float off at any moment.

  “What?” Briar said. She rubbed the sleep from her dull eyes.

  Eric was crouched next to her, his glowing eyes desperate. Briar could not see his parents anywhere. She guessed they had gone home to sleep. Wherever that was. She didn’t even know what city the hospital was in.

  “My parents heard the nurses gossiping in the hallway while you were sleeping.” he said, his voice below a whisper. She was shaken. Nobody spoke that low with good news.

  He hesitated, staring at her in the dark. The longer he waited the more full of dread she was. Was her leg permanently damaged? Did she also for totally unrelated reasons have cancer? She did not want to know, but if he hesitated any longer she would snap.

  “Well, what is it?” She asked finally, looking away. His amber glow reminded her too much of him.

  “Your blood test results came in while you were sleeping.” He said. “They are only supposed to share them with you, but apparently they couldn’t help but talk about it.”

  “What is it?” Briar said. “Am I dying?”

  “It’s so rude, talking about you like that in the open.” he said. It was as if he was talking to himself.

  “Am I dying?” she asked again, louder. He looked at her like he had been stung.

  “He got you pregnant,” he sa
id.

  She was back in that moment on the floor, him asking what was wrong while holding her stomach. Somehow, he had sensed the life within her. Her whole body froze up. She wanted to claw out her insides. She wanted to go back to the moment she stabbed him and cut deeper.

  “I didn’t know that was possible,” she said evenly. Eric closed his eyes, letting the room get darker.

  “It’s possible, when a woodswalker mates with a human.” He said. “But it isn’t very common, and usually they are born empty. But we wouldn’t know what it would be until much later.”

  “I hate that word,” Briar whispered to herself. Eric did not seem to notice.

  “If they ask you how this happened, you have to say I’m the father.” He said. Briar stared at him blankly. “They already know that we were together for weeks. Hopefully the development of the fetus lines up with that.”

  Fetus, she had a fetus inside her.

  “But you're not the father,” she choked out.

  “Someone has to be, officially,” he said. “Unless you plan on birthing the next Jesus, someone had to make it with you. And I am the only person you said you found out there.”

  She continued to stare up at his glow. She knew she should say something but she could not get the words out. Anything would be better than letting him flounder. If she spoke, she acknowledges that this is really happening.

  “My parents already agreed to give you the quest room before they heard the news,” he said.

  “You can come live with us while you go through the pregnancy. When the time comes you can keep it, or we can help you find an owl family to take it if it ends up being one of us.” He continued, nervous because of her silence.

  “Or we can help you... take care of it,” he said. She understood what he was implying. She could not speak of it. At least not now.

  “How soon would I know?” Briar asked. “How soon would I be able to tell?”

  “You wouldn’t know until the child decides to use its second skin,” he said. “If it has one.”

  Her silence was deafening in the small space between them. Through the darkness he reached a hand out to steady her. She shut her weary eyes. She wanted just a few more moments before she was once again thrust into a new reality.

  “I need to know that you will follow along,” he said. “It raises too many questions if you don't.”

  “You are the father,” she said. “I’m sorry."

  EPILOGUE

  Briar dropped the pale yellow towel to rest in a puddle at her swollen ankles. Warm drops of water still clung to her hair. A small orange tabby cat whined incessantly from its perch on the dresser to her right. She reached out to stroke it behind the ears. She finally turned to stare into a mirror in front of her.

  The surface just below her knee was one large pitted scar. Her walk was almost unaffected, despite its unsettling appearance. Even now when the weather was particularly cold her leg felt incomplete. She wondered if there was still a sliver of bone somewhere under that cliff, quietly rotting away under the leaf litter.

  Her blond roots were further grown out, leaving a strange halo around her face. She looked like she had received a large shock. She wanted to dye it back to the soft brown of her length, but it was not good for the baby.

  The baby. The hitchhiker stealing her nutrients. Today was a special day in it’s pre-life. Today was the day the life inside her took over. She was officially far along enough. She could no longer terminate it. It was a real thing, living inside her. She stared at the swell of flesh where it currently resided.

  She had never craved children. Even now.

  The thought of settling down with someone was never a comfort. Briar worried that the moment she truly chose someone she would grow to hate them. The moment she made a choice she would not have chosen for her own life was the moment that the resentment would grow within her.

  She did not want to bring children into the world only to have them know their parents did not love each other. Ever since she was old enough to understand the thought dug at her. Her parents did not love each other, and perhaps didn’t even love their children, but continued to fester with hate for their benefit.

  She would not have to be like that with Eric. Because Eric and her are not staying together for the baby. They were not together at all. They had not even touched since they arrived back from the hospital. They grieved separately, then together for their lives.

  The child would live, she just did not know if it would be living with her. One option was closed to her, but it did not make her choice any easier. Eric did not provide his opinion one way or the other as to if she would keep it. It would not be his problem either way. If she gave the baby up for adoption she would leave this place. If she kept the child she would leave this place. Eric did not have to actually fill the role of father.

  Now all she can wonder was... would her child sprout wings and leave her alone?

  If she did, Briar would never be a part of her child’s world. She knew it existed, but no matter how she willed it, it would never be hers. She could crawl into the skin of a wolf, if she so wanted. But the wolf would not move and all her clothes would get bloody. Every time she looked at her eyes in the mirror she would only see how dull they were.

  A knock at the door in front of her snapped her out of her gazing. “Just a moment,” she said. She stuffed her body inside a soft bathrobe, groaning when the fit was tighter than the last time she had worn it.

  “Come in,” she called out from the inside of her closet.

  The person at the door hesitated. Briar no longer felt comfortable using locks. When she first moved in she had locked her door to change into pajamas. As she had moved to turn the knob the resistance sent a powerful wave of panic through her. She had not used it since. In her first few weeks she would get walked in on constantly. Now, people wait.

  Eric slowly slid the door open.

  “Hey, I’m heading out,” he said without looking into the room. “Do you want to come with?” He added.

  Every few days he would leave the house to go hang out with his friends. Every time he would offer to take her with, and every time she turned him down. Each time he spent less time trying to convince her. Even now he had already begun to shut the door.

  Briar had not left Eric’s parents' house since she had moved in, except when she had a doctor's appointment she could not miss. As it turned out, his parents lived in Little River. Every appointment she would shut her eyes the whole ride there, afraid to see his mangled form in every shadow. The moment she had any money to her name she would move far away. Just seeing the mountains crowding the horizon made her ill.

  She clutched her belly through the plush material of her robe. Today felt different somehow. Briar felt able to confront those shadows, knowing she would not see what she feared. In theory.

  “Can I come with? Do you actually mean it?” she asked.

  “Of course I mean it,” he said, as he opened the door back up with a guilty glance.

  “Great,” she said. “Great.” She followed him out into the hallway, a quiet sort of energy moving her along. If she just continually moved towards her destination she wouldn’t have time to think about the implications.

  “Hey Briar, you need shoes to leave the house,” he said with a quiet chuckle as she attempted to go down the narrow oak stairs.

  “Oh, right.” She ducked back into her room to fetch a pair of comfortable sneakers Michelle let her ‘borrow’ indefinitely. They just happened to be the same size. Michelle warned her that it wouldn’t be the case for longer, as her feet would swell with her stomach. Another thing to look forward to, Briar thought with dread.

  When she returned to the hallway Eric laughed loudly. Briar irritably shrunk away, swatting at him lightly.

  “And clothes,” he finally managed to say through his laughter.

  ***

  The world was the same as she remembered it. People were in their own cars, going to their own desti
nations. If she closed her eyes and focused on the rumble of the car over asphalt it even felt the same.

  The town was smaller still than she had imagined. Most of the ‘people’ who lived there were woodswalker families like the one she was currently living with. It was an old logging town filled with refugees from the logged area surrounding it. Many properties were almost as old as the cabin she had left, and in as bad a shape.

  They stopped at a red light. The family in the car next to them turned to look with mild interest, eyes all ablaze with their second soul. Briar turned to look out the windshield, her cheeks growing hot. The blur of eyes passed, trails not unlike the glow of tail lights on a highway at night.

  “It’ll take a while to get used to that still,” he commented.

  Eric’s smile was large and toothy. Briar felt like he was trying too hard to make her see that he was happy she was coming. She supposed that that was better than not being happy at all. His hands gripped the steering wheel tight.

  “I’m not trying to be a jerk, but how would you possibly know?” she said. “You never had to adjust.”

  “I’ve had to adjust to plenty, thanks.” he said. “I’m trying here.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Her eyes flickered back to the passenger window. They slowed again, caught in the tide of cars leaving the main source of employment, the factory.

  “What animal do you think they are?” he asked, nodding at the couple in the beat up white car next to them. Briar sighed.

  “What, can you tell?” She asked. There was nothing about the couple that called to her one way or the other.

  “No, but it’s fun to guess.” he laughed. “It’s a car game I used to play as a kid.”

  Briar caught his eyes flickering to her swollen belly.

  “Huh,” she glanced back at them as they continued ahead. “Deer? They are kind of lanky.”

  “They wish!” He joked. “I bet they are some sort of opossum.”

  Briar did not understand. A large truck carrying an impatient man passed them with a short honk. “That guy is a buffalo.” She guessed.