The Girls with No Names

by Serena Burdick

  The next morning, we found a way to converse picking pole beans, the twisting vines providing partial coverage from the eyes of the house. It hadn’t rained in days and the clumps of dirt exploded into dust under our feet. It was only 7:00 a.m., but I could already feel the heat of the sun creeping up behind the trees.

  “Miss Juska wasn’t lying about the bears,” Mable whispered, her head bent so that all I could see was the brim of her hat. “We’ll have to be careful. I wish I had a rifle. That’d be something. Although then I’d be tempted to shoot Miss Juska and let the whole lot of us free.”

  Cicadas buzzed and heat shimmered over the field. I felt light-headed. If anyone were going to get eaten by a bear it would be me. Was I going to be bait for her again?

  “Don’t look so petrified.” Mable slapped at a mosquito on her arm. “Just steer clear of any cubs and you’ll be all right. I know these woods.”

  “What do you mean you know these woods?”

  “Never you mind, just trust me.” She glanced up with a flash of her crooked teeth. “Or try.”

  A bean snapped off the vine in my fingers. I felt a twinge of revolt toward Mable. She was pulling me in her direction like she had with Edna, like Luella had with the gypsies. I didn’t want to be led anymore. I didn’t trust her, or whatever crime she’d committed.

  Last night she’d whispered her plan to me while the other girls slept. Tonight, we would each steal a pair of boots from the matrons while they slept, sneak into the pantry for food, candles and a kitchen knife, tie it all up in a pillowcase and sneak out the back door. “Kind, trusting old dames.” Mable had laughed in the dark. “Not locking any doors. Too bad for them they didn’t count on me not being a city gal.”

  I looked toward the farmhouse. Miss Carlisle hadn’t come out with us this morning and I wondered which dark window she watched from. “Let’s go right now,” I said.

  Mable laughed, crouching down to search for lower beans. She wasn’t even going to consider doing it my way.

  The other girls were scattered down the bean rows, their hats tipped against the sun, their hands moving from the vines to their baskets with complacency. No one was watching. “The lunch bell won’t ring for hours,” I said.

  “We’d never make it without food. It’s too far. I don’t know about you, miss never-did-laundry-before-in-her-life, but I’m not likely to kill an animal with my bare hands and eat it raw.”

  I wasn’t afraid of death. I’d died when the walls fell away, when I’d tumbled from the bed with Mable’s stupid rouge on my face, when I’d been left in the pit. What was one more death?

  Mable stayed crouched where she was, plucking beans and dropping them in her basket, her skirt trailing in the dirt around her.

  I didn’t trust her, but for some reason she trusted me. I wasn’t trustworthy. I was going to turn her in to save myself, the point being that I could save myself. I wasn’t helpless. I didn’t have to hover in between. I could choose.

  I stepped backward, the inviting shade of the forest stretching away to my left. Mable stood up, watching with disbelief, the look on her face taunting me to do it. She didn’t think I had it in me, but what she didn’t know was that my malformed body was the real prison, the forest nothing compared to waking up unable to breathe. I was dying. Running made no difference now.

  Impulse leapt inside me. I dropped my basket, turned and ran, the edge of the forest catching me in cool shade, pine needles dulling the thud of my shoes. I sprinted, not caring if my heart kept up, my mind void of thought. Wind cooled my cheeks, and my hat blew from my head. Gradually, the ground rose and I was forced to slow down and hitch up my skirt in order to scramble over the large rocks jutting between the trees. When I grew dizzy, I sat on a boulder to catch my breath while my eyes readjusted. I’ll have to go slower, I thought, walk at a pace that won’t turn the world upside down. I’ll find a road, hail a passing wagon or car and find my way home.

  A crash through the brush brought me to my feet as Mable stumbled from a thicket of mountain laurel, her face aflame, her short hair damp with sweat and curled over the tops of her ears like the twisted ends of taffy.

  “Come on, can’t rest now,” she said, scrambling over the rock in front of me. “You’re the crazy one dashed off in broad daylight. I already heard the bell ringing. All we can hope is that they don’t know which direction we’ve gone.”

  “I can’t keep running.”

  She stopped and looked back. “Don’t I know that? We’ll walk, but fast. You got that in you?”

  I nodded, hiked up my skirt and followed her over the rocks. After a while the hill evened out and descended to a flat forest floor. We kept up a good pace, the silence encouraging. No dogs or men were following, yet. I noticed Mable had taken the lead.

  “Do you know where the road is?” I asked.

  “No idea. Finding a road’s a bad idea anyway. First person drives by will take us straight back to Valhalla. People love being heroes. It won’t matter what we tell them. Girls always have a story and no one ever believes them.” She looked up into the sky. “We’re heading north.”

  I stopped walking. “No,” I said. “I’m finding a road. Someone might not believe your story, but they’ll believe mine.”

  Mable turned. “Your story’s that good, is it? The more outlandish the less likely they are to believe it.” Her face softened. “If there’s one thing I’ve shown you it’s that people can’t be trusted. Whoever’s driving on that road will know exactly where you came from. Why do you think Miss Juska dresses us all alike? If it’s a woman, she’ll see it as her Christian duty to take our troubled souls right back, and if it’s a man he’ll take us for whores and do what he likes with us. These woods are the best coverage we have, and it wouldn’t do to be out here alone. If something happens to one of us, the other’s there to help. I need you as much as you need me.”

  Mable fell silent. Around us, the forest stirred with life, squirrels darted up tree trunks, leaves rustled and birds twittered. I suspected she was trying to even things up, but I still didn’t entirely trust her.

  “What’s north?” I asked.

  “Home.”

  The word was a longing in my chest. Thirst had set in and my legs were already tired, but I would have followed that word anywhere. “How far?”

  Mable shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Mable

  When Mama and I were on the train heading to New York City all those years ago, I made a note of every town we passed. That way, I could go back and search each one for Papa when I grew up. Valhalla had only been a few stops away from where we started; twenty miles at the farthest, which meant Effie and I would reach Katonah in a day or two. Then again, I was never very good with directions.

  By the third day, I began to lose hope.

  The weather remained hot and dry. We’d drunk from a stream and slept under the stars, but we hadn’t had a thing to eat and my limbs felt weak and wobbly. Why hadn’t Papa taught me what to eat in the woods? I hadn’t seen a single berry. Maybe bark was an option.

  So far Effie had kept a steady pace, but she’d woken that morning looking like some vicious creature had sucked the blood out of her in the night. Not a word had crossed her lips since she’d shaken the pine needles from her hair, gazed at the sky and moved forward.

  By early afternoon she was hardly moving. Each ragged breath sounded like a tiny saw hacking away at her lungs.

  “I’m up by five points unless you hear a piping plover,” I said. Neither one of us knew birdcalls, but we’d made up a game of shouting out whatever bird came to mind when one squawked or chirped above us. Five points a bird, and I was one up on Effie.

  She stopped walking and looked at me, her eyes flecked with gold like tiny leaves had fallen into her irises. I waited for her to say something, but she only tilted her head
to the side with a look of confusion and resumed her slow, deliberate steps.

  I’d handed her that one. All she had to do was say piping plover. “This is your fault,” I said, my shoes snapping a twig in half. “Running off without reason. I told you we needed to get supplies. If we’d stolen food from the pantry we wouldn’t be in this situation.” Luck landed me at Valhalla only to have me die of starvation in the woods, I thought. “We could pray,” I said aloud. “It most likely won’t help, but it can’t hurt.”

  * * *

  Finding myself on the truck to Valhalla was a prayer answered, but I was suspicious of it. There was no way it was Sister Gertrude’s merciful intention allowing me out. She had some greater gain. What, I couldn’t be sure. I’d watched the dark edges of the House of Mercy fade away in the truck window like a picture fading from its frame, and knew I’d never set foot in that place again. Sister Gertrude had something on me and I didn’t expect to leave the farm in anything less than chains.

  Running was nothing, as I figured I was as good as hung already.

  The sisters sending Effie to work on the farm made no sense either, being sick and all, but I figured it was my good luck. A chance to make amends. Not for my sins—they were too far-reaching—but because I owed Effie. Truth was, I liked her the moment she kicked me in the shins that first night. She wasn’t weak like Edna thought. Lying in the infirmary, I overheard the doctor tell Sister Mary that people with Effie’s heart condition rarely live past twelve years old, and that he’d never seen anyone live to the age of fourteen. Effie was tougher than any of us.

  After the police beat me for leading them astray about Edna, and dragged me back to the sisters, I lay unwashed for three weeks with that man’s filth on me, my face throbbing with pain. If my hands hadn’t been chained to the bed I would have strangled the first person came near me. Not Effie. She came back from the pit and calmly let that doctor stab her with a needle every day. She didn’t even put up a fight when the sisters sent her back to work in the laundry. Not an outward one, at least, but I could see she was fighting all the while inside.

  Behind me, Effie’s breathing suddenly changed to something shallow and dangerous. I halted. “I’m tired. I need a rest,” I said, knowing she’d move forward until the last breath died out of her.

  Dappled sun beat hot through the trees. Insects buzzed. Effie propped her hands on her knees and hung her head. Her knotted hair flopped over, revealing red, welted mosquito bites on the back of her neck. I itched my own, rubbing them with the flat of my finger so I wouldn’t break the skin.

  “Those cicadas are louder than New York City traffic,” I said, hoping she’d laugh, or grunt. Anything. All that came out was her slow, sawing breath and I felt my own chest tighten. Then I heard something else, a steady, distant clop. I strained my ears, the sound growing distinctly louder. “Do you hear that? It’s hooves! It’s coming from that direction. Can you keep going?”

  Effie righted herself, her face the blue of moon shadow. I put my arm around her, startled by her sharp rib bones. “You’re going to be fine as soon as we get some food in you.” She tried to reply but I shushed her. “Save your breath,” I said, moving us as quickly as I could in the direction I’d heard the horse, panic rising when all I saw were more and more trees. Then the ground dipped abruptly and I held on to Effie as we stumbled down a bank and landed on a rutty, dirt road.

  “Praise be to God!” I whooped, my muddled brain making me slightly hysterical as I eased Effie from my shoulder. Between the heat and lack of food, it was all I could do not to faint. I took a few breaths and looked up, the trees and road refocusing. “Whoa Nelly, I’m light-headed.”

  Effie sat in the road staring up at me. “You have to put me on a train. I need to get back to Luella.” It was the longest sentence she’d strung together in days and the effort made her pitch forward. Through her dress, the spine of her curved back protruded like knotty wood.

  I dropped down beside her, the ruts packed down hard and dusty around us. “I can’t put you on a train without any money. Don’t worry, I’ll figure out a way to get you home. We just need to get some food and rest first. Then we can think straight.”

  By the time I heard the wagon wheels creaking, an orange sunset had set the tops of the trees on fire. Far down the road, a horse-drawn cart was making its slow way toward us. I jumped up, my head swimming and my heart racing. I licked my cracked lips hoping they weren’t bleeding, my mouth so parched I could feel the grit of the road on my tongue. My shorn hair had grown out a little, and I tried to smooth it back but strands kept slipping into my face.

  “Whoa.” The driver pulled his horse to a halt, raising his bushy, white eyebrows in surprise. He wore a straw hat tipped back on his head, and the sleeves of his gingham shirt were rolled to his elbows revealing deeply tanned forearms. “You ladies need some help?” His voice crackled with age.

  “Just a ride, if you’d be so kind,” I said, my own voice dry and strained.

  “Where to?” The man took off his hat and wiped his brow with the back of his arm. “Hot to be out and about. Your friend sick?” He nodded at Effie, sitting in the dirt with her head between her knees.

  “She’ll be all right. She’s just hot. We’re looking to get to Katonah.”

  The man jutted his thumb over his shoulder. “Back that a way three miles.”

  “Is this Toll Road?” The man nodded and my chest swelled. We were so close. “You can drop us at the fork up ahead.”

  Lifting Effie to her feet, I helped her into the back of the wagon and climbed in after her, settling beside a pile of empty wooden crates. The man handed me a glass milk bottle, rinsed and filled with water. I let Effie take the first sip, water trickling down her chin, before helping myself. The water was warm, but clean and refreshing. I never thought I’d want for water so badly.

  “I reckon you could use some food too.” The man reached for a basket at his feet.

  My stomach had long ago folded in on itself. “You reckon right,” I said as he handed the basket to me over the back of his seat. “Thank you kindly.”

  The man clicked his tongue at the horse. “Walk on,” he said, and the wagon lurched forward as the horse continued its slow gait down the road.

  With shaky hands, I unfolded the checked cloth in the basket and ripped a slice of dark bread in two, handing half to Effie and stuffing the other half in my mouth, swallowing so fast my stomach squeezed in protest. I didn’t care. There was sliced ham and yellow cheese and blueberry pie. Effie and I ate with our fingers, licking their blue tips without shame. The food put a spot of color back into Effie’s cheeks and her eyes seemed to open up to the world again. When we finished, I slouched down and rested my head against the wagon, looking into the thick, green leaves passing overhead with a sense of deep gratitude. I’d been walled up for two years, four if you count my time in New York City. That was a different kind of walled in, but trapped just the same. Not until that moment did I realize freedom was a breath of clean air, a breeze in the trees and the silent tramp of a horse’s hooves. Effie slouched over, with her head on her arms, staring into her palms. I wondered if she found her freedom there, in the small universe of her own hands. Her breathing seemed to have evened out and her chest rose and fell steadily.

  “See,” I said, “rest and food’s all a person needs in this world.”

  “And family,” she said, closing her eyes.

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” I answered.

  At the fork in the road, the man pulled his horse to a stop. The sky had dimmed from orange to a deep purple. “Which way are you headed?” he asked.

  The path leading to my old cabin was only a short distance to the left. “We’ll get out here,” I said, climbing down and helping Effie out. She leaned against me, dust from the horse’s hooves stirring around us.

  “You got kin nearby?” The man looked concern
ed. “There’s not a house for miles.”

  “We’re fine, thank you.”

  He jutted his chin at Effie. “Don’t seem right leaving you two out here. It’ll be dark soon. You’re welcome to come on home with me for the night. My wife’s most likely cooked a peach pie. Peaches are falling from our tree like rain.”

  Peach pie sounded like a dream. I shook my head. “No, thank you, sir. Like I said, we’ll be just fine.” I was getting nervous at what a good look the man had gotten of us. Miss Juska would make sure our faces were in the paper. She wasn’t the type to admit defeat.

  Turning away from the wagon, I held on to Effie and led her slowly down the road in the opposite direction where I intended to go, the man calling after us, “Our farmhouse is only half a mile down. My wife would be happy to feed you. She wouldn’t like to hear I let you wander off.”

  I waved my hand over my head, his voice trailing away as I kept on walking. I didn’t turn us around until I was good and sure he was gone, making my way back to the fork and heading us in the same direction the wagon had gone. “We’re close now,” I said, a warmth of excitement filling my belly.

  There was no path anymore, just brambles and hogweed up to my knees. It took me three tries to find the circle of pine bush where the path met the road. Papa used to say it was good luck to build your house near a perfect grove of pine bush.

  How wrong he was, I thought, staring at that overgrown path for so long Effie finally said, “Is this where your house used to be?”

  “Not exactly,” I said, fear beginning to waylay my excitement. “Try and not disturb the brush. Even if that old farmer tries to turn us in, it’s not likely anyone’s going to find us out here.”

  The path seemed longer than I remembered, but it was slow going. New saplings sprouted up and the brush was thick and thorny. When we reached the crabapple tree and the stump where Papa and I sat waiting for coyotes, my heart turned over in my chest.