Daughters of the Wild

by Natalka Burian

  He jogged around the deserted gas pumps and up to the empty side of the lot. A yellowed sign—Broken—was pasted over a collection of miniature vending machines, their clear bellies filled with faded plastic toys. Cello considered his other visits to the Stuckey’s on Route 9. Those had always been covert affairs, where he’d huddled in the cab of Sil’s truck while the older man pumped gas. Sometimes Sil would fling a five-dollar bill at him and send him into the too-bright store for overpriced peanut butter, or a pack of Grand Prix. He’d conducted those transactions like a fugitive, never looking the clerk in the eye, and avoiding the gazes of other customers. Once, a woman—wiry and blonde with a set of small children swarming around her and pulling at her clothes—had asked him to reach for a package of toilet paper from a shelf above the refrigerator cases. He remembered how startled he’d felt, being spoken to directly like that.

  In all of these visits, he’d never once noticed a Crown Light sign. Cello felt for the envelope in his pocket and the money from the Josephs’ cellar. He withdrew the little packet of nail clippings and tried to feel grateful that the baby was still alive. That he was still healthy enough to be growing nails. For a moment, Cello was tempted to cast the cloudy, hardened slivers onto the cracked asphalt of the lot. Instead, he put them back in his pocket. He smoothed the crinkly backs of the stolen twenty-dollar bills before sliding them into the creased envelope.

  He waited for Marcela to leave before going into the store, thinking the sign might be inside. He slid a glance toward the woman behind the counter. She wore glasses with enormously round lenses, and her frosted hair had been processed into a voluminous helmet. She clutched a yellowed paperback, and didn’t look up from it when he came in.

  Cello walked to the back, to the beer cooler. He scanned the row of gold Crown Light cans, looking for something, some signal from the thief who’d taken their baby. He ran a hand along the bottom of the case, but found nothing. He rubbed his chilled palms together and let the door slam shut.

  He looked up and around—there were signs and cutouts, displays of all kinds, but nothing about the refreshing virtues of Crown Light. Cello knew he didn’t have much time. He paced back up to the register, and cleared his throat.

  The woman’s eyes flicked up from her book. “Can I help you, hon?”

  Cello looked down at the blue linoleum tile as he spoke. “Ma’am, do you all sell any other beer than what’s here, in the back?” He shuddered as the words fell out of his mouth, clumsy and too quiet.

  “You got ID?” she asked, a corner of her mouth turned down.

  “It’s not for me—my uncle wanted to know.”

  “What we got is all there.” She looked at him from under the shade of her hairdo. “You gonna buy something?”

  Cello shook his head, and she pushed her stool farther away from the counter with her knee, drawing the book back up toward her face. He pushed the glass doors open. One more look around, he promised the baby.

  On the other side of the store he found a stack of lumber and an ice machine, greasy with handprints. Cello searched on, circling around the restrooms that stank aggressively, even through the closed metal doors. Cello’s mood plummeted. All he could feel was the inverse of that initial accomplishment—that tickle of rightness, of goodness, it was all gone. It was all nothing. Cello plodded back toward the truck, back to Letta’s disappointment and Marcela’s questions.

  He stumbled over a chunk of fieldstone, and looked down to kick it aside. The gold crescent moon of the Crown Light logo winked out at him through the crackling leaves of a dried-out azalea bush. A cardboard sign advertising a deal on twelve-packs was propped against the convenience store siding at the parking lot’s edge. Cello’s body buzzed with the discovery. He leaned down and carefully peeled away a corner of the sign, found nothing, and peeled some more. The space behind the sign was empty, except for a divot in the mulch. Cello scraped away at the spot and uncovered a plastic sandwich bag. He brushed off the dirt—the bag seemed new; the stripe of green and blue that sealed it closed was neon-bright. Something white had been folded into a square inside.

  Cello quickly dropped the cash-filled envelope into the hollow in the mulch and covered it until it would be invisible to anyone but the thief. He slapped the sign back up and retreated to the truck.

  Cello shook with the achievement, and a mix of triumph and terror. He climbed into the cab, leaving Marcela alone in the back. Letta saw him, beaming all over. She shook her head, but her mouth moved in an involuntary, small smile. She started the truck, and Cello clasped his trembling hands in his lap over the plastic bag.

  Letta stopped at the solitary light on the way back to the garden. “What is it?” she asked, nodding toward his hands.

  “I don’t know. Something they left for us.”

  “Not for us,” Letta said, waving a bony finger between them. “For you.”

  Cello pried the bag open with one hand. Inside, there was a folded-up paper towel. He felt Letta shift closer, felt her breath on his face. Cello opened it gently, revealing an oily blotch at the center, and a line in Sharpie written across the top: Another $100. Cello suppressed the sudden rage that flowered in his chest. He had been naive to think this would be the end of it.

  A horn sounded, and Cello looked up; the light was green. Letta swore and the truck heaved forward. He held the paper close to his body so Marcela wouldn’t see it. He looked from the message in his hand and back to the road in a kind of trance. He kept looking, back and forth, until something cleared in his mind. Cello spread the towel over the space between his hands and felt like an idiot—a terrified, ashamed idiot. He understood the oily blotch for what it was, and what the thief had done to put it there. There, filled in the familiar scent of motor oil, was the distorted stamp of a baby’s tiny footprint.

  “It’s his foot,” Cello whispered.

  Letta coughed into the crook of her elbow, clearing her throat. “This isn’t right,” she said, banging her hand on the wheel with each word she said. “I don’t want you messing with this no more.”

  “But if we don’t do anything, they might kill him,” Cello said, stabbing each word toward the driver’s side.

  Letta clenched the steering wheel and glared out at the road. “They probably killed him already. And now they want to play games with us.”

  Cello’s eyes itched with tears. “No, Letta,” he rasped out. “They still got him. He’s alive. I know it.”

  “No, honey,” Letta whispered back. “They don’t. Let it alone.” Cello couldn’t look at her after that.

  13

  The sun beat down overhead and warmed Joanie’s hair dry. It was too hot for what she wanted to do, but she was running out of time. The sooner she began the worship, the sooner she would get her son back. The path leading to the old grove circled around their kitchen garden. A figure leaned down among a swath of cucumbers. A fissure of irritation broke through Joanie’s determination. She hadn’t wanted to see anyone; she didn’t want the complication of another person’s desires and purpose to disrupt her own.

  “Joanie,” Sabina called, and then straightened. “What happened to you? You missed Miracle’s birthday cake.”

  Sabina looked so tall, so suddenly grown, that it occurred to Joanie that the girl’s active growth—all of that voraciously expanding bone and skin and muscle—might help to amplify the worship. The idea drifted over her, like it had belonged to someone else first. “Lost track of time,” she lied, shrugging apologetically. “Hey, can you come help me with something?”

  Sabina’s eyes narrowed, unusually suspicious. “With what?” Joanie knew how she must look, how she must seem. She kneaded her knuckles against the sides of her waist, reminding herself of the body she occupied at the garden, that she was still a sister capable of exchanging sisterly compassion.

  “I know I’ve been distracted, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t th
ere for Miracle, and I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you.”

  Sabina’s surprise and obvious softening made Joanie’s throat tight with guilt. Even if she meant what she said, she was plainly aware of her manipulation.

  “I know you’re worried about the baby.” Sabina took a quick breath, as though she was going to say something else, but turned her face away from Joanie toward the rows of vegetables.

  “Listen, there’s something I need to do, and I know you might not want to, but you’d be helping me a lot.”

  “Helping with what?”

  “I’m going to set up something important. A worship, like I used to do over at the Josephs’.”

  “Why?” Sabina’s voice was open and doubtful all at the same time.

  “Because it’ll make all of our lives easier.”

  “A worship? It’s not like...” She paused plucking the right words out of her mind. “It’s not like what we’re supposed to do in the fields, is it?”

  Joanie shook her head. “No—it’s better. Come on. I’ll show you.”

  * * *

  The girls walked together to the site of the Vine’s first planting. It smelled different than anywhere else in the garden, metallic, like a handful of coins among the flowers. The heat of the morning concentrated the scent, and Joanie said, “Can you smell it, too?”

  “I don’t think so.” Sabina’s forehead compressed in confusion.

  “It’s special here,” Joanie clarified.

  Sabina nodded carefully. “I think maybe I can feel that.”

  “I knew you would.” Joanie broke into an encouraging smile. “Hold still a second.” She traced out a path, following the demands of the Vine, riding the strong currents of its insistence with the soles of her feet. “Right here.” Joanie pointed at a curve of blackberry branches at the edge of the grove. “We’ll build it here.”

  “Build what?”

  “A chapel. A little space for the worship.” Joanie knelt down, and sunk her thoughts down into the earth where the Vine’s roots twisted and stretched. This is our secret, she explained. Don’t tell anyone. She separated a long strip of the Vine, the way she would during a normal harvest, and Sabina gasped at the snap.

  “What are you doing? Letta’s going to murder you!” she said, her body pushed and pulled by the dual impulses to stop Joanie and to remain frozen.

  “It’s okay,” Joanie murmured, soothing both Sabina and the Vine. “Letta won’t know.” She lifted the Vine with the same care she’d used to move her infant from place to place, and carried it to the little cove of blackberry bushes. “Come over here, Sabina. I’ll show you exactly what to do.” Sabina blanched, but she obliged, and crouched beside her foster sister.

  Side by side, the girls wove strand after strand of the Vine through the twiggy bases of the blackberry shrubs, building a little green cavern. The opening faced the old growth Vine. It seemed to Joanie that the plant pulsed with pleasure; she could feel the sap that ran through the walls of the newly made chapel hum in response. She held her hands against the woven walls, giving whatever the Vine needed to take, as she drew the patterns for worship against them. Joanie’s palms burned with a violent pins-and-needles sensation. The setup exhausted her, but she was satisfied, fulfilled, even as the Vine pulled what it needed from her body into the woven wall of stalks.

  “Joanie,” Sabina said, tugging on her elbow. “I have to take a break—I’m so thirsty.” Sabina’s face was mottled and red.

  “Of course you are, I’m sorry. Let’s go get a drink and rest some. Working with the Vine always makes people thirsty.” When Joanie swallowed, her throat scraped with discomfort, too, only she hadn’t noticed. She’d been so absorbed by the pattern she wound into her chapel. Joanie caressed the walls in farewell, and led Sabina back out into the hot, white summer light.

  “How come it does that? Make people thirsty?”

  “Marcela hasn’t told you anything? About the Work?” Joanie couldn’t disguise her surprise. The sisters were so close; it didn’t seem possible that Marcela would keep such a thing from Sabina.

  “Not really. All I know is Marcela doesn’t like doing it. I know it makes her tired and thirsty, same way it makes you and Letta tired and thirsty.”

  “Well, we do the Work so the Vine will grow.”

  “I know that,” Sabina replied, wrinkling her nose playfully.

  “Okay, okay—sorry,” Joanie said. “The way Letta first explained it to me is that the Vine needs human watering. It’ll take anything we can give it, like spit, blood, sweat, everything.”

  “Everything? Even pee?”

  “Even pee.”

  “Why?”

  Joanie hesitated, not wanting Sabina to know too much before she needed to know it. “The Vine needs to feel connected to us. This is the only way it understands. The idea is to make it want to grow because we’re here.” As she explained, she felt the optimism well up behind her ribs like an extra set of lungs. If her worship appealed to the Vine’s desire for connection, it wouldn’t be able to resist restoring the broken bond, snapping back the missing part of a whole family.

  The kids’ trailer was empty and cool. Joanie took a tube of frozen orange juice concentrate from the freezer and sliced off two disks into a glass. Sabina watched her like a hungry cat, her usual even calm debrided by thirst and exhaustion—and by some other irritation Joanie couldn’t identify. “It’ll be just a second.” Joanie mixed the juice, thrilled and unsettled at the same time by Sabina’s odd expression. Had helping her build the chapel shifted something in her foster sister? Was she responsible for a change like that? Did she really have that kind of power? Joanie jabbed the dissolving orange crystals harder, and the spoon clanked against the glass, disrupting the dim silence.

  “Here,” she said, quickly pressing the drink into Sabina’s hand. “Orange juice after is always best. Anything cold and sweet will get you feeling back to normal. A little extra sleep is good, too.” As Sabina drank, Joanie massaged her neck and shoulders, trying to shake a little more energy into them. She could feel her muscles seizing up. Making the chapel had drained her entirely. Joanie ran the cold water and lowered her mouth to the tap.

  “How come only girls can do it?” Sabina asked quietly, her eyes, her face, everything settled back into their usual, pleasing lines. Maybe she had only been thirsty and tired, nothing more.

  Relieved, Joanie wiped her mouth with the back of her arm. “Why do you think? Girls can grow things—we’re designed to make things grow. We can grow whole people, like it’s nothing.” She couldn’t resist imagining her son’s soft little body, and bit on her cheek, suppressing a hot stab of grief. “And because we bleed every month. The Work, the worship, everything, is more powerful when you’re bleeding. Letta would’ve told you all this, once you started bleeding.”

  “Why does Letta have to wait until I start bleeding to tell me? Do you have to be bleeding already, to do this?”

  Joanie shook her head. “It’s safer, though. Then the Vine can’t take too much. While you’re bleeding, you’re strong. Stronger than it, even. I think.”

  Sabina’s mouth twisted in a skeptical frown. “Why? What can it do if it’s stronger than you?”

  “Don’t worry.” Joanie took her hand and squeezed it. “As long as you’re helping me, I won’t let anything bad happen.” She just hoped she was telling the truth—a tickle of uncertainty scratched into her thoughts. “Why don’t you lie down? I’m going to rest a little bit, too.”

  * * *

  When Letta, Cello and Marcela came back to the garden, the others were mostly asleep. The little kids had crashed after all of the cake, and a wilted-looking Sabina had packed them into the trailer for a nap. Joanie was stretched out on a blanket on the lawn, her head resting on her folded arm. She yawned up at the truck’s return, and then flipped to her back, casting a hand over her eyes
. Cello bit down on the insides of his mouth to keep from telling her what had happened.

  “So, what? Y’all just thought you’d call it a day?” Letta said, exiting the driver’s side and crashing the door shut. “Sil!” Letta called out as she fumed toward their trailer, where he was sleeping off the remaining daylight. Letta shook her head, and then pointed at Cello and Marcela. “You two are the only ones still standing—go down the hill and pick some vegetables for dinner.”

  “You’re standing, too,” Marcela said, pointing back at Letta. “Maybe we should all go.”

  “Hush up with that attitude,” Letta snapped. “Now, hurry. And don’t forget to take the crate! We’re feeding half of the goddamn county here.”

  Marcela let out all of the air in her lungs in a creaky moan.

  “Would you quit whining!” This from Joanie, followed by a projectile clump of earth. Cello circled around to the back and took one of the plastic milk crates stacked there. He slung a look back at Marcela. “You coming?” he asked.

  “Yes, fine. God.” Marcela ambled behind him, down to the large kitchen garden. This small stretch of earth was the least tended of all of the plots. Sabina was the only one who remembered the garden that fed them—she was usually the only one who watered and pulled the weeds in the underappreciated spot. Cello sometimes sensed little ripples of irritation from her when someone else had been there. The way they lived, he didn’t blame her. It was hard to make anything your own and keep it that way.

  “So what was that all about? That whole emergency stop at the Stuckey’s.”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Don’t lie to me, Cello. You’re shit at lying.”

  “I am not,” he said, dropping the crate in the grass. “Letta needed milk, just like she told you.”