Daughters of the Wild

by Natalka Burian

  “Joanie?” Sabina said, pulling her back into the little chapel with both her hands clamped on Joanie’s arms. “What happened? Are you alright?”

  Joanie felt a swell of tenderness for the girl, and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into a hug. The momentum of the embrace swung the grisly plastic bag against the sides of their bodies.

  “I’m fine—don’t look so worried. I know what I’m doing, I promise. Every time I come to the chapel, or use the Vine, I understand it better. It wants me to be with my son again. It wants us all to be happy. Can you feel it? I’m going to make things better for all of us. I’ll take all the harm far away from here.”

  Sabina pulled back, a little stiff. “Take the harm away? Shouldn’t we take ourselves away from the harm?” She rubbed at her eyes, at pollen or tears, Joanie couldn’t tell.

  “You know, I used to think that was possible.” Joanie smoothed the younger girl’s dark hair off her face, astonished by how tall she suddenly seemed. “But the kind of harm that’s all over this place—that’s over all of Mother Joseph’s places—it’s the kind of harm that follows you everywhere.”

  Sabina nodded, her face wet. Real silent weeping—Joanie thought, This is why. I’m doing this for all of us.

  “I used to feel exactly like you do, but I don’t anymore. You know why? Because now I’m not powerless.” Joanie closed her eyes and reached out along that tingling connection she felt with the Vine. “I’m gonna make it better, baby. You’ll see.” Joanie used the hem of her T-shirt to wipe Sabina’s face. “Do me a favor?”

  Sabina nodded, her eyes everywhere except on Joanie.

  “Go get me a couple more cuttings. For later. And keep Sil and them away, alright? What I got to do next is big. It might seem scary, but you shouldn’t be scared.” The words bubbled out of Joanie’s mouth as naturally as a spring from the earth. She could feel the ease they would bring Sabina. She could feel the green pulse of truth in her promise. The garden would be better; she could make it a peaceful place, a safe place to raise a child, a safe place to grow up.

  “Okay, Joanie.” Sabina turned, running her ash-covered hands through her hair as she walked.

  * * *

  Joanie packed the extra cuttings and the bag of animal remains into the pillowcase filled with ashes. She swung the bundle of treasures by her side and headed to the cover of the blackberry bushes where she’d hidden the rest of her supplies; it was also the place she’d hidden her baby weeks ago. The decoy fire had worked. Letta would believe she was all finished now. Joanie imagined her, collapsed in relief on her bed, a cold compress on her head and a drink in her hand. The first fire hadn’t been entirely for show. She needed the ashes for Helen’s recipe.

  She paused, hearing the whisper of the Vine all around her, and corrected herself—she needed the ashes for her own recipe. Joanie’s thoughts began to lap one another, moving more quickly than she could track them. Maybe she had taken too much from the Vine; maybe she had pushed too far in. Joanie felt different, like the molecules of her body were arranging themselves in a new way.

  Whatever was happening to her had already half-happened, she decided. She wouldn’t leave it unfinished. Joanie headed into the woods, the brush thick, catching and scraping her skin. She walked as though following an invisible trail, a path that had existed before the woods had even grown. The pulse of the Vine drew her forward. She didn’t stop, or slow, or hesitate. She was already far from where her foster family hid in their trailers.

  Joanie stopped, her bare legs plunged into a thicket of swamp roses. She saw the blood well up on her skin from the deepest of the thin scarlet scratches, surprised that she hadn’t felt a thing. She pushed a wave of fear back.

  Joanie reached into the back pocket of her shorts and removed an X-Acto knife. She slid the knife open and began to slice shoots and branches from the thicket. She held up a clump and turned it around, examining it from all sides. She held the bundle, separating it into three pieces, and wove the sections into a crude braid in the shape of her sign of protection. Her hands bled and stung, but the pain gave her a little jolt of satisfaction. She could feel the sap from the Vine glimmer with approval through her veins. Her blood would only make the worship more powerful.

  Joanie reached into her back pocket for the plastic lighter she’d stashed there. Another fire out here would be trouble, and not just with Sil and Letta. A fire here, with all of the brush and woods surrounding it, would be massive: an important sacrifice of the trees in the equation of her worship. The Vine’s demands were as clear and insistent as the demands of her own body. She would give it whatever it wanted in exchange for her baby, in exchange for that new surge of strength. It would be only a matter of time before the volunteer fire department arrived. She knew that—a current of reason still ran underneath all of her delirious preparation. But for how long? Joanie wondered. When would she forget herself?

  She was dizzy with the heat and the thrill of her act of creation, but took a breath. She knew, despite everything, she was calm—her face still, composed.

  “I know what I’m doing,” she said out loud. She didn’t know if the reassurance was meant for Helen Joseph, or the Vine, or herself.

  Joanie emptied the plastic bag and the rat fell onto the ground in a small, wet heap. She lit the woven swamp rose, shaking away the lighter when the skin at her thumb began to blister from the heat. Joanie dropped the burning branch onto the furred, dead body and stepped away. She couldn’t name the sensation that swelled through her. She could only identify that it felt like more.

  The blaze grew in the span of a few breaths. It caught on and lingered over the rat, the smell of burning hair and fur, along with burning flesh, hung in the air. It didn’t take long for the fire to jump from the pile to the surrounding brush. It was already too big for a single person to manage. The Vine’s approval beat out from the flames.

  Joanie worked quickly, using a fallen branch to scoop some of the burning debris toward her. She beat down the orange glow to ash with her feet, and the scent of melting rubber compounded with every stomp. She scooped a few handfuls of fresh ash into the half-filled pillowcase. Joanie mixed the two sets of ashes through the cloth carefully, oblivious to the blazing danger growing around her.

  * * *

  Sabina hurried to the trailers, her movements frantic, half starting and half stopping. Cello watched her from where he worked, her jerking motions like a rabid animal’s.

  “Sabina!” he called. “You alright? Where’s Joanie? I thought we weren’t going to leave her alone.”

  Sabina shook; Cello couldn’t tell whether it was anger or fear that drove her trembling. “No, you should go get her. She sent me away. Joanie needs you. She’s not herself.” Sabina pushed him down the slope.

  “What about you? Are you alright? Did she say something to you? Did she do something?”

  Sabina shook her head, her arms out, setting a perimeter around herself. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she repeated. “What is that? Do you smell it? Is there a fire?”

  Cello tried to approach her slowly. “Sabina, take a deep breath, okay? In through your nose, out through your mouth. We put out the fire, remember? I saw it myself.”

  “Cello,” Sabina said, her eyes wide, her body suddenly still. She raised her arm and pointed to something behind him.

  Cello turned, and saw a dark plume of smoke rise up from the base of the hill. Then he ran, calling Joanie’s name as he fled. He ran straight through the heaving layers of smoke to the source, because he knew, as surely as he knew the contents of his heart, that Joanie would be there. She was completely still, as though snared in a trance. He nearly crashed into her, unable to control his speed. The sky above them simmered with dark clouds, and the loom of a thunderstorm snapped in the gusting breeze.

  Joanie jolted at his arrival, and something behind her eyes flickered. Cello waited for her to tell him wh
at was wrong, what she needed. In those few silent moments, the fire grew, catching onto an old oak tree. The sound of an animal crashing through the woods rumbled toward them. Cello and Joanie turned, expecting a lurching deer or bear, but staggering up to them and to the fire was Sil. He was screaming, too, though Cello couldn’t quite understand him. The dry heat blossomed around them, an eerie counterpoint to the humid summer air. Cello reached for Joanie as Sil lurched toward them, his arms waving furiously.

  “Get her out of here!” Cello heard through the gold curtain of the blaze.

  But Joanie, in the middle of the fire’s fierce grip, didn’t look like she needed anyone to get her out of anywhere. Cello thought she looked calm and powerful, like she could walk through the fire and away from the danger. Sil reached them, stinking, so saturated with drinking that Cello thought he might just be flammable, too.

  “Get back, Joanie!” he screamed. “Cello, help me!”

  Cello watched Sil’s feeble attempt at stomping out the flames in the gusting wind, and he knew there was no chance that they could all put the fire out together. The forest was beyond their help.

  They stood off the side as Sil danced along the fire’s edge. Joanie’s lips were pressed together in a little satisfied smile. She watched the fire, and nothing else. The blaze grew out and away from them, the smoke billowing across the darkening afternoon sky.

  The distant call of sirens from the nearest access road propelled Sil away, though he still hurled his arms and stomped the ground like a madman. When Cello saw him start to run toward them, he also began to run, pulling Joanie along with him. They ran, sometimes tripping and slowing, but faster than Sil, who staggered along after them, repeatedly falling to his shins and swearing. Soon, he was so far behind them that Cello couldn’t hear him anymore.

  He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want Joanie to suffer more punishment. He didn’t want to suffer more punishment. Maybe Letta would send Joanie away again. Maybe she’d send Cello away. Outside of that threat, another foreign compulsion swept through him—to be alone with Joanie, not to bask in her presence, but to force an explanation. More than anything else, Cello was desperate to understand her the way he did before her stay at Mother Joseph’s.

  He remembered the money in his pocket, and veered away from the path that led to the garden. They wouldn’t go back, he decided. He pulled Joanie along toward the road, toward Route 9. They slowed down, but half skipped and half walked along the edge of the faded asphalt, ducking into the cover of the tree line when a car or truck sped along.

  They rounded a curve in the road that bulged out into the back lot of the Stuckey’s. The weathered vinyl siding of the convenience store drew Cello forward like a light blinking out a message. He wanted to see if the money he left had been taken. In a flash of selfishness, he thought maybe he would take it back. It would help him and Joanie get farther away.

  “Let’s take a break,” he said to Joanie, stretching his arm out, almost touching her.

  Joanie looked up at him, her eyes bright. She followed him to the small stretch of littered sidewalk and sat down on the curb. Her skin glowed eerily under the fluorescent light of the Stuckey’s.

  “Wait here, I’m gonna get us a drink,” Cello said.

  He returned with a bottle of bloodred energy drink, but not before checking on the envelope buried beneath the Crown Light sign; it still had not been taken.

  “Here,” he said, passing Joanie the bottle. His throat was dry from the walking and from being so close to the fire, but he let Joanie drink first. He couldn’t help himself. Taking care of Joanie had been a reflex his entire life. Even now, when he couldn’t make sense of her or his shifting feelings, he couldn’t help it.

  Joanie’s scraped-up arms looked sinister, almost angry, clutching the cold, red bottle. “Can I get you something else?” Cello pointed back toward the convenience store. “For those cuts?”

  “No, thanks,” she said between swallows. “It’ll work better like this—being open.” Cello sat down on the sidewalk beside her, and she handed him the rest. Cello finished it off, tapping the empty plastic cylinder against his knees. He forced away the swell of fear Joanie’s words pulled out of him.

  “What do you want to do?” Cello asked. “We can’t go back right now. Letta and Sil would kill us.”

  “I know.” Joanie paused and her focus shifted, as though she was listening to someone who wasn’t there. “I need to get to a crossroads,” Joanie said.

  “What? What’re you talking about?” Cello stared at her, wondering if something in her was really gone, burned away in the fire or before.

  “I didn’t do all of that Work for nothing, Cello. There’s a plan I need to follow.”

  “If you want me to help you, you need to tell me more than that.”

  “If I don’t get to a crossroads, everything I did so far will be a waste.” She stood up and scrubbed at her face with her filthy palms. “Let’s keep going,” she said.

  Cello stood and they walked on until the day stretched to its end. They’d made it almost eight miles from the garden, to where Cello hoped they’d make it before dark—a garishly lit, lemon yellow motel near the exit to the interstate. He tugged on Joanie’s arm, pointing her toward the pool of light streaming from the place.

  “We can’t go there,” Joanie said, shaking him off.

  “Yeah, we can.”

  “They’re not going to let us stay for free,” she said, and kept walking.

  “I have money,” Cello explained.

  “Really.” Joanie stopped, and faced him. “Since when?”

  “I’m working on a special project. Letta and Sil don’t know about it.”

  “Then you should save it. We can sleep in the woods tonight, or keep going till we find something better,” Joanie said.

  “No, we can’t. We tried that already and Sil found us in a minute.” Cello was shocked that he’d spoken to her that way, surprised by the anger that leaped up in him and made each word rasp with harshness.

  “I don’t think Sil’s looking for us yet,” Joanie spat, her eyes narrowed. “That fire kept him busy, I know it.”

  “Well, he won’t be looking for us in motels—he doesn’t know we’d be able to pay. And anyway, if we go around looking like this—” Cello pointed lamely at their filthy, smoke-drenched clothes and faces “—somebody’s going to put two and two together and call the police.”

  “I can’t stop now, Cello.” Joanie kicked at a loose knot of asphalt in frustration, sending it in an arc into a patch of dirt nearby.

  “Look, you’re exhausted. Whatever you’re trying to do, you’ll do better once you rest. We can get inside, and figure out how to get to your crossroads or whatever. And maybe what comes after that.” Cello exhaled all of the air in his lungs and wondered, What could possibly happen next? He didn’t have that much money.

  “What comes after? I’m going to get him back—that’s it. But I think you’re right. This’ll all work better in the daylight. Let’s just get inside,” Joanie said, abruptly turning, walking quickly toward the motel lights, her limbs propelled by adrenaline or some other mysterious burst of energy.

  Cello followed her, though his movements were imprecise, like he was wearing another person’s body as a biohazard suit. Normally, he would always find pleasure in helping Joanie. But there was no pleasure in this. He thought about what Sabina had said; Joanie was not herself. Maybe he wasn’t helping Joanie at all, just a blurred copy of her.

  * * *

  Joanie waited outside in the dark while Cello paid a leering clerk in exchange for a sticky brass key. Cello unlocked the door and let Joanie in first. The room was dark and cavernous compared to the packed and stuffy kids’ trailer. Cello didn’t feel like one of the kids in this room.

  Joanie flipped the light on in the bathroom and closed the door. He heard the shower run a
nd quelled the alien impulse he felt to run. Where would he go, anyway? Cello pinched his arm, focusing on the sliver of compressed skin. He cared about Joanie, and worried about her. They were both just overwhelmed. Clearly the loss of Junior had sent Joanie over the edge. He thought about the folded paper towel in his pocket, and what would happen if she knew about it. Maybe it would divert her from this path of destruction. To wherever it led. She would see there was something real to be done. Maybe Joanie would even go to the police, if she knew they had something to go on.

  Cello felt the darkness hanging thick around him, and switched on the TV as a distraction. The eleven o’clock news glowed out in a muted blur. Cello started, his throat tightening, as he began to recognize the woods being shown on the screen. It was the fire, or rather, it was the charred remains of the fire Joanie had set. A doughy volunteer’s face stared gravely into the camera, his mouth moving soundlessly. Cello fiddled with the knob on the television set but the silence remained. He read the line in bold white typeface beneath the firefighter’s head with some difficulty: COUNTY-WIDE ARSON INVESTIGATION.

  He was shot through with an icy panic. What would happen to the kids? To all of the plots? If the police found Joanie, would she go to jail? Would he? He knew what Joanie did hadn’t felt right, but to have it aligned with this twisted, capacious word transformed it into something else. Joanie had dragged him into the sinister maze of this word: arson.