Daughters of the Wild

by Natalka Burian

  “What did you do, honey?” Marcela asked her sister, so softly Cello wasn’t sure if she’d said it, or if he imagined it. He smoothed Sil’s shoulder, thin and withered under his faded work shirt.

  “I took the baby,” Sabina said, pressing her forehead into Marcela’s chest. “I took him,” she repeated, this time directly to Letta. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have.” Sabina wasn’t crying, but her body shook and twisted in the way of a sheet drying on a clothesline. Nobody moved, only Sabina, her body crumpling under the confession.

  “What did you do with him, honey?” Marcela said, turning her sister so that they faced one another, blocking out the others, blocking out the room.

  “I took him to the Baptist church on the other side of the creek and I left him there.”

  “Outside?” Marcela murmured, holding her sister close. “Did you leave him outside?”

  “Inside. I broke the glass in the door. I figured someone would find him if I made the alarm go. A police car came, so I left.”

  Marcela rubbed circles into Sabina’s back, and Cello noticed he was doing the same thing to Sil, transfixed by the sisters before them.

  “Why’d you do it, Sabina?” Cello’s voice sounded strange, distorted by the pain in his head.

  “I wanted him to have a chance. To be regular, and have a real life.” Sabina’s voice was muffled by her sister’s shoulder. “I didn’t want him to be like us.”

  Cello felt Sil suck in his breath.

  “I shouldn’t have done it, Mar.” Sabina shuddered against Marcela and repeatedly slammed her fist into the side of her leg.

  “No, you should. You did the right thing, honey. No baby should be born like this. No baby should turn into us.” Marcela hushed and soothed her.

  “What about the notes?” Cello asked, suddenly furiously hot, pushing Sil’s shuddering body away from his own. “Was it you leaving the notes?”

  Sabina didn’t speak, but Cello watched her nod against Marcela’s shoulder. Cello heard Letta scramble toward the heap of Sil he’d left on the floor.

  “Why would you do that? How could you make us all so scared? You’re not like that, Sabina.” Cello stood and moved toward the girls, feeling the violence swell up once again. Marcela, though, blocked him. She wouldn’t let him near enough to hear what Sabina answered.

  “What?” Cello hollered.

  “I said, I did it for Mar. So we could save up. To get away like she wanted. I didn’t want her to end up married off to some other Joseph, and never see her again.” Sabina’s speech was more weeping than talking, and Marcela shushed into her ear. “So, we could have a chance, too.”

  “Where is it? What’d you do with my money?” Cello was astonished by his anger, but he let it come.

  “At home. In the kids’ trailer under the stove. Cello, I—I’m so sorry,” she stammered.

  At that, he was out the door. Cello felt for the silver crunch of Sil’s keys on top of the front left tire. He moved like a confident stranger, into the truck and behind the wheel. He peeled away from the Joseph place for the last time, and drove back to the garden. Cello’s vision still hadn’t settled. And the world through the windshield bulged and contracted with every blink. He drove slowly, but arrived at the garden in one piece.

  It was quiet, vacant, unfamiliar without the noise and bustle from the other kids. He fiddled with the latch to the kids’ trailer, finally shouldering it open the way Letta had done many times before. He tried not to look at their shabby things as he made his way to the stove, crouching low, feeling under the broken appliance where the linoleum was somehow both sticky and dusty. He saw one of Miracle’s shoes and closed his eyes tightly, feeling only for the money.

  He found it—a packet, paper wrapped around the money he’d earned with Ben and Marcela. Ben, Marcela, Joanie, Sabina, Miracle, Emil and the baby he’d wished belonged to him—they all hemmed in around Cello where he lay, sprawled on the floor, as though they were really there. He didn’t understand what he was doing, coiling away from all of them, away from the garden, away from all of it. What would happen to the rest of his family if he went his own way and deserted them all? What would happen to the girls, and the little kids? What would happen to Joanie? Even though Mother Joseph’s body was lying out in the grass of her front lawn, it didn’t make the rest of them any safer. The Vine still demanded worship, demanded tending. The only truth Cello understood was that he didn’t want to be like Letta or even Sil. He didn’t want to continue with the Josephs’ violent way of doing business, and he didn’t want it to corrupt the people he loved.

  Cello took the money and crammed it into his back pocket. And then, despite his reason, the voice that screamed at him to escape alone—the part that had fought Sil to the ground, the part that had discovered his love for Joanie wasn’t what he thought it was—Cello began to pack.

  He took the sheet off Emil’s cot and spread it on the floor. He plucked up a few things for each kid, just small things, little, worthless treasures that they would miss: a gold headband, Miracle’s blue tin box, a patterned crocheted blanket, a book and a silver whistle. Before he knotted the bundle closed, Cello moved to the empty space in the kitchen where the baby’s crate had stayed. He picked up the pacifier on the counter. He hoped with all of the energy he had left that the baby was alright, that he was safe and warm in some new home, with some new family.

  Just because he didn’t want to leave it there, Cello pocketed the pacifier. He took the bundle out to the pickup, and rested his forehead against the center of the wheel. It was awful, this place of time where the change had to happen. He understood the next part would be difficult, but it would be for the best.

  Cello drove to the last place he thought he’d ever think to visit for help. He drove to the neatest, strangest, most beautiful place he’d ever been.

  27

  Joanie kicked herself afloat in the running water. Even though she was moving forward, and there was no going back, she felt alone in her progress. Emptied. She had given so much—to the Vine and to Helen, both. She hadn’t felt so alone and so lost since after her trial in Mother Joseph’s front room, since Amberly Joseph made Joanie disappear.

  Weeks, Joanie thought. At least ten days. Time spent alone, locked in the shed with Josiah’s turtle. Mother Joseph had locked them away together, as though they were both to blame for Josiah’s death. All through that time Josiah’s decomposing body waited outside, rolled in a blue tarp awaiting burial, because Mother Joseph wasn’t sure about what she wanted to do. When the wind turned, she could smell him.

  As his father’s body became less of a body, the baby’s grew silently inside of her. Joanie shivered during the nights, and used a corner of the shed for emptying her bladder. No food, nothing from the Josephs, but her hand dipping into the rain barrel through a splintered opening in one of the slats—handful after handful of musty water, drinking down clots of drowned gnats. It was the only thing she could do to keep from dying. She handed little sluices of rainwater down into the turtle’s tank. They were lucky that it rained most nights. Mother Joseph expected her to be dead, from the venom and neglect. Joanie whispered affectionately down to the dull, rough shell. Of course Mother Joseph had forgotten about the green plastic rain barrel. She’d forgotten how thin Joanie’s arms had become. She’d forgotten that Frank had kicked into the shed a month ago, nicking an opening into the back wall. It was nothing for Joanie to poke and peel away at the small split in the wood, nothing for her to widen it just enough to reach through.

  Drinking the rainwater and scraping Helen’s pattern for worship onto the shed’s dirt floor was all she could do. She knew better than to try to escape, weak as she was. Even then, through her dulled senses, Joanie knew something else was coming.

  Joanie had removed the turtle from his stinking aquarium and set the creature on the floor, thinking maybe it wanted or needed to walk. But it onl
y sat there, sealed inside the graying, cracked shell. Joanie understood that the turtle was going to die. She understood that she was going to die, too. She wondered, if the turtle died first, should she bury it? Would it be cruel, wrong even, to hack into the packed dirt foundation of the shed, and strand him there in the gloomy monument? If she died, she wondered what would happen to her body. Joanie knew Mother Joseph would leave her in the shed forever if she could.

  At first, Joanie thought about anything but the Josephs, practically replaying her entire life up to the day before she wed Josiah. She decided she preferred to die before contemplating them. But inevitably, she fell back into thinking about the family, about the cellar. In all of her lonely sickness, she began to beg. Not out loud, but silently to Helen, over her attempts at scratching the worship patterns into the dirt from memory.

  She prostrated herself on the ground, and begged and begged and begged.

  It wasn’t long before Helen answered her, and the shed began to bloom. Verdant sprays of ferns spurted from the slats, and the thick scent of roses settled over their bodies—over Joanie’s and the turtle’s. A montage of soft mosses grew, plush, out of the hard-packed ground, and soothed the soles of Joanie’s chapped feet. Joanie held the turtle up to her chest, close, so the creature could feel the movement of her heart. They were in their graves, she thought, that was why it was suddenly so beautiful. They were lucky, allowed to luxuriate in the fragrant jewel-box of their joint tomb. It was like they were pharaohs, Joanie and Josiah’s turtle, peeking their heads into the afterlife. Joanie held the turtle close, drawing patterns onto his shell to protect him, to protect them both.

  It was almost a disappointment to be found. When Cello and Sil pulled her from the shed, their hands under her armpits, she felt a thud of annoyance. One of them, Sil probably, pulled the turtle from her hands and threw him away onto the ground like an old stone.

  Breaking into the fresh air outside of the shed had been terrible, like a series of slaps. No one could possibly understand what Joanie had become inside of the shed. She was something outside of a person, and putting her back into the world was a terrible idea. It was a return that would break things, that would change things for the worse. Joanie had felt ruin run out of her fingertips, ruin that overwhelmed everything she came near.

  Floating in the water she wondered if now, finally, she was fixed. If by her work to restore her son had she restored herself, and all of the things she had lost at the Josephs’? An echo of the Vine’s earlier message flickered through the moving water that—by doing the worship and removing Mother Joseph’s distorted influence from the earth—she’d done the right thing. Joanie swam and swam, buoyed by the Vine’s voice.

  28

  Dr. Santo opened the door slowly, peeking around his two stacked hands through the gap in the door. “Yes, young man?” he said.

  “Maybe you don’t remember me, but I came to your house once before. With Ben.” Cello passed a hand over his forehead. He winced at the pressure near his eye.

  “I see you’ve run into some trouble since I last saw you.” Dr. Santo nodded to the thick smear of blood and bruising on Cello’s face. “Why don’t you come in and I’ll call Benjamin to join us.”

  “Yeah. Thanks,” Cello said, following the man inside. Dr. Santo disappeared into the too-clean kitchen and Cello stood in the hall, wincing as a blast of air-conditioning kicked on.

  Dr. Santo returned holding a towel filled with ice. “Why don’t you have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the tufted-back sofa in the adjoining living room. “I’ve left a message for our mutual friend. I’m sure he’ll be along any minute.”

  Cello walked ahead of him and sat on the floor, careful to stay away from the spotless cream carpet. Dr. Santo put a hand over his heart. “No, no, young man,” he said, stooping to guide Cello by the arm. “Please, sit here.” He deposited Cello on the couch and handed him the ice. “I’m sure this will be more comfortable.”

  They were quiet, letting the air conditioner breathe around them. Dr. Santo stood by the window with his arms crossed, while Cello set the cool towel at his temple.

  “If I needed help, where would I go?” Cello asked, the words coming out too quickly, colliding against one another and falling into the room.

  Dr. Santo seemed startled. “For medical attention, do you mean?” He took a few steps toward Cello and then stopped, abruptly. “Are you feeling very unwell? Should I call an ambulance?”

  “No, no, no, that’s not what I mean.” Cello shook his head so firmly he felt the blood moving from one ear to another. Maybe I should just go, he thought. The room didn’t look right—Cello wasn’t in the right place. He pressed a finger into the wound near his eye and made a hard sound in the back of his throat when the pain burst back at him.

  “If I had a problem, and needed help, who could I ask? Ben said you knew someone who could, I don’t know, smooth out a situation.”

  “I suppose that’s true. I do have some, ah, contacts.” Dr. Santo ducked down to inspect Cello’s head wound more closely. “What situation are you looking to smooth?”

  “How would I find these people?” Cello asked, his voice pitched higher than he intended.

  “Well, they don’t exactly have business cards, but if you’re in trouble, they might be of some assistance. Let me just check my address book.” Dr. Santo stood and rummaged on a bookshelf across the living room. “Just to warn you, these men aren’t the most friendly, but I suppose it’s part of the job.” Cello watched Dr. Santo flip through a tiny leather-bound book. “Aha! Here we are, Harlan Joseph. Shall I write it down for you? The number?”

  Cello slumped forward; the sudden rush of blood to his head cast another dark shadow over his vision. Straightened out—it was what Ben had said.

  “Oh, no, young man, let me help you.” Dr. Santo rushed over and propped him up. “What happened?”

  “You’ve been working with Harlan Joseph?” Cello said, wiping a smear of blood from his eye with the cold, folded towel.

  “Yes, he’s the gentleman I’ve been collaborating with to sell our local ginseng in specialty Asian markets, where it’s so highly coveted.”

  Cello leaned into the back of the sofa and pulled the towel from his forehead. It had turned mauve from his blood. “Oh, no,” he said, holding the dish towel out to Dr. Santo. “I got blood on your words.”

  “What? Young man, I’m going to get an ambulance.” Dr. Santo moved to stand, but Cello gripped his sleeve. “I really don’t think you’re well,” Dr. Santo said. “I’m calling for help right away.”

  “No, please don’t. No. I’m just real tired. I need to get some help for some people. Not from Harlan.”

  “You need to get help for some people, but not yourself?” Dr. Santo looked skeptically from Cello, to the window, then back to the kitchen where the phone was installed. “Wait a minute, are you also acquainted with Mr. Joseph?”

  “I need to get some help for some kids.” Cello abruptly closed his mouth. He forgot—he wasn’t supposed to tell Dr. Santo anything, really. Just see if he could find Ben. Even Dr. Santo, in this supposedly safe, clean house, had contributed to the Josephs’ work. He shook his head again, and pressed his feet into the floor, calculating his chances of standing up alone.

  The doorbell rang, a sweet trill disrupting the tension between the man and the boy.

  “Ah, that’ll be Benjamin,” Dr. Santo said, and went to let in Ben. His whole body loosened with relief.

  “Oh, my God, Cello,” Ben said, not stopping to wipe his feet on the mat. Cello noted that he hadn’t thought to do that when he followed Dr. Santo inside, and guiltily looked down at his boots. “Are you alright?” He sat beside Cello on the sofa and rested the palm of his hand between Cello’s shoulder blades. He turned toward Ben and gave him a small nod, despite the rising pain in his head.

  “What happened?” Ben asked, movi
ng the ice pack away from Cello’s face and taking in the full scale of his injury. “Those guys—I should’ve helped you. I’m so sorry—I don’t know why I ran.” Ben shook his head. “Jesus, they did this to you?”

  “It’s not that bad,” Cello said, avoiding most of what Ben had said.

  “You need a doctor, Cello.”

  “That’s just what I said,” Dr. Santo said, nodding. “I mean, the boy knocked at my door, asking for help. I didn’t know whether to call an ambulance or take him to the hospital myself...”

  “That’s okay, Ray,” Ben said. “I’ll drive him down there. Thanks for calling me.”

  “Of course. Be careful now,” Dr. Santo said, walking them back to the door. “And stay safe yourself, Benjamin.” Cello handed the cold, lumpy towel back to Dr. Santo. “No, no,” he objected. “Do keep it. You’ll have more need of it than I, I think.”

  * * *

  At the hospital, Ben helped him. The light was bright and harsh, and had nothing of the gentle warmth of the hospitals Cello had seen on TV. Cello stared while Ben filled out the papers people kept handing them, and sat with him on a thin mattress behind a curtain. Cello felt the coolness at the crook of his arm where clear liquid channeled into his body from a bag through a length of tubing. He wondered whether it was like irrigating a field, or putting the right things back into the soil. For the first time, he wondered if it could be possible to take care of a body the way one could care for a field.

  When the social worker came, she stood very close to the bed and put out her hand for both Ben and Cello to shake.

  “Alright, gentlemen, I heard you needed some help in here,” she began.

  “There was a problem. My foster sister’s baby,” Cello murmured.

  “Let’s just slow down a minute. Your name please, son?” she asked.

  “Cello.”

  “Yes, I see that here, but your last name?”