Last Girls

by Demetra Brodsky

  “No,” Birdie squawks. “I didn’t. Because I can’t stop feeling annoyed over Daniel being sent packing alone. There’s always two people bugging out, at least. Safety in numbers and all that other bullshit we’re always spewing. How will I get my EDC from Ansel, or our phone for that matter, before Daniel gets back? What are we gonna say if we don’t get the phone back and I have to tell Mother I was involved in something I can’t even remember? Sometimes I wish we … it would almost be better if … Why did we ever come here?”

  “To find our way home,” Blue says.

  A minute ago, Blue was nose deep in a book, but clearly paying attention in her peripheries. My love for my littlest sister is impossibly strong in this moment, even if what she said makes zero sense. Her calm resolve always balances out my paranoia for my sisters’ safety and Birdie’s tendency toward a hothead.

  “We are home,” Birdie gripes. “For now. And I messed it all up. Not that we’d know what a real home looks like long-term.”

  “We would know,” Blue says, “because Bucky will be there with us.”

  Birdie throws her arms up in defeat and sinks into a desk chair. “Bucky Beaverman?” She picks up her sketchbook and shakes it at Blue. “You think that’s who’s going to save us in the end? My comic strip figure? The little blue beaver stitched so nicely into all your needlepoint pieces? Or is Honey gonna write him into existence from one of her many composition notebooks?”

  “I never said he was going to save us,” Blue clarifies. “I said he’d be there.”

  “Save us from what?” I ask Birdie, because that’s the thing that keeps sticking me in the ribs. “Ever since you took up with Daniel, you’ve been secretive and out of control.”

  “Took up with Daniel? This is why you don’t have a boyfriend, Honey. You talk like you’re from the seventeenth century when it comes to dating. God forbid you let anyone past your brick wall long enough to know anything about taking up with somebody firsthand.”

  That’s not entirely true, but Birdie knew it would strike a nerve. Just because I want to wait for someone who sees me for who I am doesn’t mean I’m closed off. I’m not interested in dating anyone from The Burrow, and dating anyone else would expose our entire setup, or so we’ve been told.

  “Stop jumping down our throats, Birdie, we’re not your enemies. But since you brought it up, why would I let anyone past my brick wall? Look at yourself. Daniel got sent away for ten days less than twenty-four hours ago and you’re stewing like you can’t function. You’ve always been the strongest one, Birdie. Not me. You!”

  She sighs, releasing the pent-up breath keeping her anger afloat. “I’d just feel better if I had my EDC.”

  “I know. So would I. I’m working on it.”

  Her stormy eyes brighten. “Really? You talked to Ansel? Did he say anything about what happened? I’ve been keeping my distance from him and Annalise because … Well, I just feel like I should, but also because Daniel probably got caught because of me, even if he didn’t say it.”

  I have the answer Birdie wants, but if I tell her I’m going out after curfew to get her EDC she’ll want to come. I’ll be faster and stealthier without her. I’ll just leave them a note in the cipher we use whenever we don’t want Mother to know what we’re saying. I don’t remember where it originated, but sometimes I dream of Bucky teaching it to me. Wouldn’t that be something? Anyway, I taught it to Birdie, and together we taught it to Blue when she was old enough to hold a pencil.

  “I have a plan to talk to Ansel,” I tell her.

  Birdie’s shoulders relax, a clear sign that her anger levee is starting to fail. When it breaks, you can guess who’ll be here mopping up the mess.

  “Do you think he’ll be okay? I have a bad feeling about him out there alone.”

  Birdie bites her bottom lip and looks at Blue. Waiting for her to spew some near-prophetic statement that will reinforce Birdie’s hope. Only, Blue doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t even look at Birdie. Who would blame her after Birdie’s outburst? The sad reality is I wish I could write Bucky into existence. Having a fourth opinion on all things Juniper would be great.

  We’re all silently contemplating our own versions of the last two days when I hear Achilles’s cry and spot him soaring toward the window. Blue drops her book and rushes onto the roof. She can’t call him down because her leather glove is hanging in the mew, but her smile makes it clear she’s missed him the last two days.

  I crawl onto the roof beside her, watching him coast on an updraft with an object grasped in his talons. “What’s he holding?”

  “It’s brown. Maybe a squirrel,” Blue says, “or a marten.”

  Achilles swoops past us and drops what he’s holding onto the roof, and it’s not an animal. It’s a Bivy sack. The compact kind we carry in our bug-out bags, only this one doesn’t belong to any of us. The Nesters’ Bivy sacks are orange and The Burrowers’ are ochre brown.

  I crouch and pick it up. “Where did he get this?” My brain flies to a potential problem. “You don’t think he’s stealing from people on the compound, do you?”

  “I hope he stole it from Dieter,” Birdie says from inside.

  “Achilles doesn’t think it’s stealing,” Blue says in his defense. “Achy is a hunter. Everything he finds is free for the taking.”

  “I understand that, but we don’t need Dieter Ackerman mad at Achilles, too. Bring it to the training area later and we’ll say we found it on the road near our house and see who claims it. It’s getting late. Leave your homework where it is and get changed. We have to feed the animals before the training drills. Maybe the chickens laid some eggs we can cook later.”

  We change quickly into Carhartt overalls and Bog boots and head outside, walking downhill a short ways to where we keep the animal enclosures. Achilles follows, circling above us, laying moving shadows that decorate our path. I’ll never get over how majestic he is, flying up there without worry. It’s nothing short of miraculous that Achilles never touches our livestock. Maybe because there’s no hunt involved. Maybe out of his deep attachment to Blue. We’ll never know.

  “I’ll take care of the rabbits,” Blue offers. “They need to be held.”

  I reserve my they’re-not-pets look for another time, because she’s right and already gone, along with her falcon. Off to Blue’s personal version of My Side of the Mountain. Okay. That’s a bit dramatic. She’s only going a quarter mile away. I can’t fault her for wanting to hold the rabbits. They’re the one animal on this farm that does need to be held so they aren’t skittish. We want them to be calm enough to breed.

  “Goats or chickens?” I ask Birdie. “Sufferer’s choice.”

  She almost smiles. “Chickens, I guess.”

  Leaving me with goats, and by nature a ton of pellet droppings. Not as much as Blue will have to handle with the rabbits. “Don’t forget the eggs,” I call to Birdie after we’ve split up. A soft-cooked egg on top of my Chili Mac MRE will make it much more palatable.

  The goats come out of their small barn to greet me, blubbing and hollering when they see me carrying fresh hay. The first to reach me is Buck Rogers, our black-and-tan male with a supercilious look in his eyes. Followed by three sable-and-white females named Maggie, May, and June, and the all-white female we call Milkshake. She does not bring boys to the yard, no matter what the song claims. She actually avoids Buck Rogers like the plague. Not that it stops him from trying. I enter the enclosure and drop the hay into the feeding rack.

  When I’m done making sure they have enough food and water, I look over my shoulder for my sisters. When I’m sure they can’t see me, I stroke Maggie’s ears. They’re soft as crushed velvet, even though the rest of her fur is as coarse as the hay she’s munching. Maggie has always been my favorite because she has a funny underbite that makes her seem like she’s in on some joke. If Blue saw me petting the livestock right now, she’d call me a hypocrite then jump in the pen and hug them all around their brass-belled necks. The bottom line, t
hough, is they are for food and provide enough milk for us to make saleable products. Milkshake alone gives up to two gallons a day.

  The other Nesters have their own livestock, and we all share our milk and crops with the Burrow households. The Burrowers know how to butcher animals, and how to milk, just like we know how to shoot and trap. We were given lessons in those things, too. But I’d rather live on our doomstead than their boring properties any day. The Burrow’s misogynistic overtone sets my teeth on edge.

  I give the goats all quick pats so they don’t feel neglected then head to the training area, kicking small rocks along the dirt path. My thoughts veer to Bucky Beaverman, how cynical Birdie was toward Blue’s comment. Birdie, who draws him as the hero of her comics. We all accept Bucky as part of our family, the long-standing invisible friend who’s come with us from place to place. He’s such a fixture that I sometimes dream about him and his longer-than-the-rest buckteeth, his place in our lives from the beginning, wrestling with us on the Persian rug in muted shades of navy and gold, helping us pull out our loose teeth when they got wiggly. Bucky is made of the glue that holds us together. Birdie was just being, well, Birdie.

  I arrive on time this go-round. There’s no way I wouldn’t after yesterday. My sisters show up within five or ten minutes of me, along with everyone else. Blue is wearing her leather falconer’s glove, holding Achilles’s leash and jess in her uncovered hand like she knew she’d need them. Training drills are common. We have several every month, along with a monthly meeting to go over how the coalition is running.

  There’s no sitting this time. We’re not here for scolding or announcement. This is an impromptu drill because of yesterday. A straight-up continuation of Dieter’s disappointment. Ansel and the older Burrow Boys are standing with their feet apart, hands clasped in front like soldiers awaiting orders of deployment. Each face a steady mask of readiness to toe the line. Dieter glances at his watch, always keeping everything to the precise minute. His cheeks are more drawn than usual, giving extra haggardness to his weathered face. I study my own watch, observe the hour hand click into place, and just like clockwork Dieter speaks.

  “I’d like to get this training moving quickly so we don’t waste daylight,” he begins without greeting. That part, at least, is not unusual. “This is a SERE training. Each faction will be assigned for survival, evasion, resistance, or escape. Those who were already outside the wire have been instructed to leave their vehicles in place and practice Get Home measures without detection. Since we’re on our own property, let’s make the OPTEMPO a priority this time. You have three hours max.”

  Mother is outside the wire. In town, picking up bandages to replenish our storage supplies and selling our surplus honey, beeswax, and the extra heirloom seeds and seedlings to local shop owners. The only thing we don’t sell to Outsiders is surplus food. Not even our eggs. We don’t want anyone to remember we have farm animals when the shit hits the fan. We keep a Get Home bag in the station wagon that she’ll use depending on where she was when she got the call.

  Something about the urgency of this training feels like it’s meant to distract everyone from the fact that Dieter sent Daniel out on a solo mission. We’re all aware now that Dieter could do that to any of us if we do something that draws attention to our coalition. Our current POTUS does something similar. He creates diversions to keep everyone focused on one thing while he does something behind the scenes we don’t hear about until later. It’s off-putting, in a way, that Dieter would initiate this training without his new second-in-command present. Unless Mother knew this was coming and didn’t tell us. Secrets piled on top of secrets.

  “The following people are tasked with hunting, bow-and-arrow style,” Dieter announces, starting assignments. “The Juniper sisters, and Annalise and Magda Ackerman. Work together to bring back a single kill each.”

  My eyes shift to where my sisters were standing a few minutes ago. Birdie isn’t there. My brain goes haywire thinking she may have taken off while nobody was watching. A few nerve-racking beats later, she sidles up to me from behind. I exhale and shift my eyes to Blue. Thankfully, she hasn’t moved an inch, despite Magda and Annalise taking Birdie’s spot. Blue is oblivious to them because her eyes are swaying in a skyward arc, watching Achilles. He screeches and her focus jerks to Dieter. He glances at her raptor with admiration, even though he avoids talking to Blue. We think it’s because her inferences unnerve him.

  Blue raises her hand.

  “You can use your falcon,” Dieter says without hearing her question.

  Blue drops her arm. “Yes. Thank you. I intended to, but I also wanted to say we found a Bivy sack on the path on our way over, if anyone lost theirs.”

  She glances at me to back her up and I remove the bundle from my back pocket and reluctantly walk it over to Dieter. I wasn’t ready to bring it out yet because his urgency was pricking at my consciousness, telling me to wait. A Bivy sack isn’t an essential everyday supply, but comes in handy when you bug out and need waterproof or insulated cover.

  Dieter studies it and hands it to Mateo Garcia, whispering instruction I can’t hear.

  Magda catches my eye as I return to where I was standing with Birdie, and the civility usually found in the depths of her oceanic eyes is gone. Replaced by arctic ice that chills me. I guess we have Dieter and Mother to thank for the frigid stare.

  “Camilla Clarke will join Tashi and Tito Garcia in setting up booby traps to simulate an ambush. There are headlamps on the picnic table for those who want one, as well as compasses and camo. Ansel, Mateo, and Connor are tasked to bug out in the woods until the counteracting task I’ve assigned them is completed. The rest of us will bug in at home for the remainder of the twelve hours after completing the assigned tasks. The clock starts at eighteen-hundred hours.”

  Let the training begin.

  We have our own bows and tactical quivers at home that attach to our INCH bags. The same kind Daniel had attached to his INCH bag before he left, presumably for nabbing his meals. Birdie is the first to pick up her weapon, choosing recurve over compound. That’s why she’s not as accurate a shot as me. Recurve bows shoot farther, but you have to account for their curving. Compound bows shoot faster and straighter. Birdie grabs a camouflage jacket from the pile and walks toward me, pulling it on.

  “May the odds be ever in their favor.”

  “I get it, Birdie. You’re upset, but don’t piss them off. We’re supposed to work together and they’re mad enough about Mother as it is.”

  “So am I,” she counters. “I’m not that happy with Annalise, either. I’m just saying, accidents happen.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  Magda may have overheard us. She’s pretending like she’s not watching, which only makes it more evident. I wait for her and Annalise to pick out their bows. Then I pull on a thermal camouflage shirt, pick a bow of my own, and sling the quiver across my back.

  Blue is waiting to call Achilles down, leather glove out with one finger pointing like a branch extending from her heart. She only has to whistle and call his name once before he swoops down, wings open to slow his arrival as he lands on the glove. Blue attaches the leash and jess with the brass bell that tells her where her hunting partner is at all times. Getting Achilles accustomed to the leash and jess after his injury took Blue months upon months of trust building. She waits for Achilles to dip his head and plants a kiss on top. That’s their hunting ritual.

  I slide the ponytail holder off my wrist and hold it between my teeth while I braid my hair. Wide headband, braid, ready. I have a ritual of my own.

  Magda and Annalise were supposed to wait for us, but didn’t. I wish it were just my sisters and me heading into these woods, but I’m not surprised they forged ahead. It’s probably for the best. I won’t find out how Ansel got his sister to stay quiet about Birdie’s involvement until I meet him at the treehouse tonight, but my mind keeps spinning back to Daniel saying DTA.

  We don’t really need their
hunting help. I’m the best shot in the party next to Annalise, who’s had the advantage of using a bow and arrow since childhood. Usually a hunting party sticks together, venturing no more than a hundred feet from each other, but they’re nowhere to be seen. It’s obvious they wanted to get far enough away to be a separate party. I was thinking birds, but they must have their sights set on bigger game.

  TPTB

  THE POWERS THAT BE

  THE TREES RISE around us sharp as needles to poke the sky. The woods are always two shades darker beneath their natural canopy, no matter the hour. Darker, since the days are most often Washington State gray. Between the roots and around fallen branches concealed by moss, new slender green stalks branch skyward. Thriving, refusing to be suffocated by the damp, decomposing leaves, bumpy pine cones, and dead, russet-colored needles littering the forest floor. I pull an arrow from my quiver, keeping it ready to nock, and shift my gaze between the trees in search of wild turkeys.

  We keep chatter to a minimum while hunting, staying as silent and invisible as any human can when entering the forest home of wild animals. When you remain silent in the woods, they come alive with the chattering of insects, the occasional dropping pine cone, scattering chipmunks, and ominous creaks and groans of old limbs fighting to hang on. When those ancient extremities do finally fall to their death, the thunderous crack and thud are monstrous.

  The ground is saturated from today’s rain, dampening the sound of our footsteps as we trek deeper and deeper, walking at least a mile before seeing any clearings. We know our way around these woods like we know the layout of the compound, by recognizing and committing to memory different path markers and landmarks. Some made by us, others by nature.

  A shriek from Achilles breaks my thoughts, sending my gaze skyward just in time to see him make a two-hundred-mile-per-hour dive. With vision ten times better than ours, Achilles is always first to bag a prize. He soars high above the trees again, presumably scanning the forest floor for Blue. A minute later he drops his gift, twenty feet from where we’re clustered together. I’m convinced Achilles is the only falcon in the world that gives over a fresh kill to his handler before capturing one for himself. Blue earned that loyalty.