Some Kind of Animal

by Maria Romasco-Moore

  I was wrong. This is impossible, hopeless. It’s cold out and only going to get colder. We don’t know what we’re doing. Even my sister has never lived like this, not really. I used to think of her as nearly invincible, strong and independent. Almost magic. Seeing her at the gas station and Walmart showed me how, out in the real world, she can barely function. We might be twins, but she’s younger than me in a lot of ways.

  Even back in the old woods, it turns out, she was never quite as independent as I thought she was. Brandon gave her food. The puffy coat, the brown knit cap. I thought she’d stolen them or found them, but she didn’t. He gave them to her. He took care of her. There’s no one to take care of us now. No one to turn to. Just us, all alone.

  That other world. The one I left behind. I can see into it, a bright little window in the dark. If I hadn’t run. If Brandon hadn’t run. Maybe I could have saved him. Maybe I could have saved everyone.

  There is rustling outside and I leap up, unzip the tent. There’s a girl-shaped shadow moving through the trees.

  “Lee!” I call. “Did you find water?” I run toward her, equal parts relieved that she’s back and disappointed that she isn’t Savannah. I have to keep myself from hugging her. She doesn’t like that. It makes her feel trapped or something. I wonder if Mama ever hugged her.

  Lee holds out the jug, which is nearly full.

  “Where?” I ask.

  She waves a hand vaguely at the woods behind her. “In some rocks.”

  The water doesn’t look clean exactly. There are bits of dirt swirling around and a thin layer of sediment gathering at the bottom, but I decide I don’t care. I take a sip and it’s cold and refreshing, even if it does taste somewhat earthy.

  Tomorrow, I’ll get her to lead me to where she found the water. Maybe I can even figure out how to filter it. It will be fine. We can live like this. We will figure it out.

  We’ve got to.

  I make Lee come sit in the tent with me for a while, which she does, but it’s clear she doesn’t like it. She startles at noises from outside that normally wouldn’t faze her, appears preoccupied with the faint spidery shadows cast by the moonlight onto the rain fly.

  We share a banana from one of the Walmart bags and the water from the jug. I read her the big white warning tag sewn into the side of the tent. Do not smoke in tent. Do not cook in tent. Do not light candles in tent. Basically, don’t set the tent on fire. Lee plays with the zipper on the flap. She’s shredded her tights even more. Her toes and heels stick out completely. I add that to my regretful Walmart wish list: more tights.

  “Please, Lee, will you tell me about her?” I don’t say the word. Don’t say Mama. I don’t want to upset her more than strictly necessary.

  My sister zips the tent flap all the way open, zips it all the way closed.

  “She wore eye shadow,” I suggest, to get her started.

  “Sometimes.”

  “She looked like her picture?”

  My sister shrugs. She won’t look at me. I wrap the sleeping bag around my shoulders. It’s turning into a chilly night.

  “Did she tell you about me?” I ask.

  “No.”

  My heart sinks. I know I shouldn’t ask, but I can’t help it. “Did she ever mention me at all?”

  “No.”

  So my sister didn’t know about me, the same way I didn’t know about her, until we were five. Until after Mama was dead.

  Did Mama think about me? Had she forgotten me? She can’t have forgotten. Right? She was wrong about me. When she said, That one isn’t mine. She was wrong.

  I try to forgive her. She was crazy. She was scared. She needed help.

  But it still hurts.

  “What about Brandon?” I ask. There’s a lump in my throat. “He told you about me, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?” I press.

  She stops playing with the zipper for a moment and closes her eyes, the same way Brandon did when he told me about finding Mama, as if calling the memory up from a long way off.

  “Your sister,” Lee says, finally. “She’s lost.”

  For some reason, that’s what does it. The tears come flooding in. I look away so my sister won’t see.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about him?” I choke out.

  “Don’t you ever tell,” she says, playing with the zipper again.

  “Yeah, but it was me. You could have told me.” I put a hand on her ankle. She flinches and turns. “You could have trusted me. Why didn’t you?”

  “I was scared,” she says slowly.

  “Why?” I say.

  She hesitates a long time, working out the sentence maybe, staring straight at me the whole time, an intense gaze. I try to blink back the tears.

  “I didn’t want him to die,” she says finally.

  I let go of her ankle. For a moment I don’t understand, but then with dawning horror I see how it must have looked to her. She told me about Brandon, despite years of secrecy drilled into her by Mama. She brought me to him because he had medicine and it was the only way to keep me away from Lester, which in her mind she had finally saved me from.

  A day later, Brandon was dead. Because she told.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. Because in a twisted way she’s right. It’s my fault he’s dead. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  We sit in near silence for a while. I sniff, wipe roughly at my face. There’s more I want to ask her, but I think if I speak again I will start sobbing. Eventually, I tell Lee she can go back to her tree if she wants. She hesitates, puts her hand out, and brushes it across my arm a few times, like I’m a cat and she’s petting me. It’s funny, I guess, but soothing too.

  “Thanks,” I say. She brushes my arm once more and then she scrambles out of the tent and I’m alone again.

  I zip myself into the sleeping bag and close my eyes.

  I try not to think about Mama or Brandon or Aggie or the pastor or any of the things I left behind. Instead, I think about Savannah.

  What she is or isn’t doing right now. Who she is or isn’t doing it with.

  * * *

  —

  When I wake, the sun is up and Savannah’s still gone. I’m hit with a stab of panic and, nearly as strong, an overwhelming thirst. My lips are cracked and my tongue feels like a dryer sheet. I chug the gritty dregs of the water and then scramble out into the morning.

  Lee is crouched by the makeshift firepit, bending little loops of wire.

  “Have you seen Savannah?” I ask, trying not to completely lose it. “Did she come back last night?”

  “No,” Lee says flatly.

  “Shit,” I say, heart racing. “I’ll be right back. Don’t leave.”

  I jog off in the direction of the junkyard, build up speed until I’m running.

  I follow the signs I made for myself last time we walked back from the junkyard. I tried to be subtle: a stick propped at an odd angle, a half-broken branch. Things only I would recognize.

  I’m not sure what I’ll do when I reach the junkyard. Not sure if I’ll even find anyone there. Savannah could have left with that guy. They could be anywhere. I have no plan. I’ve never had a plan.

  If I wasn’t running I would cry. If I wasn’t running I would scream.

  But then, about halfway to the junkyard, I spot Savannah shuffling through the leaves ahead of me, hands in her jacket pockets, head down, looking at her feet. Alone again. I nearly collapse with relief.

  “Hey,” I say when I reach her, forcing myself to sound like it’s no big deal, voice slightly hoarse from exertion. “There you are.”

  “Here I am,” Savannah says, holding her palms out upright, with a shrug.

  “I was worried,” I say, though I try not to make it sound like an accusation. Is that why she stayed aw
ay so long? To punish me for the things I said last night?

  “I saved you some fries.” She pulls an oil-soaked paper bag from one pocket, holds it out. I remember the woman back in Needle. The milkshake she brought me. What I would give for a milkshake now. I feel sorry, for a moment, about letting her birds out.

  I’m sure she loved them in her way, even if she wouldn’t let them be free. The same as Aggie loved me. Loves me still, I hope.

  That other world. The one that’s safe and warm and bright. There it is, the window open just a crack, just enough to let in a sliver of light.

  I fall into line beside Savannah and we walk together, sharing the soggy fries. I can’t tell if it’s the salt or my relief at having Savannah back and safe that makes them taste like the nectar of the gods, but they are gone too soon. I lick my fingers, tear open the bag, and lick the inside of that, too. I’m too hungry to save any for Lee.

  Savannah’s quiet, doesn’t even laugh at me for licking the bag. She walks slowly, kicking at the leaves. Is she upset or just tired? I can’t tell.

  “What happened?” I ask. I would have thought she’d be in a better mood, after a night with a boy she likes. Usually she can’t wait to tell me what went down. Is she still mad?

  “Nothing,” she says.

  “I was scared when you didn’t come back.” I hear myself getting close to recrimination. It’s like I need her to say sorry. Or to scream at me and say I deserved it. I need her to say something, not just act like nothing happened.

  “I’m coming back now,” she says, without looking at me.

  “Well, yeah. I was worried, though.”

  “Sorry,” she says, with another half shrug, a kick aimed at a mossy stone. It seems clear she isn’t sorry at all.

  “I mean, what did you—” I stop myself. I don’t want to fight. I just want her to talk to me. Her reticence is freaking me out. Did it go badly? Did something happen? “How was it?”

  “Fine,” she says, but she sounds even less convincing than when she said she was sorry. She walks faster, gets ahead of me. I catch up, but I’m afraid that if I ask more she’ll think I’m gloating, saying I told you so. I’m afraid that I’ll drive her away so soon after getting her back.

  * * *

  —

  When we reach the campsite, Savannah sits beside the empty firepit, smokes cigarette after cigarette. She has a pack now. Marlboros. Clayton must have given them to her along with the food. What did she give him?

  “You want the last Pop-Tart?” I ask her. She just shakes her head, pokes at the remnants of the fire with a stick. I don’t think she’s punishing me for last night. I think she’s upset about something else. She seems distant, lost in thought.

  I eat half the Pop-Tart while I mull it over, give the other half to Lee.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask Savannah, sitting down beside her.

  “Nothing.” Little gray plumes puff into the air as she swirls her stick through the ash.

  “Are you upset? You’re so quiet.”

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “About what?” Leaving?

  “Stuff. Just thinking stuff over.”

  This is nearly as bad as a conversation with my sister. Something is definitely wrong. Savannah is always chatty. She can’t help herself.

  “What happened?” I ask again. She’s different this morning. Even last night, when she was furious at me, she wasn’t nearly so tight-lipped as this. Something must have happened.

  “We just hung out and talked and stuff.” Savannah jams her stick into the ground, sends up a thundercloud of ash.

  “What did you talk about?” Did she tell him about us? Did he force her to? I can hear the frustration in my voice, the suspicion, though I’m trying to keep it from erupting into anger.

  “I didn’t tell him anything okay?” Savannah stands up and stalks toward the tent.

  “Okay,” I say, standing up too. “Sorry.”

  “I made stuff up,” she snaps. “I lied. Like you.”

  Savannah crawls into the tent and zips it shut, forcefully. The closest we can get to a door slam out here. I stare after her for a while, trying to decide what to do. All my plans to survive feel like sand rushing through my fingers, slipping away faster than I can catch them. What do we eat, what do we drink, how do we stay warm and safe? How do I keep Savannah from leaving?

  Lee comes over and pokes me in the arm with the half-burnt stick Savannah had been using to stir the ashes.

  “You go talk to her, then,” I say, entirely kidding, but to my surprise Lee drops the stick, lopes over to the tent.

  She scratches at the door.

  “Go away, Jo,” comes the muffled voice of Savannah.

  Being neither Jo nor particularly obedient at the best of times, Lee ignores her and unzips the tent, sticks her head in.

  “Oh,” says Savannah, and then something I can’t hear. My sister crawls the rest of the way into the tent, tracking dirt, no doubt.

  I hear Savannah’s voice again, but I can’t make out the words. I creep closer. Lee says something, then. Probably no, knowing her, but I can’t hear it.

  It’s bizarre. I don’t know if I’m worried or jealous, but I don’t like it. I can hear Savannah talking again, just low enough that the words are unintelligible. What the hell is she saying?

  I’m trying to decide if I need to barge in there, protect one or both of them from the other, when the tent unzips again and Lee clambers out, clutching the empty water jug.

  Right. If we want to survive out here, that’s still the most important thing. Don’t die of dehydration.

  Lee strides over to me. Savannah zips the tent shut behind her. Maybe the best thing I can do right now is give her some space.

  “How far away was that water you found?” I ask my sister.

  Lee shrugs. “Not far.”

  “You want to come get water with us?” I shout at the tent.

  “No,” Savannah, unseen, shouts back. “I had a soda.”

  So my sister and I head off alone.

  “What did you talk about in there?” I ask as soon as we reach the edge of our little clearing. Lee doesn’t answer.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I say, “is nobody going to tell me anything?”

  She shoots me a condescending look. I swear it. My sister. Condescending.

  “The city,” she says.

  “Oh.” Is that all? “You’d hate the city.”

  My sister pauses at a rotting log, orients herself, and sets off running. I run, too, and for ten minutes, maybe twenty, all worries are carried away on the wind and it is just this, just me and her and the dirt and the trees and freedom.

  * * *

  —

  The water source, when we reach it, turns out to be a tiny waterfall. Although maybe waterfall is an exaggeration. More of a trickle, really, spluttering between some rocks. There’s no flat ground right next to it, no caves that I can see. Still, maybe we can move the campsite closer. It would be worth it for water.

  I press the empty orange juice bottle against one of the rocks. It fills so slowly that my arms grow tired from holding it. I try propping it but can’t get the right angle. My sister has been amusing herself by turning over rocks, snatching up bugs she finds beneath them, popping them in her mouth. I make her stop and take over for me.

  I spend a while trying out different questions in my head. Maybe I could ease into the conversation somehow, get the information I want without upsetting her. But then again, why should I protect her feelings? I’ve done enough. I’ve done everything to protect her.

  “Did Mama talk about anyone else?” I ask.

  My sister stiffens, nearly lets the jug slip out of her fingers. I shout and she catches it just in time.

  “I know you said she didn’t mention me.”
I pause for a moment, hoping, irrationally, that she’ll remember something, say, Oh, wait, never mind, foolish me, she talked about you all the time. “But what about her mother? Or her sister?”

  “Sister?” she asks, puzzled now.

  “Yeah,” I say. “She had a sister. Has a sister. You know that. Aunt Aggie.”

  “Oh.” She’s frowning. I’ve talked about Aggie plenty, referred to her as my aunt. As your aunt too. Mentioned, I’m sure, things Aggie had said about Mama. But maybe on some level my sister never quite put it together. Sisters. Like us.

  “Well, did Mama mention Aggie? Or Margaret?”

  “I don’t remember.” She’s still stiff, every muscle in her body contracted, her arm muscles quivering as she holds the jug, hands clenched into unnatural-looking claws. She is so uncomfortable, but she owes me this. This and more.

  “Do you remember when you two lived in the camper?” I ask. “You would have been pretty little, but maybe you remember something.”

  She shakes her head, so slightly it might be nothing. Brandon didn’t give me an exact timeline. I don’t know how old my sister would have been when they lived in the camper. Two? Three? As old as four? I have some vague memories from around three years old. Just little flashes. The time I fell down the stairs, for instance. Wearing a lacy Easter dress and hunting plastic eggs, but finding an actual robin’s egg instead. That unreal blue.

  “You hid,” I prompt, remembering the caches I helped Brandon stock. “Under the ground. In a hole.”

  “Yes,” Lee says. She is shaking now; the water jug is shaking. “We ate dirt.”

  “Oh.” That shuts me up, for a moment. So she does remember, but she doesn’t want to. Could eating dirt have been a game? Or did they spend so long down in those holes that they got hungry? Got desperate? There seems to be an almost infinite darkness hidden in those three words. I feel sorry for her, despite myself. “It must have been scary in the dark.”