Bear’s never been too bothered about washing and I don’t make him now because I know what he needs most is to play for a while.
He’s taken his Jungle out of his rucksack.
“Lion, Tiger, Jaguar.
Orangutan, Gorilla, Chimpanzee.”
He recites the names like they’re a spell. An incantation. Like he can summon them all back. There’s a switch though – today Jaguar becomes Ghost.
He lines the animals up on the carriage floor. The biggest first. The strongest. “We’re going on a journey,” they say to each other.
I’ve got my sketchbook and pencils out. They’ve miraculously stayed dry in their waxy pouch.
I draw the carriage first because despite the shadow of the decaying city, things feel OK here and I want to remember it. Then without really thinking about it, I draw faces. Annie Rose, standing in the Palm House where I always picture her. Ms Endo, back at school next to her table of treasures, smiling.
I draw Etienne last of all. I draw him outside our block and I make the door like it used to be. Like a great big sunshine.
Bear and I lose track of time and we forget all about hunting, but it’s fine I guess to be hungry for one night. Especially when we’ve not been moving so far and our muscles don’t need to refuel quite so much.
I’m going through our last meagre city rations, wondering how much of them we can eat, because even though we have the air rifle now I didn’t take nearly enough of the silver bullets, when Bear squeals.
It’s Ghost. She’s brought us a rabbit. She’s laid it at Bear’s feet.
“Do you think she wants us to cook it for her?” Bear asks, picking it up.
“No, you loon, it’s for us.”
“She’s feeding us?”
“Yes.” I look across to Ghost. She’s settling down with her own rabbit to devour. Blood all over her whiskers.
After we reach the city edge, we walk into the hills and it’s colder every single day. Bear and I crawl into our sleeping bags the moment it gets dark, tight against each other for extra warmth. We put the space blanket around us like a shield.
Foraging is virtually impossible. The blackberries are long gone and most of the sweet chestnuts too. Even the nettles are shrinking back into the ground and now when we make Gloop it’s really just hot water.
But Ghost feeds us now. Each day as the light falls out of the forest, she slinks away and finds us later, bringing something fresh.
“We’re carnivores, aren’t we?” Bear says. He’s good with the knife, as good as I am. You learn what to cut out, what to discard. What colour of pink tastes too raw when you cook.
One day there’s a whole deer. Ghost drags it over to us, and it’s delicate and beautiful and still warm. Its eyes look at me as I dig the knife into its flank and I feel I should say something, offer up some kind of blessing for it. A prayer. We could feast for days from this deer, but the next morning we have to move on, and I just take a few cuts for that day and the next, which I hang with bloodied string from our rucksacks. All the rest we leave for some other animal.
Ghost doesn’t mind. She doesn’t even look back. This is the one thing she knows about us – we keep walking.
Sometimes we find more signs – the water ones, but others too. Notched twigs. Rags woven through branches. Carvings. There are even bones – the V-shaped ones you get in the necks of pigeons. Wishbones.
We can’t figure out what any of them mean, except for the water, but somehow it still feels like we’re following something. Something good.
One morning I pan out on the GPS and there it is, our first lake. We should reach it tomorrow.
“We’re getting closer, Bear!” I say, allowing myself to feel excited.
“Will she be waiting?” For a moment, I don’t understand what he’s talking about. I think he means Ghost, but she’s here already, right behind us. Then I get it.
“Mum?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. How would she know we’re coming?”
“I suppose,” Bear says thoughtfully.
“If she knew, she would’ve come to get us.”
“I suppose,” he says again.
I steer Bear on to Ennerdale instead. Just Ennerdale. Our journey’s end. Our safe harbour. We have to imagine this, it’s what keeps us going. One day after another, getting closer.
Bear has all these amazing what ifs. What if they live in tree houses? What if they live on the lake, on rafts so the wolves can’t get to them? What if they’ve tamed the wolves? What if Ghost is actually an Ennerdale cat and has come to take us there?
I’m listening to him, imagining them out, all these amazing possibilities, when it happens. When my left foot descends into the most pain I’ve ever felt. Touches so much pain that I fall down to the ground. That I scream, louder than I’ve ever screamed before. Louder than you could ever scream in the city.
I don’t know how long it takes me to come round.
There are trees above me. Branches and leaves, like I used to always dream of. I should be happy. Except there’s a blinding pain. A pain so big I can’t work out where it’s coming from.
I’m lying down and Bear’s next to me, holding my left foot, binding it tight.
“Juniper!”
He’s completely pale, completely scared, but focused – binding a white ribbon bandage around my foot and ankle.
“What happened?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“It was a trap. I took your boot off,” Bear says, pointing, and the abandoned boot swims into view next to me. It’s torn and covered in blood, my blood, and it’s all I can do to stop passing out again.
I take a deep gulp of air and focus on Bear’s face. “Did you clean the wound?”
“It was bleeding a lot, Ju,” Bear says, his eyes wet. “I thought I should stop the bleeding.” He points to Annie Rose’s little first-aid book with comic-strip-style pictures, which he’s found in my rucksack. It’s lying open at a page headed ‘Severe Bleeding’ and is covered in small bloody fingerprints. The first and most important action, in big letters and bold type, is the one we can’t do – dial 999.
I gulp. “I need to get up. We can’t stay here.”
I try, but I collapse back down again. I can’t put any weight on my foot. And I’m dizzy. Everything is moving.
The ground around me – the tapestry of leaves – is bright red, painted with my blood, and there’s blood coming through the bandage too, despite Bear’s efforts. And somewhere beyond that is this broken metal contraption that Bear has smashed in with a stone.
“Ju, what are we going to do?”
Ghost’s here, a way off. Occasionally she makes one of those yelps again, that little nervous cry. I look around for drones, but that’s not why she’s crying.
I talk through my teeth, which are clasped tight with pain. “Can you get my bag off? Put it under my foot?”
Elevate the wound. You elevate the wound and apply pressure to get the bleeding to stop. I don’t even need to look at the first-aid book to know that, it’s one of the few things I remember. Everything else is hazy though, just Bear’s face is clear – his face and his voice too. “What now, Juniper?”
And this is what I keep telling him – elevate the wound and keep the bandages tight and I’ll be OK soon.
I’ll be OK because I have to be. No one knows where we are, no one has any idea, not even those stupid drones. We disappeared too well. Gave them the slip. We’re dead to them already, all burnt up with that cottage.
I’ll be OK because Bear needs me. I need him too. He puts my left leg up on my rucksack and wraps the foil blanket around me and puts his own bag under my head so I can rest.
I’ve already found the blister packets of tablets Silvan gave me. Antibiotics. We didn’t need them for the ticks, but I need something for this. I’d take any medicine I had right now.
Bear holds a water bottle to my lips. “Drink, Juniper!”
“We don’t have m
uch left,” I mutter. “You have some too.”
“You need it. I can get more.”
“You can’t. You’re too little.”
“I’m not.”
“I have to try and move soon. We can’t stay here,” I repeat.
Bear nods silently. There’s nothing he can say. We can’t stay here, but I can’t move. Not yet.
That trap belonged to someone. It’s rusty, old, but not fifty years old. Something that old would be powder out here by now.
Was the trap set by the same person who made the signs? Some of the twigs were looped round, like flowers. Was it to snare us in? What do they want us for?
I watch Bear as he collects sticks and leaves and arranges them expertly in front of me. Then he’s off again, kicking up leaves and burying down, looking for nuts. There’s a big chestnut tree a few metres away. We know them now – the long pointed oval leaves, yellow and veined; the twisted, fissured trunk and the cases of lime-green nuts beneath, spiked like little hedgehogs. Most of the nuts have gone, but Bear digs down and finds the few that the birds and squirrels haven’t got to.
I watch him – the ritual of it, building the fire, opening up the prickly cases, taking the knife to carve crosses on the sweet nuts inside and then shaking them in the dry pan over small, smouldering flames.
He’s a proper camper now. He was born to be out here.
I shift my position to see what weight my foot can take. I can’t even think about putting my boot back on. My ankle is OK – it’s my foot itself that’s the problem. It’s heavy and throbbing and I want to scream when I put any weight on it at all, but if I grit my teeth, bite my lip, I can walk.
“We need more water, Ju.”
It’s morning and we’re walking on. Or Bear is. I’m limping beside him, dragging my left foot. It’s hurting less, but not in a good way. I don’t know if I’m getting used to the pain or a numbness is setting in.
The land’s too steep today and after a while I collapse, exhausted. We need more water. My throat’s so dry it hurts.
“I’ll find a stream,” Bear says, like he’s reading my mind.
“No,” I protest, thinking of the bloodied trap. “We have to stick together.”
“You could rest.”
“I couldn’t rest. Not without you.” We have to stay in sight of each other. We can’t be further apart than that.
I stagger on to the nearest stream and then once Bear’s got the water, as if on cue, Ghost appears beside us, a pigeon hanging from her jaw. I fall down, grateful, like the pigeon is a reason to rest, to let Bear sort it all out. The fire. The bird carcass. He hands me small tender strips of meat. Like I’m a little child.
The throbbing in my foot is worse now. Last night, though I desperately wanted to shut my eyes and escape from it all, I’d forced myself to take off the bandage. I did it when Bear was asleep. He’d already seen enough. I had to look though, at the deep gash, the torn, ragged flesh. I’m sure the trap’s teeth made it right down to the bone. I knew I should somehow be cleaning out the wound, but when I tried it started bleeding again. I smothered it with our antiseptic balm instead and bandaged it back up.
We should be moving on. We shouldn’t be in one place too long, so near water. That’s been our strategy for days, to stay clear of drones, and it’s worked. But my foot doesn’t feel like it can take any weight at all now. When Bear points out a thicket and suggests staying here for the rest of the day, I nod, grateful.
“You’re hot, Ju!” Bear says in the night, waking me.
I stare at him. “What do you mean? I’m freezing.”
“You’re not,” he says, insistent. “You’re really hot. You’re sweating.”
I’m about to say that that’s impossible, but it’s not. My body’s wet with sweat and when I touch my forehead I can feel it – the heat coming off me. I’m burning up.
“Is it the disease?” Bear asks, his bottom lip wobbling.
“No.” I know what it is. It’s the trap – I saw the dirt and the rust. You couldn’t not get an infection from that.
“You need more medicine!”
“I’ll take more. Don’t worry.” I’m already on the maximum dose of the antibiotics, but I take more anyway. A couple of tablets, washed down by all the water we have left, then I’m pulled back down to sleep.
When it’s light, Bear feeds me more tablets and water too, even though I thought we’d run out, and then somehow he gets me walking – right foot, dragging my left foot after. I feel strangely light, dangerously light, like there’s nothing to weigh me down.
“My bag,” I mutter. “Why are you carrying my bag? You’re too little.”
“I’m not, Ju,” Bear says and we stumble on, and my blood, for all its disease resistance, is thick and slow and slushes around my head.
I keep having to stop. One time, after a little while, I realize Bear’s gone. Gone from sight, though all the bags are still here.
It’s the clatter of metal that wakes me. Bear’s putting both rucksacks on, one back, one front, with the pans hanging from them. My little tin man. I hear Annie Rose’s voice, back in our Palm House, as clear as day.
Bear’s face is flushed. “I found a cave! I saw it on the GPS and I went to find it. It’s just up there, Ju. Can you walk?”
“A cave?”
“A shelter,” he says. “A cavern,” and I know I’m meant to continue, find some new word to carry on the game, only everything is muddled and I think we’ve got there already because the ground is hard and rocky and it’s dark.
Somewhere ahead there’s an opening. The mouth of the cave. This round circle of light that’s drawing me in.
In my head, we’re still walking. The pulse of each footfall, one after another. In my head it’s still going, still beating on, and Bear’s voice too. How many miles, Juniper?
When I open my eyes, in a moment of lucidity, the scene is still the same. Stuck. We haven’t moved on. The rocky ceiling, the slate floor like our kitchen back home. The dark pool of water from which Ghost drinks and the disc of light behind. We found our lair and Emily is here. My beautiful rag doll, Emily. Her dress like a meadow. How can that be? “I brought her for you,” Bear says shyly. “I had her in my rucksack. She was a present. For when we got to Ennerdale. I thought you’d want her.”
“I would. I do,” I murmur.
Ennerdale. For when we got there.
The lucidity of all this. Is that the right word? The clarity. The clearness. The stillness.
Everything is so still. The beat has stopped. Of course we’re not walking any more.
“Ju, drink. You need to drink.” Bear’s holding up a bottle to my lips and the liquid pours down my throat, clean and reviving. This isn’t cave water. He dutifully feeds me the tablets too, and more strips of meat and little fish he says are minnow.
“I made a spear, Ju. Like I said I would. It worked.”
He’s so pleased and proud. I try to eat the fish because I want Bear to smile again, but really it’s just the water I want.
Outside the cave, there’s a tree. It’s got brown leaves on but I watch them fall. Each time it gets light, I watch them fall and then one day the tree is bare. It’s right down to the bone and the branches are white.
“Snow, Juniper. Like in the globe. In the Emporium.” Bear’s holding my hand, squeezing it tight.
“Snow?”
“I’m cold, Ju.” He’s crying.
I don’t know what to say because I’ve forgotten what cold is. It feels like my whole body’s on fire.
“We’re like real bears. Hibernating,” Bear says and I pull him up against me.
Maybe that’s what we’re doing. Hibernating. In our cave. Our cavern. Our den.
“Bear,” I say in a sudden wakefulness. “You mustn’t forget the GPS. When you carry on.” I should have let him use it. Practise.
“Don’t, Ju! Don’t say that.”
“And the rifle. You have to keep the rifle ready. It’s important.
”
“It’s not important. I’m staying with you,” Bear says fiercely and he presses his fists over his ears.
Ghost sleeps right up against us, keeping us warm. Sometimes she purrs. It’s meant to mean a cat’s happy, but I don’t think it means happy. It’s just reassurance.
Our hunting cat. She’s keeping Bear alive. That was my job but I can’t do it any more.
Once, long ago, long before, in a country called Italy, two baby brothers were abandoned by a river. They were left to die. A she-wolf found them. She carried them to a cave like they were her own cubs. Looked after them. Saved them. But when they grew up, they must have turned their back on her as their one desire was to build a city.
Outside our cave there are wolves. I hear them. And sometimes I see them too. Grey shadows at the entrance. “Don’t go outside, Bear!” I scream, though it comes out more of a whisper.
Bear’s voice is defiant. “I’m six, Ju.” Six years old. Like that will save him.
Maybe the wolves wouldn’t hurt us anyway. That she-wolf suckled those two babies she found. Romulus and Remus. I think one of them died in the end. It must have been Remus because the city they built was called Rome.
Ghost will look after us. She’ll keep the wolves away. It’s winter that’s the real predator. The season that, like all seasons, the city kept from us. The cold at its core.
It’s coming, with numbing fingers and icy breath. It’s reaching out for us.
We’re children of the Wild and we came back to it. We offered ourselves up for the taking. I dream of two bodies of bone, still intertwined. Stripped back, stripped bare, like fine porcelain. And in the future, far, far ahead, when the disease has burned itself out and humans can come here again, maybe someone will find us. And just like in the past, when fossilized bones in a cave showed elephants and hippopotamuses once roamed through England, so too will people know there were children here. A girl and boy who never quite made it home.
The mouth of the cave is lit and there is a new sound. People.
“Bear, be careful!” Be careful of people most of all. They could have gone bad. They might have had to.
Where the World Turns Wild Page 17