by Diane Cook
“Why would he do something so risky for us?”
“Because we’re friends.”
“Mom.”
“He wants to be there too. It’s not just the study. The whole Wilderness State is ending. He needs somewhere to go.”
“So he’d come with us?”
“There’s nowhere else to go,” her mother said impatiently.
“Isn’t he married?”
“When did you become so old-fashioned?” her mother snapped.
“Is he married?”
“No,” she snapped. “Not anymore. And not that it matters.” Her mother blushed. “This plan is a good plan. A solid plan. You need to come with me.”
“Now?”
“Now!”
Agnes saw that what people had taken for strength and leadership in her mother might just have been desperation, a manic instinct to survive. She didn’t know if there was a difference. Shouldn’t there be?
“I’m not going.”
“Agnes. You’ll get found. You’ll get sent back. Or worse.”
“I’m staying here.”
“For what? With who? Everyone is scattered.”
“We can find them like you found me.” Agnes made the call to regroup. Her mother again clamped her hand over her mouth.
“I didn’t find you, Agnes. I tracked you. Easily, I’ll add. And so will the Rangers.”
Panicked, Agnes flipped through some thoughts. “But the Private Lands aren’t even real.”
“Of course they’re real.”
“How do you know?”
“Bob told me.”
“How does he know?”
“He’s been there!”
“He said that?”
“Well, he knows people who have been. Shit, I don’t know, Agnes. I just know we need to go.” Her voice was hushed hysteria.
Agnes ground her teeth. Of all the absurd plans. How could Agnes know something so clearly while her mother believed the opposite wholeheartedly? She tried to keep her voice measured. “I know you’re trying to protect me, but the City is right where we’ll end up if we go to him. They need us as bait. There’s no other reward for us other than this place right here. The Private Lands are not real. He’s lying to you.”
“He wouldn’t,” her mother said, and it was such a simple belief. It was the only thing to believe in. She’d probably believed in it for a long time. She’d probably been leaving notes in the trees for years, planning for the time when she would have to find another way to save Agnes, herself. She probably thought she had no other choice.
Agnes heard a call. She waited, listening. She heard it again. “See, there’s one of our own. We need to regroup.”
“No way,” her mother said and grabbed her again. And again Agnes wrenched away.
“I’m not going,” Agnes screamed. “This is my home.”
“Stop!” Her mother shook her by the shoulders desperately. “This is no one’s home.” She looked exasperated, as though Agnes didn’t understand something very simple about the world. “You can’t hide forever.”
Agnes shook her mother off. Tears sprang. Of course she could hide forever, she thought indignantly. She knew this land better than they did. She would not get caught. She was offended her mother thought otherwise.
“Why would I go anywhere with you? You left me.”
“This again?” her mother roared in frustration. “Why can’t you look at all the other times I was here? Why is our whole relationship that?”
“Because you left me alone.”
“You weren’t alone.”
“You left me in the Wilderness.”
“You LOVE the Wilderness.”
“Because mothers don’t do that.”
“Well, this mother did.” Her mother choked on her words they came out so fast. “How are you going to deal with that? This mother loves you. And this mother left. And this mother came back. And this mother will never be forgiven for it.”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, I know. You don’t need to tell me.”
Her mother crumpled to the ground as though her legs were just dirt, crumbly anthills holding her up. Her knees splayed, and her hands came together ready to be shackled as though she’d just given up on any future. So did Agnes. In the exact same way. Like a shadow.
“I know I hurt you,” her mother said. “I never wanted to. Ever. In my whole life I never wanted to. But I did anyway. I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t have done it.”
“But I did it.”
“I want you to say you shouldn’t have done it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it wouldn’t be true. It was important for me. It may not have been good for us, but it was, I think, good for you. It led us to this point. And now we have a chance.” She shook her head. “I never lied to you, Agnes, and I’m not going to start now.”
“I wish you would.”
Bea blinked. Surprised. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do,” Agnes said, her voice peaking hysterically, her fists clenched.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” her mother said quickly, trying to give Agnes what she wanted. “I shouldn’t have left you. It was a mistake. I ruined everything.”
Of course her mother had lied to her before—they both knew that—but still, she’d been right about this lie. This lie dropped like a dead animal at Agnes’s feet. It made her feel awful to think it had all been for nothing. Even though she could see in her mother’s face that some part of her wished she’d never left too, it didn’t matter. She had left. And everything, ultimately, had been fine. No one had died. This mother left. This mother came back. This mother loved her. And Agnes didn’t know how to forgive her. Even though the lie felt awful, the truth felt worse. There was nothing that could be done but let time pass.
“I do love you, Mama,” she whispered.
Her mother whimpered. Her face contorting as though all the feelings she’d ever felt were wrenching across it.
She leaned over and clung to Agnes, kissing her face and head, nuzzling her neck like she used to do when Agnes was a child. “Was I wrong? Should I not have brought you here?” Her mother wept now.
“No, Mama, I belong here.”
“That’s what I mean,” she sobbed. “When we leave, how will you live?”
“But I’m not leaving here,” Agnes said.
“You can’t stay.” A growl permeated her sobs.
“I’m not going.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Her mother’s anger was bubbling.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Agnes’s voice rose, her fists clenched vehemently.
“It’s suicide.”
“Mom, I’m not going with you.”
Her mother’s eyes quivered furiously. “Yes, you are.”
Bea grabbed Agnes’s arm, her hand a claw. Her voice was a haunted scream.
But Agnes seized her mother by the throat and pushed her down. Her mother choked but wouldn’t release Agnes. Agnes drove her fist at her mother’s eye, and her mother’s whole face broke into anguished surprise. Her eye reddened and swelled instantly and she sputtered, but Agnes had to hit her again before her mother let go.
“Oh no,” Bea said, gasping, unable to breathe. Then she opened her mouth wide and shook with mad, breathless laughter.
Agnes released her throat.
Her mother caught her breath, all the while staring at Agnes with shocked and shining eyes. “Oh no,” she said again, and then unleashed a shrill bolt of laughter Agnes had only ever heard from her nana.
Agnes stood up.
“Oh no,” her mother said again, and from underneath the laughter a wail rose. Something low that seemed to rise out of her guts. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”
Agnes turned away.
“My baby,” her mother sputtered, snot and tears bursting from her. “Oh, my baby. My baby girl.” She wrung her hands violently. “I ho
pe you get to stay.”
Agnes started to walk deeper into the forest, away from the outcrop. Away from her mother.
“What a wonder you are,” she heard her mother say, not to her, but to the air, the lands below, the sky, the forest, to herself. “See? Look at her,” she said as though confiding in a friend. “Look at that wonder. I was a good mother.”
Was she making one last argument? No. There was something else in her voice. Maybe it was her way of saying goodbye. Or maybe, Agnes thought, it was just now dawning on her that it could be true.
Agnes looked back, furtively. Her mother was doubled over, crouched like an animal, her clawed hand digging at her own heart, watching her. Sobbing. And smiling. More than smiling. Beaming.
Agnes felt both relief and anger. She felt respected, free. And alone alone alone.
Through the trees behind her mother, Agnes could see the broken line of the horizon where the sun was setting. The light of the day was being blotted out as though somewhere shades were being drawn.
Part VII
The Roundup
Agnes spent the night asleep in a tree. From there she watched her mother sit, stunned, then ease herself up and limp downhill to find Bob, until she became lost to the trees. Agnes heard a whir of something. A helicopter or drone throughout the night. A searching light swept over the Caldera slopes. There was no deal for the remaining Community members, she was certain. They either had run too or were bound for the bus. What if they were all there hiding? But the forest was quiet except for the surveillance. The animals who lived there were listening. Trying to figure out what to do next.
In the morning Agnes climbed down to find the others. She made some of their calls, like a chattering squirrel followed by an irritated jay, a coyote yip after a hawk’s complaining eeyEE. Eventually she heard a call back. Over the course of days, weeks maybe, she found the Twins, Val and Baby Egret, Linda and Dolores and Joven, Debra and Pinecone, and Dr. Harold, who had run at the last minute. Then, thankfully, she found Jake.
As a group they drifted deeper into the cinder cone forest, trying to become lost. They knew how to listen. They knew how to hide. They spread out across the forest alone or in pairs rather than walking together, always within calling distance of another person or two. In this way, if they did come upon Rangers, they would not all be captured at once. They did not camp together in case Rangers ambushed them as they slept. But every few days when the tree shadows were their longest, they would congregate just to be together.
Sometimes, when they came back together, someone was missing. At first it was Dr. Harold. They hoped he had decided to venture out on his own, perhaps thinking he had a better chance. When Linda and Dolores disappeared and only Joven followed the calls to return, he was badly shaken and wouldn’t talk for days. But eventually he would tell them it was the Rangers. He had been trees away trying to corner a squirrel. He fit himself into a hollow in a stump and waited there for days before he dared come out of hiding. Over several seasons, their numbers dwindled as they put more and more distance between themselves and the Caldera.
What happened then was people would appear out of nowhere, tentative and afraid. They would come out of hiding. Someone who had been listening, discerning, learning the Community’s call and taking the risk of revealing themselves in exchange for some company, some security. Friend? Friend? Friend? They were Trespassers. They were looking for the Mavericks.
Some were alone, though they usually had not begun that way. Others were a part of a still-intact small group who had paid and bribed and walked their way from the City and sneaked in from the Mines. They had all found little markers in the woods, abandoned campsites, deer hooves and innards left behind after butchering, hatchets stuck in trees. Little clues to the presence of others. Some wore shoddy clothes of deerskin that had been poorly scraped and still held on to bits of flesh and smelled like rot. Others were in new boots, with the new trekking poles, new cookware, and new sleeping bags, the kind the Community had come with in the beginning. One couple they absorbed thought they had been in the Wilderness for over a year. Another group still had watches that worked. They were pretty sure they still knew the date. Men, women, and children. Grandparents, single mothers and fathers who had left behind an ill spouse. Or a spouse who had refused to leave. Or who had not been told about the plan to begin with. They’d all fled the City, they said, because they had no other choice. Now they were splintered and hungry. They said the Rangers pursued them relentlessly. They heard that the Mavericks could live undetected in the Wilderness for years, and had thrived and somehow evaded capture. They wanted the Mavericks to help them disappear too.
Upon finding the Community, these poor souls would ask in hopeful whispers, “Are you the Mavericks?”
Agnes would put a hand on their shoulder. “No,” she would tell them. “But we can do all that. We can help you.”
Each day they spread out in what seemed an endless line, splitting and coming back together when necessary, like a V of migrating geese. At times, walking through the forest or the plain, Agnes would swear that the Wilderness now teemed with people.
* * *
Agnes was hunkered in a stand of trees near the foothills at sundown, listening for the call of her group, when she heard the unmistakable sound of something curiously alive in a tree nearby. They had somehow made it back through the mountains, to the other side, through the sage sea to the Basin, which they hoped the Rangers still disliked traveling to.
She crept closer, tree by tree, stepping soundlessly, using everything she had learned in her life to go undetected. Invisible behind a skinny alder, she paused and watched a tree tremble in a way trees didn’t tremble. Then a very young girl fell to the ground, landing like a big cat on her feet and hands, in a deerskin smock, mud on her face and grass in her gnarled hair. The girl opened her mouth big as though to yelp or holler, but made no sound. But a moment later she cocked her ear and then bolted in that direction, silently. She couldn’t have been older than four.
Agnes made her call. She listened. She made the call again. The small forest was silent for a moment. Then she heard a hesitant call back. Agnes quietly moved toward the sound.
Slumped under a tree was a woman in skins cradling an emaciated girl in patched jeans stained with urine and feces. The woman’s eyes were circled in bruise purple. Her lips were parched. They appeared to be dead. But the younger girl, the one Agnes had seen, was crouched in front of them, a guard. She was vibrant, and after a moment of watching Agnes, she leapt up and climbed the tree the dead lay under.
“Hello,” said Agnes as the girl perched on a branch that reached toward Agnes.
“Hi,” the girl mewed.
“I like your dress.”
“Gracias.”
“Is this your mother?”
“Yes.”
Agnes smiled kindly.
“And my sister,” the girl whispered.
Agnes nodded. “Do you know how long you’ve been here?”
The girl shrugged.
“Do you know how old you are?”
The girl shrugged again.
“That’s okay. It doesn’t matter. Are you alone now?”
The girl nodded, her eyes becoming big and wet briefly, as though letting herself see the situation as it was. Then quickly, as she straddled the tree branch, she began to beat her chest. She opened her mouth again and looked as though she were whooping loudly, as Agnes had seen her do earlier, but she made no noise. Even with no sound, the unbridled emotion in her was obvious, natural. She looked at Agnes and put her finger to her own lips. “Quietly,” she said, no doubt repeating a mother trying desperately to keep a wild and boundless girl hidden.
Agnes’s hackles rose then. She cocked her head. The girl did too. They had both heard something.
Agnes smiled. “I have a lot of friends here. A lot of kids your age. And we live here. Would you like to meet them?”
The girl slid down from the tree like a rivulet
. Her feet were dirty and tough, and there were no shoes or socks to be seen. She stood next to the bodies without looking at them.
“Hurry now,” Agnes said, reaching her hand out. The girl took it, but once she was next to Agnes, she climbed up into her arms and rested her head in Agnes’s neck.
Agnes carried the girl the rest of the day. The girl fell asleep on her shoulder from time to time. She cried out in her sleep occasionally. She peed herself, and Agnes felt it run down her own leg. But Agnes kept walking, carrying the shivering girl, who was finally able to be scared and tired, calling out to her companions in the quiet night air. And when she could not walk any longer, she laid them both down to sleep.
In the morning, Agnes woke to the girl’s face an inch away from hers, peering down at her nose.
“What’s your name?” the girl asked hesitantly.
“Agnes. What’s yours?”
The girl looked up at her with her spooked and knowing eyes. “It’s Fern.”
“How nice. I love ferns.”
“No, not the plant.” She scowled. “It’s short for Fernanda.” She stuck out her tongue as though the name were a bad taste in her mouth.
“Well, it’s a lovely-sounding name.”
“Fernanda means adventurer. My mamá told me.”
“I like that.”
“But everyone thinks Fern is just a plant.”
“It’s a great plant.”
The girl squinted at Agnes. “I’m looking for something very secret and special. Can I trust you?”
“Of course.”
Fern pulled out a map from under her shirt, where she had fabric wrapped around her torso. “Aquí es donde guardo todo,” she whispered. She smoothed the map out for Agnes. The girl had drawn it. Under her scrawls was what looked to be an old bus schedule. There were upside-down W mountains, lakes of blue Us and Vs. Forests of green circles atop thick brown lines. It was of no place, but it could be any place.
She pointed to a big bold X. “This is the Place.”
“And what’s there?”
Fern looked up with silver moon eyes. “Everything good,” she said with reverence.
“Well”—Agnes smiled—“let’s try to find it.” She stood up and took the girl’s hand. As they walked the girl kept up a nervous chatter, and Agnes hmmed and listened for danger in the bushes.