22
Helena knew why the monsters were running -the police were after them. The crime? Kidnapping. The Punishment? Death. Run, run, run, even in a blizzard. She didn’t blame them for running, but she knew it was no use, the bad guys always got caught. She’d tell them so herself, but she’d made a firm decision to stop talking to the monsters. How many times did she have to say ‘take me home,’ ‘let me go,’ ‘get me some clothes,’ ‘I hate you.’ They didn’t pay any attention anyway so why bother?
Helena nuzzled into Mawei’s arms as the yetis trudged through snow up to their knees. Sometimes Helena’s feet would fall between Mawei’s arm and her body, and her toes would feel the sting of frozen air and she would tuck them back up under the warm fur. The snow was coming down in sheets but the monsters kept running. Helena couldn’t understand how they could keep going without rest. They finally stopped next to a swollen stream and Ruffer held Helena while Mawei caught some fish. Helena ate, but she still wouldn’t talk.
The red girl-monster kept telling the all-black monster that Helena really could speak their language. “The little human probably just doesn’t feel like talking right now.” She said. Helena thought it was funny and took it as a sign that she was doing the right thing. Maybe they would lose interest in her and leave her alone. Helena kept herself from accidently saying something in yeti by humming a tune she remembered from a television commercial.
The monsters ran all night and into the next day, and the snow kept falling. Sometime in the afternoon on that second day they must’ve gotten tired, because they huddled together in an alcove where two large boulders leaned up against each other. The red girl-monster was staring at her. “Please little bird, I’m worried about you. Say something.” She said.
Helena almost said ‘no’ but caught herself and began humming again. She was tired and she put her face into Mawei’s fur and had a brilliant flight of ideas and images and then she was asleep. Somewhere far off she heard her daddy shout a bad word and she jerked awake. She must’ve been asleep a long time because it was dark and she was in the all-black monster’s arms. The monsters were running again, through the cold wet night. Helena tried to get comfortable and go back to sleep, but she could only get halfway there.
She thought the running would never end until finally they stopped at the edge of a snow covered meadow in the evening of the next day. When Helena looked around she couldn’t believe what she saw. It was a house. It was small, but there was a porch, a chimney, windows, and a roof. The monsters were talking but Helena couldn’t see what they were saying because she was straining to get a better view. She was about to bite the all-black monster and run for it, but they started out across the field toward the old cabin. Maybe they’re giving themselves up, she thought, or maybe they’ll put me close by and run.
Mawei stepped onto the porch, ducking down to avoid hitting her head, and she pushed the front door open. Helena looked in and saw clouds and trees and thought something was wrong. She realized that the back wall and half of the roof had caved in. It was clear that no one had lived there in many years.
Ruffer climbed in the house behind Mawei, and set Helena down on a badly stained throw rug. “It’s a human shelter,” Mawei said to Helena, “just like home, right little bird?”
Helena couldn’t take it. “No!” She said. “It’s not like home, it’s like a cruddy shack in the middle of nowhere. Look, it’s snowing in the kitchen, there’s an ax chopped into the wall, the only chair in the whole place is broken!”
“Yes, but it’s already having a good effect on you, you’re talking again. Wouldn’t you rather stay here than out in the woods someplace?” Mawei looked back and said something to Ruffer that Helena couldn’t see and then turned back. “Ruffer’s wild isn’t too far.” She said. “What do you think, should we stay here tonight?”
“I don’t care,” Helena said, “you’re just going to do whatever you want anyway.”
“This’ll be fun.” Ruffer said to Helena. “Just for tonight we can all pretend to be humans…” He looked at Mawei with a blank expression and began making jabbering noises. Mawei laughed and jabbered back at him.
“No, stop!” Helena said. “I hate you both. If you want to do something human, make a fire. There’s a fireplace right there and I’m cold.”
“Oh, is that what that’s for?” Ruffer asked. He went over to the stone fireplace and inspected it, looking up and seeing that it opened all the way to the sky to let the smoke escape. “That’s clever,” he said, “but I don’t know how to make a fire, do you Mawei?”
“I saw a highland-yeti do it two Gathers ago, but I didn’t get a good look. I think it has something to do with stones.”
“No, no.” Helena said. “You start a fire with matches.”
“Little bird, we don’t know any of your human devices.” Ruffer said. “We don’t need fire, our fur keeps us warm.”
“Well mud isn’t fur, and I’m not a monster.”
Ruffer picked up a metal container by the fireplace and shook it. There were objects inside and he pried the lid off with a claw and brought it over to the child. “Are any of theses things matches?”
“No,” she said, “but there’s a lighter in there. That’s for starting a fire.” She reached in and pulled out a red plastic lighter that only had a little fluid left in it. “My aunt Beezy has one of these, but I’ve never used it. I’m not allowed.”
“It’ll be okay this once.” Mawei said. Ruffer pulled some boards off of the collapsed roof and broke them into pieces that would fit in the fireplace. Soon the chair was also smashed up and the pile grew to fill the whole hearth. “We need dry grass or bark.” Mawei said. “That’s how the highland-yeti do it. They don’t start with big pieces of wood.”
“Use the newspapers.” Helena said, pointing to a stack of yellowing papers near the door. Ruffer shredded a bunch of the papers with his claws and arranged a pile around the base of the wood.
When he’d finished he stepped back away from the fireplace and the two yetis watched Helena, waiting for her to start the fire. She looked closely at the mechanism at the top of the lighter. “You do it with your thumb and the fire comes out here,” she said. She put her thumb on the rough little wheel and pushed downward quickly, making a spark but nothing more. “Dang.” She said in sound language. She quickly tried three more times, creating a short-lived flame when she accidently hit the button on the third try. She tried again and this time pressed the button down and kept the flame going. She held it down to the newspaper which caught fire quickly and soon some pieces of the chair caught too, and there was a real fire going.
Mawei, Helena and Ruffer all sat in front of the fire and stared into the flames. “Little bird, sing me a song.” Mawei said. Traveling through snow over a foot deep carrying a naked human child for three days had been exhausting and Mawei felt she was on the verge of a deep sleep. Ruffer seemed to be hypnotized by the fire and stared intently into the flames. Helena started the itsy bitsy spider, but she couldn’t do the fingers right and it made her miss her mom so she switched to twinkle-twinkle.
Ruffer collected some more planks from what was left of the roof and threw them in the fire to keep it going. Soon Helena and Mawei were asleep on the floor and Ruffer lay next to them wondering where a thing like fire came from.