My shorts and sunglasses were traded for jacket and beanie, and I ensured Della wore all her clothes, including a layer of mine, tied in places and pinned in others, to ensure she stayed as snug as possible.
One night, as ice started forming on the grass before we’d even crawled into the tent to sleep, I faced a decision I’d been putting off since my last hunt in a local town and a raid of their lacklustre supermarket.
I regularly visited towns to supplement our diet of meat and fish with things my body craved—sugar, salt, and carbohydrates. I had no qualms about stealing and did my best to break in as subtly as I could and only take things that would go unnoticed, so police would remain none the wiser.
We were a couple of days’ walk from the last town and too far north according to the chilly air and the way Della shivered even hunched close to the fire.
Winter was fast approaching, and if I didn’t change our circumstances, we wouldn’t make it.
So I put aside my reservations of people and houses and began the long journey to the next congregation of matching homes and cloned society, doing my best to go south as much as possible to outrun the frosts determined to freeze us.
* * * * *
We found a township on the second day, and for a week, we hid in someone’s garden shed where the rickety wooden walls and faded newspaper taped to the only window held the wintery blast at bay.
Our diet consisted of pre-packaged sandwiches and over-processed meats—thanks to a forage to a local store—and we chased the awful taste away with orange juice and soda.
Every hour spent in town, sneaking in shadows and staying hidden, drained me. I hated being surrounded by people. I hated watching my back and suspecting everyone.
I missed the simplicity of nature and the basic rules of win or lose.
Trees couldn’t lie to you.
Bushes couldn’t hurt you.
Humans were complicated creatures, and smiles were full of poison.
I didn’t let Della come with me on any of my explorations, not because I worried she would prefer to trade our wilderness life for a family who didn’t want her but because I feared she’d be stolen from me.
She was cute and smart and far too brave for her own good.
She’d make anyone an excellent daughter or special task giver like the girls Mr. Mclary invited into the house.
She had to be protected at all costs and kept hidden from everyone.
On my third scout for food, I ran past a bookstore with local newspapers displayed in the window. The black and white pictures stood out from squashed lines of unreadable text. Ever since seeing Della on TV, I’d studied the images of children on magazines and stories in newspapers, searching to see if the Mclarys were still searching for us.
I didn’t know what I’d do if they were hunting for my one and only friend.
Over the past few months, Della and I had fallen into a habit we were both content with. She learned so fast—intently watching me do chores around the camp, until one day, she’d try to copy me as if she’d been doing it her entire life.
Collecting firewood—or more like fire sticks—she’d scatter them around instead of pile for an easy blaze. She’d fist the slippery soap and smear it on clothing without rinsing—mainly because she didn’t fully grasp what she was doing and also because she was banned from going near the river unless I was with her.
She even tried to steal my knife one night after watching me sharpen the end of a stick to grill a fish over an open flame.
I’d drawn the line at that.
I liked her with ten fingers. She didn’t need to copy me in everything and end up with nine.
Out of the two of us, Della talked constantly while I said hardly anything at all. She’d point at things all around us: sparrow, rock, plate, mug, water…waiting for me to name it before storing away the sound to be used later.
It hinted at yet another future complication in our life.
Education.
She was a sponge, and I only had a limited amount of knowledge for her to soak up. I could teach her how to live on nothing and not only stay alive in the forest but flourish, but I couldn’t teach her the things that people learned in schools.
I couldn’t show her what a real family was or how parents made you feel. I didn’t know those things myself, so how could I pass on such details?
Throughout the months when she grew from baby to toddler, I grew harder and older but also softened thanks to her sweet innocence toward everything. She wasn’t dragged down by hate or grudges. She didn’t judge anything before she’d tasted or tested it for herself.
She taught me not to be so narrow-minded, granting a fleeting chance to be a child again when such a novelty had been stolen from me.
I often found my heart swelling with warmth for my young, tiny friend and cracking in pain knowing this life we shared couldn’t go on forever.
She would eventually need more.
She would eventually outgrow me.
But for now, at least, I’d upheld my side of the bargain and kept her safe.
As we hung out, hidden and miserable from the weather in some stranger’s shed, I played the naming game with Della and answered her eager finger as it flew from mower to sickle to drill to axe to rake. Rusted tools rested unused and forgotten, draped with cobwebs and dusted in beetle carcasses.
She repeated the words quietly like an eager parrot, her eyes aglow with learning.
We couldn’t light a fire, so we spent our evenings huddled together in the sleeping bag, looking for ways to entertain ourselves.
This place reminded me of the farmhouse, and for the first time in a while, the fear I’d constantly lived with returned, and I locked my attention on the only entrance as Della grew drowsy and crawled into the tent I’d haphazardly put up amongst discarded household junk.
She grumbled some made-up language of baby tongue and badly phrased things I’d taught her until I obeyed her commands to come to bed and grudgingly agreed to tell another bedtime story.
Somehow, she’d latched onto the stupid retellings and stared at me with dreamy eyes and utmost contentedness on her pretty face whenever I succumbed to her demands.
The first one I’d told out of desperation when she didn’t settle after something large and most likely hungry sniffed around our tent a few months ago.
I’d squatted on my haunches with two knives in two fists, ready to slice any creature that found its way into our sanctuary.
But whatever it was gave up after a while.
It didn’t mean Della calmed down, though.
She’d whimpered and sniffled, clutching that damn blue ribbon as if it was her only friend in the world.
That had hurt.
I’d grown used to her seeking comfort from me—of her crawling unwanted into my lap at the worst times or snuggling too close in the night.
I wasn’t used to contact from another and definitely not used to contact given so readily and often, but to have her deny what I’d grown accustomed to that night, especially after I’d been prepared to slaughter whatever it was to keep her safe reached into my chest and twisted.
Perhaps it was the feral mind-set I’d been in, already bathing in blood of whatever beast I would kill, or maybe it was the way my fists turned white from clutching the knives—whatever it was, her tears cascaded faster once the threat of danger had passed than they had when it’d been snuffling and pawing at our door.
So I’d done the only thing that popped into my head.
I’d placed aside my blades, pulled her into my lap, and told her a horror story to take her mind off the one we’d just avoided.
I told her about the farmhouse and what it was like at dinner-time. I let the fact that some animals wanted to eat us colour my retelling of starvation and helplessness in the barn. I’d killed rats and eaten them raw before. I’d torn pumpkin from another starving kid’s hands. I sympathized with the hungry—human and beast—and did my best to make Della see tha
t it wasn’t personal. It was just nature’s balance, and it was our responsibility to stay at the top of the food chain because we’d encounter so many that wanted to steal that position for itself.
She’d fallen asleep clutching me as tight as she clutched her ribbon, and although it shouldn’t, although I was stupid to be jealous of a tatty piece of blue, I slept with a smile on my face and my friend in my arms all night.
Tonight, though, she wasn’t satisfied with just a normal story.
She wanted the truth, and I was too young to think of sheltering her from it.
A few weeks ago, she’d noticed what I tried to forget every time I washed. She’d gawked at the marked piece of flesh on the side of my hipbone.
We always bathed together out of necessity and safety. I didn’t care about being naked around her because all the other kids in the barn dressed and undressed to the point it was normal seeing each other bare. But there were some things I wished she didn’t see.
Scars I’d endured.
Punishments I’d deserved.
Mistakes I’d made.
And that.
The one thing I could never run from.
The brand Mclary used to mark all his property from his horses to his cows to his bought and paid for children.
Della poked my hip with a tenacious finger, her face scrunched up as a stuttering please fell from her lips.
Before, I had more willpower about denying her things; I could easily say no and mean it. These days, I struggled especially when she threw back the same temper I used on her to get my way. She’d learned too well, and I sighed heavily, knowing tonight I would tell her just to stop her bugging me about it.
Keeping one eye on the shed door barricaded with an old generator and fallen apart rocking chair, I snuggled deeper into the shared warmth of the sleeping bag and began:
“A farmer with lots of cattle has only one way of making sure he can keep track of his inventory. With other farmer’s stock sometimes wandering into his fields and rustlers stealing his herd at night, it makes sense to have a way to identify what belongs to him and what doesn’t.”
Della blinked, wriggling closer to pull up my jumper and push down the top of my trousers.
Instead of shoving her away like I usually did, I let her run her fingertip over the raised scar tissue on my hip.
While she studied the embossed Mc97 in a neat oval stamped into my flesh, I said, “Your parents have a brand. I don’t know entirely what the numbers are for, but I guess the Mc is for their name. Every single animal on Mclary’s farm has the same brand. Their sheep, their cows…me.”
Della let my clothing go to stick her thumb in her mouth and stroke her ribbon.
“Don’t do that.” I yanked her thumb from her tiny lips. “You’ll have crooked teeth.”
She was a pretty kid, but that didn’t mean she’d stay that way if she had teeth as bad as her father’s thanks to chewing tobacco and bad hygiene.
Slipping straight back into the story, I pushed her tiny hand into her lap. “The brand is found on all animals on their rump to the left, unless it’s a sheep and then it’s on their ear because of the wool.”
Della nodded as if she understood every word.
I shrugged. “There isn’t much more to say. It was the first morning I arrived at the farm. I remember being pulled from bed after crying myself to sleep and being stripped with four other boys in the crushing stall where the stock are wormed and drenched. There, he had two other farmhands hold us down, and branded us with his stamp of ownership.”
I did my best not to let my mind skip down that painful memory lane, keeping my voice level and emotions out of it. “The smell was almost identical to that when he did the calves a few hours later. The burn hurt more than my finger.”
Della’s face fell as her little hand found mine. She squeezed with all the wisdom of a girl twice her age, full of sympathy I didn’t want.
Snatching my hand from hers, I shrugged again. “It was fine. I was just like his herd to him. I got why he had to mark us. He said it was so no one could steal us because we belonged to him and he’d come claim us, but I knew it was so he could find us if we ever tried to run.”
I rubbed the scar, wishing I could erase it permanently. “It doesn’t matter, though. He’ll never find me, brand or no brand.”
Della smiled a vicious little smile.
I returned it, laughing under my breath. “He’ll never find you, either. Will he, Della Mclary?”
I was a possession, and she was his daughter.
Both valuable in our own ways.
Both vanished, never to be his again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
REN
* * * * * *
2001
THAT FIRST WINTER was spent scurrying from one garden shed to another.
Sometimes, we’d find an abandoned house for a night or so, until the neighbours reported two stray children lurking around. Sometimes, we’d crawl through broken basement windows and boldly sleep beneath families who had no clue we lived beneath their feet.
For the coldest months of the year, I relied more on the humans I despised to feed and shelter us than the wilderness that lived in my blood.
As more time went on and the days grew shorter and the nights longer, I craved the scent of new leaves and sun-warmed bark.
I struggled to keep my discomfort and itch to be out of the city from Della, even though she suffered her own annoyance at being trapped in a place where the wrong people cared and the right people didn’t open their eyes to two kids living rough right amongst them.
I liked that I could walk down Main Street with Della’s hand in mine and only get a courtesy glance by those who believed all children had a family to return to and a warm meal to fill them.
I held my head high with arrogance when people stared at me and saw a kid not yet a man—a boy who would surely die if left alone and never know how wrong they were.
I liked being underestimated and enjoyed having a secret they didn’t know.
What I didn’t like were the men whose eyes lit up when their gaze slid from me to Della waddling beside me on her tiny toddler legs. What I didn’t like were the cold glowers from women who judged me and pitied Della and believed I was the very same vermin that Mrs Mclary thought me to be.
The hairs on the back of my neck never relaxed from living close to people I didn’t trust. My hackles stayed up, so when I crawled into bed at night, I was more exhausted than I’d ever been in the forest.
It all came to a head one night when lights flipped on and the door leading to family rooms above cracked open, and for the first time, we were at risk of being caught.
We had to make a choice.
Squatting in people’s basements was just asking to be separated and sent to Social Services. So what if snow banks had gathered outside or snowflakes stuck together so heavy even the leafless trees bowed under their weight?
We couldn’t keep doing this.
I couldn’t keep doing this.
Luckily, I’d been smart and kept our gear tightly packed. Instead of setting up the tent and sleeping bag, I’d hidden us behind some cardboard boxes and used the musty smelling blankets found in the corner.
All we had to do was yank on our boots and bolt.
Whoever’s house this belonged to clomped down the steps as I ripped the backpack off the floor and shoved it through the broken window. Scooping Della from the nest of blankets, I pushed her after it into the snow, then hauled myself up and out.
Instantly, the wind chewed through our jackets and gnawed on our naked hands and face. Della cried out as snow flurries danced in front of our eyes, obscuring our path, turning everything foggy and white.
A voice shouted behind us but we ignored it.
Working fast, I shrugged into the backpack and tore Della from the snow.
I wouldn’t be able to run far but at least we hadn’t been caught.
At least, we were still together.
r /> * * * * *
That night was one of the worst and best of our lives.
Worst because we trekked through one of the coldest storms that winter. Worst because by the time I stumbled onto our new temporary home, Della shivered and shook with a cold, and not just the temperature.
And the best because, although we’d had to flee our last hidey-hole, the one we found to replace it was so much better.
I hadn’t realised how close to the outskirts of town we’d been and only a few miles down the road, an old farmhouse rose from snow and ice, beckoning us closer.
I avoided the house even though no lights burned and no chimney puffed smoke, and carried Della into the barn farther down the gravel driveway.
The smells of hay and manure had faded, hinting that this farm hadn’t been worked in a while. It made me sad to think of untended fields and forgotten livestock but grateful that the chances of being caught were slim.
Sneaking deeper into the barn, I deposited a sneezing Della onto the straw-covered floor and set about making an igloo out of brittle hay bales. It didn’t take long, and the moment I spread out the sleeping bag and placed a piece of tarp over the entrance to our hay cave, the temperature warmed and the howling wind muffled thanks to the thermal properties of the dried grass.
The next morning, Della was achy and shivery, and I knew we weren’t going to be leaving anytime soon. The supplies and first-aid kits I’d stolen didn’t have soft Kleenexes for her runny nose or stuff to stop her coughing.
The storm had passed, so I left her tucked up tight and explored the farm in search of food and better medicine.
I didn’t want to approach the house, but I had no choice if I wanted to ensure Della fought the virus as fast as possible. With a knife in my hand, just in case another man like Mclary lived here, I crept up the veranda and peered into dirty windows.
Nothing.
No furniture, no people, no knickknacks or signs of inhabitants.
It was abandoned.
And ours for the taking.
The front door was unlocked as I strolled in with shoulders braced and knife at the ready. I explored the three bed, one bath wooden farmhouse, doing my best not to see similarities with the Mclary’s home but struggling.