A Wilder Heart

by Loki Renard

She must have fallen asleep in his arms because the next thing she was aware of was the fact that it was daylight. She woke up nestled against a tree, covered in a jacket that wasn’t hers. Owen wasn’t there and for a stricken minute she thought maybe she had only imagined that he’d come to her in the night.

  Aster dealt with the problem by staying curled up where she was like a fawn left by its mother until eventually Owen did return. Then she threw the jacket back and ran to him with hobbling unsteady steps. She fell against him just as she reached him and wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him as tight as her battered body would allow.

  “You’re really here!”

  “I’m here,” he reassured her, rubbing his hand over her back.

  “I hurt,” she said, surprised by how she was suddenly assailed by a full body ache. “I mean, I really hurt.”

  He put down the bag he’d had slung over his shoulder and focused his full attention on her. “Where does it hurt?”

  “Everywhere,” she whimpered.

  “Is there anything you can’t move? Are you dizzy at all?” His hands roamed her body as they had the night before, tracing over her shoulders and arms, up the flanks of her hips and over her ribs. “You should take off your shirt,” he said. “I need to see if you’re injured under there.”

  Aster stood in the dappled light and let Owen draw her shirt up and over her head. He made a small hissing sound under his breath as her body came into view. Looking down, Aster saw a dark bruise over the left side of her ribs.

  “You might have broken a rib,” Owen said. “That could be dangerous.”

  “I don’t feel broken. That’s just what happens when you use your body as a parachute,” she said, trying to put a brave face on it. “And I can breathe fine. It would hurt more if it were broken, right?”

  “I’m going to touch you there,” he said. “It’s going to hurt a little, but I need to know if you’re still intact or not.”

  Aster nodded as he began gently probing the bruised area. She made little hissing sounds through her teeth as his strong hands performed the delicate task of assessing her injuries.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I know this hurts.”

  “It usually hurts when you touch me,” she said, trying for a joke. It was lost in her wincing yelp as his fingers ran over her ribs.

  “They’re not broken,” he said. “Could still be cracked though. You need to be careful.”

  “I’ll be sure to be very careful,” Aster said. “Now that we’re lost in the middle of the forest with no food and no help and no people for miles and miles, I’ll be super super careful.”

  It seemed her sense of sarcasm was the one thing that had survived the crash unharmed.

  “You know what I mean,” he said. “Come sit down, I found us something to eat.”

  “Where?”

  “I pulled a bunch of stuff out of the wreckage before it all caught fire,” he said. “There was a first aid kit, and a few snacks and a couple other bits and pieces that should help us.”

  “You thought to do that right after the crash?”

  “I had to do something,” he said, shrugging. “It was as good as anything.”

  “What about the pilot?”

  “He didn’t make it,” Owen said. “The front of the chopper took the brunt of the impact.”

  “God,” Aster said, crouching down. “That’s awful.”

  Owen nodded. “We have enough supplies to get by,” he said. “The pilot must have had the chopper stocked for hunting. There’s a rifle and...”

  Aster’s jaw dropped as Owen detailed his spoils. There was something wrong about it, something somehow grotesque. “A man is dead, Owen, and you’re picking through his stuff like it doesn’t even matter!”

  “A man is dead and we will be too if we don’t look after ourselves. I think he’ll forgive us borrowing some of his stuff.” He handed her a muesli bar. “Eat this. You need to get some food in you.”

  She sat on the ground and peeled back the wrapper. From the first bite it was not at all tasty. It was grainy and all too sweet and there were bits of hard fruit in it.

  “I don’t like this.”

  “Okay, well why don’t you eat something else...” Owen pretended to look through the bag before giving her a dour glare. “That’s right, there isn’t anything else. Eat the food.”

  Aster handed him the rest of the uneaten bar. “You eat it. You need it more than I do. You’ve got more body weight to sustain.”

  Owen looked at her for a second, and then stuffed the bar into his mouth. He was obviously hungry, whereas Aster didn’t feel like eating at all. Her stomach seemed to have shrunk in the aftermath of the crash. She didn’t feel like eating, or drinking, or anything normally associated with being a human.

  “There’s not a lot of wildlife out here,” he said once he was done chewing. “And a lot of what is out here is protected. I’m hoping I can track a goat or a pig.”

  It seemed to Aster that having crash-landed in a helicopter less than twenty-four hours earlier was not slowing Owen down at all. He was ready to go off and hunt him down an animal. All Aster could manage was maybe to sit where she was.

  “I have no survival instincts at all,” she mused aloud. “If you weren’t here, I would just die.”

  “You’re in shock,” he said. “It takes a while to wear off. You stay here, let yourself heal. I’m going to see what I can do about getting us some dinner.”

  His words filled her with anxiety. She reached out and clutched at his arm. “Don’t leave me. If you leave me alone out here, I’ll die. I know I will.”

  Owen’s gaze softened as he looked at her. He reached out and stroked her hair back from her forehead gently. “I have to at some point, Aster. If I don’t get us some food soon, we’ll start to get tired and cold and we’ll be at a massive disadvantage. I’ll stay here for a bit though, we have to have warmth too, and shelter. First things first, a fire.”

  His hands were soon busy arranging rocks in a circle while Aster sat staring into the ether. The adjustment from normal life to lost in the bush was much too much for her. Though she had always admired nature, it had been at a safe distance, not up so close she could taste her own blood in her mouth. The forest was a world of its own, nothing like the one she had so carelessly left behind.

  At some point she became aware that a bird with iridescent blue wings, a bright green head, cape of white curls and a most curious white ball of feathery fluff under its chin was perched on a nearby branch, watching them. Its complete lack of fear indicated that it hadn’t seen people before. It bounced closer and closer along its perch until the bough began to bend and droop.

  Aster watched it watching her. It seemed to be looking her dead in the eye as it tilted its head from side to side as if to say ‘who are you and what are you doing in my forest?’ It was all a bit like being Alice in Wonderland, finding herself surrounded by strange and extinct creatures.

  Owen was working hard building the fire with some dry sticks and paper, the latter of which came from what Aster recognized as her guidebook. He really had salvaged every single potential useful thing from the helicopter. She had a sudden mental image of him hauling stuff out of it as it burned, not knowing if he had two seconds or two minutes to do so.

  “How are you so brave?”

  He looked up, surprised. “I’m just doing what we have to do to get out of this,” he said. “Nothing more.”

  “But I... I can’t...”

  “I was trained to deal with survival situations. You’ve never been trained to do much besides sit still and look pretty,” he said with customary bluntness. “You’re doing really well, Aster. Really, really well.”

  A little flash of white at the corner of her vision told her that the peculiar bird was still there, balancing as far out as the branch would take it in its eagerness to ascertain the strangeness taking place below.

  “We’re being watched,” she said.

  Owen followed her
eye line. “That’s a tui,” he said. “They’re pretty territorial. Smart too. The Maori used to teach them to talk.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Aster said, smiling a little for the first time since the horrendous ordeal had begun. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “They’re pretty unique,” Owen agreed as he put the flame from a lighter to the paper and watched it begin to curl away at the edges of the material, then catch dry grass then consume the smaller kindling. Aster’s attention was drawn by it too, that simple flame meant so much more out there in the forest.

  A tear traced down her face, as she looked at that bright, leaping light. She thought she might know what the first people had felt when they managed to harness fire. It was a defense, it was a source of nutrition, a potential for signaling. It was so many things. It was life.

  “When this is going we’re going to put some green leaves on it,” Owen said. “They’ll make it smoke. If anyone is looking for us, they’ll see that as a signal.”

  “If anyone is looking for us? My father will have the whole country looking for us.”

  “Right, and this will help them find us. I’m going to put you in charge of keeping the fire going while I hunt. This is important. This is more important than food, you understand?”

  Aster nodded. She understood how important it was on a visceral level. Whatever happened, there was no way she was going to let that flame go out.

  Chapter Seven

  With the flame to warm her and the tui to watch over her, Owen left Aster in search of game. She watched, with utter incredulity, as he walked into the bush. How could he be so bold as to just walk into the arms of the wilds like that?

  It took all the courage she could muster not to cry out for him, but instead to stay by the fire and watch it carefully. For a time that was all she did, sit and feel the warmth on her face and listen to the crackling of twigs and sticks.

  The bird’s interest seemed unabated as Aster sat there, alone but for it. It watched her doing nothing until she decided to do something and speak to it. She turned her head, looked at the bird and addressed it directly. “What’s your name?”

  The bird hopped back a pace on its branch and raised its head high as if to say ‘who are you to speak to me?’

  It truly was a fine and resplendent bird, with its curled cape and its white chin bobbles and the flashing metallic colors of wings and head. For a moment, Aster did feel a little speck of shame for having addressed it so casually.

  “Pardon me,” she said, trying her best British accent. “By which name are you known?”

  The bird lowered its head and let out a series of sounds so odd and disparate that she would not have believed they came from a single bird if she had not seen it herself. Clicks and trills and chirps and little tweets rolled out of the little creature in what she could only interpret as being a response of offended lecturing.

  She was probably losing her mind, but she was almost certain that she understood the bird somehow. It was so full of personality from the top of its head to the tips of its feathers. With Owen gone hunting, it was the only thing remotely resembling company. She was lonely. Desperately and deeply lonely in a way only someone cut off from all human civilization could be. She was also completely vulnerable. If Owen didn’t come back; if someone didn’t come for them; if any one of a million little things went wrong that would be the end of things. She had never felt so very like an animal, at the mercy of the elements and the earth itself. The bird was a comfort, some reminder that there was something else out there with intelligence.

  It took much longer for Owen to return than Aster had hoped. Of course, she didn’t know precisely how long he took. Her phone had not survived the descent and she wore no watch. What she did know was that several waves of almost unbearable anxiety washed over her during his absence, making it difficult to think or breathe or even exist.

  She was thirsty, but she did not want to drink the little water in the bottle Owen had left with her. What if he didn’t come back? What if this was all the water she would ever have? It was all she could do to keep the fire stoked and to scatter green leaves upon it to make the white smoke rise.

  With nothing to do but think, Aster tried to keep herself calm. She reminded herself that she was Aster Wilder, and that her father would move heaven and earth to get her back. Even now there were probably people being mobilized – assuming they knew she was missing. After all, she hadn’t precisely let anyone know where she was going. She hadn’t even talked to her father since arriving in New Zealand. And Owen... Owen had followed her onto the plane. Maybe he hadn’t told anyone where they were either. Maybe...

  Aster let out a little sob. What if nobody knew? What if nobody ever knew? As her fear took over completely she began to cry, wasting precious water.

  The tui joined in with a warbling song interspersed with discordant caws and danced back and forth on its branch in a way that was not precisely comforting, but so clownish that Aster couldn’t keep it up for very long. The louder she cried, the louder the tui called. It seemed that the bird regarded her tears as some kind of challenge, and it was determined to outdo her at any cost.

  This was what she had been reduced to, from a prominent pop culture icon to a madwoman fighting with a bird. The realization made her dry her tears and get back to the business at hand, stoking the fire with wood and leaves so that there would be some chance of being found.

  It was getting dark before Owen returned. He had been gone most of the day. As dusk fell he came striding out of the forest, a broad smile on his face and a small pig slung over his shoulder. She knew he must be hurt too. He must be bruised. He might even have a fracture or two, but he was not showing any sign of that.

  “Is that a pig?” Aster squinted her eyes. It didn’t look like the sort of pig she was used to seeing. It wasn’t pink, it was hairy and black and small and very, very dead.

  “Yep,” Owen said. “I had to track it over two ravines. This will keep us going for days.”

  Aster’s pleasure at seeing food was counterbalanced by her outrage at being left to her own devices all day. As relieved as she was that he was back, the fact that he thought nothing of letting her sit by herself in a forest clearing was still festering.

  “I’m glad you had fun,” she said somewhat sharply.

  Owen’s golden brown gaze assessed her quickly. “I see you’re in a fine mood,” he said. “Let’s get some food into us before you go off again. Good job on keeping the fire alight.”

  Aster sat in solemn silence as Owen took the pig off to a corner of the clearing and did the nasty business of turning an animal into food. She tried not to listen or look. It was all so barbaric and primal, and he seemed to know precisely what to do with a hunting knife.

  Not long later chunks of pig meat were roasting over the fire. The smell made Aster’s mouth water. She had always taken food for granted and been picky, following fad diet after fad diet. On the plus side, the meal was about as paleo as it got.

  “Eat up,” he said, handing her a hunk of meat speared on the end of a stick.

  She did so, filling her belly. The meat was good; tasty and rich and full of the protein she so desperately needed.

  “Not bad, huh?” Owen winked at her over his own chunk of chops.

  “It’s good,” Aster agreed. “Thank you.” Her words were polite, but her tone was muted.

  “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?” Owen was immediately concerned.

  “No,” she said. “I mean yes, a bit, but that doesn’t matter.”

  “What does matter?”

  “You like this,” she said over her hunk of meat. “This is the best thing that could have happened to you. You can go off and pretend to be a cave man and hunt down pigs.”

  Owen stared at her, disbelief written plainly on his face. “You think.... you think I’m glad that our helicopter crashed and a man died?”

  “That’s not what I said,” Aster replied hotly. “I’m not
saying you liked the crash. I’m saying you like this.” She gestured at the campsite with the remnants of her meat. “This is like some kind of man fantasy.”

  “Come here.” Owen pointed to the space next to him.

  Aster shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  “I’m not going to bicker with you, Aster. Come here.”

  “Why?”

  “Just come.”

  She shuffled over to him. When she was close enough he put his arm gently around her shoulders. “It’s okay to be scared. You don’t need to lash out at me though. We only have each other now. It’s you and me.”

  “It’s you going out and hunting and it’s me sitting by the fire alone all day going insane,” she mumbled. “It’s you living out some into-the-wild fantasy and me losing my mind.”

  “It’s barely been a day,” he said. “Give yourself some time, and keep the faith. They’re going to come for us and soon.”

  “What if they don’t? What if they never find us? What if they didn’t even know to look for us and they don’t know where we are, and...”

  “Shhh.” Owen pulled her into his lap and cuddled her close. “It’s going to be all right, Aster. We can survive out here for as long as we need to. There’s food; there’s water. We can make a shelter.”

  “That’s even worse! I can’t live in the forest! I’m not a squirrel!”

  “Well there aren’t any squirrels here,” Owen murmured against the side of her neck. “I’m not saying we’ll live the rest of our lives here, I’m just saying we can survive until we’re rescued.”

  He was making her feel safe against her will. She wanted to panic, but Owen seemed so very comfortable with their situation, so capable of handling it that she felt a little silly feeling bad about it in any way.

  “This is not okay,” she sniffed.

  “It might not be okay, but it is survivable,” Owen reassured her. “And a major key to our survival is going to be keeping morale up, which is why I’m going to put you over my lap now, and I’m going to spank you.”

  Aster emitted a gasp at that announcement. “What! Why? I’m injured! You’ll hurt me!” She tried to squirm off his lap, but he held her firm.