The Wild in her Eyes

by Karina Giörtz

  “No rush,” Caroline said, trying to set Momma T at ease as she went whipping about her kitchen in a bit of a frenzy. “We’ll just go sit with the others until they’re ready.” She pointed out toward one of the larger tables that still offered plenty of sitting room.

  Annis felt her belly do a little flip when she saw Sequoyah, sitting in what she was starting to learn was his usual spot right beside Sawyer. They made an unlikely pair on the surface, but there was no arguing their friendship after having spent time with them both. They balanced each other, took care of one another, and made no bones about calling the other out when necessary. The two of them made perfect sense together.

  “How’s Finian this morning?” Sequoyah asked as Annis slid into the vacant spot beside him. She tugged at the sling just enough to open it up and give him a peek at the sleeping pup.

  “Don’t think he has any complaints. Well, until he gets hungry. Then he complains plenty, but he’s easy to appease.” She smiled, giving the bundle a tender tap with her palm.

  “Wait until he starts howling. That’ll be loads of fun,” Sawyer said, sweeping a large piece of biscuit through a glob of gravy. Annis had never been a big fan of the dish, but she had to admit it smelled delicious.

  “I thought they only do that when the moon is full,” she said, scanning the rest of the table. Most everyone’s plates were drenched in gravy, though some had opted for butter and fruit with their biscuits instead. She had half a mind to ask Momma T if she could have both, but no one else seemed to have made that request, not even Sawyer.

  “He’s not a werewolf,” Caroline teased. “Not that it’ll stop him from howling at the moon. It just won’t be his only cue.”

  “Good to know,” Annis mumbled, stretching her neck in search of the twins. She’d expected them to be at this table but had found their raven-colored heads nowhere in sight. “Where are Mabel and Maude? Did we miss them?”

  Bess appeared quite suddenly from behind a very large cup of coffee she’d been sipping. “They were having a wardrobe disagreement last I saw them. Something about it being Mabel’s turn to pick and Maude refusing to wear...How did she put it? ‘Gaggy green,’ I believe, in public.”

  “Don’t they have a color they both don’t loathe?” Annis asked, intrigued by this new predicament.

  “Blue,” August answered, “but I think Mabel said no on principle. Her day, her color, or something like that.” He shook his head, lifting his fork to his mouth for another bite of his breakfast.

  Annis was about to ask another trivial question about the twins’ trivial argument when Momma T called out, letting them know biscuits were ready.

  Annis and Caroline hurried toward her, where a line was already forming.

  “I don’t know how she does it,” Annis muttered. “The sheer amount of food she produces on a daily basis. She must never have time for anything else.”

  Caroline shrugged. “She doesn’t. But cooking is what she loves doing. I think she’d be quite sad if she had extra time to fill and no one to make a meal for.”

  Annis thought back on the people she’d known in her life before. She couldn’t think of a single one who’d had a passion for any one thing so intense that they’d have gladly dedicated every waking hour to it or have considered it a gift even to be able to do so. But here, at Brookes and Bennet, things were different. She was beginning to understand that everyone’s set of daily tasks weren’t assigned chores so much as they were purposefully chosen activities in services of everyone there pursuing their passions. The work here wasn’t divvied up. It was chosen. Or, rather, the work chose. But somehow it all seemed to come together seamlessly, and in such a joyful manner that sometimes it was hard to see how much work was being done in the midst of all the talking and laughter.

  Caroline and Annis had moved up to the front of the line and Momma T was serving up full portions for them, as well as a plate for Homer. Both women thanked her graciously, and then, eager to dig in, hurried back to the table.

  “Are you planning on going into town?” Sequoyah asked as Annis happily examined the fruit on her plate. Apparently, Momma T’s mission to fatten her up was still in operation, because she’d received double portions of biscuits, one half with gravy and the other with fruit, without even having to ask.

  “I don’t think so,” Annis replied, lifting her gaze slightly toward Caroline and Homer across from her. “You’re not going into town, are you?” Neither of them had mentioned the possibility, and Annis was sincerely hoping it meant they had plans to stay in camp. Annis wasn’t ready for venturing out just yet. The safety of the circus was far more comforting than the idea of wandering about aimlessly among the public, where she didn’t know who might be lurking around the next turn.

  “Nothing there I haven’t seen before,” Caroline said, dismissing the idea.

  “Nothing I’m likely to see now,” Homer added.

  “That’s right,” Annis said. “Mabel and Maude said this was your old stomping ground, Caroline. They’re expecting you to show them all the most exciting places.”

  “Oh, not to worry. I’ve drawn up a map for them, marking all the proper highlights, including the music hall and the best place in town for fried chicken. They’ll have plenty of fun without me there,” Caroline assured her. “Provided, of course, they ever settle on a dress for the day. Or, on second thought, might be more fun if they don’t.”

  “Certainly would be for me,” Sawyer said, waggling his brows.

  “What about you?” Annis asked Sequoyah.

  “I’d prefer they chose a dress,” he answered dryly.

  Annis stopped, about to take a bite, and grinned. She shook her head at him. “No, silly. I meant about town. Are you going?”

  He swung his leg over the side of the bench, straddling it to face her while he spoke. “Nah. Not my kind of crowd.”

  Her first instinct was to ask what he meant, but she caught herself. It was so easy to forget the differences between them, and yet strangely sad to realize that what held them both apart was the same. Neither felt they’d be safe if they went. Both were targets—he for who he was and she for who she’d been. The various levels of hatefulness and violence people were capable of struck Annis like a brick to her stomach, squelching what remained of her appetite.

  She set her fork down and forced a smile. “Only good crowd is in the audience, right?”

  He tilted his head, a small grin on his mouth. “You’ve been hanging around Poppy too much.”

  She chuckled softly. “Not possible. There’s no such thing as too much time spent with Hugh.”

  “Clearly you weren’t ever thirteen and in his care,” Sequoyah said, sounding amused. “There were days I couldn’t turn my head without finding him standing right behind me at every step.”

  Annis narrowed her eyes. “Why? What had you done?”

  “Why would you ask that? What would I do?” he asked, feigning both shock and innocence.

  “I think we both know you did something.” Annis maintained her suspicions.

  “Fine,” he surrendered. “Maybe I did have a knack for wandering off back then. And maybe it did make Babe a little crazy at times.”

  “For good reason,” August grunted. “After that time at the swimming hole, I’m surprised you weren’t forced to spend your adolescence chained to her ankle.”

  “What happened at the swimming hole? What swimming hole?” Annis asked, eyes darting all around the table. No one wanted to offer up the story they all seemed too familiar with.

  Sequoyah shot August a look, who shamefully averted his eyes. “Sorry, I forgot we had new ears.” He shrugged helplessly. “She blends in too easily.”

  “Well, I’m not going to blend in right now,” Annis said, getting heated. “Not until someone tells me about the swimming hole.” She wasn’t even sure why she wanted to know, except that it had to do with Sequoyah and that something had happened to him. It was something that scared Babe, and now it was scaring
her.

  “It was nothing. Just a misunderstanding,” Sequoyah reasoned. “One that happened a long time ago, so there’s no sense in rehashing it now.” He stood up from the table, swiping his empty plate from the wood surface as he went. He marched straight back to Momma T’s wash station, where he left his plate and then disappeared outside, through the tent flap.

  “I shouldn’t have brought it up,” August muttered, picking at the last of his breakfast. “It just slipped out.”

  “He’ll get over it,” Sawyer assured him, clapping his broad shoulder. “Just needs a good stew and then he’ll be back to normal.”

  Annis sat back and watched as people picked up their plates and left the table until it was just Caroline, Homer, and Sawyer sitting with her.

  Annis kept her eyes patiently locked on Sawyer until he broke down.

  “You really need to know?”

  “I really need to know.”

  He turned over his shoulder as if to be sure no one else was in earshot before he began to tell the story. “Mind you, this is before I showed up, so all I know is what I’ve heard. But I heard from plenty, so I’m guessing I know most of what there is to know.”

  Caroline exhaled loudly. “Lord, Smalls. Are you going to tell the girl before lunch starts or shall I have a go at it for you?”

  Sawyer glared at her briefly before he went on. “Sequoyah’s always been the exploring sort, I think it’s just something he was born with. His ancestors are nomads, he’s not one for staying put.”

  Caroline blew air through her teeth loudly as she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and he sped things up.

  “Anyway, this one morning, right after arriving in a new town, he’d found this swimming hole a little ways from camp. It was spring, so the water was perfect. Crystal clear and not too cold. He ran back to camp and rushed through all his chores so he could hurry up and get back there for a swim before the show. Only problem was, he wasn’t the only one thinking about a swim that afternoon. So, when he got there, it was already occupied. By a girl, probably not much older than him.” He sighed as though it was putting a strain on him having to tell this story, though Annis still couldn’t see much of an issue so far. “Anyway, he scared her, just showing up out of nowhere like he did, and she screamed. Loudly. Her dad showed up with a few other men. They took one look at Sequoyah standing there and all hell broke loose.”

  “What do you mean?” Annis frowned. Surely, she thought, it wasn’t hard to fathom that more than one person had considered going for a swim in the same afternoon.

  “I mean...What do you think I mean?” Sawyer said, sounding exasperated. “You think those white men came to answer a young girl’s screams for help and didn’t jump to all the worst conclusions when they saw Sequoyah standing there? Frozen in place, just as stunned by her screams as she’d been by the sight of him? They didn’t see the same man we do, Annis. They saw an Indian. A savage. A threat. And believe me, they treated him as such. As worse. If Hugh hadn’t sent August looking for him when he did, I don’t think we’d be sitting here telling the tale the same way. They’d have killed him. And not mercifully.” His grim expression told her just how unmercifully he thought they might have been. It was enough to send Annis’s mind on a trail of its own, trying to fully fathom what could have happened to Sequoyah that day. The men would have tortured him. Made an example of the sort of punishment one could expect if one ever dared come near their women, especially when colored in anything other than a pristine pale shade of white.

  Slowly, Annis began to understand. “That’s why Babe worries so much about him. Because she’s scared of what could have happened that day.”

  Sawyer nodded, folding his napkin over and over until it became the tiniest of squares. “I think it was the first time she became undeniably aware of the prejudice and murderous hate some people harbor for the son she loves more than anything. Made her see that what his family faced wasn’t an act of cruelty she could bury in the past. This would haunt him through his future. Maybe the rest of his life.” He looked up. “It’s a scary thing to face, let alone live with day after day.”

  Annis didn’t dare look up from her hands, which were folded in her lap. She’d insisted on this, practically forced him to share what Sequoyah had wanted to spare her from, and now she understood why. It didn’t change things between them, though, in the way he likely expected. The truth was, it was yet another way in which their fates were aligned, even in the most opposite of ways. They would both spend their lives being hunted—she for who she was and he for who he wasn’t.

  “He’ll be angry you told me,” she said somberly, feeling guilty for the rift she’d likely cause between them. Even if they recovered quickly, it wasn’t fair of her to put Sawyer in that position.

  “No, he won’t,” Sawyer said, tossing the napkin onto his plate. “Not telling you was never about shutting you out, Annis. It was about shutting down the flood of history that comes with digging it up, before he drowns in it.” He stood to leave. “He walks lightly because he’s strong, not because his load is light. Sometimes the two are all too easy to confuse.” It was the last he said before he exited the tent, leaving Annis with Caroline and Homer.

  “I keep doing that,” she scolded herself, muttering under her breath and pounding the table with a frustrated thud.

  “What’s that? Wanting to know people?” Caroline asked, reaching her hand out to cup Annis’s fist and squeeze it gently. “Looking closely? Caring so much that you want to see the darkness even when it’s scary?” She squeezed again, prompting Annis to look up. “You better not stop either.” Caroline’s eyes lit up and her mouth drew into a smirk that meant business, even if it was kind. “Promise, Annis. Promise you won’t stop doing those things.”

  Annis choked down the tears she felt welling in her throat and nodded. “I promise,” she whispered hoarsely. She cleared her throat and then repeated the words, this time more firmly. “I promise I won’t stop.”

  “Atta girl.” Caroline swept back, coming even with Homer, who, up until now, had taken everything in without saying a word.

  “Now then, if that matter’s all settled,” he began, shifting around in his seat and placing both elbows on the table in front of him. “Why does the dark always have to be scary? What’s so splendid about this light that you lot are always thinking it’s the better of the two? The easier? The safer? Doesn’t light sting your eyes? Can’t it burn your skin when it’s so bright that it’s hot? Fire. Fire is light, is it not? Fire can ravage an entire forest in the blink of an eye. You know what doesn’t? Darkness. Darkness is still. It’s peaceful. And, contrary to popular belief, entirely harmless.”

  Caroline touched her mouth with her hand as though she were trying to wipe away her amusement. “Apologies, my love. Poor choice of words,” she said.

  “He’s right, though,” Annis said thoughtfully. “Isn’t he? There really isn’t reason to fear the dark. We only fear what we think it’s hiding.”

  “A-ha!” Homer said, stabbing the air with his finger in triumph. “I’ve won one over. Hugh better watch out. I may be just as wise as he is.”

  At this, both women began to laugh hysterically.

  “Alright, alright.” He waved his hands up and down trying to calm them again. “Now that we’ve lightened the mood a bit, how about we get out of here and have a little fun of our own today?”

  Both Caroline and Annis were more than happy to oblige Homer’s request. Within the hour, all three of them were lying together in a large makeshift hammock of spare canvas tarp hanging from two trees in the forest just beyond the railroad tracks.

  “Do you do this often?” Annis asked, marveling at the way the sun danced between the tall trees, casting leaf-shaped shadows all around her.

  “Whenever the opportunity arises,” Caroline said, who’d landed the middle spot but was snuggling into Homer as they swung gently side to side. “How’s Finian liking it?” she asked, tipping her head back to get
a look at the wolf pup sitting on Annis’s chest.

  “I think he’s enjoying it,” Annis said, stroking his soft fur with one hand and bracing him with her palm of the other. He was getting stronger already. It wouldn’t be much longer until his eyes opened, and he’d begin running around. Then the real fun would begin. “I think you should be teaching me something,” she said, thinking of the night before when Hugh had first brought her to meet Fin. He’d had questions about her day, questions she assumed he’d ask again tonight. “Something more than you’ve already taught me,” she continued. “Don’t get me wrong, I think that bit about darkness not being scary will be right up Hugh’s alley when he asks me what I learned today, but he doesn’t ever seem to like my first answer, so I’d rather have options. Plus, as much as he seems to dismiss the idea, I should actually learn the basic skills required to work around here. I wouldn’t mind knowing the ins and outs of your act, just the same.”

  Homer chuckled. “Hugh getting inside your head, is he?”

  “He’s not in yours?” Annis asked, finding it hard to believe anyone could escape the impression their ringleader had so prominently left upon her.

  He shrugged. “No room.”

  “I’m all he thinks about,” Caroline said with an air of haughtiness, before she cracked and grinned from ear to ear.

  “No need to pretend you’re joking, love,” Homer teased. “We both know it’s true.”

  She nuzzled the side of his neck as he leaned over and kissed her forehead. Annis found them fascinating. They were so kind, so loving, and yet so honest and candid and full of humor about things she used to believe were in poor taste to joke about, like his blindness. But then no one treated Homer’s lack of sight as a handicap. It was his superpower, after all.

  “How’d you do it then?” Annis asked after several minutes of thought. “How’d you decide on your act? How did you learn it, you know, without Hugh in your head?”

  “I didn’t say he’s never been in it,” Homer said, stretching his free arm out overhead and kicking his foot lightly off the ground to swing their hammock. “Once upon a time, he was teaching me the same lessons he’s teaching you, Annis. And, when my time came to answer his questions, this was the result. To be seen as daring, not disabled.”