The little boy shook his head. “Your skin doesn’t move like mine does.”
It was a consolation that Adam’s innocence over her race was the reason for the attack, but on some level, she knew his sling aimed at her sex for reasons he did not yet understand. “That wasn’t very nice. You shouldn’t touch women without their consent, remember?”
“I’m sorry. Did it hurt you? It didn’t look like it did.”
She sat up and pulled her dress slip up. “It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.”
Adam stood up and said, “I vow never to hurt you again.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Adam. Where is Alexi?”
The bright light of day stung her eyes. The fire was lower than it was last night, but the wood was freshly stocked, and a plate of fruit was waiting for her on her designated stump. She looked around and found that everyone except Adam was gone. The boys had inhabited this clearing for some time, it seemed. The rocks were rubbed free of moss and the ferns in stomped into the dirt.
Vines grew and bloomed around the trees, birds, and massive insects seemed to know this area was not for them except for the long trail of ants that carried leaves back to their queen’s hive. They marched right through the left portion of the clearing, underneath the fallen log the boys used as seating, and right up a nearby tree.
“Where is everyone?” she asked him while she picked apart her apricot.
“Jon and Tom are gathering wood and checking traps. Gabe is doing whatever Gabe does. Cal and Otto are probably hunting or fishing,” Adam replied.
“What about Alexi?”
Adam shrugged while he jabbed at the fire. His little loincloth was newer, longer than the one he wore last night. “He comes and goes when it pleases him. He made us promise to look after you while he was gone.”
What Bernadette felt was conflicting. On the one hand, Alexi cared enough to make sure the jungle boys would protect her. With one sentence he had made her the queen of his little kingdom. But it didn’t change the fact that he left her. Was she not worth his time? Alexi delegated her to his jungle boys for care because he knew she couldn’t survive on her own and he couldn’t be bothered to do it himself.
It was not a question or thoughts of self-pity. Bernadette could not survive in the wilderness. She could not navigate the jungles or swim in the waters, nor could she hunt or gather food. Too weighted and stiff to adapt to the jungle, Bernadette was a burden that Alexi did not want.
“If Alexi is not here, I want to go home.”
“No! You can’t!” Adam cried.
The alarm in Adam’s voice made her cringe a little. He sounded so scared and desperate. It caused her heart to ache. “And why not?” she asked, trying her best to sound resistant to his pleas.
Adam scrambled from the dirty floor beside the fireplace and into my lap. “You’re supposed to stay with us.”
“Why?” she asked, though she couldn’t deny how comforted she felt holding him. It was like a part of her had returned to her body. Perhaps it had something to do with the warmth.
“He promised that you would,” Adam whined.
What a horrid thing to promise. Bernadette hardly knew Alexi or these boys. Why would he make such a promise to these children? It wasn’t fair to any of them. They had slept together but they were not mated. Her life choices did not hinge on his.
Bernadette thought about Claire. The poor woman was probably worried sick. The council was in a panic. How would her people go on? But she couldn’t bring herself to leave the jungle boys like this. At this rate, Bernadette was uncertain she could find her way back to the Mármaros even if she did decide to leave.
“Stay a little bit longer, please?” Adam begged.
“I’ll stay another night.”
Pacified with that answer, Adam nuzzled into her side. The jungle boys came and went from the campsite throughout the day to tend to the fire and to check on Adam, though he was utterly devoted to Bernadette. He took her hand and wandered the proximity around the camp to show her all his treasures.
“And this is a good stick,” Adam announced in triumph. He waved it around before looking around in the trees and stashing his stick back into the little hole a lifted tree root had left. It was indeed a superb stick. Long and straight.
Bernadette looked along the trees to see if she couldn’t figure out what Adam was looking for. Tall, smooth trees with dark green vines grew in every direction. There must have been several types of climbers as there were multiple types of flowers blooming against the trees. A bird with black and white feathers and a fabulous large beak watched them from up high.
“What are you looking up for?” Bernadette asked.
Adam shrugged and climbed up a tree to capture a tremendous black horned beetle to present to her. “Mostly just looking for jungle cats, snakes, things like Gabe.” He offered her the beetle and Bernadette inspected it before setting it back on a low branch. Adam was already in another tree plucking a praying mantis from a leaf to bring down for her to see.
“Is Gabe so frightful?” she asked. The praying mantis was angry and moving its little arms around as if it were demanding to be put down. Bernadette thought it best to do as it requested.
Adam squatted behind a tree.
Bernadette was exhausted just watching him. “I’m pooping,” he told her. She didn’t feel the need to respond to that.
“Gabe is only a little bigger than me, but he doesn’t talk good. He thinks he’s a jungle cat.”
“He does seem wilder than the others,” Bernadette agreed.
“Otto said it took them longer to find him than most. He was alone longer than he ought to have been.”
Bernadette wondered what Adam had meant by that. How could a baby survive in the jungle alone? They said Alexi was their father, but what kind of father leaves his children in such danger, and where was their mother? Bernadette would demand answers from him the next time she saw him. He wouldn’t seduce the words from her lips next time, she vowed.
Cal came back to the camp in a hurry. He was panting and breaking the tall bushes and foliage in his wake. “Is Gabe with you?”
“No, why?” she asked.
“There are jungle cat prints near the camp,” Otto said from the top of the cave opening.
Bernadette felt her legs grow weak. She hadn’t seen him all day. He couldn’t have been older than five or six. She looked around in the trees in vain. They had been looking in the trees all afternoon. He wasn’t there.
A small voice said, “It’s okay, Birdie. We will find him.”
#
The four of them spent the better part of the afternoon looking for Gabe. They called his name and searched in pairs until the twins arrived, then they, too, looked for the little brother underneath the jungle canopy.
“You should stay here, Birdie,” Otto told her. “Just in case he comes back.”
“Adam is getting tired,” Cal said, agreeing with Otto. “He needs someone to look after him.”
She understood their reasoning. She was slow and struggled to walk on the uneven jungle floors. The mugginess of the air stuck to her skin and made her slick. The boys couldn’t watch over her and look for Gabe at the same time, and she knew this, but she couldn’t sit by idly either. Somewhere out there amidst the overgrowth and enormous foliage and wild creatures of the jungle was a little boy who had fended for himself for far too long.
“I’m going to look for him myself,” she told them. “Cal, you stay with Adam and me. Otto, you take the twins and go that way,” she told him. Bernadette’s group would head the opposite way and could fan out to some degree. Adam and Cal wouldn’t need to worry about her. It wasn’t like she could stray far. Otto didn’t argue. Whether it was the urgency to find his brother or the determination in her voice, he nodded and left with the twins.
They combed the jungle shouting for Gabe for hours, but it made Bernadette feel no less determined to find him. Little Adam was belligerently tired. He was crying and th
rowing things, ranting about nothing. “Come here,” she told him.
“No! You’re going to take me back to camp!” He cried.
“No, I won’t,” she promised. “I’m going to carry you.”
With one arm Bernadette held the sleeping toddler and held a torch in the other so that Cal could find her. He was a smart boy. Cal ran the proximity around her the way a planet would follow a sun, far enough to cover more ground but close enough that he could hear them if they called.
For all of Cal’s effort, he, too, was rundown. His massive body was covered in perspiration, and when he emerged from one section of the jungle, he panted and rested longer before they moved further into the wilderness. Eventually, he sat down against a tree and planted his torch into the dirt. It looked as though he intended to stay there.
“Isn’t he heavy?” Cal asked her.
“No.” Bernadette didn’t feel the least bit phased by the hours she had held Adam, fast asleep against her. “I’m made differently than you are. I can withstand weight, but don’t ask me to jump.”
Cal laughed silently. He was too tired to do anything else. He wiped the sweat from his hair and shook his head. “I don’t know if we’re going to find him. He’s been lost before but never for this long.”
Bernadette knew he was stressed and scared—she felt the same—but he was Gabe’s brother. He cared for the little boy. It hurt to watch him suffer as much as it hurt knowing that Gabe was out there, hurt, or in the maw of some jungle cat. She couldn’t bear the thought of it.
She handed Cal her torch before giving little Adam over.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Bernadette was taking off her shoes. He could see it just as plainly as she could.
“I can’t let you go alone,” he started. “Alexi would kill—”
“Piss on Alexi,” she fumed. “His child is missing and he’s out doing what? Hm?”
She picked her torch back up and went marching into the jungle. “If Alexi cares enough to find me, maybe he will find Gabe while he’s at it.”
#
Bernadette took her rage out on the jungle stomping her hard feet into the soft dirt, soiling the bottoms of her feet, swatting away vines and low hanging branches. She cursed and yelled for Gabe as she made the whole jungle go silent in her ungainly rage. The large moon was dim and sat far in the sky, leaving only the distant light of the small moon visible.
She wished the moonlight in the sky was more prominent. More than once, she tripped and fell. Her skin was resistant to cuts as it was an infection, but on one particularly good fall, she hit her knee against a rock and screamed in pain as her whole leg vibrated from the hit. Her cry ripped through the night, interrupting the frogs and bugs during their nightly calling.
After several moments, Bernadette was able to catch her breath and stand once more. The night creatures resumed their noises as she thought about which direction to head next. Among the noises was a squawking she didn’t hear before. It sounded like an animal, but Bernadette remembered what Adam said about his older brother, that he was more animal than a person.
“Gabe!” she shouted. Bernadette forgot how heavy her legs felt against the shifting ground beneath her. She forgot how damp the surface of her skin felt or how the heavy night air had gone chill. There was no worded response, but the noise grew louder and more frantic.
He was responding to her. It must have been Gabe.
She wove past the hanging vines as the ground beneath her feet became more reliable. She was on solid rock now, and enormous boulders surrounded her. She found Gabe in the middle of a small clearing. He was caught in a rope trap and dangling by his leg upside down.
Bernadette let out a gasp in horror. The desperate child was like this all day and well into the night. A rash had formed around his sensitive skin, and his face was purple from poor circulation. He had at some point made it right side up because she could see parts of the rope that had frayed as if he chewed or scratched his way through only to fall again.
“I’m coming,” she called to him. She was familiar with the trap. It was one that her people used to “rescue” the servants. Somewhere there was a tie-off point. Bernadette followed the length of the rope and the point where it was leveraged against a tree branch. Even with the limited lighting, she was able to track it back down.
The loose end wrapped around a thick nail pounded into a tree. Bernadette untied the hemp rope and gently lowered the boy down. He scrambled for a minute, trying to get up on his own, but the blood rushed to from his head to the rest of his body, and he fell over.
For a moment, she feared for the worst. It was a wonder she didn’t find Gabe dead in that trap. What if the release was too traumatic for his small, little body? A sob escaped her throat as she stared in vain, waiting for any sign of movement. She didn’t want to know how their bodies felt when they were no longer living.
Gabe jerked unconsciously, and Bernadette rushed towards him and fell to her knees beside him. He was alive. His face was no longer that unnatural shade of purple, but his leg was severely bruised and chaffed. The skin and dirt had peeled away, revealing bright red spots of flesh.
She would need to get him out of here soon. The servants would be sent out to check the traps. This one was either forgotten or accidentally missed, but Bernadette did not want to be caught by someone who would be willing to report her whereabouts.
Scooping up the small child, Bernadette followed her footprints back to Cal. She worried that her tracks were too easy to follow. They were an inch deep into the dirt in some places. Bernadette feared she would endanger the boys by leading her people to their camp. It was something she’d need to talk to Otto with once they returned.
Cal was still in the same place she had left him. Adam was snuggled up tight against his side. She shook Cal awake, careful not to disturb Adam. He jolted awake and looked at her with watery eyes.
“You found him!” he yelled.
“Shh,” she warned. “You’ll wake the boys.”
Cal stumbled upward groggily. The walk back wasn’t as stressful, but the fatigued group felt every step. Bernadette traded the torch for Adam to lessen Cal’s burden. It was nearly dawn when they reached the camp. The fire was almost dead, but no one cared. Bernadette pulled some of the furs from the cave bed out and wrapped the children up before falling asleep beside them.
#
Bernadette felt hot underneath the coats. She dreamed that she was laying with Alexi. The sun was gentle and kissed their bare skin while they laid in short green grass overlooking the Mármaros. He was walking his fingers across her stomach up towards her ribcage. He was giving her one of his playful smiles and she couldn’t help but mirror that smile.
“You did good, Birdie.”
Other images came to Bernadette’s mind. Visions of herself screaming in the cave, illuminated by ember light. Each time her face came into view, it was a different instance. Sometimes she was wearing nothing. Other times she wore furs, lace, and even chains.
She opened her eyes and realized that she was so hot was because the fire was rebuilt while she slept. She looked around to find Adam, but Cal was still fast asleep. He snored as he laid against the tree. She waited there for some time until Otto emerged from the back of the cave.
He looked at her with a newfound respect and kneeled to her side. “I owe you a debt,” he told her.
She knew what he was getting at. He was trying to thank her for finding Gabe, but of course, she helped. What person wouldn’t? “Don’t be silly,” she told him. “I couldn’t just stand by.”
“Why not?”
Well, she didn’t quite know why. Because it was the right thing to do? Because it was polite? Neither mattered to her in those hours. No, it was something different. Bernadette felt compelled to find him. She felt fear and panic for the boy in a way she’d never experienced before. It made her angry and scared and helpless all at the same time.
“I didn’t like how scared
it made me feel,” she finally whispered.
Otto stood and went into the cave. He came out with water and fruit and gave it to her.
“Where’s Adam and Gabe now?” she asked in between bites. She didn’t realize how hungry she was as her stomach ached for more.
“Adam hasn’t left Gabe’s side since he woke up. They’re hunting with the twins,” he said while stacking more wood beside the fire. Even in the worst situations, the chores needed to be maintained in the jungle.
“You should know, he was caught in a trap my people laid,” Bernadette admitted.
Otto slammed a log down and cursed. “He knows better than to go to the outskirts of the jungle.”
That may have been where they were last night. Bernadette told him about the area and how she found him. Otto’s milky-white face went red as she described it. He had trouble containing his temper. It was likely due to adolescence as Alexi had said.
“I leave deep tracks,” she told him. “Any half-decent hunter could follow my footprints to this place.”
By this time, Cal was awake and had listened to some of the conversations. He did not attempt to interrupt, but when Bernadette said this, Cal understood something Otto did not.
“You’re not supposed to be here, are you, Birdie?”
Bernadette didn’t want to cry in front of them, but before she could stop it, big, fat tears rolled down her face. She couldn’t speak without crying harder, so she shook her head no. To her shame, to the disgrace of her mother, Bernadette was a runaway. She had fled her home, her obligations, and she had fled her people.
Cal looked up at Otto who was now pacing the camp with his hands on his hips.
“If she doesn’t want to go back, we can’t let them take her,” Cal said.
“Who’s going to take Birdie?” a little voice shouted. Adam and the rest of the jungle boys had returned. He had heard the last bit of the conversation. Tom and Jon looked at one another, unsure of what to say, while Adam rushed to Bernadette in his little loincloth and messy hair. She held him in her arms and tried her best to shush him.
“No one is going to take Birdie,” Otto announced with his hands on his hips. “She’s one of us now.”
Daughter of the Mármaros Page 5
