Pax

by Sara Pennypacker

  “This is the story of a girl,” he said.

  He heard Vola take in a sharp breath. And then he didn’t hear a sound after that.

  Not when he pulled the curtain and drew the sorceress up from the plank, not when the seed corn he’d piled on her stomach like peaches spilled off. Not when he wrapped her in his camouflage T-shirt, tucked her hair into a clay-bowl helmet, and slid the stick into her hand as a rifle. Not when he had her shoot the rifle, not when he unscrewed her leg, not when he made her climb to the nest.

  Peter had expected a protest when he lit the nest on fire, but still Vola didn’t make a sound. And just as he’d practiced, the fire was only a momentary flare as the handful of wood shavings in the bowl flashed up. Just enough time for him to take off the marionette’s army uniform.

  He drew her up out of the nest and eased her to the stage, where he’d propped the child puppet beside his carved fox. He had her bend low to the child, then turn and stroke the fox. And then he pulled the curtain.

  Peter hung the controls. He waited, but still there was only silence. He stretched to look over the stage.

  Vola stared straight ahead, right through him, her face as rigid as if it had been carved of wood. The tears streaming down her cheeks gleamed in the flickering light. Somehow they only served to make her look noble.

  “I’m sorry. I only meant . . . You’re not a grenade. You’re good. You took me in, you’re training me so I can get Pax—”

  “Leave me alone, boy.” Her voice was low and wire tight.

  “Wait. I think it’s stupid to waste your life out here for some kind of punishment. I mean, maybe that guy didn’t even care about that book. Maybe he won it in a poker game the night before. Maybe what he cared about was . . . I don’t know”—Peter steeled himself—“being a teacher or something.”

  At the word “teacher,” Vola shot her chin at him, but he didn’t look away. “Yeah, maybe he wanted to be a teacher. So maybe you should go do that for him. But you’ll never know, so I think you should go out and live your life. I’m just saying that whatever bad thing wrecked you before, you could start over like the phoenix and—”

  “I know what you’re saying. You’re not wrong, but get out of here now. Leave me be.”

  Peter started to argue, but his words withered at the sight of her sitting so still, head so high, tears now rolling down her neck. He wrapped the sorceress’s controls and then climbed down from the hay bales and picked up his crutches. The silence of the barn felt enormous. “Okay. Okay,” he said, just to break it.

  The walk to the cabin in the dark took forever. Inside, a covered plate rested on the counter. He slumped against the doorframe, washed in guilt. Vola had made it up for him from the dinner leftovers. “You pick this chicken clean later tonight, you hear me?”

  A fresh wave of guilt. She’d killed a chicken, something she didn’t do often, because she wanted him to have more protein.

  Peter shoved off from the doorframe and scooped up a box of matches from beside the stove. He had no idea how long she’d stay out there, but when she came back, it wouldn’t be to a cold, dark cabin. This much he could do for her. He lit all the lamps and then laid a fire just the way he’d seen Vola do it each night.

  Sitting there, watching it catch and grow, he replayed everything he’d said. It had all been true. Well, the part about that soldier maybe wanting to be a teacher had probably pushed it, but who knew, maybe he had. No, there wasn’t a single thing he hadn’t meant to say. Nothing he regretted.

  A gust blew down the chimney, threatening the fragile fire. He reached for another section of newspaper. As he crumpled it, a headline caught his eye. FORCES PREPARE TO ENGAGE. AREA TO BE EVACUATED.

  He flattened the sheet and read. He studied the map, unbelieving.

  And then he grabbed his crutches and pegged out to the porch so fast that François scrambled from his nest and shot out into the night. He jammed his clothes into his pack, then looked around. The phoenix bracelet, the photo of his mother, and his mitt and ball were the only things of his in the room. He propped the bracelet on the hammock where Vola would find it, dropped the other things into the pack, and swung up into the kitchen.

  Vola was just coming in. She hung her hat on the peg and looked over to the fire, then back at him. At his pack.

  He handed the sheet of newspaper to her.

  Vola scanned it, then looked up for an explanation.

  He pointed at the map. “The area they’re closing off?” he choked. “That’s only five miles from where I left Pax!”

  “Are you sure? It’s a big area. . . .”

  “I’m sure! See this empty place? It’s an abandoned rope mill. It’s got all these high stone walls, and it sits overlooking the river at the only place you can cross it—the rest is gorge. That’s where they’ll fight for the water. My friends and I used to play war at that mill. We said it was the perfect place for an ambush. We played war! I left Pax on the road leading up to it, thinking it would be . . .” The word “safe” stuck in his throat. He shot up and lurched over to the pegs at the door to grab his sweatshirt.

  “Stop. They’re preparing for battle there. Don’t be crazy.”

  “It’s not crazy. It’s right. I know it now. Remember the cheese? You asked what kind I liked, and I didn’t know? My father likes cheddar, so that’s what we have. Maybe I used to like something else. It’s like you said—I had that forgetting-who-you-are disorder. I didn’t remember what was right and what was wrong when I left Pax. But now I do. Now I know I need to go there. I know that.”

  “All right. Maybe so. But you’re still on one leg, boy. It isn’t possible. Look at this distance.” Vola sat down with the map.

  “No! I’ve wasted enough time. I’m not listening anymore.”

  “Hold on.” Vola lifted the paper. “You come over here. See something.”

  Peter frowned, but he swung back over.

  “Robert Johnson? Bus driver friend I’ve been telling you about, who’s been mailing your letters? See this spot here?” She tapped the top left corner of the map in the article. “That town is the final stop on his route. He passes through here at ten past eleven Tuesdays and Saturdays, and this is where he pulls up at the end of the night. What if I put you on that bus tomorrow? Seems like that would save you at least two hundred fifty miles, leave you about forty to cover on your own. You listening now?”

  Peter dropped his crutches and sank to the chair, jelly legged with relief. “You’d do that for me? Only forty miles—that’s nothing!”

  “No. Forty miles across woods and hills on crutches is not nothing. Three days at least, I’d figure, and it’ll just about kill you. But I think you can do it. So you’ll stay the night now? Deal?”

  Peter took her hand and met her gaze. “Deal.” Looking at Vola, her face still tear streaked from what had happened in the barn, he knew he couldn’t leave things as broken as they were. And he didn’t have much time to fix them. “Deal,” he said again. “On three conditions.”

  The moon shone through the trees as full and creamy yellow as the eggs Pax had eaten a week before. His stomach cramped as he paced the river’s edge.

  Only three times in the week and a half since his humans had left him had he eaten a meal big enough to fill his belly, and the last one—a pile of fish rotting on the bank—he’d retched up minutes later. He had retrieved the cached ham and watched with pride as Bristle and Runt ate the meat, but he hadn’t touched any of it. And he still had had no luck hunting. All his fat reserves were gone. His coat hung loose and he was burning muscle.

  Pax trained his nose to the humans’ camp, which, as always, tortured him with its rich food scents. Over the past two days more war-sick had arrived, and hundreds of them were massing to the south beyond. The ground vibrated with their threat. But Pax was hungry.

  He looked over to where Bristle was guarding the sleeping Runt and signaled that he would leave.

  Although he could see the camp directly a
bove him, he chose his old route—up the gorge and across the ridge—because the guards on the wall were facing the river.

  He padded up the rocks in the water, leaving no tracks. Away from the silence of the devastated field, his ears pricked toward the night sounds. He knew them now. They comforted him. The thin piping of bats, the careless crashing of a waddling skunk, the underground bustle of voles, the distant calls of owls—all these sounds told him he was not hunting alone.

  Pax himself made no noise—he had learned the secrets of stealth from Gray and Bristle. Like a shadow, he slipped across the ridge, down the hill, and into the grub tent.

  No easy meat hung this night, but the tables were piled high with vegetables and breads. He knocked a wheel of cheese to the ground. The taste was strong and strange, but he gulped until his belly stretched tight. As he headed back out carrying a hunk for Bristle, a familiar scent stopped him in his tracks. Peanut butter.

  It was drifting out of a large metal can. Pax dropped the cheese. He stood to sniff at the rim. Like the garbage bin at his boy’s home, the can promised a variety of scraps. But above the commingled scents rose the one he craved more than any other. His whiskers ruffled in pleasure. He nudged the lid aside a few inches.

  The clear jar lay on top of the heap, its sides still smeared thick with the creamy prize.

  Pax edged his snout under the lid and bit the top of the rim carefully. He knew from experience that this was how to grip the jar so it didn’t cover his nose. He pushed away from the garbage can.

  And the lid clattered to the stony ground, ringing an alarm in the quiet night.

  Pax ducked under the table and froze, his pulse quickened.

  Across the tent, the flap snapped open. A human stepped in and clicked on a beam of light. Even over the peanut butter, Pax recognized the scent: his boy’s father.

  Pax raised a paw, ready to dart in whatever direction seemed safest. The man swept the light around the tent.

  When it fell on Pax’s eyes, he winced but he didn’t move. His pupils adjusted, and Pax saw the man crouch to stare at him. Pax remained frozen, paw still raised, jar still clamped in his jaws, studying the man’s face as the man studied his.

  The man grunted, rubbing his chin. Then he gave a rough laugh. Pax lowered his paw an inch, holding the man’s gaze, testing him. His boy’s father laughed again, then rose and lifted the tent flap. He kicked his boot through the opening.

  Pax knew the signal. The man had used it on him often at the door of the humans’ house, at the door of his pen: Go through, it meant. Go through right now and I won’t harm you. The pact was reliable. Pax sped past him into the safety of the night.

  He didn’t slow down until he reached the spine of the hill. He buried the jar and then crouched to watch for movement at the camp in the predawn light. Although he was certain no humans had followed him, he took off east, snaking a loose loop for half an hour before doubling back to drop down to the river.

  Runt was awake when Pax returned, and for the first time since the explosion, he was struggling to rise. Bristle urged him back down.

  But Pax saw that his lips were cracked and his eyes sunken. He needs water.

  Bristle looked to the river’s edge. A dozen full-bounds for a healthy fox—would it even be possible for Runt?

  The little fox braced his forelegs. He tightened his haunches to rise, then looked back in surprise. The leg that had been part of him his whole life, as much a part of him as his own scent, was gone. He bent and sniffed at the wound. He looked up at Pax and then Bristle, as if searching for an explanation.

  Again he strained upward. His one remaining back leg jacked him up, and Runt rolled onto his wounded haunch with a yelp of pain.

  Pax leaped to stand by his injured side.

  Runt got to his front legs once more and then straightened his one back leg. Again he canted over. This time, though, he fell against the strong tall flank of the older fox, and he did not cry out. He wobbled, searching for a new balance.

  When he found it, Pax took a single step toward the water, then waited.

  Runt stepped out. First, the two front legs. Then a dragging hop with the single back leg. And a collapse against Pax.

  Again Pax took a single step. Again the small fox matched it. And again. And once more, until he didn’t waver at all.

  Bristle ran ahead to the bank. And step by wounded step, Runt closed the distance until he flopped down by the riverbank and stretched his neck out to lap at the cool water.

  When he was sated, he dropped his head, his eyes closing. But Bristle nipped him. Soon it would be full daylight. He would be exposed. She ran upriver to a stand of cattails.

  Runt limped after her. He was still clumsy and trembling and slow, but he did not fall once. Pax followed close by. Just as they reached the stand of reeds, Pax startled at the crackling of brush from downstream. Bristle’s head snapped around, too, ears cocked to the same spot across the river. Something large was coming.

  Runt dipped his head to sniff at a snail.

  Pax and Bristle backed into the cattail reeds. Bristle called to her brother. Runt did not turn his head.

  A buck pranced out of the vegetation, tossed his antlers, then splashed into the river.

  Bristle barked for her brother again, and again he ignored her.

  The deer clattered up onto the other bank, heading for the bright grass of an unscorched area of field. At its edge, he lifted a hoof. As he set it down, the earth rocked and the bright grass blew. The buck burst up, his back twisting and snapping.

  Runt screamed his terror at the quaking ground. Bristle and Pax herded him into the cool dark of the reeds and soothed him until he understood that he was unharmed.

  The foxes watched the soldiers run down the hill, sweep their beams of light over the heap in the field, then go back. As a pink sun rose over the pines, vast patches of grass in the field flared up and crackled. Field mice stumbled out toward the cool safety of the riverbank. Dazed and disoriented, they would have made easy meals, but Bristle let them pass, as if obeying some code that protected those so terrified.

  She stood and gazed over the smoking field. We have to leave here. Now.

  Pax knew that she was right. He followed her out of the reeds. Bristle called to Runt, who was watching a wandering vole. He didn’t even flick his ears toward his sister.

  And Pax understood. He can’t hear.

  When Peter came into the kitchen, he found Vola already drinking coffee. She couldn’t have slept any more than he had—he’d heard her leave for the barn in the middle of the night, and she hadn’t come back until nearly dawn. She raised her mug. “Breakfast before you go?”

  He shook his head.

  Vola nodded and took his pack from him. She stuffed a brown paper bag into it. “Eat the ham sandwiches first—ham won’t keep. There’s a jar of salve—put it on twice a day. I filled your thermos, but you’ll have to be on the lookout for springs. Keep that cast dry, though. I mean it. Tape a garbage bag around it if it rains.”

  She set the pack down and Peter noticed—she had two shoes on. “Hey. You’re wearing it.”

  She lifted her overall cuff. “Condition number one.”

  “Wow,” Peter managed after a minute. “Holy dyableman. Where’s the old one?”

  Vola tipped her head to the armchair. “I don’t know what to do with it. Maybe put it on the scarecrow?”

  “Not on the scarecrow,” Peter answered, instantly sure. He pointed to the fireplace. “The phoenix, remember? All his stuff burns in the nest.”

  Vola sighed, but she followed him. Peter stirred the embers and added some kindling. Vola brought the wooden post over. It looked smaller somehow. The leather straps reminded Peter of the ones binding the marionettes’ feet and hands.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m okay.” Vola placed the wooden leg onto the flames, and both of them watched until it caught.

  Vola walked away first.

  Peter noticed how smo
oth her gait was with the prosthesis. You wouldn’t even guess. He pulled the screen over the fire. When she got home today, there’d be nothing but a pile of ashes. “You okay with the other two conditions?” he asked, trailing her to the kitchen.

  “We’ll find out at the library. But I loaded the tractor already.”

  “The tractor?”

  “How else are we going to cart twenty marionettes into town?”

  “We’re driving to the library on a tractor?”

  “We’re driving to the library on a tractor. Unless you’ve got a magic carpet you haven’t told me about. And we have to leave soon to make that bus, so . . . you’re ready?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got everything I need.”

  “Well, not quite you don’t.” She reached behind the door and drew out something that surprised Peter so much, he couldn’t respond.

  “You know what it is, right?”

  The baseball bat was turned perfectly smooth, the weight so solid and balanced that the world seemed to slow as he hefted it. “You made this. But I don’t need—”

  “I think you do. Maybe when you get where you’re going, you’ll figure out why.”

  Peter ached to hand the bat back. But Vola had stayed up last night carving it for him, and she looked so proud. Maybe it was time to own one again. He balanced on his crutches and took a slow-motion swing.

  And the other bad memory swept him.

  His seven-year-old fury. A wildness he couldn’t control. The exhilarating fright of that wildness. His mother’s blue gazing globe, batted off its pedestal into a million shards. Her tears—“You’ve got to tame that temper. Don’t be like him.” Her bloodied fingers, picking the blue glass daggers from her white roses. His shame as he watched her drive away.

  He slid the bat into his pack, where it fit as though it had always had a place there. Treacherous.

  He hoisted the pack. Underneath was the newspaper clipping. He picked it up. And his eye caught the date.

  He crumpled to the chair, gut kicked.