Daughters of the Wild

by Natalka Burian

  “Well, what else would they think? That it’s yours?” Marcela was trying to hurt him, he could tell. Just like Letta.

  “She doesn’t mean that,” Sabina said quickly.

  “I don’t understand. Why can’t she just call Mother Joseph?” Marcela’s voice was higher and louder than usual.

  “She who?” Cello asked.

  “It doesn’t even matter who! Letta, Joanie, Miracle, I don’t know! Just someone.” She kicked at a clump of curled thistle.

  “You?” Cello asked. He stood up straight and looked at Marcela. Her eyes were dark, like Joanie’s, but they weren’t alike in any other way. Marcela’s hair was violently curly; even tied back the way it was, Cello could see the defined shape of each twist of hair. Her eyebrows were thick and dark, giving her expressions their own unique and urgent punctuation.

  “Yeah, me,” she muttered. “I found out how useless we both are last night.” Sabina rubbed her sister’s back, but Marcela shook her off.

  “Well, Marcela,” Cello began. “If they didn’t take him, us calling up and saying, ‘Hey, did y’all steal Joanie’s kid?’ is going to make them ask where that baby came from. Letta’s right about that at least. If they don’t know about Junior, we don’t want to tell them.”

  “That is enough,” Sil said, his voice thin, not quite right. “Just leave it alone. None of this is up to us.” He adjusted the worn blue baseball cap on his head, and leaned back down into the garden. “Come on, now—get to work.”

  Cello figured Sil was probably right, at least until he could get a better look at the foreign tracks and determine their origin.

  Cello did leave it alone, but only until the messages began. The first one came four days later, on Miracle’s birthday.

  11

  It happened early in the morning. A padded mailing envelope sat in the grass in front of the kids’ trailer, soggy with dew. Cello opened the door and stepped out toward the melting cardboard.

  “Don’t touch it.” Letta was already there, leaning over the delivery, smoking.

  “Maybe it’s garbage,” Cello said.

  “It’s not garbage. It’s from them.”

  Cello and Letta both understood them to be the Josephs, or whoever it was capable of stealing a baby. Them.

  “On Miracle’s birthday, too.” Letta shook her head and smoke streamed from her nostrils. “Are the kids still asleep? Is Joanie?”

  “Yeah,” Cello said, and crouched over the lumpy package. “You going to open it?”

  “I’m not touching it. Fingerprints.”

  “So? You don’t want to call the cops,” Cello said, prodding the bundle with his shoe.

  “No shit, Sherlock, but sooner or later, somebody’s gonna come snooping, maybe ten, twenty years from now. I don’t want my DNA anywhere near that thing.”

  “You watch too much TV, Letta.” Cello picked up the envelope and peeled away the seal at the top.

  “Well?” She leaned in close, her nose practically touching the Bubble Wrap innards.

  Cello reached deep inside and withdrew a single sheet of lined, yellow paper. It was taped to something—a plain, white envelope.

  “Go on,” Letta said, lighting a fresh cigarette off the old one. Cello opened the package and they both winced and turned away at the same time. The envelope was filled with nail clippings—tiny, miniscule, nearly translucent nail clippings. They had congealed in a loose, spiky clump at the bottom of the paper envelope.

  Letta put a hand to her mouth. Cello turned the yellow sheet of paper over, and they read the note together. It was a few lines, scrawled in blue ink, in looping—almost childish—oversize cursive.

  Leave $100 at the Stuckey’s on Route 9. Put it in this envelope and stick it behind the Crown Light sign in front of the dumpsters. If you don’t, somebody’s getting hurt.

  “It’s a prank,” Letta said.

  “What if it’s not?” Cello asked. “How could it be a prank? Nobody knows the baby’s missing except us.”

  “Even if it’s not, you aren’t supposed to negotiate with these people. Everybody knows that.”

  “We should call someone,” Cello said, turning the envelope over, tucking the flap inside and hiding away those tiny slivers of baby fingernails.

  “Who should we call?” Letta took an especially deep drag and blew the smoke back around them, like she was trying to obscure what they’d found. “I want you to throw that away, and I don’t want you running your mouth about any of this, neither. I don’t need Joanie in more of a mope than she’s already in.” Letta turned her back to Cello—and the package—but didn’t move away. “Do it now,” she said.

  Cello knew Letta wasn’t heartless. He knew that she really had cared for the baby, and that she would worry about the package and its contents. But life at the garden wasn’t like life anywhere else; it didn’t come with the same protection others had.

  He stuffed the envelope in his back pocket and shaded his eyes against the white light of the cloudy, already warm morning. This was something he could do, find a hundred dollars—he knew he would find it, even if he had to steal it, even if he had to leave the garden to do it. If all he could do was put money behind a dumpster at the Stuckey’s, then he would do it, happily. He only had to decide if he’d do it alone, or ask Marcela or Sil for help.

  * * *

  Sil and the kids lounged under a chestnut tree eating the birthday lunch. Miracle smiled shyly into her peanut butter sandwich when she saw Cello.

  “See, I told you he’d be here in time,” Sil said as Cello stooped over Miracle to hug her little shoulders.

  “Happy birthday,” Cello said, straightening the little girl’s skewed ponytail.

  “You ready, Marcela?” Sil asked.

  Marcela sat a little behind them, in the deepest shade of the tree, her body curled, hiding something.

  “Happy birthday to you,” Sabina began, her voice the best and strongest. Marcela maneuvered a cardboard box into the middle of their picnic. In it, a rosette-speckled, store-bought cake bristled with candles. They all sang, even Cello. Miracle was flushed, and grinned wide as she blew out the candles. Marcela sliced up the cake, and Sabina handed it around. No one cared they didn’t have plates; they just ate from their hands.

  The smell of sugar and melted wax mingling in the air, and all the smiling, made Cello almost forget the gruesome souvenir in his back pocket.

  “Fancy,” Cello said, pointing at the cake. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Store on Route 9.” Sil beamed as the kids giggled and licked icing from their hands.

  “What?” Cello was chilled.

  “The Stuckey’s on Route 9. Are you deaf, son?” Sil smacked the back of Cello’s head. Hard, but still playful. “Sabina picked it out, though. Ain’t it a beauty?”

  Cello nodded, stunned, and shivered out from under Sil’s reach. “I’m real hot—I’ll go wash up in the creek while y’all eat.”

  “Well, hurry back, Jesus. You’d think we were running a four-star hotel. Take your swim before lunch,” Sil said in an attempt at a British accent, miming a monocle over one eye, the can of Crown Light dangling from his fingers precariously.

  “Yeah, just got too much sun. Happy birthday, Miracle.” Cello started off toward the strip of river that wound through the property.

  “Get back here right after!” Sil called. “You’re making the run to the Josephs’ today.”

  Cello froze. “Letta know about that?” He hoped none of the birthday celebrants could hear his alarm.

  “Oh, sure,” Sil drawled. “Letta knows all, ain’t that right, kids?”

  * * *

  Cello hadn’t meant to actually go to the creek, and he was surprised by the cool, green scent of it as he came upon the rocky bank. He felt disorganized and a little frantic. Something was going on with the surprise del
ivery to the Josephs’. Cello was troubled by the symmetry of the envelope’s arrival and the unexpected visit to the Joseph place. Under all of the morning’s surprises pulsed the question of money. How was he going to get it? Letta wasn’t handing it over, and Sil wouldn’t if Letta wouldn’t.

  Cello peeled away his sweat-dampened clothes and swam out into the river. The cool water pressed into the healing welts from Sil’s punishment, into the spaces between the hair follicles on his scalp, around and through his fingers. For a while, Cello just swam, hoping to find an answer to any of the questions beating behind his eyes in the clear, honest river.

  He felt something move against the side of his leg, and he turned first toward it, and then away from it, before he broke the surface of the creek. The water dribbled into his eyes, and he moved closer to the shore until his feet found the muddy bed.

  When he saw what had touched him in the water, he stopped breathing. There was Joanie, easy and naked as he was, swimming, in the same even pattern he had favored. Like she’d been following him. Cello’s stomach lurched as he sank into the water, crouching down until he was covered up to his neck.

  He watched the shape of her body flicker in and out of the different shades of light and disturbances in the water. He desperately wanted the river to stop moving, so he could really see her, but he felt an equal and opposite gratitude that it was moving so swiftly, that there were tangles of leaves and branches floating around it, obscuring both of their bodies.

  Joanie lifted her head out of the river; her hair was slicked back and darkened by the water. The fierceness of her gaze physically hurt Cello. He crumpled over, even more ashamed of how he must look beside her, ashamed of the way she looked at him, ashamed at how he’d failed in trying to help recover her son. Not anymore, Cello thought. This one thing, finding money for that envelope, I’ll do. It won’t hurt anybody.

  “How come you aren’t at Miracle’s birthday?” he asked, eyeing his pile of sweaty clothes on the opposite bank.

  “Didn’t exactly feel like celebrating.” She swept her arms out, swimming toward him. “I’ve been swimming a lot. I think it’s helping,” she added. Cello felt the heat in his skin, a blistering flush covering him as she moved closer. “How about you? Why are you out here in the middle of the day?”

  “I had a problem,” he blurted out, not sure if he wanted to drive her back or lure her forward. “I thought a swim might help me figure something out.”

  “What?” Joanie ducked her head a little, surprised, maybe even a little pleased, by his response, as though she had sent him a silent message that he had understood. He was warmed, comforted even, by this glimpse of their old rapport. “What’s your problem?”

  “I just need some extra money.”

  “Why?” she asked, moving a dripping piece of hair out of her eyes, her arm lifted so high that Cello could see the top of her breast swell out of the water. He felt the violent beat of his heart everywhere.

  “I just need it, okay?” Cello wondered how long they could stay in the water like this.

  “You should probably ask at the Josephs’. Since you’re going over there today.” He heard the dip in her voice, a studied casual droop in her tone, as she glossed over the word Josephs. The way she said the word sounded like a scratch.

  “Did Letta tell you we were going?” Everyone had known but him.

  “No. I could just tell,” she said with an odd satisfied smile. “When you go—” her voice was so quiet he could barely hear it over the sluicing of the creek “—you’ll have to go without Sil.”

  “Oh.” It was all Cello could do to take one breath after another. He was startled by her strange calm, and overwhelmed knowing that Joanie was naked—that he was naked—that he could just swim over to her if he wasn’t so chickenshit.

  “I knew every time you came to the Josephs’,” she said. “While I was over there. I could always tell. I wonder if that’s why I can tell now, or if it’s something else.” She moved away and swam upstream, toward her own pile of clothes. Cello stared as she climbed out of the water. The way her body looked and moved, it was like part of the river had come alive and was moving up onto the ground. The soft lines of her thighs moved and split as she bent and reached for her clothes. She turned and saw him watching before he could cover his eyes, do anything, to not seem like a disgusting pervert.

  “It really is working,” Joanie said, holding a bundle of clothes loosely in front of her, inspecting the stretch of an arm. She spoke more to herself than to him, but Cello could see something different, another shimmering dimension to her skin. Her distracted gaze sharpened toward him, and he could feel her attention as viscerally as a fingertip pressed against his forehead. “When you’re there, ask one of the cousins. They always know where to get a little extra money. Come here,” she said. He swam forward, looking carefully at the space above her head. “Give me your hand.” Joanie pulled his outstretched palm closer and flipped it over, efficiently, impersonally. Cello watched, fascinated, as she dipped her forefinger inside of her mouth, and scraped it against the inside of her cheek. He almost jerked away as she lowered the dampened finger to his skin, and began to write on it. He squinted, trying to pay attention to the pattern, but all he could feel was Joanie’s touch. “There,” she said, satisfied. “See if that helps. But be careful.” Her voice slipped into a flat, bitter pitch. “Make sure you watch the tenants. Stay away from them if you can.” Cello wondered what she’d done, what they’d made her do, maybe for extra money. Before he could ask what had prompted that flare of anger, she disappeared from Cello’s sight.

  He unfurled, and pulled his body into the deeper water, into the same place Joanie had waited while they spoke. He swam and swam in the same pattern she had used, an elongated triangle. He swam, repeating the shape, until his body burned with activity, and not shame or wanting. He swam until he knew he was late, until he knew the birthday lunch was long over, probably earning yet another punishment. He swam until he could put a single thought next to another single thought, until a relative calm replaced the various frenzies and extremes he’d felt over the course of that strange, jagged morning.

  Only then did he heave himself out of the water, breathing hard from the work of swimming. While he got dressed, a single purpose fused in his heart—to get that money and, in some way, protect the baby.

  * * *

  When Cello got back to the plot, he was late, but not as late as Sil was drunk. Marcela shot him a gloomy look, and Miracle had been crying. The little girl was curled up in Sabina’s arms, her small, dark head resting against her foster sister’s shoulder.

  “Where’ve you been?” Marcela asked.

  “Swimming,” Cello answered, pulling his hands through his damp hair. His gaze darted around the yard—was there anything of value that wouldn’t be missed? The old water heater, the rusted-out husks of cars—Sil had combed through their guts, harvesting and selling their parts: both useless.

  Marcela’s voice startled him out of his proto-calculations. “Well, thanks for giving Sil all of that extra time for birthday fun. Letta’s trying to sober him up enough to figure out what y’all need to bring to the Josephs’.”

  “Oh.”

  “That’s right, ‘Oh.’”

  When Sil and Letta eventually stumbled out of their trailer, Cello had inventoried any items of potential value at the garden that could be sold, but he came up short. The farming equipment would be missed—it would be needed. There was a TV in Sil and Letta’s trailer, but where would he sell it? He certainly wouldn’t get enough money for it, or any of the other derelict housewares that littered their domestic lives.

  “Cello!” Letta called. “I’ve been hollering at you for five minutes! You finally go off the deep end?”

  “Sorry,” Cello said. Letta shook her head as she climbed behind the wheel of the truck. Cello loaded in the delivery of the Vine and Sil’s
prematurely harvested hybrid cuttings. His eyes hurt from straining for a glimpse of Joanie, but he didn’t see her anywhere.

  12

  Their truck rumbled down the Josephs’ drive, two gravel ruts split in two by a bright stripe of grass. Cello sat in the bed of the truck with Marcela, the sun-hot black plastic burning his thighs through his pants. This would be Marcela’s first delivery, so Cello hoped it would be a quick and easy one.

  Letta shouted out of the truck’s open window. “Keep an eye on her, Cello. We can’t lose a single stem on the road. You know that.”

  Marcela’s haughty indifference forced Cello to work twice as hard as he’d had to work with Joanie. Joanie had been just as vigilant as Cello, maybe even more careful, tamping down a corner of tarp with her foot, or catching a loose tangle of green before it flew off into the afternoon. Marcela sprawled across a pile of cuttings, but seemed to do it more for her own comfort than to keep the wind at bay. Cello did the work of two people to keep the cargo in the back, squinting out into the cloudless bright day.

  “Marcela,” he called as the wind picked up around them. “Can you just sit over there? On the edge of that blanket?”

  Marcela huffed and moved around a bit.

  “Marcela,” Cello repeated as he repositioned himself on the tarp.

  “What?” she snapped.

  “You don’t have any money, do you?”

  She laughed, her voice cracking against the wind. “Please, do you think if I had any money I’d still be living with Sil and Letta? Why?” She leaned in, so close Cello could smell the oil from the pores of her skin. “What do you need money for? Or is it Joanie who needs it?”

  Cello felt the blood press up against the insides of his face.