‘Whim, what happened back at home? Where’s Mam? Where are my brothers and sisters?’ Elwyn said.
‘We’ve been kicked off our land, Elwyn. People who aren’t prepared to fight for it are leaving.’
‘What do you mean, they’re leaving?’
‘They’ve left. Your family has left. The Elises have left. Janie Wilder has left – March is dead.’
‘March is dead?’
‘Terrible things have happened to us, Elwyn. And just because you weren’t there to see it doesn’t mean it wasn’t as real.’ Elwyn felt like he had taken a hit. Like he had fallen from some place high. He didn’t know what to say, but Hestia stepped in first.
‘And you say my father is responsible?’ Hestia asked. ‘He should be held accountable for what he has done. I won’t let him get away with this.’
Whim looked at Hestia a bit longer, then as they walked, her eyes went to something behind her, up in the direction of Hestia’s house. Hestia and Elwyn both turned. Rhoad himself was striding down the hill. A couple of men followed him, men Elwyn recognised as hired guards.
‘Whim. What’s the plan?’ Elwyn said. She didn’t answer. Her eyes were glued to Rhoad, but she didn’t alter her course. They couldn’t hear Rhoad above the roar of the crowd, but they could see him nod in their direction, and the men following him slipped through the crowd towards Elwyn and Hestia.
‘Sorry, Miss Rhoad. I’m under orders to get you to safety. It’s for your own protection,’ one of the men said. Hestia tried to fight him off, but he held her. Few of the protesters saw this, being so focused on their goal, their forward momentum. But those who did see didn’t help her, not even Whim. Elwyn lunged at the man, but the other guard grabbed him roughly and without apology. Caradoc Alfin jumped in to help Elwyn free himself. By the time he did, Hestia was being dragged away.
Elwyn rushed through the protesters towards her. He could see that the militiamen on horses were nearing the demonstrators. People started to pick up rocks and throw them at the horses’ feet. The horses reared up a little, but the militiamen weren’t discouraged. One of them began to laugh, and Elwyn saw that his face was familiar. The goat keeper. The one who had followed Elwyn to the Blackwell house, who had fallen unconscious on the floor.
The man saw Elwyn, too. And he turned his horse away from the crowd and to Elwyn, who was running towards the house after Hestia.
‘Let’s have a bit of fun,’ the man said to no one in particular, and he grabbed Elwyn by one of his arms, dragging him through the grass. Elwyn was dangerously close to the horse’s feet, but could do nothing to free or right himself. It was like being pulled down in the current of a river. The horse trotted and Elwyn’s arm screamed, pulled at its socket.
Even as this all was happening, Elwyn could hardly believe it was real. It passed like a painful dream. He was Elwyn Bramble. Son of Mirth. Son of Badfish Creek. The boy destined for greatness. He was being dragged through Liberty behind a horse. Whim was leading a march to rescue her father from jail. Badfish Creek was in danger. None of it hung together. It was like a bizarre dream, one that Elwyn couldn’t wake from.
The man didn’t take Elwyn back to the house, but led him behind the stable. Elwyn tried to run, but his legs were weak and bruised. The goat man grabbed him.
‘Don’t worry. I’ve got orders to take you back to the house,’ he said. ‘The Rhoads are going on tour, and we aren’t supposed to let any harm come to their precious Forester pet. We wouldn’t want the tree trash to look bad in his fancy pictures. But then again…’ He lifted his knee violently, planting it in Elwyn’s spine, and Elwyn fell to the ground. ‘I’ve been waiting for this a long time, tree trash,’ the man said, again smelling of alcohol. ‘Done up so fine. Making such important friends.’ He kicked Elwyn in the head, and that was the last thing Elwyn could remember.
CHAPTER 27
Victors
THERE IS AN UNDERSTANDING somewhere in the human spirit that the weak can come together to defeat the strong. In the First War, Americans rose up against the King and demanded their own country. In the Second War, slaves rose up against their masters and demanded their freedom. These were histories embedded in the world Whim grew up in, embedded in her bones. These were the stories she was told, the songs she had sung. She believed the unity of her people was more powerful than weapons and money. Of course she did, or why would she have done the things she had done?
But there was still a part of her that didn’t think what she hoped for was possible. Part of her had feared what she was leading people into: failure, maybe. Even death. But when the militia rushed at them with their guns and horses, these doubts were crowded out of her mind. It was like there was not only a wind at her back, but a storm.
And what happened seemed like a miracle to Whim. Guns were fired, but mostly they missed. Horses ran at the crowd, but were frightened back. Of the hundreds of protesters Whim led, only a dozen were trampled or shot, and none of these injuries were fatal. The Foresters’ numbers outweighed the militia’s weapons, and Whim could see as they closed in on the men that they were afraid. They tied the militia to trees and set the horses free, and then they walked into the silent, shuttered town.
Whim could feel the eyes of the people of Liberty on them. No one left their homes, and whether it was because they were afraid or obedient to safety procedures, Whim didn’t know. But she believed that the things she had planned came to pass. She believed that through shutters and blinds they were watching, and they saw them as people. It felt almost like magic to Whim. She knew this was the way the world was built; it was made not for the greedy few, but for the just. Yet it still surprised her that together a group of Foresters could walk the streets, force their way into a jail, and not be afraid.
The courthouse was ringed with several guards. Whim’s heart was in her throat. Her father was just behind them, behind the walls. The guards carried metal clubs, and Whim locked eyes with one of them, the largest and most menacing.
The man raised his club, but before Whim could speak, he had turned and hit the guard next to him with it, then the next one.
‘For justice! For Aelred!’ the man called out. Whim wished she could get a better look at the man who had been a friend to her father and delivered her letters, but there was no time. The protesters swarmed the jail like bees swarm a hive. It was a tiny place, so much smaller than she had imagined, and it was soon spilling over with bodies. Whim was the one who found the stairs, who first went down them. She was the first one to see her father, and the first one her father saw. His face was yellow with old bruises and purple with new ones. But when he looked up at her, his face was so proud.
‘Little Whim,’ he said.
‘Quick, let’s get down this door,’ Whim said, and the people produced a metal desk-chair, which they rammed at the door until it gave way. Aelred hugged his daughter, his face teary and wet, and together they all shouted and sang through the streets. They left the town as though they had conquered it. But just as they reached the edge of the little city, they heard whistles and the sound of more horse hooves.
‘Run!’ Aelred shouted, and the protesters fled into fields of high corn.
They moved quietly through the farmland and were cautious and quick, but not afraid. They felt they had already done the impossible and could do impossible things yet. The walked all through the day until they reached the forest, and under the cover of the oaks, they made camp. People talked around the fire, about what they had seen that day and what they had done. Whim and her father sat off to the side, soaking in the victorious atmosphere around them as they bathed in the day’s heat, the flying insects, the last fireflies.
‘You’ve succeeded where I’ve failed, little Whim. A father has never been more proud of his daughter.’
But Whim, despite the intoxicating feeling of victory and the joy of reunion, had one spot in her mind that was dim, one thing that disturbed her.
‘I saw Elwyn,’ she said. ‘He came as
we were walking into Liberty, he and Hestia Rhoad. Rhoad sent people after them. He was dragged behind a horse.’ The words disgusted her as she said them – they were tough, like meat freshly killed and cut. ‘Other people tried to stop it. But I didn’t do anything. I just let them drag him away.’
Even as she spoke, she expected her father to say that she had done right, that she was a bird and he was a badger, that he had made his choice. Instead, her father put his hand gently to her face, brushed away the hair, sweaty from the heat and movement of the day, that had fallen over her eyes.
‘Your compassion is the well of your strength. Be more careful not to lose it.’
That night the protesters slept hard and well. People took turns keeping watch. Whim was sitting up, staring at the stars, when she heard a rustle from the bushes. She straightened herself, listening closely and preparing to sound the alarm, when she heard a familiar voice.
‘Enid, I’m telling you, I saw campfire smoke coming from right around here.’
‘Great. Campfire smoke. It could be bandits, you know. We could have done all this work to pluck up our courage and become heroic and all that nonsense, only to be robbed and killed.’
‘We don’t have anything anyone wants to steal.’
‘Enid? Neste?’ Whim called.
‘See. I was right.’
‘Oh, shut up. Whim! Where are you?’
When Enid and Neste saw Whim, they dropped the packs they carried and the three of them wrapped each other in an embrace.
‘We’re so glad you’re okay,’ Neste said.
‘You are all on your way back to Badfish Creek?’ Enid said. ‘How did it go? Did you see Elwyn? Did you get your father?’
‘We figured we’d already missed our chance to help free Aelred, but we can still do our part protecting our homeland,’ Neste said. ‘Mam didn’t want to let us go, and, to tell the truth, we were a bit nervous, too. But we just kept thinking about you, and what you would do in our shoes.’
‘You make the rest of us look cowardly, Whim Moone, and I won’t stand for it,’ Enid said.
The three of them sat together, Whim telling Enid and Neste about the march through Liberty and the plans for the following days. Then, when relieved of guard duties, the girls unfurled their bed rolls and fell into a brief, deep sleep.
Before the protesters marched on in the morning, they erased traces of the night’s camp and gathered together.
‘We are children of survivors: survivors of war, survivors of slavery, survivors of empire. They may tell us to bend, but we will not bend. They may try to buy us, but we will not be bought. Our way of life is our inheritance, and the strength of those who have gone before us runs through our veins. We will not be moved.’ Aelred spoke and people murmured in agreement. Their plan was to assemble even more people, spread word along the creeks and rivers from the Messipi to the Laurentian Lakes and beyond.
The details were discussed as they marched along, far from the main road. They knew they could navigate the woods with an ease unmatched by those who hadn’t spent generations there. This was one of their advantages. So though they kept alert, and listened for people pursuing them, the protesters went with confidence. They slept as well the second night as they did the first, with the knowledge that home was near, that what was precious was close at hand.
The final miles to Badfish Creek were walked singing loudly, announcing their victory. It was early morning, and the sky was grey with clouds. But something was not quite right. Whim couldn’t place it, but it was something about the light and the shape of the horizon to the south and east. As they neared the road, tyre tracks marred the path they walked. The soil below them was dense like skin below a scar. Plants and branches on either side of the road were torn. One by one, voices dropped out of the song. Other sounds could be heard. The caws of jays and crows, the twittering of robins. Squirrels were yelling.
Then they heard the sound of a tree falling. The sound of saws working. The sound of shovels, of an engine. Whim’s heart was in her throat, and her knees, which to this point felt strong despite full days of walking, now felt weak. She looked at her father. He was pale, and Neste and Enid looked confused. Aelred reached out his hand for hers and she took it.
The first thing Whim saw was the space where the Bramble house had been. It was now an empty place, a pile of rubble beside it. There was a stack of several trees that had been felled and piled, and two men were working there, sawing down branches. Holes where trunks had been pulled from the ground dotted the forest floor, and all around them soil was turned over – soil that hadn’t been turned for centuries, that was layered with the humus of leaves, the coming and going of pigeons, that told the story of the land like tree rings.
The smell of exhaust was still in the air, and in the distance Whim could see one of the large trucks like the one she had seen that first day. It had a chain behind it and was struggling to pull old roots from the ground. There was a yell and a crack as another tree fell, shaking the ground below them and filling Whim’s ears. The protesters began to step out onto the freshly turned soil, its smell sickeningly sweet below their feet, soft as flesh. Bits of cups and bowls cracked under them and one of the newspaper clippings from Enid and Neste’s room blew by. Neste picked it up.
‘Hey!’ the man cutting back the stack of trees shouted. He waved to the man driving, and he turned the truck off. ‘You’re trespassing,’ the man said, walking towards them. ‘We’ve been ordered to keep out any trespassers.’ He slung the axe he wielded over his shoulder. Behind him, Whim could see the other men walking towards them, each with their axe, their saw, their heavy shovel.
‘We aren’t leaving,’ Whim said loudly. ‘There are hundreds of us.’
The man who was driving the truck opened the back and pulled out a rifle, which he loaded as he walked towards them, too. ‘Are these the rebels we’re supposed to be on the lookout for?’ he asked.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ the first man said. ‘Trespassers are trespassers. These Foresters need to be taught who’s in charge out here.’ And as the man with the rifle raised it, Whim did something she didn’t know she had the courage to do. She let go of her father’s hand and ran towards the man, ran with all the strength left in her legs.
CHAPTER 28
The First Blow
SHE EXPECTED THE MAN to change the aim of the gun towards herself, and perhaps he did. Her mind was too uniformly focused on her task to really see the world that blurred around her. She ran low and grabbed the man around the waist, knocking him to the ground as the gun went off. There was a swell of sound from the crowd behind her, the sound of courage, of feet moving forward on the soil. Whim took the gun and climbed to her feet, but the man reached up and grabbed the middle of the barrel, trying to pull it from her.
Then Whim heard a sound she had never heard before. It was the crack of a shovel coming down on a skull. The sound shook Whim’s bones, and as she looked towards the sound, she lost her grip. There was a scream. In the second Whim’s eyes scanned the crowd, the man had jabbed the stock end of the rifle into Whim’s stomach and was walking away. The pain was so great, Whim doubled over. The noise of fighting rose around her.
‘You forest trash need to know your place,’ the man said, now turning the gun to point it at Whim. She willed her body to fight back, but in that moment, she couldn’t move. Before the trigger could be pulled, her father ran at the man, one of the broken bottles from the ground in his hand. He thrust the bottle into the man’s neck. There was blood, there was so much blood. Whim had heard stories of Forester men who lost their limbs and lives on Hill farm machinery, but she had never pictured as much blood as she saw in that moment, bubbling out, pooling in the dirt.
Aelred turned white and dropped to his knees where the man had fallen. Around them were yells and the thuds of shovels, of axes. Whim kept looking up, trying to see if everyone was all right. But the world was out of focus. All Whim really saw was her father beside her, the hor
ror in his face as he took off his own shirt and tried to stop the bleeding. She couldn’t see the man with the heavy stick until it was too late. He came up behind her father. Hit him over the head. Another thud. It took only seconds. Less than seconds.
‘No!’ Whim cried.
‘Whim. My little Whim,’ he said. Then the stick crashed down over her own head. One moment her eyes were filled with her father on the ground, another man’s blood soaking his clothes. The next moment everything went black.
When Whim Moone woke, her father was still there. He was crumpled. Still blood-soaked. Still handsome. He and the man whose head he held were both dead.
CHAPTER 29
Insects and Empire
WHEN ELWYN WAS FOUR, a tornado came through the forest. His family sheltered in a bank by the creek, below a tangle of roots. And when the storm passed, they all came up into a forest covered with debris. One house, just one, had been damaged. The Colliers’. It had been one of the old homes built around a tree, and the tree had been uprooted. But the house, instead of being smashed, was sitting neatly beside the topmost branches. Its roof had been pulled off and put back on upside down, as if by hands.
The world had seemed all wrong then. Confusing and surreal, like it looks in a dream. Elwyn had been a young child. Everything was tall and saturated and twisted in the purple post-storm light. That was the way the world seemed to Elwyn when he woke in his room at the Blackwell house. The world was upside down, tossed.
Whim came into his foggy mind. A bright, glowing vision. All these months, Elwyn had been focused on his goals, of making something of himself. He had been so proud. Proud of his own cleverness, his pluck. In mere months, Elwyn had gone from being a Forester with three sets of clothes, to the assistant of one of the richest men in the Collective. Who wouldn’t be proud?
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