We Leave Together, стр. 39

Rachel frowned. “If they bite me, I’ll scream.”

Her mother plucked another blackberry from the top, heavy with juice and dark, dark purple. Rachel closed her eyes. She opened her mouth. She reached out with her tongue for the berry.

Her mother smacked her daughter’s head. “Hey, close that mouth!” she said, sternly, “Never let your tongue show like that!”

Rachel rubbed her head. Her mouth jammed into a pout. “It bit me,” she said. She took the blackberry from her mother’s hand, and squashed it into her mother’s dress.

“Rachel!” said her mother, “No! That’s a bad girl!”

Rachel stormed off to the shade where her brother had already eaten halfway down his long vine.

“I’m hot,” said Rachel, “and I’m hungry.”

Her mother was still scraping blackberry out of the ruined suede skirt of her dress. “Rachel, all we have are blackberries. Share with your brother.”

Djoss smiled at his sister, and his teeth were all purple. He chewed one with his mouth open.

“They look like bugs,” she said.

Djoss smashed a blackberry into his sister’s hair.

Rachel rubbed at it, screaming and jumping. It felt like a fat, dead bug.

Djoss laughed at her. “Serves you right,” he said.

Rachel stood up and started to jump up and down.

“I can’t deal with you monsters!” said her mother, “I just can’t!”

She pressed her hands into her temples. “Rachel, you have to be quiet now.”

Rachel kept jumping and screaming. Her hands smacked at the mess in her hair.

“Rachel!” shouted her mother. Her mother clapped her hands at her daughter. A strong wind blew her back into the grass. Ice clamped over her arms.

Rachel kept screaming.

“Djoss, cover your sister’s mouth!” she said, “Hurry!”

Djoss said, “She’ll bite me. I’ll get sick.”

Ice filled her mouth. The cold ran all through her body. Now she wanted to scream from the cold. She gasped for air. She breathed hard from her nose.

“Please, kids,” said her mother, “Please be quiet. You know they’re looking for us.”

Djoss had his knife out. He went back to the blackberries. He cut another vine. “Because Da killed a guy,” he said.

“Your father didn’t kill anyone,” she said, “Don’t talk about it in front of your sister. He’ll find us as soon as he throws those people off our trail.”

“He’ll be pissed when he catches up with us. We won’t be able to ditch him. I hope they get him,” said Djoss. He bent the empty vine like a rope so he could lash long blackberry canes together. “I hope they burn him alive.”

“Djoss,” said the mother, “Don’t say that in front of your sister.”

“We should leave him,” said Djoss, “We should head south, back to the village.”

“Djoss, you have to protect your sister,” she said, “No matter what, you have to protect her. You know what would happen to all of us if he’s taken alive?”

Her mother walked over to Rachel. Rachel was crying, hard. The cold ball of ice in her mouth hurt so much. Her mother placed a hand over her mouth. The ice dissipated into the air. Her mother kept her hand over Rachel’s mouth.

“Are you going to scream, little one?” said Rachel’s mother.

Rachel shook her head.

Her mother removed her hand from Rachel’s mouth. She brushed at Rachel’s tears. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“I hate you, Mommy” said Rachel.

Her mother didn’t look away. Her breath moved in and out. She kept brushing away her daughter’s tears as if the little girl hadn’t said anything. Djoss had gathered a large stack of blackberry stems by now, on his shoulder.

“We need to move,” said Djoss, “They probably heard her screaming.”

Rachel’s mother nodded. “I wonder, little one,” said Rachel’s mother, “why you scream so much. Didn’t you ever hear about the princess that screamed and flailed so much she accidentally swallowed her own hair and then she was bald and her handsome Prince wouldn’t marry her anymore?”

The ice at Rachel’s wrists and legs melted away. Somewhere in the thicket hills, a dog bayed. Then it stopped like it was stopped suddenly mid-bark. Rachel didn’t know what was happening.

“Carry me, Mommy,” she said. Rachel held out her arms.

Rachel’s mother picked her up. “All right, little one,” said Rachel’s mother. She moved Rachel up to her shoulders. Rachel curled into her mother’s head, holding on with her hands. “Hold on tight, now,” said Rachel’s mother, “We need to move very fast while we still have daylight.”

Rachel buried her face in her mother’s hair. Her senses filled with the sweaty road dust, with the woman’s true scent underneath.

Later on, Rachel dreamed of the scent. She didn’t always recognize it right away, but the smell lingered at the edge of her consciousness until it hit her in a burst. Then, when she remembered the smell, the dream faded, and the smell faded, and all that was left was a hollow feeling.

And she’d tell Jona about it, sometimes.

***

Rachel’s father was tall, like Djoss. Both men’s shoulders filled shirts like meat in a sack. His dark, terrible eyes weren’t terrible, yet. They were warm, kind eyes. He spent his days unloading ships, and his nights with his wife and son. They traveled with the seasons over the oceans to follow the prevailing winds. Better winds, more ships with cargo to unload.

Between him and the fortune-telling of his wife, money was enough. Their boy was growing up like his father, with the same huge smile, and tiny, intense eyes in a huge head.

In autumn, the winds favored the fjords.

(Another reason my husband does not suspect the Rejk fjords is how bitter cold it is in Rejk, and none would dip their head in the water unnecessarily. My husband thinks they must have been wandering the Okena.)

“What you need to do is,” I can hear the man’s voice in Jona’s imagination. He sounds like Nicola Calipari. He looks down at his daughter with such soft eyes. “What you need to do is, get some sleep. We’ve got a long walk in the morning to the wheat fields. Harvest season’s here. Good