Careen found a large, flat stone and placed it at the edge of the fire. She watched it closely as it heated up, touching it lightly every now and then. She then threw the cut-up meat on the stone. It sizzled, browning nicely and smelling good, but when she offered it to me, I couldn’t eat it. The vision of her stabbing and disemboweling the foul cat was too fresh in my memory. She shrugged and moved on to the others. They all tried a piece. Joseph grinned, “Not bad, Careen,” his mouth full of food. She smiled at him, her big blue eyes reflecting happiness at having pleased him.
After dinner, we talked, which we didn’t usually do. Careen seemed to want fit several months’ worth of talking into one breath. Never sitting down for very long, she jumped from topic to topic and then back again. Talking in circles.
“Yep, I’m from Iroko. I was one of the only American descendants in that town,” she said proudly, bobbing her head up and down. I didn’t understand her pride. In Pau, no one talked about their origins. She walked over to Apella and ran her fingers through the woman’s straight blond hair. Apella recoiled. “Hmm, I like your hair. I wish mine would sit like that.” I glared at her, her stupid hair looked perfect.
She stared at her fingers for a while and then started babbling again. I found her very hard to follow. She was like a puppet, animated and jerky. Her mouth moved too fast for her brain to catch up. Joseph indulged her, watching her, nodding his head like he understood her broken-word vomit. I only managed to pick out a few details. She was from Iroko and she had been in Classes for about a year when she was taken. She was going to be a Guardian.
Finally, late into the night, Deshi fed Hessa and put himself and the baby to bed. Careen cooed and fussed over the child and I prickled without meaning to. We offered her a sleeping bag but she said she was comfortable to lie by the fire. I wanted her covered up. Her body was everything I had been, and missed so much.
I made a pathetic show of climbing in with Joseph and snuggling extra close to his warm body. Unaware, he happily held me close as he drifted off. I couldn’t sleep. My heavy eyes held open by imaginary matchsticks, a new person with disturbing talents making me uneasy.
I looked past the firelight; sure I could see yellow eyes floating in the distance. I propped myself up, peering into the darkness.
“It’s ok,” Careen said. “They won’t come any closer to the fire, especially not with this many people here.”
“What are they?” I asked
“Not sure, but there are a lot of them around the city,” she replied, sitting back on her knees, bouncing up and down. “It’s feels good not to be alone anymore,” she admitted, showing a vulnerability unseen before now. “The forest, it’s noisy and quiet at the same time, you know?” she said, covering her ears. I had to remind myself that she was just like me, but without Joseph, without anyone at all.
“You should try and get some rest. You’re safe now,” I said, trying to sound comforting.
I knew I wouldn’t sleep very well. I felt less safe here than in the forest. I had fleeting dreams of yellow-eyed monsters chasing me, cornering me against a wall of stone, laughing and hissing, claws and fangs bared.
I woke up to Hessa’s ‘knitting needles in my ears’ scream. I dragged myself out of my bag, eyes half shut, and started preparing his bottle. Joseph was still dozing. I let him sleep. I walked to Deshi’s rake-like form, but the baby was not there. Panic hit me, like a claw turning my heart sideways. The crying was coming from outside the circle of sleeping bodies. I kicked Deshi. He jumped up fast when he realized Hessa was missing.
“Where is he?” Deshi said, his normally smooth voice cracking around the edges. We followed the crying, sweeping our heads back and forth along the ground until we came upon a pair of long legs, attached to Careen, standing with her back to us, rocking on her heels, hushing the baby in her arms.
“What are you doing?” I asked accusingly.
She looked up from Hessa, eyes reproachful. “What? I just thought I would let you get some rest,” she said as she handed Hessa to me.
“You can’t just walk off with him like that without asking. You scared us to death!” I placed the teat of the bottle in Hessa’s mouth, watching him eagerly drink the grey liquid, his unnaturally blue eyes peering over the rim.
“I don’t see what the problem is,” she snapped suddenly, clapping her hands on her toned thighs. “You know, he doesn’t look much like you,” she added, reaching out to touch his springy, black curls.
I pulled away. “That’s because I’m not his mother,” I said, handing Hessa to Deshi and standing side on to display my swollen middle.
“Oh, where is she?” Careen asked innocently, her mood swinging from aggression to sweetness in an instant.
“She’s dead,” I replied, wishing I didn’t have to talk about it, feeling my heart tear a little at the memory of Clara.
“I’m so sorry,” Careen said as she patted my arm gently. I stared down at her arm in confusion. I was starting to think she was a bit more than batty.
I shrugged her off and changed the subject. I needed some information from her anyway. I was thinking about the end of summer. We really needed to find or build shelter in that time, before winter hit. To do that, we needed some tools that I couldn’t fashion from sticks. I asked her whether she had seen anything resembling a tool shed or shop.
“No, but there is a big building with different commercial sections. There might be something in there.” Her eyes slid up my body with scrutiny. “We could get you some new clothes too.”
I ignored her condescending assessment of my appearance and went back to tell the others my idea. There were arguments, of course. About one thing I was adamant—we couldn’t stay in the city. We would get supplies and walk through to the other side, see what the terrain was like, and make a plan from there. For once, Alexei and Joseph agreed with me. Apella wasn’t sure, still holding on to the ludicrous idea that there were people hiding somewhere in the rubble. There was no evidence that anyone had been here in hundreds of years. It was completely overrun by nature. Careen said she would go along with anything and Deshi pursed his mouth shrewdly and shrugged his shoulders. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”
I agreed to let Apella stay with Hessa by the fire. We took knives and Careen’s spear with us. She said if we stuck to the more open parts, wider roads and lower buildings, the lynxes would not be a problem. The creatures with the yellow eyes only came out at night.
She led us back to the end of the railway line and over a bridge. It was a great stone and iron structure that had stood the test of time where other constructions had not. Its strong archways looped in and out of the water like a snake, reflecting against the water on this clear, sunny day. I stepped on tentatively, imagining it crumbling under my feet. Careen assured me it was safe. She had used it several times. Joseph took my hand and I relaxed a little.
Alexei was enthusiastic, to say the least, talking about the history of the town, a name I couldn’t pronounce.
“Iratusk…what?” I said crankily.
“Irkutsk,” Alexei corrected me. “Yes, apparently this bridge took ten years to build in 1950, quite impressive really given the technology of the time.” I felt sorry that I had engaged him. He prattled on and Deshi and Joseph humored him, pretending to listen. Careen was bounding ahead like an excitable toddler. Peering over the edge every now and then, beckoning with her hands, “Hurry up, fellas. We’re nearly there.”