“Thanks,” he said, “I mean for saying that about my dad. Do you know what happened to them, after I left? To my brother and mother?”
“No. I left just after you did. When you ran away, the men turned the fence off and chased after you. My brothers and sisters screamed when I did it, but I just ran right through the fence out into the woods. It was as if you freed me, Ozzie. I’ve been wandering around on my own all this time now, just finding this place this morning. I followed the smell of the campfire.”
Hal saw Ozzie and Tammy talking quietly, moving closer together, and it made him happy. His life had been hollow and meaningless for years, having no more flavor than a stale rice cake. With Ozzie and now Tammy, there was life here. There was fun, meaning. Community. He didn’t realize how much he wanted...needed the companionship of others. Hal smiled and flipped the eggs as his three hens hunted for bugs.
Tammy walked over to the stream. Ozzie followed and joined her, walking by her side. Tammy walked into the creek, feeling the cool stream rush by her legs. “Don’t you just love it out here?” Tammy asked as she washed her face in the stream. “You can do whatever you want, eat whatever you want, go wherever you want.”
“I suppose so,” Ozzie answered, his indifference surprising him. He did love it out here, only...he loved it at Hal’s.
“Well, you don’t sound so sure. Don’t tell me you’re homesick. Any place was better than that place!”
Ozzie didn’t say anything. He just doodled and dug in the dirt next to the stream, not saying anything, not really thinking anything.
“Why in the world do you miss that place, Oz?
“I’m worried about my mother. I’m afraid they’re going to hurt or kill her.”
“Well of course they’re going to—” Ozzie’s head jerked up as Tammy caught herself and stopped before she said anymore. She hadn’t realized how innocent Ozzie was, how much his mother had sheltered him from what really happened there.
“Ozzie,” Tammy began, more gingerly than before, “how long did you live there?”
Ozzie pondered the question for a moment. “I’ve always lived there!” he said finally.
“Ozzie, we were all brought there. We were all kidnapped and brought to that place. No one was born there and no one leaves that hell hole alive.” Tammy paused for a moment. “Until...you Ozzie, you were the first one to leave there alive. You’re the reason I’m free. You can never go back there Ozzie. Those men are vicious. They’ll kill you and laugh while they’re doing it. I’ve seen them do it.”
Tammy stopped talking, her own horrific memories now trying to bubble to the surface. She squashed them in their tracks as she always did, suppressing her feelings the same way she and her family had been suppressed and held down. Tammy had watched them murder her mother, murder her father, only two years before. The men did laugh while they did it, talked about football and women while looking at her, smiling, when they slit her daddy’s throat. As they bled him dry right before her eyes, Tammy’s mind left her body and drifted far away from that place. It sought refuge in her own forest utopia where it roamed carefree and did what it wanted. Until, she now realized, Ozzie escaped and she followed him through the fence to real utopia. No, she would never go back to that place.
Ozzie studied her silence and thought about what she said. Tammy began walking down stream and Ozzie followed. Tammy changed the subject.
“Lets walk down the stream Ozzie!”
Ozzie walked just behind Tammy on the narrow trail. The trail widened and the sun shone brightly through the canopy. Tammy began spinning around.
“What are you doing?” Ozzie asked.
“Dancing in the sun’s rays, Ozzie ’ol boy. Dancing in the sun’s rays!”
“What on earth for?” Ozzie asked.
Tammy looked at him and cocked her head. “Because Ozzie, I can. I’m free! And last night I danced in the moonlight.” Tammy left the trail and splashed in the stream.
“Come on in, Ozzie!”
Ozzie stared at her pensively but stayed firmly on the trail. He hadn’t yet accepted his freedom and wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. Tammy, on the other hand, embraced her freedom. Nature provided almost everything she needed, just as Hal would point out that night and every night when his liquid rants echoed over the campfire. But it didn’t provide everything. Unlike Hal, she didn’t want to be alone. She wanted a family one day, and she couldn’t do that alone.
By early afternoon they had made their way back to the clearing where Ozzie had found the figs. Ozzie stopped in the woods so that he was able to see the garden. He stood and stared. If that woman is still there, she won’t be able to see me, he thought. Tammy saw the opening and wanted to go explore, but Ozzie cautioned her, telling her about the screaming woman. Tammy stayed back while Ozzie walked slowly toward the tree.
Angelica sat in a wicker chair in the corner of the garden. In front of the chair was two mullein plants, their yellow spikes towering over six feet high and obscuring most of Nancy’s Tree, thirty yards away. With her hands, Angelica felt the heft of the royal blue yarn, the smooth, fuzzy touch of the fiber. She draped it over her skin, closed her eyes and visualized it warming her baby, her son, in the winter months. She tugged the half sweater she had knitted and approved of the tension. Without thinking, her muscles and ears took over, by now having memorized the movements and sounds to create the perfect rhythm of knitting. Her hands moved steadily, the metal knitting needles creating a soothing clicking sound as they struck together, the sound being precisely why she preferred them to bamboo. She watched her work when she wanted, but there was no need to concentrate on the task. Knitting in her secret garden calmed her the way yoga calmed others. It gave her peace and provided refuge from any stress that attempted to creep into Angelica’s life. All stress can be knitted away, she thought, and a garment made to take its place.
Ozzie walked under the drip line of Nancy’s Tree, entering from the forest this time. A few more figs had fallen from the tree. Ozzie pointed them out to Tammy. “It’s safe,” he whispered. “Come try one.”
Tammy moved forward and tasted her first fig, deliciously ripe. She accidentally bumped Nancy’s Tree, laughing as an overripe fig bounced off Ozzie’s head. Across the garden Angelica saw the tree shake gently. She slowly leaned to her right and saw both Ozzie and Tammy at the base of the tree reveling in Nancy’s gift.
Children of the forest! Angelica said to herself with a smile that ran almost to the back of her head. Tears welled in her eyes as she thought about the happiness that Nancy now showered on her garden and how much happiness had risen from that place that was so deeply sorrowful just two years ago. I want to meet them!
As she continued knitting she began to sing ever so softly, as if singing a lullaby to her newborn child. Her angelic voice lifted over the mullein, danced with the herbs and filtered through Nancy’s branches down to Ozzie and Tammy. They ate, the singing a background noise as a distant wind that goes unnoticed. The knitting soothed Angelica. The singing soothed Ozzie and Tammy. Angelica let her voice rise ever so slightly, unable to help it anyway as if a spirit had lifted her soul. She wanted to belt out her love, her compassion, but didn’t want to scare her new friends away.
Ozzie lost himself in the figs, but Tammy stopped and listened to the singing. She looked around unable to determine the origin of the voice.
“Ozzie, where’s that coming from?”