I snorted, the unfamiliar rumbling of laughter working its way through my body. I smacked his head to the side with the force of a feather. “Shut up!”
He grinned, and my heart swelled like sunlight was trying to push out of it, painfully. “Seriously. It makes your wrong eye stand out less,” he said with a wink. I rolled my eyes, wondering which eye he thought was the wrong one.
I slid down and rested in the mud, the water seeping into my trousers. Rash squatted beside me. “So, that’s your dad, huh?”
I put my head in my hands, trying to wish away some of the complicated feelings I was having. “Yep, wrong eyes and all.”
We waited as long as we could but with time pressing down on us, Pietre to find, and the constant threat of wolves, I could only let the trees cradle me for so long. I had to roughly staple myself back together so we could get home.
Still clutching Rash like I was scared he would disappear, I let him drag me back to the others.
The light filtered through the trees, heavy with mist, making the air dance with every disturbance. It was close to morning but the clouds hugged the ground, refusing to untwist their grip and return to the sky. Pelos, Lenos, my father, or whoever he was, stood with Careen, mist swirling around their knees like grasping spirits, both their faces lit up by the glow of the reader. I cocked my brow at him. I swear he used to be taller.
He turned, took a step towards me, and paused. “Are you hungry, Rosa?” My name sounded bizarre coming from his dark lips. But my stomach reminded me we hadn’t eaten in over a day by clenching and gurgling. I nodded. He smiled at me, dipping his hand into his backpack.
“Careen said you left your supplies with the other Survivor, er, Pietre? Here, take some of these.” He held out a zip lock bag, the muffins inside popping with canned raspberries. It was an old specialty of his, and the memory struck me like I was being twanged like a rubber band. I accepted the food. It was delicious and just how I remembered. I played with the wrapper, folding it into a tiny triangle. He was watching me, watching my old habits resurface, making himself recall things, too. I shoved the paper in my pocket.
He offered a canteen of water and I grabbed it, washing down the sad muffin stuck in my throat. “Careen tells me you escaped from the breeding program,” he said, his words staccato-clipped, his face animated. “What was it like? Did you meet Este?”
I gulped and glared at Careen. She recoiled, confused.
“It was a nightmare,” I said, trying to match his clipped tone. “And, no. I didn’t meet Este.” I rolled my eyes.
“Oh. No matter. Such a brilliant woman. Just imagine what she could accomplish if she used her skills for good,” he said, tapping the air. Then, as if twisting to reveal another side of his personality, his tone changed to smooth and lulling. “Was there a child?”
Rash took a step back from me, giving us a small amount of privacy, which I didn’t want, scratching his leg nervously. Careen also hung back, both of them observing this odd reunion. Watching the two of us interact in this awkward manner was like watching two strangers who had met maybe once, someplace, but couldn’t quite remember where or when.
Something pulled at me from inside. Cage bars shot up in front of my eyes. I hugged my arms around my chest. “There was a child. I mean, there is,” I said.
Rash’s eyes widened as he started to comprehend what I’d just said.
Pelo’s face relaxed into an easy smile. “I’m a grandfather,” he said proudly, mostly to himself.
I hugged myself tighter, trying to hold myself back from launching at him. Grandfather. The word infuriated me. He had no claim over my child, no right to a relationship with him. I put my hand to my head, feeling a radiating headache from where I’d clipped it on my mother’s table. She had much more right to claim grand-parentage than he did. I stared at him, willing him to change into her, wishing it so hard I thought I might collapse in a soaking mess of tears in front of everyone. My failure squashed me under its weight, robbing me of energy and breath.
I took a step towards him, not sure what I wanted to do.
He leaned back, tapped his chin, and spread his arms wide. “Well, this is wonderful! It has begun. The breakdown of the system. And you’re part of it, Rosa. We are part of it!” he said excitedly. He didn’t say, oh you poor thing, that must have been hard for you. Or even how did you manage to escape? My impressions of him started to form around the thin frame I’d already constructed from the day he left me. His priority was the cause, the rebellion. I was a side project, which failed.
As if reading my mind, he threw in as an aside, “Well done. It must be difficult, raising a child on your own.” I cringed at the odd congratulation. I didn’t deserve it.
I heard Careen suck in a breath ready to blurt, “Oh, she’s not…”
I cut her off and stared at her lips, pinning them together with my mind. “I’m not doing too badly, am I, Careen?” I nodded my head, begging her to keep quiet and nod along with me. I couldn’t deal with the questions that would come from bringing Joseph into the conversation.
*****
The next few hours went by in a blur of Pelo peppering Careen with probing questions about the Survivors. I’d decided on Pelo because he didn’t feel like my father, but calling him by his new name seemed wrong as well. He knew more than me about the coming plans, but he wanted specifics: the colors, the shapes, the tastes. He seemed to demand full sensory explanation, and it was amusing watching Careen try and beat him back with her short answers.
“We’re not likely to be pursued,” Pelo said, his smile cartoonish, “Most of the soldiers, save a skeleton force, have been sent to search of your settlement. They left a week ago. So they have a bit of a head start on us.” I wondered why he smiled at this. The idea that Woodland soldiers were on their way to my home still filled me with absolute terror, but I had to hope that, as with everything, the Survivors were prepared for this outcome.
Careen flipped her hair and a thin lipped almost-smile spread across her face. “They don’t have Spinners though.” Her voice was distant as her eyes searching the terrain in front of her. “We’ll catch up.” She was barely listening to the animated stick insect beside her. Her thoughts were with Pietre.
Pelo clasped his hands together in eagerness, hungry for information. “Spinners?”
I laughed as Careen tried to explain what a Spinner looked and felt like.
Their voices faded out as I stared at Rash like he might be an apparition. I could almost see his shape wobbling and wavering in front of me.
Every now and then, he’d crack a joke, he would smile, and he would support me as much as he could as I tried to overcome my concussion, but I could tell this was overwhelming for him.
My struggles came from deeper inside. I was trying to put two men together in my head. The man I’d looked up at, whose every move, every word, had been mesmerizing to me. Back then, everything he’d said had to be The Truth. His voice was brimming with promises, his enthusiasm, catching. Looking at him now, through older eyes, he was exactly the same… but completely different. Because I was different. He was like an excitable toddler in a grown man’s body, his reactions to everything naïve and over the top.
*****
We pulled through the woods, mud splattered up to our knees, our boots twice as heavy with all the caked-on dirt. We scanned back and forth, looking for signs of wolves or soldiers. It was unnervingly quiet. We had only the food Pelo had scraped off his kitchen counter, muffins and a few oranges. The forest only offered dried remnants of berries left by other animals. As we dragged on, every branch and slippery log started to look the same. Had we turned around? Was that the damned red arrow leading us back to Pau?