words in the world are in it,” she says and hugs me. I hang on to her shirt, I don’t want her to leave, and I need to know about that book.
“When?” I ask and don’t really believe her. There’s no such thing as an answer to all questions.
“Soon.”
I want to cry. Soon is like saying never. Like soon I’ll be going to school. Soon we’ll have friends over, soon, everything that never happens is soon. I cling to the thought of owning such a book, vow that the first words I’ll look up are Camelot, then Lockerbie, then tennis game rules.
I have a schedule. Reading Rainbow after mom leaves. I write down all the words I learn as I watch and then The Jetsons comes on. After The Jetsons I read until mom comes to make lunch and checks my workbooks. I have so many questions: Why can’t I get on the bus with the other kids in Camelot? Why am I not allowed to play outside?
I did sneak out that one time. The girl’s name who was playing outside I never asked as if I knew I wasn’t going to see her again. We stole chalk from the bucket by the community board and we drew squares on the concrete, picked the biggest rock we could find—there were plenty in between the patchy grass and the crumbling road—and we played as the sun was beating down on us. When mom pulled up in her car, I ran back to the trailer and locked the door behind me, pretending to be studying. As if I could trick her, make her believe that she had seen another girl looking just like me outside while I was inside practicing my upper- and lowercase letters. She was mad, but not that mad. But I can’t do that again. Ever.
As I learn to read and draw, as I begin to prefer the news channel to The Berenstain Bears , as my mind expands, the road leading to the trailers crumbles a bit more with each passing day. And then we leave.
The stolen chalk, the stones, and the memory of the nameless girl are all I take with me from Camelot the night we pack up the powder blue car and drive farther west.
West, is what mom says, We are going west, as if it is going to be the end of all our troubles.
Quinn
Quinn was awakened by the sound of slapping wings intensifying in the trees around her. Morning faded in like a scene on a stage accompanied by a screeching murder of crows. She gathered the colorful woven fringed rectangle of a blanket and tucked the wet, reddish stain into the innermost fold. She wasn’t sure what to do with the blanket and even though Sigrid didn’t care where she was and when she returned home, walking in through the back door with a sapphire blue-and-maroon-striped Mexican blanket might cause her to ask questions.
Quinn decided on the route through the woods instead of the dirt road, even though it would take longer, but there was no rush, Sigrid didn’t rise before noon on any day of the week. In the soft morning light, the trees were no longer menacing with their long and dark shadows, and sun rays fell through the branches, warming her skin. She stopped in her tracks when a sound pierced the air like the whip on the back of an unruly horse. There was a voice, then two, maybe even three? They multiplied, projected toward her.
Quinn found herself standing in front of a man who fixed his eyes on her rumpled dress and tousled hair. His thick lips and his unkempt beard made her uneasy.
“Who we have here?” he asked and turned a bottle of beer upside down, his lips sucking every drop out of it.
Quinn clutched the blanket closer to her chest, suddenly remembering the way her body had left an imprint on the earth after she had gathered it up off the ground. If she had left one hour earlier or one hour later, they would have never met. Strange how life is. I should have gone down the dirt road, Quinn thought, shuddering as she became aware of more voices around her. She caught a glimpse of three other men in camouflage pants and shirts approaching them.
The woods suddenly seemed dark and musky, the canopy of live oaks shielding the sun from reaching the forest floor, merely lifeless sticks emerging from the ground. Quinn stood motionless. The man held up the empty beer bottle, inspected it, and then tossed it into the woods. The amber glass landed gently on a bed of pine needles and moss, hardly making a sound. Without a word, he unzipped his pants and released a powerful stream of urine merely inches from her feet. Quinn felt a warm droplet touch her left foot when he fanned the stream left to right.
As her fingers clawed themselves into the blanket, she thought of something to say. “What are you all up to?” She hated that her voice shook. She watched him unshoulder his shotgun and gently lower it to the ground. Quinn managed to get the words out with a smile but then realized the man hadn’t zipped up his pants.
“Huntin’ season,” he said.
“What are you hunting this time of year?” Quinn asked, no longer able to force even a hint of a smile on her face. She was shaking. Her brain was only able to gather one characteristic per man; Beard, Bony Fingers, Pony Tail, and Pimples. Beard was staring at her when she faintly became aware of his hand moving rhythmically by his unzipped pants. She scanned Bony Fingers, Pony Tail, and Pimple’s eyes. Not one of them was going to stop Beard. There was no way they were going to stop, period. Not a single one of them.
Run.
Like a rabbit, Quinn turned on her heels and bolted down the path. She barely got ten feet away, didn’t even have time to break into an all-out sprint, when she stumbled over roots and skeletal branches strewn about like bones. Her legs had springs and she recovered quickly. As if her mind had no mercy, everything was magnified, her surroundings in the light of day seemed like an alien landscape and the man pursuing her was a giant—but then her brain flooded and nothing mattered but the path in front of her.
Quinn quickened her pace but each of his steps was worth two of hers and just as she recognized the clearing to her right—beyond it the road, not too far—his hands grabbed her. One snatched her neck to the side, the other clamped tight around her right upper arm. Quinn felt panic rise up in her throat as the scent of beer and something foul like deer urine consumed the air around her. She yanked and wouldn’t have minded if her arm had dislodged just so she could get away, but his hand didn’t budge and so she went for him with her free arm, her nails searching for his face. His skin was slippery with sweat and she couldn’t get a hold of him.
“Hey,” he screamed, slapping her hand away, “stop that.”
He crossed her arms in front of her and held her by her wrists, one of his hands big enough to latch on to both of hers, and with the other he slapped her, twice, left, right, then his fist, three, maybe four times. Quinn tasted blood, metallic, she could smell it even through his stink of animal and liquor and filth. She dropped to the ground but he pulled her back up, pushed her against a tree, the bark hard against her back.
Please, she wanted to say, please let me go. Don’t hurt me. Don’t do this. Please. Please. Please. Please please please please please please please please please please please. She searched his eyes, hoping for a hint of mercy, but they were amber like the eyes of a wolf. The only sound was the man’s breathing and then he looked at her, his lips curled backward, exposing yellow-stained teeth.
The woods went quiet. Even the birds chirping their morning’s sweet cantata became silent. And he waited for the others to catch up.
Later, by the time Quinn reached home, the wind had dried her hair and her dress was merely damp where it hugged her body. She entered through the back door, into the kitchen, where the aroma of bacon and syrup hung heavy in the air. Her mouth felt swollen and dry and she doubted she’d ever be able to eat another morsel of food. She showered, changed, and went to bed, where she remained for three days. Sigrid