Chapter One
Present
Someone is watching me. Like a deer with a gun trained on it, I freeze, the axe dangling from my hand, half-expecting to hear a shotgun blast ring out and to find myself flung forwards onto the frost-speckled ground.
My ears strain to catch the cock of a gun or the snap of a twig, but all I can hear is my own quick, shallow breathing and the hush of leaves in the highest branches of the trees. My senses are blaring a five-alarm warning that someone is out there, lurking in the forested dark, spying on me ā but a voice in my head tells me that Iām being paranoid. The nearest neighbor is a couple of miles from here as the crow flies and no one should be hiking or hunting in the area, thanks to the āPrivate Property, No Trespassingā signs, which are posted so frequently throughout the woods that youād have to be blind to miss them.
I spin around and scan the forest behind me, but itās impossible to make anything out beyond the thick tangle of trees. It would be easy enough for someone to take cover out here, to hunker down among the bushes and foliage and watch from afar. I used to spend whole days like that with my grandfather when I was a kid, squatting inside his hide, passing a dented flask of black coffee laced with bourbon back and forth, as we cradled our guns and waited for a deer to wander by.
Missourian hunters were only permitted to shoot two un-antlered deer a year, but my grandfather believed it was his God-given right to shoot as many as he liked, which meant we spent a lot of time in that hide. But I didnāt mind; even as a child I had an affinity for silence and for being outside in nature. I appreciated the grandness of it, the vastness, and how it made everyone small and insignificant, not just me. I also understood that the woods were a perfect place to disappear. So long as you had survival skills, that is, and knew how to hunt, kill and dress animals. My skills are a little rusty after years of neglect, but I know if Iām to survive out here, I need to hone them fast.
The feeling of being watched vanishes like my breath into the cold air. Perhaps it was an animal. Or maybe it was nothing at all. My mind is playing non-stop tricks on me these days: Iāve started hearing things. Not just the usual sounds you get out in the woods ā bird calls and creaking tree limbs ā but voices, sometimes so real that I could swear someone is standing right beside me, whispering into my ear.
Last night I startled awake having heard someone call my name. I sat up in the dark, heart hammering, convinced I could hear footsteps pitter-pattering away across the wooden floor of the cabin. In the daylight Iāve seen things out of the corner of my eye ā flashes of movement that make me whip my head around ā though never in time to catch sight of anyone.
Maybe itās an angry ghost, haunting me.
Or I could just be paranoid.
The wind whips up and I bend quickly to gather an armful of the wood I just chopped. I hurry back to the cabin with it, slowed by my aching knee and sore back. Thereās snow on the way: I can taste it like iron, like blood on my tongue. I step carefully over the string of empty, rusting cans that Iāve hung between two trees as a rudimentary alarm system, and head toward the cabin. Nudging open the creaking screen door with my foot, I shoulder my way inside, shivering even more as I enter the chilly interior. Winter is closing in, and the place is full of cracks, through which the wind whistles and the cold creeps like a witchās fingers. The furnace is ancient and doesnāt work.
I throw the wood down and then check the little box beside the stone fireplace. Inside I discover an empty packet of firelighters and a pile of yellowing newspaper. The date on the newspaper is March 2006, and the headlines are all about the Iraq War.
The newspaper helps explain the years of dust and cobwebs decorating the cabin and I wonder why the place has been left to decay for so long. Tired, I drag myself to my feet and trudge through into the kitchen.
I open the cupboards despite already knowing what Iāll find inside: cobwebs, instant coffee, a bag of sugar, packets of noodles, a kilo bag of rice and several boxes of spaghetti. I reason that I could last for a couple more weeks ā Iām barely eating anyway ā but, as I gaze through the window at the lake glinting through the trees, I know itās too risky: if I donāt make the journey soon, I will shortly have no means of getting any supplies at all. This morning when I went down to the lakeshore I noticed that the water had turned syrupy, thickening toward ice. It wonāt be long before it freezes over and then Iāll wind up stranded, unless I want to hike the twenty-three miles around the lakeās circumference to the nearest store.
Even so, I hover by the front door, chewing a fingernail. Iām nervous to venture beyond the strict boundaries Iāve set for myself ā roughly two hundred meters beyond the front door in all directions ā but needs must. Itās not just food; without matches or firelighters I wonāt be able to light the fire, and without heating I could easily freeze to death out here. My grandfather taught me how to strike together two rocks to get a spark, but itās difficult and Iād have to find some rocks. Matches and firelighters will make things a lot easier. The batteries on the flashlight are running low too. I donāt want to be left in the dark, especially not at night, when the nightmares come. Out here, away from the city, it gets so blindingly dark that itās like startling awake from one nightmare and finding yourself in another.
After dithering for a few minutes, I take down the hunting jacket from the hook beside the door. Itās a manās jacket and far too big for me but itās warm and waterproof. I dig a woolen hat and a pair of old fleece-lined gloves from the pockets and pull them on too.
Glancing in the dirty mirror hanging on the wall, I am relieved to see that I look nothing like my old self, and Iām amazed how a few months can make such a difference: my cheeks are hollow, and my cheekbones have sharpened and are blotched red from the cold; my eyes are sunken and ringed by such dark circles that even if I had foundation and concealer I would still struggle to hide them. My skin is pale and dry, my lips cracked. My eyebrows are no longer carefully tweezed but have grown out and now form two strong dark arches. I look less like the groomed, perfectly coiffed, designer-clad woman I was six months ago, and more like the grubby, dirt-poor and starving child that I used to be. It almost makes me smile to see the remnants of my scrappy younger self staring back at me. Almost.
A few strands of hastily bleached white-blonde hair poke out from under my hat and I tuck them out of sight. I may not be that recognizable facially, but thereās nothing I can do to hide my height. At five foot ten Iāve always stood out in a crowd.
Being recognized will depend, I suppose, on if Iām still making headlines and if the police are still looking for me.
Chapter Two
Past
Twenty-Two Years Ago
āWhere are you?ā
My head flies up and Daisyās eyes go round with fear. Her body, scrawny as a scarecrowās, starts to quiver.
āGirls?!ā our dad yells. Thereās a loud crash as he trips over something. āDamn!ā he curses.
Heās heading this way. I leap to my feet and snatch Daisyās hand, yanking her up out of the nest of dirty blankets, and shoving her into the closet. Moving quickly, I push her down and pile clothes on top of her, then I press my finger to my lips in warning, but she doesnāt need telling. Though her bottom lip trembles, she doesnāt make a peep.
āItāll be OK,ā I mouth but I am shaking too.
Our dad found some work today, helping shift gravel and rocks at the quarry. I thought that would mean Daisy and I would have a whole day to ourselves, that we could relax, but something must have happened as heās home early. Dread fills me. If heās been fired then he probably hasnāt been paid, which means he wonāt have enough money to buy drugs, which means heās now likely on a comedown. And when he needs a fix is when heās most dangerous.
āWhere are you, Rose?ā my dad shouts in a singsong lilt. Heās outside the door to the small bedroom Daisy and I share at the back of the trailer.
As I go to close the closet door on Daisy, ready to face my father ā to take whatever is coming in order to protect her from it ā she reaches out and yanks me back inside.
I barely manage to slide the closet shut before the bedroom door flies open. Holding my breath, Daisyās sweaty, grubby hand in mine, I stare through the louvered slats, as our father scans the room, looking for us.
Like an ogre from a fairy tale, he stops and sniffs as if heās trying to hunt us down on scent alone. But the trailer is full of ugly smells: stale beer, cigarettes, a blocked toilet and an overflowing septic tank, burned crumbs, urine-soaked sheets that have dried stiff and yellow and now stink. Two unwashed girls amongst all that are hard to sniff out.
I can read his body language enough to know I was right about him being on a comedown. His eyes are glittery with rage. Heās jitterbugging away, his foot tapping, and his hands scratch at invisible fleas. He wants something to take his mood out on. He wants us.
He glances at the unmade twin bed Daisy and I share, and kicks at the pile of blankets on the floor where we were just playing cards, before his head swivels toward the closet. His eyes seem to lock on mine and I feel my heart drop out of my chest and hit the ground.
Daisyās hand grips mine even tighter in terror. I squeeze back. My mouth is dry as I watch my father step closer and closer. I decide that when he opens the door, Iāll throw myself forward, push him with all my might, and hopefully buy us enough time to escape, or at least Daisy. But just a few feet from us, he gets distracted by something heās noticed sitting in the detritus. I curse to myself as I follow his gaze to the photograph in the silver frame lying on the ground; I should have hidden it again after I took it out to show Daisy. Itās too late now. Heās picking it up, frowning at it. Itās a photo of our mom, her arms around Daisy and me. Heās probably wondering where I got it. The truth is I stole it off the coffin at her funeral and Iāve kept it hidden from him for the last three years, knowing he would hawk the silver frame if he ever found it. I watch him stare at the photograph for a few moments longer, then he turns, muttering to himself, and slinks out of the room with it.
I want to run after him and demand he give it back. Itās the only photograph we have of our mom. Daisy was three when she died, and I was six. I barely remember her ā only as a vague shape in my mind ā and Daisy doesnāt at all. I take it out often, whenever Dad isnāt around, and tell my little sister stories about our mom; about how she was the best mom in the world, and loved us more than anything. I sing the songs she used to sing to us, stupid made-up songs, and describe the grilled cheese sandwiches sheād make for us, and the beautiful flower crowns sheād weave for us in the summer. I tell Daisy about all the adventures we went on before she died in a car crash, including the time she took us to Disney World.
Itās all lies of course. We never went to Disney World. We never went anywhere outside the trailer park. She never sung us so much as a nursery rhyme and I was making my own grilled cheese from when I was old enough to haul a chair to the stove and lift a frying pan. My mom was definitely not going to win the worldās best mom award. She was strung out all the time and she died of an overdose, not in a car accident. Even though the adults around me tried to tell me she had gotten sick and died from a fever, I knew the truth. I wasnāt blind; I had seen her and my dad crushing up small white pills into a powder and snorting it. I had seen them both passed out on the sofa, so out of it I couldnāt even wake them when the toaster oven caught fire one time. Five years old and I put the fire out myself with a bottle of Kool-Aid. I had watched my mom shoot up heroin many times and had learned to keep the syringes away from Daisyās roaming toddler hands.
But Daisy doesnāt need to know any of this.
I sink down to the floor beside her in the closet, my shoulders hunched, and I punch my knee with my fist. I donāt know why I care that he took the photo. Itās not like I have good memories of our mom. But I wanted Daisy to and now sheās upset, tears streaming down her face.
āWhy did he take it?ā she asks.
Heās probably going to take it to the pawn shop, get whatever dollars they offer him for it and then trade them for a baggie of heroin. The photo will end up tossed in the trash. I donāt tell her that. I reassure her that weāll get it back.
A minute later we hear the door to the trailer slam and a few seconds after that I let out the breath Iāve been holding.
āRose?ā Daisy whispers.
āWhat?ā I answer, trying to keep my anger out of my voice.
āI did a pee.ā
I look down at the patch of urine thatās darkened her pajama bottoms and I sigh.
āItās fine,ā I tell her, the acrid smell of it hitting my nostrils. āDonāt worry.ā
āIām sorry,ā she says again, her voice quavering.
āIt doesnāt matter,ā I tell her.
I lead her out of the closet and help her undress. I toss the wet pajamas and underwear aside and dig out a pair that arenāt clean but arenāt stinking either, and help her put them on. Then I find a pair of leggings that have dirt stains on the knees, but will have to do. Weāre all out of clean clothes. I donāt know the last time we went to the laundromat. Maybe I could borrow some money off Jeanie, our neighbor, and haul a bag of dirty clothes there. But I worry that if I start asking for money off the neighbors, the next thing weāll have the social services people showing up on the doorstep and if that happens I know theyāll split Daisy and I up and put us in foster care. Itās what happened to a kid I go to school with: Abby Watts and her three brothers and sisters. They were all put in separate foster homes and the younger sister got adopted and now Abby cries all the time and when I asked her if her foster parents were nice, she showed me the bruises on the insides of her arms.
Sometimes I think maybe itās worth the risk. Maybe we wouldnāt get split up and weād get nice foster parents. Daisy could get adopted by a kind family, one with a big house and a pool, and enough money to buy her pretty dresses and dolls and even a pony. She wants a pony. And sheās still young enough and pretty enough that a family might want her, even though sheās not a baby.
I know Iām far too old to ever get adopted. I might even end up in a group home. It would still be better than living here in this trailer with our dad, but the thought of losing Daisy stops me short. What if she didnāt get adopted? What if she ended up in a foster home like Abby Watts and I wasnāt there to look after her? At least here we have each other and I can look out for her and protect her. Round and round these thoughts go, and I canāt ever decide what to do.
I wish I was all grown up already and I could find a place to live ā just us two. A real home with real walls and our own bedrooms, though weād probably end up sharing anyways because Daisy likes to sleep pressed up against me. But Iām only nine so thereās a while to go until Iām old enough to get a place on my own and Iāll need a job first. And that means finishing schoo...
