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A Wolf in the Woods

Robin Rose

Published by Robin Rose, 2026.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

A WOLF IN THE WOODS

First edition. September 18, 2026.

Copyright © 2026 Robin Rose.

Written by Robin Rose.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

​1

I saw her at witching hour, the china white girl with the owl shaped face, running half naked through the trees. Her pale milk tea hair in tangles around her shoulders, I watched her, vulture still, I watched her round brown eyes blink in dazzled terror as she stumbled among the shadows, occasionally flashing the dirtied soles of her feet. She fled like a spider, pulled in different directions, she scuttled over twisting tree roots, knocking her boney ankles against rocks. Dirt was smeared across her breasts and narrow shoulders.

I stayed statue-like for a few moments, till I gave chase. My feet pounded at the earth as I pursued her, my toes sinking into the soft moss and crumpled grass, I moved agile and swift. She twisted her head around for a moment before continuing her journey with a sharp inhale. She was aware of me, and it filled me with a keen and sparkling adrenaline as I ran. I could taste her fig and rain sweat in the air, her thick fear coated my throat, and in the dappled moonlight I gained on her.

Her wobbly fawny legs buckled as I came close enough to touch her tussled hair, and she crashed against the body of an oak tree, her limbs splayed and crumpled. She flattened herself against the bark, and the star glow caught the honey of her iris in a chestnut glimmer. I noticed the dusting of freckles across her hollowed cheeks.

She was, of course, staring at my knife. The cream hilt, sat in my palm, was carved into a seraphs wing, and the blade shone silver down by my thigh. I took a step towards her, and she shrunk away from me.

“I will bleed you dry, unless you come with me” I threatened her, my voice steady. It took a degree of force to insist upon the false anger, I was more swamped in curiosity. I rather liked her eyes, and didn’t want to see them stone stilled and unmoving. She shivered, her chalk white jaw trembling. I stood motionless for a moment, before stripping the fox hide from my back, and wrapping it around her shoulders.

“Come” I insisted. She glanced once again at the silver of my blade and shuffled to her feet, the russet fur covering her chest. As she walked at my side through the inky darkness obediently, mute and melancholy, she prompted a tidal wave of questions within me. I kept glancing at her. She had a little scar snaking over the back of her neck. I wondered if she had fallen or crossed paths with somebody like me.

Beyond the tangles of brambles and swollen thorns, the Union slept. Only Lazarus stood guard at our border, the whites of his eyes grey in the darkness. His sooty hair cradled the flesh of his neck, and he fixed my captive with a steely expression.

“Not a boar then?” he grunted. “Why is she wearing your pelt?”

Beside me, the owl faced girl shrank away from him, into me. I wondered if I were both protector and persecutor, benevolent and merciless.

“She was indecent” I replied, attempting to keep a hold of the snap in my tone. Lazarus’s eyes traveled down her body, and scoffed in disgust.

“Adam will see to her in the morning” Lazarus told me firmly. I nodded, and took the hand of the pale girl and lead the lamb through the congregation of tents and huts. She quivered like a leaf beside me. I wasn’t sure what truly sparked her fear. I glanced at her as we walked, and wondered if she were a heretic, a murderer, something unforgivable.

We were not unjust, never unjust. If she feared the hand of Adam, she must be nursing a darkness behind her skin. I was deeply curious as to what she sheltered in the folds of her brain. I wanted to peel back her skin and peer inside. I blinked hopefully at the tar black entrances to the huts, hoping somebody would show their beady eyes and admire my catch. The Union remained sound asleep, all save from my mother, whose eyes cut through the darkness like little green shards.

“Who is she?” Mother asked cautiously, her eyebrows threaded together in suspicion. I looked at the girl curiously, hoping she would answer. She kept her pale lips pressed firmly together. I sighed and turned back to Mother.

“A prying outsider” I sniffed.

I showed the pale haired girl to the Sanctuary. The hole had been carved and dug by the Union to shelter themselves from the trespasses of those who walked between the chasm of our home and the outside. Scraped out by dirtied nails and shovels, it sat six foot deep, and four foot wide, swallowed by shadows and, like the scalp of Christ, was roofed by brambles and barbed wire.

Her face lost colour completely as she stared into the gaping blackness. I took her hand and helped her lower herself inside. She looked up at me with a childish and doleful expression.

“It’s not so bad, you have the moonlight” I reminded her. This didn’t seem to reassure her, beneath the speckled glow, she hunched down and hugged her knees to her chest. I hoped she’d noticed I’d let her keep my pelt. I hoped she would smell of myself.

I tried to sleep that night, wrapped in my blankets, I let my fingers slide through the moth-eaten holes and shifted my weight from one side of my ribs to the other. My foot tapped against the earth and I stared at the outline of fireflies and insects crawling up the side of my wine bottle green tent. The girl wouldn’t leave my mind, and I found myself creeping through the earth paths, back to the Sanctuary.

The girl was sat dejectedly where I’d left her, and she startled to see me. I knelt down to the edge, and lifted the tangled roof so she could see my outline against the twilight.

“My name’s Holly? What’s your name?” I whispered down to her hopefully. She returned my gaze silently, and I flashed her the whites of my teeth. She cringed away from me.

“Tabitha” I blinked in surprise to see her open her mouth enough to speak. I saw, through the darkness, the pink of her gums, her wet tongue.

“Welcome to the Union, Tabby” I replied with a satisfied smile.

​2

Tabitha hung like a fog in my mind when I awoke the next day, creamy dawn light filtering through the little holes in my tent. I shuffled into a boar pelt and hopped outside, pattering to the edge of the Sanctuary. It was vacant, the brambles hanging only over the shadows and dirt. I sharply inhaled, wondering if she had escaped.

I stretched my neck and peered across the Union to see Mother and Beth roasting chunks of meat over a dancing amber flame. Beth had a wrinkled and angular white face, with startling pale blue eyes. Her hair had begun to silver, scraped back in a wiry bun. The scent of the roasting flesh filled my nostrils, and I felt as though my hunger were a closed hand tightening around my intestines. I tiptoed over to my Mother, whose dark hair hung around her shoulders, drinking in the smoke.

“Has Adam eaten?” I asked hopefully. The Union were not permitted to eat before he did, it was sinful. I had ignored this ruling before, hunger choking me, I had doubted Adam’s godliness, his all seeing eye, and he, of course, had found me, and beat me with his hardened fists. I remembered the calloused skin of his knuckles against my cheek as I gazed at the food longingly.

“This is his” Mother chided me. I sighed in disappointment, and wondered how the meat would taste with wild garlic paste and scraped salt. My mouth filled with saliva, and I gazed around for Adam curiously. He led the Union in prayer most mornings, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“In his tent, with the girl” Mother replied. Beth stared at me with a coldness in her hooded eyes.

“You think because you are young that exempts you of work?” she scowled. “You bleed like the rest of us, you are a woman” she reminded me sharply. I looked to my mother to speak for me, but she remained silent. I wrinkled my nose at Beth and stalked away, my stomach feeling as though it had been scooped out.

She was right, I was a woman. I remember the moment rivers of bright blood first crept down my thighs. It felt as though little parasites were exiting my body, dirtying me. My womb had knotted together in agony, and Mother had told me to bask in the pain, worship it, adore it. She told me that this hurt would be the closest I’d ever feel to Eve, that I could practically reach out my knobbly finger and touch hers, that while I walked the outskirts of the Union in my temporary exile, I was prowling the outskirts of Eden, though my spine was curled and rounded in as I pressed into the skin of my stomach.

I pretended that I was bent over in prayer as I shuffled to the banks of the murky brown lake to shakily drink. I reddened the ground, and when I returned home, Lazarus told me he could smell womanhood. He had knelt to press his nose against my shins, and up the flesh of my legs. He stopped before he came too close to the heart of my thighs. That was a place only Adam was permitted to enter.

I looked to Adam’s tent. It was the biggest on the Unions land, lapis blue and free of scuffs and holes for little mice to crawl through. I learnt quickly not to stash pieces of wild fruit and seeds where I slept, rodents and insects would let themselves in and surround me. I knew what Adam did in his tent. I paced back and forth for a moment, until I noticed Beth’s arctic gaze pierce my chest, and I shuffled away.

I collected a woven basket and took myself into the trees in search of food, feeling a little lost without morning prayer, and direct orders. Only Adam was permitted to give them. This was a glint of sunshine, this was the mouth of freedom. With the Union behind me, I walked under the red eye of the dawn sun, my eyes searching for berries, stinging nettles, and nuts.

Another woman of the Union, doe eyed and soft bodied Martha, had arrived recently with bundles of wild garlic and mushrooms and rocket. I was delighted that the trial I’d taken had me stumble across a blackberry bush. The brambles made me think of Tabitha, alone in the Sanctuary, now at the hands of Adam. I pricked my fingers as I reached for the ripe and bright black bodies of the berries, sticky reddish juice running down my wrist. I lapped it up, the sour taste waking up the buds on my tongue.

The women of the Union insisted on their delight when asked into Adam’s tent. I mused on the way they would brag, Mother would whisper to me with electric, palpable excitement. It was a great honour to be chosen, to feel the pressure like the hilt of a gun in the pit of your stomach, to clench your teeth against one another, to endure. I believed them, until I became a woman.

I picked at the berries until my fingers were full of little thorny splinters, and my knuckles were sticky with the juice. I used to believe the devil lived in my labia. That I had a darkness sat dormant in my bloodstream, in the flesh of my cervix, that cast me in the inferno of pain when God's hand would reach inside me. I tried to expel the demon myself, drew ash over my forehead and prayed, walked clothed into the lake and let the water lap at my awful chin, in hopes the earth would swallow me alive and spit me out reborn. I wondered if I were truly of Adam’s rib, or something quite different, non human and wicked.

Now, I think Mother, and the rest, are burdened by Adam’s blessing. I swivelled my eyes in a careful circular motion before pressing a berry to my lips. I let my tongue gently swivel over the little bumps and ridges before crushing it with my molars and swallowing. I wondered if Tabitha was like Mother, or like myself. The sharpness of the berry pulled me from the violet fog of my mind, and I savoured the tang. Come winter, the hunger would sit as a constant in my stomach, weakening my bones.

I closed my clover green eyes in bliss as a honey gold patch of sunlight blossomed over my face, cutting a piece of warmth against the brisk of the morning breeze. I wished, secretly, that if Adam were to love me, it would feel like the warmth of the sun. I continued along my trial in hopes to find stinging nettles. Martha would create a watery soup with the plants. The earthy taste stuck in my gums, but I searched anyway. I wondered why Tabitha played on my mind. Perhaps I was proud of my catch.

Adam would press his hands onto our shoulders with heavy hands and insist that outsiders who trod within our borders meant us brutal harm, spying and waiting to take away the youngest of us. I have been the youngest of us for a long time. He would fix me with a hard stare when he said that, a prickly warning. Tabitha could not take me anywhere, though. I twisted my knife in my pallid hand. I was the keeper of harm. If I stripped back my skin several layers, to reveal the red fleshy mess of my sin, perhaps I would have let her keep running. I blinked in the direction of the Union. It was dangerous to let those thoughts play, even internally.

I only thought so traitorously when I hid deep in the woods. I hoped Adam would not smell the depth of my depravity through the thick trunks of the oaks, though I knew truly that he existed in the delicate lines against the mantis green leaves, and the flattened grass pressed up against the soles of my feet. He listened to me on the wind, and I wondered if one day he would take my knife, and execute me.

I returned to the Union with blackberries, redcurrants, hazelnuts and chestnuts. I had checked the traps Susana would set out most days in the hopes of catching unknowing game that would stumble into them. They were empty, though yesterday they had been bountiful. We rejoiced when deer would stick their inquisitive heads towards our bloodied hands, rabbits and squirrels and rats and foxes lay victim to us in the hot air of summer.

Boar were hunted by hand. Susana led hunting parties, she would chase down the beasts with a wide eyed hunger, despite the worms buried in the thick of their meat. Her sister had been slaughtered by one, at her side in the fray of the hunt. The huge dark creature had slashed at her with its tusks, leaving an ugly great gash in her thigh, severing an artery. She spurted blood in the hot dirt, and smelled heavy with death for hours, her bloodied corpse lying at our centre. I remembered the glassy vacancy of her eyes, and wondered if heaven smelled of iron. Mousy haired Susana, since then, had a taste for the animal. I couldn’t understand why.

Susana now stood holding a dead hare by its skinny leg, and I wondered if she’d visited the traps earlier, or if she’d killed with her bare palms. Mother told me it was a rather masculine trait, to take life, she’d wrinkle her nose at the dark red crust that sat under Susanna’s fingernails. Womanhood was a delicateness, a fragility, the ripple of Susana’s toned arms didn’t read as such, I supposed.

Martha was sat at her side sorting through herbs and her large dark eyes opened with a pleased warmth to see my collection. Her cheeks always had a peachy hue to them, and they rounded as she smiled.

“Holly, good job” she nodded as she picked through my finds. “It’s good to see you not sitting idle” she spoke as though it were a common occurrence. An opportunity for idleness was exceedingly rare. The choice to take it did not exist, had no feet stuck in the ground, no legs, no heart. Adam would stare into the marrow of your bone and find the very scent of idleness. I nodded at her graciously.

“Is Adam still with the girl?” I asked, twisting my neck to his tent to try and catch a glimpse of Tabitha’s fair hair. Martha shook her head.

“He had Lazarus show her back to the Sanctuary, he’s actually left, trading who knows what” she explained, her eyes flitting to the Union gateway, as if dancing upon his footsteps. Adam occasionally left for supplies, strictly unaccompanied. What he sought and what he gave were a mystery to us. How kind he was, to care for us, nurture the quiet of our minds to make space for worship, so Mother said. Martha squeezed my shoulder sympathetically.

“He’ll be back alongside us before you know it” she reassured me warmly. Susana rummaged for her knife in the flaking leather satchel she kept resting on her bony hip, sticking the blade into the hide of the hare. She was going to skin it. I gazed enviously at the wretched amber eyed creature.

“Thank you” I smiled politely at Martha, nodding to Susana before letting my legs lead me to the Sanctuary. I crouched on my haunches, and leant over the prickly guardrails. Tabitha lay in a crumpled heap, her large eyes swallowed by lids, pointing towards the scuffed earth. Her hair, like a frosty veil, concealing her mouth. She didn’t stir at the pattering of my footsteps, the breath in my mouth. I swallowed, my eyes swivelling back and forth, hoping not to be observed too closely.

“Tabby” I hissed through the cracks in my teeth. “Are you ok?”

I waited a few moments, my eyes resting on the weary rise and fall of her ribs, till she slowly turned to stare up at me. The whites of her eyes were cherry-bleed pink, and the skin of her nostrils was puffy and inflamed. Dust cradled her cheeks, and matted in the fur of my fox pelt. I thought she would not speak to me, but she opened her doll mouth.

“You brought me here” she croaked, before turning her head and sinking into the dirt.

​3

“I experienced a moment of missing my mother, it clung to me, like toffee to the teeth. My mother was a deceiver of Christ, and I outcast myself from her to walk in truth. I am sorry” Priscilla confessed. Her knees were pressed tight together, and her knuckles were threaded and pale. Sweat beaded at her forehead. Priscilla was the second youngest of the Union. She had crow black hair and squinting hazel eyes. Her cupids bow sat in a sharp point. I found her fantastically beautiful.

I wondered, as I sat at her side, if she was telling the truth. Her distress seemed palpable, I could coat my tongue with it. Adam sat in the center of the circle, as usual, and we sat in the gate of his gravity. I often found that when it came time to self critique, confess, beg for forgiveness, my mind was an empty corridor, and I had no sins in the creases of my palms to show for. Priscilla’s white dress was scuffed with dried blood around the seams.

“You are absolved of your sin, Priscilla” Adam touched her bony shoulder with his middle and index finger, allowing the core, sinless white of his blood to pulse at the edges of his skin, onto hers. “I will save you from damnation”

His eyes were shark like and sunken, murky coloured, and the black slits of his pupils rested on me. He smelled like the smoky belly of a bonfire, and he stared in such a way that stiffened me rigid, as if he could spring out at me like a jack in the box.

“Holly” my name sat on his tongue as if he created it. I wondered at times if he had fathered me. I didn’t wear the hollows of his cheekbones or the dark veins snaking over his needle bodied limbs, yet our bodies overlapped in their slender waxy whiteness.

“What do you have to confess?”

I felt the rows of eyes bore into my skin as I juggled ideas. Adam opposed the blackened nature of our wrongdoings, yet also sought them out, craved them and followed them by the slightest whiff, like a bloodhound on the heels of a rabbit, he sought and opposed, perhaps like a hunger desired a slaughter.

I showed him the delicate meat of my cotton ears.

“I felt sorry for Tab- The girl, I captured, for a moment” I admitted carefully. Adam blinked at me in surprise.

“Sorry, what for?” he furrowed his dark eyebrows. My stomach knotted tight, and I felt a wave of nausea run through my body. I had misspoken. The council of eyes seemed to see all the more through the red of my tendons and thick of my tissue. They were dissecting my conviction. I glanced to Priscilla.

“Like Priscilla said, I thought she might be missing her family” I stumbled, fastening an iron grip on the faux honesty. “She does not deserve my sympathy, she is a devil-sent spy” my throat often dried out in these sessions. Priscilla pointed a look towards me for a moment, before averting her gaze and staring down at her knees. Adam nodded crisply.

“You are absolved of your sin, Holly” there was a look in the beating heart of his pupil which suggested he was lying to my face. Then again, so was I, I did not deserve forgiveness when I couldn’t even muster up honest guilt. As the rest of the Union's women confessed their wrongdoings one after the other, Adam’s gaze flickered to mine, for split second, tiny moments, like a fly buzzing past my ear. I couldn’t tell if I was warped by my dishonesty, or I was worried he was going to beat it out of me with the metal of his bones.

“Judith?” Adam stared at Mother. She smiled a little, the corners of her mouth hitching upward, whenever he graced her with his admittedly divided attention. Sometimes I wondered if he favoured my mother, drank in the potent loyalty and worship.

“I experience impure thoughts, and I am sorry” she spoke as though her words sat separate in her mouth to the motion of her thought. I twitched irritably where I sat, my legs tingling with the fuzzy static of pins and needles. She’d picked something vague and lazy. I watched to see if Adam would press her.

He nodded instead, and told her simply that she too was absolved, moving onto Susana. I sighed inwardly, almost certain that Adam flattered himself in the assumption that her impure thoughts concerned him, and the iron rot of his penis. Mother could deftly snake her way over the girth of his knuckles, lay down with him in a manner that served her best interest. I didn’t think I had the capability within me, I think Adam can tell, when he encroaches on my womb, that my mind is out with lanterns elsewhere, and my body is a stiffened chasm, soot black and lonesome of pleasure.

Susana confessed to stubborn words, Beth confessed to pride, Martha confessed to laziness. Lydia confessed to pain during intercourse, Lazarus confessed to lying, and Tamar confessed to overwhelm during water collection. I thought that Tamar’s was a little uncreative also. Adam trusted her. She had a chocolate brown bob hanging around her jaw, with tawny pale brown eyes to match, sat in tanned skin. Adam sent her to the nearest village from time to time. I never knew what for, but she was the only one permitted to step outside the Union's walls. I knew the rest of the Union were dying to know, to clamber for the knowledge of what she found herself doing, but Adam was rich with hostility to the outside world, and therefore, so were we.

After Tamar was absolved of her trespasses, Adam gave us tasks to carry out, sending Martha and Beth to fetch and boil water, Mother and Susana to sweep the huts and tents of twigs, leaves, and insects, and Tamar and Lazarus to patrol the Unions perimeter. He halted once his eyes fell upon myself and Priscilla, and the sweeping gaze of the Union rested upon the two of us as everyone slinked away.

Once we were alone, he extended a hand to Priscilla, cupping her soft cheek. He stroked along her skin with his thumb fondly.

“You must work harder to resist, Priscilla” Adam drawled, his voice a glacier. She blinked up at him submissively, the owl wing and pine of her eyes shining nervously. She melted into him, and also shrank away, I wondered how she was able to do both in such a way.

“Your sin has seeped into Holly’s” he extended his other hand to my own face, and I stiffened as he brushed his rough fingertips over my cheekbone.

“It was a momentary, fleeting thought” Priscilla reassured him. Adam paused, musing what she’d said to him, before rearing backwards and striking her. Priscilla collapsed with a shriek, her hair shielding her beaten face. I flinched, averting my eyes from her and staring straight past Adam’s neck, into the blur.

Since I was a child, I thought a higher entity may have been visiting me, perhaps a golden winged seraph. Whenever God would speak through Adam’s fists, his wildfire violence, I begged for courage. I’m unsure if I received it, but I was gifted the warm embrace of the blur, the world as I knew it softening and dulling around the edges, detached from myself. My mother told me, once, that I cried out, and cried endlessly, maybe it was the pain in my swollen pink gums as my teeth wriggled through them, or the emptiness gnawing at my stomach.

She told me Adam, unable to stand the noise, took me aside and beat my child body, so severely, so animal, that she thought I would die. I survived, and she told me I had the most faraway look in the misty green fog of my iris that she had ever seen. I think I discovered the blur that day. I remember I was pulled from my body by the hand of God, and I hovered in the corner of the murky tent like a spectre, watching my scarecrow body.

Now, I felt the comforting vacancy fill my body. I could feel the heat buzz from Adam’s skin. Priscilla slowly raised her head. A red hand print sat on her cheek, her eyes watered like a fountain. He grabbed her face again, and she winced in pain as his fingers dug into the heat of her flesh.

“You’re fair to look upon when you cry” he let his thumb crawl up to her eyes, stroking her lower lash line. I tensed, expecting his blackened nail to scratch across the wet surface of her pupil. She too held firm in her stillness. He looked as though he was pondering something as he touched her, and eventually he pushed her away, with instructions to wait for him in his tent. Now he was alone with me.

“Do you understand why I struck her?” he asked me calmly. I nodded plaintively. He cocked his head at me, and his hand crept up to the soft skin of my throat, holding me in a python grip. I wondered if he might kill me, as my breath started to evade me, burning bright pain flooded my lungs and swam up to the back of my throat as my body gagged and begged for air. As my vision began to grow hazy, he let me go, and I spluttered for breath, holding my throat and willing myself not to involuntarily cower from him.

He let me catch my breath, before gesturing for me to leave. I scrambled to my feet and shuffled away, panting hard. Dizziness overcame me, and I sat on a smoothed tree-stump next to Mothers tent, wondering if I would vomit into the grass. Mother appeared from her tent, broom in hand as I sat, and stared at the red welts on my throat.

“What happened?” she asked, an edge to her voice. I swallowed, my throat pinching as I did, forcing my eyes to water.

“Adam strangled me” I rasped. Behind her, Susana rolled her navy eyes as she swept. I wondered what she really wanted to say to me. Mother shook her head disapprovingly.

“You know Adam’s temper” she chided me as she worked. “You should know how not to set him off”

Despite her words, she gently ran her hand over the scarlet marks, as if examining an injured lamb.

“Priscilla was also struck” I mumbled, her fingers stinging my skin.

“You mustn’t gossip” Susana remarked. “Maybe this is why you young girls need correcting”

Mother chuckled.

“Make yourself useful, Holly, check on the girl” she gestured towards the Sanctuary.

I nodded, and padded over to the bramble rooftop. Beneath the russet thorns, Tabitha sat motionless. She scarcely stirred when she noticed me.

“Tabby” I whispered. “Are you ok?”

She slowly turned to look at me.

“Hungry” she hissed. I nodded.

“Hold on”

I wondered if I could get away with foraging on my own, stashing some berries and nuts and mushrooms in my clothes and pelts to deliver to her. I wondered if Adam would know, in all his omnipresence. I knew that they wouldn’t particularly fill her, she needed meat, I also knew I couldn’t roast a kill on a fire inconspicuously. For a moment I considered camping out in the trees, catching two rabbits and roasting them right there over my own amber flames, and bringing one down to Tabitha.

I knew it would never play out that way. Maybe something was better than nothing in this moment. I looked to Martha’s hut, empty of her. I knew however, that fetching water was not a task that lasted terribly long, and in a moment she could reappear and pour the juice of my sin down Adam’s throat. I dithered, uncertain, before letting my feet carry me inside. Martha was responsible for keeping track of our food, and inside her hut lay dusty wooden crates laden with our finds.

Summer was bountiful, though it wasn’t enough. I knew that when myself and Priscilla were children, we became terribly sick, our temperatures skyrocketing and our skin became clammy and baking to touch. Mother had begged Adam to allow her into the town, to find work to provide me with food and medicine. Adam had broken her nose. It healed crooked, off centre, and remained that way now. I let my hand touch my own nose now, and imagined the crack of his fist against the cartilage of my skull.

I swivelled my neck backwards as my hands felt for a handful of springy, creamy grey mushrooms, four plums, two apples, and a few blackberries. I knew this wouldn’t fill her stomach, but it was better than nothing. I began to stuff the stolen goods in the crooks of my pelt, and drew my hand away as I stared out of the mouth of the hut. The crate of apples came crashing down, the pale green and sunset red fruits spilling onto the ground.

I froze for a moment, before scrambling to stuff the last of the food away. My hand was buried in my boar pelt by the time Adam stuck his head inside. I prayed he didn’t catch the tail end of my betrayal. He furrowed his eyebrows curiously. I felt beads of sweat trickle at my forehead, hot and sticky against my strands of black hair. My hands instinctually attempted to rise to protect my throat, and I kept them firmly lowered to avoid guiding him to my wounded skin.

“Sulking in here?” he asked cooly. I kept my eyes fixed on him, he knew that I wasn’t. I shook my head.

“I was looking to see if Martha was back yet, I thought I’d ask what we needed and forage for her. Adam’s eyes flickered down to the fallen crate, and back up at me.

“I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going” I admitted truthfully, crouching down to retrieve the apples. He sniffed.

“Don’t interrupt me again” he ordered, leaving and marching in the direction of his tent. I felt all of the trapped and tensed air sitting in my lungs gush from my body in a relieved sigh, and after I’d stood robotically still for a few moments, I ran to the Sanctuary.

Pricking my hands, I lifted the roof and jumped down beside Tabitha, who stiffened nervously. Her cedar brown eyes watched me with thick suspicion as I crouched down to her level. She wore a thin sheen of sweat over her forehead, and dirt clung to her skin. I carefully began to pass her my contraband, and she blinked in surprise. Her crooked teeth sank hungrily into the flesh of the mushrooms, and she swallowed so desperately I thought she might choke. I sat guard in the soil of the Sanctuary until she had eaten every last bite. She looked at me uncertainly.

“Will this make me sleep?” she asked. I wrinkled my forehead. Adam sometimes slipped us food that made us fade into a firm and stark blackness, dreamless and void of memory. I once asked him how he performed the miracle, and he reminded me that his body was the body of Christ, and a distinct absence of sin allowed for unexplainable phenomena.

I connected the unforgiving darkness to food as I grew older, and the anxiety that danced around the food of Adam’s palm faded with relief of the cramping in my abdomen. I wondered if Tabitha had accidentally eaten such a miraculous thing before. I shook my head.

“It shouldn’t” I reassured her. She turned away from me, showing me the curve of her spine under the burnt orange fur.

“Thank you, Holly”

​4

Today was the third sunrise Tabitha had been permitted to leave the Sanctuary under supervision to aid in the Union’s chores. She was not yet able to attend prayer and self criticism sessions, not until Adam initiated her. I had volunteered to have her shadow me within seconds, with an insistence that she was my responsibility, and now she trailed after me as I stood ankle deep in the cool stream, flowing gently between the trees.

The lapping cold was a relief from the already overpowering, licking flames of the sun. I wished, in the safety of the forest, that I could strip the heavy clothes from my body and allow the gentle breeze to kiss my shoulders and ribs, to sit bare bottomed in the water upon the cold pebbles. I didn’t quite trust the dense foliage to protect me from such an act, certain the knowledge would creep along the forest floor and straight into Adam’s mouth. I let the soles of my feet soak instead.

Tabitha was chewing on skinny mushrooms, her knees hunched to her chest on the stream bank. Her milky hair sparkled in the sunlight, the freckles on her face massing in a sprawl that reminded me of autumn leaves in the wind. She did not particularly aid me in any task I was set, but I, perversely, was content just to look at her. I wanted to scoop out every feature. No blooming flower, starlight, or melody from a bird's throat had quite captured my attention like she did.

Occasionally she would stretch her arms above her head, with a little snap of the joints in her shoulders, and I would catch a glimpse of her stomach. A torrent of heat would fill my body, an apple seed of hellfire blossoming in my gut as I let my eyes rest for a second on the purple banding of her womb. She noticed the last time, and narrowed her eyes at me defensively. I swung my head away from her and had stared firmly into the stomach of the stream, the tips of my ears hot with shame.

“Why don’t you run?” I asked Tabitha curiously as I plucked at swollen elderberries. She looked at me as if admiring the twisted branches of the trees on the other side of my body.

“You will catch me” she answered simply. “I am weak and tired”

I felt a little wave of guilt crash over my sternum. I dipped my blackened fingertips in the running water. She watched me with no readable expression.

“Why will you catch me?” she asked me now. I felt a little taken aback. I wanted to pause time, still the beating of her heart and the trickling of the stream, so that I could examine the tawny flecks in her round eyes, watch her pupils expand and retract. My prisoner, I wanted to toy with my food. No better than a coyote, I couldn’t tear my gaze away from her. I wanted to taste the fabric of her brain.

“It’s what’s done” I stated simply. “We don’t allow for trespassers, they’re here to spy on us, take us away, they don’t understand our way of life”

She looked awfully tired, she opened her mouth a crack and her gums were pale, sticky saliva coated. I cupped my hands and scooped stream water into my palms before pouring it into her mouth. Her lips were dry and scratchy. She swallowed and droplets trickled down her chin, her neck. My eyes travelled with them.

“I am no trespasser” she replied coolly. In the shimmering light, the apricot fur of her pelt, my pelt, bounced orange against her skin. “Yet you threaten to bleed me, like an animal”

I shifted uncomfortably, wondering if I could make her understand.

“Why else would you be so far into the woods?”

She looked almost pityingly at me, her long blonde eyelashes shining in the sun.

“You think your cult is at the centre of everyone’s world. I doubt anybody has truly pursued you” she sniffed. I felt anger begin to flood my muscles, and my jaw stiffened with tension.

“We’re not a cult” I hissed passionately. The word felt forbidden on my tongue, even simply to combat. We were a sect, a branch, a community, a family, never a cult. That word was poisoned at the edges, it would sow seeds of doubt into the stomachs of the Union and have us turn on one another in fiery betrayal. The word was never spoken, scarcely whispered. I wondered if Adam would have been proud of me for defending us, I wondered if he could hear me through the foliage and the thick green leaves.

She didn’t correct herself, just stayed hunched upon the stream bank, water-nymph like, still. I let the anger flow through my body like hot starlight, touching every fold of my brain, caressing where my lungs touched against my ribs, soaking in between my teeth, and breathed it out. I watched the rage spiral from my lips and get carried into the open air, taken on the breeze. She didn’t understand, she wasn’t trying to hurt me, or Mother, or Adam.

I wondered if I felt the same love I felt for Mother as I did Adam. I was supposed to love him the most of all. Perhaps Mother loved him most of all. I know I feared him, and I thought that might be the same thing, adoration and terror lived in the same valve in my beating heart. I felt myself soften to Tabitha, and reached out to touch her hair. She flinched away from me, though after a few moments of hostile eyes, she too relaxed into my touch, and watched me with the gaze someone might watch a dragonfly flitter over water.

I was curious to know if I found her more beautiful than Priscilla, and I compared the two in my head. I was such a disgusting girl.

I saw Priscilla once I returned, standing in a torn black shirt and thin skirt that swooped down to her calves. She stood tall on gazelle-like legs, and she smiled wryly once she spotted me. I noticed the glassy look of uncertainty instantly in her narrow eyes, her weight shifting a little from foot to foot. I nodded to Tabitha to follow at my heels.

“Are you ok?” I whispered. Priscilla glanced from myself to Tabitha, worry creeping onto her pretty face.

“Yes, I’m excited, actually” she leaned into me, her mouth grazing the shell of my ear. “I might be, or we, actually might be, joining Tamar” she smiled as if her cheeks were being held up by hot prongs. I blinked at her in confusion.

“In the town?” I narrowed my eyes. Excitement and curiosity engulfed me, but it could not overtake the grim unease on her face. I pressed my face into hers cautiously.

“What does Tamar do, in town?” I whispered. Priscilla paused for a moment, her lips paralysed and parted. She then shook her head, her plastered smile returned, and I noticed Adam notice us. He seemed to bite into Priscilla with the flick of his grey eyes, dragging his little pupils up and down the length of her body, and then mine.

I wanted to ask him what intentions he held for the two of us, and I feared if I did, he would hold me firm by my throat once again. Tabitha, beside us, narrowed her eyes.

“What are you afraid of?” she asked pointedly. I knew what she was telling me. She wanted to convince me of my own terror in an aid to her own misconception of the Union. Well I was not afraid, perhaps only a light layer of apprehension sat at the roof of my mouth.

I tried to convince myself the gnawing rat teeth in the lining of my stomach was merely disguised exhilaration at the privilege of exploration. I remembered almost nothing of the world outside the Union, but the frayed memories I owned frightened me. I saw swirls of wrinkled hands trying to separate me from Mother, the booming voices of men and smacking skin. No wonder she had rescued me, saved us.

Adam beat us, but it was because he loved us, and wanted us to go to heaven alongside him, he kept us safe from prying eyes, and no one took me from Mother again. He was my protector, and the look he rested on my body sent cold shockwaves of fear down my vertebrae. He looked almost hungry.

“I’m not afraid” I retorted. The walls of my throat seemed to close in on themselves. Priscilla looked at Tabitha with a startlingly honest expression of raw terror, for about half a second, before she swallowed and pointed with her chin to the red haired pair, Lydia and Susana.

“Tamar serves God, in town” she replied sunnily. “I’m expected to go repair traps” she leant close into me once more.

“Talk to Tamar” she whispered, her voice faint, quivering and barely audible. I knew I couldn’t stand around vacantly processing her message, I also knew that Adams' eyes hadn’t left me. He began to approach me, and I prayed that Tabitha wouldn’t let her inquisitiveness show. Somehow, though, I thought it might not present so much as a problem. Tabitha seemed to shy away from Adam vehemently. She had a cloudy expression on her face whenever he came close to her, familiar to my own blur.

“Holly, is Tabitha adjusting to the Union?” Adam asked as he reached me. He seemed to be unwilling to stop engaging with the facade that she was here by anything other than force. I nodded automatically. Seeds of doubt began to creep through my head. She wasn’t running, or fighting, but she wasn’t convinced, not by any means, she was entirely a prisoner. I wondered if Adam could see right into the marrow of my deceit.

He instead called Martha over to keep an eye on Tabitha, then pressing a hand on my shoulder and beginning to steer me away. We walked to his lapis tent, and disappeared into the folds. My chest tightened, and I wondered if he had heard Tabitha use the word ‘cult’, if he had heard that I didn’t strike her in retaliation, if he was going to press himself inside my body with the force and righteous anger of a God punishing sin.

He didn’t, he simply stroked across the blueberry and peach bruises on my throat. I felt like a rabbit caught in a Union trap, knowing there is no true way out, only through and into our teeth.

“In three sunrises, myself, yourself, Priscilla and Tamar will leave for town” he informed me. “I trust you’ll behave”

I swallowed.

“When will we come back?” I thought of Mother. The idea of leaving her sent waves of apprehension through my body

“Dawn, the next morning” Adam answered. “Just the way Tamar does”

That night, I sat in the stomach of the Sanctuary alongside Tabitha. I couldn’t tell if I enjoyed the sense of responsibility, keeping an eye on her, or if I just wanted her to see me, and for me to see her. She was skinny and frail, tired, and absolutely magnetic for some reason. I tried to split my food with her when I could, and she gratefully swallowed. She looked cleaner, her skin free of the dirt that had so firmly clung. I offered to brush her hair and she refused.

“I want to cut my hair, right to the scalp” she sniffed. I blinked in surprise, she had beautiful fair hair, thinner than mine, but it sparkled in the sunshine.

“Why? You have lovely hair” I replied, wishing she would let me reach out to touch it. She scoffed.

“I hate people grabbing at it” she tucked two strands behind her petite ears. We sat in silence while we finished eating. The scarlet-washed moon beamed cherry and silvery light through the brambles and thorns, casting a rosy glow on Tabitha’s freckled face.

“Did you grow up here?” Tabitha asked me suddenly. “With Adam?”

I was a little pleased she was somewhat warming to me, enough to ask me questions unprompted at least.

“I wasn’t born here, my mother took us here” I replied.

“What about your father?”

“I don’t know, I think he might be Adam, Mother is so devoted”

“I thought you weren’t born here?”

“I wasn’t, they knew each other before the Union even formed”

“Why did she bring you here, with him?” Tabitha narrowed her large eyes curiously. I knew I wouldn’t be able to shake her negative view of the Union. We had captured her, after all, I had stolen her. She must have thought of myself as the worst of us all. Maybe her curiosity leaned towards a journey of acceptance.

“The outside world is full of terrible, dangerous people, my mother did what was best for us, Adam is a strong leader” I forced clarity and assurance in my voice. She didn’t believe me.

“Adam is a tyrant” Tabitha said disdainfully. The walls of the Sanctuary swayed a little as the words left her mouth. I felt the blood drain from my face, and my hand flew over her lips.

“Stop” I hissed, my heart beating so hard I feared I’d choke on it. She stayed unexpectedly still, until I removed my hand carefully. Her eyes fogged a little, as if a part of her had exited from her head and spiralled up into the sky like a dancing mist. “You don’t know him”

“Yes, I do” Tabitha replied crisply. My lips parted in surprise, my mind racing.

“That’s impossible, he’s always with us” I spluttered.

“No, he’s not, and soon, you won’t be either” she warned me. I swallowed, feeling as though I was drinking in Priscilla’s earlier fear. I had wanted to know so badly what Tamar did when Adam took her away. I imagined great honour, we were all jealous of her. Now I felt a tremendous and crushing dread seem to push me into the dirt floor, till I was completely compressed into nothing at all, all my atoms lined up, dust caked, in a neat row.

​5

“Have you spoken to Tamar yet?”

Priscilla squatted beside me as we scrubbed at stubborn blood stains. We perched at the edge of the riverbed, a pile of clothes beside each one of us. I enjoyed working with Priscilla, she made me feel as though I was unobserved, as a blackbird or mouse might. I swallowed and peered into her eyes, partially to avoid the question, and partially just to look at her.

“Your eyes look a little bit like a pond” I replied. I thought immediately I might have offended her. She snorted.

“How so?”

I leant forward, letting the clothes in my hands rest half on the bank and half floating lazily in the water. I pushed my fingers forward, careful not to touch the wetness of her iris.

“The outside bit is the bank, with the reeds” I pointed delicately.

“Mud coloured then” Priscilla replied in amusement.

“No” I insisted. “It’s a lovely brown. And then the green is the pond in summer when the forest is glistening in its reflection, and it has little patches of duckweed on its surface”

“Ducks too?” Priscilla pressed herself closer to me. I could feel her breath on my cheeks as I stared into the heartbeat of her left eye.

“Of course, otherwise it’d just be weed, that’s what those freckles are” I underestimated the distance between us, and accidentally caught her eye for a second with the pad of my fingertip.

We both jumped back from each other, and following her muted yelp of surprise, we giggled together. I returned to scrubbing the clothes, noticing a bottle green dragonfly zigzagging over the surface of the river. It rested for a moment on Priscilla’s leg, before disappearing from sight. It must have seen its own beauty within her. I looked into the water. I was not supposed to feel beautiful.

The pain in which Adam inflicted on my body, though God-sent, I felt manifested on my face. I had bright green, slightly rounded eyes, a straight nose, and sickly, paper white skin. I had thin, pale peach lips, and magpie black hair. I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to fall into waves or curls, or something in between. This much I knew, in the realm of fact. The bruising on my throat however, seemed to discolour me, bleed me like a marker on paper, rearrange my nose to my eyebrows and my temples to my chin. I found I could scarcely recognise myself in the gentle ripples more often than not. It was as though I was familiar with my description, a fugitive I had recognised.

I was Holly, I knew. What followed my name more often than not was a vague cluster of things that could well be myself. I was devout. Though of course, I felt far too negatively about God. I felt my fingers start to wrinkle in the water. Fear and love were, once again, more or less the same thing, but I wasn’t sure the extent of my fear, my gut twisting in blackened apprehension, was normal. I blinked at my reflection. There was something that needed mending inside me. Maybe demoniacal entities did not take residence in the crook of my womb, but the body of my heart.

Except there was no entity, only myself. If I moulded, it was by my own hand. Priscilla noticed I was staring, and I quickly averted my eyes, afraid my vacancy would be mistaken for vanity.

“I haven’t spoken to Tamar yet” I admitted. The muddy brown blood I had washed from the pelt between my fingers began to cling to my skin.

“Me neither” Priscilla replied dejectedly. “I thought we could together”

I felt warmed by her company. I let my hand brush affectionately against hers. I felt a burning shame eat my chest as I felt the prickle of her fingers, little flames licking up my neck to my nostrils. Touch wasn’t a sin, I tried to remind myself. I knew I was being dishonest to myself, I just didn’t know how, exactly. I couldn’t find the pin prick where the sin was seeping from.

Tamar met Priscilla and myself deep in the chest of the Unions land. The trees cradled us, the bushes thick and dense. Violet shadow cast over us, and I didn’t dare even think of Adam’s name, spell it in my mind, lest he creep into my thoughts and crawl out of my mouth like a rash word or thick bodied insect. I felt the legs of the creature on my tongue, each leg a creeping fear, one of his fingers wrapped around my throat.

“If Adam finds out I warned you, he will murder me” Tamar began. Her voice was hushed, croaky. She was older than Priscilla and myself. I had turned sixteen recently, and Priscilla was eighteen. Tamar was twenty five, though she looked as if she could have been either of our siblings. Her eyes were large and round, and her hair, chopped to her jaw, rounded her cheeks. Despite her thin body, her face held onto a little plumpness, the ample of her cheeks always a little coral pink.

I thought I might be sadistic, as her visible terror provided me with a great comfort amidst my own blurred dread. I did not view her fear though, as a terribly sinful and festering thing, more so something sat in the palm of her hand, rather than living in the meat of her muscle. I leant in close to her.

“We won’t let anything bad happen to you” I promised her. Priscilla nodded, a hand on Tamar’s, whose fawny eyes were struck with a cloudy grief. She took a deep breath. I could practically smell the nausea on her.

“You can’t let him take you, into the town” she insisted. I’d never seen such genuine and honest desperation on another human beings face. My stomach dropped, and I felt the trees begin to press into my back. I glanced at Priscilla, who took a hold of my own hand with her other. She swallowed nervously. I decided to take Tamar’s other hand with my free one. We held each other for a moment while she gathered herself.

“Adam knows these men, these beastly men, and he brings me to them, they become one flesh with me. Maybe I am not so fluent in terms of the pages of the bible as Susana or Beth, but there is no love, there is no purity in what God allows them to do to me” her eyes were fixed on our hands as she spoke, her voice thick with shame. I felt lucid terror overcome me, and turned to Priscilla to see her mouth had fallen open, her eyebrows pinched.

“Why does he let them?” Priscilla asked shakily.

“They pay him” Tamar replied. “I see them slipping him notes”

My head was swimming. I felt as if my brain was swelling, pressing against the sides of my skulls and ready to burst and spew matter over the twisting branches. I felt Adam’s hands around my neck, inside my body, crawling through my cervix and into my ribs, purifying my blood.

“Why is it us they want?” I whispered, my throat hollow. Tamar looked at me weakly.

“We are the youngest”

Once again within the Union, I was deep amidst the blur, and to my own helpless frustration, this only bolstered my terror, as I was left feeble minded and slow, vulnerable and confused. The world around me passed me in little ribbons of colour, shafts of sunlight and a hazy chorus of noise. The features on Tabitha’s face danced around and back and forth as I looked at her. She was very obviously concerned, however. There was something irrefutably knowing about her.

“I don’t know what to do” I whispered, hoping that my thoughts and live horror wouldn’t creep over the walls of the Sanctuary and come to find Adam and his fists. “I’m compromised”

“Why come to me?” Tabitha asked, with a curiosity I knew was genuine.

“I just feel you’ll understand” I answered truthfully.

“You don’t know me” Tabitha interjected.

“I want to” I shuffled a little closer, and extended a hand to her.

She didn’t take my hand, but she shuffled a little closer to me in turn, and I accepted the degree of trust.

“Why are you compromised?” she asked.

“Adam is going to sell me, I think” I admitted. The overpowering feeling of betrayal and guilt washed over me, and I tried to ignore the worm of anxiety eat at the core of my heart. I was inspiring hatred towards him.

“I mean, I don’t know, it wouldn’t be all that different to what myself and Adam do anyway, and I would be helping the Union, it’s my duty to help the Union, to support Adam. But I’m weak, and I’m terrified” the words spilled out of me as I scrambled for the possibility of acceptance for my fate. My words were false, it would be different, I knew that, and even if it weren’t, similarity was no comfort. I could not bear the agony. Oddly, Tabitha didn’t look surprised. She nodded.

“I thought he already was”

I gasped, squinting in confusion.

“Why would you think that?”

Had her impression of Adam truly been so terrible?

“Because he’s bought me before, in the same way” she replied. “It’s what he does, it’s who he is”

For the second time today, I felt the ground slip from under me. Who was he? The man I knew was slowly being distorted and disfigured in my brain, the only recognisable factors being the sourness and pain and fear he held in the palms of his hands and the across the length of his penis. I couldn’t find the words to reply to her, so it let my mouth hang open a little, my lips parted in horror as I digested what she’d told me. Is that what he did with the money he made?

“Where did you come from, Tabby?” I asked, feeling my head sway.

“A place with men like Adam. I escaped, and then you took me right back into his jaws” she replied, though her words were not heavy with malice or rage, more so grief. I felt my throat start to dry up. “You weren’t trying to find us, you were trying to get away” I practically whispered. She nodded.

“I have no problem telling you this. I will never stop trying to escape until I escape for good, and no man like Adam will ever see me or touch me ever again, no matter how many attempts it takes, if you want to fall into their hands, do it, let them strip you of your dignity and joy and everything that makes you human, but I will never stop trying to get away”

​6

I felt like a shell of myself that morning, as if I’d been gutted, scooped out, and the person praying and reading scripture and foraging apricots and plums was a construct made of sticks and feathers, in the shape of Holly. I was deep in the thick of the blur. My panic had skyrocketed to such a place where it had evaporated into eerily calm placidity, as if my own mind had sedated me. I still felt like a prisoner behind the bars of my false sense of tranquility. The anxiety was alive and burning like a small fire, it was now simply muffled, shoved behind the thickets. Yet I could smell the smoke thick in my nostrils. I was a hare facing the jaws of a fox with my paws planted into the earth, without a semblance to run, its breath hot on my fur.

Priscilla seemed to be operating differently to myself. I felt like my limbs were moving through water, a great effort to heave them around. She on the other hand was working quickly and nimbly, dashing around and hovering like a hummingbird, twitching and pacing. She didn’t still or slow all morning, her eyes shifting and flitting around the Union. Adam hadn’t noticed the fear creeping through her flighty movements, but I did. The terror lay flat against the lining of my stomach, the roof of my mouth, it was consuming me.

I had tried to reason with myself, as my fingers dug into the core of the plum in my palm. What other choice did I have? What could I do? I could bear the pain, grit my teeth and stare into the dark mass of the ceiling and pretend to be somewhere else. I could think of the warmth of my mother, and the sweetness of honey on my tongue, and the indigo dappling of stars, but I knew it would not save me. I had endured with Adam, why couldn’t I endure this idea? The juice of the fruit began to run down my wrists, cold and sticky. I had loved Adam, I saw God in Adam, I let him kiss against my uterus with all the wrath and muddied hatred I expected of a being that inspired such dread.

I had ruined my plum. I fed on the mutilated fruit and spat the stone into the earth. Adam’s men would ruin me, I knew so, if I were not already ruined. I swallowed, and wished, selfishly perhaps, that I was not young. I yearned to be wrinkled, with hair so brilliantly silver I shone in the light like a wintery beacon, for me to be frail, my fragile bones creaking and groaning as I walked. I wished for my fertility to shrivel, my labia shrunken, and my vagina bone dry and unwelcoming, barren of anything desirable. Maybe if I were so fortunate, I would not be in this predicament.

Throughout my petrification, I still loved Adam. I stared foggily into the trees, trying to force my eyes to identify more fruit. Everything appeared to be a hazy blend of browns and greens to me. Sweat gathered under the pits of my knees. I wished Adam loved me gently. I still hoped that he was my father. I knew it would make me feel special, superior in some way to everyone else. I knew I was rotten, right to the core. I knew that Adam lay with the rest of the women in the Union, not in any specific rotation or by any design. I thought that he had placed that honour among us and us only, that we had meant something to him. He shared himself with others, now I came to realise. His lust was not spent exclusively among the Union, and I desperately searched myself for the root of my feelings of betrayal.

Tabitha was looking at me with gentler eyes today. It unsettled me, when otherwise I would have been glad. She looked at me as if I was going to die, and she knew. She had even helped me pluck a few apricots. They had laid just inches from my face, but had become a dusty orange hue, far removed from anything physical and true before my fingers. I wanted her to somehow put a stop to my fate, appoint herself a great power and rescue me, whisk me away. No one was coming to rescue me. Adam, my protector, would not protect me, he would press me into the mouth of suffering and let me dangle in their throats.

“Have you told your mother yet?” Tabitha broke my swirling thoughts. I jumped a little, startled, and turned to her.

“Told her what?” I asked. She looked at me patiently.

“What’s going to happen to you”

She said it in such a definitive, inescapable way. She was right of course. If I did nothing, it was going to happen to me.

“Nothing would come of it. My mother-“ I cut myself off. I felt myself begin to express her potential jealousy. It felt incorrect, dirty, to accuse my mother of envy, I felt it stripped her naked in front of those with no right to see. “I don’t know what she would do” I finished.

“Could she not speak to Adam” she almost chuckled at the end of her sentence. “I suppose she couldn’t, could she”

I shook my head, melancholy creeping around my chest. What could she do? The Union was in no part democratic. She’d fall on deaf ears. My eyes blinked in surprise as I noticed Tabitha begin to wriggle out of my fox pelt, exposing her skin against the sunshine. My mouth fell open and I swiftly craned my neck away.

“Tabby, not in front of me!” I exclaimed. Tabitha, out of sight, sniffed indignantly.

“I am not Union, I can feel the air on my body without shame or punishment” she shrugged. I let my eyes rest on her outline.

“Besides, you’re a woman, not a lustful man. You won’t sin by looking at me” she sighed in relief as the gentle wind kissed her peach fuzz. I felt heat rise in my chest and face, sweat threatening to drip down the sides of my jaw. I tried to convince myself, as she sat naked by my side, that I was admiring her in a way no different to a blooming flower or the blood red gleam of the sunset.

Her pale body was lithe and slender. I hadn’t noticed it the night I’d tracked her down through the trees, but the freckles that dusted her face sat too on her thin shoulders and along her collar bones, her thighs, and her little knees. Violet stretch marks decorated her breasts, like strips of sunrise filtering through the trees. The same marks zigzagged across her stomach, and at her womb sat the deep and jagged scar, mulberry red and puffy. I couldn’t help but stare, despite my shame thickly crowding the air. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

She noticed my eyes resting on her lower stomach, and I felt warm with embarrassment. She brushed her fingers along her arm and let them trial down to her scar, stroking along the healed wound.

“What happened to you?” I asked tentatively, the plums forgotten.

“They cut my son out of me”

Her words made my eyes widen, sparks of surprise fizzed in my head. I couldn’t believe it, she was my age, she was so small and fragile, the idea of her body straining to carry a child seemed unimaginable to me, the idea of her flesh tearing, ripping from the skin to the womb to extract something alive and fighting for breath. I couldn’t find the words for a few moments, this didn’t seem to unnerve Tabitha, I suspected she expected such a reaction, maybe she even enjoyed catching me off guard.

“You have a child?” I asked in wonder. She nodded.

“Except I will not see him again” she admitted, her voice raw. I saw her eyes glitter, and I stopped looking at her scar and her nakedness.

“Is he in heaven?” I whispered carefully. Tabitha shook her head.

“No such place. My captors have him, still. I left him, and he needs his mother” her voice cracked a little, and she stared down at the grass, avoiding my face. I imagined being separated from my mother, and felt my heart cramp and constrict in my chest.

“Do you miss him terribly?” I extended my hand to her once again, and this time she let her fingers dance over mine for a second, before taking it. Her round brown eyes watered, and she looked at me, resolved of hiding her true upset.

“I do. I can’t imagine what kind of life he is living”

I ached a little, as if her pain was growing from her body and stretching around mine.

“What’s his name?” I asked carefully, I was ready for her to snap at me for intruding so much on something so tender. She remained gentle, however.

“Adler”

A certain warmth passed over her as she spoke his name, fondness emanating from her mouth.

“Who is his father?” I asked my final question, not daring to test my luck any further. The warmth drained from her face, and she fixed me with a stony look.

“Adam, is the father”

My head swam that evening, as Adam led us in prayer. Tabitha sat on one side of me, now permitted to, and Priscilla on the other. The dread that lay between the three of us was palpable and electric, I thought it must surely be visible, zapping between our heads like terrible lightning. Still in the belly of the blur, Adam’s words all began to lie on top of one another, push past each other in a sentence, rearrange themselves until they were gibberish. I couldn’t focus, couldn’t make out a single point, he began to become merely tonal, as if speaking in a language I entirely did not comprehend.

His eyes lingered on the three of us as he finished, and horror clogged my arteries, snuffed out by the heavy dissociative smog I found myself in. He looked as though he was going to eat us, skin us and cook our meat till we sizzled. I had never seen a hunger like it, and my self-sedated state of mind did not allow a sense of needing to run, to crawl on my stomach away from his gaze, but to sit ever so still in the hopes he simply would see through me, into the trees. But he could see me, and soon, he was coming for me.

Mother greeted me after prayer, her bony hand on my shoulder. Her bright green eyes brimmed with emotion, I couldn’t detect which ones.

“Holly, Adam has told me that you and Priscilla are joining Tamar to take trips outside the Union” she smiled. Now I recognised pride on her face. I felt heavy with guilt, both for assuming she would be envious, and for my own overwhelming apprehension. I nodded weakly. I supposed if she were to do anything, as Tabitha advised, now I’d know.

“Did he tell you, what we’d be doing?” I asked hopefully. I wanted her to pull me against her body and cradle me like a child, I wanted her to protect me. All she thought she’d done her whole life was protect me. I was an awful child.

“That is between the three of you, and God” she answered warmly, gently stroking my cheek. “Adam wanted to see you in his tent, Mäuschen, I think something to do with it all”

I considered telling her, spilling the truth to her in that moment. I had a creeping fear that the love on her face would dash and be replaced with furious disbelief. To speak ill of Adam would be blasphemy, and I didn’t know if her love for me extended beyond the realms of sin. I didn’t want her to imagine her daughter alight with amber hell-flame. So I blearily stumbled to Adam’s tent, my mind elsewhere. I felt as if I was walking to my own execution, practically being able to see my own pale head on the chopping block. I knew Tabitha’s eyes were burning into my back.

Adam was waiting for me with a glass of water sitting on the floor of his tent. He sat cross legged and looked from me to the water expectantly. I swallowed it, and sat facing him in silence. Adam had abilities gifted to him from God, or perhaps he harnessed God’s own, they seemed to run within the same body. God formed him out of dust and clay, and created women from his fleshy rib. I had privately doubted that Adam was the very first Adam, the very first man on earth. I had thought he must be terribly old if so, though I didn’t dare transcribe these thoughts into words recognisable. I let them float around my skull as conceptual doubts and terror.

Some of these powers God and Adam shared, was to creep right into the honey of our brains, drink from the sugar of our thoughts, and swirl them around with his finger, until the world warped and we met God himself. I had a feeling this was going to happen to me after I drank the glass of water. I wasn’t sure why Adam was exercising this terrible and magical ability now, to me. But I faced him until it began to come to fruition.

He had done this to everybody, so Mother recounted, during the initiation. I of course, didn’t remember a thing, other than potent fear. But Mother spoke of meeting God, that he was not a man but a storm, with the most haunting flashes of burning light for eyes, and the darkest mass of clouds for a gaping mouth, rain thrashing against her skin. She told me the trees around her shot into the sky and twisted into Gods fingers, and his voice boomed like the splitting of a glacier. The rain had smelled like Adam’s sweat, she’d said.

The first time I met God, he was a fire, lapping and spitting ash and sparkling embers at my feet. He split trees in half with a terrible crack, and the sky had blackened with the weight of the smoke. He had lit my skin, it burned and boiled and little suns shone from my wounds and scalded skin, blinding me as they fought to reach through the smog and into the blue of the sky above. God, smouldering and hot, had crept up my body, till my hair was smoking and fried, and had crept inside my mouth, down my throat. Beth had told me she found me screaming till my throat was raw, my body half submerged in the centre of the lake. Blood was smeared across my face, and stuck under my nails, browning and iron strong. I still didn’t know how it had gotten there.

The tent I sat in now began to sway back and forth until I saw the top snap open entirely, as if in the throes of a hurricane. The whipping winds carried me up into the air, and suddenly I was racing through the darkened forest, the wind threatening to pluck the trees from their roots and discard them into the sky. I found myself chasing after Tabitha once again, except this time my limbs tripped over themselves, scrambling haphazardly. I stumbled, running half upright and half on my hands and knees. My breath was ragged and stuck in my throat as I tried to gasp and heave. I kept almost catching her, my hands brushing against the backs of her heels, scraping her ashy hair just for a moment, strands coming away in my nails.

“Tabby!” I cried out for her, my voice brittle and hoarse. “Tabby stop!” my voice was barely audible above the roaring wind, and I was startled when she turned around, her eyes wild and huge. Except now, she held a baby in her arms, a small and screaming and frail child, screaming out. The baby had a gash, a huge wound, right at the base of his tiny stomach, just as Tabitha did. The blood ran bright red down both of their legs and trickled onto their feet. My mouth stretched open in alarm, and I jumped towards them, when they disappeared, and all that was left was a gaping black circle. I climbed through it, the wind whipping my hair into my face and against my lips, and tumbled through the empty darkness, until I sat straight up inside the Sanctuary, Tabitha at my side, childless and unbled.

​7

“I was worried about you last night” Tabitha admitted to me. “You were stumbling around screeching out to me, it was as if you couldn’t see me. What was wrong with you?”

The morning brought with it a pounding against my temples, and daisy yellow light that made Tabitha’s hair glow milky white. She sat beside me, sharing tough rabbit meat that stuck in my teeth. My disorientation hadn’t entirely ceased, and I blinked hard every so often in an effort to summon a certainty and stability within my mind. I didn’t know how I could make Tabitha understand.

“Sometimes Adam can induce visions in us” I replied uncomfortably. Tabitha leaned against my side, and despite the fear that still lingered in my stomach, I was grateful for her warm touch.

“How?” she furrowed her eyebrows.

“I don’t know” I answered truthfully. “I think he puts a kind of magic, a sort of spell on our food or water. You know, the same way he can make us sleep that way”

Tabitha looked at me dubiously.

“What was your vision, then?”

I felt my stomach turn. I didn’t want to upset her by recounting the image of her blood drenched son tight in her arms. Her eyes were earnest, though, and I felt implored to be honest with her.

“I normally see God, in some kind of form, I know it’s him. But I didn’t see God, I saw you” I found the words tumbling from my mouth. Tabitha blinked in surprise, narrowing her honey brown eyes.

“I was chasing you, but it didn’t feel as if you were running from me, it felt like we were both running from the same storm, and I kept almost reaching you, until you turned, and your son was in your arms” I admitted. Tabitha’s eyes glazed, and her body softened against mine.

“What do you think it means?” she asked flatly.

I swallowed the last of the hard meaty flesh and let my hand gently crawl around her arm.

“I think God showed you to me for a reason, your son, for a reason” I whispered, my brain whirling. I leaned into her, my voice as hushed as I could create.

“We need to leave, we need to get your son back”

I felt the fire of urgency light under my feet as I searched for Priscilla. I knew I had to take her with me. The fog of the blur was beginning to unravel at the edges, making way for precision and a degree of awareness. I was grateful for it. I knew if Adam were to take me, the blur would be his ally, and keep me docile. I also knew my rush to find Priscilla would trigger questions I couldn’t answer. I had to relax my tone. I first asked Martha, who said she wasn’t sure, then Susana who echoed the former, and finally Tamar, who told me she was mending traps with Lydia around the edge of the Unions land. Tamars eyes were heavy with dread. I was relieved I didn’t have to turn to Adam, who would surely know something was awry.

I grabbed Tabitha and pulled her into the trees before Adam could notice we had not been given orders yet, and began to walk through the thickets. I stumbled like a fawn over roots and rocks, while Tabitha moved with calm ease. I supposed nerves had still shot my body, she was walking on hope. Priscilla noticed us, whipping her neck around in surprise. She had been moving shiftily, dragging the corpse of a boar. Blood coated her fingertips, a little smeared across her chin and down to her neck.

She looked back, I assumed to assess how far away Lydia was. She was nowhere to be seen, she was afford a few moments at least. She left the carcass in the grass and hurriedly joined us.

“Are you ok?” she whispered, her eyes bloodshot and wild. I swallowed, scarcely able to believe what I was about to tell her. I glanced at Tabitha, and then back to Priscilla.

“We’re leaving, tonight” the moment the words left my mouth I felt the ticking of a clock against the back of my neck, the scorch of Adam’s eyes in my skin, the blackness of capture, and Tabitha’s son, Adler, baked in blood, flashed in my vision for a second. Priscilla inhaled sharply, her mouth falling open. I couldn’t find a spark of hope on her lovely face, only grief.

“You’re leaving your mother?” she asked in quiet disbelief. Her face contorted a little in pain.

“You’re leaving me?” her voice broke. I shook my head firmly.

“Of course not, you’re coming with us, come with us, Priscilla” I urged her, staring imploringly into her clover and gold eyes. She took my hand, and then Tabitha’s.

“Ok” she breathed. She looked defeated, beaten down, and I felt sick with grief at the relief I felt at her agreement. I squeezed her shoulder.

“It’s going to be ok, I’ll keep you safe, I promise” I insisted, my voice low. Priscilla pressed her forehead against mine for a moment, before pulling away and swallowing as she heard Lydia’s voice calling for her.

“Meet us tonight outside the Sanctuary” I murmured. She nodded, her eyes wet and pained, and knelt down to her bloody boar. I kept myself and Tabitha busy throughout the afternoon and evening, we returned to the Union with armfuls of pine nuts and stinging nettles. We skinned rabbits and repaired holes in the tents and huts and swept the floors. We took clothes to the water and scrubbed at the dirt and mud, we prayed, and my fingers brushed against hers, our knees touched. I hoped our small points of contact were enough to remind her that I was sorry, and that I was going to right what I had done. I kept my eyes open for Priscilla, who flashed me looks of misty trepidation.

As we worked, I was stiff and stoney, ready for Adam to silently stalk me, slip my knife from my hand and slice through the nape of my neck, for him to explode from the still waters surface and take me down with him into the depths. I hoped his mind was occupied enough to avoid detecting my betrayal. I found it almost impossible to comprehend, as my sin was as physical and real as Tabitha was beside me, pulsating and red and screaming against my skull. My own grief threatened to choke me, as I thought about my mother. I would see her again, I tried to tell myself. I wished I was certain. I loved her. I thought she loved Adam more.

I didn’t dare tell her I was leaving. Instead I simply made sure her tent was clean. I wished I was able to hide a little food inside it, but if Adam discovered it before she did, I’d be condemning her to punishment. I tried to catch her eye as she worked, and she smiled at me. I smiled back weakly, I could see the love in her eyes for me, lapping in warm waves. I wondered if I was really set on Gods path, or if I were simply fleeing my own fate. Selfishly, I wasn’t sure if I cared, if it were both. I had to save myself. If the way Adam loved me lived in his crotch, maybe I didn’t deserve his love. Nevertheless, I was going to make it right with God. My cowardice would be forgiven. I hoped the idea of fleeing would feel easy, as if I was falling back into a soft body of grass, my spine deflated, but fear only choked me still, held me by the wrists firm, tickled the bruises on my throat.

Tabitha and I spoke in knowing looks, I imagined she too was fired up with adrenaline and paralytic fear. Though, she was braver than I was, I thought. I wanted her to hold me in the round brown pulp of her owl eyes, and I let the electricity between our fingers touch at any chance I could. I needed her. Our bodies pressed against one another’s when Adam approached us. I felt sick, my throat closing up, readying myself for him to strike me, but he simply told me to meet him, Tamar, and Priscilla at sunrise tomorrow. I swallowed and nodded, and felt my heartbeat spasm as he walked away. It was now or never.

As night cast a blanket of blackness over the Union, I was silent in the Sanctuary. Tabitha and I scarcely dared to breathe. I was monitoring, listening out for the pattern of everyone’s footsteps, like a bat pressed flush against the wall of a cave, clicking into the indigo. I hoped I accurately understood the distance between our huts and tents down beside the dirt walls, I focused the hardest on Adam’s footsteps, they were the most distinct. I jumped in alarm when footsteps sounded directly outside the Sanctuary. Tabitha looked at me in apprehension, and I held the breath in my lungs. We deflated in relief when we heard Priscilla’s voice. She was here for us.

“Holly, Tabitha?” she whispered softly. I reached for Tabitha’s arm, and allowed her to grip onto me as I hauled us up the wall, my hands pricking on the brambles as I lifted the roof. My breath was shallow and rasping as I tried to move as quietly as possible. My body was demanding a slowness to avoid detection at any cost, and my brain was screaming at me to flee, flail and hurtle myself into the trees like a hare fleeing a fox. My hands were beginning to numb as panic started to invade my bloodstream. The three of our heads snapped around as we heard Adam’s voice. He was moving. I saw his water blue silhouette through his tent. He was calling out for Tabitha.

Tabitha’s eyes widened, and she looked to me with the trepidation of a criminal to an executioner. The colour drained from Priscilla’s face.

“It’s ok” I grasped onto the words. I couldn’t let the blur take my hand, they needed me. “I’ll protect you”

I took both of their hands.

“Run” I hissed. We sprinted through the Union, and immediately I was aware of Adam behind us. My horror drove me to throw my feet against the ground, my heels slamming into the earth and kicking against the grass like a boar's hooves. The world moved around me in bright shards, and I gripped onto Tabitha and Priscilla’s hands with an intensity I knew would drive my knuckles to glow snowy white. We made it into the trees, and I felt my eyes sting with tears. I wanted my mother. I blinked the water away in panic. Adam was drawing in closer. He was going to kill us.

I allowed a scream to erupt from my lungs. It cascaded up into the open twilight, bouncing off the treetops. On the edge of my peripheral vision, I knew Adam flinched, surprised. On either side of me, twin screams freed themselves from Tabitha and Priscilla’s mouths, as if I had given them permission to do so, and we screeched as we fled, like wild banshees hunting in the sky, I let the primality burn through my body. I thought we might make it out untouched, until Adam barrelled into Priscilla.

The four of us crashed to the shadowed dirt floor, and they wrestled, Priscilla biting and scratching at his skin like a dog. I allowed all sense of myself to shed my body for a moment, and attempted to see Adam as none other than a threat. I did not want to hurt him, still. I allowed the darkness to aid me as I threw myself at him. Tabitha followed, and we became a tangled mass. Adam was stronger than the three of our strengths combined. We were thin and underfed, and he was beginning to overpower us. He did not lose grasp of Priscilla.

“Holly!” she yelped. Adam had wrapped his hands around her throat. Nausea washed over me for a moment as I realised I was completely powerless.

“I’ve got you!” I yelled back to her. I had to help. I fumbled for my knife, and without thinking for even a moment, I drove my blade into Adam’s right eye. He screamed, blood beginning to pour from his socket. I pulled my blade from his skull. His grip loosened around Priscilla’s neck, and for a moment I thought I might be able to pull her away from him and take her to safety. Adam’s knife was in his pocket, and now it sat in Priscilla’s throat. She spluttered, blood speckling and then gurgling from her parted lips. Her face was white, and the two fell apart onto the ground. She started to seize, and I broke away to her, attempting to take her into my arms and lift her away. Tabitha was at my side, trying to help. Adam reeled in pain a few feet from us, howling as waves of agony overtook his body.

“Stop” Priscilla spluttered, her voice barely audible. Blood had soaked her clothes, sticky and thick. Adam’s blade was poking through the other end of her neck. She was almost decapitated. I felt vomit rise in the back of my throat, it fell from my mouth and onto the earth, the hot acidic taste washing over my teeth. I felt I needed to keep her together, to hold her in place, but there was absolutely nowhere I could touch her without threatening to injure her further.

“I don’t know what to do” I whispered, tears once again prickling at the corners of my eyes. My throat was dry and prickly. “Priscilla” my voice broke, and I tentatively let my shaking and scarlet hand rest on her chest. Her heart was palpitating, erratic and ferociously weak. She was gurgling on blood, her teeth now stained pink. Her gums were turning bone white. She was trying to talk.

“Go” she choked out. I shook my head.

“Not without you” I hissed. I knew I was being ridiculous. She was dying.

“Let this count”

I cupped my palm against her face delicately and pressed my forehead against hers as her eyes began to still.

“I love you” I whispered in her lifeless ear. Urgency soared in my chest. I grabbed Tabitha’s hand, who had been standing frozen in horror. Before I bolted, I looked for a moment at Adam squirming on the ground. Pathetic and wormlike, I drove my foot hard into his stomach, and screamed as I did, tears and vomit and saliva and droplets of blood shaking from my body. I turned to take in Priscilla’s face one last time, and disappeared into the darkness.

​8

We had run until my lungs began to scream, my vision fading in and out of focus. Every time I felt mucus rise in my throat and my saliva grow thick and sticky with exhaustion I let the swelling terror fill my head, the idea of Adam, one eyed and staggering and blind with rage an inch behind me, wielding his knife, ready to slice into my own flesh. Air slammed into my eyes as I fled, and every moment I blinked, I saw Priscilla’s head sat wobbling on her spine, gurgling and gushing. I knew I believed somehow, that if I kept running I would cross some kind of a threshold, and I would see Priscilla, alive and full bodied, waiting for me.

I could not comprehend that she was gone. This didn’t necessarily surprise me, she had been lifeless for mere hours, yet I had witnessed it, I had felt her skin cool as her blood depleted and reddened the grass. I had heard the squelch of blood-thick muscle tear, the rip of her skin as it swallowed the blade. Adam’s pained spasming had become meaningless and dull in the moment Priscilla died. I barely registered him as a threat, for a few moments anyway. I knew I did register him, however, as somebody I loved. I wasn’t sure if that was a testament to my love for him being planted deeper within my body than my anger, nestled against the tubes and valves of my heart, or a reflection of my heartless character.

As I felt sweat trickle down my forehead, my chest expanding and folding inwards, I heard the squelch of Adam’s eye, pierced by my blade. I felt the swell of agony he must have endured by my hand. My sin had culminated in that awful act, I knew it, malice had licked at my arms and settled on my knuckles. I told myself in that moment that Priscilla was worth any means necessary to protect. Now that blood crusted on my fingers, I knew that I could have done anything else to reach my end, I could have pulled her away to safety, yet I had felt this overwhelmingly primal desire to not only stop Adam, but to inflict upon him.

Adam had told me, while he connected his fist to my pubescent face, that he was beating the sin from my body, that he was unhooking the devil's fingers from my bony shoulders. I reflected that he hadn’t beaten me hard enough, not viciously, no exercised brutality, as it festered in me, and apart from the Union, wickedness would only grow and stretch over my body like fuzzy mould.

Tabitha and I knelt by the curve of a stream. Dawn light was filtering through the leafy canopy, the air cool and still, as if the earth hadn’t retained that I’d sullied it. I rubbed my wrists, watching the chestnut blood flow into the water. I cupped my hands and brought droplets to my face, the cold making me sharply inhale. Tabitha bent down to lap directly from the stream, and after a few moments I copied her. I hoped that at least while we were not stained by blood, we appeared to be a little less animal. I felt vomit begin to rise again in my throat as I cleaned my blade. I couldn’t stop seeing Adam’s murky blue eyeball popped on the end, dislocated from his body, bloody, with a tangle of tendons sprouting from it. I vomited again into the grass, heaving and gagging. Tabitha cautiously let her hand drift over my spine in a semblance of comfort, and though I couldn’t express it, I was grateful for her touch. I cleaned my face a second time, the taste of bile and acid overwhelming my tongue.

“We should keep moving” I gasped shakily, my body suddenly cold with sweat. Goosebumps spread over my forearms. Tabitha shook her head gently.

“We need to rest a moment” she insisted. She touched my chest, and I tensed, though her hand rested over my heart. She raised her eyebrows, as if to say see. My heart was thudding against my ribs as if it were trying to beat its way out into the air. I had no energy to argue with her, and drank slowly to avoid vomiting a third time. Tabitha stared into the trees as I drank, and then I did the same as she continued.

“What if Adam catches up with us?” I whispered with a softness that insisted he was meters from us, shielded by the bushes.

“Adam will be bandaging his eye” she smiled. It was the first time I’d seen her smile. It changed her entire face. Her features became more rounded, her eyes brighter. I thought I might be able to appreciate her beauty no matter the circumstance, I didn’t think I had to a choice but to.

“Why are you smiling?” I asked dizzily.

“I’ve always wanted to stab that festering wound” she replied. “My only regret is that you didn’t finish the job”

“You want him to die?” I asked in surprise. I couldn’t imagine wanting to wipe someone off the face of the planet. I could not undermine Gods hand. Tabitha wrinkled her eyebrows.

“Of course I do” she replied simply. “Don’t you, after what he did to you?”

“He loved me” I murmured, guilt blossoming in my gut. I wondered if his chest ached as he pursued me, if betrayal stung at his throat. I thought about my mother. The idea of her wondering why I had left her was almost too much to bear. I would be back for her. I hoped I would be back for her. Tabitha looked into my eyes gently.

“I have never loved anyone in such a way”

She looked down to my knife and opened her palm expectantly. I passed it to her numbly, and she took her hair in a clump, and began to cut at it. I gasped, raising my hand in attempt to stop her.

“Tabby, what are you doing?” I thought the horror of what she witnessed might be influencing her foggy decision making. She however, looked extremely sure of herself as she hacked.

“I might never get another chance” she replied certainly. I watched her in awe for a few moments before taking the knife from her.

“Let me, you’ll cut yourself” I knew my hands were shaking, but I felt this absolutely overpowering desire to take control of the knife as it neared the back of her neck, certain that a slip of the hand somehow would have the blade cutting through her neck to her throat with the ease of butter. Her bent neck looked like Priscilla’s for a moment. I clutched the knife hard.

I had never seen a woman with boy-short hair before, I realised as her pale hair fell in tufts on her shoulders. I couldn’t understand why she’d want to rid herself of something so beautiful. I supposed I couldn’t understand why she’d want to take a life. Her hair was uneven and a little jagged, but it was cut, curling a little around her ears. Her eyes appeared even larger now, somehow, she looked entirely herself. She ran her hands over her scalp and almost laughed in relief, squeezing her eyes shut and sighing.

I was relieved when we walked onwards. Tabitha threw her clumps of hair in the stream to be carried away with the tiny current. We were far beyond Union land, and the ease at which I moved through the trials of the woods was rapidly diminishing, finding myself stumble and wobble on unfamiliar roots and brush against nettles I didn’t catch a glimpse of. It didn’t help that my body would not stop shivering, no matter the air warming as the sun climbed higher in the sky. I hugged my pelt against my body, trying to squeeze a semblance of warmth from the short boar hairs. My teeth chattered as I walked. I wished Priscilla were here.

My stomach cramped, and we stopped to scavenge for peaches and blackberries. I thought wistfully of Union traps, even skinny and unpleasant tasting rabbits made for hot food, and a single boar could last weeks. We took shelter from the rays of sunshine under an oak tree. I piled my fruits pips and stones beside my thigh. Tabitha spit hers into the grass. She had the delicate beauty of starlight passing through a butterflies wing, with her jagged hair and all. Maybe she thought the degree to which I had removed myself from the reality of Priscilla’s slaughter made me terribly cowardly. She seemed to be ridiculously resilient.

“Do you know the way back to where you fled?” I thought to ask. She nodded.

“I have a good idea. Are you helping me because I am a person, or are you running from your fate?”

I felt myself sway a little. Did she mistrust me? Why shouldn’t she? She was, after all, finally alone with the very girl who had captured her, without the strength of the Union behind her. She might well overpower me in my current state. I wasn’t sure if I would fight back.

“Both” I decided, watching carefully for her reaction. I knew if I reached for the handle of my knife, I could very well trigger a response that was never supposed to be happen in the first place. I tried to relax my body against hers. She watched me, in return.

“I’m sorry, that I took you” I mumbled, not making eye contact with her. “I didn’t understand”

She smiled for a second time.

“It’s ok” she took my hand, finishing her last peach and tossing the stone into the leaves with her other. “He got what he deserved, didn’t he?”

I felt heavy stone sit in the lining of my stomach. I didn’t think he did deserve it. I could not summon the anger to hate him, but I could to blind him. What must that say about me? I squinted into the grass as I thought. Boar tracks were pressed into the earth, layered over the top of eachother again and again.

“There’s been a stampede, recently” I murmured, semi absentmindedly.

“Of what?” Tabitha asked, a little concern sat in her voice.

“Boar” I replied. She looked uneasy. I furrowed my eyebrows.

“It’s alright, they were probably just startled by something” I let my hand rest on top of hers.

“Or someone” she replied stiffly. The forest all of a sudden seemed eerily other worldly to the Unions land, no longer a sanctuary. The trees that had once shielded and protected me allowed for Adam to stalk my footsteps, sniff out my beating heart and the thick pulp of my fear. I wondered if he was watching us now, and if his eye had fallen from its socket, and what fleshy crater it left in his skull. Maybe he would blind me in turn. Maybe I’d get what I deserved.

Tabitha’s head turned sharply, and I squinted to try and detect what had caught her attention. Then I realised she’d been listening, and I caught the thudding of hooves, and barks and squeals filled the air.

“They’re back” I shot to my feet. Tabitha sprung up in alarm beside me, and we stood frozen for a moment. I swallowed as the grunting and growls edged closer. The sound surrounded us, and I wasn’t sure which way to flee, afraid I’d run right under their heavy hooves, or right into Adam’s blade. I imagined my blood mixing with Priscilla’s on the silver. I wanted to vomit again.

“Come!” Tabitha hissed, taking a firm hold of my arm and dragging me away. I felt my legs didn’t have the integrity to hold up my organs as I bolted, afraid they’d give way to my fear and allow my body to collapse. She lead us onwards, and I followed almost blindly, my exhausted lungs burning. The boar had caught up to us, and their huge thick hides shouldered ours, their black eyes wide with terror as they fled. They crashed into one another clumsily, their hooves crushing the others, and their tusks piercing their hides.

They moved in a writhing mass, and while they seemed completely indifferent to myself and Tabitha, I yelped as Tabitha gave up outrunning them and instead plastered us to the back of a thick cedar trunk. I shrank against her side, tensed and ready to spring away from the milky white tusks or heavy body of a disoriented beast.

I twisted my head around in horror as the body of our tree gave way, splitting apart in wake of a huge muddy brown boar, who slammed into Tabitha’s side. The force sent me crashing into the ground, and I felt the air escape my lungs and refuse to reenter my stunned body. Dizziness overtook my gaze for a moment, until I saw Tabitha curled beside me in the earth. My hand instinctively slipped to my knife, and I shielded her body with my own, cold sweat creeping down my forehead. The boar regained its balance and continued to charge into the trees, paying no second glance to us. Terrified we would be trampled, I kept myself firm over Tabitha’s body, my knife raised and glinting in the sunlight. I cringed in revulsion at the imagined sensation of one of the animals, panic-blind, impaling themselves upon an extension of my body.

Underneath me, Tabitha groaned. The boars tusks had pierced her forearm, leaving a deep cherry red wound sitting in her flesh. Blood trickled down to her wrist, and she gritted her teeth, grabbing onto my shoulder to steady herself as we slowly wobbled to our feet once again. Adrenaline fizzed in my gut, my chest heaving as my eyes rested on the flattened grass and churned earth. The boar had passed, but the swell of unease churned in my stomach still, and the squeals and grunts were soon replaced by low growls and huffs. I swallowed, my eyes widening.

“It’s not Adam, it’s wolves” I shuddered in realisation. I heard the air drain from Tabitha’s lungs in dismay. She now stood pressed upon my side, her blood smudging on my skin as she shivered. I could feel every one of her goosebumps, her eyes huge and round in unmistakable dread. Wolves rarely visited the Union, while the waft of cooked meat enticed them on occasion to stalk between our tents, they were terrified of our fires. I would see the little amber slits of their eyes, hungry and swallowed in shadows, and I would not fear them.

I feared them now. I wished I could produce hot white flames from my palms. I could hear the wolves ragged breathing as they closed in. Panic began to creep inside my body, I couldn’t tell how many of the grey creatures were on the hunt, but more than I felt confident I could defend Tabitha from.

“Tabby, up the tree!” I ordered, flicking my eyes to the tree beside our broken cedar. She would have to use the strength of her arms and shoulders to swing her body up onto the lowest branch, to reach the tangle up above. She realised this as soon as I did, and her eyes flashed from her wound to the branch. She was a little shorter than I was, and thinner, she wouldn’t make it in time. I knelt, and she clambered unsteadily onto my back, reaching for the branch. The moment a scream escaped her mouth, I knew the wolves had emerged from the undergrowth. I craned my neck backwards to stare.

Rows of the silver animals stared back, their lips curled back in snarls. Clumps of fur were ripped from a few of their pelts, brown thick hide in between their claws. Their huge paws sat heavy in the trampled earth, and their pale gums were stained crimson, their cloudy teeth reddened. I hoped my blade matched their fangs, and as I bore Tabitha’s weight, I prayed I wouldn’t have to use it.

“I’ve got you! Move!” I called out to her. I hoped the shrill primality in my voice would give the dogs the impression I was not easy prey. They were sizing me up, creeping closer. I barked at them, exposing my own teeth as Tabitha scrambled up into the branches of the tree. My throat felt raw and prickly. I felt the tug of the blur at the edge of my vision. I was blearily aware of Tabitha calling my name, her tone increasingly urgent, her voice was stretched and hoarse. I knew that my panic was alive and hot and gurgling in my blood, as a scrawny wolf neared me, his teeth inches from my wrist, yet I could not access it exactly. It sat in this realm just above my body, I could not grasp it. Numbness crept into my heart, slowing the throb of my adrenaline.

Priscilla’s face seemed to appear to me between the fangs of those teeth, as a hazy image, I could see her decapitated head, blood trickling down the wolf's chin and into its thick chest fur. I could feel the wolf's breath, hot on my skin, for only a moment, as its body, moments later, slammed into the earth. Shocked back into reality for a moment, I realised Tabitha had sprung back down, barrelling herself directly into the animal, and bringing her blade down against its flank. It howled in alarm, and sprung away from her, leaping past the rest of the pack and into the undergrowth. The following wolves whined and grunted, following suit.

Tabitha caught her breath, splayed on the ground, her chest heaving. I gazed at her in amazement.

“You’re crazy” I whispered, my own chest pounding. Tabitha nodded as she panted.

“I am” she agreed shakily, a hint of amusement in her voice. I rested my head on hers for a moment, surprised she hadn’t at least scolded the lack of sense in my rabbit like freezing. Her choppy hair tickled my neck.

“I’m just relieved it wasn’t Adam” she added. I nodded in agreement, and felt the familiar sickening swell of guilt, that I would rather encounter the ripping of the sharp canines teeth than the scent of the man who could be my father.

​9

As I curled around Tabitha’s body to sleep that night, I could engage in the illusion that I was simply on temporary banishment due to menstruation. No blood pooled on my thighs, and I stared right ahead into the black pubic tangle of trees, imagining I would crawl through the thickets and return to my mother, and Priscilla. I wondered what had become of her body, and felt nausea pollute my own. I was grateful for Tabitha’s warmth, though her hip bones prodded me. My hand wrapped around her own, and I couldn’t help but feel that I had manufactured her affection in the act of abducting her, only to free her, that her fingers between mine were a product of false and misplaced gratitude.

That didn’t stop me looking at her, under the spotted starlight, she looked as though she had been snatched from a fairy ring, maybe taking her had involved me stretching my arms through an unsuspecting circle of fungi, and insisting upon her magic gracing my world instead. I was overwhelmingly selfish, to keep her, I thought as I gently touched the nape of her neck, where her fair hair cut off. She might notlet me if she were awake, I knew, but I couldn’t help myself. Her hair was jagged and choppy and perfect, and I let my head settle where my hand had been. The gentle rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed lulled me softly, despite the stiffness in my chest, and the crushing worry that the wolves would return, or I’d awake to Adam, one eyed and mutilated and furious.

If he were to find me, I hoped he’d only kill me. As the smothering blackness of sleep took over, I dreamt of Priscilla, whole and flushed with life. She stepped towards me, to hold me close, and as I wrapped my arms around her, her head began to slip from her slender neck. Panic stricken, I fumbled to hold her skull upright, as her mouth stretched into a horror induced circle. My limbs felt as heavy as stone, and I couldn’t keep my arms elevated. She screamed as her head rolled away from her body, leaving a hot red trail behind it. When I looked down at my palms, they were sticky with blackcurrant thick blood, so were my feet, and my thighs, I was covered, I was drowning in it. I gasped for air, attempting to swim to the surface, the honey-thick red sea held me firm, and when I finally fought to taste air, Adam was waiting for me, and whipped a gigantic silver fishing hook into my left eye. My vision went black for a moment, and I gasped as I woke, my head swimming.

My chest felt like a live animal, and I pressed my palm over my heart as I caught my breath. Tabitha was squatting beside me, and I guessed she’d been keeping watch over my body like a territorial vulture. She shuffled to me and touched my cheek with the back of her hand, her eyebrows kneading together with concern.

“Ok?” she asked, her large eyes rounded. I tried to focus on her touch, and let it ground me back into reality. I nodded shakily, though I wasn’t ok, how could anything be ok. Priscilla was gone, and it was my fault.

“Priscilla, I had a dream about Priscilla” I muttered, my thoughts scattered. Tabitha gazed at me understandingly.

“We grew up together” my voice croaked as I spoke. I realised how terribly thirsty I was. I tried to focus on the dryness in my throat.

“It’s my fault she’s gone” I felt tears sting the corners of my eyes and squeezed them shut stubbornly for a moment. Tabitha shook her head.

“You didn’t kill her, Adam did. He created such a hellish place that she had to escape in the first place” she countered me. I felt guilt well up inside me.

“Our home was good. We worked hard for it, Adam worked hard for us” I defended the Union, despite the fact I knew Tabitha wouldn’t understand. “I just couldn’t endure what came waiting for me. Neither could Priscilla. If I stayed, I could have protected her, now there’s nothing of her, I didn’t protect her” my voice cracked.

Tabitha placed a palm on either side of my head, forcing me to look at her.

“You protected me” she insisted. I felt deflated.

“After capturing you”

“You’re making it right” she had full confidence in her words. “You’ll see”

I had never seen such certainty. It made me want to believe her without question or margin for error. I looked down at Tabitha’s arm. Her wound was crusted with yellow at the edges, her skin angry, with redness radiating from the gash. A thin sheen of hardened blood sat on top of the bulk of the injury. It looked terribly sore.

“You’re badly hurt” I changed the subject. Tabitha nodded.

“I am. Let’s find water so I can soak it”

I privately doubted how effective that would be the healing process, the bodies of water around the Union were always at least a little murky. We would boil it in buckets over an open flame, yet it still tasted metallic and irony. Sometimes, on menstrual banishment, Mother would slip me a lighter, and I’d strike little piles of twigs and peeled off tree bark, and boil my water and roast my meat. When she hadn’t, I had gambled with the water raw. I’d tried to force a spark, rub bone dry twigs together, smash pieces of stone against each other, the most petite flame never reared its head. We would have to gamble today. Sometimes the water would make me sick, and I’d curl up in the dirt, clutching my stomach and groaning through blood spotted diarrhoea. In other instances, the dice would fall in my favour, and I would cringe at the taste, but ultimately be fine.

Priscilla was occasionally on menstrual banishment alongside me. I was eternally grateful for those times. I would sleep pressed against the warmth of her skin, and if I had no lighter, she would somehow create a spark with a kind of ease I envied. She was a natural hunter. So was Tamar, but when we found ourselves cast aside from the Union in overlapping time frames, she would distance herself from me. She was under the impression that the dirtiness of our blood could be inflicted upon the other, despite our shared bleed. I had wondered if she truly felt that way, or if she just didn’t like me very much. I didn’t like to hold my shame alone, it was too dense, too heavy for my arms only, it would spill out onto my feet.

I noticed Tabitha wincing as she walked alongside me, wrapped in her russet pelt, she cast orange light onto my shoulder. I could smell her body odour, but I didn’t mind. She smelled earthy and sweet. Her wound looked as though it were on fire as she moved, and occasionally leaked pale fluid. She, however, moved like a soft winged seraph through the trees. I couldn’t help but stare.

“You look beautiful” I said without thinking. “Your hair, I like it”

She smiled, amused.

“The close call with the wolves has made you crazy” she replied lightheartedly. I shook my head.

“I’m certain”

We stumbled across an eerily and perfectly round pond, almost obscured by thick clusters of reeds. Bright orange patches of marigold shone under the sunlight, dappled over the earth and sheltered under sedges. Little fish wriggled under the waters surface, zigzagging between lily pads. I stared into the sedges. We were overwhelmingly vulnerable without the protection of the Union.

“Anything?” Tabitha asked, squinting as she copied me. “I can’t see beyond those” she pointed to a few fat headed reeds no more than six feet from us. I blinked in confusion.

“You can’t?” I asked curiously. She shrugged.

“Well I can, I suppose, it’s just so blurry I couldn’t see if a bear were there, or a large rock” she replied. I felt a little caught off guard.

“I had no idea” I murmured. I though of her running from me, scrambling over the little dips and roots. I must have been all the more terrifying. I wondered if she could have made out the knife in my hand better than the expression on my face. Tabitha wrinkled her nose, dismissing my obvious pity.

“Well? Is there a bear?” she pointed back across the expanse of the pond. I shook my head.

“No bear” I pressed my fingernails into my palms nervously, anxious on the off chance I was wrong. The Union had never encountered a bear before, though Lazarus had sworn they stalked through Germany, in merciless search of people to tear into with their huge pointed teeth. The pond however, appeared clear, only garnet red dragonflies occasionally skimmed over the waters edge.

Tabitha undressed herself, and slowly lowered her body into the water. The moment her wound collided with the surface, she yelped, hissing as pain contorted her face. I winced sympathetically, feeling entirely useless.

“Are you ok?” I called to her stupidly from the shore.

“In ways” she replied, gritting her teeth and forcing her breaths to regulate. “You should join me, though”

I looked down at my body. It was streaked with dirt, and I ached to feel the smoothness of my skin.

“After you” I decided. Tabitha wrinkled her eyebrows.

“Why wait?” she asked. I dithered.

“You’re not supposed to see me, naked” I replied awkwardly. “It’s not right”

She shrugged and turned around, grunting a little as the water lapped at her ugly wound. She raised her arm to cover her eyes.

“Then I won’t look till you’re submerged”

I relaxed a little, and wriggled out of my boar skin. Once the air touched my body, I hurriedly shuffled into the chilly water, the pond floor spongey and soft under my feet. My skin was littered with goosebumps, and once my chest was concealed I tapped Tabitha’s shoulder and she spun around, smiling a little. She cupped water in her hands and rubbed gently at the dirt around my collar bones till it fell away. Only my mother had touched me so tenderly. I wondered if my mother would have fallen upon the body of a wild animal in my aid. I tried not to think about her. I focused on the girl in front of me, as I too cupped water to desperately lap at. I was flooded with relief as it gushed down my throat. It tasted stagnant, of silt, and I drank till my stomach heaved. I took a deep breath, I knew if I vomited again I would just become even more dehydrated.

A few pieces of Tabitha’s cut hair still stuck to her shoulders, and I carefully encouraged them to unlatch from her skin and float on the waters surface. I noticed once again, the sprawling violet lines, like an electric storm over Tabitha’s chest.

“What happened to you?” I asked curiously. Tabitha glanced down.

“Oh, they’re only stretch marks. It happened when my baby was growing” she shrugged.

“Do they hurt?” I felt guilty for own intrusion, but I was fascinated. Tabitha submerged herself down to her chin, and then shot up a little, sending little showers of droplets over me.

“Not now, but I was so tender when Adler was born” her voice wavered a little. “When he wanted to feed”

Her face crumpled a little, and she turned away from me. I moved towards her through the water, and slowly wrapped my arms around her.

“I’m sorry. You look lovely” I mumbled. She snorted a little through her teary eyes.

“Thank you, Holly” she replied. I felt as though I were getting away with the most atrocious and thick bodied sin. To be naked with another woman, and for her to be naked with me. Only Adam was permitted to see my skin, to touch my body. In this pond, Tabitha was a holy thing, embraced against my form, she did not carry the fear and cold stiffening Adam would bring alongside him when he touched me. Tabitha’s touch felt like the gentle glow of a soft red sun.

She wiped her salty eyes with her forearm.

“You know something” she whispered against me. “I wish I didn’t have breasts at all. Or a vagina, any of it. I don’t think I like being a woman”

I blinked in surprise. I had never even considered wanting such a thing. To be a woman was to be created, moulded by God, for a purpose, to serve, to indulge in a special, unique devout binding. I had always been told I was blessed, my path already laid out before me, all I had to do was follow with doglike loyalty. It was supposed to be easy, to come to me like breathing. It felt like trudging through marsh, my calves burning as I pushed and heaved.

“Would you rather be a man?” I asked. Manhood was appointed by God, I thought. Could we take that into our own hands, and if so, could we insist a godhood upon ourselves, to indulge in creation?

“No. Never. So I’m not quite sure. I’d like to be nothing at all, just Tabitha. Or Tabby” she added with a small smile at me. I gave her a little squeeze with my pruning hands.

“You can just be Tabby to me” I promised her.

We dried quickly under the tangerine sun, and I was grateful once again that Tabitha averted her eyes as I slipped back into my boar skins. She too drank from the pond, and we wandered in search of food until we came upon a plum tree. The fruit was powdery and reddish, and I suspected overripe, as the juice ran down my arms, I licked my wrists clean, and we fed hungrily, our faces growing sticky. I knew I was hurting my body, it hungered for something hot and solid. This was better than nothing. I gazed ahead and let my eyes rest on a tree speckled mountain in the distance, and wondered if any bears were watching us somehow, right from the top.

“We don’t have to climb that” Tabitha told me as she saw my eyes settle on the giant mass.

“I thought you couldn’t see” I blinked at her. She rolled her eyes.

“I can see it, it’s just blurry” she scoffed. I nodded.

“Do you think bears are up there?” I asked, my stomach beginning to uncomfortably bloat.

“Definitely” Tabitha replied. “But I won’t let them maul you”

I smiled a little.

“Thank you”

We stayed under the shelter of the plum tree, and in the cool shade, the breeze and the sugar of the fruit in my gums, I felt my jaw unclenching, and my shoulders relaxing. I was unsure if it made me calloused, to see the execution of my friend so fresh in my mind, and to want to doze in the sunlight. I leant against Tabitha. We should have been fleeing still, our guards up for the snapping teeth of stormy grey wolves and the snarling of bobcats and boars stamping hooves, and Adam, yet just for a moment I wanted to savour the heaven of Tabitha’s warm cheek. I almost let my heavy eyelids close, until I heard the snapping of a branch, and shot up, my hand closing around my blade.

Tabitha tensed against me, her eyes darting around the trees and bushes. We stayed statue like and poised, my heart thumping, until a stranger revealed themselves to us. A little younger than myself and Tabitha, I presumed, they wore a ruffled wolf pelt over their small dark frame, alongside a mass of curly hair. Their wide walnut brown eyes settled on the two of us, and they bounded forward, their gaze occasionally flicking to my knife. It didn’t seem to stop them, however, or really cause any degree of anxiety within them.

I felt if I were an animal, I would be grumbling, showing the sharp ends of my teeth. My knuckles whitened around my blade, and I took a step in front of Tabitha protectively. Irritatingly, they seemed cheerful almost.

“Hi! You didn’t drink from that pond did you?” they asked, their tone high pitched and upbeat. I scowled back at them, my eyes shifting from theirs to Tabitha’s.

“So what if we did?” I replied sourly. They didn’t look surprised.

“Oh no reason. I’ve seen quite a few boar keel over and vomit for a while after drinking from it is all” they shrugged. I grimaced, remembering the muddy taste.

“Then we’ll vomit in peace” I raised my blade a little in an effort to convince the child to back away.

“They lay there for days” the stranger continued, unfazed. “And then vultures came to feed on their bodies, and slowly ate them alive. They had to compete with the maggots, and they were too weak to even scream out”

“Who the hell are you?” Tabitha scoffed indignantly.

“I’m Pan” the bubbly child replied, their wolf pelt bristling in the breeze. They took a step forward to peer inquisitively at Tabitha’s wound. I sniffed irritably and shouldered between them and her.

“I live with a healer, Opal, she’d take care of that for you” Pan pointed out cheerfully.

“There’s nothing wrong with me” Tabitha replied shortly. Pan nodded, clearly not believing her.

“Let’s hope that it doesn’t become necrotic then” they chuckled. Tabitha squinted.

“Become what?”

“Oh just necrotic. An infection starts to live inside the wound, and then your skin goes grey, and then black, and then before you know it, your arm’s fallen off completely, you know, back to the maggots and all” Pan explained merrily.

Tabitha blinked, a little startled.

“You made that up” she accused them warily. Pan shook their head.

“No, you’re clearly well versed in healing, you don’t need my help” they stepped back from us. “I’ll be back tomorrow though, you know, not to say I told you so, but just to say hi” they skipped away into the trees, and Tabitha and I looked at eachother nervously.

“Dumb kid’s just trying to scare us” Tabitha muttered, though I could tell she was uneasy. She dithered on her feet a little. “Should we stay here tomorrow though, just in case?”

I chewed on the flesh of my cheeks, unsure. Anxiety sparked in my chest, the child knew our location, and could very well bring others, for all we knew they could be working for Adam, or the men who had held Tabitha captive. We could be wasting time when we should be fleeing into the cover of the trees. Fatigue began to weigh on my muscles. I shifted back down to the ground.

“Maybe” I admitted reluctantly. My body began to feel heavy, and I rested my chin on my knees. Tabitha slumped beside me and mirrored my body.

​10

An undeniable feeling of sickness crept inside me that afternoon. Tabitha and myself lay under that plum tree through the evening and into the night, scarcely moving. Sweat dripped from my thighs and armpits, my head pounded hot in my skull, yet I didn’t dare crawl to the pond for a sip of the tainted water. I thought of how I’d stood in the stuff, how it’d had a chance to infest my skin, wriggle into every pore, I was sure it would’ve sickened me from the outside in if I hadn’t swallowed it. My head swam, groggy and vacant, I struggled to keep a hold of a single thought long enough to truly understand it, instead my brain flashed little images, half baked feelings before my eyes.

Terror, we had to run, we had to escape, we were very well being tracked and hunted, the Union could be closing in on us. I tried to insist upon an urgency in my body, force an adrenaline, but it didn’t come, I stayed in this dazed sludge. Heat blossomed under my skin, and nausea overpowered me. Tabitha was still, and occasionally I dizzily thumped my head onto her shoulder to focus on the shallow rise and fall.

My mind was unkempt. I was convinced the Union had poisoned us. I slipped in and out of consciousness, blackness swallowing me. Adam lurked in the absence of my waking, this time he stood before me and grew enormous, greater than a tree, and his hollowed out eye socket became the forest floor I was upon, and it closed in on me, fleshy and red, till I hadn’t the room to do so much as breathe. I was faintly aware of my mother’s voice, crying out to me, though I couldn’t make out words, I knew it was for me.

I woke up and vomited, struggling for breath and choking on the acidic taste. My retching woke Tabitha, who blinked her eyes open and immediately vomited alongside me, groaning like an injured animal. She whimpered shakily, and I extended a trembling hand to her cheek before we lay our heads back down to the earth and slipped back into the haze. Through my sleep, I knew my stomach was cramping, my organs twisting into a terrible knot, empty and angry.

This time, I dreamt of Tamar, her warm tawny eyes huge and pleading, she was screaming at me, asking why I left her behind. I tried to explain to her that we would be back for her, that in my heart I suspected she would tell Adam, that I was awfully selfish and I prioritised my own escape, because I could not stand what would have been inflicted on her time and time again, that I was a being of sin and that I was unforgivable. She didn’t listen, she just squatted down and began to disappear into ash and dust. I grabbed at her, but she vanished on the breeze. The wind whipping my hair into my eyelids woke me, and I groggily realised we had slept into the next day.

Exhaustion still sat heavy in my limbs, and I felt as though I’d been tied to the earth, strapped to the roots of the tree. The sun peaked at us from between icy blue clouds, and I was aware of a red fox with shredded ears eyeing the fallen plums that sat around our bodies. I frowned, and weakly batted my hand at it.

“Stay away” I hissed, my voice croaky. My mouth was unbearably dry. The fox seemed to know I was in no position to be making threats. It dithered around us, sniffing cautiously at Tabitha’s pelt. I wondered for a moment if it recognised the scent, and felt a stab of guilt.

“Leave her alone” I whispered fiercely. “She didn’t kill it”

I was unsure if the fox understood, but it picked up a purple plum in its little jaws and hopped back into the undergrowth with a flick of its white tipped tail. Tabitha stirred a little, grumbling as she clutched her stomach.

“I need my son” she sighed softly. “I need Adler. My son” her words were slurred and confused. I exhaled and wriggled to press against her back, my arm lying over hers. I hoped if a larger animal found us, they would think I’d be the easier catch, rather than unearthing her from me.

“I’ll get him for you” I promised weakly, though I knew she had slipped into sleep again, and couldn’t hear me. I tried to believe myself and force my mind to a state of alertness, but it fell away like sand between my fingers.

“You two look well!” I was snapped back into consciousness for a moment, and realised Pan was standing over me. I noticed the rotting smell coming from Tabitha’s wound, and the vomit trickling from the corner of her mouth. I lamely grabbed at Pan's ankles.

“Help her” I groaned.

“We will, don’t worry” Pan knelt down and gently stroked my hair. I was too weak to resist, and I was dimly aware of another presence lifting Tabitha away from me. I pointlessly raised an arm to her.

“Don’t worry, you’re coming too, we’re just going one at a time, I can’t lift you” Pan explained. Their words seemed to unravel in my mind, all the letters twisting and writhing into something unrecognisable. It seemed like seconds later, I was being carried through the trees in arms I didn’t recognise. My vision faded in and out, and I caught glimpses of a red thatched cottage, laden with plants thriving in the front garden, a cream coloured sofa bed, and Tabitha. When I woke again, it was late evening, and I was relieved that my mind was freed from the foggy prison. The sky outside was a star-speckled velvety indigo, casting silver onto the tips of Tabitha’s eyelashes. Her arm was bandaged, and smelled of herbs and medicine I couldn’t identify. Glasses of clear water sat beside us, and I hurriedly swallowed mine in a matter of seconds, thoroughly relieved.

Before us sat another dusty red sofa and an emerald footstool, marking the distinction between the living room and the little kitchen. Rose incense and waxy candles were burning on the windowsill next to potted snowy white potted jasmine and wintery tulips. Above the red oven and stovetop, the wall was dotted with amber and cream tiles, tiny birds painted in the centre, beside it, rows of hooks displayed a vast array of mugs, with teapots to match below on the counter. A mahogany and round kitchen table sat not too far from my feet, and I shuffled over to hurriedly swallow down water that sat in a jug. Flowers with their stems carefully snipped lay beside it.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had stepped foot somewhere so sheltered and clean. I padded into the kitchen and began to rummage in the cupboards, pulling out a loaf of brown bread and immediately sinking my teeth into it. My stomach, empty and cavernous, cramped as I fed hungrily. I took the loaf back to Tabitha’s side and carefully shook her shoulder until her eyes flickered open. She stared only at me for a second, until her eyes began to dart around the room, wide and round in alarm. She dizzily got to her feet and started to frantically pace.

“We’ve been captured!” she insisted. “Adam set that kid up to us”

I took her by the hand, trying to slow her panic as I stroked over her thumbs with my own.

“It’s ok, I think they’re really trying to help” I gestured to her wrapped wound. She huffed cagily.

“Why have they taken your blade?” she asked irritably, seemingly too hungry to even debate whether she trusted their food, immediately chewing on it.

“Maybe they thought we’d be aggressive when we woke up” I suggested gently. Tabitha shrugged. We ate the entire loaf of bread and drank from the tap, the water splashing on our cheeks and down our necks, and then began to pull out foods we didn’t even recognise from the cupboards and cram them into our mouths.

We were interrupted by a chuckle, and we spun around, my hand automatically reaching for the knife that wasn’t there. Feeling naked, I took a step in front of Tabitha, and my eyes focused on the woman looking back at us. She had silver white hair down to her hips, wrapped in a loose braid. Her face was crinkled and sun warmed, her eyes coppery and bright. Like Pan, she wore a wolf pelt over her body, though hers was white furred and longer. She was a striking woman, I thought, with a kind face. My aggression melted away a little, though I bristled as she took a step towards us, refusing to shift away from Tabitha. I guessed that was the ‘Opal’ Pan had referred to. Confusion spread through me as I wondered why she wasn’t angry we had eaten her food.

“I was going to make you something real, ladies, no need to scurry through my cupboards!” she exclaimed warmly. I exchanged a glance with Tabitha uncertain as to whether completely lower my guard.

“Who are you?” Tabitha asked, her voice hardened. Her tone seemingly had little effect on the elderly woman, who remained friendly looking.

“My name’s Opal, mein liebchen” she replied. “I’m the one who wrapped that arm of yours. You have a little infection in there, but I’m treating it, we’ll get it right out” she explained. I felt Tabitha begin to slowly relax behind me.

“And who are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Holly” I replied without thinking much about it. Tabitha remained stoney silent, and I wondered if she was concerned about Adam tracking us through word of mouth. Opal didn’t appear bothered by her secrecy.

“I believe my Pan found you girls. Why don’t you take a seat while I cook something substantial for you” she offered.

Opal merrily chopped vegetables and meat, humming as she worked. She was making a rabbit stew for us, and while I was relieved beyond comprehension, I wanted her to turn her back and allow us to continue to scavenge. I wanted to be able to hold onto the food for the rest of our journey. A terrible part of me wanted to hold my knife to her throat and take it forcefully, though I knew I couldn’t bring myself to. Her cooking smelled wonderful, though my mind was flooded with the overpowering scent of iron the moment Priscilla’s life was stamped out.

I saw the cloudy glaze in her eyes, and I felt nausea rock me. I looked to Tabitha, who was eyeing Opal with an air of obvious suspicion, I suspected her hunger kept her seated, and I extended my foot to touch hers, resting my toes on top of her own. That earned a snort of amusement, and we waved our feet under the table until I heard the door handle turn. Our heads both snapped forward, our feet now firm on the floor. Opal did not seem alarmed, and simply smiled as Pan's sooty black curls poked through the doorway, and they hopped inside, evidently pleased to see us. I wasn’t sure why.

“You’re up!” they exclaimed at the two of us, before handing Opal an armful of herbs, which she carefully checked.

“Excellent, so much yarrow” she nodded approvingly at them. They grinned at her.

“Loads!” they turned their attention back on us, sitting opposite us cheerfully.

“So where did you come from?”

I exchanged a quiet glance with Tabitha. My knuckles tightened over my fingers as my hands curled into tense fists. We sat silently for a few moments, until Pan seemingly understood our reluctance.

“You’re not really talkers” they shrugged, leaning their elbow on the table and their cheek in their palm.

“We have reason to cautious” I explained shortly. My eyes travelled the kitchen. “No men?”

Opal chuckled as she stirred a black pot simmering on the stovetop.

“No men, liebchen, just myself and lovely Pan”

Pan beamed at their mention. My interest was admittedly a little sparked. I blinked at Tabitha, and then back at Opal.

“How does that work?” I asked curiously, my guard lowering a little. Tabitha’s foot gently rested on top of mine again.

“Well, I start my mornings with a cup of herbal tea, and myself and Pan, we tend to our garden and we grow our own fruits and vegetables, and I feed the magpies grains and seeds and have Pan bring us back milk and eggs and flour and sugar from the market, and we make bread and read books, and we keep an eye out for those passing through” she explained, her voice lulling me. “And there is no use for any sort of man”

I looked at her in amazement. She had no Adam, no Lazarus, no Christ even, just herself and Pan. The idea seemed so unclean, secretive, something I would only dare to conceptualise in the thick of the trees, far from Adam’s all seeing eyes. I thought of his eye, and wondered if I had severed a pathway, a portal of knowing, a hand extending from his skull to wrap around my brain and digest my terrible thoughts. I hoped I had cut it off at the wrist, though I felt like half a girl since. I wondered if the absence had been where Adam lived, the weight of his body and the force of his surveillance, or if it was my mother, or Priscilla. Or God. If God didn’t live in this cottage, why did goodness, and hot food?

The stew was the best thing I had ever tasted. Not only that, Opal had given us more bread to eat alongside it. Opal and Pan ate slowly, and I couldn’t understand why. Tabitha and myself wolfed down the meal as quickly as we could. I had never imagined food could be so good, and looked at Opal in amazement. The others had barely put a dent in their bowls by the time we had licked ours clean, and Opal served us another. She warned us that our stomachs would hurt if we didn’t pace ourselves, but I couldn’t help myself, and neither could Tabitha.

“What did you think? Not too garlicky?” Opal asked with a smile as we finished and tore at the bread. I shook my head. The Union rarely valued flavour, it began to border on greed, in Adams eyes. Opal had used salt and onions and mushrooms and green herbs I wasn’t familiar with. I was elated, no wonder Pan stuck around.

“It’s amazing” I breathed. “How did you do that?”

Opal smiled broadly.

“Oh it’s nothing, you just think it’s incredible because you’re so hungry” she replied sympathetically. I knew my gratitude at the fullness in my stomach was battling the desire to be combative, to take what food I could gather in my arms and run, to keep strangers away from Tabitha.

“Why are you helping us?” Tabitha asked cooly. I realised I kept waiting for the warmth to drop from Opals face, but it never did. She dipped a slice of bread in her half devoured stew and ate slowly.

“I’m a healer, I like to heal, I like to help, it gives me purpose” she explained. Tabitha sniffed cautiously in reply. The moon shone brightly in the sky once we’d finished eating, the light cutting through the crow black of the sky and peaking out from Opals cherry gingham curtains. While Pan washed our dishes, Opal gently coaxed Tabitha into letting her wash her wound and reapply an ointment to the red streak, wrapping it safely back up in clean bandages. She then invited us to bathe, that she could heat water for us, wash our pelts with soap and clear the dirt and debris from in between our clumps of fur. Tabitha closed herself from the idea immediately, and I didn’t dare to leave her alone. I needed her, too. She was stronger than I was, braver.

“We should move on” she insisted to me, her wide eyes spooked. “Give me Hollys knife” she now ordered Opal.

“You’re free to go if you please” Opal replied, to my surprise, shifting her weight to the tips of her toes as she reached to the top of her cupboards to retrieve my knife, and pressed the handle into my palm. I closed my fist around it gratefully. “But you need time to heal. If we don’t keep that infection at bay, you could get truly unwell, you could die. And you” she directed her gaze at me. “You need time to recover too, your body is weak from sickness and starving”

Tabitha appeared to release a little tension from her muscles, her eyes flickering to and from my blade.

“Ok” she accepted. She staggered to the sofa bed and curled her body up in a protective circle. She stayed silent for a few moments until she mumbled a barely audible “Thank you”

I looked from her to the wooden stairs at the back of the room nervously. The darkness that lurked at the top of those steps inspired a heavy and stormy pit in my stomachs, and my intestines writhed like eels. Despite being sheltered, I felt painfully exposed.

“What’s up there?” I asked anxiously.

“Our bedrooms, and the bathroom, liebchen“ Opal replied patiently. I squinted into the blackness dubiously. I had to trust her. It was our best bet to recover. “Try to get some sleep, I’ll be up there if you need anything” she reached for squeeze my shoulder and I flinched away, inhaling sharply. She raised her hand in apology, non offended.

“I’ll let Tab- I’ll let her sleep instead” I gestured to Tabitha with a shrug. Opal looked at us for a moment, her kind eyes lit with understanding.

“Pan” she called. “Keep watch for our guests, make them feel safe, mein stern”

Pan nodded immediately, and took a seat on the red sofa, facing halfway between us and away. I let my shoulders fall down a little, and nodded at the pair gratefully as Opal shuffled slowly upstairs, and Pan fixed their gaze through the cottage window and into the trees. I wrapped my body around Tabitha and pulled her close, my face nestled against the back of her neck. Her short hair tickled my cheeks, but I didn’t mind. I would have held her if she would’ve burnt my flesh, all hot coals.

​11

Tabitha was sat at the table when I woke up, and I groggily rubbed the sleep from my eyes and stumbled to her side. I drank gratefully from the tap, letting the clear water splash at my cheeks and chin. I had dreamt of a false wakening, that I had found the cottage empty of Tabitha, and Opal and Pan. The latter two forgotten, I had called out for Tabitha, upturned the table and chairs and thrown the rug across the room in an animal terror, until I clawed at a sofa cushion, and as it gently thudded to the floor, it revealed a single murky eyeball, impaled in its place. I had opened my mouth to scream, but I couldn’t summon sound, I felt only the smooth wetness of the eye, sat light on my tongue

Tabitha was sat hunched on her chair, her spine in a crescent moon, and brushed her hand against my arm in a greeting. She was eating what I assumed was cereal, and her wound was neatly rewrapped. I could tell the hot redness that had flooded her skin was already receding, and her eyes looked a little brighter. The skin around her cheeks was crushed strawberry pink.

“Did you sleep ok?” I asked as she offered me her food to share. I shook my head, I wanted her to eat first, though I supposed food was not scarce in this cottage. I couldn’t quite believe it.

“Sort of” Tabitha replied between bites. “I woke up a few times to check Pan was really keeping guard. They were the first two times, and then the third time they were asleep, so I stayed up and watched instead. I saw a whole lot of raccoons, but nothing else” she reported. I sighed in relief. Maybe Adam wouldn’t find this place, perhaps there was a great shield I couldn’t see, disguising the cottage as simply another cluster of thick branched trees. Contradictingly, my own slight relaxation sent a tremor of fear through my chest, convinced that if I would allow myself an inch, a sliver of calm, Adam would seize the opportunity, and I would find that eye once again, watching me.

“The early dawn was pretty” Tabitha added. “I almost wanted to wake you”

I smiled at her, light bathed and sparkling. I didn’t deserve her warmth. A seed of concern planted in my mind once again that her forgiveness was a mechanism for the retrieval of her son. Then again, she might feel she was simply a mechanism for my escape. I didn’t think we were using each other. I would have liked to see the dawn at her side.

“What did it look like?” I asked, aware of movement upstairs. I suspected Opal and Pan would join us in a moment.

“Red” she answered simply at first. “Bloody, rose jam, it turned our skin pink. But there was this dark cloud right in the middle, so black, inky, and it looked like it was swallowing everything up as the red faded into golden and blue”

I felt a little pit open in my stomach for some reason. I knew I was wracked with paranoia. The sky wasn’t speaking to me, especially not through Tabitha. I wondered, though, if Adam was attempting to strike fear inside me, whether it be the clouds or a single fibre of him wormed its way into the wrinkles of my brain, a single nerve, a thought, a glance. He was in me, I felt it.

“It sounds pretty” I rubbed my hand over her shoulder and glanced at the stairs as Pan hopped down in doubles, and Opal followed carefully behind them.

“You’re up” Opal smiled. “Either of you girls partial to tea?”

Her hair was wrapped in a bun, covered by a topaz head scarf, and she wore brown fur I couldn’t identify. I squinted at her.

“What animal?” I realised I sounded blunt, ignoring her question, but reminded myself she hadn’t appeared quick to anger yet, and I doubted she would become so.

“Oh, you won’t believe me” she replied with a glint in her eyes as she began to boil water in a coral red pan.

“Dragon” Pan answered cheerfully.

“Dragon’s don’t have fur” Tabitha replied tartly.

“Dragon’s aren’t real, fur is the least of their worries” Opal snorted in amusement. The water began to bubble in the pot, and she picked four mugs off her hooks for us, sprinkling in tea leaves.

“I love when guests come. I get to put more mugs to use” Opal smiled at me teasingly, knowing she was holding me in suspense. “Bear”

“Bear?” I blinked in disbelief. “Did you kill one?” I imagined Opal as a younger woman for a moment, powerful and fearless, her muscles rippling as she grappled the great beast. Opal laughed as she poured our tea and pushed the mugs towards us.

“Thanks Opal” Pan warmed their hands against the china. Tabitha sniffed at the steam curiously.

“No, I didn’t kill the bear” Opal admitted. “That’s a cruel thing to do”

“Why? I thought animals didn’t have souls” I watched her curiously as she buttered bread for us. Adam had told us firmly that animals were starkly different from us, it’s what made us able to consume them without guilt, God made their flesh to nourish ours, we were the ones made lovingly in his image. We deserved to grow strong and capable to serve him.

“I disagree” Opal replied, consistently non threatening as she sipped her tea. I think we all have souls, every animal on this earth. The bear did me no harm, sweet thing died of some kind of sickness” her tone was fond. “I honour him every day by giving his body a second chance”

I gazed at her as I digested her words. She was so different from my mother, from Adam, from Martha and Beth and Susana.

“Besides” Pan interrupted my thoughts. “I don’t know if we have it in us to fight a bear”

“Speak for yourself” Opal chuckled. The bread was soft and springy in my mouth, the butter salty. I felt a little agitated as I ate, I wanted Opal and Pan to turn their backs and allow me to take more from them. I couldn’t entirely trust their generosity would last, I wanted to be certain of food. The tea was milky and sweet, and I met Tabitha’s eye as I sipped. She seemed to be experiencing the same train of thought, that we couldn’t believe our luck.

“Thank you, for your generosity” I mumbled after finishing. Opal smiled kindly.

“It’s hardly a hotel service, it’s only tea and bread” she replied gently.

“What’s a hotel?” I asked, squinting.

“A big building where you pay money to stay, and they bring you food” Tabitha mumbled. Opal gazed at her for a moment.

“Do we get to know your name yet, fox girl?” she asked her, her tone light and airy. Tabitha narrowed her eyes, and I worried for a second she’d sharpen her tongue, and we would be curtly denied our refuge. She paused, considering.

“We’re in hiding, somewhat” she admitted. “So excuse my hostility. It’s Tabitha”

I let my feet tap lightly on hers under the table in a small semblance of comfort. Opal and Pan looked pleased, as if a cautious dog had finally eaten from their palm.

“Beautiful name” Opal replied warmly.

“Did you know it means ‘gazelle’?” Pan asked. “I once met a Tabitha caught in a bear trap. I tended to her wound and she told me so”

I didn’t think Tabitha would think of herself as gazelle-delicate, slender and gentle, but I did, I thought of her so, in a rare kind of way, under moonlight, all painted white. It felt like every scar and stretch mark and freckle on her body was cosmic, detailed intricately by God's celestial hand. I wondered why he had spent so long perfecting her, only to let her suffer, and if he had added the animalistic gleam in her large owl eyes, or if she’d earned the terror-flash from the hands of God's men.

She finished her tea, and the dandelion sunshine speckled her dotted face. She was truly graceful to me, her chin glowing red as the light hit her fur. I saw heaven in her long eyelashes.

Opal insisted we join Pan as they gathered herbs from their garden a ten minute walk away. They planted the seeds by a stream that nourished their growth, and had built a little wooden cage around the herbs to defend them from rabbits and boar and squirrels. The forest was alive with noise, and our heads, Tabitha’s and my own, swung back and forth at the little snaps of twigs under paws, of the wind nestling tree branches against leaves. Opal and Pan’s cottage felt like an oasis among the oak trees, out in the open however I felt terribly exposed, and had once again the desire to flee. Pan squatted to point out the different plants they had growing to us, either oblivious or ignoring our jumpiness.

“This is comfrey” they pointed to a violet bunch of flowers with tussles of apple green leaves. “We use it for little wounds”

I privately wondered how Pan and Opal had acquired their knowledge, and whether it was trial and error.

“And this is mint and right next to it is meadowsweet. We use them for upset stomachs” they explained cheerfully. Tabitha shuffled her feet impatiently. I knelt down to take a closer look. The Union had never tended to plants properly. We had foraged, and taken, but never given back. Pan made it appear so simple, that we could have simply created what we needed.

“Is it hard, to grow them?” I asked curiously. Pan’s eyes lit a little at my interest.

“It can be, depending on the weather. Sometimes it’ll drought or flood or freeze, and the plants die and we have to start all over. But the more we can grow here the better” they smiled proudly.

“How do you and Opal have money to buy things?” I narrowed my eyes. Adam never let us buy anything, not food, medicine, clothes. Didn’t Pan know it was dangerous? Maybe they were too young to understand.

“Opal used to mend clothes for people, but she really cared about healing them, so she’d help them if they were sick, and then they’d keep coming back for it, so she made a little money from that. She’s kind of retired now, people don’t come to her so often, but she helps passer-by’s” Pan smiled as they spoke of her. They must really love her. The idea of her independence fascinated me still. If it were so simple, why did Adam want to use our bodies to summon money into his hands?

I wanted to press my palms hard against my temples. Did he not know? I thought of Tamar, and if she was hurting in this moment, or wracked with anticipatory horror. I thought of Priscilla, blood drained and rotten. I was the only one that escaped that fate. My eyes drifted down to my hands, and for a moment they were coated in Priscilla’s shiny berry red blood. I pushed my fingernails into my palms and squeezed my eyes shut, and when they blinked open my hands were white and clear.

Pan carefully inspected each leaf and flower before plucking them. I shifted my gaze to Tabitha, who was staring straight ahead, her eyes rounded and huge. I felt a stab of panic shoot through my chest, and shot to her side, following her eye-line. I breathed steadily out, when I realised she was merely staring at a deer. I squinted, and realised it was not an ordinary doe. She was frosty white, and in the beaming sunlight, she looked like a hoofed angel, her eyes electric blue and her nose kitten pink. I was almost certain she had snowy wings secretly folded into her spotted back, and she raised her fragile head and stared at us. Her ear flicked, but her eyes rested on us, empty of panic, before she lowered her head once again to sniff at the ground and delicately trot back between the trees. I watched the tip of her white tail vanish into the bushes, captivated. Pan’s eyes shone.

“I think she was looking at you, Tabitha” they murmured. Tabitha blinked in surprise, her mouth open a little. She shook her head.

“Me?”

“I know it”

Tabitha relaxed a little beside Pan as we walked back. I was glad for it, despite an ember of jealousy burning in my stomach. I tried to smother the flame, and let my hand brush against hers on her other side. She hooked one of her fingers over mine and held it.

“How did you wind up with Opal?” Tabitha glanced at Pan, who now smelled overpoweringly minty. Her voice had softened a little.

“We’re related, why, did you think we weren’t because I’m dark?” Pan furrowed their eyebrows accusingly.

“Oh...I-“ Tabitha mumbled.

“Kidding” Pan grinned. Tabitha relaxed again.

“My mother and I fled into the woods to hide from my father. He wanted to hurt us, you see. Anyway, my mother got terribly sick, and so did I, and I lived, and she died. Opal found me wondering around out of my mind and feverish, and she made me well again, and I never left” they explained, their tone breezy in comparison to what they were sharing. I felt myself ache for them. I imagined my mother, and felt a great hollowness in my chest. I missed her terribly, I wondered if she missed me, or if I was horribly traitorous to her now. Maybe she blamed me for Priscilla’s death. I was surprised at the readiness for vulnerability that Pan showed, though I was grateful, it seemed to be putting Tabitha at ease.

“My mother is dead too. So is my father” Tabitha nodded at Pan. My ribs squeezed against my heart for her. I tried not to acknowledge another flash of jealousy that simmered in my blood, that I wasn’t the first to know. I wanted her to trust me more than Pan. I didn’t deserve it. Pan never abducted her, threatened her life. She must have thought I was guiding her to hell, now she expressed the most potent grief, and I could only think of myself. I wanted to shove my fingers into my brain and pull the wiry sin from the meat of my scalp.

I looked to Tabitha and Pan, motherless, and felt hot guilt, almost embarrassment, that I had fled my mother’s side by choice. I felt I was masquerading their anguish, like a heavy pelt I could crawl out from with ease. Yet my own sorrow was tangible, real, despite its self infliction. Did it count? Pan extended their hand to Tabitha, who initially flinched away with a scoff, before taking a breath, and allowing them to touch her shoulder.

“I see you” Pan smiled at her. I was taken with the emotion on Tabitha’s face.

“I see you” she replied, before turning her head to mine and repeating herself. I felt relief well up inside me.

“I see you” I squeezed her finger, before leaning across to repeat myself to Pan, who repeated themself to me.

Opal had made us roast chicken and vegetables for dinner, and cleaned and rewrapped Tabitha’s wound. Her kindness was unending, and I wasn’t sure what to do with it entirely. It made me uncomfortable, and I relished in it also. Every meal she fed me, I felt the foggy weakness in my limbs lessen its grip on my body. Pan agreed to keep watch for us again, climbing upstairs to brush their teeth. I curled up against Tabitha. The warmth of my own breath rhythmically being pushed from her neck back onto my chin lulled me, and my body loosened. She smelled like jasmine and earth, though we all vaguely smelled of smoky rose now. She pressed her body back against mine, so we fit snugly together.

“Tabby” I whispered.

“Mm?” she murmured, half asleep.

“Do you trust me?” I asked, raw. My mouth brushed against her skin as I spoke.

“Yes”

“Why?”

“You left everything to help me. I left everything to help myself, I know what it’s like, to leave it all behind”

I squeezed her gently, touched by her effort to articulate a real answer for me, despite her closed eyes and long breaths.

“We’ll get Adler back” I whispered. She nodded, sighing and stretching a little.

“Thank you, Holly”

​12

The first thing I noticed when I woke was the warmth of Tabitha’s skin, the curve of her spine pressed against my stomach, and the gentle weight of Pan's head on my shoulder, their curls tickling my cheek. Their hand was stretched over my ribs and lay on Tabitha’s arm. I allowed the sunshine to pool over our bodies, slowly enveloping us, and waited for the others to wake up.

I felt as though I were lying still for hours, but I didn’t mind, the rise and fall of their bodies soothed me, and I wished I’d had their soft heat in the bone cold winter nights of the Union. I would wrap my pelts tight around my body, and curl myself inwards like a wood louse, my muscles stiff and taught, my teeth chattering. I had yearned for my mother’s touch, but Adam never allowed us such comfort. I never understood why.

When I felt Tabitha stir and wake, I noticed she stiffened in alarm when she realised Pan was touching her, and watched her then take a breath and relax once again, allowing their touch. Opal made us tea and cereal for breakfast. I realised my hackles were significantly flattened, so to speak. I was more than half convinced Adam would never find us here, or that he wasn’t looking at all. Perhaps, I thought as I sipped my tea, the purple mug warm in my hands, we had fled so far as to be able to live here forever, and never encounter anyone of the Union ever again, nor the men who hurt Tabitha.

I gratefully ate my cereal. I knew a part of me didn’t want to leave. Opal’s kindness made her feel magic to me, something I hardly thought possible. Maybe myself and Tabitha could stay, and help Opal and plant fruits and healing herbs and vegetables, and help Pan carry supplies back from the town, and eat every day. I was daydreaming, I knew it. I had made a promise to Tabitha. We could not stay here.

“Did Opal feel like your mother, or something else entirely?” Tabitha asked Pan curiously. We were collecting firewood, our arms laden, and we strolled through the sun bathed trees a little easier than yesterday. I watched Pan curiously for their response. They were younger than myself and Tabitha, yet they carried themselves with a kind of knowledge of the world that I didn’t possess. The more I observed, the less I felt I knew, like I was slipping, all the while grabbing something awfully wet.

Blackbirds and chaffinches chirped in the branches above us, hopping along the mossy bark and occasionally showering the air around our heads with sprinklings of debris. Pan, like Opal, seemed remarkably and irrationally unfazed, though simultaneously not dull or devoid of emotion, I suppose what I really meant, was averse to anger, or suspicion or hate. The brown apple core sat sinful and heavy in my stomach, mould speckled, their body didn’t seem to carry the pulp, neither did Opal’s. Maybe that’s why they found one another. Now, Pan remained calm, evergreen and placid.

“Both” they answered as we walked. “She is my mother, and also my friend, but she is not my mother. My mother will always be dead”

I blinked at the ease of their words from their tongue. I wondered if my own mother lost her life, if I would even be able to utter the reality without choking. Maybe I knew nothing at all. Tabitha smiled softly at them. I wanted her to look at me, but I had nothing to offer, I knew that. I tried to listen instead. The grass was soft under my feet, and I pressed my toes into the earth.

“Do you miss her?” Tabitha asked gently. Pan nodded.

“Yes”

“It sounds terrible, but sometimes I don’t know if I miss her, I was so young when she died, I hardly remember her. So sometimes I think I miss the idea of a mother, or want it, really” Tabitha’s eyes swivelled to me as she spoke. She wanted me to know she was speaking to me, too. I smiled at her gratefully, and let my wrist brush hers. Pan nodded again as she spoke.

“I understand. Opal and I believe that when somebody dies, the stars inside their body kind of melt into the earth, and the little pieces are spread out, in the flowers and the reeds and the running water, they’re everywhere. I know my mother is in the sunshine, I can feel her” they explained lightly. Tabitha looked warmed by the idea. I felt my stomach churn with unease.

“No heaven?” I couldn’t help but splutter out without much thought. The idea was inane to me, a heaven empty death, that we were nothing more than dust. God sowed divinity inside our bodies, so that we could crawl up to heavens gate and flourish at his side. Opal and Pan thought of us as animal, and I couldn’t help but find the idea of a paradise-absent death bone chillingly terrifying. Not offended, Pan shrugged.

“Not for me”

Their casual tone confused me, but I tried to contain my shock, and simply nodded in outward acceptance. I felt my ears prick as I heard a cry of pain ring out from the trees. Tabitha and Pan’s heads turned in surprise, and we stayed silent for a few moments. I glanced at Tabitha, and it appeared she shared my unease. I couldn’t place why, surely I wasn’t under the impression Adam was hiding in the bushes, luring us in like an angler fish. That was ridiculous. Sweat still began to bead between my shoulder blades. I couldn’t make out if the wail was human or animal, it rang out high pitched and infantile. We seemed to both instinctively turn to Pan for answers, and they narrowed their round brown eyes as they listened carefully.

“Leave the firewood” they motioned to a sheltered patch of grass below a holly bush. “I think that’s an injured lamb or fawn”

“It sounds like a child” Tabitha almost whispered, and I ached for her as I noticed the glazed over look in her eyes. I suspected she was thinking of her own. I wondered if he cried for her when she left.

“They do, but it’s probably not” Pan lightly touched her shoulder. Tabitha nodded blearily. I wondered if she experienced the blur, like myself, and if she was fighting a thick fog. We followed Pan through the leafy undergrowth, and the closer we became to the sound, the more I recognised that it was in fact a bleating. Tabitha walked with an urgency, a stiffness in her arms and hips.

“I wonder if it’s caught in a trap” she muttered. For a moment a surge of fear shook my body, terrified we would tamper with a Union trap, before remembering we were far from home, and I would not be seeing Susana, or my mother. Mixed relief and disappointment churned in my gut. We reached a mossy clearing and I felt my lungs empty, my body twitch with electricity. The white doe we had seen earlier lay slaughtered in the grass, its neck ripped at, its flesh torn. Its sparkling powdery coat was reddened and soaked, blackness pooling from its throat. A silver wolf, with a red streaked muzzle and chest, stood over its corpse. It growled at us, arching its back, and pulling its pink gums back over its teeth, as if we were planning on retrieving the body from its giant claws.

“You brute!” Tabitha cried out, stepping towards the mighty dog. I blinked at her in surprise. Was she challenging the wolf? What on earth possessed her? The wolf took an agitated step forward, its muzzle wrinkled and eyes blazing with fury. Tabitha doubled back for a second, but only to take my knife from me and point it towards the wolf as she stared into its eyes. It growled, its throat rumbling. It was standing its ground.

“It’s done nothing wrong, Tabitha” Pan reminded her carefully. I felt the blood pounding in my ears. The hellish beast had torn the throat right out from the gentle doe. In that moment, the body wore Priscilla’s hazel eyes, cloudy and lifeless. I felt I almost couldn’t bring myself to look at the wolf, that my gaze would somehow force the teeth of the animal to crunch down upon Tabitha’s neck next. They were at a standstill, neither backing down. The wolf lashed its tail, and Tabitha growled in return. It was then I noticed the fawn, snowy white and cherry eyed, hidden in the grass. Its little body was stiff and flattened to the ground, its eyes huge and terrified.

“Tabby” I hissed. Tabitha let her gaze flicker my way for a moment. She swallowed and gently crept over to the fawn, her eyes now refusing to leave the wolves. Occasionally the creature lunged forward a little, bluffing an attack. Tabitha didn’t fall backwards, only met the half charge with a brave step forward and a wave of my blade. She clutched the fawn like a child against her chest with one arm.

“You’ve taken enough” she told the wolf firmly. “You’ll let me take her”

This time the wolf didn’t bluff, and I knew it. Thoughtlessly, I found myself running to Tabitha’s defence. Weaponless, I simply let out a short and shrill scream. The wolf startled and snapped at me, and I screamed again, raising my arms and showing my own teeth, until the wolf circled back to its kill. I felt adrenaline overwhelm my body, my heart thumping against my bones. The three of us backed away, our eyes refusing to leave the canine until we were far from the scene of the execution.

As we returned, the fawn pressed itself against Tabitha’s chest, nuzzling into her pelt and bleating softly. She gently rubbed its back. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her strength and fearlessness astounded me. I reached my hand out to the fawn, and Tabitha instinctively shielded her from me for a moment, before relaxing her body and taking my hand, gently placing it against the fawns hide. I stroked her short, soft milky fur. Tabitha had been stoney and silent during our walk back through the trees, focused on the infant in her arms.

“Are you ok?” I murmured to her quietly. She nodded airily, before her face contorted a little, as if in pain. She took a hard, deep breath.

“That foul wolf” she spluttered. Pan pressed against her a little as they walked, letting their hand rest on her shoulder supportively. “That deer was beautiful, and it left this fawn without a mother” she seethed, her eyes prickling. Pan halted us suddenly, and I wondered with a sickening dread if the wolf had been tracking us, perhaps with the desire for a greater kill. Tabitha might have thought so too, as she tightened her grip on the fawn protectively. The wolf did not emerge from the undergrowth, but a pup did.

Soft coated and inexplicably tiny, its eyes rounded in fear as it whimpered and shuffled through the grass, its nose pointed to the air, scenting desperately. I felt as though a great weight had been pressed on my spine. Searching for its mother. I glanced at Pan and Tabitha, who clearly realised the same. Tabitha’s anger seemed to melt away, and she knelt down and began to weep into the fawn's fur. I inhaled sharply and went to lift the pup against my chest with one arm, and rub Tabitha’s back with the other.

“It’s ok” I promised her gently. She cried irritably, as if she were fighting her tears, and each was a battle as they fell down her cheeks. The tiny wolf wriggled in my arms combatively, I imagined dreadfully frightened. Pan attempted to take the fawn from Tabitha as she wept, and she snatched her away from them. I was grateful once again for Pan's patient temperament, as they just nodded, understanding, and sat beside her. Their eyes rested on myself and the little canine in my hands.

“I will go” I reassured them.

“Be safe” they ordered.

“I will” I agreed, and began to retrace my steps through the thick clusters of trees. Apprehension sat thick in my stomach as I walked. I stroked along the pups fluffy pelt in an attempt to soothe its mournful cries, though I suspected I was only comforting myself. My mind was riddled with images of the mother leaping at me from the shelter of the undergrowth, catching my throat in her massive jaws, and bleeding me like the doe. I imagined my body, sprawled and weak and losing colour, Priscilla’s eyes lodged in my brain bled skull. I let the pup chew on my fingers with its toothless mouth.

“Your mother is so scary” I whispered to it as it wriggled. “But you are pure. Maybe sin doesn’t settle on wolves. It’s settled on me like dust, thick in my throat. But you are good” I felt a pang of anguish. I wanted my own mother.

“We’re alike in some ways” I murmured softly to the pup. The wolf was still lying in the clearing, feeding, its muzzle garnet and wet, and it snarled at me, red flecks flying from its gums as its throat rumbled. I lifted the pup to its eye level, and its pupils dilated, its hackles rising. I gently placed the pup down into the grass and let the mother run to her child. In a terrible moment, I thought she might hurt the infant, but she furiously licked at it, before lifting it in her jaws and drawing it close into her body, pressing her muzzle against its tiny back. She raised her head once more to look at me with an expression I couldn’t read, her ears once pinned back against her head now standing upright.

I held her amber eye contact for a few moments, before disappearing and allowing her to tend to her young. As I retraced my footsteps once again, I kept my eyes open wide, scanning every patch of grass I placed my feet, every large rock and cluster of ferns for another strayed pup, but there were none.

Opal knew what to do the moment we returned to her cottage, taking the fawn gently in her arms and preparing a bottle of goats milk for it to suckle on. She stroked its soft face tenderly as it fed. It’s round blackberry eyes shining. I reflected on the wave of apprehension and grief that must have crashed over the animal as she watched her mother bleed into the grass, all while holding still and silent and flat against the earth. She must have been terribly brave. The skin around Tabitha’s eyes and nose were dusted pink, her eyelashes in wet spikes. She sat hunched on the sofa, her face pointed away from me, and I crawled up beside her.

“It’s ok Tabby” I attempted to comfort her, my voice gentle and low. “I got the pup back to its mother”

She sniffed and pressed her face against her knees.

“I don’t know what’s wrong” she admitted, her voice faltering. “I wanted so badly to hate the wolf, to kill the wolf for taking away that baby’s mother, and then we found the wolves baby, and suddenly, in my mind, I became something worse than the wolf. And-“ her voice broke and she squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her face into my shoulder. “And I realised that at least the wolf had its child”

I wished I knew what to say to her, to stop her from hurting. I stroked her cheek.

“Can I ask why you left him behind?” I asked cautiously, my voice a whisper. I was anxious she would take my blade once more and this time point it towards me. She looked at me, and I thought in that moment she might have truly seen me. There was no anger in her voice.

“He cried terribly, almost every moment he was awake, he was screaming. And I could never make him stop. I think he realised he had been born by something terrible, and he was screaming for something I couldn’t. But I knew if I woke him, if I so much as brushed against him, he’d scream, and I would never get away” she admitted, pained. It was in this moment, I thought, she looked more than ever like a child. Though she was my own age, I had always assumed motherhood would grant a kind of wisdom that I wouldn’t be able to understand until I became one. However, I saw the shape of the fawn in her face, and I knew she was unmistakably as fragile as any other child, her bravery had simply masked the fact.

“You did the right thing” I attempted to comfort her, though really, I had no clue what the right thing to do was. I just knew she was honest, and warm. She blinked at me, her large eyes round.

“Really?”

“Really” I took her hand and held it tightly. Her palm was damp, and I clutched it anyway. Though our voices were low, Opal must have overheard, and walked upstairs, the nursing fawn in her arms, I imagined to give us a little space. Pan sat at the table, maybe unsure of where to place themself.

“You know when they cut him out of me, I didn’t want him to touch me” she admitted hoarsely. “I was bleeding and hurt, I didn’t want to feed him, I didn’t want to name him, even. And I thought I’d never love him, it just didn’t come to me for a while, and then it did, and it was all at once in this giant swell. And you know, I felt like I had punished him, for the fact that I had grown him, and he was here, with me, in this awful place” she briefly glanced at Pan, who gently padded over to sit on her other side, listening with a soft expression.

“I only wanted to kill the wolf because I could not kill Adam. You know I could have, so many times, he would sleep and I would tiptoe around that godforsaken house and think about picking up a knife or something or other. But I could not bring myself to” regret bleached her words. “I could not bear it”

That evening, Tabitha accepted a bath, and she and myself sat in the warm water together. The heat threatened to bring sleep upon me, and I found myself resting upon Tabitha’s shoulder. The Union didn’t know how rich the pleasures of life could be. I felt I was in a paradise as the water lapped at my bare skin. Tabitha insisted her eyes wouldn’t travel below my neck, and I believed her, though for some reason in this moment I wasn’t sure if I minded, or if I felt I should mind. Her wound was mild in her skin, shrunken and tame.

She was star shimmer in the low light, radiant and whole. While we had vegetable broth for dinner, the little fawn slept soundly on the sofa. Opal explained to us that she seemed in perfect health, though she could feel the chill of grief in the infant's fur. She had named her Wilma, informing us it was a fighter's name, after all, she had survived. Tabitha would be dejected to leave her, I knew, her eyes would flicker to her often, monitoring.

“We should leave here, tomorrow” I announced after finishing my food. I could taste Tabitha’s grief, I knew we needed to move on. Opal nodded, understanding immediately.

“Yes, you’re on the run” she agreed kindly, though I could tell concern burned in her eyes, especially as her vision rested on Tabitha. She flexed the injured arm that rested on her lap, as if to silently prove she was fit to travel. I almost wished she would try to stop us, insist that we should stay and hide ourselves in the warmth and shelter and comfort of full stomachs. I knew that only helped blossom Tabitha’s outsides, her insides were screaming out for her child. I noticed Pan winching, their face contorted in disappointment.

“You’ve been good to us” true gratitude rested on Tabitha’s face. I knew she meant it. “Thank you”

“Let me come with them?” Pan spoke the moment Tabitha closed her mouth, their voice filled with urgency. They looked at Opal imploringly. “Please”

Opal sighed, I guessed that she realised her adoptive child had made up their mind. She squeezed Pan’s shoulder affectionately.

“You’re sure, liebchen?” she murmured softly. They nodded. I was touched by their enthusiasm to follow us, near strangers, on a journey almost completely unknown to them.

“I feel called” they smiled warmly at Opal. “You won’t miss me too much?” they asked playfully.

“Of course I will. But I know you’ll come back to me in one piece” her love for them radiated like a soft glowing sun. The longing for my mother felt like a shard in my chest, and I glanced at Tabitha in an attempt to gauge how she felt about Pan joining us. She smiled softly, and I exhaled in relief.

“You’re good, Pan” Tabitha nodded to them tenderly. “You really want to leave this wonderful place?”

Opal looked thoroughly pleased and proud of her cottage. I wasn’t surprised. A little nag of apprehension wriggled into my stomach at the thought of Pan sleeping under the trees in the open air, exposed to the elements and animals, and immediately breaking down and fleeing the wilderness. I tried to reassure myself that we had survived well enough without them, but we hadn’t, without them we had been festering with sickness, paralytic in the dirt. We needed them.

“Sometimes I escort passer-by’s through the woods, I’m here for when you decide to drink dirty pond water” they joked lightheartedly.

That night, we told Pan everything, and they only insisted upon joining us all the more. Opal brought Wilma upstairs with her. I hoped she’d keep her company while Pan was away. The three of us pressed against one another tightly, as I suspected we would for warmth the next night. It seemed ludicrous to leave the cottage, that I had tiptoed into heaven and I was completely disregarding it. I knew Adam was not impossibly far away, however, he could always find me. I missed him, I knew, in a way I couldn’t explain, yet I didn’t want to see him. Pan’s minty scent mixed with Tabitha’s sweet earthy one, and I relaxed into the rhythm of their chests moving.

​13

The world swam in blurry ripples around me, and I felt in the deep of my gut a sense of unease that I feared would swallow me whole. I fled through the forest, the trees pressing in on my flanks. The branches almost knit together, shielding me from the sooty sky. I was certain Adam was pursuing me, and I felt sweat drip from my forehead and between my shoulder blades. My feet slammed into the earth, sending little amber shock waves through my ankles and up into my shins.

“Leave me!” I screamed out to the figure, my voice raspy and my throat dry. Heat clogged my pores, and as dizziness overtook me, I slipped and slammed into the earth, the air knocking clean from my lungs. The figure that stood over me was not Adam, I realised as I blinked, but myself, except when I looked into my own eyes, one was a bloody crater, hatful and blind.

When I woke, I wriggled from between Tabitha and Pan, and panic stricken, felt my face to make sure both my eyes remained sat in my sockets. I sighed in relief, and drank from the tap shakily. I supposed my haunting dreams acted as punishment enough for my act of violence. Pale sunflower light speckled through the cottage curtains, dappling Tabitha and Pan, who began to stir, no doubt due to my alarmed pacing.

“Holly?” Tabitha squeezed her eyes shut as she rubbed them. “You ok?”

“Yes” I lied, not wanting to burden her more than she already was. She extended an arm to me in an attempt to lure me back to the sofa, and I took a deep breath and curled between her and Pan's bodies. Tabitha’s bony spine poked against my stomach, but if anything it was a comfort. I focused on her, real and alive before me, and attempted to allow myself into sleep once again. I was unsuccessful, and spent at least another hour staring at Tabitha’s back. I focused on the freckles and little scars dotting her skin. I couldn’t conjure up something more beautiful, not the collection of wispy ideas of what heaven would be like, not the sweetness of honey or nectar in my mouth. If I admired her in the way I would worship, would that absolve me of the cloudy sin associated, or worsen it? I couldn’t tell.

Opal, Wilma on her lap, gave us bread and cheese and sliced ham for breakfast, and I ate as much I could cram into my body. She packed us stone fruits and bread and cold meats and canned vegetables and dried nuts wrapped in brown paper in a leather hide bag that sat across Tabitha’s body, who insisted upon carrying it despite my offer. Pan made up their own bag of neatly wrapped healing herbs and bandages and ointments and saline solution and little chewable toothpaste tablets.

Opal offered Tabitha her own multi use tool, that included a sharp tipped knife, and I felt relieved that at least two of us had a weapon to hand. I myself carried a small cream lighter and my own knife. My stomach was full, pressing against my skin, yet I wished I could eat more. I felt I had to prepare for the familiar cutting hollowness in my organs, that I had a frantic impending starvation to fight. Tabitha’s wound was clear of visible infection, and I was grateful for Pan’s presence, they would protect us from everything we didn’t know. I had spent so much time in the forest, living underneath the trees, yet I felt I knew absolutely nothing. All of this struggle, the cold, the hunger, the sickness, the loneliness during banishment, for nothing. I would be vulture pickings in the grass without another’s intervention.

As we readied ourselves to leave, Opal kissed Pan’s head and insisted upon their and our safety, and we left her, walking through the trees. I was concerned Pan would turn back after a few moments, their heart pulling back to their adoptive mother, but they stayed cheerfully by our side. Starlings and robins sang above us, little red squirrels hopping from branch to branch, occasionally knocking acorns and leaf fragments onto our shoulders.

The ground was soft underfoot, and I welcomed the familiarity of the soft earth. Occasionally as we walked, I looked over my shoulder, with the weak hope Opal had followed us. Despite her frailer body, there was something about her presence that ensured a degree of safety to me. I wondered if I could become that for Tabitha and Pan, somehow, though now without her I felt awfully young. The air however was pleasantly warm, and with my stomach full, I could imagine I was simply strolling aimlessly through the trees.

Despite the threat of that wolf, I imagined, perhaps ignorantly, that she would have forgiven our trespasses for returning her pup to her. In reality, I mused, I doubted she would have comprehended my intention, maybe she would have even viewed me as a threat, yet I couldn’t shake her imagined peace. I turned to Pan curiously.

“How did you get your wolf pelt, Pan? The same way Opal got her bear skin?” I asked. Pan shifted almost guilty as we walked.

“A wolf was stalking me through the trees when I was collecting herbs. Wolves don’t want to hunt humans, it must have been hungry, but it attacked me, and I knew I would die if I didn’t fight back” they explained solemnly. “I buried their heart, and I wanted to honour their body”

I nodded, wanting to seem understanding and gentle to their feelings, though I was internally impressed they’d slain a wolf by themselves, without external damage to prove it also. Tabitha also blinked in surprise.

“How did you kill it?” she asked in surprise. Shards of light dotted on her milk-pale choppy hair. With her great round eyes widened, she looked doe-like and other worldly. I wished that the rest of our journey would be as gentle as this moment.

“With the blade Opal gave you actually, Tabitha” Pan nodded to her. Tabitha pulled out the tool to examine it thoughtfully, wonder on her face.

“How did it feel, to take a life?”

I glanced to Pan, worried they’d be uncomfortable. It was clear they felt a degree of guilt for their kill. I found it so strange, the way they allowed themselves grief for animals. I felt it was almost a disrespect to God to disregard his intentionality in separating us, to his image, yet it softened me.

“I stabbed the poor creature, I pierced their throat” Pan admitted sullenly. I chewed on the inside of my cheeks.

“I’m sorry for bringing it up, you were brave” I mumbled sheepishly. Pan smiled again.

“That’s ok, I have to own my ability to take a life”

I wondered if I had killed Adam, if my blade had poked its tip right into his brain, if his flesh bled from the cavity I carved till it was dried out and life vacant. I hoped not. The idea brought me at least a little comfort however, the idea of Adam hunched over in his tent, far away from us, that we could continue our journey without the feeling he was over my shoulder, watching me from the undergrowth. Perhaps I wished he was merely sick. If he died, then I was not dissimilar to him, in the way he slaughtered Priscilla. I mused if Pan would find me monstrous if it turned out I had slaughtered him. I had little doubt Tabitha would see me in a different light, but Pan seemed gentler, less likely to score skin with a blade unless their very life was about to be taken from them.

Once we came across a stream I realised how bone dry my throat was, and I waited patiently as we boiled water. Despite my thirst, I deeply feared the thick muddy haze my mind entered after drinking the dirty pond water, and watched our water bubble. The muscles in my legs gently spasmed towards my ankles, and I leant my body against Tabitha’s. I felt a little cramp in my lower stomach and pressed my fingers gently down my abdomen, trying to identify if the flash of pain was born from my uterus. Pan watched me curiously.

“You ok Holly? I have something for a sore stomach you know” they offered kindly. I shook my head.

“I’m ok” I assured them before gratefully gulping down our water, now cool enough to drink. “I was worried I was about to start menstruating, I’d have to leave-“ I cut myself off. “Actually, I suppose I wouldn’t”

“Why would you have to leave?” Tabitha snorted. I thought she might have assumed I was joking. I wrinkled my eyebrows, surprised at her confusion.

“Because it’s dirty, that’s what we always did in the Union, we’d leave from when it began until it finished” I shrugged, a little self conscious as I realised both Pan and Tabitha’s eyes were glued to me, brimming with concern. I swallowed as Pan reached to take my hand.

“I’m so sorry, Holly” they told me sincerely.

“You were alone out there?” Tabitha winced. I chewed on my knuckles, slightly uncomfortable.

“Not always. Sometimes I was with Priscilla” her name stuck like honey in my throat, and my voice wavered over it. I supposed menstrual banishment had always felt dreadfully lonely and hungry, baked in shame, I hadn’t actually questioned the practise. Tabitha took my other hand, running her thumb over my knuckles.

“You’re with us” she told me softly. “It’s ok to bleed”

All of a sudden, I felt my eyes begin to sting, and I squeezed them shut for a moment as I felt tears begin to form. I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t sad. I tried to push away the feeling, I wanted to enjoy the sunshine. Minnows zipped through the stream in little clusters, and I watched them attentively. Realising I had nothing else to say on the matter, Pan and Tabitha joined me as we drank the rest of our water. I wanted to be as free as those minnows, yet I felt through my flushed eyes that I needed my mother. I glanced at Tabitha, serene and fox like. My pain must have been a fraction of hers.

Darkness set a thick violet carpet across the trees. We had walked for a few hours, and I routinely stole looks at Tabitha in an attempt to read her expression, a nagging fear that we were somehow lost growing inside me. I recognised there was a possibility I was projecting my own cluelessness at our surroundings onto her, I just felt entirely overwhelmed by how the trees knotted together in such an expanse, one I felt unable to truly comprehend.

My life had been the Union’s land for as long as I could remember, and though it made sense for us to decide on a perimeter to patrol and make sure outsiders weren’t intruding, weren’t creeping up to our tents to harm us, now that I had traveled far from home, the border seemed so wholly invisible, conceptual, meaningless. We could have placed the ends of our land anywhere, and if so, what made the land ours? We could have simply ventured wherever we wanted, wherever game and foraging took us to.

Nobody was lurking at our borders, nobody was leering at our land. I felt as if I had been lied to in a sense, and I didn’t know what to do with it, how to digest it. I held it under my tongue for the time being. More so than any kind of betrayal, I felt for my mother, I felt for Tamar and Martha, there was more for them. The months and years of hunger, Opal lived not so far away and she existed in such a different reality. A warm one, a fed one, one I couldn’t have conceptualised. I was aware Pan knew the woods, perhaps better than Tabitha, but they didn’t know our destination, rendering their knowledge not quite enough to comfort me.

I was grateful for Opal’s lighter as I started a small fire for us to sit around once our feet were too tired to continue. Little orange shards of light freckled Tabitha’s body, and she looked unjustly lovely, as she always did. Golden and red flames danced against Pan’s dark pupils.

“You’re still sure you want to stick with us?” I asked Pan hopefully. They nodded with a smile, chewing on a bread and cheese sandwich. We had already eaten that day, and it unnerved me they weren’t rationing as strictly as I planned to for myself. I supposed they didn’t know true hunger, or at least it had been long enough for them to forget. My own stomach growled, and I bristled irritably at it.

“Of course I am” they replied merrily.

“Well, so far it’s been a pleasant walk” Tabitha grunted. Pan smiled at them.

“I’ve known hardship” they reminded her. “I think you’re worth it”

Tabitha blinked at them, her lips parted slightly, unsure of how to respond for a few moments before looking away.

“You don’t know me” she mumbled.

“God forbid” Pan grinned. “I suppose I should just run off back home then”

Tabitha smiled a little, wrinkling her nose at them. I tried to control the little spots of jealousy peppering my brain. My sin was my own burden to carry, not Tabitha’s. My stomach growled again.

“Eat, it’s ok” Pan insisted warmly. I chewed on the skin around my thumbnail.

“I’ve already eaten today” I replied staunchly. “If I want something, I’ll find it myself” I looked into the coal blue darkness encasing the trees and regretted my stubbornness a little.

“There’s no need, Holly, we have enough here” Pan replied. I shook my head. The sensation of hunger knotting my intensities sent a familiar and primitive chill through my body, and the urge to conserve overcame me, though I felt almost apart from my body. I desperately wanted to feed, and my body wanted to take me away, into the dark. I shook my head.

“I’ll be a moment” I stood up and brushed against Tabitha’s arm affectionately. She looked up at me, nervousness in her marble eyes. I squeezed her shoulder and took the lighter from my bag to guide my way. Fear sat true and pungent inside me, as I strode into the smothering blackness, and I realised I wished I’d have accepted the cramping in my stomach and sat in the pit of my hunger.

Wading into the darkness sent little shock waves through my heels. I stared upwards and squinted, attempting to make out the silvery frosting of moonlight, but the celestial bodies remained hidden under grey cloud clusters. The lighter offered me only a shred of orange glow along the bodies of the trees, and I instead groped among the plants and bushes in hopes of my fingers blindly brushing something edible. It was useless, and I peered back towards Tabitha and Pan. I couldn’t make them out, and prayed I remembered my route.

As I shook plant debris from my knees, I heard a twig snap behind me. My heart squeezed tight, and I shook my head, scolding myself for my jumpiness. I’d hear a wolf breathing, their heavy paws pressing into the earth, I’d absolutely hear a boar or a lynx or wildcat. If Adam was hunched in the blackness, he would spring at me, if I were lucky, he would kill me. He wouldn’t wait and stalk me once coming so close, after all, how would he see me if I couldn’t see him? Despite that thought process, I felt I needed to shrink myself, afraid he was watching from his one eye.

“Holly?” my head snapped around. The voice had sounded from just behind my head. My breath shuddered.

“Tabby?” I whispered. Tabitha wasn’t there, I would have smelled her. I squinted, desperate to make out the mimic. I heard a rustling in the bushes and dived towards it with a grunt, my hands outstretched. They fell flat against the earth, brushing rounded leaves and grasping upon nothing solid. The rustling began behind my head once again, and I pulled myself around, charging forward into the empty air. I felt adrenaline course through my body, clogging my veins and dizzying me.

I tried to catch my shaking breath, and I looked straight forwards, to see a single milky white eyeball, staring right into my brain. I cried out in horror, and began to scramble away, my limbs weak and feeling as if they were stuck in thick marsh. I ran, twigs and leaves scratching against my skin, until my knee buckled, and the ground rushed up to meet my chest. The air was knocked from my lungs and I gasped desperately for oxygen. I felt a great weight on top of my back, and panic struck me. I wriggled around, twisting my spine with an open mouth, intending to bite down on my attacker. Nothing was there, and I wobbled to my feet and ran until Tabitha and Pan’s fire was in sight. I collapsed at Tabitha’s side panting, fear fizzing inside me.

“Holly, what happened?” Tabitha asked, her eyebrows furrowed and her hand clasping her knife. I caught my breath, and realised I was looking to the pair with huge eyes, my pupils practically pulsating. I swallowed, my gums dry and sticky.

“I thought I saw- I thought I was being attacked, but I think I was just confused, I don’t know” I blabbered. Pan rested a hand on my shoulder gently and handed me a ham and cheese sandwich. I rubbed my arms in an attempt to calm down, and shakily took the sandwich in my hands. The moment I took a bite, I realised how starving I was, and swallowed it in two more bites.

Tabitha agreed to keep watch while myself and Pan slept, and I pressed myself against their little warm body. They smiled at me. I couldn’t understand how they were always smiling.

“You’re so chipper” I whispered to them. They chuckled and nodded.

“I am” their face shifted a little more serious. “What did you see out there?” their voice was low. I wondered if they were trying to spare Tabitha the stress, or if they were trying not to wake or alert a more sinister entity within the trees.

“I saw Adam” I answered, my voice barely audible. “But he wasn’t there, I don’t think. I just saw one eye, almost glowing, but it couldn’t be him, it was pure white and just staring, but not at me, into me, into my body, like he could see my insides”

They nodded carefully.

“I think Holly, if anyone should be scared, it should be him, of you” they said. “If he returns, stab him into that other eye, and he will no longer see you”

The fierceness in their voice was almost a contradiction to their sweet appearance, and sent a little chill of anticipation through me. I let their heartbeat relax my body, though as I drifted into sleep I kept my fingers firm around my blade.

​14

Tabitha was fast asleep by the time I woke up, snoring gently, her body resting across Pan and her head pressed against mine. I didn’t mind that she’d nodded off, she looked swan-soft and fragile in this moment, and I was careful not to wake her as I shifted out from between her and Pan’s bodies. Our fire was burnt out, leaving a charred circle in the earth, and I was surprised to see that the air was not clear and sun soaked, it was thickened with heavy silvery fog.

The sun was obscured by clouds, and the light was grey. Mist lingered on Tabitha’s hair, and snaked its way through the trees like a live animal attempting an escape. As I stretched, feeling the joints in my elbows click, I felt myself scan our surroundings, afraid I might catch a glimpse of the burning white eye. There was nothing but fog clogging the still air.

“Holly?” Tabitha’s lightly distressed voice made me jump a little, and I whipped around. Pan squeezed their eyes shut and then blinked the sleep from them. I knelt beside them.

“Tabby, what’s wrong?” I felt my heart begin to race. Tabitha looked around dizzily, her eyes then focusing on me alone. I never wanted her to stop looking at me. I stroked her cheek carefully. She sighed in relief.

“You left” she murmured. I shook my head.

“You dreamt it” I reassured her softly. She nodded, suddenly taking in the environment. “Where’s the sun?”

The fog had pulled her out of her sleepy haze. Pan looked around in wonder.

“I wonder if rain’s finally on the way” they looked hopeful. I hoped not, I could never find the shelter. Especially in the winter, I was too familiar with rain soaking my hair and plastering my skins and pelts to body, shivering under the trees, my feet and shins caked in mud. Summer was a relief, I found when I was dry, any degree of cold could only bite at my skin, not my flesh.

“I hope not” I irritably stiffened as I felt my stomach grumble. Since eating multiple times a day, my body had begun to expect feeding regularly. I hoped we’d reach Tabitha’s destination before we ran out of food, but based on my incessant hunger I feared that wouldn’t be the case. Tabitha shook a ladybird from her hair.

“Why?” Pan asked curiously, shrouded in the silver.

“I don’t like to be cold and wet” I stated, feeling it was obvious. I then realised Pan was sheltered, they were warm and dry and safe with Opal under their roof, they could watch the rain trickle down their glass windows from the safety of the cottage.

“Yes” they nodded, maybe realising the same. “I understand. I was thinking of the plants, they need to grow strong so Opal and I can continue to heal people”

We didn’t linger where we slept, the fog felt a warning to carry on, though I realised it was inescapable, it seemed to shroud the entire forest, and I wasn’t sure how. The coverage of the undergrowth made me shifty, I glanced over my shoulder, only to meet Pan’s eyes repetitively. The white eyeball wasn’t seen again, though every scurrying rodent and little bird rooting through the bushes for berries and worms made me tense.

We ate blackberries and redcurrants and canned peaches as we stalked through the mist. I was acutely aware as I ate, that the forest was quiet, not silent, but as if the larger creatures had retired and hidden from the cloudy vapour. I wanted this feeling to ease me but it did not, I felt as if the world had created this murk to taunt me, that the trees were too thinly scattered to protect me from Adam. I glanced at the curved trunks and branches. Was he speaking with them? Maybe he knew where we were, that he walked not far from us, but was taunting us, playing with our fear and dead lead suspicion.

“How far is the place they kept you, Tabitha?” Pan asked, without a shred of impatience in their tone.

“A few days of walk away” she replied grimly. “It’s on the edge of the forest, a few hours from a village”

Pan nodded.

“I hate to ask, but do you think your son is in danger, this moment?” their tone was ever so delicate. I admired the way they danced with empathy. Pain clouded Tabitha’s eyes, and she spat a mushy blackberry into the grass.

“Maybe, I doubt it, yet” she deliberated. “On the one hand, he is a boy, on the other, he is a child”

I had never considered that an adult laying with a child was wrong in the eyes of God. The distinction had laid in menstruation to me, rather than adult and child. That was when Adam had insisted God had called upon my body to enter and bless with life, that the pain and bloodshed was a small sacrifice I could easily make if I chose to endure. I was created to endure. Perhaps she meant young child, prepubescent. That was ungodly, I understood. Although, since Tabitha and Pan’s reaction to menstrual banishment, I was uncertain whether to share more of my beliefs and the Unions practices, nervous to be met with horror. Were they taught the same? Was it different on the outside?

“They wouldn’t hurt a baby, surely?” I wondered out loud. “That would be ungodly”

“What they did to me was ungodly” Tabitha replied sharply. I felt bruised. Tabitha sighed, softening. She steadied herself against me as we stumbled down a little slope in the earth.

“You don’t understand” she continued, her voice gently resigned. “It was all about God in the Union, it’s not out here. God didn’t exist in that house”

I felt a drive to insist that he was, that he was watching over her with love in his heart. I felt if I did, she would ask why he didn’t reach out to her, stop her suffering, and I knew I had no answer, so I stayed silent. I didn’t know how to comfort her. Perhaps I couldn’t. We waded through the fog and Pan squeezed her arm gently.

“You can talk about that house if you’d like” they offered. I actively stopped myself from scowling. How come they knew what to say? I felt emotionally blind, like I was fumbling in a blackened cave, fingers pressing fruitlessly in the shadows, like Pan knew a language I could not even speak broken. If I could not speak about God, I didn’t know what pools to draw from. Tabitha looked almost caught in the blur, thrown in between worlds.

“It was me and a few others. Lizzy was in a strange kind of way, she couldn’t speak, but she made noises, she grunted and groaned. And I was kind to her, or tried to be, but she hated me. She always tried to hit me when I came close to her, and then she’d rock back and forth until I backed away. Maybe she thought I was going to hurt her too, I don’t know. I always told her differently but I don’t know if she understood me, maybe she didn’t speak my language but I figured she would have at least tried to speak in her own, but she never did. She had a bad hip, or back, I wasn’t sure, but she tilted when she walked” she began.

Her voice was gravelly, and her face appeared at least partially vacant. I exchanged a glance with Pan, expecting them to say something. They just nodded understandingly, although of course, how could they understand. I imagined living with a person who would not speak a word to me, only hit out towards me. At least with Adam, I could guess when he would strike me, I could ride the wave of the patterns he’d draw out and brace the moment before his hand connected with my face, or his fingers wrapped around my throat.

When he hurt me, I felt as if something was being achieved, or at least I wanted to feel that way, maybe I pretended to feel that way, but it was corrective, reparative, necessary. It set me on the right path of worship, of being something. My pain was in the sharp mouth of God, and in the crack and splinter of his omniscience, he knew what I needed to be human, to be whole. Stranger Lizzy would aim to hurt for no reason other than her own fear or an aggression that bloomed in her gut for nothing greater, nothing achieved.

“How did you know her name?” Pan asked. “Or is that just what you called her?”

I wondered the same thing. The trees were beginning to thicken around us, the canopies darkening the forest floor. I glanced up in search of pieces of the sky, and found little slithers of grey. The fog had not dissipated, it slinked across the ground with us, and wrapped around the thick bodies of the trees like snakes set on constriction.

“It’s what they called her” Tabitha answered, distain in her voice. “There was one more girl. I knew her, somewhat at least. Her name was Angela, and she would hold my hand while we slept. She said she’d feel if I were being taken away that way. Of course our hands loosened. And we’d try and keep watch over one another, but one night I woke up and she was gone, and she never came back. I don’t know what happened to her. If she died, or went to be trafficked somewhere else”

She sounded dreadfully pained. I wondered if I’d have rather had Priscilla vanish from my hands into the air, or if I’d have rather seen the life be pulled from her body. I knew the image of her cut throat would never be bleached from my brain. I felt someone could cut out my heart, and scoop out my soul and take a plier to my nerves and my fizzing synapsis and that image would be baked still into the bubbling marrow of my bones, that you could catch a scent of her blood under my tongue. If she disappeared I supposed I could have at least held onto a faint hope that she was alive. That her death didn’t feel like a curse I myself had brought up on her. I knew however, that hope and uncertainty were twin dancers and the very fact of not knowing may well drive me mad. I didn’t get to decide, however. Priscilla was dead. And Angela may well be too.

“What does trafficked mean?” I asked curiously. By her tone, I imagined something entirely negative. She looked at me with large and sad eyes.

“It’s what they did to me. What they were going to do to you, and Priscilla” she replied sullenly. I blinked at her, processing. That was a bad thing, I knew it, I could feel Tabitha’s suffering in my own joints, in the throb of my heart, I knew the idea terrified me, but that terror seemed entirely separate to the morality of an act. My terror was potent and blinding against Adam’s touch, it thrummed and shone like a car light in the eyes of a stag, but my purpose of serving and enduring melted into the horror and pain until it was one amalgamation. And the horror was terrible as it grew selfishness and the pain was good and it was true. I had imagined my vagina in kinship with Jesus’s palm, impaled and bloodied and righteously suffering.

“For money” I replied, unsure if I was questioning her or stating such. Tabitha nodded. Pan looked lost in thought.

“What did Angela look like, Tabitha?” they asked suddenly. Tabitha squinted in confusion, but answered.

“She had long hair, pale like mine, light blue eyes, kind of spaced apart. She had this scar that ran from her top lip to her cheek” she murmured. Pan’s eyes lit up, excitement sparkling on her face. They grabbed Tabitha’s arm in excitement.

“On her left side?” they asked intently. Tabitha wrinkled her eyebrows and nodded. Pan grinned.

“She passed through, Tabitha, we treated her for a fever, she’s alive” they insisted brightly. Tabitha’s eyes clouded, and she breathed a deep sigh of relief, her lips parted as she processed. She chuckled.

“You didn’t think to tell me someone named Angela passed through?” she asked, though she wasn’t angry.

“She didn’t give me her name” Pan explained. “She must not have wanted to leave a trail”

Pain still lingered on Tabitha’s face.

“She left me” she sighed again, this time with a particular heaviness. Anger still didn’t show its face upon her, only retired sadness. She shook her head.

“She’s alive” she reminded herself out loud. “And I won’t leave Adler again, I’m coming back”

As we walked, the swirls of fog finally began to lighten a little, gently rising to the tops of the trees and pressing against the leafy canopy. Tabitha told us of the way the house seemed to have eyes, that the floor would stare at her stomach as she lay flat against it, and in turn the ceiling would gaze down at her spine. The walls would whisper to her captors as she moved, as she used the bathroom, as she ate and drank, that nothing was hers, not the air she breathed, not her body, not her mind.

The chipped paint on the skirting board wedged itself into her brain, she had said, and that her thoughts no longer were hers. This did not alarm me, this was my reality too. I had never felt as though I was truly alone, that Adam, or God, had put a chip in my brain, or they could access me through the air, only having a semblance of aloneness through the thick of the trees. I assumed the only person in the world who laid in the luxury of privacy was God himself. Tabitha didn’t expand on her life within those walls, and I couldn’t blame her. Her eyes were haunted as she closed her mouth. She must dread returning terribly. I supposed you’d do anything for your child.

Though the fog was dissipating, the trees seemed to close in on me, and I was struck with a terribly unnerving feeling as my eyes fell upon stone between the branches. I strained, and realised I was looking at ruins of what I presumed was a castle of sorts, or a tremendous building that resembled something similar. Tabitha glanced at myself and Pan with her large eyes wide and jogged forward to get a better look.

I followed with Pan at my side, and we came across a clearing where trees shrank away from the structure as if shielding themselves from the building's previous might. The ruins were sparse and ivy littered, reduced to pillars and broken walls, moss growing thickly in the crevices. Tabitha hopped onto the broken down walls and began to climb as high as the ruins would take her.

“Be careful!” Pan called up to her. She nodded from above our heads and continued to scamper up the stone like a little grey squirrel. The apricot sunlight was beginning to cut through the remnants of mist and shone warmly on her face from her vantage point. The top of her head gleamed in the light, and she looked as though illuminated by god himself. If there was anything to highlight, I thought it would be her. She was the only thing worth truly looking at, I thought guiltily.

I tried to tear my eyes away, and examined the rubble archways and broken circular windows. I imagined someone leaning through one with a bow and arrow, narrowing their eyes at an invader. Tabitha had the same idea, as she climbed over, hauling herself to the window remnants and poking her torso out. Her strength impressed me compared to her slender body, I felt I could never pull my body around with my arms and shoulders like she did. She grinned down at me, though in a moment her smile dropped, and her gaze suddenly became hazy as she stared behind me.

I turned and felt a slam against my temple before I processed who was there. I cried out and hit the stone with my hip, the air knocking out of me. My vision blurry, I tried to regain my awareness and look for Pan. I saw them struggling with two scrawny men for their bag. Tabitha screamed out and leapt down directly on top of one of the men, knocking them both to the ground with a thud.

Upon landing she wasted no time, biting down hard into the man’s skin. He squealed in alarm, clearly panicking as she drew blood. Though it trickled down her chin and smeared on her cheeks, she didn’t stop biting down as the man flailed and struggled, she kept her teeth locked down into his flesh. His companion turned to them and extended an arm to strike her. I struggled to regain my balance, the world spinning, but I was aware of my knife in Pan’s fist, and they sliced at the second man’s arm.

Blood spattered against their jaw, and they slashed again until the man staggered backwards, reaching for his own weapon shakily. By now, Tabitha’s victim had struggled from her reach, blood dripping down his forearm to his legs. Tabitha’s teeth were stained pink, and she yelled wordlessly at him as if in a challenge, reaching for her own knife. The armed man slashed out at Pan, who yelped in pain as the blade caught their shoulder cleanly. Tabitha advanced with her own weapon and narrowly avoided a wound entering her own flesh as she sliced at the man’s stomach.

I struggled unsteadily to my feet, though before I could find a way to help, a figure had approached from behind, and slammed a stone brick down on one of the man’s heads. There was a great ugly crack, and the man fell to the ground, his head bleeding and crushed. The other man screamed in horror and fled, dripping blood onto the ruins and the grass as they disappeared into the trees. Tabitha and Pan slumped to the ground in mixed disgust and relief as the battered man’s blood pooled onto the earth. As we stared up at the figure, I realised who I was looking at.

Tamar had come to our aid.

​15

Tamar was not as I had seen her before. Her tanned skin was greyish and covered in bruises. Her jaw length hair was beginning to grow out and was littered with fairy knots and tangles. A deep scratch curved up in a semi circle from her ear across her eye and up to her forehead. She was panting raggedly, her eyes wider than I’d seen before, the whites bloodshot and raw. She appeared thinner, and haunted in a way I couldn’t describe. She dropped the brick next to the man’s body with a loud smack. She stared at us as if we were strangers, aggression clouding her gaze. Her oak brown eyes flitted back between the three of us. Blood was seeping into her shoes. We were all wordless for a few moments.

“Tamar” I finally breathed in disbelief. I wasn’t sure which shocked me more, the fact she had found us, or the fact she killed a man. I didn’t know if there was any way he could be alive. I couldn’t feel his breath on my ankle, and his eyes were fixed somewhere distant.

“How did you...how?” I stuttered. Pan narrowed their eyes, glancing between her and myself. Of course, they didn’t know her. I would too be suspicious of someone who came and so brutally stamped out a man’s existence. I couldn’t bring myself to look once more at his mangled head.

“It’s ok, she’s a friend” I reassured Pan, though I knew my tone was uncertain. She didn’t look herself. And we had left her. Tamar snorted as she tried to fight for breath.

“I tried to kill Adam” Tamar stated, as if she were admitting something mundane. I practically felt life as I knew it begin to crumble around me. To kill Adam would be to dismantle the stars, set an eternal hellfire upon the forest, flood the Union and have us swept away by debris, and I thought such pungent sin could only thrive within my own body. I felt the air escape me once again, and I looked her in the wild eye.

“Did you?” I whispered. Tamar shook her head.

“After you left, I told him I couldn’t do it anymore, let these men inside my body. He strangled me, so afterwards, I took Martha’s carving knife, and I cut into him” she admitted, her lip twitching as she spoke. She wasn’t looking quite at me, she was staring through my head.

“I hacked at his chest but I couldn’t reach his bastard heart, and he cut me himself” she gestured to her face. “And I told him if he were to kill me that it would be a welcome fucking escape. But he was scared of me, Holly, he knew I would murder him with that fat carving knife. He called the rest of the Union in to protect him, and outnumbered, I ran” she chuckled shakily.

“And I found you struggling, and I’m not afraid of men the way I was. They are meat, like us, and you can kill them, you can snuff the fuckers out” she glanced down at the man. I felt a chill travel down my body listening to her stumble over her words. She was a shadow of the girl I knew, and I couldn’t help being frightened of her. I glanced to Tabitha, expecting to see a semblance of nerves blossoming on her face.

She was looking at Tamar with awe, she admired her. I knew Tabitha wanted to kill Adam also. I wasn’t sure what I wanted with the man. I thought of him living far away from me, never making contact, existing behind an invisible threshold. But he would still hold the power to cross it and hunt me like an animal, and he might do worse with me. I imagined him sent right from the earth and up to heaven to reunite with God in the paradise-dense miasma. Of course, he would eventually be waiting for me, provided wasn’t sent somewhere worse. Hell spoke to me like a sanctuary if it sheltered me from him. And finally I imagined that I myself killed him, and sent him into a foul and sin-clotted purgatory, where he would exist forever in a relentless and unforgiving limbo.

When my fist had sent that blade into his marble wet eye socket, I felt a little confetti of emotion, and I felt myself briefly flicker into that of the Old Testament God, eager to strike down and swat out life as easily as he created it. For a split second, a fraction of a moment, Adam was something clay, that I could fracture and remould into a being vulnerable and blind.

“How did you find us?” I whispered. I made the mistake of peering down at the corpse and felt bile rise in my throat. I stumbled away to vomit, and Pan squatted beside me and rubbed my back as Tabitha held back my hair. Tamar watched me without moving, despite my back being turned, I felt her eyes pierce my skin. She had been changed, and I had no right to be afraid, I too had made an attempt on a man I loved, and I too had seen death.

Pan gently poured water into my mouth to swill around. I couldn’t look at the body, his broken face morphed and twisted into Priscilla’s, I could see her eyes blazing in his sockets, and her mouth stretching open in horror in his jaws. I insisted we move on, though I dithered, unsure of what to do with the body. I imagined wolves feeding on his flesh, ripping the skin from his body and swallowing him, flies buzzing around his feet, his corpse rotting away into nothing at all. I thought of the bones inside him and wondered how long it would take for them to show their yellow bodies to the sun. I felt my stomach heave again and took a definitive step away. I didn’t kill him, I wouldn’t kill him, he wasn’t mine. I wished Tamar would cover him, bury him, anything, but she didn’t. I felt the blur threaten to take me and haul me down into a dissociative blend of air and absence. I tried to press my fingers into my palms and focus on the pressure, that my hands were real.

We walked until we found a fallen tree, and I sat with my spine pressed against it, Tabitha sat above me, her leg hanging down and touching my shoulder. Tamar sat on the ground opposite me, staring. Pan was applying an ointment to the snaking wound on Tamar’s face, only after they treated their own shoulder. It was only while sitting still, the body out of sight, that my own pain became apparent to me. My head throbbed, and Pan, concerned that I was concussed, asked me what my name was, what Tabitha’s name was, how old I was. They were of the belief I was somewhat concussed, based on the fact I was unsure as to what my favourite food, favourite colour, and last name was. Truthfully, I didn’t know these things about me uninjured. I felt shell like, and I had once harboured Adam, and God, in a bright beaming brilliance, and now, pearl-robbed, I was vacant and dull.

“I didn’t think I would find you” Tamar didn’t look at Pan as they carefully worked. If I were Pan, I’d have been nervous, but they moved diligently and confidently. “But I saw these little pieces of pale hair” she turned to look at Tabitha.

“I knew them. I thought I was imagining them, but they were drifting down this stream, and floating on the air, and I thought if she were alive, you might be, Holly” she looked into my eyes. I swallowed.

“Did you think I was dead?” I ached that my mother might think I would never see her again. She cocked her head.

“I had hope. But after Priscilla” she swallowed. I felt the familiar ache twist around my ribs, as if constricting them. Priscilla. I felt my stomach churn and willed myself not to vomit again. The emptiness cried out to me, but I felt nausea overtake me at the idea of eating.

“What happened to Priscilla’s body?” I was unsure if I wanted to know the answer, but the question burned on my tongue. Tamar’s hesitated. Her reluctance to answer put me on edge.

“Adam took her back to his tent”

I had heard enough, and raised my hand to stop her. She nodded understandingly. The fire in her eyes was beginning to die, leaving only a haunted darkness that I could at least look through to recognises the girl underneath.

“We grieved her though, Holly, we wept in private, Adam beat us when we cried for her and we couldn’t understand why, why he would not weep with us” she confessed adamantly. At least she was being mourned.

“What did Adam say about me, about us?” My eyes flicked up to Tabitha, who watched Tamar with a hardened expression. Pan finished treating her, and Tamar shot them a nod of gratitude.

“Say, what’s your name, who are you?” she ignored my question briefly, I didn’t mind.

“I’m Pan, I’m accompanying these two on their journey” they replied courteously. Tamar nodded, satisfied with the little information. She turned to me again.

“He said you killed Priscilla, Holly” I felt the blood drain from my face. The world swayed around me in a tangle of colours. I was aware, through the flurry, that Tabitha and Pan were looking at me with wide, concerned eyes. I felt the air escape my lungs in my dizziness, and leant my head on my knees.

“Evil fucker” Tabitha scoffed. She leant down to squeeze my shoulder sympathetically. I leant my head against her hand for a moment. The contact made me feel like a person. Perhaps my mother would not want me to return, if she believed him. I had an overwhelming feeling that she did.

“I would never hurt Priscilla” I felt my voice waver, barely a whisper. “I’m not a violent person”

I felt like a liar.

“Hey” Tamar crawled to me and put her hand on my other shoulder. “I know. I know” she reassured me. “I don’t know if the rest of the Union believe him, I doubt it”

She took a breath.

“I wish you’d have told me, Holly” she sighed. I blinked at her.

“When you were leaving” she continued. I felt guilt creep inside me. I should feel guilty, I should let it swallow me.

“Of course Priscilla didn’t tell me either, but I can’t argue with her anymore” her tone was jovial, none of us laughed. I felt Tabitha bristle indignantly.

“We didn’t know you wanted to leave” she retorted. “How were we to know you wouldn’t tell Adam?”

Tamar looked wounded.

“Because I betrayed him for you” she replied softly. “You don’t understand, Tabitha, you’re not Union. Adam isn’t just our leader, he’s our saviour, our father, our God, he’s everything, and I threw all of that away, for Holly and Priscilla, if he found out he’d kill me and I was ok with that, I took that risk” she insisted, her tone gradually becoming more melancholy. Pan watched her carefully. I knew nobody would eat. Tamar’s eyes settled on Tabitha.

“I’m surprised you’re still around us after what happened” she expressed. Tabitha shrugged.

“Holly isn’t Adam. And she’s making up for all that the Union have done”

I felt mixed warmth and dread. Was I not remarkably insignificant? I didn’t know if I was capable to make up for even the smallest of the Unions misdoings. I would try, however, maybe that’s what Tabitha saw. To cleanse our bodies of Adam I felt we’d have to light ourselves on fire, boil our bodies to purify, turn ourselves inside out over and over to flush out his putrefaction. I thought of the man lying dead on the floor. If it came to it, to help Tabitha retrieve her son, I didn’t know if I was capable of enacting slaughter so bullishly. Half blinding Adam was not carefully considered, not planned nor precise, it felt like the plasma that I forced down to the bottom of my body crept up through the crevices to seize my limbs for a moment, I was a witness only. I wondered if Tamar had felt the same when she struck down that man, or if the action was calculated. If I had even an atom inside me that held the power to commit an act that may well have resulted in murder, maybe I could spark that flame once again, if it meant protecting Tabitha and her son.

Tabitha explained to skeptical Tamar that she hadn’t the manpower to retrieve her son by herself, and the erratic pulse on Tamar’s face began to slowly fade as she listened. She shuffled forward to sit closer to us and extended a hand to Tabitha.

“I didn’t know we had been through the same”

Tabitha narrowed her eyes, but allowed Tamar to rest her hands upon hers. Tabitha nodded sympathetically. They looked into the others eyes for a few moments, and I felt they saw each other in a way Tabitha couldn’t quite see me, and I couldn’t tell if a cold sea green wave of jealousy or nausea passed over me. Jealousy for what? That I never had to endure a fraction of what they did? I looked at the curve of Tabitha’s cheek. A strand of her honey hair curled into a tiny spiral above her dappled cheekbone, and I wondered if the hateful sin that lived and fed parasitically in my gut was a result of the creeping homosexuality stalking my thoughts or a side effect of said wrongfulness.

Tamar ate hungrily as Pan offered her food, and drank in a manner that water trickled down her chin and throat. The rest of us did not eat. I would have been relieved for my appetite suppression if it were not for what I had witnessed. We walked a little way further, struck somewhere between an anxiety to cover ground and a sludgy horror that stunted our ability to walk. I realised I had not urinated the whole day, and allowed Pan to trickle a little water into my mouth, and still felt my stomach churn.

We hadn’t officially settled for the night, merely rested for a moment, but Tamar had fallen asleep where she sat, and Pan carefully laid her down into a sleeping position. She wore a long sleeved brown shirt on her top half, and bore skin on her bottom half. The shared boar skins felt a stark reminder of our Union-ship, and privately I pretended I came across my boar and held it as it died, wearing it to honour their soul like Pan and Opal would. Truly, I thought Adam and Lazarus slaughtered the animals, and we ate their flesh. Nothing noble, just full stomachs. Pan positioned Tamar’s head sideways and Tabitha shifted twitchily as she watched them.

“It’s ok, Tabitha, I’m not messing with her. She’s eaten rather quickly after not eating for a few days, if she throws up I don’t want her choking on her vomit” they explained calmly. Tabitha exhaled and relaxed a little, nodding and turning away.

I walked a few paces away from Pan and Tamar, wanting to see the sunset, I climbed a few low hanging branches of an oak tree to crane my neck towards the scarlet and plum sky. Little rivets of gold swam through the clouds, and I tried to replace the image of death. I had scarcely been gone a few moments before sweet Pan called out to me to check I was alright. I reassured them I was simply keeping watch.

I was pleased when Tabitha joined me, her pale limbs illuminated peach juice pink. Her eyes scanned the forest floor for a few seconds before joining mine in gazing at the sky. I stole a couple of glances at her as she stared, her craned swan neck and her robin egg freckles. She twisted to look back at me, and I knew as I knew I would die, that if I had to look at anything on this earth or above, it would be her. I would ignore the pleading and grasping hands of God to stare, perverse and infatuated and soaked in admiration, at her mouth. I reached out to take her hand.

“You’re beautiful” it was all I could come up with. It seemed to be enough.

“With my hair gone?” she asked, touching the jagged edges of her short strands. I widened my eyes and nodded.

“Of course, you’re far more beautiful now” I insisted. She smiled and squeezed my hand. She smelt like moss and cedar, and I shuffled closer.

“You’re beautiful too” she replied, her eyes fluttering from my own to her lap. Her words were hazed in a mix of reluctance and genuine truth. I wondered what kept her. We sat in soft silence for a little while, and despite what I had witnessed earlier that day, my chest was fizzing with honey sweetness. The sun drooped in the sky, and the redcurrant streaks of light were replaced by midnight violet. The first of the nights stars began to sparkle behind scattered clouds. Pan had curled up and fallen asleep beside Tamar, a hand protectively on her arm. I felt a semblance of relief that myself and Tabitha provided them with enough of a feeling of safety to ensure at least the opportunity of sleep.

“I don’t think I ever want to have sex” Tabitha turned to me. Though it was abrupt, her voice was not sudden or particularly unexpected, it was level and calm. I blinked at her curiously.

“I thought-“ I was unsure as whether to finish my sentence or not. Tabitha understood, and I was able to avoid sounding as crass as I felt.

“It’s not sex if you don’t want it” she explained. I wrinkled my eyebrows.

“It isn’t?”

“No”

“But I’ve never wanted it”

She looked at me for a few long moments, sympathy clouding her eyes.

“Me neither”

I pressed my head against hers, and felt her temples gently pulse. A pigeon with an emerald neck flapped its wings as it soared past us. My fingers interlaced with hers grew a little sweaty but I didn’t mind.

“But I still want to hold your hand” Tabitha murmured. I tightened my grip, careful not to hurt her.

“I still want to hold your hand” I echoed her, my heart swelling.

​16

Adam was lurking over my body like a hyena would a half dead animal, his teeth were extended and gleaming off-white, something entirely non human, and his vacant eye socket dripped black tarmac blood onto my chest. Behind him, the man Tamar had murdered stood swaying, scarecrow like. His head and face were smashed, as it was in the waking world, beginning to bloat. I could see his battered brain. And finally, Priscilla stared down at me, her unseeing eyes huge and stretched in her skull. Her head teetered and wobbled on her cut neck, and her mouth was prized open in a silent scream. I tried to cry out but my voice had been stolen, and I was falling, for what felt like hours. My body plummeted helplessly through the air, the wind wailing in my ears, till I hit the ground with an ear splitting thud. My eyes shot open to see Tabitha staring down at me from the tree branch in alarm.

“Holly!” she yelled down at me. Dazed, I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed them, opening them again to look up at her. I felt soreness spread across my back, but any pain was blotted out with overwhelming relief that I was looking up at Tabitha instead, who began to scramble down the tree and crouch at my side.

“Pan!” she yelled. Pan, who had been woken by my fall, alongside Tamar, blearily rubbed their eyes and sleepily scurried over to me.

“Holly, can you hear me?” they asked, their tone serious. I squinted at them. I hadn’t fallen very far. I supposed they cared very much, this is what they did best.

“Yes I can hear you” I practically snorted. They ignored my sarcasm and began to squeeze my legs.

“Can you feel this?” they asked.

“Yes, I’m fine” I grumbled.

“Any tingling or pain in your back?”

“No, I didn’t fall that far”

“Not dizzy?”

“No” I hauled myself up to a seated position and felt the world sway around me for a moment, the land Pan and Tamar stood on dipping and rising as if I were at sea.

“A little” I corrected myself. Pan gently felt the back of my head, presumably checking for wounds or bumps. They retrieved water for me and poured it into my mouth, and I drank gratefully.

“I’m ok Pan, honestly” I reassured them. They narrowed their coppery eyes.

“Well I’ll keep an eye on you” they insisted. “After that hit to your head, no more falling asleep in trees”

I nodded in agreement and got to my feet. Another wave of dizziness swallowed me, and Tabitha jumped to support me. Her hands were warm and I felt myself melt into her touch. We decided to eat under the spotted dawn light, and I tried to feel grateful for the fullness in my stomach, and scrub the corpse from my mind. There was no point, the image felt woven into the backs of my eyelids.

I could feel the sullenness seep from the rest of the group as we walked on. All traces of mist were gone, and despite our melancholy, beams of sunshine shot through the leafy canopy, dazzling the forest floor with gold. Tabitha informed us we were about a day's travel away, and I itched with anticipation and fear.

The environment seemed to corroborate her, as before long the trees gradually thickened in their clusters, until we were practically tripping over one another. My stomach cramped as I moved, and I regretted eating. I kept accidently kicking Tabitha’s heels, and she’d occasionally hiss in frustration. I could almost smell the irritability bubble inside us as we moved, claustrophobic and cramped, somehow despite the thickening canopy, the shade offered us no relief from the blazing sun, instead trapping us inside it.

Humidity began to bead little sweat droplets on the backs of our legs, and if I wouldn’t feel so terribly exposed I’d have stripped my skins. The lack of open space had me all the more convinced the man who survived would return for us, track our footsteps, breathe inches from us, hidden in the sticky heat. I felt the soreness in my head, but unwilling to worry Pan, kept it to myself. I wondered if that man’s intention was to strike me down the way Tamar struck his companion, or if I entirely made that up in an attempt to justify her slaughter. Were those men in alliance with Adam? Was he hunting us through others' hands?

“I feel like we’re being watched” I muttered uneasily.

“We probably are, by who?” Tamar replied.

“The other man” I whispered. “What if Adam sent him?”

“I doubt it, Adam only has one little cult, the woods are huge” Tabitha replied. Her words cut through me a little, and I felt my exasperation grow, and rubbed sweat from my forehead onto the back of my hand. Behind me, I felt Tamar stiffen, and imagined a similar instinctual fear was shooting through her body like a hunter at a terror stricken animal. I turned around a little to meet her eyes, and she glanced at me sullenly.

“The Union isn’t a cult” I insisted, attempting to keep my voice level. “We’re a family”

Tabitha stopped in her tracks, and Pan eyed us all warily.

“Is that what you think too, Tamar?” Tabitha asked, her voice sharp. Tamar looked from her to myself and nodded.

“Tabitha” Pan began carefully. “I wouldn’t push it”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Tabitha exclaimed hotly. I ached for her to soften to me again. She balled her hands into fists as she paced a few steps back and forth.

“Why should I have to pretend that raping and trafficking and starving a bunch of people in the woods is just happy families, am I the only sane person here, am I the only one seeing sense? You think because the two of you attacked Adam you’re out of it? You’re not! It’s not just Adam being a bad apple, the whole thing, the whole place, it’s fucked!” her voice raised shrilly. I thought of my mother, and my own anger began to rise and swell inside my chest. Pan sighed and sat resting their spine against a poplar tree, watching us carefully.

“You just don’t understand, the Union tried to protect us” Tamar snapped. Tabitha snorted.

“Were you protected, Tamar?” she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Were you?” the words left my mouth before I could stop myself, I had spat them in anger. Even though I didn’t feel protected, not by the Union, not by my mother, not by Adam, I felt this sickening terrible loyalty sit in the pit of my stomach, that I thought I may never be able to tear away. Pan sighed, and I wanted to snap at them too. They also didn’t understand.

The Union had left a black peach pit inside my chest, and the mould had its grip on Tamar and myself only. I glanced at Tabitha guiltily, and saw her pointed chin wobble as she squinted at me as if in pain. Although anger still sat heavily on her face, I could tell it was dissipating, and she was trying not to cry. She looked more than ever, sixteen. She wrinkled her forehead and I turned and stalked into the trees, unable to watch her cry.

“Stay close, Holly” Pan called after me. I replied only with a grunt. They were wiser than me. At the same time, what had happened to them hadn’t stripped them of their existence of a child, I could tell. I simmered with jealousy as I walked. I shouldn’t feel jealous, Pan had lost their parents. I clawed at my hair. It felt oppressively unfair that I found myself constantly forcing gratitude on myself. My mother wasn’t dead, but where was she? I walked motherless, like the rest, except I didn’t have this evidence, this trophy of suffering and ink blot of death that they wore. I was milk clear and grateful and hideously non-orphaned.

I attempted to stay close, as Pan instructed, though I strayed far enough as to give them at least an impression of worry, of concern for me, selfishly. I kicked at the smooth body of a looming tree and instantly regretted it. I wanted my mother, and I missed my home. Tabitha was wrong. She thought I was under the impression Adam had poisoned something good, I realised, as I sunk irritably to the forest floor, that I felt more so that something poisoned Adam. I didn’t want him struck from the earth, I wanted him to love us, I wanted him to be a father to me, free of terror and bloodshed.

I wondered if, in spite of everything, Tabitha missed the house we approached. I doubted it, she hadn’t been afforded an ounce of love. I had. At least I felt that way. If my mother were here, she would prove Tabitha wrong. I let my head rest on my knees sullenly. I didn’t think she would, really. I shook sweat droplets from my temples and grumbled outwardly at the heat. I wasn’t proving myself in any sense whatsoever, I was cruel to Tabitha repeatedly. She only took me with her because she had nobody else, I was her only option, and now she had Pan and Tamar, she was free to leave me in the tangle of trees.

Through the light pounding in my head, I heard a slow paced animal near me, and widened my eyes as I searched for it. I decided, with a sigh of relief, that it was a person, and Tabitha had found me. I began to rehearse how I would apologise, when I felt strong arms wrap around my throat from behind me, causing me to cry out and gurgle.

The survivor had returned for me. I felt panic begin to swell inside me as I thrashed to absolutely no avail. I let my entire body fall limp in an attempt to surprise him, and it did for a moment, allowing me to sink my teeth into his arm on my way up, trying to mimic Tabitha. He screamed out in pain, and despite all my instincts demanding I release him, I bit down harder, attempting to keep my jaw rigid. He grappled with me, grabbing a fistful of my hair and pulling my teeth away from his flesh. His fist connected with my cheekbone and he struck me to the ground, where I scrambled to get to my feet.

Dazed, however, I could struggle only to my knees where I crawled haphazardly, and he grabbed me once again, careful to keep his limbs away from my teeth. Red smeared across my cheek as he tussled with me, and I was satisfied to know I too had drawn blood. I wasn’t prepared for the idea that he had not come alone. Men and women alike began to fill in beside my attacker, seeping from the gaps between the trees, and I knew my fight was over.

They surrounded me, and in that moment I realised I had the opportunity to reach for my knife. With no chance of escape, I felt hot adrenaline thunder in my throat, and dived forward, driving my blade into my attacker's shoulder. It wedged deep into his muscle, and he yelped in pain and surprise. I summoned the strength my body could possess and pulled the blade from his body, resulting in him staggering backwards, his breath ragged. Blood spurted from his ugly wound, and he raised his arm to block another attack. The rest of his companions were closing into me, and I took the very final opportunity I could to impale him a second time, while I reached for his chest, dizziness overcame me, and I instead swiped my pointed edge across his body. I felt his skin rip. I was satisfied enough with that, after all, I was only making a point.

By now, rows of hands and arms were gripping my body in restraint, and began to march me away into the woods. My blade was snatched, and while I wondered if I had misjudged my choice not to keep my weapon concealed, I couldn’t help feeling a sinful satisfaction at the edge of fear that oozed from the strangers that held me captive. I had achieved an unease among them, and even if it wouldn’t eventually aid my escape, it struck me with pleasure. I caught my breath as they walked me underneath the canopy, occasionally stumbling. The multiple blows to my head felt as though they were beginning to add up, my brain felt shaken, as if I were walking through a thick fog.

I hoped the man’s screams of pain would have alerted Tabitha. Not that I deserved to be rescued by her. This was a direct consequence of my own cruelty. Perhaps she would leave me. I felt the humidity in the air only grow stronger, and I was suddenly struck with the concern it may rain. If Tabitha decided I was worth retrieving, rain would cover the masses of tracks my captors and I would leave. If she hadn’t quite heard the man, or if she disregarded it, she would never be able to find me.

Alarm began to squeeze my chest, and without giving it much thought, I screamed without warning, as loud as I possibly could muster. My voice strained, my throat raw, I caterwauled towards the sky. I could see my captors eyes widened in alarm, and a few stepped away from me instinctively before refastening their grip, their panicked faces fixed on the man I had bitten. I supposed he might be their leader. I was frightening them, they thought I too would tear into their skin. I silently thanked Tabitha, and wished she’d seen my mimicry of her.

I summoned all the air my body could contain and screamed again, and despite my peril, it felt indescribably freeing, perhaps because I had spent my days suffocated in my fear of being found, forcing myself to become walnut small and hide, mouselike in the undergrowth. Now I was begging to be found, and I would have every animal and every person and every God look at me at this moment. My liberation wasn’t afforded for long, as a hand was clamped over my mouth. It was moving tentatively, pressed against my dry lips. I think the fingers knew I could bite right through. I imagined crunching through the little bones, and felt a wave of exhilaration and nausea crash over my body.

My attackers' appearances finally became clear to me, now we moved through the trees as a mass. Both the men and the woman’s hair was chopped short, like Tabitha’s, though far less beautiful. Everybody’s hair was rat-dark and dry, their eyes empty and dishwater blue to mildew green. I wondered as I walked, what caused their vacancy? They wore loose mixed skins I couldn’t quite identify, and their limbs were striped with mud. Their hollow faces only reflected anxiety as they marched me onwards, and I could have died to know if my presence alone is what inspired their terror.

Rain did eventually break, though not particularly heavy, I occasionally cried out to the sky, with the slightest and thinnest hope that Tabitha was following us. This caused the wounded man to strike me with his fist, though I noticed he did swiftly. He didn’t want prolonged contact with me. After he pulled away from me, I noticed a gaunt woman with sunken under eyes hiss at him, her receded gums exposed.

“Idiot” she spat under her breath, just loudly enough for me to overhear. “He’ll just kill us if you fuck her up”

I narrowed my eyes and wondered who he was. Whoever he was, dare he know it, was my protector, as the man, despite being visibly agitated, scoffed and nodded, turning away from me. I felt the warm rain begin to soak my hair, straining on my neck. I raised my arms to squeeze the water from it, and startled the men and women around me, creating rows of flinching as I did. I showed them my teeth in an attempt to keep up the idea that I may bite at any time.

We finally reached a clearing, defended by tight growing trees. Despite the heat, I felt a mild chill dig its claws into my spine. The clearing altogether resembled the Union’s land, the grass was trampled flat and littered with huts and tents, except they were all facing a well and a charred black fire pit. The population of this group was bloated, I expected that every member had accompanied me there, but I guessed only half had. The rest were sat vulture still, or lying on the ground, limbs half in and half out of shabby tents.

Several of the group didn’t acknowledge a stranger among them whatsoever, and those who did looked entirely uninterested, or disheartened. Nobody looked accomplished to have captured me. I could hardly believe the dejected misery that lay thick in the heart of this group. Adam would have never allowed us to sit animal like in the dirt, there was almost always something that needed doing. I almost felt anxious for them, as if some higher power was right around the corner, ready to punish them. Everybody was thin, which I was used to, but some people looked as if they were dying. I could see their ribs clear through their skins, their cheekbones were terribly sunken. I almost felt sorry for them.

“What’s wrong with them?” I found myself asking a woman beside me. She stiffened, her jaw tightening, and didn’t reply. The man with my bite mark still embedded in his skin raised his fist to me, and the woman who scolded him previously stopped him, raising her eyebrows in warning. I parted my lips just enough to show him my canines, and he wrinkled his nose at me.

“Creepy fucker” he muttered under his breath “Mina, take her”

I looked across to a girl whose eyes were soggy mint green and fixed on me. The ends of her hair curled into tiny spirals, and sat on top of her high cheekbones. She grabbed my arm cautiously.

“You’re coming with me”

​17

Rain hammered on the roof of the hut, and despite my situation, I was at least grateful for the shelter. My hut had a slit of a window and I could make out Mina’s outline in the powdery silver moonlight. She was tasked with guarding me, and I could tell she was getting bored, her hands trailing absentmindedly over her arms and scratching at the nape of her neck. Her fingers tapped on her knees and she sighed and stretched. A small fire had been tended to briefly in the shelter of an opposite hut, offering my little prison a faint amber gold glow, though I didn’t see anyone roast anything to eat. Did they not set traps? Were there not hunters?

A few of the people I could see from my confinement had barely moved all evening, lying trance like in the wet earth. Their glazed eyes scarcely blinked, and their breath was shallow, their chests and ribs hardly rising. I thought they might be dying, and I didn’t know how to feel. I was more likely to escape a weak and sick group. I also felt a pull to have Pan take a look at them. Mina must be starving. I felt my own stomach cramp and pressed down on my gut.

“Are you hungry?” I whispered to Mina. She didn’t turn to me, but I knew she heard me. She snorted irritably.

“What’s it to you?” she scoffed. “Is there a pantry in there I didn’t know about?”

She allowed herself the comfort of sitting, and I leant back against the door so as to be close to her.

“What are you doing out there?” I asked. I didn’t expect I might receive an answer, but there was little I could do from here.

“Guarding you” she answered with an audible eye roll.

“No, I mean, out here, all of you?”

She was silent for a few moments, then sniffed.

“What does the Union do, out there?” she retorted. I inhaled sharply. She knew I was Union. I felt heat begin to spread across my body, as if I had been found out for something shameful, or taken away for a hideous crime I’d committed. I felt as if she could see the ligaments inside my skin, and as if I could see Adam’s oppressive and severed eye. My hut began to feel increasingly constrictive, and though it wasn’t much larger than myself, I spread my body out to make sure he wasn’t lurking in the shadows somehow.

“Live, worship God” I snapped warily. She was trying to unnerve me. I chewed on my knuckles.

“You’re all foolish, out there” she chuckled. I wrinkled my eyebrows.

“How so?”

She laughed softly once again at my supposed ignorance.

“God is dead”

She said it like it was obvious. My lips fell apart, and I wondered if she was purposefully trying to get a rise out of me, or if she were informing me of something, of Adam. Was he dead? Or was she testing the waters of what she could say to me? I strained to look around, expecting to see her doing the same, but she didn’t. She had full confidence in her statement, empty of fear.

“The world is ending” she continued laxly. I blinked in surprise. This girl’s mind was clearly addled by hunger or some other force. Rain dripped from her chin.

“Come inside” I offered her. She snorted in amusement.

“Right? So you can stab me, or bite me” she replied. “Are you Union folk diseased?”

“No” I retorted hotly. “I wouldn’t bite if I wasn’t hauled off”

I could make out Mina's shoulders shrugging, as if she was unable to argue, and then tense as lightning crashed through the sky, illuminating the back of her tanned shoulders golden. Thunder boomed several moments later, and wide eyed, she flung the door to my hut open and pressed her wet body beside mine, eyeing me warily. I felt a flicker of amusement.

“What changed your mind?” I joked.

“You’re still my prisoner” she reminded me sourly, shaking the water droplets from her hair in a dog-like motion. “I just don’t fancy being struck by lightning”

We sat listening to the thunder for a while, and I thought of Tabitha, and Tamar and Pan sheltering among the trees. Tabitha would not come for me. She didn’t need me anymore, and even if she did, I doubted she’d forgive my cruelty. She would have seen me not as the version of myself that wanted to hold her hand, but of the version of myself that stole away her freedom, and took her right into the heart of what she was fleeing. I deserved to have my body flat against my own damp and bony captor.

“How do you know the world is ending?” I asked curiously. Mina flinched as lightning flashed through the sky once again, and pressed a little closer to me.

“Amon told us” she answered, her voice assured.

“Amon?” I echoed curiously.

“He takes care of us” she replied with a smile. I could feel every one of her ribs against my own. She smelt of sickness and pollution. I eyed her dubiously. She could sense my distrust.

“He does his best, you wouldn’t understand” she snapped. I felt a heaviness set in my chest. I did understand. I shook my head carefully.

“I do understand” I told her gently. She looked at me with distrust.

“I don’t know. We don’t have anything in common with the Union” she sniffed. She was wrong, I knew so, though I didn’t think there was any point in challenging her.

“When will the world end?” I decided to respect her belief, even if I didn’t follow it, I was curious.

“Soon” she stated shortly. “The earth will split open, and some will burn or drown or be crushed under avalanche, only the Chosen will leave earth and walk in celestial bodies, with Amon”

I stared at her in wonder, and tried to imagine how Amon had convinced such a large group to starve in a stew of delirium with him, living in fear of the inevitable rapture.

“Does it scare you?” I was surprised she was indulging me with so much information, and I wouldn’t stop her. She shook her head.

“No. It’s exciting, Amon will see us in our purest form, no sin, just bare” she smiled a little as she spoke, and I felt a wave of sadness for her. She would no doubt die hungry and sick, and dreadfully alone, and I knew I or no one else could scrub her belief from her.

“Why do you want me?” I finally asked. She blinked at me in surprise.

“I didn’t kill that guy” I regretted the words the moment they left my mouth. I should have taken the fall, I was already captured. Why would I want to throw Tamar under the rug? What was wrong with me?

“I know” she shrugged. I furrowed my eyebrows. She knew?

“If you know, what am I doing here?” I asked cautiously. She returned my gaze, water droplets still sat on her sooty eyelashes.

“None of your business” she retorted. I could hardly believe her, and almost laughed myself.

“Oh so your business is my business but my business isn’t my business?” I argued in amusement. “Surely what I’m doing here is the most my business possible?”

“Don’t get too comfortable” Mina grumbled. “You’re still a prisoner”

“Trust me, I’m not comfortable” I attempted a light joke. She grunted in response.

“Adam will come for you”

I felt my blood stop moving, and every little hair on my body stood on end. I swallowed. Of course. Adam would come for me, and he would kill me, blind me, scrape the fragments of my soul from my body and eat them, rape them, turn them inside out. The single eye that had been haunting my dreams would shine electric and cold as it struck out my life. However, Adam would come for me. Tabitha and the others could continue their journey unharmed. Tamar would get away from him. I felt a shrill pang of grief roll through my body, like a shard of bone between the ribs. Priscilla should have gotten away from him. Tamar had told us the truth of the matter in the hopes the two of us would escape. Neither of us would. Priscilla was in between the earth, and I would be too. I looked blankly at Mina.

“Why do you want Adam to come for me?” I could tell my tone was flattened, partially lost in the blur, to the extent it off-put Mina. She looked at me cautiously, as if my skin had been stolen by an alien imposter and draped over its body in a crude attempt to impersonate a human.

“Adam has money, we know it, and if he does not, there is something else can sell” she answered. I blinked at her.

“Me?”

She stared at me, stunned, her eyes backlit with horror.

“No? What the fuck are you talking about?” she hissed. I exhaled in relief. She was looking at me with a fixed disturbed expression, and I realised I may have given away more about the Union than I intended. I thought of my mother and ached.

“What do you plan to sell?” I pressed her. She looked at me as if it were obvious, and I was purposefully oblivious.

“The drugs” she replied plainly. I cocked my head at her.

“What drugs?”

“The one’s he feeds you” she looked at me as if I were stupid.

“He doesn’t feed us drugs” I didn’t quite believe myself as I retorted. I thought of the way he would have me meet God, that the lifeline existed through my food, my tongue, that divinity was waiting for me at the end of a tab. Did he truly have the power to make God these fantastical, terrible things? To make him a fire, a storm, a great hand? Was it him? It wasn’t him, I thought, I considered, I was unsure.

“Anyway, how would you know?” I snapped.

“We’ve been watching you” the casual nature of her tone made my skin crawl. Lightning decorated the sky with a following burst of thunder, and I flinched, wishing I was pressed against Tabitha and not Mina. I stared at her, my mind whirling. I sorted through my memories and attempted to find a semblance, a fragment of a trace of her face, of the gaunt bodies on the Unions land. She was lying, she must be. We walked our trails regularly, we’d have seen a footstep, an upturned leaf, a trace.

“No you haven’t” I replied hopefully, attempting to have my voice be firm. She chuckled.

“Then how would we know you’re Adam’s daughter, and that he’ll be looking for you. We know Adam, we’ve met with him before, he doesn’t seem like the type to let you all go wondering off”

The presumption I was his daughter made my jaw tighten. I felt I would be too humiliated to inform her I was unsure as to whether that was at all true. There was no point anyway, it wouldn’t guarantee any greater chance of safety for myself. This group, the ‘Chosen’ had made up their mind, and I was a bargaining chip, prisoner until Adam came for me. I wondered if they knew he would not fight for me back with any degree of compassion, or love, but entirely ownership, possession, revenge.

“Adam is wounded” I admitted to her, feeling I had nothing to lose. Mina blinked at me.

“Oh?”

“He is half blinded, and stabbed” I told her, somewhat enjoying the look of surprise on her face. The surprise moulded into suspicion and she wiped a final few droplets from her throat.

“What happened to him?” she asked with narrowed eyes.

“Me” I informed her numbly. “I tried to kill him. If you think he’ll make real dealings with you, you’re wrong, he might offer you money, but only in exchange for your women, your girls” I made sure to look into her eyes as I emphasised the last word. For a moment, she let her expression remain unmasked and I could see fear dancing on her face. The rain was beginning to slow, though lightning struck once more, and the bright flash of fire gleamed terror into her eyes. She swallowed, collecting herself.

“You would say that”

Despite the rain drizzling to a stop, Mina didn’t leave me. As the first hint of dawn settled in the sky, she fell asleep pressed against my body, her head lolling on my shoulder. I was half tempted to let her skin warm my own and let sleep swallow me up, my empty stomach shooting fatigue through my body. She smelled of lotus dappled water, and despite my imprisonment, she was comforting.

I gently attempted to wriggle free, and opened the hut to see a few members of the Chosen sprawled across the ground. They barely looked at me, mouths open and breathing shakily. They were dying. I knew I could run, but I almost felt it was pointless to flee in a frenzy, I doubted I’d find Tabitha, and if I did, she wouldn’t want me. I squatted down next to a hollowed man. I could see each of his vertebrae. His breath rattled, and his cloudy eyes settled on me.

“Mother?” his raspy voice shook as he took me in. I widened my eyes in surprise. The man could’ve been my father, or my grandfather. He was terribly confused, but what was the harm? His life was coming to a close. I took his bony hand and held it between mine.

“Yes” I nodded, attempting to sound as though love flowed freely from me. To my relief, a sense of peace appeared to wash over him, and a strained smile almost formed on his greying face.

“Mm” he rumbled. “You came for me, after all”

I felt my heart twist, and squeezed his hands a little. I thought of my own mother, and I wished she’d come for me. I thought of Tabitha, on her way to her son.

“Of course I did” I whispered. “Of course”

He grunted, as though satisfied with his ending. His final few breaths were wet and gurgling, and then they stopped. I sat with him for what felt like an hour as the sky became speckled with gold and warmed-oak orange. I couldn’t help but feel the morning was more beautiful than I had ever seen it. I kept my hands against his, and somehow hoped that would create some kind of mechanism for him too to enjoy the dawn. I thought perhaps the golden confetti of spotting among the clouds were pieces of his spiritual body, scattered. I assumed he did not believe in God, like Mina. So, there was no God for him. I hoped he would instead marvel in the glory of the dawn. I supposed I could not become a part of God, I could not weave myself into his celestial veins, the way this man could mould the earth and the roots of trees, the torsos of dandelions and the airy bones of winged birds. I hoped the stars would sparkle in the hollows of his cheeks. It was time to leave, I knew. I shut his eyes and got to my feet. I had seen too much death, I was far too jackal like. The attempt to kidnap and capture me was a desperate effort, not a strong one.

I saw movement in the trees and narrowed my eyes. I was conscious the Chosen had taken my blade, and I was anxious to trace over the carved little angel wing. I stiffened, readying myself for a silver wolf, or a member of the Chosen who was not so skin and bone. To my surprise, I recognised the girl who fought through the dense foliage, her pale hair golden in the light. She charged through the grass and thumped into me, wrapping her arms around me tight and holding me firmly against her body. I felt my eyes begin to sting, and grasped her shoulder blades and back tightly. Her earthy scent washed over me. Behind her, Pan and Tamar breathed in relief, following to join her. We all held each other for a few moments, despite the fact they were damp from what I imagined attempting to hide in poor shelter from the storm.

“You came for me?” I finally gasped. Tabitha snorted.

“Of course I came for you!” she exclaimed. “Don’t be stupid”

I cupped her face and strokedq her cheek with my thumb, feeling relief dare to swallow me.

“Thank you” I whispered, feeling my voice falter. She held my own face in return and pressed her forehead against mine.

“Let’s go” she let her arms travel down and took her hand in mine. I squeezed her hand and began to make my way across the Chosen camp.

“I can’t believe it was so easy to find you” Tamar breathed a sigh of relief herself.

“It wasn’t that easy” Pan chuckled. “We were walking in circles for ages”

“Well, with the screams, I thought we’d have to fight off a whole army to get you back” Tamar shrugged at me. It touched me that that was something she was prepared to do, after myself and Priscilla had left her. I didn’t deserve her loyalty. We had almost made it back to the thick line of trees when I heard movement behind me.

“Stop!” Mina cried out to me. I turned to see her standing in such a way that made her appear desperate. I glanced back at Tabitha and to her surprise hurried back to Mina. I took her hands, and she flinched.

“Mina, come with me” I pleaded. She looked at me as if I’d grown a second head, and shook her own slowly.

“Stay with us, we need you” she insisted, her voice shrill and distressed. She only needed me as a bargaining chip. I looked at her thin body and knew if I stayed I would die. I would do anything not to be caught in that maze of death, spared of the climb from limbo to heaven or hell. After seeing threefold execution, I found it was producing a rabid and fierce determination to live, maybe born of fear alone, but it was enough.

“I won’t let you leave” Mina retorted, freeing her hands from my own. In my peripheral vision, I saw Tabitha and Tamar step forward, and saw the sun-kissed glints of their knives. I spun around.

“No!” I cried out. “Leave her, she’s just desperate, her people are dying”

“And we won’t let our people die” Tabitha replied. Mina stood helplessly outnumbered.

“I’ll wake my people, I’ll scream” she threatened.

“Your people are weak, maybe all together you can overpower me, but my people have weapons and we are strong” I warned her. Our strength was questionable, Tabitha being freshly free of infection, Tamar only just eating regularly once again, myself not long recovered from the poisoned pond. Pan was in good health, but they were younger and smaller, despite the way they acted. But they had their weapons.

“Which of you killed him?” Mina asked coldly, her face defeated. We exchanged glances uneasily.

“I did” Tamar admitted, threat in her voice. “And I felt nothing, and I will kill again if you don’t step away from my friend”

She was lying, I knew it, but she thrust her knife forward in warning. Mina eyed her cautiously, scowling with hate.

“You don’t need to stay here” I begged her a final time. She looked at me sullenly, and for a moment I thought she almost might agree, run away with us, escape, live, but she took a step away from me.

“Run before I scream” she warned me. I forced myself not to cry out in frustration, and looked at her a final time before running to grab Tabitha’s hand. We interlocked fingers and fled.

​18

“How did you find me?” I asked between mouthfuls of tiger bread and blackberries. We had deserted the Chosen’s camp, and Tabitha had steered us back in the right direction. We were close to the terrible house, and I knew the others were choked with nerves. Tabitha had been pacing back and forth agitatedly a few moments ago, nibbling on her knuckles. Now she perched beside me and declined a share of my food, her tawny owl eyes wide and shifty. I could feel the tension in her stomach and chest somehow.

While the sky had not returned to a swollen storm, we were overcast in grey. Tamar was boiling and filtering rain water for us to drink, and Pan was halfheartedly eating an egg and cheese sandwich.

“Well the screams helped” Pan began lightheartedly, although I could tell they were apprehensive and jittery.

“To a degree” Tabitha chimed in. “It’s when the screams stopped we kept ending up walking in circles, you seemed so close yet we weren’t actually getting any closer”

“Did you find shelter during the storm?” I asked hopefully. Tamar laughed and shook her head.

“Only an oak tree”

I smiled sympathetically at her, and then let my gaze sweep the three of them, landing on Tabitha.

“Thank you, you could have left me” I murmured. Tabitha wrinkled her nose and elbowed me gently.

“I’m not leaving anyone again” she assured me, her tone assured and firm. I leant against her shoulder gratefully. Through the grotesqueness of my sin she saw something worth saving, maybe even something worth loving. I had thought the way I understood love was far too twisted and tangled for me to understand, but I knew if I was mended enough, if I could grasp the language like the others, I knew she was what love looked like. At least to me, as if she was written in a script only my eyes could decipher. I looked at her doe spotting and wished I could persuade her away from the danger she would find herself in. I knew I was projecting fragility onto her. She was fiercely strong.

We decided to move under the cover of darkness, if we were lucky, Tabitha’s captors would be asleep. I doubted it would be so easy, but I hoped all the same. As the evening drew in, we were too uneasy to start a fire, fearing we were in too close proximity to both the Chosen and the house. We all pointed our bodies in different directions, staring between the ferns and bodies of the trees for movement. I sat with my back leant against Tabitha’s, and everything was beginning to feel starkly real.

“Holly” Tabitha whispered.

“Yeah?” I whispered back.

She paused for a moment as if considering her choice of words.

“There are two men inside the house. There are not three, because I killed one”

I choked on my salvia a little in surprise and coughed for a moment, turning now to face her curiously.

“I’ve done terrible things” she admitted, her eyes brimming with shame. I shook my head.

“I disagree” I carefully stroked my fingertips over her own. “Terrible things were done to you. You only survived”

She smiled a little.

“When I ran, he woke up and tried to stop me, he grabbed me by the hair, and this kind of craze, this rage possessed my body, and well the wall was sort of falling apart, and I jammed my hand into the loose bricks, and I bludgeoned him. And sometimes I wonder if I am really the monster my son needs to be protected from” her voice trailed off into a pained mutter. I squeezed her hands.

“I see his face, constantly. And when we met Opal, she looked at me in this way where she could almost tell, as if she was looking right through me and into my memories” she continued.

“I see Priscilla all the time” I admitted. “Whenever I sleep, and I see Adam’s eye, as if it’s its own person that I murdered”

“You didn’t kill Priscilla” Tabitha shrugged. I let my hand rest on the back of her swan curved neck.

“I think killing for your son is the greatest act of love and bravery” I whispered truthfully. Her eyes shone as she looked back at me.

“I feel as though I just killed for myself” she argued guiltily.

“If you hadn’t, who would be coming for him?” I asked. She took a moment and nodded.

“I suppose you’re right”

We sat in silence for a while as the evening air turned black cherry and sapphire. I knew the three of us were waiting on Tabitha’s word, this was her journey, we simply basked in her starry glow. We only seemed to move to drink water, slowly as if we’d alert someone in the mass of trees. Moonlight was beginning to shine among the grey cloud wisps, and we were gradually turning to look at Tabitha expectantly. I felt like a dog looking eagerly to my masters command, though my body was plagued with anxiety, I felt too a sort of thrill for the potential of a terror-climax, that all this dread may rise up in flames and we could walk from it free. I admired Tabitha’s stoney face, and wondered where we might go afterwards. It struck me with a certain melancholy as I realised I did not instinctively imagine returning to the Union. I missed my mother, I hoped she missed me. I thought of the man among the Chosen, whose life had escaped him in such a defeated way. I hoped my mother was coming for me, too.

Tabitha flinched, and the three of us jumped in turn. I rushed to my feet to settle a step ahead of her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, squinting to follow her gaze. I realised she could hear movement, and panic began to flare inside me. I tensed as Pan nudged us.

“Up that tree!” they ordered, their eyes pointing to a smooth barked oak tree with low sitting branches. I knew the movement could be as little as a deer or rabbit, but I wouldn’t risk it. We shot up the branches, Tamar insisting on climbing last, and scrambled to reach the highest point we could without causing a clattering of our limbs against the bark and a flurry of fallen leaves. We all became statue still once we were satisfied we were relatively concealed, and I strained my eyes, hoping to see the red spine of a fox. I didn’t. I heard Tamar sharply inhale and clamp her hand over her mouth. He had found us.

Adam was stalking through the darkness, through the thick blue-blackness, I could recognise him as if he were myself. His hair was frizzy and unkept, and a new wound snaked along his throat round to the top of his spine. I squinted to see his eye. It was gone, his socket was empty and plum red, littered with little scars. I had blinded him, partially at least. While I attempted to tap into the guilt that had popped in my gut, I only felt satisfaction. I turned to Tabitha and swallowed as I realised what she was about to do, as she gathered power in her heels, her knife firm in her fist. I opened my mouth to stop her, but she stretched her jaw and leapt.

She whipped through the air and as she braced for impact I took a split second to admire her aim. She slammed down right onto him, knocking him into the earth with a crack. She didn’t take a moment to absorb the shock that would have fizzled in her joints, she immediately struck out at him, connecting her small fist to the side of his head with a cry of effort. Stunned, Adam barely moved as he struggled to regain orientation. I uncoordinatedly struggled down the tree to her side, though I found myself standing frozen to the earth as they grappled. Tabitha sliced her blade across Adam’s skin and I cringed as I heard the ripping of his flesh as it tore open. Tamar joined her, and sliced at him. To my surprise, the moment he struggled free, he began to flee, his hot red blood dripping on the grass. Pan watched in horror and I felt a stab of guilt that they had followed us here to witness our brutality. I had expected Adam to kill me, no matter what it took, but he was looking at us with unanticipated terror, and pelted back into the trees, wobbling from his injuries.

“You will never get away from me!” Tabitha screeched after him, beginning to make chase. “You will suffer at my hands as I have suffered at yours”

Tabitha and Tamar followed, and I hesitated for a moment, turning to Pan, who now stood at the bottom of the oak.

“Stay hidden, I’ll be back for you, I promise” I assured them. They nodded, a little dazed, turning back to the trees branches.

“Do come back” they squeezed my hand before climbing. I swallowed and began to follow, wishing my feet would take me so easily over the foliage as they would the Union trails. Though I stumbled, and though an awful turgid feeling of sin seemed to weigh down my ankles as I moved, I felt this indescribable sense of freedom. We were hunting him, and as my feet thudded in tandem with Tabitha and Tamar’s, I realised that the only power Adam truly possessed was not the Union. The Union was not so much a body as it was limbs and teeth, and we could have torn him from his joints and ligaments and bone.

Tabitha grunted and panted in an animalistic frenzy, and I couldn’t help but acknowledge her beauty. I thought no matter what, that if she were to be the very one to kill me, I would not tear my eyes away from her. I had spent so much time assured of the idea that when I saw that empty socket, I would be struck by an inescapable terror, yet I was only choked by the thrill of the hunt, rocked by how remarkably human he was. As we ran, I tried to keep track of landmarks, oddly shaped trees, scatterings of clearings, despite the frenzy, I needed to be able to find my way back to Pan. Adam was weakened by infection, I could smell it on his skin as we neared him, Tabitha’s blade occasionally nicking his back.

He jumped through a thicket of shrubs into a little clearing, and I heard a shrill scream before we were able to reach him. Assuming he had broken a leg or fallen onto a slash wound, we exploded from the bushes to find him underneath the body of another.

“It’s her” Tabitha breathed. I followed her gaze, and felt my skin break out in goosebumps as I realised that the silver she-wolf was standing over him, ripping at his skin with his teeth. He screamed and struggled under her, and she bit hard into his flesh. The three of us stood rooted to the earth as she slowly drained his life. I briefly checked for her children, and saw the hidden face of a silver pup in the ferns behind her. It was definitely her, and I felt a little nausea rise in my stomach as I saw her teeth near his crotch. He let an ugly screech erupt hoarsely from his throat.

The wolf padded towards us with an eerie calm, and dropped a chunk of flesh at my feet. She had completely severed his penis, and it pooled with blood. Behind her, Adam thrashed, his mouth beginning to foam.

I squatted to meet the wolf’s eyes. She looked back at me plainly. I wondered if she was repaying a debt, or if she too were crazed. I extended a hand to her paw.

“Thank you” I whispered, my voice hoarse and shaking. The wolf was silent, and turned to look back at Adam a final time before vocalising to her pup, who followed her into the darkness. The three of us now looked at Adam, who was rapidly losing blood. Now he recognised me, I knew, through his shock clouded gaze. He grabbed for me, and I didn’t let him touch me. The fear in his face made me ache, and I tried not to feel clogged down with guilt. I wanted to touch his disgusting, hateful hand, and comfort him in a way he had never shown me. I resisted, and felt my heart squeeze with grief as terror overcame him. We were silent as his final breath swept over him, and I found myself falling upon his chest with a wail.

Tabitha placed her hand on my back as I wept, and as I did, I felt as though I was shedding my skin, and becoming something new. He would never hurt me again, and it felt like its own death and rebirth. The person he terrorised would rot in the ground with him. I wasn’t quite sure why I was crying in such a mournful and desperate way. I loved him, I knew that. I supposed it had to go somewhere, and I couldn’t destroy it or cast it into the cold.

Tamar squatted beside me and reached into his blood soaked trouser pocket, pulling out a tuft of pale hair, partially reddened, and showed it to the two of us. We didn’t feel the need to exchange words about her discovery, it was a simple realisation.

“We should be getting back to Pan” I pulled away from his corpse, blood spotting on my skin. Tabitha and Tamar nodded, and Tabitha helped me to my feet. I looked at Adam once more. He had told me he was never going to die. Now he looked less like a god, and more like the earth. He would rot into the grass. I hoped Priscilla felt avenged, wherever she was, that wolf freed us from his wrath while sparing us the horror of murder by our own hand. As we staggered back to Pan, I felt the heavy permanence of Priscilla’s death. She would not come back to us, she could not trade herself for him.

Pan hopped down from the tree’s branches, their eyes widened as they made out the splashes of blood in the darkness, and began to check us for cuts and scratches.

“Do you regret coming with us?” I whispered to them as they soaked a rag with water and wiped me clean. “You could be safe with Opal right now”

They shook their head.

“Of course not” they insisted.

“You’ve seen death” I argued.

“I’d seen death before” they shrugged. “I’ll see this through”

I pulled them into my body, wrapping my arms around them and resting my chin on their head. Their minty scent enveloped me and they squeezed me tight. Tabitha and Tamar joined us, and we stood for a moment holding one another. I welcomed the warmth of their bodies in the chilly night air, and tried to forget what I had just seen.

Tabitha was the first to pull away.

“We have to move now, before the dawn comes”

​19

If I hadn’t known better, I’d have assumed the house was abandoned. Red bricks were loose and chipped at, and ivy was growing in clumps up the walls. The windows were smashed and shards of frosted glass sat in the grass. They sparkled in the peppered moonlight. The forest was so silent I hoped it was in fact deserted. Tabitha gazed at it with an expression I couldn’t quite reach, though I knew determination swam in her eyes. She gripped her muddy stained blade, she hadn’t bothered to wipe Adam’s blood. I flexed my wrists, missing my own blade. I squeezed Tabitha’s other hand and she dipped her head to me.

“If I was a worse person I’d have beheaded him” she hissed as she stared into the black void of the house through the unhinged door. “I would have reminded them what death looks like”

She was the first through the door, and regretfully, I was last, making sure to sandwich Pan, who I grew more concerned for. I felt like I was somewhat betraying Opal, bringing them into such danger, but I knew I couldn’t turn them away. Tamar was bristling uneasily, and I hoped she wouldn’t lash out unless she had to. Shadows pressed against us, and despite the relative openness, I felt overwhelmingly claustrophobic. My feet brushed little piles of leaves and pieces of white china. The floor was caked in mud and dirt, I didn’t know how anyone could live here. My gaze flickered to Tabitha, and she remained determined.

Downstairs appeared empty, though my skin crawled, expecting somebody to be lurking in the shadows. The curtains were half on and half off, partially torn up, I kept watch, imagining a man hiding below them. We moved slowly and carefully, cringing at the little noises we made. I swallowed as I looked to the stairs. They led into a smothering blackness, and I felt dread sit tar heavy in my gut. I glanced at Tabitha for bravery and she took a shaky breath as she took the first step. The old wood creaked under her weight, and I followed close behind. I knew she had to be first, it had to be her, and she was the only one of us who could navigate this place in the darkness, but I wished I could protect her all the same.

We moved slowly upwards, until we heard a sudden, seemingly ear splitting crack, and realised Pan’s foot had fallen through the rotten wooden step. They gasped in alarm, beginning to shake their leg in panic. Pieces of wood were lodged in their skin, and the more they thrashed the more wedged in they became. Adrenaline began to course through my body as I heard the click of a torch upstairs, and a sudden ugly yellow light cast itself upon the ground above us. Tamar jumped to Pan’s aid, carefully beginning to remove the pieces of wood. They took a deep breath, as I imagined they’d instruct us to do in their place, and stared anxiously ahead.

A scream cut through the open air, and in the darkness I was able to make out Tabitha’s pupils dilating, her lips falling open a little.

“I’m sorry Pan, they have my son” she shot away into the darkness. I twisted my neck backwards and Tamar ushered me after her. I nodded and followed. She moved swiftly and with a purpose I had not yet seen on her face. The upstairs corridor was much like the downstairs, the windows were broken, the interior was wooden and rotting, dirt streaked and neglected. We had hardly stood a moment before the light found us. I felt as if Adam had crawled into hell and had beamed down a thrashing river of sin.

I squinted in the jarring brightness, and made out a man I recognised. His arm was red and raw from where I had bitten him, the wound crusting around the edges. I hoped infection would crawl inside his body.

“Amon?” I asked, attempting to find an assertiveness in my voice. Despite Adam looking relatively normal among the Union, the awe and praise he inspired almost tricked me into thinking he was terribly regal and otherworldly. Amon looked nothing like how I’d imagine a leader. Pale and gaunt and thin, and afraid of me. He eyed me cautiously, the hair on his arms pointing upwards.

“You” he spat. Tabitha looked at me, surprised I was the one he was referring to. He smirked.

“Don’t get too comfortable, Adam is coming for you” fear was making him erratic, his pupils were dilated, his body was twitching and his feet shifted his body weight back and forth. I regarded him as calmly as possible.

“Adam is dead” I replied. “I castrated him and let a wolf feed on his body” I lied. It was a fine choice from me. Amon’s skin grew sickly white, his eyes stretching wider. His gaze flickered to Tabitha.

“What the hell are you doing back here?” terror edged his tone. He licked his lips, distress clouding his voice as his body trembled.

“Do you mean to kill me, too?” despite his horrified demeanour, there was an air of challenge and sarcasm about him. I felt he believed me, he just didn’t want to let me know.

“If you stand in the way of me getting to my son” Tabitha walked up to face him, her head tilted upwards and her owl eyes locked onto his. She showed no fear. “I will do to you like we did to Adam”

He laughed. It was a short ugly laugh speckled with terror.

“Your son is Adam’s, he will grow in his likeness, he will do to you what we did” he taunted, sweat beading on his wrinkled forehead. Tabitha scoffed and swung her arm, bringing her blade in a swift motion. She penetrated the side of his head, and he screamed, his body barging into the wall. The baby’s cry sounded again, and Tabitha kicked Amon away and moved towards it. Amon struggled to his feet dizzily, staggering after her. Without much foresight, I flung my body down onto his, knocking him back down to the ground.

Wood splintered my knee and I hissed as I grappled with him. He kicked at my stomach from the floor and I thrust my elbow into his face. Blood sprayed from his nose and he balled his fist and collided with my cheekbone. Knocked back, I scrambled for balance, and he took the moment to rush to his feet, advancing over me. I dizzily attempted to join him and stand, and he knocked me to the ground with a forceful kick, blood dripping onto my chest. I struggled for breath and cried out in pain. Panic seized me as I grappled on the ground. He was going to kill me, why wouldn’t he?

The world spun, and he lifted his leg once more, and in a flash, Tamar had reached me. She barrelled into Amon, knocking him to the ground once again. I twisted around as the thud shook the ground beneath me. Tamar had pulled the knife from his head with great force, and stood over me with the knife outstretched. Blood was trickling from his injury, and his pale skin grew clammy looking, his breaths rapid and shallow as he weakened. He looked up at Tamar as his body shook, with a look of disgust more potent than I could imagine on another humans face.

“You are nothing” he spat at her feebly.

“Are you trying to goad me into killing you?” Tamar asked with narrowed eyes.

“Women don’t kill” he insisted with a scowl.

“I’m not a woman yet, I am only a girl, and I murdered your friend, and I’d do the same to you. Now nurse your wound and stand aside” she bit back. Amon was struggling to stay upright on the ground, and was slowly lowering as blood continued to flow from his head. He grimaced at her, and lay still in defeat. I looked up at Tamar gratefully. I knew she didn’t want to kill again, that she was most likely haunted by what she’d done, as I was, as Tabitha was. Little feet scampered behind us, and I dizzily struggled to my feet, grateful to see Pan. I shakily wrapped my arms around them.

“Are you ok?” I checked. They nodded, their dark eyes focused.

“You’re hurt” they gently touched my cheek, a bruise must have already begun to form. I smiled and squeezed their arm.

“It’s ok, we need to go after Tabitha” I urged. The two of them followed me as I dizzily attempted to follow Tabitha’s steps. I found myself in the second room along the crumbling corridor. Mildew and rot was in the wood, several floorboards were missing and splintered. Two dirty mattresses lay on the ground, and little else other than green and blue broken bottle fragments and cobwebs, and in the shadow smothered corner, a pale blue eyed man holding a knife to Tabitha’s throat. A tiny baby was screaming on one of the mattresses, and Pan darted to him, scooping him up protectively.

“Take one step closer!” the man barked at us, pressing the blade against Tabitha’s throat. Tabitha seemed to mould to Priscilla, her large eyes narrowing and darkening, her hair growing long, and terror paralysed me for a moment. I hadn’t saved Priscilla, I had to be careful. Everybody seemed frozen, unsure of how to proceed.

“We only want to leave peacefully” Pan protested, their voice firm. The man scoffed as Tabitha struggled. I cringed as I saw her skin stretch around the blade, it would be drawing blood soon.

“That didn’t sound so peaceful out there” he bit back. “You slaughter Adam, you try to kill Amon, I should just sit back while you take me too?” he shook his head at us shakily.

“You’re fucking evil”

He looked past us suddenly, and I turned my head nervously, expecting to see that Amon had regained his strength, but I didn’t. Mina eyed me with unfiltered horror.

“Mina?” I gasped. Tabitha bristled with rage as she recognised her.

“What did you do to Amon?” she asked, rage crashing through her body.

“What it took” I replied. I knew I had wronged her in the way closest to her heart, and she would not waver her beliefs for me, not now or ever. Her eyes were cast with purple, and dirt was smeared across her shins. She looked exhausted, anguish sparkling in her gaze.

“Take the child” the man ordered her. Mina looked at Pan with dull eyes.

“No!” Tabitha screeched. “Don’t take my son!”

Pan held onto Adler with a tight grip, taking a step backwards, myself and Tamar stepping in front of the two, Tamar extending her blade.

“Take the child or I will slaughter her like a pig” the man ordered shrilly.

“Let him kill me!” Tabitha exclaimed, her expression pleading. Pan’s eyes darted between hers and Mina’s. I felt alarm fizz in my chest. Tabitha was willing to die for her son, and the idea terrified me.

“I can’t watch you die” Tamar insisted, taking a step backwards sullenly.

“Holly!” Tabitha cried out desperately. “Holly do not let her touch him!”

My heart felt as if it was crushing in on itself, and I nodded, standing firm in front of Pan. Tears began to roll down my cheeks as I pictured Priscilla’s execution. I couldn’t fail Tabitha too.

“Tabby” I croaked. She stared at me, her eyes wild.

“Nothing else matters” she insisted from under the knife.

“You matter” I whispered to her. Mina stood frozen still.

“Mina, act now!” the man yelled to her. Mina stared at him, and slowly turned, launching her foot into the man’s crotch.

“I only take orders from Amon” she grunted.

His knife fell away and Tabitha immediately scooped it up, fleeing his grasp and running to Pan to snatch her son.

“Thank you, Pan” she pressed her forehead against theirs for a moment before she grabbed my arm and motioned for Tamar to follow her. The man writhed on the ground in pain, but I knew it would only be for a moment.

“What about Mina?” I asked as we fled. “Come with us” I cried to her.

Mina stood solemnly for a moment.

“Amon is dying. Let me mourn him, I won’t leave my family” she insisted. I felt my chest ache as I reached to her and she backed away. I knew I had to prioritise Tabitha. I nodded in acceptance.

“Thank you, Mina!” I called out to her over my shoulder as we ran. We fled the house and pelted through the trees as dawn began to gloss the sky with dandelion light.

​20

Golden sunshine enveloped us as we stopped to rest and eat in a poppy speckled clearing. We would reach Opal in a day’s walk. Adler had stopped crying, and had not left Tabitha’s side. She had cut into her fox pelt so he could press against her skin, and he was soothed by her heartbeat. He was tiny and thin, and we fed him mushed up fruit. Opal would know what to do, we had told each other. He looked nothing like Adam, Tabitha was breathed into every feature. His huge dark eyes and long golden lashes, his tiny mass of pale hair and his petite mouth, he was all Tabitha.

Her throat was merely scratched, and Pan saw no reason to worry. Tabitha rocked him gently.

“Of course I came for you” she whispered, love suffocating her words. Tamar and Pan were beginning to doze off in the pools of sunlight, and I leant against Tabitha’s side, my head resting on her shoulder.

“I was just thinking how much he looks like you” I murmured sleepily. Tabitha smiled. I had never seen her look more like a person.

“He does” she agreed happily. “Do you think he’ll get freckles like me?”

I nodded.

“Of course, and his hair will stay fair and his eyes will stay large”

Tabitha stroked his tiny face.

“They said he was Adam’s, but he isn’t, he’s all mine” she kissed his head, brimming with affection. I cherished the warmth of her shoulder. If I could be her second favourite person in the world, I would be happier than I thought possible. I looked over to see that Pan had fallen asleep with their head resting on Tamar’s arm, she had both stretched above her head as if surrendering in her sleep.

“Tabitha” I began. “Is it strange that I think I am Adler’s half sister, and I still want to hold your hand”

She mused on what I said, and turned to me, her face warm still.

“I want you to be my family, Holly” she pressed her forehead against mine, and let the hand that wasn’t cradling Adler slip into mine.

Relief washed over me, and I squeezed her hand tight.

“Where will we go? Shall we stay with Opal forever? I can’t go back to the Union yet, for my mother, they will blame me for Adam’s death” I admitted solemnly. Tabitha nodded, understanding.

“Amon may still have survived, and so will his companion, the forest is not safe for me” she shook her head. Honey coloured sunlight lit her eyes, and I knew as I looked at her I would follow her anywhere on earth.

“Then let’s leave the forest”

Tabitha blinked in surprise.

“It’s all you’ve known”

“I will know something better” I insisted. Adler hiccuped in his sleep, and I stroked Tabitha’s hand with my thumb.

“We will know something better”

Tabitha’s eyes slowly began to close as she pressed against me. I would stay awake, I needed to keep watch. I narrowed my eyes as I noticed movement ahead, and as I looked harder, I realised I recognised silver fur. The wolf blinked at me, and I watched her stalk into the undergrowth, her pup at her heels.