As she made her way through the forest, Brina tried to creep like Aunt Eupa taught her. Aunt Eupa moved like a snake. It was like her bones were made of jelly and she had this uncanny ability to know exactly where you were looking and not be there. It was amazing work. Brina had seen her do it to Daddy, sliding around with her feet set wide, curling her spine and arms around so that she could even slip between his feet without his feeling or seeing or hearing her. She was dead silent, and Brina had seen her go through a light beam without stirring the dust.
She had been trying to teach Brina how to do it. She could teach Brina everything else, but the silence was just a little too hard. Brina didn't expect to be able to move like that, she wasn't sure what Aunt Eupa and Ro-Ro were made of but it wasn't the same stuff as Brina, and she couldn't expect to be like them. They all said she was powerful in her ways and they were powerful in theirs. Aunt Eupa was sneaky, Ro-Ro could hunt anything, and Daddy was strong and tough and Brina had powerful magic.
Except her hands itched and her feet itched, she was tired and hungry, and Brina didn't feel very powerful right now. Her magic had fled to the moon or something and it left a scared little girl with two-colored eyes trembling in the forest, alone and cold. Just thinking about it again made her angry, made her stomach hurt with how angry it made her. She wished it was a thing she could throw, she'd have tossed it into the river! She didn't even want it to come back! She hated her magic!
But she didn't have the energy to be so angry right now, and the inner fire died quickly. She felt a little better, but then she remembered how lost she was. She needed to find somewhere to sleep, that's what she was doing. And her hands still itched!
Sneak like Aunt Eupa, she reminded herself. Keep the wolves from seeing her, hearing her. Powerful, even without the magic.
Hide and seek was a game they all played where Brina got to watch all her family be good at their things. Daddy was sneaky and graceful, too, even better than Ro-Ro. Ro-Ro wasn't clumsy, but she wasn't much better than Brina at most of the tumbling, and Brina had better balance and was better with her feet and hands. Ro-Ro said she wasn't for the little things, she was for hunting and running and jumping and throwing, and she was excellent at those, which was undeniable.
So since Ro-Ro was the hunter and Aunt Eupa was the sneaky one, they made Aunt Eupa be the hunter and Ro-Ro would help Brina hide. It was unfair otherwise, they said, and it would make Brina too easy a target, and they were going to do that when Brina was good enough to hide with Aunt Eupa. Ro-Ro agreed to wear a blindfold for that, when it came.
They were playing when Brina used her magic for the first time. She didn't teleport far, just ten feet or so. If Brina hadn't teleported with Ro-Ro before, she wouldn't have even known what happened, she was just on the other side of Daddy all of a sudden. It surprised her so bad she fell down when she tried to stop. It made Aunt Eupa mad, but that wasn't Brina's fault. Aunt Eupa just panicked because she didn't like magic and it scared her. She'd gotten over it since then, but at the time, Aunt Eupa barely could stand Ro-Ro's magic, and she knew Ro-Ro's magic at the source.
Brina suddenly remembered that Daddy made Aunt Eupa apologize that night. She killed him when he did it, Brina didn't even see it, it happened so fast. He was just bleeding and then he grabbed her in a bear hug and fell on her. It was funny to watch Aunt Eupa wriggle and kick like that, trying to get out from under him and unable to. He got scary at her, made her duck and draw her knife again a little after that, but Brina didn't hear what they were saying by then. She forgot a lot how scary Daddy could get. She thought he was scary that night 'cos he broke her arm, but the kind of scary he was at Aunt Eupa to make her say sorry was totally different. It made Aunt Eupa start curling back and poking her knife at things.
Brina knew sunset went quickly in the winter and in the forest, but it was getting dark even faster than she expected. She wandered through the orange light, starting to worry that she really was going to be caught out at nighttime.
Where can I sleep, Ro-Ro?
You asked me this already. Look around. You'll need shelter from rain and dew. Protection from predators. Easy escape on two sides so you don't corner yourself. You can make your own by making piles of stuff propped up on other stuff, or you can find something already propped up on something else that's big enough. Hollowed out tree trunks are good examples--if you can clear out any snakes and spiders, pile it full of leaves, it's a great way to keep warm by yourself and keep the rain out and keep egress. If you have two people, you can keep warm even easier. You do need to watch out for snakes crawling on you in your sleep, they like warmth.
Brina remembered that because the idea scared her. Snakes scared her in general. Aunt Eupa talked about them like she loved them, said they were almost as deadly as cats and were nearly perfect predators.
It's okay, just keep going. Little by little. Foot after foot. Come on, baby girl, you can do it.
Brina hummed to herself softly as she continued, and she tried not to feel so small and weak and helpless. She was starting to feel the cold and she was alone and scared. The trees towered over her, the night animals were beginning to stir and move and awaken, their soft rustling in the trees kept startling Brina. Each time, she froze until she could find it.
It was a lot like trying to find a hiding place in hide and seek. Brina had been told that hide and seek was good for her, they even said hiding practice was good, but she never realized what they meant. She knew it taught her numbers, but hiding was important and hunting was important and it was good to do that in fun before you had to do it for real. Aunt Eupa and Ro-Ro said it and Brina didn't get it until now.
They hadn't played in a long time. She'd ask when she got home. That thought reminded her that she'd already thought it before, and there was a lot of stuff she wanted to ask. She couldn't remember any of it. She worried she might not have to remember any of it, it might never be important again. The light was barely blue. The white wisps of cold were thickening into a fog, and Brina was grateful again that she couldn't feel the bite.
She tried to use her weight on her hips and back foot, she tried to slink like Aunt Eupa, silent and swift. Tried to find a hiding place, tried to hunt like Ro-Ro, use her eyes and ears and nose….
And, by whatever luck, found a huge fallen tree. She almost missed it in the fading light, but the stars and moon shone through the gap in the canopy. It had ripped up the ground around it as it fell, roots sprawled and stretched, twisting into the air. The other end had crushed and crashed and collapsed into the ground while the rest stretched up and out. Brina went to see if there was a way to make this a shelter, if she could climb into the fallen branches and make a bed off the ground or...
Brina almost missed it, but one of the big branches from where it split had broken off uneven, creating a deep gash in the healthy wood, opening it against the ground. There was only a wedge-shaped opening at the foot on this side, and it was fairly closed off.
Brina could hardly see. The hole she could use to get in and out was close to the ground, and Brina would have to crawl to get in. Did it have another side? She clambered over the branches to look and found the same kind of gap! It was too small, but Brina only had to dig through the leaves, and she could put them all back and...
She would normally have been too scared to investigate by herself, she was afraid to find snakes or anything else that could have lived here, spiders, but right now there were wolves outside for certain, and Brina was cold and tired and she was just so happy to see anything like this, even something that could be hope for just a few moments, if she could....
She felt into the dark and brushed the edges with her hand, feeling the cold wood, ridged and splintered. She didn't find any bugs, they didn't even crawl on her. Maybe something else had hollowed this out for a home? It was even dry!
Before she climbed all the way in, Brina remembered to kick and shout at it and get away from the entrance. Nothing ran out. Brina waited until it was nearly too dark to see, and she scrambled into the little makeshift shelter.
Brina had to slide on her belly to get in and it wasn't big enough to move around comfortably. She had to stay folded up with her legs too close and she couldn't sit up all the way, but Ro-Ro said that wasn't important. It was barely a wedge in the tree, the split had created something of a crevasse into the trunk, giving her a triangular shelter that was open on both ends.
Brina dragged all the leaves she could into her hollowed out den thing, she used them to pack into the exits and pack around the edges to keep herself warm, it was completely dark inside when she finished but she hardly cared. It wasn't much better outside.
She knocked on her surroundings to make sure they were sturdy, and they were. The tree didn't move, the hollow bit of the tree was open enough to pad herself with, she had the entrance and exit…
Brina was shut completely in, sealed safe, with a roof and walls. It was quiet, if a little crinkly.
And now she felt trapped.
But I have two exits. Like Ro-Ro taught me. It's blocked off and hard to get into. It's got a roof, it's got walls, sorta.
I'm okay.
I'm Brinarini and I'm magic and I'm loved and I'm strong and I'm fast and I'm tough and I'm good.
And I miss my Daddy.
Brina started crying again at the thought. He was always the nice one, but he was also the scariest. Aunt Eupa and Ro-Ro and Uncle Peck all said that he was the scariest. Ro-Ro explained that it was because he was The Alpha. Her and Aunt Eupa were his packmates, and when it came to his house and his daughter, they followed him and his lead and his command.
Brina knew how strict Daddy wasn't, and how powerful Ro-Ro was, so it was hard to think that Ro-Ro would ever 'obey' Daddy, even as a sort of formality. She wasn't like Aunt Eupa, she didn't live in the house and she could teleport out of his hands, and Brina had only seen him swing at her once outside the time he broke Aunt Eupa's arm and he missed that time, too.
Brina listened to something small scuttering across the top of her hiding spot and tried to think of her daddy in good ways, but that just made her miss him more. His hands were so big, so, so big, she could sit on one while he held her. He was strong enough that he could pick Brina and Aunt Eupa and Ro-Ro up all in one hand, and he could throw Aunt Eupa twenty feet into the trees so she could get Brina's toy down. He could throw Aunt Eupa like she was a toy, really. He could throw everyone like a toy, Ro-Ro said, but he didn't always do that. Mostly just Aunt Eupa.
Brina managed to stop crying and eventually felt the warmth as her body spread it to the leaves and air around her. She could see the cold fog dissipating slowly as her body heated the space. Seeing these things without lights was always so strange to Brina. Her eyes wouldn't pick up anything but the magic. Some days that was great, some days it was awful.
Her magic had been terrible today! She'd never had this happen! She broke through with a teleport when she was six. She started seeing and feeling the magic in herself, seeing the forces around her. The accidental castings got more and more frequent. It was done "coming in" and was getting settled within months. It still wasn't settled, apparently, and Brina was beginning to think it never would.
She was too tired to be angry at it right now. She was so tired. She just wanted to sleep. But instead, she was lying awake and waiting to see if the wolves were going to find her. She tried to pass the time by massaging her feet and legs, which still ached horribly. Her hands started to hurt before too long, though, and she started using the tree to rub her feet instead. It helped with the itch, at least. The tree helped with the itch on her hands, too.
She missed Daddy again. Aunt Eupa made her feel like she could handle things if they went wrong, it was nice to have Aunt Eupa always encouraging like she did. Ro-Ro was strong and smart, she didn't encourage but she expected from Brina. Daddy took care. He protected, defended, he made Brina feel safe. His big hands would always carry her to safety or push away dangers. Even when the danger was gravity.
Brina sniffled and scratched her hands. Maybe they'd get better. Maybe she would wake up and Ro-Ro would be waiting for her outside her hiding place. Maybe Daddy would be there, too, Ro-Ro would bring him, and they'd all be so mad and so happy at the same time. Aunt Eupa would pace like mad and start and stop talking over and over like she did when she was excited and trying not to say too many cuss words. Ro-Ro would be angry, Daddy would hold her and yell in his angry voice, so loud you could hear it through the forest to Tinian, or at least that's how Brina felt when he was aiming it at her.
She missed her doll, and she missed Aunt Eupa telling her stories about Daddy being silly and heroic, and her daddy singing his lullaby song for her. She wondered where Ro-Ro was and wept again but only for a few moments. She was too tired to weep anymore.
It took some work to get comfortable. The gap was smaller than she thought every time she moved. She scraped her knees and elbows on the rough wood, bumped her head. The crevasse in the tree was oblong, and she was on top of the dirt and a pile of leaves, and the holes she could use to climb in and out were at her feet and right at her shoulder, also stopped up with leaves.
Eventually, Brina worked out that she could lie on her side and almost stretch out all the way, and the way the tree's ripped off limb was angled was good for a pillow. She figured out how to curl her arm under her head so that the leaves would quit getting in her nose when she breathed. Got her legs fixed so they were tucked in and warm, tucked her feet into her knees.
She had almost nodded off when she heard the wolves.
The rustling thump startled her, and she sucked in a breath and held it, trying to stay quiet and listen. Just four feet, then eight more, she guessed, she couldn't tell, soft and even crunching through the leaves, and she heard their heavy rhythmic breathing. They might have just finished running. Were they hunting her? Could they smell her? Could they hear her?
Were they walking past? They were still moving. She couldn't hear where they were coming from, it sounded like over her head where she was lying, now she was pretty sure they were in front of her, but that could be the sound echoing off the tree and her ears being turned that way. Brina's heart pounded too loud. She could hear her own blood, and now she was sure they could hear it, too. It wasn't important if they could hear her, she remembered. The cold sinking feeling in her stomach threatened to make her shiver. They could smell her. There was no way they couldn't.
She tried not to move, but she wanted to cover her mouth to hide her breathing, she needed to breathe and was too scared. They were still too close! She was sure they were walking past, now, please...
It was such a strange time to remember. Brina's first time learning about death, real death, the permanent kind that puts you back into the cycle of the world as it's supposed to continue. She hadn't understood the idea very well before, because Daddy and Uncle Peck kind of made it no big thing. Her first and only pet, an old and tired crow she brought in for its final days.
Her efforts to keep the breath in made her squeak and then gasp, and she heard the padding stop outside the wall she was facing. She was in tight, the escape holes were big enough to slide out of, she'd have to move the leaves. The leaves were packed in tight. Maybe they couldn't hear her.
She did keep breathing, kept trying stay breaths steady and careful so that they wouldn't hear it. She almost breathed in a leaf and stopped again. Would she choke? She dared not move and use her hand. She breathed even slower, tried to scrape the leaf off her tongue. They knew where she was, she knew they did! Their footsteps started again. They were getting closer!
The scuffling sound got closer, more feet padded up. Brina's eyes flooded and she was afraid to let the tears fall, lest they hear the tap of the drop on the leaves. The steps were so careful, so even. Predators in their environment. The heavy breathing got louder, she heard the rapid inhale-exhale of curious sniffing nearby.
A scratching sound on the bark made Brina yelp in terror. Silence reigned as she held her breath again. The wolves stopped, too, waiting, she guessed. Another scratch, light and quiet. Brina held it in this time but she couldn't stop the sob pushing the air. She had the two exits. But there was more than one wolf. But they'd have to surround the tree, maybe she could climb it. The roof was solid. Don't cry. Don't cry. I can get out and climb up before they grab me, right? I've rested enough, I can move again. Right?
More footsteps. More wolves? Were they moving? Brina listened to them circle and she tried to keep the weeping quiet, leaving her mouth open to make the air as quiet as she could. They circled more, and scratched again. Brina waited for the digging at the entrance to start..
She tried to remember the crow, but she was too scared. All she could remember was planting the peach pit over the body that the crow left behind. Letting the body into the planet to be consumed by the tree the pit would become. She'd be in the ground as wolf poop, and the bones would be eaten by the worms and mushrooms and butterflies, everything would break her down into all the tiniest parts and into the world so she could feed the trees.
Ro-Ro was going to get so mad at her. Daddy was going to be so sad. Aunt Eupa said Daddy would go to pieces, but Brina was pretty sure Aunt Eupa would be worse, and Uncle Peck would be even worse than that, he'd go all the way mad.
The wolves got quiet again. They were going to eat her. They were surrounding the tree and they were going to chase her into each other and eat her. They were done getting into position and one of them was about to scare her out. Ro-Ro taught her this trick. It was called 'flushing'.
Brina couldn't even run. She was too tired. She wasn't even going to be flushed, they were going have to drag her out. Ro-Ro always said she had to be a pain in the butt to eat, so now she was just going to stay in her hard shell to crack. She couldn't even see to fight back, she was too tired, she couldn't do anything anyway. She hoped one of them choked.
She closed her eyes and braced herself for the inevitable digging at her hidey hole. She waited for something to grab her arm in their jaws and pull.
She kept waiting. It was quiet. Silent.
Nothing. Not even scratching. No more panting.
Finally, there was something of a groan and a whine from one of the wolves behind her. Well. Good thing she didn't try to run, that would have been the way she tried to go.
Brina listened as they, one by one, sauntered off. Even footsteps pacing away, first one then the others, vanishing into the night until Brina couldn't hear them anymore. She refused to accept that they were gone until she heard something small scampering around in the leaves.
