They leave their homes, creeping out in the milky light of an early morning, slipping away during recess, simply walking out of class during the day. These are not older girls, like the first wave of Janey’s followers, but those Rosie’s age—eight, nine, ten years old: her friends, her allies, her peers and her enemies. They leave in twos and threes, clutching hands tightly until their knuckles are white. They blindly walk through the brush, kick through fields, peering behind rocks and under hedges, until they find a girl who has already left, who can tell them what to do and where to meet at night. They carry knowledge of Rosie’s death to the girls on the beach, spreading the dark news, eliciting stunned stares and tears of grief and confusion. Caitlin, who had begun to emerge from her shyness to talk and laugh with the other girls, endlessly wanders the beach, pale and silent in her sorrow.
Unexpectedly more practical than their older counterparts, these new girls also bring blankets from their beds, flint and steel swiped from their kitchens, pots of fermented dough and wheels of cheese from their family stores. These supplies are heaped in hiding places, or dragged from the night beach to their daytime sleeping locations, becoming filthy and damp but still useful. Shoes and sweaters are shared with the other girls, often with giggling pairs shimmied tightly into the same sweater, high-stepping clumsily with one shoe each.
Parents come out during the day, the injunction to ignore their daughters disregarded. They search, eager to drag them back and punish them, frequently hauling any child they find back to her home and depositing her there to be beaten, hugged, or lectured. The wanderers are busy, going to and fro from the wastelands, marshaling adults and holding their secret meetings, but they too search the fields, wrestling children home and demanding they receive a harsher beating than most parents would give otherwise. Sometimes the children, secretly relieved to be back with their devoted mother and doting father, in a warm bed at night, eating hot food until their stomachs bulge, will stay. More often they wait, recover, and flee again to their intoxicating, firelit existence.
“It’s nice, having the young ones, isn’t it?” says Mary to Janey one night, and Janey sighs like an overworked mother. The supplies these girls bring are vital, and will hopefully keep them from freezing at night. And yet they are troublesome, crying on Janey’s shoulder for their mothers, squabbling and expecting her to adjudicate, forgetting the rules and frolicking on the beach during the day like wild animals. They cry and wail over scraped knees and hungry evenings. They eat the wrong berries and squat all night with diarrhea. They fret about the darkness below and look to her to argue them back into complacency. Janey wanted to lead the girls to freedom, not to end up being the counselor, comforter, and pastor of a gaggle of children. She tries to share the burden with the older girls, but they are still years younger than Janey and lost in their own play.
It is not only the young ones who left home after hearing of Rosie’s murder at the hands of the wanderers. There are older girls who were shyer, more frightened, but were spurred into action. They are still learning how to sleep during the day and live on clams, bloodberries, fish bones, and scraps of cheese. While they are able to rely on one another and themselves more than the little ones, they are little help apart from the supplies they carry with them.
It is getting colder and colder. The sea has changed from a welcoming blue to a stippled, threatening gray. The grass frosts later into the morning, the sky fades icy and white. Trees turn yellow and brown, with leaves falling like a papery rain when the wind blows. Slowly, despite prior restrictions, the girls build their night fires larger and higher and hotter, returning to them to steep in the flaming warmth when their fingers or toes become numb. They sleep in bigger groups, layering themselves under damp blankets stuffed with chicken down, huddling together like skinny featherless hens. They discover previously unknown reserves of strengths even while battling chilblains, constantly running noses, and the threat of frostbite. And yet the chronic pain of their cold bones and whitened skin wears on them. Janey hears sobs at night, frantic whispers while girls chafe each other’s fingers and toes or plaster themselves body to body for warmth.
“Do you think we can make it through the winter?” Mary asks Janey. “It’s still autumn and it’s so cold.”
“I don’t know,” says Janey. “But what’s our other option? Going back for the winter, coming out again in spring?”
“We’d definitely be let out in summer.”
“Would we?”
Mary looks appalled at the implication and says no more. A light drizzle begins falling from the sky, scattering sparking jewels on her skin and hair. She snuggles into Janey’s ribs. “If you can survive the cold, surely we can,” she says. “You’ve got no fat on you at all.”
“I burn hotter,” says Janey with a laugh, neglecting to mention that she is cold, deathly cold, cold beyond shivering, all the time. The night fires are utter bliss to her, and during the day her bones ache and creak with icy chill, her flesh hardens and complains bitterly, her mouth feels coated with ice, and it is only when she puts cold fingers on her tongue to warm them that she realizes it is warmer than the rest of her. Sometimes, when a little girl comes to her for succor, Janey wants to keep that girl on her lap for hours, sucking in her young heat like some enormous winter spider with fresh, hot prey quivering in her web.
Chapter Forty-One
Vanessa
Vanessa is woken in the middle of the night by a strange sound, like a high wailing. Rising quietly in her off-white nightgown, she glides downstairs carefully, in case a monster is lying in wait. The sound is now a howling cry emanating from the library, and she recognizes the voice: Father.