Born 01 - Born

city we would have to leave her behind. No diabetes in the city. Momma said they could shove that up their behinds. So we left the city. My aunty Heather got grabbed there. Momma thinks because she tested healthy they told the bad ones to take her to the breeder farms. They drove up in their trucks and held guns on us. They dragged her into the truck. She screamed and reached for us. Momma never moved. She just watched. I never seen aunty Heather again."
    Her story is the story of thousands of women.
    I nod. "I've seen them taken, too. They always leave the kids behind."
    She puts a finger to her lips. "Shh, you hear that?"
    I listen. All I hear is my own heartbeat and it dawns on me that as she natters on, she listens to the forest song the way I do. I don’t hear them. No birds, no squirrels. I stop walking. I pull an arrow instantly and hold the bow ready.
    A branch breaks to the side of us. I swing the bow with the arrow trembling in my hands. A huge black bear groans and walks past us on the ridge below us. Leo growls and crouches. He looks at me but I shake my head.
    We don’t turn our backs on it. We walk up the hill backwards until the bear is far enough away. Leo's dark hackles stay up until he starts sniffing the ground again. He wanders in a circle for a moment.
    "So then I was saying to Momma…hey, look, I think he has a smell. Not totally useless, is he?"
    I glare at her.
    She puts her hands up. "What? He's no hound, but I think he's got the scent."
    I follow him through the thick woods until suddenly he stops walking. We've hiked for hours and this is the most animated I've seen him. He growls in his low tone and crawls along the forest floor on his belly. We follow him low to the ground. I am scanning the forest but I see nothing.
    "There." Meg points to a man wearing camouflage high up in a tree. He holds a sniper rifle. There is no way we will get around him. I pull my bow out but Meg stops my hand and points to a man in another tree just behind him.
    "We wait for dark," she whispers.
    I look at her and frown. "Where is your home?"
    Her brown eyes look haunted. "It's back closer to the town by the big river. Momma was taken when they were looking for some girl. They searched all the houses and found my aunty Lisa and Momma hiding. They didn’t find me. I snuck out the back and over the pointy log wall. The others snatched me outside the gates. The hunters were long gone though, so they were gonna wait for them to come back."
    "It was me." The words slip from my mouth.
    She crouches in some larger bush and sits, waiting for nightfall.
    I speak after a while. I feel awkward in her silence. She's never silent.
    "I can help you find your mom," I say quietly.
    She looks to the side. "She never got taken."
    "Where would she go?" I don't understand.
    She shrugs. "Knowing Momma, she went to hell. She was a mean and spiteful woman. Full of piss and vinegar is what Aunty Lisa always said."
    It hits me like a club to the face. "She died?"
    Meg glances at me. "I told you what she always said. You do whatever it takes not to go there. They woulda put her in the fields anyway. Her insides were injured having me. She couldn’t have more babies."
    I want to cry. She had a mother. She had someone. It feels like it's my fault somehow.
    "I'm really sorry, Meg. Do you have anywhere you can go? Do you have other people?"
    She shakes her head. "Nope, it was me and Momma and aunty Lisa."
    I won't ever leave her. No matter what, I won't ever leave her.
    The day fades to night slowly. Spring is further along, and the days are longer. The cool air is still fresh and crisp, but the sun is getting warmer.
    Leo sleeps against me and Meg whittles a small piece of wood. She passes me the finished product. I don’t know what it is.
    "It's a rook," she says it like I should know.
    I raise an eyebrow.
    "For chess." She says it like I'm an idiot.
    "The game?" I ask.
    She nods and smiles. "I'm making the pieces for a board. I guess I have to start over. Mine were in our village."
    I look confused. "You have a village?"
    She shakes her head. "Nope. Had. The others came last month and burned it to the ground."
    "Life is hard, Meg. I'm convinced that the God that everyone talked about before hates us."
    Her brown eyes harden, and she pulls her dark brown hair back from her filthy little face. "Don't ever say that, Em. No matter what, we have to believe that he's going to help us. The evil is us."
    Leo jumps up but it's too late. As