Ink and Bone(66)

She dropped back a little more and watched as Momma turned the bend, lost in her own grief, certain that Penny was right behind her. It took a second for Penny to realize that she was alone. Momma was far ahead, and Bobo was nowhere to be seen. The voice was quiet. It had told her that she couldn’t leave until she convinced Momma to let Real Penny go. It was the same voice that told her to show herself, and then the clean man got shot. Her mommy told her that she didn’t have to listen to anyone except her family and her teachers, and the parents of her friends. The voice wasn’t any of those.

Maybe it was one of those other voices—like those of people who told you to keep secrets from your mommy, or who told you they had candy or lost a puppy and could you help, or who wanted you to try something that was very bad for you but would make you feel good at first. Maybe the voice was one of those. How were you supposed to know the difference? If there’s a little noise inside you that tells you something is wrong or bad or that your mommy wouldn’t like it, listen. That’s called your instinct. Always follow your instincts. There were too many voices. It was so much easier when your mommy or daddy just told you what to do.

Those tall, dark doorways, they called to her. What could the shadows hold that was worse than being chained in a room, alone, afraid, hurt? Were any monsters that lived in the woods worse than Poppa? The people she saw in the graveyard, they never hurt her. Zoe had not been afraid when it was her time to leave. And Real Penny wanted so badly to cross over that she begged her Momma to let go.

Penny moved slowly at first away from the footpath, waiting for Momma to come back. Then she moved a little faster, her heart a bird in the fragile cage of her chest. She had nothing—no water or food or even shoes. She didn’t have a coat. The most important step in survival happens long before you leave the comfort of your home, her daddy had told her. It’s all in the preparations you make for your journey.

Then she was in the trees. Then she was running, even though she was in pain. Something about the excitement of being away made everything hurt less, even the cold.

She had only made it a little way before she heard Momma screaming, her voice cutting through the night like the cry of a bird. Penny ran faster, rocks cutting at the bottoms of her feet and branches whipping at her face. But Penny didn’t stop.

She remembered, her body remembered, that she was the fastest girl in her PE class. That all the other kids, even the boys, dropped behind her when she ran, huffing and puffing. She dug deep the way her coach had told her, even though she was weaker than she had ever been, not wearing the bright orange sneakers that her brother said looked like flames when she ran.

All around her the trees were monsters, reaching high up into the sky. The ground was damp, full of debris—rocks and sticks cutting at the soles of her feet.

Penny! Penny! Momma was calling a frantic, desperate wail. The ground was a downward slope beneath her, and she let gravity pull her, making her faster, even as she knocked into trees, sliver branches slicing at her face. Twice she almost tripped and fell to the ground.

Breathe! Her coach would yell, let your breath carry you.

Penny liked him. He talked to her like an athlete, someone who knew her body could do amazing things, if only she could just tap into the strength inside. If only she believed that she was made of wind and air and sky, that she could fly, that she was lighter, brighter, faster than everyone else unlucky enough to be made from bone and muscle and thick heavy blood inside their veins.

The whispers were all around her, laughing, crying, jeering, cheering, a million voices, all saying something different. Penny ran even though it seemed like Momma was getting closer. She could hear the old woman rushing through the branches, hear her screaming.

Penny! Penny! It was so desperate, so very sad.

But the girl kept running because that wasn’t her name. It never had been. And now that she was free, she allowed the sound of her own name back into her head. Her name wasn’t Penny.

And so she ran. And she would have run faster, gone downhill because that was the way to go, according to what her daddy had told her.

But then, ahead, she saw a bouncing light, small and round moving through the trees. What was it? Who was it? It was moving toward her, getting bigger. Momma was screeching and running behind her and the whispering in the trees was so loud and discordant, it filled her head.

She turned away from the light and slowed down, looking for a place to hide. She found the carved out hollow of a tree and tucked herself inside, deep into the wet, smelly wood. She was shivering—fear, exertion, cold. Footsteps, shuffling steps through the leaves. The beam of a flashlight glanced the tree in front of her; she squeezed herself far back into the hollow. Something with a lot of legs skittered across her bare foot, and she stifled a startled scream.

“New Penny.” Just a whisper. “I’ll help you get away from here. Where are you?”

Bobo. She stayed hidden. He couldn’t be trusted, not really.

“I can hear your teeth chattering.”

She clamped a hand over her mouth and realized that they had been chattering like a cartoon cold person’s teeth. She never thought that really happened. Her whole body was quaking, an involuntary palsy of cold and fear. She held her breath, waiting, willing her body to be quiet, to not betray her with whimpers and sharply exhaled breaths. Then Bobo’s face appeared in the opening of the tree, he shined his light onto her, and she covered her eyes against the beam.