Revenge and the Wild(23)

He ignored her digs the same way he always did, but his eyes narrowed and he began to brush faster.

“Maybe you ought to take your mask off?” she said, unlacing her bodice to expose her cleavage to the breeze, pretending she didn’t see his cheeks turning red and the front of his trousers getting tight. His sudden fury to hide it made her choke on laughter. She looked away, cheeks hot, heart speeding up. It was the first time she’d ever seen him react physically to her. She felt shy and hopeful, but pushed it down. He would probably react the same way to any woman showing skin.

He mumbled something under his breath—something unpleasant, she was sure—before tossing his brush to the side and disappearing into the woods.

He came back to the camp only when Bena returned with her catch of plump rabbits and blackberries. Alistair left again, walking to the river to eat alone. Westie had a headache and wasn’t hungry anymore. She fell asleep and was tossed into the same familiar nightmare of running through the cabin trying to escape from the cannibals, only she was able to force herself to wake before the worst of it.

Her eyes opened to a star-bloated sky and to Alistair sitting beside her, brushing her sweaty hair off her face with a gentle finger.

The light of the dying fire shimmered in his eyes. “It was only a dream,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

She wondered if she had woken him, or if he’d been sitting with her all along. As he petted her hair, her lids grew heavy, and she was reminded of a time when they were younger, when she was still struggling to use her machine. The mechanical arm had been such a tiresome burden back then. Every time she’d go to scratch an itch on her nose, she’d punch herself in the face, knocking herself out for hours at a time. She was never without a blackened eye or bloody nose in those days.

One day, Alistair came to her while she sat in the barn, cuddling with Henry and crying after breaking Isabelle’s hand at school. He’d wiped her tears away, held her metal hand up in front of him, and placed his face in its palm. His blue eyes were bright against the copper as he watched her through the open spaces between her fingers.

You wouldn’t want to crush my skull, would you? he signed. He didn’t use his mask much at all back then.

She sniffed and shook her head.

Then squeeze my face and try not to kill me.

He wouldn’t budge until she gave it a try. She sat there an hour before even attempting it. Eventually she did and was able to squeeze his face without crushing his skull or pinching his skin between the gears. They practiced every day until she learned how much pressure to apply to each situation. But that was a long time ago, she thought. He didn’t even trust her enough now to let her see his face.

“I’m sorry for teasing you, Alley,” she said as she started to slip back into the abyss of sleep. She touched his hand with her copper one. And though she didn’t hear his reply, she knew when he didn’t pull away that she was forgiven.





Eleven


The next morning they packed and were on their way. To get to the cabin, they had to first get back onto the wagon trail. An hour later Westie started to develop blisters in places blisters had no place being. She put her bedroll beneath her, but it was no relief.

“Are we almost there?” she asked. Though it had been only two years since she’d gone with Bena searching for the cabin in the woods, Westie had no idea where they were. It was before she’d struck her deal with Nigel, so she hadn’t been entirely sober during that trip. “I don’t think I can sit in this saddle much longer.”

“Almost,” Bena said.

They veered off the wagon trail again into the woods when Westie finally saw something she recognized. Little figures made of braided twine hung from the branches in the trees ahead.

Those dolls had been there when she’d traveled to the cabin with Bena, but not when her family had crossed through that part of the forest. Perhaps if they had been, things would’ve turned out differently. Instead there had been nothing but trees and snow. Fear churned in her stomach, making her insides a cauldron when the hunting cabin came into view. It was smaller than she remembered, barely a shack. The windows boarded up, the wood gray and swollen with fading red symbols painted on the door. The roof, covered in dried moss, was charred and breaking down. It bowed in the middle and had holes all about. It was buried deep on Wintu land, hidden behind giant pines and scrub brush, impossible to see from the wagon trail.

“How did your family even find this place from the wagon trail?” Alistair asked.

He and Westie stayed behind while Bena looked for signs of life.

“By accident,” Westie said, her voice thick with trepidation as she scanned the forest. “We’d fallen behind the rest of the caravan we’d been traveling with after my brother Tripp had taken ill. Our wagon had gotten caught in the snow and we were out of food, so my pa took us out into the woods to look for food and shelter.”

Westie had been holding Tripp’s hand as they’d searched. He was only a year younger than she was, but he was racked with fever and seemed so fragile. She thought about his sweet face and red hair, clutching the doll she’d given him. Its name was Clementine; her favorite, with a burlap dress, brown yarn hair, and button eyes. The memory made her eyes throb with impending tears.

“Why would you try to cross the mountains so close to winter?”