Wherewithat 7

Marthi Flaardvoorst sat in the clearing trying to collect his thoughts. The cold, grey dawn graduated to morning as a fine misting rain fell through the trees, filling the air with a soft hiss and bringing a steady drip from the canopy. The wound on his upper arm stung him and, as he looked, bloody pus ran and merged with the rain on his skin. He shivered.

Hope was by the shelter building a fire with dried kindling, a bucket of spring water by her side. Marthi marvelled at her youth and wondered how news of these childs had not permeated through to the communes. He tried to imagine how small the smallest of them might be. In the commune, his curiosity made him an oddity. He knew it was a dangerous trait and had maintained a precarious balance between normality and his unnatural inquisitiveness.

Since escaping, he had purposely avoided contact with other outrunners. His encounter last night by the fleischmeisterin cubicles was the nearest he had come, driven by hunger. He was completely unprepared for the world he had now entered.

Hope had the fire lit and was pouring water into a pot. "How old are you Marthi Flaardvoorst?" she enquired abruptly.

"What do you mean?" he replied, startled by her question.

"How old are you? What was your last birthday?"

Marthi was nonplussed. "I don't understand." He looked towards the woods where Varta had disappeared a short time ago. "Why do you ask ridiculous questions?"

He rubbed his arm and winced. "She said she was going to show me how to eat safely. Where is the food? I am hungry."

"She is going to the traps." said Hope, squatting by the fire, habitually alert to small forest noises. "She will bring food and I will cook it. You can relax now. We will eat soon."

She filled a cup with water. "Here. You can drink this. It is good water - from the spring." She gestured behind her. She drank from the cup then handed it to Marthi. "It is safe."

He sipped the water cautiously. It tasted fresh, almost like the water in the commune. He drank the rest gratefully. The water from the streams had made him sick and weakened him. Hope took the cup and refilled it.

"So how old are you, Marthi Flaardvoorst?"

"I don't know what you mean. Just call me Marthi."

"You don't know your age and you don't know your name." Hope laughed spitefully. Marthi stared at the fire and said nothing.

"I am twelve." she said after a few moments' silence.

"Twelve what?" asked Marthi, filling the time until Varta would return with food.

"I am twelve years old."

Marthi looked at her blankly.

Hope sighed impatiently. "You know what a birthday is, don't you?"

Marthi continued to stare.

"Everybody has a birthday. Every year. It's the day you were born."

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND!"

Marthi shouted with exasperation. They were suddenly surrounded by the whirr of birds bursting through twigs and branches, and animals rattling through the undergrowth. Hope looked around her anxiously.

"You shouldn't do that." she warned in a low voice. "It's not good to attract so much attention." Suddenly, she was no longer a child.

The forest gradually settled down. Marthi closed his eyes and again contemplated the strange situation he now found himself in. He needed the help he had been offered if he was to survive.

He breathed deeply and tried to relax. "I don't know, little person. We don't do these things where I am from. We are introduced to a unit. I don't know what happens before. We work and we enter the breeding programme. We inherit when elders retire and we have our own inheritors introduced. That's all I know. It's fairly simple."

He looked at Hope. "You don't do this, do you?"

Now it was Hope's turn to be confused. Her wide eyes stared at Marthi. "I don't understand anything you said. I am twelve years old. Don't you know anything?" She turned away, frustrated, and went to find the implements with which to prepare the meal. The rain fell gently on Marthi.

A mile away in the forest, Varta trod carefully in the undergrowth. She carried the limp and bloodied bodies of a bird and two rabbits over her belt. Two of the traps had been emptied before she reached them. It must have happened that day - probably in the last couple of hours. Someone was living off Varta's traps.

It briefly occurred to her that it may have been Marthi, but she quickly dismissed the thought. It was someone who knew what they were doing. The traps had been found, emptied without damage and carefully replaced. The only giveaway being the missing bait. Marthi was more naive than a child.

Varta moved back towards her trail with great stealth - taking her time. She stopped and sniffed the air. Wood-smoke. She knew that Hope would be lighting a fire, but this was the smell of an established fire - burning heavier, moist wood. She continued carefully until she reached her trail and turned cautiously towards the clearing - aware that she was being watched.

© Copyright 2012 Kevin Buckle