Her mother shushed her and pulled her back into her lap. “Come back,” she hissed, and squeezed Agnes hard, possessively. “I love you more than you can understand,” she said. “I would do anything for you.” She growled, “You’re mine,” reclaiming Agnes as a creature that could not exist without her.

Agnes stiffened, withdrew her limbs, her self, and crawled back under the corner of the pelt, curled up. She did not want her mother’s aggressive overtures of love. She wanted her back rubbed, her cheek caressed. She wanted murmurs against her neck. Her hand held lightly. She wanted to not have to ask questions. To be confused. She wanted confessions she didn’t have to demand. She hated her mother’s fierce love. Because fierce love never lasted. Fierce love now meant that later, there would be no love, or at least that’s what it would feel like. Agnes wanted a mild mother, one who seemed to love her exactly the same every day. She thought, Mild mothers don’t run away.

Her mother did not try to wrestle her back again. Rather, she watched Agnes for a moment before she closed her bright animal eyes.

Agnes hated that her mind would not let her curl back into her mother. Would not let her run to her without a care or worry or resentment. Would not let her forget that cloud of dust her mother had disappeared into. Yet Agnes shivered in her absence still. Would her mother’s whims ever not matter? She fell asleep to the exhalation of her mother’s spent breath, and to the urgency of her own thrumming heart.

*

In the morning, Agnes woke up under shadow. The Twins stood between her and the sun, disapproving looks on their faces. Her mother was nowhere.

“Let’s go,” the Twins said in unison.

Agnes stretched out of bed and silently fell in line with them.

“We have decided something,” said Celeste as they reached the edge of camp.

“Yes,” said Patty. “We have decided there’s something really messed up about your mother.”

“You said she was dead,” Celeste said. “How is she not dead?”

“I thought she was dead,” said Agnes.

“Are you a liar?”

“No,” cried Agnes. “I thought she was dead,” she mumbled again.

“Well, are you happy that she’s not?” Patty asked.

Agnes thought about the conversation last night, the way she’d relaxed in her mother’s arms, how one touch could offer comfort and the lack of it could trigger pain. She thought of how cold she had been upon waking up alone. She did not remember such an empty feeling when her mother had been gone for all that time. Agnes had kept herself warm. It was as though she felt her absence most when she was close enough to touch.

Agnes shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know.” She stopped. The Twins stopped. “Would your moms ever leave you?” she asked.

Patty shook her head, and Agnes believed her.

“No way,” said Celeste. “But I don’t think it’s because she loves me. She’s just too scared to leave me. She hates to do anything by herself. She can’t even go to the shit pit by herself.”

“Really?”

“Yes. During the day I have to go with her.”

“What if you’re not there?”

“Maybe she finds someone else, but honestly, I think she holds it. And in the night—” She stopped. “I shouldn’t tell you.”

“What?”

“She just pees right behind her bed.”

“In the sleeping circle?”

“Yeah. She wakes me up to be a lookout, and then she wraps one of the skins around her and squats. It’s ridiculous.”

“That is so gross,” Patty whined.

“Has she gotten caught?”

“Once. She crawled back into bed, and we heard someone say, ‘Tsk-tsk, naughty Helen.’”

“Who was it?”

Celeste rolled her eyes. “Carl, duh.”

“Ew,” breathed Patty, stepping closer to Celeste.

“Did he say anything in the morning?”

“Oh, probably. I’m sure my mom fucked him and then he was cool with it.”

“What?” Agnes and Patty shrieked.

“Oh, yeah,” said Celeste. “They are totally fucking.”

“Carl?” Agnes said.

“Carl is fucking everyone, basically.”

“Not my mom,” said Patty.

Celeste raised her eyebrows at Agnes.

They walked again, in silence.

Agnes felt a hand on her shoulder, and Celeste was there, in step and leaning in. “She must have had her reasons,” she said. She shrugged. “Right?”

Agnes shrugged back. “She must have.”

The Twins led Agnes to a place they called the Patch, a spot they had found with a nice view and a blanket of soft baby grasses. It was Madeline’s place, but the Twins didn’t know that and Agnes didn’t tell them. It would have grossed them out and they never would have returned. And Agnes thought Madeline might like some company.

Jake was already there, reclining against a rock, the jackrabbit pillow she’d made him propping up his head. She smiled at this. Pillows were absurd out here, but so was he, in a way. His black jeans were shredded into rags at the bottom. But she remembered they’d been like that when she’d first seen him. It wasn’t hardship. It was style. His canvas high-tops were still perfectly folded over, and the white rubber toe was still white, even though he’d been walking in them for many, many, many seasons. His bangs were growing out quickly. Agnes would have to offer him another haircut again soon. She blushed.

They weren’t supposed to use fur for superfluous things. It was supposed to be used only for warmth. For things like hats and mitten liners. Or to wrap around your neck or your middle on the coldest days. She’d caught the rabbit because it was lame, quaking under a sage. Alone. She’d lunged and caught it by the ears when it fled and tangled itself in the scrubby branches. It was too young to know how to get away. Agnes hated catching animals that way. It was unfair. She was a better hunter than that, and she believed they deserved the chance to be better animals. Also, it was against the rules to hunt young prey. But it appeared to have been abandoned by its mother and the rest of the litter. In that moment, catching it and breaking its neck swiftly felt much kinder than what it otherwise might go through.

She should have donated the fur to the Community, and the meat too. But she’d kept both. She had told Jake that he should hide the pillow. It was nice to share a secret with him. It was nice, also, to break the rules with him. So he took it out only when away from camp. Only around her and the Twins. The pillow was soft, and she enjoyed watching him touch it to his cheek, or absentmindedly stroke it while he told her about something interesting he’d seen that day, or when he wanted to reminisce about the City, because, of all the Newcomers, he seemed to miss it the most.

They sat in a circle and Jake dug into his bag. He pulled out a skin pouch, uncinched it, and handed it to Patty. “One piece each,” he reminded them.

Patty pulled out a piece of rabbit jerky and passed it to Celeste.

Celeste peered inside. “You took the biggest one,” she muttered. She chose one, scowling, and passed the bag to Agnes. When it returned to Jake, he counted what was left.

“Four more pieces,” he said after taking his piece. “I think we should make more.”

That lame rabbit had been the first. They’d caught two more and dried the meat, tanned the hides. The Twins now had secret pillows too. But they kept their secret pillows in a secret place.

“Who wants to check the trap?” Jake asked as they chewed their jerky thoughtfully.

Celeste said, “I’ll go.” She rose and disappeared into the thick bushes where they had set out the dead-drop trap Agnes had made from some branches and a flat rock.

A few minutes later they heard a rustling and footsteps.

“Did it catch?” Agnes called out.

“Did what catch?”

They all spun their heads toward the new voice.

Bea emerged. “Did what catch?” she asked again, frowning, eyes piercing Agnes, as though she already knew the answer.

Agnes mumbled, “Nothing.”

“What are you doing here?” her mother asked, her voice a frightening mixture of calm and outrage.

Agnes’s mouth dried up. Her mother looked around, her mouth screwing between anger and sorrow. Agnes followed her gaze and saw what her mother saw. Jake’s ridiculous shoes. The way Patty picked at the patches of her pants so that they would need to be sewn much sooner than if she’d just left them alone. Agnes saw how close she was sitting to Jake. How their butterflied knees touched. Agnes drew hers in, hugged them, and rocked. She tucked her lips into her mouth. Agnes saw her mother see how they lounged comfortably right where Madeline had been. Agnes might as well be lying on a pile of cleaned and bleached bones. She felt monstrous.

“Answer me,” her mother said.

“Nothing.”

She saw her mother’s hand tremble as it lifted to wipe her brow and knead her eyes. She looked around again and focused on Jake. “What is that?”

“A pillow,” he said.

“Where did you get it?”

He tipped his head at Agnes.

“I made it for him,” said Agnes.

“We don’t use fur for pillows, Agnes. You know that.”

“But it was just one fur,” Agnes lied.

“He can use skins like everyone else. If you want to do something nice, you can show him how you fold a skin to be like a pillow.”

“You have a pillow,” Agnes said.