Chapter 23
First parting
The moon had gone from large to small to large and then small again before we really had to face how unravelled Freya had become.
I know that because the thing that happened as a consequence of that took place when the moon was new.
If there had been moonlight, we couldn’t have got so close and so wouldn’t have heard what we heard. And then I wouldn’t have ended up here.
But that was later. The beginning of the end of things being as they were arrived with Storm, just after Cat had twisted her ankle while we were picking apples on the little hill by the canal.
She’d been running after an apple that had dropped out of the bucket she was carrying them in, and as it rolled away down the slope she’d tried to catch it before it plopped into the water at the bottom.
It wouldn’t have made any difference if it had, but she chased it anyway, and then her foot hit something slippy in the grass and she rolled her ankle and went down hard.
It could have been worse. It could have been a break.
But even after I’d strapped it up she found it hard to walk properly and hobbled about for days in a foul mood, wincing at every step and furious with herself for being so stupid.
I told her it needed rest to get better, but Cat was never comfortable being still, so it probably took twice as long to heal as it should have done.
Though she of course claimed keeping it moving was helping it get better quicker.
Anyway, it must have been a good few days after she twisted the ankle, because she’d got over the bad temper and she and I were milking the goat and laughing at something, though I can’t remember what, when Storm appeared with a baby on each hip and a dark look that killed our happy mood right there.
Freya’s asleep, she said.
That’s good, said Cat.
Storm handed me one of the babies and I bounced it gently as we talked. It was a habit we all had. Freya catching up with her sleep was a signal for anyone who was around to bounce a baby and keep them happy and quiet for as long as we could.
It’s not good, said Storm, looking over her shoulder at the Bunker as if Freya could hear her from so far away. Again, it was a reflex. Freya was someone we talked about more than we talked to at that stage.
I thought these two might help, she said. After what you said, I mean at the beginning, when we made the Deal, when you talked to her, I thought what you said might be true. But it isn’t.
I didn’t lie about anything, said Cat.
I know, said Storm. You meant well, I know. But meaning well isn’t enough. It doesn’t make things true. And she’s worse. You can see that. The strange dog and the mating shook her up, and I thought she’d get over it, then Mouse saw the stranger, the other Russian—
We don’t know it was a Russian, I said, and immediately regretted it from the sharp look she jabbed at me over the bouncing baby’s head.
Not the point, Mouse, she said. Come on.
What matters is she thinks it was. And maybe I do too.
But then we thought she was calming down, and things were finally getting better, and suddenly she finds herself standing in the corpse of the man who did all the bad stuff to her and gave her all the pain in the first place.
And the fear, and then the other pain of having these two, all the blood and the cutting and everything. And now?
Now she’s worse, I said.
Yeah, she said. She’s worse. What you said Cat, about the babies working a magic, about them helping her to heal?
She tried to smile at us, but it just curdled on her face, and she shook her head.
They’re not magic and they aren’t helping anything, she said. Not their fault and they’re lovely, but not for her. They just aren’t doing what you said, what you hoped, what we all hoped they would.
They might, I said again. They really might.
It’s summer and she still hasn’t given them proper names, she said.
I know, I said.
She just looked at me. I got a little cold trickle of alarm at the back of my neck.
What do you mean? I said.
It’s summer, she said again. She said she’d feed them until the summer. That was the deal. The Deal.
But she can’t just stop, I said. We gave our word, she gave her word…
Storm just kept staring at me, then down at the bucket which had only a thin layer of milk swilling around the bottom of it.
You’re going to need a bigger goat, she said. Or more of them.
It was my turn to watch her as she strode away through the cow-parsley.
She’s not going to run away, said Cat later, when I told her. She wouldn’t. But maybe she does want to stop feeding them. I would.
She grimaced.
Especially now they have teeth. It was bad to begin with, then OK for a bit, but now it looks like the worst thing in the world again. So we’ll get more goats.
How? I said.
Cat got so much done in a day because she saw things simply and just made them happen because as far as she was concerned there was no reason for them not to.
Stitch Country, she said, picking up the bucket and limping after Storm. We know there are goats in Stitch Country.
So that’s how we started out trying to help everyone stay happy and together by looking for goats, but ended up finding something else entirely.
First, we had to decide who would go and who would stay, because someone had to remain with Freya and the babies, who obviously couldn’t be left all on their own for the two nights it would most likely take to get to the place we had seen all the goats.
We sat round the table to talk about it, and Freya was almost positive and not sniping away at everyone for a change.
Cat thought she was really happy with the idea of not having to breastfeed any more.
We were eating rabbit stew, and it was good, as it always was, my favourite meal.
And I remember looking round at the three of them and seeing that they were all smiling at the same time, and thinking that was a first and more than that, this was how a happy family looked and how a happy family might look in the future too.
And because of that I think I took the mission to get the goats even more seriously than I had been doing up to that point.
We ended up deciding that Cat couldn’t go until her ankle healed – which she argued about of course – and so would stay with Freya, while I would go with Storm.
I know Cat felt a lurch as we smiled and agreed on the plan because I did too.
We talked about it later, after the girls and the babies were asleep.
It would be the first time I ever spent a night away from her side, and her mine, not since we were left on our own all those years ago.
It feels odd, I said.
It does. She nodded. But we’re grown now, and neither of us is a fool, Mouse. You won’t take unnecessary risks, and you’ll keep Storm safe, and I know where you’re going.
Earlier we’d spread an old map on the table and traced the route to the old hospital where we’d been hurt by the wild boar.
No getting in between any piglets and a mother this time, she said. And if you get lost you just walk east until you hit the M-way and follow it home, right?
It was my turn to nod. The truth is that the thought of going away from Cat was making it suddenly hard to speak.
If you get stuck somewhere, or you don’t come back in time, I’ll come for you, she said. You can do this, Mouse. You’re a better hunter than me.
I nodded again. My words were still stuck behind the sudden arrival of the lump in my throat.
Inside, I was thinking that what looked so simple on the map looked way more random and overgrown on the ground.
Getting lost was a real possibility. And as to finding us if one of us was injured and we couldn’t move…
Cat must have been reading my mind as she watched the thoughts flicker back and forth behind my eyes. She grinned.
I’ll always find you, Mouse. You’re my only-one. And besides, I’ll have Digger. She’ll smell you out even if you’re stuck in the densest thicket out there.
I grinned back. She was right. Digger would always find me because she had a great nose for hunting, and Cat would never, ever leave me.
We’d decided to leave Digger behind because of the wild boars that we knew were out there.
We didn’t know how she’d react, but we knew from experience that they were bad-tempered and dangerous and we couldn’t risk her provoking them.
And she’d be company for Cat. And for the same reason we didn’t take the horses, not knowing how they’d react if they got in a standoff with the boars.
I didn’t think I was a good enough rider to control – or stay safely on one if it got attacked.
Our final plan was to take Devil, the male goat, and use him to lure some of the other wild female goats if we found them by tethering him close by and then using a throw net to catch at least one new milker and bring them home.
It was a simple plan, and the throw net was the one Cat had been given by my mother, though she’d replaced most of the weights over the years, and the netting was more repair than original.
I spent the two days before we left practising throwing that net and perfecting my aim.
I got very good at catching a broken-backed chair, but I did wonder how much harder it was going to be successfully entangling a running goat.
Goats aren’t the most co-operative creatures at the best of times, and I anticipated a lot of failure before we got lucky.
Cat told me to think positive. And I thought of the three happy faces round the table and the family that could be if we helped Freya calm down and not be so ragged all the time, so I shut my mouth and swore that I wouldn’t return without at least one goat to help things work out the way we all hoped they would.
I know from books that breaking your oath was considered very unlucky in the old days so maybe I shouldn’t have sworn that, even if only to myself.