Fledgling

Fledgling Read Free

Book: Fledgling Read Free
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Tags: FIC000000
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on your shirt?” he asked.
    I looked down. “I killed a deer,” I said. In all, I had killed two deer. And I did have their blood on my clothing. The rain hadn’t washed it away.
    He stared at me for several seconds. “Look, is there someplace I can take you? Do you have family or friends somewhere around here?”
    I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
    “You shouldn’t be out here in the middle of the night in the rain!” he said. “You can’t be any more than ten or eleven. Where are you going?”
    “Just walking,” I said because I didn’t know what else to say. Where was I going? Where would he think I should be going? Home, perhaps. “Home,” I lied. “I’m going home.” Then I wondered why I had lied. Was it important for this stranger to think that I had a home and was going there? Or was it only that I didn’t want him to realize how little I knew about myself, about anything?
    “I’ll take you home,” he said. “Get in.”
    I surprised myself completely by instantly wanting to go with him. I went around to the passenger side of his car and opened the door. Then I stopped, confused. “I don’t really have a home,” I said. I closed the door and stepped back.
    He leaned over and opened the door. “Look,” he said, “I can’t leave you out here. You’re a kid, for Godsake. Come on, I’ll at least take you someplace dry.” He reached into the backseat and picked up a big piece of thick cloth. “Here’s a blanket. Get in and wrap up.”
    I wasn’t uncomfortable. Being wet didn’t bother me, and I wasn’t cold. Yet I wanted to get into the car with him. I didn’t want him to drive away without me. Now that I’d had a few more moments to absorb his scent I realized he smelled … really interesting. Also, I didn’t want to stop talking to him. I felt almost as hungry for conversation as I was for food. A taste of it had only whetted my appetite.
    I wrapped the blanket around me and got into the car.
    “Did someone hurt you?” he asked when he had gotten the car moving again. “Were you in someone’s car?”
    “I was hurt,” I said. “I’m all right now.”
    He glanced at me. “Are you sure? I can take you to a hospital.”
    “I don’t need a hospital,” I said quickly, even though, at first, I wasn’t sure what a hospital was. Then I knew that it was a place where the sick and injured were taken for care. There would be a lot of people all around me at a hospital. That was enough to make it frightening. “No hospital.”
    Another glance. “Okay,” he said. “What’s your name?”
    I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it. After a while, I admitted, “I don’t know what my name is. I don’t remember.”
    He glanced at me several times before saying anything about that. After a while he said, “Okay, you don’t want to tell me, then. Did you run away? Get tired of home and strike out on your own?”
    “I don’t think so,” I frowned. “I don’t think I would do that. I don’t remember, really, but that doesn’t feel like something I would do.”
    There was another long silence. “You really don’t remember? You’re not kidding?”
    “I’m not. My … my injuries are healed now, but I still don’t remember things.”
    He didn’t say anything for a while. Then, “You really don’t know what your own name is?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Then you do need a hospital.”
    “No, I don’t. No!”
    “Why? The doctors there might be able to help you.”
    Might they? Then why did the idea of going among them scare me so? I knew absolutely that I didn’t want to put myself into the hands of strangers. I didn’t want to be even near large numbers of strangers. “No hospital,” I repeated.
    Again, he didn’t say anything, but this time, there was something different about his silence. I looked at him and suddenly believed that he meant to deliver me to a hospital anyway, and I panicked. I unfastened the seat belt that he had

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