Girl Runner Read Free Page B

handful of crab apples and throw them rapid-fire at a bird hiding in the branches of one of the trees. When I check, Fannie is gone.
    She is out of sight, but I can see clearly the path beaten down by her steps, the weeds parting to show where she’s passed, and so I do as she has asked me not to, and I follow. I crouch low, pretending to be a soldier in battle, a spy. Behind the lines. Or in no-man’s-land, where Robbie was marooned when he got shot. The telegram said little of interest. It didn’t say, for instance, where on Robbie’s body the fatal shot caught him.
    I think it must have been his head or his heart. I think it must have looked like a hole blown clean, like a pipe through which daylight could shine, one end to the other, and there he was fallen to the ground, one drop of blood sliding down his forehead, his eyes staring at the sky.
    I’ve caught up.
    I see Fannie, not so very far from me, and she is not alone. She’s almost as tall as the corn in the field next door, and the man is taller.
    I freeze like a rabbit hiding in the open.
    He isn’t one of the young men spit out of the war, missing a leg or an eye or wheezy from the gas. But he’s not so old either. He’s dressed like the farmer he is—and I know him, very well. I see he’s got Fannie’s hand in his. Her face is inclined, hidden from me, her bunched hair brushes his shoulder, and they walk together into the corn. They’re gone, like that, the tall stalks shifting, the tassels of brown gold thread drooping, heads hung low.
    I rise like I’m going to follow. But I know that the field of corn is enchanted, its secrets held in tidy rows, and I do not follow.
    I think that Fannie was right, after all: she is going on ahead without me, and I should have let her go. I shouldn’t have seen her walk into the corn with a man who is family, our brother by law, if not by blood.
    I can’t name him, even inside my head.
    All I can think to do is to run—away.
    I AM RUNNING over the crushed weeds.
    I am running past the graves.
    Tangling and scratching through the berry bushes. Choking in the dust raised on the lane. Our big black dog circling me in the barnyard, barking, confused. My breath comes harsh, my heart bangs, hair whips my face. But my feet scarcely graze the ground.
    I had not known that I could run so fast—I can fly, that’s how fast. Now I know. I know that shock can spin itself into something near exhilaration, by mere application of speed.
    The brain is a primitive instrument. It plays its oldest, wildest songs best.
    I fly into the barn—sweet with manure—and dart up the stable’s ladder to the great wide mow.
    Breathe. Climb. Breathe. Sneeze, sneeze.
    I scramble through loosely packed straw, piled like a mountainside nearly to the eaves, where I know there is a fresh nest of kittens. Sharp straw, not soft, cutting fine red lines across exposed skin. My nose streams, and my eyes, and I’m almost blind with sneezing, but I stagger to the nest, rubbing my wet face hard with my wrists. The kittens are not even a week old, eyes like slits, little ears flat to their heads, a tumble of searching hungry fur. Without apology to the mother cat, I crouch and pull from the mass an orange striped creature, and I press its living body under my chin. It is mewling and blind, and I nuzzle its dusty fur until my heart quiets. Its ribs under my fingers feel like the bones of a tiny vessel, fragile as a boat made of sticks. Its darting heart. Its piercing cry and open mouth stills me, and I am myself again.
    I press the kitten’s soft skull into the soft spot under my chin. I coo to it. But I can’t sit still for long. My legs are restless, always, my muscles twitch, my feet kick of their own accord. I’ve been known to kick my sister Cora under the table, not because I’m angry at her, simply because my foot leaps out and does it, can’t be stopped.
    “Ow! Aggie kicked me!”
    “Not on purpose!”
    “Off you go, Aggie. We’ll have