Mistakes I’d made.
And that.
The one thing I could never run from.
The brand Mclary used to mark all his property from his horses to his cows to his bought and paid for children.
Della poked my hip with a tenacious finger, her face scrunched up as a stuttering please fell from her lips.
Before, I had more willpower about denying her things; I could easily say no and mean it. These days, I struggled especially when she threw back the same temper I used on her to get my way. She’d learned too well, and I sighed heavily, knowing tonight I would tell her just to stop her bugging me about it.
Keeping one eye on the shed door barricaded with an old generator and fallen apart rocking chair, I snuggled deeper into the shared warmth of the sleeping bag and began:
“A farmer with lots of cattle has only one way of making sure he can keep track of his inventory. With other farmer’s stock sometimes wandering into his fields and rustlers stealing his herd at night, it makes sense to have a way to identify what belongs to him and what doesn’t.”
Della blinked, wriggling closer to pull up my jumper and push down the top of my trousers.
Instead of shoving her away like I usually did, I let her run her fingertip over the raised scar tissue on my hip.
While she studied the embossed Mc97 in a neat oval stamped into my flesh, I said, “Your parents have a brand. I don’t know entirely what the numbers are for, but I guess the Mc is for their name. Every single animal on Mclary’s farm has the same brand. Their sheep, their cows…me.”
Della let my clothing go to stick her thumb in her mouth and stroke her ribbon.
“Don’t do that.” I yanked her thumb from her tiny lips. “You’ll have crooked teeth.”
She was a pretty kid, but that didn’t mean she’d stay that way if she had teeth as bad as her father’s thanks to chewing tobacco and bad hygiene.
Slipping straight back into the story, I pushed her tiny hand into her lap. “The brand is found on all animals on their rump to the left, unless it’s a sheep and then it’s on their ear because of the wool.”
Della nodded as if she understood every word.
I shrugged. “There isn’t much more to say. It was the first morning I arrived at the farm. I remember being pulled from bed after crying myself to sleep and being stripped with four other boys in the crushing stall where the stock are wormed and drenched. There, he had two other farmhands hold us down, and branded us with his stamp of ownership.”
I did my best not to let my mind skip down that painful memory lane, keeping my voice level and emotions out of it. “The smell was almost identical to that when he did the calves a few hours later. The burn hurt more than my finger.”
Della’s face fell as her little hand found mine. She squeezed with all the wisdom of a girl twice her age, full of sympathy I didn’t want.
Snatching my hand from hers, I shrugged again. “It was fine. I was just like his herd to him. I got why he had to mark us. He said it was so no one could steal us because we belonged to him and he’d come claim us, but I knew it was so he could find us if we ever tried to run.”
I rubbed the scar, wishing I could erase it permanently. “It doesn’t matter, though. He’ll never find me, brand or no brand.”
Della smiled a vicious little smile.
I returned it, laughing under my breath. “He’ll never find you, either. Will he, Della Mclary?”
I was a possession, and she was his daughter.
Both valuable in our own ways.
Both vanished, never to be his again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
REN
* * * * * *
2001
THAT FIRST WINTER was spent scurrying from one garden shed to another.
Sometimes, we’d find an abandoned house for a night or so, until the neighbours reported two stray children lurking around. Sometimes, we’d crawl through broken basement windows and boldly sleep beneath families who had no clue we lived beneath their feet.
For the coldest months of the year, I relied more on the humans I despised to feed and shelter us than the wilderness that lived in my blood.
As more time went on and the days grew shorter and the nights longer, I craved the scent of new leaves and sun-warmed bark.
I struggled to keep my discomfort and itch to be out of the city from Della, even though she suffered her own annoyance at being trapped in a place where the wrong people cared and the right people didn’t open their eyes to two kids living rough right amongst them.
I liked that I could walk down Main Street with Della’s hand in mine and only get a courtesy glance by those who believed all children had a family to return to and a warm meal to fill them.