Vagabond

By Amethyst Turner

The vagabond faces his sentence

A fate without hope of repentance

To walk across these fields alone

To live this world without a home

To forget everyone who roams

With him

For this poor vagabond's sin

XXX

And so she ran.

With every step, Amethyst made a wish. I wish Minka was here. I wish I was at Mama's house. I wish Mommy loved me. I wish I my feet didn't hurt. I wish I had Scrubbles. I wish Daddy would stop looking for me.

She wished until she had everything she wanted.

The forest was muggy and humid, the trees turning to gray as dusk settled over them. Aimee heeded Minka's instructions, scared that she would be angry if she didn't. This game seemed very important to her. Amethyst didn't want to mess it up.

The woods were scary, too. Tree branches reached after her like claws, clutching the corners of her shirt, ripping her clothes and tearing at her hair. She dared not pause and untangle herself.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew this was not a game. She knew this had to do with her father and the man with the dog and her running away from home. She knew that if she stopped running, they'd catch her, and if they caught her, they would take her home.

Amethyst began to cry after fifteen minutes of sprinting. She was out of wishes. All she wanted was to go back to the circus, back to Minka and Rubin and Persia and the others. Back where she was safe.

She came to her first mud puddle. There was no time to think about it. Minka had told her to go as fast as she could, and roll in every mud puddle she found. Aimee wasn't sure why, but she figured, if she wouldn't trust Minka, she couldn't trust anyone. Dropping to the ground, she writhed back and forth in the mud, weeping quietly as it caked over her body.

Standing back up, she felt heavy and stuck, but she forced herself to move forward. Every noise sounded like the snap of twigs under the man's feet, the panting of his dog as it lumbered after her.

Amethyst caught a glimpse of her hair, hanging limp and brown on her shoulder. Her vision blurring with tears, she tripped forward. Her stomach cramped with effort as she forced herself to keep running.

The second puddle was worse. This one was large and full of thick, sludgy mud where flies and mosquitoes swarmed. They scattered when Aimee dropped into the pool, frantically covering herself in the muck. It was more difficult to get up, this time. She was sleepy. She thought of her box back home. This was all the motivation she needed to keep going.

Her legs ached and her vision went spotty. She no longer assessed puddles before throwing herself into them, no longer paid attention to the sounds of the woods. All she had the capacity to worry about was putting one foot in front of the other.

She realized, after what seemed like days of running, that she had no idea where she was. Swallowing hard, she pressed forward.

Minka would find her, wouldn't she? She had to.

XXX

Rubin couldn't stop kicking himself.

Amethyst was out running in the woods, Davey Springs and his bloodhound were out looking for her, Rubin was cleaning the dishes and Minka sat on the floor sobbing.

He'd known this would happen, hadn't he?

Poor Aimee. God knew what she was feeling right now, running through the woods all alone. Was she frightened? Did she really think this was only a game?

Drying his coffee cup, he sighed and put it away. Minka curled herself into a ball next to the couch, her limbs twisted together unnaturally. He dried his hands and went to sit next to her.

"It's going to be okay, Ukochana," he assured her. "Don't worry." Rubin untangled her arms, slipping his around her waist. She shook violently with sobs, her face streaked with tears. He wondered if Amethyst would ever come back.

Persia and Gemi were on the couch, watching with sympathetic expressions. They knew not to touch Minka when she was this upset. She had a habit of lashing out and accidentally hurting people. But Rubin knew she wouldn't hurt him.

"It's not okay," She sobbed. "I can't believe she's gone."

"She's not gone," she said. You told her to come back at sunrise, didn't you? She'll come back, Minka. I know she will."

Minka curled herself into a tighter ball, turning away from Rubin. "But how will she find her way back?"

XXX

For an old dog, Clark ran pretty fast.

Davey sprinted through the woods after him, abandoning stealth. There was no time, nor a reason, to avoid every twig he came across. He made a great racket, but he hardly thought about that. He had to dedicate all his brainpower to the task at hand.

Every so often, Clark would stop and stiff, as if confused. Once, he even laid down and stopped. Davey scented him again, and urged him on with the toes of his boot.

Eventually, dusk began to settle. Davey knew he should turn back. But what if the girl was out there, scared and alone? Listening to the rustle of the leaves, the howls of the wolves, the phantom screams of the lost souls in the woods?

Or maybe that was just Davey. Maybe she was much braver than he was.

Well, obviously, she was. Davey would have never had the guts to run away from home. And if he had, the moment the police had found him, he would have jumped willingly back into the arms of safety and familiarity. He would have been happy to go home, even if it meant drowning in the stench of alcohol again, even if it meant being bruised to plum purple every night. He would not have been able to leave.

However, the long amount of time he had been searching did beg the question: why hadn't he found her yet?

Clark seemed confused. At this point in the chase, he would usually go home to Anna. Tell her that they'd lost them, that they would start looking against tomorrow morning. She would assure him that he had done all he could and they would chat over a late night cup of coffee, maybe about the new house they were going to buy or baby names or how much Annie hated her mother.

But today, he was in Arkansas, and he could not stop looking, no matter how hopeless it seemed.

XXX

Leafy didn't necessarily consider himself a Gypsy. Nor was he a vagabond, or a bohemian, or even a traveller, per say. He simply saw himself as a person who happened to have no place in the world.

He liked trees and wind and coyotes; he enjoyed the chirp of crickets in the dark, the twinkling of stars filtered in through the translucent leaves of trees. He delighted in the quiet of the space below the river, the noise of the place above the clouds. He could not imagine leaving the woods, not for anything.

Leafy wasn't exactly sure how old he was by now. Somewhere between sixteen and forty two, he figured. Or maybe older. Not younger, though. He knew he'd been sixteen already.

Well, there was no point in obsessing over it. Really, it was too late at this point. He would probably die not knowing if he was seventeen or seventy.

Orion was convinced that Leafy was somewhere in his late twenties. Leafy himself wasn't so sure. He didn't know what young looked like anymore, nor did he know the cosmetics of the old. How was he to know his age?

So when the girl came stumbling into the clearing, his first question was her age.

She was a scrawny little thing, a halo of blonde hair tangled at her shoulders in a hasty knot. Her face was rosy and streaked with tears, her legs shaking like jelly. Dried mud coated her body, cracking around her knees and cheeks. She seemed startled to see him, but Leafy was hardly startled to see her.

See, it had come to him in a dream the night before. That he would find an unexpected (well, expected, now) visitor in his midst. That he was to take her in. That this was important.

Still, he could not swallow down his curiosity in order to tell her this. He wanted to know, needed to know, how old she was. How old she thought he was.

He repeated the question. "How old are you, Dear?" She began to back away, another tear escaping her eye. Leafy motioned her over, leaning back on his log. "Don't worry, Doll," he said. "I won't hurt you."

Trembling, the little girl stepped forward. "Who are you?" She asked, in a quiet, shaking voice. Leafy wondered why she was so scared.

"The name's Leafy," he said. "Now, how old are you?"

She held up three fingers. So she was three. He thought for a moment. Well, that didn't help very much, now did it?

"How old do you think I am?" He asked.

The girl took another step forward, shrugging. "I don't know," she answered. "You don't look older than Minka." She stopped talking, her face contorted into a crumpled expression like she was about to cry.

Leafy didn't ask who Minka was because he had a feeling that would open up an undesirable can of worms. Instead, he motioned for the girl to come closer. She did, taking slow, tentative steps with her shaky legs. "Are you alright, Little Miss?" He asked, studying her miniature mask of a face.

"No," she said. Then her back straightened, as if someone had pinched her from behind. "I have to leave," she said. "I have to go."

"Go where?" Leafy asked. He picked back up his knife, tossing it casually between his hands. Seeing her alarmed expression, he said, "I use it for wood whittling."

This didn't seem to reassure her, but she nodded and said, "I have to run away, Minka said so. And I have to roll in muddy puddles and not stop." Her little face crumpled again. She hid it in her hands, which were oddly thin and sculpted for a three year old's.

"What's your name, hon?" He asked, scooping up the wood he'd been working on before she got here. It was coming into form nicely, but he still couldn't tell exactly what it would be.

"Amethyst," she said. Then she repeated, "I have to go."

Leafy shook his head. "No," he told her in a stern voice. "You will stay here. You are safe with me."

She looked behind her. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Okay."

XXX

Childhood living is easy to do
The things you wanted I bought them for you
Graceless lady you know who I am
You know I can't let you slide through my hands
Wild horses couldn't drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away

I watched you suffer a dull aching pain
Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or offstage lines
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind
Wild horses couldn't drag me away

-Wild Horses, The Rolling Stones