11

Kaitlyn

If ever there was a time to run, it's now. Serik left me. Completely trusting me to stay put. I wish I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders. A hole irritates my chest like a piece of me is absent, but the feeling makes no sense. I rub the space between my breasts to make it go away. I hate how my brain twisted in captivity. I'm not an athlete, outdoorsy, a beauty, or talented in any particular way, but I'm a human calculator. That's me—the smart cookie. If my mind broke, what do I have left of me?

"I know," Vera says, putting her tiny arm around my shoulders. "He will be back soon. The first separation is the hardest, then you learn time flies with chores and good company."

"Do you want to know what makes me feel better when Sergei leaves? Too bad I'm telling you anyway," Sydney says with a giggle.

"Killing something?" Patricika asks with a husky laugh. She's got the perfect sex operator voice. If she and Adam moved to Alberta so Adam could fulfill his teaching contract, she could work from home. If his family lives underground half the year, what's a semester in an apartment? I don't see why he had to abandon his responsibilities—without so much as an email to say he quit!

"No…snacks," Sydney announces, pulling two bloated skins from behind a stone platform. Are they bags or animal organs? While Sydney looks like the girl next door—the human girl next door—her reputation as a ruthless huntress scares the crap out of me. "I dry-roasted walnuts with extra salt."

"Do you have a rabbit slab Gustav can gum? If he sees others eating, he will fuss for food," Patricika says.

"Sergei and Sydney have everything," Vera whispers to me. "If you run out of any supply, just ask them."

"Where did you find walnuts this time of year?" A smaller Chuchunya I've never seen before asks. "Oh, I'm Manya, Kaitlyn. My partner doesn't have the manners to introduce me before he scampers off to lick Sergei's ass."

"You mean kiss his ass," Vera shouts, bursting out in giggles. "The phrase is kissing his ass!"

The tension dissolves like sugar in a cup of their watery tea. Manya turns pink beneath her light grey fur while my human companions turn purple with laughter. I can't keep a straight face because the double entendre is too funny. Manya's mate must be young Gleb, who Serik says wants to be Sergei when he grows up. I'm wildly curious about how the other couples function. If the males build, hunt, and act like misogynists, what do these females do all day?

"I don't see what Gleb's admiration for Sergei has to do with his ass," Patricika complains as she spreads out a fur for her baby to play. "No one should be licking his ass other than Sydney. It's the Chuchunya way."

"Yeah, keep your pleasure mate away from my mate's ass," Sydney yells between gasps for air. Her eyes water from laughing so hard.

"Gleb and I choose each other's company, but we're not fated mates."

"Serik explained them to me," I murmur.

"But pleasure mate doesn't mean ass-licking," Patricika says sternly.

Now we are all rolling with giggles like teenagers while she shrugs. When Vera and Sydney realize she was seriously warning me, they laugh harder, leaning on one another and wiping their tears in exaggerated gestures.

"What's on our agenda today?" I ask when the laughter dries up. Please don't be butchering. Please don't be anything to do with organs, hides, or things with eyes. Serik promised I would enjoy myself, so he better not have tricked me into digging eyes out of skulls.

"Nettle day," Sydney says, waving at a stack of one-meter-tall baskets. "We must separate the big leaves for salads, small leaves for tea, roots for tinctures, flowers for menstrual powders. The more we sort, the more we can take home to roast, dry, and use."

After a chorus of groans, we settle into a circle around the baby's blanket. He's rolling but not crawling, so our baskets act as playpens. I mimic Vera's pose. My basket sits between my outstretched legs while I lean against the rock I used as a stool. The plants still have balls of dirt clinging to the roots. None of the other women wear gloves, despite the stingers on the leaves and mess on the root balls.

My brain spins with potential issues with foraging. Who keeps track of what everyone takes versus their contributions? Where do they record who likes more of one herb and not another to optimize their harvest efforts? I'd kill for my laptop and spreadsheets. I bet they throw out pounds of plants and waste days harvesting by not tabulating their inventory. Not that I plan to stay to micromanage them…it's just I can't resist a well-organized system…

"Pinch the leaves off using the little stems to avoid the prickers," Vera whispers to me when she catches me staring. We tear off a few leaves in tandem before she zooms at super speed. She processes five plants at the same time I break down one. When we have piles larger than what remains in our baskets, we designate each person's basket with a plant part. I guess we will divide the spoils evenly. Who picked the plants in the first place?

"So, is this a typical day? The guys slay the beasts while we stay protected in someone's cave?" I hate how timid my voice sounds. Why am I like this? These women are no better than me. They fell under the snow monster love spell! I shouldn't be interested in their lives, fitting into the group, or anything that doesn't involve escaping.

"Oh no," Sydney says, shaking her head. "If I weren't pregnant and Gustav was older, Patricika and I would be hunting moose—with or without our males as partners."

"Sometimes a woman's best partner is another woman."

"Agreed," Manya snaps, ripping her plant in half as if beheading Gleb.

"We get together for giant harvests or harvests where the herb is vital to our survival. Nettle poultices act like Ibuprofen-laced bandages on wounds. All our homes need a healthy stock, so we harvest a massive amount and share the workload," Vera explains. "I love how the ancient hunter/gatherer culture is preserved in the Chuchunya—"

"Don't start, Vera. You will scare Kaitlyn off faster than Serik's teeth," Sydney says with an eyeroll. I bristle at her remark. Did he tell anyone he's self-conscious about his teeth? He must have told Patricika because she shoots a wary look my way. "Vera's a cryptid-obsessed anthropologist. Ignore half the words she says."

"Ignoring off-the-grid anthropologists happens to be my specialty," I quip, fluffing the flowers in my basket. "If I still have a job, I'm the head accountant and department administrator of an anthropology department. Before Serik blew up the satellite lab, I was Adam's boss."

"Serik blew up your home to keep you," Patricika murmurs with wild eyes.

"He used your potato launcher too," Vera chimes in. "Artyom and Adam were there."

"They owe me a truck," I grouse, seething with renewed anger that Adam helped destroy our getaway car.

"Serik will make good on it," Patricika says, nodding. "He's a male of worth who has fine sleighs to carry you between his homes. You don't have to ride the reindeer he wrangles if you don't want to."

Fabulous. I'll just drive a reindeer sleigh back to the university like a gothy Santa Claus.

Problem solved.

"Speaking of worth," Sydney announces in a teacher's voice that has everyone's attention. "This preggo wants the good stuff—carbs. I know growing wheat while on the move, milling it, storing it, and keeping rodents away is impossible. However, I've done some research and wild rice does grow close to the southern edge of the boreal shield. How would you feel if each female claimed a small paddy of rice and we took turns caring for the whole lot on the border of our central and southern homes?"

"We will need rice for baby food—" Vera says softly, almost as if she's talking to herself.

"Pah! Babies need their mother's milk and meat. Look at Gustav—not even a season old and he's gnawing rabbit. You will produce enough milk for your young, Vera, I promise," Patricika says while reaching to roll Gustav back toward her.

"You're lucky he's growing Chuchunya fangs. If he had human teeth, he would grow tiny, flat ones at a much slower rate. Besides, why can't the rice be for the grown-ups too?" I don't know if I'm defending Vera, sniping at Perfect Patricika, or speaking up for all happy-child-free women who like carbs…namely me.

"Well said, Kaitlyn. All in favor of planting rice as a group, say aye," Sydney announces as our unofficial leader. I guess if Sergei becomes our next leader because he's massive, then Sydney would be our first lady. What am I saying? Their leader, not mine. Chuchunya first lady? We raise hands and it's unanimous. The Chuchunya are growing rice this summer—or whatever they call summer.

"We could be fancy and make risotto," Vera says, jumping up and retrieving a bag that looks like a body organ. "Artyom and I found these mushrooms. I think they are mushrooms—"

"Vera's getting the snow monsters high on shrooms!" Sydney yells with a loud laugh. "Get it? Oh, come on! Kaitlyn, you get my joke, right? There are psychedelic mushrooms—oh hell—mushrooms that make humans think imaginary things are real. We call this feeling ‘high' and the magic mushrooms that make us high shrooms. It's not funny when I have to explain what the terms mean—loses the punchline."

"Those are morels," I declare, happy to contribute something of intellectual value. Vera hands a mushroom to me. "They are neither poisonous nor psychedelic. I grow them in my kitchen."

Lame hobby, but I love my logs of baby toadstools and expensive shelf mushrooms. They are too expensive for this accountant's budget at the grocer, but the kits I buy online make growing them easy and economical. They are the perfect companion for the on-the-go single gal, as they don't need boarding or house sitter's care while I hop between the university's satellite labs and temporary apartments.

"If you grow mushrooms, we could trade jerky, soap, or whatever you need," Sydney says with a beaming smile. "What season will you harvest?"

"My kits produce all year. Porcini mushrooms are ready in early summer while lobster, hedgehog, and oyster mushrooms harvest at the end. Black trumpets are an autumn crop—"

"We will be on the edge of the boreal forest if not on the Tundra by October. I don't see how we could harvest them," Vera says, sorting her plant parts into the other's baskets. Ugh, she finished breaking them down already when I'm less than half finished.

"Serik didn't migrate north last zima. Do you plan on staying south until the mushrooms are ready?" Patricika asks, handing her plant parts to Vera to deliver to baskets. Great, she's finished too.

I swallow my tongue. Pretending to be engrossed in tearing apart the plant in my hands without stinging myself, I mentally scroll through possible answers. I haven't talked to Serik about our plans because I plan to escape him, right? If there was a time to ask about escaping, it's now. Why can't my lips move?

"Did Serik promise you he would retrieve your mushroom logs from your home?" Vera asks quietly.

"If he knew she could grow fancy mushrooms, we wouldn't have learned about it today. On the tundra, you can count on the frigid wind and Serik's ego," Manya says with an eye roll.

Everyone's suspicious eyes, except the baby's, zero in on me. What do I say?

"Blink twice if you didn't plan your zima season because you hope to escape to civilization before then," Sydney snarls with a very Chuchunya-like growl.

My eyes close once in exasperation and I damn my relationship with Serik with the next.

"He kidnapped you," Sydney declares. She jumps to her feet and grinds her fists into her hips. "I knew that crap about you two growing together was…well…crap! He isn't hurting you, is he?"

"Sydney! I told you they got along when Artyom and I visited. We all smelled his dushevnayasvyaz—"

"You can't fake the scent," Patricika says, nodding in agreement with Vera. I sigh with relief that his former flame will stand up for him—now and when I'm gone. "Serik smelled like a dog until he met you. He didn't force himself on you, did he?"

The hairs on my arms stand erect and tingle with rage.

"Serik is a kind, patient, tenderhearted mate—" I start.

"Now we know she's lying," Manya interrupts. The rest of the women nod.

I'm pissed off.

"Look, it's not him. I want to fix my broken nails and dye my roots." I flatten the top of my hair so they can see the mousy brown framing my part. "I hate hunting, fishing, and camping. I'm a couch potato who values reality television, microwave dinners, and my damn job. Chuchunya life sounds like hell and I'm not here for it. I want my life back!"

You could hear a pin drop. None of the women will meet my gaze.

"If you want to go, I'll find a way to take you home. Sergei will stand by me on this. He doesn't put up with males disrespecting females. Don't shake your head at me. If you asked to go home and Serik kept you, he disrespected you."

"Give us a few days to work out how," Vera says with glassy eyes and a catch in her voice. "We will take you home."

"I'll make you a fur suit for travel," Manya adds. "I need fewer furs than humans."

"I'll talk to Adam. He has a phone you could use," Patricika adds. "I'm sorry, Kaitlyn. I know what it's like to be trapped by Serik."

"For all that is holy, I'm not trapped by him!"

My words are powerful enough to bring pebbles down the walls, but lack the conviction to change the pitying faces of my new friends. It will hurt Serik when he finds out they were in on my escape. He will be epically embarrassed. No, he will be too heartbroken to care what they think.

What have I done?