Marsha can’t believe she’s spent months hatching a plan for something that took just under ten minutes to execute.

Turning instinctively to Vani, the ginger-haired child she’d rescued from the basement-- her blood still curdles when she thinks about the plans her father may have had for them. She hasn’t asked them anything about where they’re from. Nothing about their parents. Or how and why her father brought them down to the basement. It doesn’t matter.

Not as much as getting far away from home does.

She’d stolen her dads’ brown Chevy, and driven for as far as the gas inside could take them. Now, they're on a bus, heading in the opposite direction. The child sat beside her on the bus seat. She thinks they can’t be more than… seven? Six?

She leans close to Vani.

“Hey.”

The child stares up at her and blinks slowly. Marsha is pretty sure they’re completely traumatized and in shock, but there’s not really much she can do for that while on the run.

“If anyone asks, we’re cousins, and I’m babysitting you, alright?”

Vani nods.

“Good.” Marsha retreats. She just hopes she remembers through her traumatized fog.

Marsha restrains a smile. Vani was a fidgeting mess when she first found them. It’d taken longer than she’d expected to get the child to trust her. But she couldn’t blame them. She’d have doubted anybody in that position, in that place, with those people. But Vani eventually seemed to come to the conclusion that they were screwed either way, so why not.

There’s just something about the child, an innocence that has been shattered-- something that just radiates from within them. It’s a quiet, understated thing. Filled with feelings that Marsha doesn’t even know how to begin to navigate.

The bus hisses, and decelerates. Knocking Marsha from her musings.

“This is our stop,” Marsha says, looking down at the child to her left.

“Okay,” they respond, blinking blearily.

The bus comes to a stop and Marsha leads Vani off of it with a firm but gentle grip on their hand.

They watch the bus leave until it becomes a spec down the road, because Vani is still a little slow and Marsha sees no reason to rush them.

But then, she realizes something…blinking rapidly, and turning to survey their surroundings... the oddity of their solitary presence on the darkened street has begun to make her paranoid. Slightly squeezing Vani's’ hand, she tugs gently and leads them down the sidewalk that is left of the fork at the intersection.

As they walk down the road, Marsha’s deep in thought. She hasn’t been here before, so she’s a little frightened. Everything looks strange. The houses by the side of the road, the cars by the curb, the way the land stretches out like an incline. Inside, she gets this sensation of being forgotten, abandoned. Like she’s alone, and has always been meant to be alone.

The only thing that ties her to this rural town, is the address she scribbled hastily onto a ripped out sketchbook page-- other than that, she has no ties here. No physical or familial roots. Aside from that one address, that she...isn't even sure is good anymore.

It took her so long to find that address. The last place her grandmother was known to be living...she just hopes she's still there.

Marsha feels a gentle squeeze and looks down to her side, where Vani walks next to her.

“I can call my daddy if I can cut myself on a tree,” they say.

“...what?” Marsha frowns. She stares at Vani, utterly confused.

“My daddy,” Vani tugs at her arm, “I can call my daddy if I can cut myself on a tree.”

Marsha stares at Vani, uncertain. But Vani stares back; the look in their eyes, unwavering. Marsha swallows.

“Are you sure?” she doesn’t know how to handle a child wanting to self-harm to feel better about things. She’s known about it, as one of the neighbor kids had cuts on their arm and she wanted to know why. Which spiraled into a session of research into everything that could cause someone to want to cut themselves. She almost found the idea attractive herself, except for the whole ‘pain’ thing.

“Yes, daddy will come get me, but I need to tell him where I am,” they say. Completely certain. Utterly committed to this understanding of reality.

“By cutting yourself on a tree?” Marsha clarifies. Hoping maybe they’ll change their mind if they hear it from someone else.

Vani nods.

Marsha sighs.

Marsha knows nothing will happen, but Vani doesn’t, obviously. They’re still at an age where they make up magic spells and things to cope with reality. Marsha shouldn’t mess with that, but…she doesn’t think she can cut a child. Just thinking about it is making her ill.

“Please,” Vani says. “Daddy can’t find me. He might be scared.”

And that’s what breaks Marsha, really. The insistence that she has to find her father because HE might be afraid. Children so often hide their fear this way, but sometimes they really do just care more about other peoples’ feelings. Marsha knows, because she was one of those…

Rummaging around in the one duffle she allowed herself, she takes a sewing kit out of her bag and removes a needle. Thinking that perhaps Vani will let her get away with just a pinprick. Hopefully.

And then Marsha kneels down and she cups Vani's’ hand in hers instead of holding it. Wrapping her fingers around all but one of Vani's’-- placing the tip of the Needle just over that finger.

“Last chance to say ‘no’,” Marsha says. “I’ll do this if you think it will make you feel safer, but if you wanna stop, you just say so.”

Vani shakes their head. “I can do it, I’ve did it before.”

Well, that’s gut-wrenching, but Marsha doesn’t want to deal with it right now. So she carefully positions the needle and then presses down with it, hard, into the pad of Vani's’ finger. They hiss with displeasure at the pain, but don’t jerk away, or really move at all. Marsha is a little heartbroken at that display of control from a six-year-old.

Marsha removes the needle and watches them as they walk towards a small tree at the side of the road. They squeeze their finger to draw blood and then rub it against the bark, and Marsha stills in surprise at what she's sure...was the tree shaking?

‘It’s a small tree,’ she thinks. ‘It was probably just shaking because it was…loose in the ground or something. And then someone touched it. That’s all.’

“Let’s go,” Marsha says as Vani returns to her side, taking their hand once again.

She breathes through her anxiety as they walk down the road, her grandmother’s last known address somewhere towards the end of the stretch they’re walking.

They’re in rural territory now, so the homes are spread out quite far from each other.

“We should stay with the tree,” Vani says. “Daddy will find the tree but he won’t find me if I’m not there.”

“Don’t worry, Vani,” Marsha points around them. “There are trees everywhere. You can keep touching them as you go. That way, your father can find us wherever we are.”

Vani smiles and bobs their head excitedly. Orange ringlets bouncing. It’s the first time they've seemed really alive since they got into that car back home.

She’s glad, then, that she indulged Vani in their little ritual. As long as they feel safe and happier, she would do anything. She’s never had to help a child like this before and she feels so woefully unequipped for it. She doesn’t even know how to deal with her own issues, and now…she’s got someone else to worry about.

There’s something about them that she can’t place, though. It’s as if each time she reaches out to grab at it, it disintegrates like mist. Something about the shade of red in their hair, or the hazel of their eyes…

A car passes and her heart jumps. She keeps her head bowed as it floods the road with light. But it cruises past, leaving them in silence. So she lets go of that moment of fear and breathes.

‘Nobody’s coming to get me,’ she reminds herself. ‘My brain is lying to me. There’s no way dad could know where I am. No way for him to get at me even if he did. I’m legally an adult and I can press charges if he tries to drag me back home.’

That litany is the only thing that’s gotten her from the house to the car, the car to the bus and then the bus to here.

She just hopes she’s not lying to herself.