Page 110 of The Two of Us at the End of the World

And then, later, as we crested the first rise and saw the road ahead winding north through a wide moorland valley which had, I was pleased to see, at least two likely scrabbles of buildings, small villages or big farms in the distance where we could camp in safety and comfort for the night.

My head throbbed but I felt a bit better. Well enough at least to raise the hard subject of what I’d seen.

She made the wolves go away, I said quietly.

Who did what? Cat said.

I pointed to the girl who was sleeping happily entwined with her brother, lulled by the rocking motion the panniers made as Red walked.

She sat in front of them and showed no fear, just laughed, I said. And they lay around her as if she was, I don’t know, either interesting, or in charge, and then she just—

She just what? said Cat.

I waited a moment, trying to put what I’d seen and what I’d felt into words that didn’t make me sound like I was crazy.

She just waved them away, like she was dismissing them, I said. And they just… left.

That’s not possible, Cat said.

I know, I said. But it did happen. I saw it, Cat. I—

Hit your head? Said Cat.

Yes, but—I said

Ate weird mushrooms? she said

No, I said. Very funny. But it still happened, Cat. I swear it.

It was more than usually important to me that she believed what I was saying. It wasn’t just a trust thing, it was about carrying some of the burden: I had seen what I had seen, and its very strangeness gave it a weight that felt too much to keep to myself. The gravity of it somehow disturbed my stability. I needed Cat to share in it, to provide some counterbalance that’d keep my world level and familiar enough to keep travelling through.

Tell me again, she said.

And I so did. Two, three, four times more at least. And each time it was as real in my mind’s eye as if I was still there in the scrubby trees watching it, and each time she said I was hallucinating. Or had hit my head.

And then as the light began to leach out of the sky and send the shadows stretching across the valley floor we found a good place for the night, in an old stone farmhouse tucked in to a fold in the hill slope with a roof that had only fallen in at one end and plenty of weather-tight space at the other, and after making a fire out of old furniture, pegging out the goats so they could feed, seeing to the horse and then feeding the babies, I had enough time to realise how very tired I was and how much my head hurt and when Cat asked me to tell her about the wolves again I just stared into the fire, shook my head and rolled over in my blanket and let the warmth do its work and allowed the sleep that had been dogging my heels all day to just take me away.

Chapter 38

Mother well

Mouse – Year 201 AG

The last part of the trek north was a long and strangely featureless slog, when I try and lace days together into a chain that makes sense. There were days when I was sure we’d made a mistake by setting out in the first place. Partly it was the terrain, which seemed to always be uphill, not sharply but relentlessly. And then the weather closed in and there were days we just spent inside wherever we had camped for the night, watching dark curtains of rain sweeping across the wide valley ahead of us.

There was one evening when I stopped because I saw things moving across the high side of a moorland slope beside us and thought for a moment that it was a troop of people, but then I realised it was a riderless herd of wild horses. Red shifted and whinnied at the sight of them, but I pulled her head down with the reins and made her stay still until they were gone. I felt bad about that for some reason, but I couldn’t let her follow them. Her cargo was too precious and in reality I couldn’t carry everyone and everything on my own – even though it felt like that was what I was doing anyway.

I didn’t talk about what I’d seen with the wolves any more, because I couldn’t convince Cat, and there didn’t seem any point in it anyway. It wouldn’t have changed anything, and the babies were quite happy. In fact I think they liked the days when we were stuck in one place more than the days bouncing along in the pannier because they got more stimulation and attention while we sat on the floor and played.

I finally realised my worries about having enough of the right kind of food for them were groundless. They began to pull themselves upright on things and stand wobbling and looking around triumphantly before trying a step or two and dumping back down on their bottoms like a sack of apples. They never minded that, and usually laughed when they landed. But they were soon going to walk. When they weren’t sleeping in their pannier, they would sometimes pull themselves upright and cling on, watching the world go by, gurgling at each other in a way that sounded like a secret language only they could understand. But they remained upright for longer and longer periods, holding on strongly. Which is how I knew they were getting enough nutrition from the goatmilk and the apple porridge. That was a good thing that happened, ticking that off my list of worries.

We need to give them names, I said to Cat as we rode. We can’t just call them Girl and Boy for ever. We need something to call them.

Call them what? she said.

I don’t know, I said, but we should think about it.

And then later, when we were stopped for the night inside a workshop next to an overgrown petrol station, watching them sitting on the floor and crawling over each other with much giggling and pushing I said, I think I know why Freya didn’t want to name them now.