Chapter 12 Travel
Night was Daisy’s new country. It pressed close on every side, swallowing even the memory of the city behind her. Daylight belonged to the people who hunted; night belonged to the ones who ran. She learned this on her first day beyond the wards, belly gnawing itself inside out and every muscle singing with the panic of being seen.
The land out here wasn’t made for slum rats. The ground clawed at her boots, mud sucking her feet down with every step, weeds slapping against her knees like switch-whips. Once she’d made the first mile, the city became a bruise on the horizon, easily ignored if she kept her head forward. She moved north, always north, because anything was better than the south side and its blue domes and their cages.
By the third night, Daisy figured out the rhythm: move before dawn, find a ditch or a hollow under a fallen tree when the sky lightened, wrap herself in rags, and disappear until the world went dark again. Some days she only woke to the sharp tang of her own sweat or the flat taste of river clay in her mouth. Hunger got worse as the coin wore down. She scraped lichen off rocks, tried chewing on the stringy roots that carpeted the riverbank. She ate two mushrooms before she learned the difference between edible and nearly-blind. The world spun for a whole morning, and when she came back, her hands shook so bad she nearly sliced her own thumb open with the knife.
Twice, Daisy risked the roads. The first time, she watched a merchant’s wagon rumble past, its oil-lanterns throwing shadows like the teeth of a saw. She timed the driver’s swig from his bottle, then slipped from the culvert and under the canvas cover. The space was packed with burlap sacks of parched grain, scratchy and sour. She buried herself between them, heart thudding, and waited. When a guard patrol passed, she heard the conversation: boots grinding gravel, a woman’s voice rough with sleep.
“You check the cart, or you want me to get bit again?”
A pause, a snort. “Rats don’t last long in this weather.”
“Not rats I’m worried about.”
The footsteps moved on.
Daisy held her breath until the air inside the cart was hot and sticky, then exhaled, slowly and silently. Hours later, when the wagon finally stopped, at a waystation with a shingle creaking overhead, she rolled out, knees buckling beneath her, and limped into the wild. Her reward was a fistful of mildewed oat dust and three bruises that went black by the next morning.
After that, Daisy preferred the woods, even if they clawed her bloody. Trees offered privacy. So did the gaps between them, spaces thin enough for moonlight but too narrow for horse or cart. She learned to move by feel, boots padding out a rhythm as she wove between the trunks, never breaking a branch, never leaving a single scrap behind. On the fifth night, she found a blackthorn bush loaded with berries. Most were hard, some soft with rot. She ate as many as she could before her jaw went numb.
Sleep was the enemy. Daisy never let herself drift for more than an hour. When exhaustion claimed her, she tucked herself tight under the roots of an ash, body curled around the satchel and knife. Her dreams were always the same: a red spiral glowing against her palm, a mother’s voice hissing at the edge of hearing, and rats, endless rats, their eyes red and knowing.
It was after one of these fugue-sleeps that Daisy found the stream. She caught the sound first, the slow slap of water on stone, then the flicker of movement: white cloth against gray. She ducked behind a willow and spied a girl on her knees in the shallows, hair slicked to her skull, hands red from the cold. The girl scrubbed a shirt against a rock, teeth clenched against the morning chill.
Daisy waited, silent as mold. She could smell the bread on the girl’s breath, a tang that overpowered the stink of wet clothes. A knot of envy burned through her. Daisy edged closer, steps feather-light.
The girl’s head snapped up. Eyes the color of ditchwater, narrowed and sharp. She didn’t startle, just looked Daisy up and down, then said, “Are you lost?”
Daisy weighed her chances. “Looking for food,” she said.
The girl eyed Daisy’s clothes, patched at the knee, one sleeve a different color than the other, a stripe of city soot at the hem. She nodded, barely surprised.
“You’re from the slums,” she said. Not a question.
Daisy straightened. “Not anymore.”
The girl set her jaw. “You’ll die out here.”
“Maybe,” Daisy allowed. “But not today.”
There was a long silence, broken only by the current. Daisy kept her hands in sight.
After a minute, the girl reached into a basket at her side and broke off a chunk of bread. She hesitated, then tossed it through the air. Daisy snatched it with both hands, forced herself not to cram the whole thing into her mouth at once.
“Thank you,” Daisy said. The words scraped her throat.
The girl shrugged. “Can’t stand to watch a person starve.”
They sat, separate but not hostile. Daisy chewed the bread slowly, savoring every stale mouthful.
“What’s your name?” the girl asked.
Daisy almost lied, then decided it didn’t matter. “Daisy.”
“I’m Marn,” the girl replied. She wrung out the shirt, twisted water from her braid. “You headed north?”
Daisy nodded. “No point in staying south.”
Marn flicked water from her fingers. “You won’t find better up there. They all hate us. Maybe more than the city folk.”
“Can’t be worse,” Daisy said, but she already knew it was a lie.
Marn pointed at Daisy’s satchel. “You got a knife?”
Daisy let her hand rest on the hilt, not threatening, just confirming. Marn’s mouth quirked.
“Good. Don’t trust the men on the roads. They’re worse than the wolves.”
Daisy almost smiled. She thought about Delia, about her siblings, and the way the city walled itself against anything that looked like her. She looked down at her arms: mud, berry stains, two days’ worth of grime. The bread caught in her throat.
Marn watched her for a while, then stood. “Wait here.” She crossed the stream, feet nimble on the rocks, and disappeared into the scrub.
Daisy had half a mind to run. Instead, she finished the bread and waited, watching the woods for movement.
Marn returned with a wedge of hard cheese wrapped in leaves. She held it out.
“My father would skin me if he knew,” Marn said.
“He doesn’t know,” Daisy replied, taking it.
They exchanged a look. There was no trust, but there was something close to it.
Marn said, “You should go before the sun’s up.”
Daisy nodded. She stashed the cheese in her satchel and wiped her hands on her pants. “Thank you,” she said again.
Marn shrugged. “Just don’t die.”
Daisy turned to leave, then heard the crunch of boots behind her. She froze. Marn did too.
The man who burst from the trees looked just like Daisy expected: a farmer’s hands, a city guard’s glare, the neck muscles of someone who didn’t need to shout to make himself heard. His face twisted when he saw Daisy.
“What are you doing with her?” His eyes were slits of suspicion, fixed on Marn.
“She was hungry, Father. Just passing through.”
The man looked Daisy up and down, sneered at the grime, the ragged boots, the way her hand never strayed far from the satchel.
“Get away from my daughter, vermin,” he said. The words landed with a force that Daisy felt in her spine. “Your kind brings nothing but disease and thievery.”
Daisy wanted to spit, to tell him exactly what her kind brought. Instead, she took a step back, hands raised.
“No trouble,” she said.
He picked up a pitchfork from the grass and pointed it at her chest. “Go on then. Move.”
Daisy moved. She didn’t run, but she retreated fast enough to make it clear she understood. As she crossed the stream, she looked back once. Marn’s face was blank, but her eyes flicked with something like apology.
When Daisy was out of sight, she slumped against a tree and let the hunger and shame gnaw her from the inside.