Feral Bonds

The moon takes up our sky; it's the first time in weeks I have no open wounds. I can smell my sister’s gash. The split near her eye is beginning to weep. I prefer to be solitary for this reason. Her weakness is sickness. My underbelly hurts pressing against the thin, hostile wires. She needs to move over. This metal box will soon be our casket.

Her cries echo through the forest, thin and desperate. My heart picks up pace, and blood pounds in my ears. 

I am scared, I am angry. She is going to get us killed.

She is easy to silence. My teeth sink into her fur as I bite down on her neck. The fur brushes against my tongue with the consistency of grain. I wait until her cries turn into a whispered pain, and I lick her tears. I am thirsty.

*

“We have a signal!” I yell up the stairs, expecting my sister to be still lying on the couch. I gesture at the air like she’s in the room.

I sigh and bang the handrail, “Georgina!” I shove on my boots with conviction. We need to keep these traps clear; that’s the singular task Dad gave us. I can picture his beard moving when he gives us instructions like an animated possum clinging to his face.

“The people need their cardigans, son,” he jokes with his hands on his hips, a proud gleam in his eyes.

He considers himself a bogan Santa Claus, but instead of wearing a red cloak he wears a faded Swanndri, and instead of giving presents, children exclusively get possum hides. If I didn’t know my dad, I would consider him a dangerous person. Possums even more so; they would consider him the Grim Reaper. He sometimes breaks their necks if they’re still alive. It’s a terrible way to die, squished by his large hands. I would hate an afterlife where I’m contorted, disfigured, and worn to church by one of the Karaka Street ladies. Knowing my luck, I’d probably end up stuffed on Uncle Mikaere’s mantle, frozen in time like a brutish spell.

The world is cruel, I thought.

Still standing inside the entryway I open and slam the front door. Georgie’s crisp-covered face pokes through the doorway to see if I am gone. We stood in a stand-off, my raised eyebrow triggering the guilt on her face. A small moment of decision rolled over her expression.

“Fine!” She tossed her slipper down towards me, it was her version of waving the white flag.

*

My claws dig in between the spaces of the wire. I harrow at the dirt. My sister forces herself against the side, she cowers as I dig; trembling in the same rhythm as my scratches. 

Are there worms trapped in the ground? Are they trapped like us? Would they meet me at the surface? 

My scratches are a call to the cattle of the earth. I am hungry. My tongue sifts through the sediment. Smaller, harder rocks graze over the bumps. The soil bugs prance into my mouth. I save nothing for her.

*

“Fuck it’s cold,” Says Georgie as she wraps her dressing gown tighter around her chest.

I struggle with the torch, it’s about as old as we are. With a frustrated sigh, Georgie rips it out of my grip, smacking it thrice onto her palm. A warm, amber light pours onto the entryway into the bush, two Koru ferns shape the entrance like a natural doorway. The tightly coiled spirals look like little hands beckoning us in. We begin our trek to the trap, I go in first while Georgie slowly saunters behind.

My dad is a master at tricking possums; the trap lies embedded amongst a cluster of bushes. Two trapped creatures freeze at the sight of the torch.

“Oh my god, they stink.” Said Georgie, she was shivering in the middle of the track, her hand covering her mouth like a mask.

Four enormous brown orbs lock with mine, my hands push past the foliage to reveal their furry bodies.

“Shut up, Georgie.” My chest tightened a little, “The smaller one is injured.”

The poor thing had a festered wound adorning its eye and was cornered in the trap by the larger one. We had never caught two before, and it was evident there wasn’t enough room in the trap for both. I was surprised they hadn’t turned on each other yet.

“We forgot the rifle.” Georgie groaned, I dropped my head into my hands. I handed her the torch hesitantly, and her footsteps on the gravel slowly faded into the night. 

*

A boy crouched down beside the metal wires. I could feel his guilt. His eyes were smaller than ours, slightly glazy. It shows weakness. I don’t move, but my sister twitches from fear. 

Open the box 

My eyes challenge his.

It’ll be between us, a battle between two males.

*

I was in the dark covered by bushes, accompanying these small creatures. I could hear the thuds of my dad throwing their corpses into the back of his truck, I would grimace at the sight.

“They’re pests, Tane.” He would hiss. 

I feel as if this pair is special, they got trapped together. They shouldn’t be separated, even by death. I don’t want them to die just for being small.

A smaller one wouldn’t make a decent cardigan anyway, I thought.

I made sure my demeanour was gentle and I slowly reached towards the mechanism. I tried my best to approach this like I was their friend. The larger possum seemed to catch on to what I was doing and pressed closer towards the wire. The smaller one waited patiently in its shadow. 

I open the trap, and gravel shifts from behind me.

It was Georgie with Dad’s gun. 

*

My blood fills up the metal box. My sister is twitching, her eyes rolling back. 

*

Georgie swings the rifle back behind her shoulder blades and picks up the possums by the scruffs of their necks.

“Just hold the torch, Tane.” She said, gently nodding towards home.

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Author Bio: My name is Brigit Nelson, and I’m a graduate of Creative and Literary Communications from Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. I love writing, you can find me deep in a Moleskine in my spare time.