Thieving Forest Read Online Free Page A

hand on her cheek and she keeps her face very still. She is not sure what he will do if she pulls away.
    “ Yaknogeh ,” he says. “Ill.”
    “No,” Penelope tells him. “Not yaknogeh . Strong.”
    They all know a smattering of Indian languages from trading with so many Indians at the store. But the scarred Potawatomi takes no notice of Penelope. With one hand he grasps Aurelia’s head, his thumb on her jaw. With his other hand he presses two fingers above and below Aurelia’s eye, stretching the skin to see her pupil.
    She is frightened, but she says, “I am warm from all the running.” She tries to think if she knows the Potawatomi word for running. From the corner of her eye she sees Penelope nod: good.
    After a moment he takes his hand away and stands up. When he goes back to the others she closes her eyes again. Her weariness is like a veil pulling her down. She drifts into sleep and dreams that her arms are dry sticks without leaves, and although they are light she can’t move them no matter how much she tries.
    Some time later she wakes to Koman and the scarred man shouting at each other in Potawatomi. She hears the word cmokamanuk repeated. White men. Koman takes up his hatchet and goes off, saying something over his shoulder. His animal, the swine wolf, stays behind.

    The afternoon lengthens and still Koman does not return. Penelope tries to work out what they are doing here but can think of no explanation—if the plan is to ransom them for money, they should be in Risdale already. If the plan is to take them home and make them into wives or servants, they should be in their canoes. If the plan is to kill them they would have done so long ago. They would not be giving them water and walnuts and moccasins. She thinks of her knitting in the sack with the tea and candlesticks and everything else taken from their home. She could knit stockings for Koman perhaps, to show her worth. Or Aurelia could. Aurelia is a fast knitter.
    “They want us to make a shelter,” Beatrice says coming up to her.
    “How do you know?”
    “One of them speaks a little French. Look, they have Naomi at it already.”
    Penelope picks up a couple of long twigs and makes her apron into a nest to carry them. Two younger men—the ones carrying the sacks with the Quiners’ goods—are cutting limbs off a tree. When they have three good ones, they pound them into the ground. Then they show the Quiners how to push and weave the twigs around them. Despite the men’s stony expressions, Penelope tries to talk to them. She points to one of their sacks.
    “My knitting?” she asks. “Do you have my knitting bag in there?”
    They do not understand. “ Mik-chay-wee-win ,” one says. Work.
    When the shelter is done the four sisters are told to go inside. It is tall enough for them to stand up in, but narrow and cramped and dim. The men roll a fat log against the opening to serve as a makeshift door, which only partially blocks it. Naomi feels like she’s being buried standing up. Sweat runs under her collar and turns cold. There is hardly room to turn.
    “Do you see anything, Aury?” she asks. Aurelia is in the middle with the widest view. When she leans forward Naomi sees a tiny leaf stuck in her strawberry-blond hair from sleeping on the ground. In spite of her sore legs Naomi wishes she were outside again running along the path. In here she feels like an animal.
    Aurelia says, “Koman’s swine wolf has taken up a place in front of the shelter. He’s standing guard.”
    “The dog is just a dog,” Penelope tells her again.
    A moment later Aurelia says, “The one with the scar, he’s coming over here. And he’s holding up his hatchet!”
    “What? Let me look.” Penelope puts her face to the opening.
    The man is shouting in Potawatomi as he walks. Naomi sees Koman’s dog rise. He lays flat his ears and makes a low rattling noise. Is he snarling? The man stops and says something to him, a command. The dog doesn’t move. The