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She ran.
The trees blurred together and she knew she’d lost the road, but she didn’t dare to stop. She couldn’t. There are monsters in the trees with her, a different type from the one her father had been, but monsters nonetheless. Dangerous, deadly things that will rip her Dæmon away in a way Ed and his ugly baboon Dæmon never could.
Her sob catches in her throat as she skittered to a stop not far from a big oak tree. She’d lost sight of Columba, the little kitten had startled into a fawn when she went crashing through the trees, and she doesn’t know where he is. She sobs again, throat achy and eyes blurry with tears as she struggled to calm herself. “Columba? Columba!” Sophia cried out, voice little more than a panicked wheeze.
Even she knew that she had to be quiet. Quiet as Jericho on his big soft paws, quiet as Mama when they went to that women’s shelter in Atlanta. She had to be quiet like when Mr. Dixon and his she-wolf were on the prowl. He’d showed her a little. Back at the quarry when Mama and Ed were…busy. Mr. Dixon and his she-wolf had swept in and stolen them right out from Lori and Shane and showed her how to walk without making the leaves crunch or the rocks shift. She had to be quiet like that, Sophia thought, using the hem of her shirt to wipe at her face. First, she’d walk quietly and find Columba. Then she’d find her way back home to Mama and Jericho.
“Columba!” Sophia hissed again. Her chest didn’t have that unhappy knot in it, like when Columba turned into a bird to escape the anger in their house and flew far and high above her head. That meant he was close, since he wasn’t tugging their bond yet.
“Col-!”
“Soph!”
Sophia wanted to cry all over again when the speckled fawn leapt nimbly over a bush and sped over to her. She fell to her knees, wrapping her arms around his spindly legged shape, soft fur brushing against her cheek as they cuddled into each other.
Everything was fine. As long as she had Columba, everything was going to be fine. She wasn’t alone.
***
Days got a little blurry after awhile. Sophia and Columba kept moving, never staying in one place too long. They marked the trees as they went, using Col’s ever changing shapes to leave gouges in the bark of branches. Four long, deep marks meant that it was safe tree to sleep in, a muddy five toed wolverine meant too many Walkers.
Sophia kept moving, and watching.
Col changed in small ways as the sun rose and set. Before he had been a sweet kitten, a butterfly tucked behind her ear or a Pygmy marmoset clinging to her shoulder while Ed raged and Mama cried. Now as she foraged for acorns and overripe blackberries, she did so with a young wolf at her shoulder, or she slept wrapped around a bear. She ran from Walkers with a fleet footed stag with a dapple coat and budding antlers. She was changing, bit by bit, and she didn’t think that was a bad thing.
Col didn’t, and really his opinion was the one that mattered.
Columba liked these new shapes, dangerous and wild like Mr. Dixon’s Dæmon. Like Mama and Jericho. He feels like Patience, Tris’s coyote Dæmon from Divergent, or Katniss’s cougar Dæmon. Big and bold and beautiful and he can protect Soph now. He can use his crushing teeth and big paws to swipe Walkers away with one blow. Soph is different now too, her legs are strong and steady over the uneven ground (even though hunger makes her head spin and fingers clumsy), she can hear the difference between a crow and a squirrel on a branch. She sleeps in trees and jumps from branch to branch when they’re big enough.
They keep moving, hoping that Mama and Jericho are coming.
They try not to think about that gunshot they’d heard the other day, the one just after Col had become a bear and thrown a scrambling, legless Walker down a ravine when it lunged for Soph’s feet.
They den down in a ramshackle building, a girl and a coyote curled up together in a closet, a nest of blankets to keep them warm as night falls. They dream of Mama, of cougar’s claws and Mr. Dixon’s awkward smile when they show him how quiet they can walk now.
Maybe, Sophia thinks, snuggling further into Col’s fur, maybe he’ll let her use his crossbow now.
***
They need water. Col knows this, and so does Sophia. That doesn’t make them feel any better about sliding down the steep, rocky bank of the ravine to get it.
Sophia goes first, feet first and half falling as she goes.
Col shifts, his dusky coyote pelt swirling like quicksand as he stretches and grows. Sophia, down at the bottom of the ravine, stares in wonder. Columba’s shifting can feel like playing with play-dough, soft and malleable in her hands. A world of possibilities at her fingertips, just waiting for her to explore. It doesn’t feel like that now.
Columba’s fur turns silver and smoky, with pretty rosettes of charcoal black. His tail is long, waving like a banner behind him as he flings himself from perch to perch down the ravine like Spider-Man. His paws, wide and heavy, she can feel them, the sting of his pads against stone echoing across her own palms, are steady on fragile bits of earth and root. Wide eyed, Sophia watches as Columba all but flies down towards her, eyes green as sage leaves and full of joy. He’s free, hovering in the air like a ghost or constellation. Col lands next to her with a soft thwump, and twines between her legs, letting out a weird puffing sound. She lets him, feeling soft thick fur under her hands. The rosettes form patterns like clusters of stars, a group on his forehead shaped like Orion the Hunter. She can see flashes of sharp teeth, as long as her index finger when he smiles at her.
The water is cool around their feet, but Sophia is too entranced by him to notice what she came down here for. “Columba…” she sighs, touching his face gently. He makes that weird sound again, tail flicking. “You’re so beautiful” she whispers to him.
Her Dæmon gives her a feline grin, eyes dancing with a spark she hasn’t seen since they lost Mama and Jericho. “I know, I’m you” he says.
She looks at him strangely. “Your voice changed” she remarked. It was lower, still soft and gentle, but with a weight to it that it didn’t have two minutes ago. “Yes it is. I’m stronger now too” he says, flexing his claws and smooth pelt. It hits her like a lightning strike, almost knocking her off her feet.
See Dæmons are a reflection of their human. So a baby has a Dæmon in baby forms, young kids have the spotty pelts and ragged feathers of young animals. It’s only adults whose Daemons have the sleek coats and shining feathers or scales, since they reflect a grown person. Col doesn’t have the awkward tuffs of fur or the little milk teeth if a young cat. He has the sleek, muscular body and deeper voice of an adult.
Because he’s an adult now. Her Dæmon has Settled as a beautiful, strong, free Snow Leopard.
Sophia feels her lip wobble, her eyes burn. She takes a moment to bury her face in his scruff, holding him tightly.
Ed always sneered at his shapes, saying Col would never settle as anything of note, anything of value. Like the shapes he forced them into were an inconvenience, a reminder that their hornlike wasn’t perfect and it made him mad. But he was wrong because Col settled as something beautiful and wonderful. Something with claws to climb and teeth to hunt. Something with thick fur to keep her warm at night and muscle to protect her and Mama the way he couldn’t Before.
“Thank you” she whispered. A quiet thing just for them, but Columba just makes a happy trilling sound, his rough tongue rasping over her cheek. “For what?” he asked, “I am only what you make me”.
Sophia, tired and weary beyond all measure at all of thirteen years of age, allows herself a moment to cry into her Dæmon’s fur.
***
They spend another day down in the ravine, the water too valuable to leave. Sophia smiles to herself as she sits in the shade of a fallen tree watching Col test the limits of his new shape with unrestrained glee. The joy is infectious, but their hearts are still heavy.
They wish Mama and Jericho were here to see this. They’d be so proud!
And maybe Carl and Rhiannon would stop making fun of Columba’s shapes once she showed up with a Snow Leopard.
Sophia bites her lip, picking at a scab. If they ever got back.
Col stops his springing leaps to look at her. He rests his chin on her knee, eyes old beyond their time. Sometimes, Sophia can forget that Columba is actual a soul, a collection of God Particles and Dust that was older than the universe and would continue long after she returned to the earth.
“We will” he promised. Sophia stroked a finger down the soft fuzz between his eyes.
“How do you know?” she asked. The snow leopard smiled, chuffing. “I have faith” he said. The pair sit in silence for a minute, not hearing the moaning and crashing of Walkers, and Mr. Dixon said that the largest natural predator in Georgia was a Black Bear, but they lived higher up in the mountains and they were still pretty close to the cities.
The peace lasts until the loud crashing downstream and the startled yelp of a canine.
The pair are off like a bolt out of Mr. Dixon’s crossbow. A yelp like that comes from a canine and most normal dogs are smart enough to avoid the unsteady sides of the ravine. That means it’s probably a Dæmon, which means people. Maybe it’s Mr. Walsh’s tigress or Mrs. Lori’s grey cat. She knows felines make a different sound, so it’s probably not Mama or Andrea. A part of her also whispers that it could be a stranger, like those three men they had to hide from two nights ago, but she pushes on. She has to know, one way, or the other.
They come crashing around the bend, seeing the lump at the bottom of the ravine. Her heart stutters, worrying that she’s been running toward a Walker this whole time.
“Look!” Columba hissed, bounding ahead of her. She follows, and lets out a sob of relief at the sight of a huge black wolf, flanks rising and falling. She was alive, so Mr. Dixon was alive too.
Sophia falls to her knees, shaking him roughly. “Mr. Dixon?!” she begs, shaking him again as Col tried to rouse the wolf. The man mumbles and grumbles at her, hands weakly batting her away. “Fuck off Merle, ain’t got time fer yer bullshit” he mutters, annoyed. “Gotta go find the girl” he wheezed. Sophia really wants to cry about the fact that someone has been looking for her, but she also knows she needs to get him up. The sun will be setting soon and she doesn’t want to risk another night in the ravine with all the noise they’ve been making. “Mr. Dixon, please wake up? I need you to wake up” she begs.
After a small eternity, she hears a pained keen from the wolf and Mr. Dixon’s steely blue eyes open, hazy and slow.
“Sophia?” he asked, voice slurred and heavy. She nods frantically and finally lets out a sob, throwing herself at him. She feels him go tense as her arms wrap around him, but can’t bring herself to move back. She really really needs a hug, and Mama isn’t here. The man lets out a sigh, an arm wrapping around her in turn. “S’all right girl. Imma get’chu back to yer Ma. She gonna be real glad to see you two” he promises.
“Thank you for finding me, Mr. Dixon” she says as she helps him sit up. He blushed, and Sophia doesn’t thru k she’s ever seen a grown man blush before. “Weren’t nothin’” he waved her off. He looks around, blinking in surprise at Columba.
“Uh, afternoon” he says to the snow leopard. He almost makes it sound like a question and Columba’s tail flicks in what Sophia has learned means he’s trying not to laugh. “Afternoon Mr. Dixon, to you and your Dæmon” he replied.
Sophia gives the wolf her own smile in greeting, and the sky eyed she-wolf huffs at them. “Shoot, we ain’t never been introduced? All that Mr and Ms and no-Dæmon name shit ain’t gotta place out ‘ere. Call ‘im Daryl, and I’m Deidre” the she wolf orders, voice dripping with contempt. Mr. Dix-Daryl rolls his eyes at her, but Sophia smiles. “Thank you Deidre. You already know my name, but you can call him Columba, or Col” she offers. Mama and Jericho insisted on good manners.
The twin snorts from Daryl and Deidre seem dismissive, but both have a faint smile on their faces. She knows how cool it is to have someone give you their Dæmon’s name freely, the feeling of being trusted like that, but doesn’t call them on it.
Daryl eyes the ridge and then turns to her. “Sophia, can you do me a favour and grab my crossbow?” he asked. She nods, happy to have a task. She hears him turn to Col and speak lowly, like he’s doing something he’s not supposed to. Most people don’t interact with a Dæmon that isn’t in their immediate family, but Sophia thinks that that rule isn’t going to last very long. “Hey, can you turn into a bird or sumthin’ and go check out if my horse is up there?” he asked. Sophia feels herself startle. This is the first person to learn that Columba settled.
“No, Sir. This is it for me” Col says, pleased as punch. Daryl and Deidre share a look and he shrugs.
“Not bad. Good teeth on ya. Snow leopards are some stubborn sons of bitches too” he says. Sophia beams as she hauls the heavy crossbow over to Daryl. That’s as close as she sever heard Daryl come to a genuine compliment. Col, the feline that he is, puffs up and churs in delight.
“Now, help me up girl and let’s get’chu back to yer Ma” he says. “Col, you’re gonna have’ta pull Deidre up too. Ain’t got the grip fer it like you do” he says. Sophia feels the same rush of pride and warmth that Columba does at Daryl’s trust, so he carefully hooks his teeth into Deidre’s scruff while Sophia helps Daryl stand. Together the four of them make their way up the side of the ravine.
***
Messy and dirty, they limp back over the fence line to the white farmhouse Daryl says the group is staying at. He’s as impressed with her quiet walk as she thought he would be, telling her that she walks like Columba does. He doesn’t agree to let her try his crossbow, but his ears turn red and he smiles when she asks, so Sophia thinks it’s a maybe.
By the time Dale’s RV is in view, Sophia is too tired to cry. Col’s tail thrashes and he chirps lowly. She can feel his eagerness to go, especially when she sees a familiar face rushing towards her.
“Mama! Jericho!” Sophia cries out, waving her arms like a crazy person. Sheriff Grimes is there too, his golden bird of prey shooting down to examine them with her eerie stare. The group crowds in around her, and she tucks into Daryl’s side, overwhelmed. Daryl and Deidre close ranks around her and Col, baring their teeth in synch. “Fuck off! Can’t y’all see yer scarin’em?” he snapped. The group moves back, as if startled by his ferocity. Well, everyone except Mama.
Sophia tumbled into Mama’s arms, crying into her chest. Col chirps, the sound high and distressed as the smaller feline licks over his cheeks and nibbles his chin in affection, the Lynx purring up a storm that Sophia can feel echoing in her own body like a familiar lullaby. “Thank you” Mama sobs, holding a hand out to Daryl and Deidre. He looks like he wants to shrivel up and disappear, but gives Mama a nod. Sophia really doesn’t care, she’s home where she belongs, warm and snug in Mama’s arms. Let the adults be weird if they want, she doesn’t care.
Then, because nothing, Sophia despairs, can be simple, there’s the crack of a gunshot and Daryl falls.