She was wet. Covered in mud. Crunchy dead leaves and bugs stuck to her hair, her tattered blue dress. A filmy stickiness covered her teeth, like slug slime over rocks - the result of dehydration and a lack of toothpaste. As she walked, she clinked; a belt made of frayed twine hung loosely about her straight, childhood waist, dangling an ornately decorated silver fork and spoon set. The little girl had no idea of the mechanical, linear passage of time, no point of reference to divide the days and months spent amid the browns and greens of the woods near the Johnson sprawl. The speechless creatures that lived there could not have told her the date and she shared their sense of things.

The sunlight that hit her face when she emerged from the trees into a field of high yellow grass was blinding, but it felt good, clean. She'd been drawn to the place by unfamiliar noises, human voices, music, laughter. Sounds alien to her.

Hidden by the tall grass, she waited in a crouch, expectant and alert. Her heart beat as fast as a bird's. She heard rustling, footfalls, and saw subtle movements in the grass. The motion whispered a warning of something approaching. As it was about to pass by, she grabbed its foot. Her hands were lightning quick, detaching the fork from the belt of twine as her prey fell forward. Instinctively, her arm lunged as she attempted to stick the fork in the creature's leg, but it was faster than she was, and much larger.

It bellowed and moaned. "Damn, girl! What are you trying to do?"

The girl snarled at the big two-legged beast that was all at once so similar to herself and so different, so much larger and louder. She'd seen one like him before. She jabbed with her fork and missed.

The beast threw its head back and laughed, which sounded to the girl like strange barking. She sat down and whimpered defeat.

The giant stopped barking and looked at her quietly. "I don't recognize you, child."

The girl stared mutely at him.

"You look like you're expectin' to get ate up."

She stood and backed away.

"Don't you talk?"

The girl cocked her head to the side, like a dog trying to figure out if someone is friend or foe.

"I'll take that as a no."

Girl and man stared at each other for a few moments, each waiting for the other to move first. The girl clutched her fork close to her chest and the skies above darkened. The rain came fast, hard and heavy. She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the rain. Water pulled the dirt away in muddy streaks. The man scooped her up and carried her, screaming, across the field, toward shelter, toward a cage.

* * *

The Johnson family was a huge brood with a gnarled family tree. They lived on a heavily wooded plot of 30 acres, which was itself surrounded by more densely wooded, unpopulated plots. Beyond the wooded areas lay abandoned strip mines, barren tracts of land along rarely traveled single-lane highways dotted with heaps of slag and colorful patches of vegetation. Housing on the Johnson land consisted of randomly situated trailers, haphazardly built shacks and pavilions. Rumors of third world-esque living conditions that abounded in the municipality of Varksnort Haven were, in some cases, truthful. There was a local ordinance stating that if an ambulance was called to the Johnson property, they were not to respond, the exposure to whatever unhygienic conditions that lurked there being deemed too risky to the health of any paramedics or subsequent patients.

Legend had it that the twelve Johnson brothers enjoyed the custom of wife swapping with such enthusiasm and voraciousness that the thirty Johnson children did not know who their fathers really were, but shared many uncles. This also was true, but only to a point. Not all of the youngsters on the Johnson property were actually Johnsons. Some of the kids were friends of other Johnson kids who, before becoming assimilated into the infamous clan, had suffered even worse home lives, been kicked out by wrathful parents, neglected by abusive ones, or simply forgotten. The Johnsons' cleanliness and sexual morals might have been questionable, but no one could say that they never showed kindness to strays.

The wild child that had come to them had definitely found the right place, even if they did have to keep her in a dog cage until she could behave well enough to run with their rough-and-tumble pack. The Johnson that found her was named Jed. Tall, affable, and furry, he was always clad in a red flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off, no matter the weather. He was fond of flexing his biceps and saying, "It's one of them there imperatives to show off guns like these." His smile was the biggest in the county, largely due to the fact that after decades of recycled Johnson genes, Jed had twelve extra teeth. "One for each brother," as the clan liked to say. Luckily for Jed, his mouth was large enough to accommodate the extra tools of mastication so that they never caused him discomfort.

The girl, unlike the excess teeth, did cause Jed Johnson pain. Because he had been the one to find her, the family voted that he would be the one she could call "Daddy," a unique and freakish title to hold on the Johnson sprawl. Though Jed was still tender at the age of 29, the title made him feel old and Gladiola made him feel even older. She kicked and snarled, she stole food, refused to speak, or even learn to speak. She pulled hair, bit into throats and hamstrings indiscriminately, and brandished her silver utensils as weapons. This was not necessarily out of line with Johnson behavior, but it was only tolerated toward outsiders. The Johnsons frowned upon turning on one's own. This crazy girl was literally ready to bite every hand that tried to feed her.

So Jed Johnson unearthed a big sturdy dog cage to put her in. Strangely enough, she seemed to like it. As soon as she was wrangled into the cage, she started caressing the cool, smooth metal bars and quieted down. What sent the girl into a mad, rabid fit of rage was the confiscation of her belt.

Jed had intended to place the silverware in the general Johnson circulation of Useful Items but changed his mind. To his thinking, the fork and spoon must have been like a security blanket - a connection to the safe and civilized world she'd been in before getting stranded in the woods - and that they'd also somehow helped her to survive. They were stained a deep reddish brown, as if by blood, which gave Jed the heebie jeebies; but out of kindness, he placed them in a special box and kept them under his bunk until such a time came when the beastly little girl could learn to speak.

PANVERSE ONE

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