FAR YOU TRAVEL,
-
The Orchard of Quiet Light looked gentle from the outside, but inside it was built on control. Children weren’t raised by parents; they were raised by doctrine. No mirrors. No birthdays. No possessions. Affection distributed evenly so no one belonged to anyone. No mom or dads. No sons or daughters.
Named Cedar — all children were named after trees. Being good at being still. At 11, that obedience earned her responsibility: being assigned to care for a younger girl named Lark, who had begun waking from nightmares, shaking and whispering that something was wrong. One night, gripping Cedar’s wrist in the dark, she asked ‘’Do you think they’re wrong?’’
That was the first forbidden thought Cedar had ever heard spoken aloud. And it changed her whole perspective. Starting looking closer. Children who questioned doctrine were said to be “returned to their parents,” yet no parents ever came. Their beds were reassigned by morning. Their names stopped being spoken.
Never seeing proof. But noticing that on the nights after a child disappeared, dinner was always a heavy, dark stew. The adults watching the children eat. Lark vanished three days after their whispered conversation. Cedar stopped eating meat that night.
One night, there was a storm.
While thunder split the orchard and adults scrambled to secure livestock, Cedar cut her hair with pruning shears and pulled on stolen work clothes. Crawling through the flooded irrigation tunnel beneath the north fence and walking until her feet bled, following the first road she found simply because it led away.
12 years. Having no last name. No identification. No understanding of money or property or even how cities worked. Over the following weeks drifting from one ride to another — quiet, watchful, accepting food but rarely speaking — until the highway routes and truck lines eventually funneled her toward New York. The city swallowed her whole.
Living the way most runaways did — moving constantly and learning quickly. Sleeping in bus stations, hospital waiting rooms, and sometimes the corners of all-night diners where the staff were too tired to chase her away. Stealing food when she had to, usually small things: bread, fruit, packaged snacks.
Police finding her more than once during those early years. A quiet redheaded girl wandering alone always drew attention. Without identification, officers usually brought her to temporary youth shelters or called social services. Pretending she couldn’t remember anything — her name, where she came from, how she ended up there. Never staying in shelters longer than a few days before slipping out through unlocked exits or side doors. After enough encounters she became familiar to certain patrol officers. The quiet runaway with the red hair who always disappeared.
By 15 knowing all the patterns: Tourists were careless with wallets. Drunk men were slower to notice missing cash. Never having a teacher for any of it. She learned the way she learned everything else: by observation. What began as small acts — lifting cash from an unattended jacket pocket, slipping a phone from a table — slowly turned into something more deliberate. Sometimes she flirted long enough to distract someone before taking their wallet. Sometimes she slept with men who assumed they had found an easy night’s company, only to wake up missing their cash, watch, or anything valuable left unattended. To her it wasn’t cruelty, but survival.
Today being 25, renting rooms short-term, moving every couple of months before landlords ask too many questions. Night-cleaning crews, bar shifts —anything that kept cash moving through her hands long enough to survive another month.
Even now, police occasionally stop her — for trespassing, false identification, or simply because someone thought she looked suspicious. Never been registered under a name; on paper she doesn’t exist. Avoiding medical records, paperwork, anything that might leave a trail leading back to her.
Physical closeness doesn’t mean much to her. Sleeping with someone can be as transactional as buying food — The Orchard intentionally removed family bonds and personal attachment. Because of that, she never developed a normal understanding of emotional intimacy.
Quickly disappearing if she starts caring. Not thinking in people as ‘’friends’’, but more as people she trusts won’t hurt her.
-
-
