NELLE 9 | 2026
Excerpt
Years ago, Netta and Ig would sneak out-fence every night once Ig smelled sunset coming—Netta would follow with her crossbow while Ig, ahead in his muffle-clothes, sniffed for antlers. They’d dash to the old elm, which was at least six doe-leaps east, and climb in a frenzy of hushed giggles. They’d squeeze onto the bench in the narrow deer blind Brit had built before either of them were even born; and Ig would whisper scent drills to Netta while the eagle, who still had all her talons then, snatched bats from the purpling sky.
Now, Netta is sitting still and alone—but no, don’t think of Ig—in the blind. She inhales through her uncovered nose, then exhales into the handkerchief tied over her mouth. She’ll smell anything coming, but the handkerchief hides track of her breath.
They still call this keeping watch, which Brit says is left over from when people sensed most with their eyes. Once, Ig tried to call it keeping smell. Brit tucked the quilt tight under his chin and that made it sound like he was trying not to shit his pants. And then Netta said that was about accurate anyway, and though they all laughed—even Ig, sheepishly—Netta had felt guilty for saying it out loud. Or maybe the guilt is new now that Ig’s gone, even though Brit says guilt smells like humans, and smelling human leaves you starving or eaten.
Netta shifts her boot to let her mom’s Sig Sauer settle. The Sig, like Ig’s Ruger and Brit’s bullpup, is impractical for its noise and acrid smoke, only good for warning others when there’s no chance for yourself. But the gun makes a good show for travelers, especially men who came up in the old world and still think of safety as power and power as detonation. Even when Brit explains that a gunshot might save them from one antler but bring ten more, those men prefer to hunker deeper into what they know.
That kind refuse to believe a woman has it in her DNA to survive what makes a man literally lose bits of himself until he’s nothing but a head muttering in the mud; the kind who sit rifle-straight on their bedrolls, monitoring Netta and Brit while other travelers sleep; who whisper to each other that wild feminists made the Chronic in a lab to rid the world of human males. These rumors sound crazy; problem being, they’re so crazy that lesser rumors—forest women who kill travelers to steal and stockpile gold for when the old markets return—seem too plausible by comparison.
When the weather’s clear enough for a signal, Brit listens to conspiracy streams with a mug of apple whiskey, chuckling at her imaginary piles of gold. “Yeah,” she mutters, “Nothing I love more than soft, impractical metal.”