I nodded
I picked her up without answering. She settled against me with both arms around my neck and the bunny tucked under one arm, and I turned north and walked.
The fence was still standing on the north side— one of the only things that was, 18 feet of chain-link, intact.
I jumped it without breaking the pace and Shiori didn't react at all. No startled sound, no grip tightening. She just rode the jump and landing with her face against my shoulder.
The jungle took us in the way it always did— dense overhead, the light breaking up through the canopy into moving pieces, roots pushing up through the ground, the smell of growing things that had been left alone too long.
I moved through it and Shiori talked, which was normal, except the normal wasn't quite right.
She asked questions. Not the ones with the punchlines. Not the ones about birds getting married or bread having a different name.
