Sherwood. A green and dense forest. Leaves covered the ground that I walked on; the wind blew through the tall trees that my men and I climbed; the thick dark green bushes, tall grasses and masses of tree branches hid us from sight, and the songs of the birds always rang above us in the early mornings and the crickets played us to sleep in the dead of night. I live here in a clearing I came across after I had become an orphan. After more orphans of Nottingham came, we began our new life here.
The people in Nottingham call us thieves; common criminals; feral. But, we are just trying to live; trying to survive out here because there is no one at home who can care for us. She understood that. She had become an orphan just like us and had nowhere else to go except into the forest.
Johanna. A teenage orphan, like me. She had come to us after her grandparents had been killed by a gang of robbers. We had had no girls in our family, so seeing her definitely stirred up some worries. Some of the others thought she would only cause trouble and that we should kill her; the older boys said she should stay with us and be a sexual outlet, and the smaller children begged her to stay because they liked her. I had the final decision. I said she could stay…
Because I had fallen in love with her. Call it love at first sight; call it a fool's decision; call it whatever you want, but Johanna had taken part of my breath away the moment she had peered up at me from the ground; her wrists and ankles bound to the long, thick tree branch we tied strangers to. I wanted her to stay, even if she did cause problems for us. I wanted her to stay so I could make her my wife and be allowed to admire her every time I laid my eyes on her. I wanted her to stay so someone could watch over the little ones and keep them alive and well-fed; like a mother.
The Mother of the Ferals.
