I told her about my family before she said she knew. Maybe she was lying.
She said she was nine. Did I tell her how old Annie was? God, I can’t remember!
I walk and walk until I see something on the other side of the fence. It makes me stop. I close my eyes and breathe it in. Fire. Smoke. Burning wood. I open my eyes and see it again—the white plumes rising in the sky. A house or factory, maybe. Someplace with a furnace. Or someone burning brush in the yard, although it seems too wet for that. More likely a furnace or fireplace.
It is, at the very least, a sign of life. A sign of people. People who might help me. A place to run. A place to hide.
I tell myself to stop. I kneel down into the wet debris and take out the scissors. I take out the knife. And I go to work.
More time passes. My fingers are sore from cutting. I have only cut through three wires. The barbs make it hard to hold steady. The scissors slip. The knife won’t stay in one groove. I have to saw and cut slowly. Carefully. I can’t steady the wire without cutting my fingers. My hands are cold and my tools slip from them. Overand over. They slip out and fall to the ground. I blow on my fingers desperately. I need to warm them up. I need to ease the muscles so they can hold my tools.
Please. One more cut up. Four more to the side…
A voice calls out. It tells me to stop. It asks me where I am.
I stand quickly and move away from the fence, leaving my tools in the leaves. Leaving my work behind me. I walk furiously away from the fence, into the woods. Away from the smoke and fire and the people who can help me. I have been picturing them. I have been seeing their faces as they fold me in blankets and call my family. As they call the police and break through the gates of this insanity and discover Alice and the man and put a stop to it, whatever it is. Tears fall as I leave them behind. I will find a place to hide. Somewhere in these woods. And then I will return to my work. To my cutting. I will not stop until I reach my saviors.
I walk carefully, but the dead brush snaps and pops beneath my feet. I get far enough away from the fence that it is out of sight. And then I hide. I find a large tree and I sit on the other side of its trunk from the voice that grows closer.
And when the voice stops, I hear only the footsteps. The same snaps and pops that my body had made, only louder and stronger. And then everything stops, except the sound of metal on metal.
“What are you doing?” the voice asks.
I look around the tree. The man is there and he holds a shotgun.
I stand but say nothing. I cannot manage to speak.
“You could get hurt out here,” he says. “You could get killed.”
I stare at him as my body trembles. I pray he can’t see the blisters that are forming on my hands.
“Didn’t Alice tell you about the bears?”
I shake my head. I study his face. He looks dismayed. He looks concerned, the way a person would, given the situation. The bears. His face becomes a mirror, reflecting back to me my own insanity. How ridiculous I must appear. Have I let the fantasy of a little girl scare me into a frenzy?
He looks around us, swinging the shotgun. Then he sets it against the tree and gives me his hand, helping me to my feet. His grip is gentle and his face holds a smile. It’s the smile of a person trying to help a crazy person out of her craziness. He coaxes me and I begin to settle. What caused me to lose control of my senses? Alice said they followed me from the gas station. She knew about my family. But maybe that was all in her mind. Maybe they just saw me there. Maybe I told her first and she only pretended to know how old Annie was.
I consider that my thoughts are not normal. That the death of my child has carved paths inside my head that always lead to the darkest scenarios. Paranoia.It happened once. It could happen again. Horror.
But life is almost never horror. It can feel horrible. It can seem horrible. But not like this. Not this kind of crazy horror.
“I’m sorry,” I say then, meeting his eyes. “I got lost and then I panicked. I should have stayed in the house.”
“No harm done. But come on now,” he says. “If we hurry, there might be time to get you back to town.”
I want to throw my arms around him and thank him. He’s not going to shoot me. He’s not going to kill me. He’s going to take me to town.
Of course he is. I have had crazy thoughts and now I want to thank him for returning me to reality.
I almost bounce like Alice as I follow him back to the house.
10
Day fourteen
The bartender.
Nic could not remember his name, but she remembered other things about him. Like the calm in his voice, and the surrender in his eyes.
