The Woodlands

by Lauren Nicolle Taylor

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re fine,” Deshi said unconvincingly. He held out his hands out for Hessa, but I wasn’t giving him up tonight.

  I shook my head. “Don’t you worry—there is no way I’ll sleep tonight. You try and get some rest.”

  “You forget, I worry about Joseph the same way you do,” he said, annoyed. I nodded. There were no words for him.

  Changing the subject, I asked, “What do you think of Careen?”

  He laughed. “If you’re asking—do I think she’ll have a go with Joseph, absolutely!”

  My heart stopped.

  “Just ask me if you think he would rise to the bait,” he said, leading. I didn’t say anything and he answered himself, “Absolutely not.”

  He put his hand on my arm and patted it awkwardly. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  “Yeah, except them freezing to death, or being attacked by an animal, or not having enough to eat,” I said bitingly.

  “Ha, yeah, except for that.”

  I laughed despite myself.

  “Rosa, I don’t think you understand just how much he loves you.”

  I squirmed uncomfortably. A cloud of memories rustled up, like shaking a blanket full of dust. Bits billowing out, some floating away, others getting stuck up your nose; a choking feeling, making you want to sneeze.

  “I do,” I said quietly, but I sounded unsure. I knew how I felt, but his feelings had always seemed a bit confused in my mind. There was the before and the after. Before, when we were in Pau, when he wanted to be close and then pushed me away, the after when he told me to leave him alone at the Classes. Then there was the before that I didn’t know about, those four months I was missing, where he said he never stopped looking for me. The next after, was yet to come. After the baby was born.

  Deshi laughed, but there was a bitter edge to it. “No, you don’t.” He looked to the door, watching the water streaming down the entrance, almost solid. “When you were at the Classes, did you ever see how much pain he was in?”

  Most of my memories were of him joking around and talking to his friends. There were only a couple of times that he gave the impression that he was less than happy. I held my heart, feeling like if I didn’t, it would fall out of my chest. These memories were too painful. They brought with them visions of Rash, Henri, blood and broken faces. I just shook my head.

  “He was in agony. He wanted to talk to you, but he knew you had no future together; he was trying to do the right thing. But by the time he had decided to tell you how he felt, it was too late, you were gone.” Deshi’s hands fell flatly on his crossed legs. “When you disappeared, so did Joseph. He was tormented. He barely ate or slept. I don’t know why, but I think he blamed himself, like he could have stopped it.” Deshi shook his head. I knew Deshi blamed me; he probably blamed me for a lot of things.

  “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, he would never jeopardize the delicate ‘thing’ you have, not in a million years.” He said it with distaste. He didn’t get it. I’m not sure I really did either. All I knew was how it felt.

  He looked at me, eyes tracking up and down, narrowing. I knew he didn’t think I was worth it. Our relationship always tipped back and forth like this. Talking about Joseph was a mistake for us. It hurt.

  I tried hard not to sound jealous when I said, “Do you think he is safe with her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I rolled my eyes, “Well, that’s comforting”

  “She’s a bit crazy, but I don’t think she’d hurt him. I think she’s just traumatized or something.”

  I stared into my lap, Hessa folded neatly into the crook of my arm. Was I traumatized? Probably.

  At some point in our conversation, the rain started to ease. A damp, dreary morning peeked through the doorway, mist rising off the grass. We roused ourselves and surveyed the damage. The top of the fireplace had collapsed, dark grey stones and clay scattered on the ground. But apart from that, everything looked ok. The cabin had held up remarkably well through the storm. We identified the holes and started working to fix the problems. The fireplace needed to be shorter and wider to make it more stable. Once it was repaired, we lit a fire and let it burn all day, baking the stonework and drying the cabin out.

  Apella and Alexei went into the forest to search for food. I tried following them once but I felt I could barely walk two steps without feeling the weight of the leech pushing down. I needed to go to the toilet all the time and I felt quite sure, if I walked too far, the child would fall out. Bang! Like a chicken dropping an egg.

  Apella asked me to lie down and she poked and prodded my stomach. Squeezing me like an orange. She informed me that the baby was engaged. I giggled, “What? Already? When’s the wedding?” Apella almost smiled. Almost. She explained the head was down and that’s why I felt pressure. So, it was standing on its head and bouncing up and down on my bladder. Great. She also said not to worry, this could happen weeks before the baby was actually born but I should try not to push myself.

  Every time someone went past the tree line and returned, my heart cartwheeled. I could always hear them coming before I saw them and I hoped against hope that it was Joseph, stomping through the forest. It never was.

  The forest was looking sparser now, more leaves on the ground than the branches, looking like stark, straggly fingers reaching to the sky, calling the snow. The colors of the leaves reminded me of the sunset we had viewed from the top of our hill. I could almost feel him breathing into my neck, his strong arms holding me. Almost, but not quite. I knew he had probably reached the city by now but there was no way he would be back today unless he ran all the way. I dreaded another night alone but at least the rain had moved on. With the fireplace repaired, hopefully we would get some sleep.

  Deshi helped me drag the heavy shutters inside. We leaned them in the windows, leaving a crack for ventilation. Deshi settled Hessa and gave him a bottle. We ate in silence, chewing on Careen’s dried rabbit. All of us wondering where they were, whether they had found anything, and when they would be back.

  Apella parted the silence with her wispy voice. “Rosa, I have been meaning to say thank you.”

  I looked at her incredulously. Thank me for what? I had been nothing but mean to her from the moment we left the facility.

  “Without your knowledge and persistence, we never would have built this home. We would have kept walking and ended up freezing to death. This was a good idea,” she finished.

  I felt myself blushing, unused to the attention, the adulation. “Well, I guess I should thank you too. For rescuing me, I mean.” I only half-meant it but I attempted to smile. She was trying. She leaned over to me and hugged me. My body stiffened in reply.

  She composed herself, tightening her face, straightening her clothing, reminding me of my mother; unable to really show emotion. Uncomfortable that she had displayed vulnerability. I knew deep down that was why I found Apella so hard to deal with.

  “Aw, well, isn’t that sweet,” Deshi cooed, shaking his head from side to side, slowly. I shot him a dark look.

  Alexei stuttered as he patted me on the back, “I’m sure they’ll be back tomorrow, try and get some sleep, dear.”

  We curled up around the fire. The cabin was warm and felt secure and safe. Surprisingly, I fell asleep quickly, the stress of the last two days stripping me of the will to keep my eyes open.

  I dreamed I was in the ruins of the city again. I felt different. Looking down at my stomach, it was smooth and flat. I touched it, panicked. My hands coasting over a tight blue top and shiny pants. I was screaming. ‘Where’s my baby? Where’s my baby?’ as I searched frantically, overturning whatever was in my way. Hearing a cry, I changed direction. I kept searching as yellow eyes closed in on me. Laughing as their tails curled and whipped. In the distance, I could see Joseph holding a child. He looked at me for a second, smiling, then returned his gaze to the baby in his arms and walked away. The yellow eyes pounced on me, tearing my flesh with
their claws as I kept screaming, ‘My baby, my baby,’ over and over again. One of them cupped its hand over my mouth, speaking. ‘You can’t scream, no one screams here’.

  I woke up sweating and cold. It was still dark and the fire was out. I heard birds calling and knew it must not be far from morning. I dragged myself up and brought my knees to my chest, well, as close as I could anyway. My dream was echoing in my head. Something was wrong and, for the first time, I was fearful for my baby.

  I put a dry log on the fire, watching the coals brighten and begin the dance of sparks to flames. I leaned down and blew, anxious to feel the heat. “Joseph, come home.” I wished into the coals. I sat there and waited for the others to wake. They were taking too long, so I grabbed a blanket and made my way outside in the darkness. I scrambled up the hill. It was much harder without Joseph’s hands on my back but I got to the top in time to see the sunrise.

  It was grey and then suddenly a flourish of color. The blood red sending shivers down my spine. It spread over the hills like a great hand. Lighting the darkness and stirring the wildlife.

  I sent my love out over the hills and through the valley, willing it to reach him and pull him back to me. I prayed he would burst through the trees at any second. I sat and stared at the place where I thought he would return. Nothing. Soon the others would be wondering where I was, so I made my way down the hill, slipping several times on the dewy grass.

  No one ate breakfast. Everyone kept staring off in the distance waiting, watching. If they came back now it would be miraculously fast but logic had no place in our thoughts. Like it or not we had created a little family and right now two of its members were missing. None of us would feel right until they returned.

  The cabin was about two-hundred meters from the edge of the forest. None of us wanted to go far, so we all sat outside, trying to keep busy by packing extra mud into the cabin walls or playing with Hessa, all of us watching the edge of the forest diligently. I started fashioning a broom to sweep the floor with. Initially, we thought we wouldn’t have time to make a proper floor, but now it seemed we could lay some stones. I spoke to Deshi and we spent some time finding nice flat ones we could use. By lunchtime, we had a decent-sized pile. Time was passing so slowly it was painful.

  We stacked the stones inside and I crouched down and started digging holes to match their shapes. It was therapeutic, assessing their shape, size, and thickness and fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle. We didn’t talk, both too anxious to make conversation, so we worked silently. We’d laid about five stones when Deshi picked one up to hand to me and then stopped, smiling as he glanced out the window. He put the stone down and held out his hand, pulling me to my feet.

  There he was, walking casually out of the woods. He moved slowly and deliberately. Almost mechanically. I ran outside. He was less than one hundred and fifty meters away. I ran towards him, the joy coursing through my veins, the gold running over me like rain. I would have skipped if I could.

  Where was Careen?

  He put his hand up as if to wave and then stopped, clutching his chest. Something was wrong. I started running, gold turning to slick black oil. If I could get there, maybe I could stop it. My face stung with tears, as I ran as fast as my body would allow, feeling the weight of the baby pulling me down.

  One-hundred meters.

  He looked at me, confused, and he fell to his knees. His hands braced his body for a second before they crumpled under his weight and he was lying face first in the dirt. Careen appeared from the forest, running as fast as she could. Her face fierce and concentrated. She didn’t even stop as she passed Joseph and headed for the cabin.

  “They’re coming!” she screamed.

  I didn’t listen. I was nearly there. I could hear the others running towards us. Frantic footfalls sounding like a stampede.

  Twenty meters.

  I approached him slowly. When I reached his twisted body I leaned down, afraid to touch him. I reached out a trembling hand and stroked his blond curls. I whispered, “Joseph?”

  He moaned. I eased him onto his side. His right arm was soaked in blood. I carefully peeled back his shirtsleeve. What I saw was beyond description. The red rawness was replaced with a gaping wound, blood and pus mangling his perfect skin. Tiny blue veins tracked up his arm. I followed them and pulled open his shirt, buttons diving from his chest like crickets. Tiny spider web veins spun their way grotesquely towards his heart.

  He looked at me but right through me. He blinked once and then he exhaled slowly. I watched his parted lips, waiting for him to inhale. One second, two seconds, three seconds…Hysteria rising, my own breathing fast and uneven. I shook him. He lay limp. The others had reached me.

  “No!” I screamed. “Do something. Help him!” My voice was alien, panicked and high pitched.

  I threw myself across his body and wailed. I kept screaming, “Wake up, wake up. I can’t do this without you. Wake up.”

  The pain was immense, like someone had stuck a live wire to my body and jolted me with electricity. My skin prickled and vibrated, tiny needles jabbing me all over. I put my head down to kiss his cold lips, shaking uncontrollably, hardly able to connect. This wasn’t happening. It had to be a dream. “Wake up!” I screamed again. His eyes were vacant and terrifying.

  Wind whipped my hair around, like a tornado had come from nowhere to pluck me from this place. I held onto him tightly. They would have to tear me from him.

  More pain. It started in my back and crept around to the front of my stomach, hardening as it went. Like fingers reaching around me from behind, it clasped tightly around my belly and locked like a stone vault. Wind and buzzing filled my ears. Careen screamed over the noise, “They’re here!”

  Arms dragged me backwards. Someone whispered, “Let go,” impatiently as they wrenched me from Joseph. My eyes focused on the crescent-shaped wounds on Joseph’s good arm, filling with blood from where my fingernails had been digging into his flesh.

  “No, no, no, no!” I screamed, until I was suddenly rendered silent as more pain shot through me, making my legs spasm and my head cloudy. I watched my deadened feet plowing the ground. Leaving a path of dug-up dirt back to where my heart lay.

  Apella was kneeling over Joseph, pumping his chest with her folded hands. Leaning down and blowing into his mouth. I craned my head, waiting for his hand to move. Waiting for him to sit up and laugh, telling Apella to stop kissing him, he was spoken for.

  Nothing.

  Above her a chopper was hovering, a man climbed down a ladder a rope ladder that was swinging uncontrollably. Shots rang out, splitting the air like a whip crack. The man fell dead from the ladder but another was descending after him. More shots, this time ringing out from two different locations. Joseph and the others were getting farther and farther away. I couldn’t put the two scenarios together. It was a jumble of images. Was he dead?

  I heard a massive explosion, booming thunder. The ground shook. Alexei and Apella were running, dragging Joseph across the ground, slipping and struggling under his weight. Deshi was running with Hessa, towards me, covering the baby’s face with his hand. Then a mass of people seemed to come out of nowhere, surrounding us. The burning helicopter, blades still turning slowly, whipped up the dirt behind them. I couldn’t make sense of anything I was seeing.

  The dragging stopped. People ran past me. Two men had Joseph under the arms and someone was holding his feet. He was grey and lifeless. His body didn’t respond to being jerked up and down as they carried him.

  He was dead.

  I felt myself spinning out of control. I was trying to breath but I couldn’t suck in any air, it was too painful, it burned, crushing me under an invisible weight. I was drowning. The despair was more than I could stand.

  I heard voices but the words were nonsensical.

  “The monkeys must have turned it on.”

  “They followed the signal.”

  “Yes, six of them.”

  “One fatality
.”

  Was I going mad? I clawed my way out but the pain was dragging me back under, working its way into my ribs, trying to part them and pry me open like a can of beans. Where was Joseph? I needed to see him now. I grasped at imaginary fingers, craving his touch like it was the only thing that would stop me from sinking into the dark forever.

  “Joseph!” I shrieked one last time as a door shut in my face. The green of the hills disappeared. The smell of damp dirt filled my nostrils. There was no air here.

  I was underground.

  How can I do this alone? Everything has been turned around and I no longer know where I am or what I am supposed to be doing. The guiding light is gone. The gold has turned to lead. I’m sinking and I have no will to fight it. I hate you for leaving me here. I hate you both.

  The impatient voice was speaking to me. Less impatient and more irritated. Asking me to get up, could I walk? I didn’t want to walk. I didn’t want to move. The ground was hard and cool. It felt like as good a place as any to give up. I lay with my cheek pressed to it, waiting for the next onslaught of pain to attack me. Hoping it would tear me open and kill me right there.

  But it wouldn’t leave me alone. I wanted to sink under water, drown in my grief, but it wouldn’t let me. It pulled me to sitting and tore at my arms. Get up! It rumbled and tightened until I couldn’t stand to lie there anymore. Get up!

  Apella approached me, her perfect face shadowed with concern. She seemed far away, turning her head and muttering quietly to these strange people dressed in greens and browns. “We need to move her; she’ll be safer further underground.”

  No.

  “No!” I cried. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I tried to stand but my legs strained and more pain hit me like a sledgehammer. My body vibrated, as if struck like a bell.

  They whispered to each other and then Apella nodded minutely.

  Strange, covered feet were in my vision, white canvas shoes with dark stars on them, muddy and worn, one lace untied. The wearer leaned down, a dark shadow of a face, and squeezed my neck between his thumb and forefinger. Everything went dim, muffled voices, a sharp intake of breath, and then it was black.