by M Sawyer
“I want to, but I can’t. You know that. I’ve got a wife and daughter here that need me. I can’t just abandon them… I know… I know. I love you too, but I have responsibilities.”
Nolin’s eyes narrowed. She felt sick.
“Someday maybe. My wife is sick, and Nolin is having a hard time in school… I know, she does… I can’t take her away, either. I don’t think she’d adjust very well. Can you blame her? No, I didn’t mean it like that… can we just talk tomorrow? I’ll meet you for lunch, okay? Same place?” A pause. “I love you. I want to be with you. You know it’s not that simple. I’ve explained this to you before. I just can’t. We’ll figure something out, but not now.” He ended the call, then put his head on his arms like a naughty child in school told to put his head down for five minutes. His shoulders rose and fell with his breath.
Nolin’s rage boiled. She backed away from the stairs on her hands and knees, careful not to make a sound. Her torso contracted and expanded with sharp, furious breaths in and out her nose.
He wanted to abandon them.
Melissa in the hospital. Nolin was going crazy in school, trying so hard to do the right thing, to take care of her parents and hold them together while they fell apart inside, and he wanted to leave. The only thing that kept him around was duty, obligation. Not love.
Nolin slinked back into her bedroom and closed the door. She lay on her bed with the breeze blowing over her, burning with feverish anger.
The trees clicked like a chorus of snickers. She pinched her eyes shut and opened them several times, willing herself to wake from this odd dream. She heard and felt nothing until the tiny tickle of the spider worked up her arm. She didn’t shake it away.
***
Nolin didn’t move from her bed until her father called her, ten minutes before the bus would arrive. The sound of his voice infuriated her. That voice had crooned to some other woman on the phone only hours earlier, telling her he wanted to be with her instead of them, that he loved her.
He said he’d drive her to school. Nolin said nothing. She was afraid to open her mouth. She might scream at him, call him every bad word she knew and others she’d read in books that she knew meant something terrible. She didn’t eat breakfast. She didn’t make him lunch when she’d made hers.
Gravel spattered the sides of the station wagon as her father backed out of the driveway. Nolin’s heart raced. He wouldn’t believe she had a fever if she would have told him, or that her stomach hurt. She was a lousy liar. Red ears betrayed her every time.
He glanced at her, puzzled. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t feel well.” She pulled her legs into her chest and stuck her head between her knees. In health class, they’d learned to do that if they ever felt faint. Maybe she should have collapsed on the front porch like women in old movies, complained of a headache. Maybe he would have let her go back to bed, and she could wake up to find that it was all a dream. Her father and mother were in love. Everything was fine. Her mother wouldn’t be in the hospital. She wouldn’t be sick. Everything would be okay.
“You haven’t been sick since you were a baby. You’re going to school. Do you have an oral report or something today? Are you just nervous?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to go.” She needed to go for a long run in the cool air to clear her thoughts and calm her fever. Nolin hugged her legs. Nothing sounded more miserable than school. She couldn’t do it, not today.
Five minutes later, they stopped in front of her school. Children poured out of school buses. Nolin always thought the buses looked like giant yellow caterpillars. Today, they were monsters, giant metal dragons spewing exhaust and squealing children. Nolin let herself out without saying good-bye.
Swarms of children bumped her shoulders. Their chatter echoed in her skull. She clamped her hands over her ears as she staggered through the classroom door. Max Fraser ran up behind her and jabbed her shoulder.
“How was your weekend, Pukey? Did you do a lot of digging?”
One, two, three...
She mimicked her mother’s deep-breathing exercises, in through her nose and out through her mouth. It came out louder than she intended, a roaring hiss.
“Whoa, did Pukey hiss at me? Are you a snake now, Pukey? No, you’re a kitty, remember? Because you dig like my cat after she poops in the yard.”
She gritted her teeth, hung her pack on the hook, and stuffed her fists in her pockets. She plopped into her chair and thrust her hand into the desk for her stress ball. She squeezed it all morning until she held only a handful of white foam.
Chapter 14
THE MORNING CRAWLED by. When the lunch bell rang, Nolin bolted from her seat and practically ran to the cafeteria. She found an empty table and ripped open her lunch bag to retrieve her sandwich. It felt good to tear something. She chewed the ham sandwich slowly, focusing on the nutty grains of the bread, the saltiness of the ham, the sharp, smoky flavor of the cheddar.
Drew scrambled onto the bench across from her. He’d eaten with her every day for the past week since she’d returned. She was starting to look forward to seeing him. Drew was never grumpy or unhappy.
His hair stuck up in the back like a rooster’s tail. He opened his chocolate milk and chugged half the little carton before dunking his corn dog in a glob of mustard.
“So, Nolin,” he said through his mouth full of corn dog, “I know you haven’t been going outside lately, but we really need someone else to make the football teams even. We keep getting our butts handed to us.”
“I don’t play football.”
“You could if you wanted to. You just grab the ball and run to the other team’s side. I know you can run real fast. Come play with us.”
Nolin chewed the last bite of her sandwich. Maybe she could go out today; the fresh air would calm her. She wanted to run so badly. She pictured herself scoring a touchdown, her teammates smiling and congratulating her. Not that she cared. She didn’t need any of them.
“C’mon, Nolin. The fifth graders creamed us yesterday. Fifth graders.”
Recess only lasted fifteen minutes. She looked to the table where Max sat across from his brother with his back to her. He wore a bright-yellow shirt, which gave him an unusually friendly appearance.
Only fifteen minutes. I can stay away from him.
“Okay. I’ll play.”
After they finished their lunch, she followed Drew out the door to the playground, where a group of sixth-grade boys sprawled on the grass.
“Hey, guys. I found another player,” Drew called to them. “This is Nolin.”
One of the boys, a freckled redhead with a buzz cut, wrinkled his nose, but said nothing. Nolin’s stomach gurgled with nerves.
The group divided into two teams of four. Drew chose Nolin first for his team, and a soft heat filled her cheeks.
She kicked off her flip-flops to the side of the field so she could run. The redheaded boy on the other team hiked the ball to their quarterback. Nolin watched the ball spiral through the air. She didn’t know the rules or even the point of the game, just that she needed to get that ball and run as fast as she could. She locked her eyes on the ball and ran, holding her arms out. Miraculously, the ball dropped into her arms.
“Run, Nolin!” Drew yelled. She hesitated from the shock of actually catching the ball, then she moved. Through her teammates’ yells as she sprinted toward the end zone, she only heard Drew’s voice.
“The other way!”
She locked her legs and skidded forward, then turned to shoot in the other direction. The other team charged her. Her blood churned. She dodged the four boys, zigzagging like a pinball until she heard cheering.
“Touchdown!” someone hollered. Nolin dug her foot into the ground and stopped. A touchdown? She got a touchdown?
“Good job!” Drew huffed as he jogged to her. He held out his hands for the ball. Nolin froze. She didn’t want to let go. The ball was her trophy, but it was her team’s turn. She reluctantly surrendere
d the ball.
“That was awesome, Nolin. You’re really fast. Just remember to run this way, okay?”
She nodded. Bubbles of excitement tingled in her arms and legs.
She’d never had so much fun playing a sport. She ran hard, intercepted passes, got a bit of a reprimand for being a ball hog, but scored two more touchdowns and even earned a few smiles from her teammates. At the beginning of the final down, a jeering voice interrupted.
“Hey, Pukey! Are you a boy now? Only boys play football.”
She laughed. Was that the best he could do? The ball flew, and she ran to catch it. Even from forty feet away, she sensed Max’s surprise and frustration that his words had no effect.
“Why aren’t you digging, Pukey?” he called louder. “Did you have enough worms, and now you’re full? Did you puke up the worm sandwich you had for lunch?”
She ran past him without a glance. She caught the ball, pivoted, and sprinted toward the end zone. This touchdown would win them the game. The redheaded boy lunged at her, sweeping his arm low to tag her foot. She leapt. Max’s frantic insults faded behind the cheers of her teammates.
“Go, Nolin!” Drew shouted. “Go, go, go! Run!” Two boys from the opposing team charged her. She darted sideways. Out the corner of her eye, she saw Drew running and jumping, pumping his fist, yelling for her. Time slowed. She felt blood moving through her veins, air rushing in and out of her lungs, each hair whipping in the wind. She met Drew’s gaze. He smiled, his adult teeth still a little too large for his mouth. She felt a deep warmth for him. Without him, she’d be sitting in a stuffy classroom instead of running like a wild animal and breathing the sweet air.
Finally, she crossed into the end zone. Her team whooped. Nolin chucked the ball at the ground like she’d seen NFL players do back when her father watched football. She’d never won anything in her life, never been part of a team except for when she was forced to in P.E. The two boys on her team whom she’d never spoken to congratulated her. They even introduced themselves, though she knew their names from class.
“You can play with us anytime,” Brock, the taller boy said, then lightly slugged her shoulder.
“Yeah, you did real good,” said the other boy, PJ.
The whistle screeched. Drew picked up the ball and waited for Nolin to catch up before walking in. Max still stood nearby, scowling. Then, a nasty grin spread across his ruddy face.
“Hey, Pukey,” he said. “I heard your mom’s in the hospital.”
Nolin’s stomach sank. The balloon of joy punctured. Don’t listen.
“My sister works there, and she said your mom is crazy. Psycho.”
Nolin tucked her head down to avoid eye contact. Ignore it. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Drew froze, looking between Max and Nolin.
“Shut up,” he muttered. His face flushed.
“Oh, standing up for your girlfriend, Carrington? That’s sweet. You’d better watch out who you get smoochy with, though. Nolin Styre’s mom is crazy. They threw her in the loony bin, you know.” He looked back at Nolin. “No wonder you’re such a freak, Pukey. Your mom’s a psycho!”
One, two, three...
“You can’t fix crazy. I’ll bet it’s all your fault, too, that your mom’s a loon. Maybe she’ll die in there, Pukey. Your psycho mom’s going to die, and it’s all your fault!”
Nolin might have imagined that last part, but she was on him before she realized what was happening. He smacked the ground hard and screamed. Nolin’s fists flew. With a shriek, she sank her fist into his face and felt the crunch of his nose snapping. She yanked his hair, clawed his face, beat the sides of his head. He cried as warm blood flowed from his nose, soaking his shirt and Nolin’s hands. She bared her gritted teeth. She wanted to yell at him, something awful, but she’d forgotten how to speak.
“Nolin! Stop!” Drew yelled. She felt him yank on her shoulders, but she shook him off.
“Nolin Styre!” a voice shrieked. Mrs. Carson dashed across the blacktop, stumbling in her high-heeled boots, blowing the whistle and waving her arms like a drowning person. Nolin paused. She looked down at Max; his face was streaked with blood, tears, and dirt. Her hands were stained red. Air snagged in her chest as her mind crashed-landed back into her body.
She leapt up and stumbled backward. Mrs. Carson charged her, now only fifty feet away. Drew looked at her helplessly.
She was finished. They’d throw her out of school for sure. This time she wouldn’t be coming back. What would happen to her mother when Nolin was expelled?
Your psycho mom’s going to die, and it’s all your fault!
She had no choice.
Nolin sprinted to the fence on the other side of the field. There were shouts behind her, gasps. Every eye on the playground, the field, the entire school was on her. Inside, she was alone.
Her consciousness shrank until it only focused on one point: Escape. From everything. Expectations she’d never fulfill, the family she’d betrayed. She’d never harm them again. Her mother would recover; her parents would get things under control and have the happy life they’d always wanted without the burden of a ruined child.
The sound of her breathing took over. Nolin reached the fence and leapt onto the chain link, crawled to the top like a spider, and swung her legs over. She hit the ground running and bounded through the dense foliage and into the forest.
The tree branches reached out in welcome after years of calling though her bedroom window.
She didn’t stop until she couldn’t remember the way back.
Chapter 15
THE TREES HELD their breath, waiting to see what Nolin would do next.
Nolin had never known trees could watch. They watched every move, listened to every thought.
The drumbeat of her pulse pounded in her ears. Nolin didn’t know how long she’d been running. It didn’t matter. Time meant nothing to her anymore.
She slowed to a jog, then walked and finally stopped. The air smelled like rain. The forest, usually a symphony of birds, insects, and the sound of rustling leaves, stood silent.
Something touched her head. She startled, grabbing at whatever it was, ready for another fight. It was just a leaf. Small, round, bright apple-green. She held the tiny leaf in her hand, studied it, examining each tiny vein, holding it to the light to see the sun shine through. The leaf felt smooth and waxy. She didn’t know how she knew, because she didn’t know much of anything at the moment, but she knew that little leaf pulsed with life, that the woods around her were alive and breathing.
Another leaf fell, taking its time before settling on her toes. It landed so lightly she didn’t feel it.
Nolin looked up at the sky through the branches. The leaves were still. The air hovered, motionless. It was spring; the trees shouldn’t be shedding their leaves now.
She picked up the second leaf from her toes and held the two in her cupped hands. Tiny, round, perfect leaves. Carefully, she tucked them into her pocket. A part of her felt that the forest had given her a gift, a good luck charm.
The lack of breeze made her uneasy. She walked. Her footfalls on the forest floor made no sound. Insects scuttled over her bare feet, tickling her toes. Her sweaty shirt clung to her back. Her hair was wet at the roots, speckled with bits of leaves and dirt.
Her stomach growled. She put her hands to her stomach, fascinated by the vibrations of her clenched insides. Automatically, her eyes scanned the trees and ground around her, searching for anything she could eat to stop this gnawing, hollow sensation. She strode to the nearest tree, dropped to her knees, and pawed at the dirt.
Tiny winged insects crawled over the bark of the tree. She didn’t want those. She dug deeper until a glistening earthworm coiled around her index finger. She lifted the finger in front of her face. It writhed, groping for the soil. Gently, she squished it between her thumb and forefinger, testing the elasticity of the pink coil. Her stomach roared again, and she popped the worm into her mouth. The creature squ
ished between her teeth, cold and rubbery, chewy, but surprisingly tasteless. Chewing and swallowing felt good. Her stomach grumbled for more. She dug deeper, slipping worms out of the soil and into her mouth as she found them. She swallowed one whole and felt it wriggle down her throat. Amused, she swallowed another.
After ten or twelve bites, the aching hollow in her stomach eased. She crawled to a patch of white wildflowers a few feet away. The flowers smiled at her with pure, round petals and delicate white spines in the center. She clutched a wiry stem, then yanked the flower out of the ground. Clumps of soil dropped off the web of tangled white roots. With her other hand, she snapped off a wiry root and chewed on it like a child gnawing a lollipop stick. The crunchy root tasted slightly bitter with an underlying sweetness, like turnips. She uprooted a few more flowers and nibbled on the roots until the rumbling sensation subsided completely.
She had nowhere to go. She didn’t know where she was, so she sat in the dirt, surrounded by the litter of her meal, and stared into the depths of the woods. Nothing moved; not even a blade of grass. No insects or birds flew through her line of sight. She might have been staring at a photograph.
Eventually, the light dimmed. A deep-purple hue settled into the forest. How long had she sat here? Minutes or hours, it was all the same to her now. Her eyelids drooped. The trees blurred. A bubble bloomed inside her, and she yawned, stretching her mouth wide.
She pushed herself up and wandered farther. The brilliant cerulean of the sky had faded to midnight blue. Pinpricks of stars gazed down on her, surprised to see her in the woods instead of in her home with her family, playing her part. Light vanished, but she could still see.
The silhouette of the Claw Tree appeared in the shadows, its roots clinging to the ground. Nolin stopped, cocked her head to the side. There was something familiar about the tree. Had she seen it before?
Nolin’s thoughts reached through the fog in her brain, searching for anything to grab onto. It was no use. The trees knew it. They knew a crack had been forming in Nolin’s mind for months, years even, deepening each day until finally, her poor child mind had splintered open. She had no idea who she was, where she’d come from, or what she was doing in the woods under the watchful eyes of the forest. The trees whispered amongst themselves, their leaves rubbing together like fingers in the canopy.