Wild

by Kristin Hannah

  At four o’clock she woke with a start.

  For a second she didn’t know where she was. Then she saw the ballerina music box on her white desk and it all came back to her. She remembered her dream, too. She’d been a girl again—that girl. The scarecrow-thin, socially awkward daughter of Big Tom Cates.

  She threw the covers off her and stumbled out of bed. Within minutes she was in her jogging clothes and outside, running down the old highway, past the entrance to the national park.

  By five-fifteen she was back home, breathing hard, feeling like her grown-up self again.

  Pale gray predawn light, as watery as everything else in this rain-forest climate, shone in flashlight beams through the stand of hemlock trees that grew along the river.

  She didn’t decide to move, didn’t want to, but before she knew it, she was walking across the yard toward her father’s favorite fishing hole.

  Move back, Little Bit. Outta my way. I can hardly concentrate on my fishin’ with you skulkin’ beside me.

  No wonder she had moved away from here and stayed away. The memories were everywhere; like the trees, they seemed to draw nutrients from the land and the rain.

  She turned and went back into the house.

  Julia and Ellie were the first to arrive. They pulled up into a spot near the church’s front door and got out of the car.

  Ellie started to say something, but the words were lost in the crunching sound of wheels on gravel. A snake of cars rolled into the parking lot, lining up side by side. Earl and Myra were the first people out of their car. Earl was in full dress uniform, but his wife had on fuzzy pink sweats. Her hair was up in rollers and covered by a bright scarf.

  Ellie took Julia by the arm and hurried her into the church. The door clanged shut behind them.

  Julia couldn’t help feeling a twinge of nerves. It pissed her off, that weakness. None of this old crap should bother her now. It wouldn’t have if she’d come home in triumph instead of shame. “I don’t care what they think anymore. I really don’t. So why—”

  “I never understood why you let it all get to you. Who cares if they don’t like you?”

  “Girls like you can’t understand,” Julia said, and it was true. Ellie had been popular. She didn’t know that some hurts were like a once-broken bone. In the right weather, they could ache for a lifetime.

  The doors banged open, and people rushed into the church, took their places in the rows of oak pews. Their voices combined, rose, sounded like a Cuisinart on high, crushing ice. Max was one of the last to arrive. He took a seat in the back.

  Ellie went to the pulpit. She waited until six-ten, then motioned for Peanut to shut and lock the doors. It took her another five minutes to quiet the crowd.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she said finally. “I know how early it is and I appreciate your cooperation.”

  “What’s this all about, Ellie?” someone asked from the back of the room. “Our shift starts in forty minutes.”

  “Shut up, Doug,” yelled someone else. “Let ’er talk.”

  “You shut up, Al. It’s about the Flying Wolf Girl, right, Ellie?”

  Ellie held up her hands for silence. They quieted. “It is about the girl who arrived recently.”

  The crowd erupted again, hurling questions at the podium.

  “Can she really fly?”

  “Where is she?”

  “Where’s the wolf?”

  Julia was awed by her sister’s patience. There was no eye rolling, no sneering, no fist pounding. She simply said, “The wolf is with Floyd at the Olympic Game Farm. He’s being well cared for.”

  “I heard the girl eats with her feet,” someone called out.

  “And only raw meat.”

  Ellie took a deep breath. It was the first sign that she was losing her cool. “Look. We don’t have long to get ourselves together. The point is this: Do we want to protect this child?”

  A resounding yes rose from the crowd.

  “Good.” She turned to Peanut. “Hand out the contracts.” To the crowd, she said, “I’m going to read off your names. Please answer so I know you’re here.”

  Ellie read off the names in alphabetical order, starting with Herb Adams. One by one people responded until she came to Mort Elzik.

  There was no answer.

  “He ain’t here,” Earl yelled.

  “Okay,” Ellie said. “We don’t mention this meeting or the girl to Mort, or to anyone else who isn’t at this meeting. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” they responded in unison.

  “But what is it we ain’t sayin’, Ellie?”

  “Yeah. Speed it up. I got a charter in thirty minutes.”

  “And the mill’s gonna open.”

  Ellie held up her hands for silence. “Fair enough. As you all know by now, my sister, Julia, has come home to help. What she needs is peace and quiet, and a place to work away from the media.”

  Daisy Grimm stood up. She wore denim overalls that were covered with appliquéd daisies. Her drugstore makeup was so bright against her powdered cheeks that it probably glowed in the dark. “Can your sister really help this poor girl? I mean . . . after what happened in California, I just wonder . . .”

  The crowd went still, waiting.

  “Sit down, Daisy,” Ellie said sharply. “Now, here’s the plan. It’s a version of Hide-the-Walnut. You—We—are all going to talk to the media. When asked, we’re going to secretly and off-the-record tell where the girl is staying. You can tell them anyplace you want—except my house. That’s where she’ll be. They won’t trespass on the police chief’s land, and if they do, Jake and Elwood will give us warning.”

  “We’re lying to the press?” Violet said in awe.

  “We are. Hopefully we can send them all on wild-goose chases until we know the girl’s name. And one other thing: no one mentions Julia. No one.”

  “Lying,” Marigold said, trembling like an excited puppy and clapping her hands together. “This will be fun.”

  “Just remember,” Ellie said, “until you hear differently from me, we’re lying to Mort, too. No one outside this building gets to know the truth.”

  Violet burst out laughing. “You can count on us, Ellie. Those reporters will be looking for the girl as far north as the Yukon. And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I never heard of Dr. Julia Cates. I believe the poor child is seeing Dr. Welby.”

  NINE

  While Ellie was parking the car, Julia went into the hospital. She was almost at the old day care center when she turned the corner and ran into a man.

  He stumbled back from her, sputtering, “Watch where you’re going, I’m—”

  Julia bent down for the black canvas bag he’d dropped. “I’m sorry. I’m in a bit of a hurry. Are you okay?”

  He snatched the bag from her and then looked up.

  She frowned. He looked vaguely familiar, with his rust-colored crew cut and Coke-bottle glasses. “Do I know you?”

  “No. Sorry,” he mumbled, glancing away quickly. Without another word, he took off running down the hallway.

  She sighed. People had been doing that a lot lately. No one quite knew how to treat her since the media frenzy and the Silverwood tragedy.

  She picked up her briefcase and walked down the hallway to the day care center.

  A few minutes later Peanut, Max, and Ellie arrived.

  They stood at the window outside the day care center, looking in. The room was full of shadows. Pockets of light grew like mushrooms above the nightlights in the various outlets, and a pale golden haze fanned down from the only ceiling fixture they’d left on.

  The girl lay on the floor, curled up, with her arms wrapped around her shins. The mattress, empty save for the pile of unused blankets, was beside her. From this distance, and without benefit of good lighting, she appeared to be asleep.

  “She knows we’re watching her,” Peanut said.

  Ellie said, “She looks asleep to me.”

  “She’s too still,” Ju
lia said. “Peanut’s right.”

  Peanut made a tsking sound. “Poor thing. How do we move her without terrifying her?”

  “We put a sedative in her apple juice,” Max said. He turned to Julia. “Can you get her to drink it?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good,” he said. “Let’s try that. If it doesn’t work, we’ll go to Plan B.”

  “What’s Plan B?” Peanut asked, her eyes wide.

  “A shot.”

  Thirty minutes later Julia went into the day care center, flipping on the lights as she went. Although the “team” had moved away from the window, she knew they were standing in the shadows, watching her through the glass.

  The girl didn’t move a finger or bat an eyelash. She simply lay there, coiled up like a snail, holding her legs close to her chest.

  “I know you’re awake,” Julia said conversationally. She set down her tray on the table. On it was a plate filled with scrambled eggs and toast. A green plastic sippee cup held apple juice.

  She sat down on the child-sized chair and ate a bite of toast. “Um-um. This is good, but it makes me thirsty.” She pretended to take a sip.

  Nothing. No reaction.

  Julia sat there for almost thirty minutes, pretending to eat and drink, talking out loud to the child, who didn’t respond. Every second bothered her. They needed to move this girl fast, before the press came looking for her here.

  Finally, she pushed back from the table. The chair legs screeched against the linoleum floor.

  Before Julia knew what had happened, all hell broke loose. The girl screamed; she jumped to her feet and started clawing at her face and blowing her nose.

  “It’s okay,” Julia said evenly. “You’re upset. Scared. You know that word? You’re scared, that’s all. It was a loud, ugly noise and it scared you. That’s all. You’re fine. See how quiet everything is?” Julia moved toward the girl, who was standing in the corner, thumping her forehead against the wall.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Julia winced at each blow. “You’re upset. Scared. That’s okay. The noise scared me, too.” Very slowly, Julia reached out, touched the child’s rail-thin shoulder. “Shhh,” she said.

  The girl went totally still. Julia could feel the tension in the girl’s shoulder and back, the tightening up. “You are okay now. Okay. No hurt. No hurt.” She touched the girl’s other shoulder and gently turned her around.

  The girl stared up at her through wary blue-green eyes. A purplish bruise was already forming on her forehead and the scratches on her cheeks were bleeding. At this proximity the smell of urine was almost overwhelming.

  “No hurt,” Julia said again, expecting the girl to pull free and run.

  But she stood there, breathing like a deer caught between two headlights, too fast, her whole body trembling. She was weighing the situation, cataloguing her options.

  “You’re trying to read me,” Julia said, surprised. “Just like I’m trying to read you. I’m Julia.” She patted her chest. “Julia.”

  The girl glanced away, disinterested. The trembling in her body eased, her breathing regulated.

  “No hurt,” Julia said. “Food. Hungry?”

  The girl looked at the table, and Julia thought: Bingo! You know what I said. What I meant, anyway.

  “Eat,” she said, finally letting go and stepping aside.

  The girl sidled past her, moving cautiously, never taking her gaze off Julia’s face. When there was a safe distance between them, the girl pounced on the food. She washed it all down with the apple juice.

  After that, Julia waited.

  Their early morning journey from town to the edge of the deep woods had the hazy feel of a dream.

  In the miles from the hospital to the old highway, no one spoke. For Max, there was something about this clandestine rescue that precluded the luxury of talk. He assumed it was the same for his co-conspirators, for although they told themselves this move was in the girl’s best interest—and indeed believed it—there was still a nagging worry, an unbound thread. At least at the hospital she was safe. The door locked; the glass was too thick to break. Here, in the last stretch of valley before the big trees, the world outside was too close; none of them doubted that those woods would beckon her.

  He was in the backseat of the police cruiser, with Julia seated to his right. The girl lay between them with her head in Julia’s lap, her bare feet in his. In the front seat, Ellie and Peanut sat in silence. Except for the sound of their breathing and the crunching of the tires on thick gravel, the only sound came from the radio. It was turned down so quietly it could hardly be heard at all, but every now and then Max caught a stanza or two and recognized a song. Right now it was “Superman” by Crash Test Dummies.

  He looked down at the girl in his lap. She was so incredibly thin and frail. Today’s scratches marred her cheeks, but even in this half-light he could see the silvery scars of older scratches. Evidence that she’d often attacked herself or been attacked. The bruise on her forehead was purple now, angry-looking. But it was the scarring on her left ankle that made his stomach tighten. The ligature marks.

  “We’re here,” Ellie said from the front seat as she parked beneath an old shake lean-to. Moss turned the slanted roof into a patch of green fur.

  Max scooped the sleeping child into his arms. Her arms curled around his neck; she pressed her wrecked cheek against his chest. Her black hair fell sideways, over his arm, almost to his thighs.

  He knew exactly how to hold her. How was it that even after all these years, it still felt as natural as breathing?

  Ellie hurried on ahead and turned on the exterior lights.

  Max carried the girl toward the house. Julia fell into step beside him.

  “You’re still safe,” she said to the girl. “We’re outside now. At my parents’ house. Safe here. I promise.”

  From somewhere, deep in the woods, a wolf howled.

  Max stopped; Julia did the same.

  Peanut made the sign of the cross. “I am not feeling good about this.”

  “I’ve never heard a wolf out here,” Ellie said. “It can’t be her wolf. He’s over in Sequim.”

  The girl moaned.

  The wolf howled again; an undulating, elegiac sound.

  Julia touched his shoulder. “Come on, Max. Let’s get her inside.”

  No one spoke as they walked through the house, up the stairs, and into the bedroom. Max put the child on the bed and covered her with blankets.

  Peanut glanced nervously at the window, as if the wolf were out there, pacing the yard, looking for a way in. “She’s gonna try to escape. Those are her woods.”

  So they were all thinking the same thing. Somehow, as impossible as it sounded, the child belonged out there more than she did in here.

  “Here’s what we need, and fast,” Julia said. “Bars—skinny ones—on the window, so she can see outside but can’t escape, and a dead bolt for the door. We need to cover every scrap of shiny metal with adhesive tape—the faucet, the toilet handle, the drawer pulls; everything except the doorknob.”

  “Why?” Peanut asked.

  “I think she’s afraid of shiny metal,” Julia answered distractedly. “And we’ll need a video camera set up as surreptitiously as possible. I’ll need to record her condition.”

  “I thought you said no pictures,” Ellie said, frowning.

  “That was for the tabloids. This is for me. I need to observe her 24/7. We need food, too. And lots of tall houseplants. I want to turn one corner of the room into a forest.”

  “Where the Wild Things Are,” Peanut said.

  Julia nodded, then went to the bed and sat down beside the girl.

  Max followed her. Kneeling beside the bed, he checked the girl’s pulse and breathing. “Normal,” he said, sitting back on his heels.

  “If only her mind and her heart were as easy to read as her vital signs,” Julia said.

  “You’d be out of a job.”

  Julia surprised him by laug
hing.

  They looked at each other.

  The bedside lamp flickered on and off, sparking electricity. The girl on the bed made a whining, desperate sound.

  “There’s something weird going on here,” Peanut said, stepping back.

  “Don’t do that,” Julia said quietly. “She’s just a child who has been through hell.”

  Peanut fell silent.

  “We should go to town. Get supplies from the lumber store,” Ellie said.

  Max nodded. “I have time to put up the bars before my shift.”

  “Good. Thanks,” Julia said. When they were gone, she remained at her place by the bed. “You’re safe here, little one. I promise.”

  Julia said it over and over again, keeping her voice as gentle as a caress, but through it all, there was one thing she knew for certain.

  This girl had no idea what it meant to be safe.

  Gone is the bad smell and the white, hissing light that stings her eyes. Girl opens her eyes slowly, afraid of what she will see. There have been too many changes. It is as if she has fallen in the dark water past her place, that pool in the deep forest that Him said was the start of Out There.

  This cave is different. Everything is the color of snow and of the berries she picks in early summer. It is morning outside; the light in the room is sun-colored. She starts to get up but can’t move. Something is holding her down. She panics, kicking and flailing to be free.

  But she is not tied.

  She moves out of the soft place and crouches on the ground, sniffing the scents of this strange place. Wood. Flowers. There is more, of course, many smells, but she doesn’t know them.

  Somewhere, water is dripping; it sounds like the last rain falling from a leaf to the hard summer’s ground. There is a banging, clanging sound, too. The entrance to this cave is like the last one, a thick brown thing. There is something about the shiny ball on it that is the source of its magic; she is afraid to touch it. The Strangers would know then that she was wide-eyed. They would come for her again with their nets and their sharp points. She is safe from them only in the dark time when the sun sleeps.

  A breeze floats past her face, ruffles her hair. On it is the scent of her place. She looks around.