I half-hoped I was dead, but the intensity of the pain that woke me was so strong I actually started scrambling backwards to escape it. I hit my head on the back of a bed. Apella and Deshi were both there, looking at me with pity or fear, I wasn’t sure. Apella placed a cool hand on my forehead.
“You’re in labor, Rosa, it won’t be long now,” she said calmly.
I hated her. I focused all my anger on her tiny, pale face. Willing it to crack and crumble like a shattered plate. How could she be so calm? Joseph was dead. We were captured. I surveyed the room quickly. There were things I recognized, like the hospital bed and the white sheets but there were other things I didn’t get, like the roof of the room was carved rock. And why was Deshi allowed to be in here with me? There was one other person in the room, a tall man with blondish hair. He walked over to me and held my wrist. He was wearing tan pants and a colorful check shirt with the familiar white coat over the top. He looked to be in his late thirties. He smiled at me. I just stared blankly back. Things didn’t fit. Where the hell was I?
I was about to ask when the pain and hardening began again. I held my stomach as it rippled across my body and cried softly. A small whimper. Closing my eyes, I tried to dig right inside the pain. Any distraction to stop me from thinking about Joseph’s lifeless body, or kissing his cold, cold lips.
Someone took my hand. It was cool and damp. I didn’t open my eyes. I clenched them closed. I would pretend it was him. If I didn’t look, I could hold onto him for just a little bit longer. I gripped onto the hand tightly. I can do this, I’ll get it out, and then I can leave.
“You’re doing great, Rosa, keep going. I know it’s hard...But Joseph...” Deshi couldn’t finish his sentence. I could hear him sniffling.
“No one speak, please,” I ordered, waving my hand around the room threateningly.
I imagined he was next to me, rubbing my back and pulling my hair out of my face. ‘You’re a mess,’ he would whisper, grinning. Sweat dripped over my brow and into my eyes, I swiped it away. If he was here, I could do this. If he was here, I could do this better.
Trembling, I could feel it coming on stronger now. So close together, I couldn’t breathe between them. Like an assault, with no way to counter. It felt like I was being stretched, a crowbar between every bone in my spine pulling me open, breaking me apart, piece by piece.
I screamed. An unnatural howling scream that came from deep within, carrying with it the physical and emotional suffering I was enduring at that moment. I heard glass shattering, metal trays hitting the ground, and people crying out, close by. “Stop, wait!” a woman yelled.
Something was telling me I had to get up. Get up. Move, now.
Eyes still closed, I dragged myself off the bed, stopping to bow over every thirty seconds, as the contractions hit and then passed. I opened my eyes and steadied myself against the wall, inching myself slowly towards the door.
The man with the tan pants walked towards me. I put my hands up, ready to push him away, “Don’t touch me. Please, I need to…” I pleaded through quivering lips. I didn’t know what I needed to do but I had to move. He didn’t try and stop me, he didn’t speak, he just gently pulled my arm around his neck and supported me as I walked. Apella walked next to me, “There’s not much time,” she whispered, telling me, or him I wasn’t sure. He nodded. I ignored her. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I pushed through my pain, breathing and timing my steps between. I was propelled forward by an invisible force and, with nothing left to lead me, no hope to hold onto to, I abandoned myself to it. I got to the door and Deshi pushed it open for me.
A metal bar came straight at my face and I fell backwards onto the floor, blood gushing from a cut across my cheek. The pain of the cut was barely noticeable compared to the contractions. A sticky, cold, liquid spilled all over my front. My legs buckled, I knew that was it, I could go no further. I closed my eyes.
“Oh God, I’m sorry. Rosa, Rosa, are you all right?” Someone was shaking me.
A hand was at my face, warm and familiar. Was I dead?
I daren’t open my eyes. I kept them shut as the hand attached to a strong arm pulled me into a lap.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t be dead as the sudden and acute need to push was upon me. Someone steadied me as I pulled my legs up and pushed for all I was worth. I opened my eyes narrowly. Apella was facing me. Her eyes were focused as she looked into mine and said, “Rosa, try not to push.” Something was wrong.
“What? What is it?” A frantic voice whispered as I held my breath.
“The cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck.”
It hit me and the urge to push again was so strong I wasn’t sure I could fight it, it felt wrong. Then that voice uttered deep and low in my ear. “Hold on. Just hold on.” If I was imagining it, I didn’t want to know. I just closed my eyes and listened. Letting the words wash over me, sprinkling gold dust over my eyelashes. Panting and clenching my fists, I kept fighting. I was always fighting.
After what seemed like forever, Apella said, “Ok, next one you can push.”
I couldn’t keep going. If this ended, would my delusion disappear? I would be alone again. My energy was gone. Let it kill me, I thought.
“I can’t,” I replied, listless, I let my arms fall to the floor. My legs relaxed. I gave up. “He’s gone,” I said and I wanted to go with him.
“What’s wrong with her?” I heard Deshi say, confused.
“She’s under too much stress,” Apella replied.
I felt warm hands take up my bleeding face.
“Open your eyes,” he said
I shook my head, “No.”
“You are so stubborn,” he said with a weak laugh. I felt warm breath on my face and anticipated his lips touching mine. The kiss was unlike anything I had felt before, intense and sweet, painful and almost frightening. The lips pulled away. “Open your eyes,” he asked again.
I opened one eye briefly. I saw a flash of blond curls. His scruffy face was as grey as breakfast but the smile on his face was real and full of smashing color.
“One more push, Rosa, then it’s over,” the man in the white coat said kindly, but urgently.
Joseph put his arms under my own and entwined his fingers with mine. I summoned what I could, sure it would not be enough, and pushed.
It was out.
Finally.
The release was tangible. The flood of relief overwhelming.
I waited to hear a cry. With Clara, Hessa had cried almost immediately. Apella was holding it in her arms, rubbing its body down fervently with a towel. We were all silent, watching, waiting. She concentrated her fingers on its chest, rubbing gently in small, circular motions.
“Waaaaa!” it cried and announced itself to the world. An unearthly caterwaul that hurt my ears. I turned away.
I shivered, feeling cold, my body retreating from the trauma. They covered us both in a thick, fur-lined blanket. I lay there in his arms on the corridor floor.
“You did it,” he whispered, his chin resting on my shoulder. I turned. He looked sick, his face pasty and pale, but he was alive. My brain gave up trying to understand how this was possible. Questions could be answered in time. “You look beautiful,” he said, not taking his eyes off me, despite the commotion going on around us.
He was attached to several machines that he had dragged down the corridor with him. The metal bar that had hit my face was lying next to us, a stand for a fluid bag.
“Ha, I was sure you would tell me I was a mess!” I laughed.
“You are,” he said, “but a beautiful one.”
I rolled my eyes, looking over to the others, all smiling down on us. Apella held a child swaddled in cotton. I raised my eyebrows, questioning.
She understood. “He’s fine.”
The leech was a boy.
Five minutes after the birth of our son, Joseph’s heart stopped. As he had before, outside, he clutched his chest in pain, tried to breathe but couldn’t, an
d then he fell to the side of me.
I sat there in shock and watched as they dragged him away. His usually large form looked oddly small. They put metal pads to his chest and yelled ‘clear!’. His body pulsed unnaturally, rising as if attached to the pads by magnets. They did this again and again. His heart would start and then it would stop, over and over. I sat there shrouded in a blanket, an onlooker to the chaos, barely noticing the people fussing around me.
Now I sit in my room. Pieces of the puzzle slowly filter through as visitors come and go, feeding me small bits of information. They had me in with the baby to start with, but after two days, I asked them to take him away.
One thing I knew, Apella was right all along. These people were the survivors. They were not from the Woodlands and, as of yet, I didn’t exactly know where they came from.
Joseph lay in the bed next to mine, breathing with the aid of a machine. It pumped air in and out of his lungs for him, squeezing in and out like a concertina. The blip of the heart monitor, a comforting noise, let me know, for now, he was alive. How had it come to this, so quickly, so violently?
The kind doctor, who introduced himself as Matthew after all the confusion had subsided, explained it to me carefully, repeating it several times, as it took a while to sink in. Joseph had been bitten by a spider.
“A spider?” I raised my eyebrows dubiously.
“Yes,” he said running his hand through his hair casually. “Think of it as a tiny, microscopic killer with eight legs, smaller than a grain of sand.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” I asked, scowling.
A warm smile spread across his face and I felt my temper calm. He tipped his chin, “You asked me, remember?” His voice was the timbre of honey, slow, deliberate. Sure. I crossed my arms and listened. “Joseph would never have seen it. They are translucent and live inside the rings of the tree trunks.” Guilt stabbed me, jagged and pulsing. It must have come out of one of the trees I had asked the boys to fell for the cabin.
Matthew moved to Joseph and pointed to his ragged arm. “The venom started here, eroding the skin as it went.” I covered my mouth, feeling the heave of a cry creeping up my throat. They had left it open so the wound could breathe. The muscle was gone and it was a concave mash of red flesh. It hurt me so much to see him this way.
Matthew returned to me. I watched his lips moving, the way his mouth turned up on one side as he spoke, “The poison worked its way through his system, arriving at his heart. Usually it takes a long time to get to the heart, but because he ran so far, the blood was pumping faster around his body. It sped the whole process up.”
“So he should have died,” I said, feeling deadened myself.
Matthew nodded, his hands clasped across his lap. He lifted his hand and I thought he was going to touch me but he just rearranged the covers around my knees. “We got to him in time,” he said.
While I was in labor, Joseph was in the other room, close to death but fighting. They administered the anti-venom and began the process of cleansing his blood of the poison. He was awake. He had asked for me and they had told him I was safe. They didn’t tell him I was in labor.
Then I’d screamed.
“They tried to hold him down. The nurses were swinging from his arms like pendulums,” Matthew said with humor in his eyes, “but he’s strong. He was too strong.”
I winced as I heard how Joseph followed my screams; unaware of how sick he was or what damage he was doing to himself, dragging monitors and bags of blood and fluid with him. It was so hard to hear. If I had just kept my mouth shut, maybe he would have been ok. It made me feel sick to think of the choices I had made and what they had done to the people I loved.
Matthew moved to check Joseph’s monitor, putting a stethoscope in his ears and listening to Joseph’s heart. “Adrenalin makes the heart pump blood faster,” he said with his hands on Joseph’s chest. “It pushed the leftover poison straight to his heart, causing the second heart attack.”
Heart attack. He was nineteen, strong and healthy. He shouldn’t have had a heart attack. He never would have if he hadn’t met me.
Matthew put his hand on mine. “So now we just need to wait. His body needs time to repair.”
I looked over at what was left of my Joseph. His strong jaw looked hollowed, his sun-kissed skin was now pale and yellow. He looked ten years older than he was. All the same, he was beautiful.
“But he will wake up?” I asked, although it sounded like pleading.
“I don’t know, but there is hope,” Matthew said with a reassuring smile. He made me feel comfortable. His ease of talking, the way he planted himself on the end of the bed without asking, was unlike any doctor I’d ever met.
“What can I do?” I leaned in, my eyes exploding out of my head with desperation.
He smiled gently and patted my hand. “Just look after yourself and your baby. Joseph’s going to want to see you both happy and well when he wakes up.”
I sunk into my pillow, which smelled like mildewed feathers. Was that all? I had tried. But for me, the overwhelming feeling I’d had after giving birth was release. I’d spent the last four months dreaming of having the thing out of me. Now that it was, it was hard to feel anything other than relief. My worry for Joseph took up most of my time—there was little room in my head or my heart for the baby.
“Have you thought of a name?” Matthew asked as he paused in the doorway, his hand wrapped around the scuffed yellow doorframe.
I shook my head. I’d always thought Joseph would name it. He was the one who wanted the baby. I reached over and touched Joseph’s hand. It was warm. I wondered if that was all we were going to be allowed. Just those short two months together. It had gone so fast. I wish I had taken the time to appreciate it while I was there. But then I didn’t know it was going to be ripped out of my shaking arms.
I pulled myself back in time and dreamed of his hands touching my face, his lips caressing my neck. Where did it go? It disappeared like a wisp of smoke disturbed. I reached out to grab it but it was nothing and slipped through my fingers. I rocked back and forth, hugging my knees. I ached, thinking I might never get it back.
Every day they brought the baby in to feed. Which I did. I wasn’t a monster; I didn’t want him to starve. Feeding was a strange feeling and I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it. I imagined Joseph would laugh at my awkwardness, my shyness about people seeing me with my shirt up. The baby fed well but screamed every time they took him away. I closed my ears to it. I couldn’t be what they wanted me to be.
I focused on connecting the floating puzzle pieces I had garnered so far. But it was difficult, the people never stayed too long, they always seemed bustled and busy. They were cagey. When I asked them questions, they quickly made excuses and left. They didn’t seem dangerous but there was a silent threat in their aloofness.
When Careen bounced into my room, I was surprised. I hadn’t seen her since the day the baby was born and I thought maybe she’d left. She swept her hair behind her ears, the fluorescent lights streaking it the color of autumn leaves, and said flatly, “Where’s your baby?”
I sighed, my own hair swung like a ragged curtain in front of my eyes, the color of dull dirt. “I don’t know.”
Her eyebrow arched, but for once she didn’t blurt out whatever she was thinking. I waited for it to return to its normal position over her stunning blue eyes before I asked, “Careen, what happened?” My arms splayed open, palms up, like I was asking the heavens, “How did it all go so wrong?”
She flinched at my emotional tone and moved away. Seeming unaware of Joseph in a coma next to my bed, she plonked herself at his feet and put her hand on his leg. I resisted the urge to slap her because I wanted to hear what she had to say.
She paused, her eyes dancing about in her head like she was searching for the answer up there. When she finally opened her mouth, I jumped. “The trip there was pretty boring,” she said lightly, “Your Joseph was a comp
lete gentleman.”
“He always is,” I snapped.
She smiled to herself, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “On that rainy night, he gave me his blanket.” I gathered the sheets in my fists, trying not to turn her from a strawberry blond to a patchy bald girl. “He was scratching his arm a lot but I just thought he was nervous.” I rolled my eyes, wondering how someone who’d survived on her own for so long could be so blind to her surroundings. I cursed myself again for not being there. I would’ve known something was wrong. I squeezed my fists tighter, my nails digging into my palms. It was a good pain, a distracting one, but it wasn’t enough. I knew something was wrong before he left but I let him go.
Careen’s eyes swept over my hands, which were attempting to turn my sheets to dust, and said, “The place was swarming with soldiers. We nearly walked straight into some but Joseph saw them and pulled me behind a wall. They were talking about us.” She stood up straight, imitating the conversation they’d overheard. “Stupid kids. They must have switched it from reader to communicator.”
“Well, they must be here somewhere and we are not to leave until we find the two boys and Apella. The rest don’t matter.”
She giggled, covering her mouth. “You know, they were monkeys.”
I ran my hand through my tangle of hair and leaned my cheek into it. “What were monkeys?” I asked, exasperated.
“The yellow eyes, dopey,” she said through her perfectly shaped lips, like it was obvious. “The survivors said the monkeys were playing with the reader and made the switch. It set off a signal, which was easy enough for the soldiers to follow.” That wasn’t funny. It was frightening to know they were looking for us and they knew our last location.
“Careen, focus.”
She waved me off dismissively. “Anyway, once Joseph heard that, he started running. Yelling at me that we had to warn you guys.” She frowned, her delicate nose pinched in concentration. “I guess they heard us or something because halfway back, we heard the choppers.” She put her hand to her heart. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know he was sick. I think I would have helped him if I’d known.” I stared down at my fingers, still splintered from working on the cabin. I was scared of what I might say if I looked at her. “When he fell down, that’s when I knew something was wrong, but by then, well, you know,” her eyes flicked to the monitors. I shuddered at the memory of him walking towards us. The way happiness had swelled inside me and then was quickly replaced with fear and throat-closing panic.
The Woodlands Page 26
