What Doesn't Kill Her

by Christina Dodd

  Rae hesitated.

  Kellen waited, tense with fear. Had the violence scared her child so much she didn’t want to touch Kellen?

  Rae’s arms wrapped around Kellen’s neck, Kellen took her legs and wrapped them around her waist, and Kellen started running. Right now, it didn’t exactly matter where they ran, only that they got away from here.

  Because maybe the guy was telling the truth; maybe the new boss had called in more searchers. Even if he hadn’t, the other three guys were in the area. The shot would bring them running, and she didn’t have much time to get Rae and the Triple Goddess away from here. Once the other men talked to the guys on the ground and discovered Kellen was on the move with a child, that child became a weapon in their hands. Kellen couldn’t allow that. She didn’t know how long she could hold out, running full tilt with a backpack, the Triple Goddess and a forty-five pound child. Yet she had to save Rae and the marble head.

  As they jumped the stream, Kellen dropped the first phone, the broken one, into the water. That should disable the GPS, and hopefully the two guys she’d left behind would remain undiscovered long enough for Kellen and Rae to escape.

  “Mommy?” Rae’s voice wobbled pathetically.

  Kellen wanted to moan. But she had to save her breath. Rae was going to ask about Kellen’s ruthless treatment of those men. “Rae?”

  “I gotta go potty.”

  Now Kellen did moan. She took a path that led downhill. “I do, too. Can you hold it for a while?”

  “Yes. Is it bad that I just heard thunder?”

  14

  The rain was brief and violent, a downpour of thunder and lightning that had Rae hiding her face in Kellen’s neck and Kellen squishing through puddles. “This is good,” she told Rae. “The rain will hide our tracks.”

  “The rain... I really got to go potty.”

  Kellen let her down under a heavy-branched old pine, which protected them from the worst of the downpour. She helped her hang her skinny little bottom over a log, and reflected that she hadn’t changed diapers like Max had, but somehow hearing Rae complain about one sheet of toilet paper made things feel a little more even. Rae’s horror that they had to put the used toilet paper into a baggie to carry out made Kellen waver between laughter and the environmental lecture about carry in, carry out.

  The child was shivering in her wet clothes, so Kellen gave the lecture while she dried her with one of her own extra T-shirts, and dressed her in a pair of Rae’s pink tights—

  “Mommy, I need panties!”

  “Did you bring them?”

  —and Kellen’s sweatshirt hoodie. Kellen used the log facilities, shared the last of the water from her canteen and said, “We’re almost out.”

  “We can drink some out of a stream.”

  “And get giardia.” Shut up, Kellen. “We’ll do that.” She pulled the second phone out of her pocket and in hope and desperation, used her thumb to open it. If she could make one call for help...

  But no. Here, now, there was no service and she didn’t dare carry it because she didn’t want these guys, whoever they were, to use it to track her. So she placed it on a rock, slammed her heel into the screen and buried it in a mud puddle.

  Rae watched, wide-eyed, and said solemnly, “When I get a phone, I’m not going to let you near it.”

  Kellen didn’t think she could laugh. But she did, softly. “That’s probably a smart decision.”

  “Where are we going?” Rae asked.

  Good question. Kellen had been running without a destination in mind, her sole aim to misdirect anyone who followed. Now she had a decision to make—go down the mountain and try to find a ranger station or head up the mountain and to the Restorer.

  Either way, the Mercenaries would try to take a stand between her and her destination, and if that last guy was telling the truth, their orders were to get the woman. That meant the Triple Goddess—and whoever was carrying her. “Maybe we ought to dump the head.” She was merely thinking out loud; she’d taken the job in good faith and she had faith in her ability to survive and deliver the Triple Goddess and keep her daughter from harm.

  Until Rae said in an ever-louder voice, “Dump the Triple Goddess? What is wrong with you, Mother? The Goddess deserves our care—”

  “Okay, shhh!”

  “The Goddess represents us. She is Woman, hear me roar!”

  Rae sounded like Kellen herself in a long-ago snit, and if she didn’t shut up, she would announce them to the whole forest.

  Kellen wrestled the poncho over the two of them. “Who did you hear that from?”

  “After-school cartoons! Rowr!”

  Kellen picked Rae up again. “I didn’t know your grandmother let you watch cartoons after school.”

  “Um...” Rae squirmed. “Sometimes I go visit my friend Chloe. Her babysitter lets us watch.”

  “What else does she let you do?” Kellen ran.

  “Eat Fruit Roll-Ups!” Rae shouted right in Kellen’s ear.

  “Okay. That was loud. If you promise not to shout again—” at least for the next ten minutes “—I promise I won’t tell Grandma about the cartoons and the Fruit Roll-Ups.”

  Rae kept her voice polite and sedate. “Thank you, Mommy.”

  Kellen avoided the paths, using the sun as guidance, heading deeper and higher into the wilderness to put some space between her and the guys in the slick suits and the city shoes.

  Rae drooped and slept, then roused and in an excited voice said, “Mommy, stop. Stop!”

  Kellen was glad to. Her back was creaking, Rae was squirming, and surely they had put any search parties behind. She pulled off the poncho. “Do you need to go potty again?”

  “No. No! Huckleberries. We found huckleberries!” Rae hopped around the six-foot-tall sprawling dark green hedge, collecting the dark purplish fruit with wild abandon.

  Kellen followed in alarm. “Are you sure these are edible?”

  Rae looked a question.

  “Not poisonous. If we eat them, will we die?”

  “No! They’re huckleberries!” Rae acted as if Kellen was an idiot.

  Not in a mean way, Kellen realized, but in total surprise, as if she expected Kellen to know everything.

  Kellen took another look at Rae. Oh, no. She did expect Kellen to know everything.

  Rae popped the handful of berries in her mouth.

  Kellen lunged to stop her, but it was too late. Was Rae going to die from eating poisoned berries? Should Kellen stick her finger down Rae’s throat?

  She couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Rae seemed so sure, and Kellen didn’t know a thing about Pacific Northwest berries, and she couldn’t traumatize the child any further on a vague fear. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d eaten poisoned mushrooms...

  There was only one thing to do. Kellen ate a handful of berries, too.

  They were fabulous. If they were going to die, they were going to die together and die happy, too. “How do you know about huckleberries?” she asked as she picked more and ate them.

  “Mrs. Maniscaldo lived down the road from the winery. She was old.” Rae’s shaking voice dramatically indicated Mrs. Maniscaldo’s age. “Grandma and me used to go down to her house to help her pick her raspberries and blueberries. Grandma would make jam, and we’d keep some, and she’d give the rest to Mrs. Maniscaldo, who gave it out as Christmas presents. I’d go down there and eat it with her on fried bread. Last summer, me and Daddy and Grandma took Mrs. Maniscaldo up in the mountains. Because she’s from the mountains, but she was so old she couldn’t live up there anymore. She showed us huckleberries and how to pick them, and she yelled at Daddy on the other side of the thicket to start picking the berries and stop eating them, and when we walked around so she could yell at him again, it wasn’t Daddy.”

  “Who was it?”

  “It was a b
ear. I saw it. It was big and black!”

  Fascinated, Kellen kept popping berries in her mouth. “What happened?”

  “She yelled at the bear and waved her arms and it ran off. She laughed and laughed, and sat down, and Daddy had to help her get up. She said she was scared the bear would get us, but I didn’t know it. She yelled right at him!”

  “Mrs. Maniscaldo sounds like quite a woman.”

  “She was nice. She died.”

  Whoa. Kellen hadn’t seen that coming. She stopped eating. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Grandma didn’t want me to go to the funeral, but I wanted to see her again, so Daddy took me.”

  To Kellen’s relief, Rae didn’t look sad. She looked, well, philosophical. For a kid, that was quite an expression. Kellen asked, “What did you think?”

  “She wasn’t there.”

  “Mrs. Maniscaldo?”

  “She was gone. Grandma said she went to heaven. I think she went to the mountains.”

  Kellen didn’t know whether to grin or console.

  “When I get new crayons, I’m going to draw LightningBug riding Patrick, because I sat on Patrick in the van. Grandma’s not going to be happy because I wasn’t in my car seat.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t tell her?”

  Rae mulled that over. “That’s lying.”

  “It’s not telling all the truth. Rae, I promise when your grandmother finds out about this trip, we’re going to have a lot to tell her and we’ll want to make it so she isn’t too scared. In the big scheme of things—” like knocking people out with an ancient marble head and shooting them “—it won’t hurt her not to know.”

  “So it doesn’t matter whether I sit in my car seat or not?”

  “I didn’t say that. I’m saying we had no choice and it turned out well, so we’ll keep it between ourselves. Okay?”

  “Okay! In my drawing, Patrick’s going to wear my pink tutu and I’m going to have a pink cape with jewels and flowers.”

  “You bet. Let’s pick more berries and save them for later.” Kellen looked around.

  The sun was going down and with the mountains surrounding them, the light would disappear quickly. Temperatures would drop to near freezing. They needed a place to stop for the night, a spot she could protect, someplace they’d be safe.

  “Mommy, can you find me?” Rae’s voice was muffled.

  Alarm sent a trill up Kellen’s spine. She looked around. “No. Where are you?”

  Rae’s head popped out from under the bushes. “Here!”

  “Is there room under there?” Kellen pushed her way into the hedge. The densely leafed branches grew low to the ground, and in here, no one could see them... “This is a great place to sleep! Let’s get our stuff.” She crawled out and dragged in her backpack and the Triple Goddess.

  “We’re going to stay here?” Rae did not sound impressed.

  “It’s a good place. It’s fairly dry and protected from the rain, if we get any more. It’s hidden from the bad guys and easily defensible.”

  Rae looked around. “Where are we going to have our fire?”

  “We’re not going to have a fire.”

  “We’re camping. We have to have a fire.”

  “We’re not camping. We’re running away.”

  “How can we make s’mores?”

  “We don’t have graham crackers, chocolate or marshmallows. A lack of a fire is a moot point.” Why was Kellen even saying this stuff? “We’ll eat dinner—”

  “What dinner?” Rae asked suspiciously.

  Smart kid. “A breakfast cookie with peanut butter on it and some water.”

  “I like cookies! I want milk.” Rae started to droop so suddenly, Kellen was caught unprepared. “I’m hungry. I want my daddy.”

  “And you’re tired.” Kellen helped her take off her boots.

  “No. I’m not!”

  “Okay. You aren’t.” Rae’s shoes and socks were still wet. Kellen hung them on a branch and hoped they would dry by morning.

  The light was disappearing.

  Rae slapped at a leaf. “It’s scratchy in here.”

  “It’s our own secret hiding place.” Kellen got out the breakfast cookie, spread it with a thick layer of peanut butter, divided it and gave half to Rae.

  Rae scarfed it down and looked for more.

  Kellen gave her a drink out of the canteen and the other half of the cookie, and went to work spreading out the all-weather blanket for protection from the cold ground and the sleeping bag on top.

  Rae quit at three-quarters of a cookie and whimpered.

  It was the first whimper Kellen had ever heard out of her cheerful, chatty daughter. Tears, yes. But never a whimper. “Come on, honey. This is an adventure. Remember?”

  “I want my blankie.” Her grubby yellow yarn blankie.

  “Coming right up.” Kellen kept her voice cheerful. “Let’s get in there.”

  Rae hugged her blankie and climbed in the sleeping bag. “Mommy, I’m scared.”

  Kellen took a farewell look at the one-quarter of the breakfast cookie and slid it into a baggie. “Now I’ll take off my shoes and socks and jacket and put them at the bottom of the bag—” and put the pistol, safety on, in its holster close at hand “—and climb in with you.”

  “We’ll snuggle!”

  “Right. We will.” Rae slid into Kellen’s arms, and Kellen awkwardly rubbed her head.

  “My nose is cold.”

  “Mine, too.” With the sun gone behind the mountains, the temperature dropped rapidly.

  In a serious voice, Rae asked, “Mommy, have you ever seen a dead person?”

  The smell of charred wood and burned flesh. A metal coil melted in the dirt and the knowledge of young lives ended too soon. A pain in the region of her heart, and a knowledge that she had done the wrong thing. Such a wrong thing. She knew death—but now, she had delivered victims into death’s bony grip.

  “Yes, I have. In Afghanistan. I was in the war. I saw... Yes, I’ve seen dead people.” Kellen thought she ought to say something more, something bracing, so she continued, “Sometimes they were my people.”

  “Your friends?”

  “Not always, but people who were on my side. Even if we didn’t like each other, we defended each other. We stood back-to-back and we fought for each other. Because when you’re fighting for the same cause, that’s what you do.”

  “Like ThunderFlash and LightningBug!”

  Hoo boy. “Exactly like that.”

  “I haven’t put the Triple Goddess head in our book. When we stop, I’ll draw the head.”

  “Are you going to draw all our adventures together? That’s going to be quite a book. We’ve got to walk tomorrow—” and hope to hell none of the hunters found them “—and find a ranger station. You’re up for all that, aren’t you, Rae?”

  No answer.

  “Rae?”

  No answer. Just like that, the kid was asleep.

  Kellen sighed in relief, folded Rae’s blankie and tucked it under Rae’s head as a pillow. She didn’t know how they were going to find a ranger station, exactly. Wilderness surrounded them, and they were avoiding the paths where the park signs offered guidance. They were avoiding other hikers who might be able to point them in the right direction. So in the morning, they’d head downhill, because the ranger stations had to be accessible to the most people and the higher and more difficult the path, the fewer people there would be.

  Plan in place, she prepared to drift off...

  Rae punched her in the ribs.

  “Ow!” Kellen reached out. “Honey, don’t—”

  Rae kicked her in the thigh, dangerously close to her wounded hip. She was asleep, Kellen could tell, but clearly she did not rest peacefully. Kellen put her arms around Rae’s body and turned her so she f
aced away. Rae relaxed.

  Kellen started to drift off again.

  Rae tried to turn sideways in the bag, head toward Kellen, knees scrunched up to her chest. Which wasn’t comfortable for Kellen and couldn’t be comfortable for Rae. And wasn’t because Rae followed that by straightening her legs and hitting Kellen under the chin with a head-butt.

  Kellen grunted and woke, rubbed her chin and figured what the hell and turned so her back was to Rae. At least this way, Rae could only take out her ribs and spine.

  She slept.

  Rae quieted.

  Then Kellen was wide-awake, aware Rae was too quiet.

  Something was very wrong.

  Rae was gone.

  15

  Alarm slammed through Kellen. She groped all the way down in the narrow bag. Rae’s clothes and shoes were there, but Rae was simply gone.

  “Calm,” Kellen muttered. Panic wouldn’t help. Although right now, panic seemed like the right thing to do. “Think.” No one had rustled through the bushes, so Rae had to be nearby. Kellen crawled out of the bag into the freezing mountain air and, still on her hands and knees, looked around.

  The starlight was bright, bright enough to show the shrubs that surrounded and protected them and—that shivering rock hadn’t been there before. Rae had wrangled her way out of the bag, probably punching and kicking all the way and, still asleep, was curled into a frozen little ball.

  “Oh, sweetie.” Kellen picked up her child and put her in the sleeping bag. She rubbed her cold toes and hands, hugged her close and cried terrified tears and tucked Rae’s beloved blankie close around the child’s head. What if she hadn’t woken when she did? Rae would have died of exposure and it would be Kellen’s fault.

  One more big black mark on the bad mommy chart.

  For the rest of the night, Kellen slept in short bursts, waking every few minutes to check on Rae and hoping against hope she hadn’t done Max’s child irreparable harm.

  * * *

  As the sun rose, Kellen finally fell into a deep sleep and woke awash in anxiety and guilt.

  But Rae was right there, lying on her stomach, her blankie bunched under her arms, with her crayons, drawing in her ThunderFlash and LightningBug book.