“So you can’t tell me anything?” I sighed.
He responded to my obvious disappointment, eager to impress. “I can show you some things,” he said, extending his hand. I eyed it apprehensively. I wasn’t sure, and I really should have stayed right where I was. I talked myself into it; waiting was not going to achieve anything anyway. I took his hand. It was warm and dry. A shiver ran through me, a reminder, and I let go abruptly. I walked to the cot to check on the baby. Hopefully, he would sleep for at least an hour. “Ok, lead the way.”
Cal grinned at me and started walking down the hall away from where the people were. Then as it got quieter and darker, he broke into a jog. I jogged behind him, wondering why I was mindlessly following this strange boy but feeling a sense of freedom. My footsteps sent a new energy through my body as I ran. A sense of my old self, impulsive, mischievous, was surging forward. He told me to hurry up. We were nearly there.
He pulled up suddenly and turned to face me. In the dark, I could barely make him out and I slammed right into his stationary body with a thud. We were both panting, breathless. I laughed. So did he.
Once I couldn’t hear footfalls anymore, another sound was pushing up out of the darkness. Barking.
The air was heavy down here. Cal found my hand and I didn’t pull away because I couldn’t see where I was going anymore. It made me feel intensely uncomfortable and I was starting to regret my decision. He placed my hand on a metal rail, patting it once, and told me to climb down. I gripped the rails and clumsily tried to find the rungs of the metal ladder with my feet. Cal was right behind me and stepped on my hands.
“Ouch! Watch it,” I snapped
Cal scoffed, “Whoops, sorry.”
Hitting the ground, I adjusted my eyes. I could see light again. I followed it; hearing the sounds of dogs barking, the unpleasant smell of animal closeness creeping up my nose. I came to a door. Cal opened it for me, putting his hands in the small of my back and pushing me through gently. I jerked away from his touch and stumbled into a room full of wolves.
I turned to run, my blood thumping in my ears. But Cal was just smiling casually at me, like the room was full of bunny rabbits. There was a man in the corner fiddling with what looked to be a carriage. He looked up and waved a hand at Cal. “Hey, Bataar,” Cal said. The man just grunted. His dark brows pulled together in concentration as he tried to untangle meters of rope.
The wolves were jumping up excitedly, their claws click-clacking against the stone floor. Cal approached them. I squeaked out a “No,” but they knew him. They were licking his hands and he was patting their heads, pulling on their ears and talking to them.
I didn’t notice I was pinned against the wall until he brought one over to me, holding it by the collar. I gulped drily; I had nowhere to run. I peeled myself off and leaned down towards it. “This is Bold.” It wasn’t a wolf, at least not like what I had encountered. Its eyes were a golden yellow and its coat was thick and fluffy. It looked at me, teeth bared in an almost human grin, tongue hanging out. “It’s ok. He won’t hurt you.” I reached my hand out and patted it stiffly on the head. It leaned into my palm, taking the pat as a sign that it could jump on me.
I surprised both men when I firmly said, “No!” The dog tilted its head and planted its bum on the ground. I laughed. “Good.”
“You’re a natural,” Cal said admiringly. The man in the corner sniggered and spat on the ground.
“What is this? I mean, why have you got animals down here?” I had the sudden and ridiculous fear that maybe they ate them. I chided myself.
“This is our transportation,” Cal shrugged, like it was obvious.
My eyes grazed over harnesses, carriages, stacks of containers piled against the walls of the big, dark cavern. I grinned. This could be fun. But I instantly felt a stab of guilt at enjoying myself when Joseph was under the knife and Apella was grieving her baby. I sat down against the wall and sighed deeply. Would I ever be able to enjoy life without something pulling it away from me?
Joseph, please wake up.
One of the dogs sidled up to me and laid its head in my lap. I ran my hands through its fur, rough and prickly on the outer layer, but when I pushed my fingers deeper, it changed to a soft down. My happiness was attached to these feelings. A mixture of fear and love had pushed me into a tree and created the most amazing night of my life. I held my chest, afraid of my ribs parting, my heart falling out and dropping to the dirty floor to be covered in dog hair. I laughed halfheartedly as I imagined someone picking it up, dusting it off, and handing it back to me saying, ‘Here, you dropped this.’ I felt like I was going crazy. I was.
Cal played with the dogs and I watched him create mini-tornados of dog fluff and dust. Yawning. Distraction didn’t last very long. He walked over and sat next to me, our legs touching. It was too close. I edged sideways, putting a gap between us. The dog snored in my lap. I wished I were him.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I blurted out, harshly.
He was taken aback but he answered me kindly. “Because I know what you’re going through.”
I snorted. How could he possibly?
“I lost my sister six months ago. She got sick. Matt tried to save her but he couldn’t.” He looked sad. Tired. Grief does that. It wears you down. So all you feel is bluntness and loneliness.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shoulders slumped, suddenly feeling so weary I could barely keep my eyes open.
“Close your eyes and rest,” he said. “I’ll wake you in half an hour.”
I didn’t reply, the heaviness of the day was pressing down on me, one life slipping away while another fought to hang on. Half an hour. I could rest and then I would go back to the room and wait. A heavy, furred head on my lap lulled me to sleep with its warmth and rough snoring.
I was running through the forest, the light streaming through peppered trunks. It was warm; the autumn colors shone Technicolor bright, as if painted on. The trees leaned into me, whispering secrets as they swung their arms back and forth in a slow dance. Someone caught up to me. A big, warm hand clasped my own. It started to rain, but I didn’t feel wet. It showered down on me but only sent pinpricks of pleasure through my free body. Joseph chuckled and stopped running. I gazed into those beautiful eyes, the green of the forest living in them. The gold of my heart scattered around the irises. He started climbing a tree and I followed, vaguely aware of dogs barking in the background. We sat together on a branch and he pulled me into his lap. It was light, brighter than light, everywhere. It folded over us like a warm blanket. He held my face in his hands and pulled me closer. I parted my lips just slightly, breathing in his warm breath. I closed my eyes and opened them again.
Cal’s face was about an inch from my own. Before I could stop him, he leaned in and tried to kiss me. Shocked, I froze. My lips set hard, my whole body stiffening like a plank of wood. I leaned back, trying to put my hands on his chest and push him away but he had a hold of them, grasping my arms at the elbow. He pushed towards me. I pulled my legs up quickly and kicked. He flew back, knocking over water bottles that made lonely, metallic, rolling sounds against the rock floor.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I yelled. Dogs joined in chorus.
His eyes were unapologetic. “You just looked so beautiful lying there I couldn’t help myself,” he said with a shrug.
“Help yourself?” I should have followed my instincts in the first place. My instincts were now telling me to get out of here as soon as I could.
His face fell. “Sorry. It just gets lonely here. I thought we could be friends.”
Friends? I was furious. What was I going to tell Joseph? “Friends don’t kiss!” I said damningly.
He nodded.
I stormed out of the cave, embarrassed, angry, and ashamed. People were horrible. I thought about going back in there and punching him in the face, but thought better of it. There was a sense of violence to that kiss, a forcefulness I didn’t want to revisit. Stumblin
g around in the dark cursing, I found the ladder and made my way back to my room.
I popped my head into the baby’s room. He was still sleeping soundly. The clock read almost midnight. That idiot let me sleep for hours. I crawled into bed, my eyes falling upon the empty one beside me. Doubt slunk its way into my head like a burglar. If he died… No I wouldn’t think it.
I pulled the sheets up over my knees. Sitting. I was too scared to sleep. I shuddered as the memory of Cal’s slobbering lips on mine. It sent sharp shakes of disgust right through me. I didn’t feel guilty. I was just plain angry. Why would anyone do such a thing? Maybe there was something wrong with me that made him believe I was an easy target. I wanted to scrub the memory off my face and take a layer of skin with it. No one was allowed to touch me like that, not without my permission.
A nurse came in and gave me an update. My angry face gave her pause. I tried to relax it, forcing it into a calmer set, but it felt like trying to push air from a barely blown-up balloon, squishing things to the sides awkwardly. She looked tired, her light brown hair pinned back messily, and her eyes squinting as she talked. The operation was going well, very well. Then she said a whole pile of medical stuff I didn’t understand. I just nodded. I didn’t need to hear anything other than ‘going well’. She said they were halfway through and then she hurried off. I sighed. It would be a long wait.
I wandered across the hall. Orlando’s eyes were half open but he was asleep, his little chest moving up and down faster than an adult’s. I grimaced at the thought that Cal had helped me name him. But it was his name now. Hopefully, I would forget the rest. I picked him up and brought him to my room. Lying on my side, I placed him in the crook of my arm and watched him sleep. He had been a good baby so far. Better than I deserved. He had more personality than I remember Hessa having at this age, but maybe that’s what a mother sees in her own child. A mother. The word made me feel deathly frightened and comforted at the same time. The responsibility of it was heavy in my chest.
I whispered to him, “You’ll look after me, won’t you? We defectives have to stick together.” He sucked in a breath and shivered. I pulled him closer.
I recalled my conversation with Alexei, when he told me that if my baby had my eyes, we both would have been ‘disposed’ of. A small fire started inside me that grew to a blue-and-white flame. A rage I couldn’t name. I smiled, a solid sternness to it. If this is what it felt like to be a mother, maybe I was more suited to it than I thought.
There was never any easy way to tell whether it was morning or night in here. The lights always glowed, footsteps travelling softly past the door. Someone was always busy doing something, but what? I didn’t know.
I had been watching Orlando sleep, breathing in and out, rolling his little eyes, the pink of his cheeks strange compared to my dark ones. He was so warm and comfortable. I was quite the opposite, wound up like a tight coil ready to spring headfirst into the rocks above me. My mind wandered in different directions. I worried about what Joseph would be like when he woke up—would he be weak? Would he be upset? Would he still want me? The last question, I didn’t dwell on too much. I had in my mind that I would remind him he did, somehow. When my thoughts went to Cal, my hands turned to fists—a hard feeling wrapped around a soft one. I wondered what he was after. If I hadn’t stopped him, what would he have done? Strangled by the idea of telling Joseph, I became angrier still.
And Apella. How was she feeling right now? It felt odd to worry about her. I had spent so much time hating her, despising every single thing she did, and taking pleasure in her discomfort. All these new feelings assaulted me like a spray of cold water. Things I never thought I would feel, waking me up, making me want to defend my old self, hold onto it, even as I watched it wash away. It was impossible. I used to say nothing changes, but I was so wrong. Everything changes so fast you feel like you’re grabbing the edge of the train as it takes off, your feet scrabbling to lift up onto the platform, your hair swirling about your face. I wondered whether I would ever catch up.
I abandoned it all in favor of counting the points on the rock wall above our heads. Watching the light bounce off the shiny black, the way it looked like a dark sea of oil almost moving and swelling in a nonexistent storm, mesmerizing. I pulled Orlando in tighter. He wheezed. My eyelids were heavy. I didn’t want to sleep but my body had other ideas. After the last time I slept with a child, I decided to put him down in his cot. Memories of the burning heat in my hands as I held Hessa out over the flames woke me up enough to drag myself reluctantly out of the room. I laid the baby down and backed out quietly. I retreated to my bed, and into a dream.
“Should we wake her?”
“Let her sleep.”
“Anything we need to do before we go?”
“No, thankfully, for better or worse, it’s over.”
Something familiar was missing. My brain was still under a cloud of exhaustion. I was listening for it, although I wasn’t sure what my ears were searching for. Monotony had trained them. Thinking about absence, no beeps, no blips. I exhaled slowly.
I felt a hand brush my face, collecting strands of hair and pulling them away from my forehead. Warm hands. Fear jolted through me. I snapped my eyes open and slapped at the hands. “No!”
Blinking, it took a while to focus. And then I was staring at those eyes. Those beautiful green eyes with flecks of gold in them. I was melting and on fire at the same time. Tears filled my eyes and I sprung at him from my bed, embracing him, squeezing him hard until he let out a small squeak of pain as he struggled to keep his feet. I relaxed my grip a little and he chuckled.
“You had me worried for a second,” he said as he stepped back to look at me. He ran his hands down my arms and then brought the backs of his fingers across my now-flat stomach. I shivered. I smiled. I could have burst through the ceiling! This was the closest we had ever been and yet it wasn’t close enough. I looked up at him and gave him a toothy smile. I touched his beard, tracing his jaw. He looked better than I’d expected, his strength was not immediately apparent but his color had returned. Whatever they did to him was remarkable. He was standing in a hospital gown and cotton pajama pants that were too short. He swayed a little and steadied himself against the bedrail. I moved to him. “You should sit down before you fall down,” I said.
“It feels so good to hear your voice,” he said as he obliged me and sat with a thump on the edge of the bed, his knees wide apart. I sort of shudder-shivered at the sound of his.
I felt brave. He did that to me. I fit myself between his legs and stood on my tiptoes. Pulling his head down towards my face, I laced my fingers in his hair. He smelled like antiseptic, but also of Joseph. Of all the things I had craved for weeks, even if was I imagining them: wood fire, pine, fresh air.
He moved slowly, at first, and as painful as it was, I matched his pace, savoring it. This was not our last kiss. He brushed his lips over mine unhurriedly. It was torture—good torture. When he added pressure to it, I sank, waves of molten gold crashing over my head. Was this real? It felt like a dream. He moved back onto to the bed and pulled me on top of him. Kissing me like he never had before. I willed myself to stop but it was not going to happen.
Until pain crossed his face.
I sat up and shuffled back. Reluctantly, I stepped off him and sat back on my heels on his mattress. He was grinning.
“What?”
“Oh nothing,” he said, looking at the ceiling. I stared at him until he answered. “It’s just—I should fall into a coma more often.”
I sighed and stared up at the ceiling. At least this hadn’t changed.
“So do you know what happened to you?” I asked, realizing that he may not know where we were or who these people were.
He nodded. “That man, Matt, filled me in, briefly.” Then his eyes squinted at me and he pulled his mouth to the side. “Is it true you tried to poke my eyes out?”
I was a little embarrassed. I grinned at him. “Well, you wouldn’t open
them. I had to try something! Is that your only question?” He laughed. I had missed that sound like breathing.
His expression went somewhat serious but he couldn’t control his happiness any more than I could. “I do have more questions I’d like to ask. How’s Apella and Alexei, Hessa and…?” A baby crying interrupted. He stilled, looking from me to the half-open door and back again.
I’d been dreading this. “Just a minute,” I said as I jumped from his bed to the floor, feeling his eyes on me as I walked.
I took my time, feeling flushed and nervous. I had to remind myself that he knew me. He knew how I’d felt about the baby. I couldn’t change my behavior or act a certain way. Anyway, it wouldn’t fool him. I changed the baby’s nappy mindlessly, probably putting it on backwards for all I knew. When I was done, I slung him over my shoulder. He liked to be up and looking around when he was awake. I waded slowly back to our room, pushing through my insecurities like I was moving through jelly.
The door was slightly ajar and I slipped inside.
Joseph’s eyes were wide and soft. I knew he was trying not to assess the situation and I tried hard not to get my back up about it. As soon as I stopped, Orlando started crying again, throwing his head about on my shoulder, looking for something to eat. I sat on my bed and swung him around, lifting up my shirt. Joseph was watching, quietly, intently, his chin resting on the heel of his hand.
This felt wrong. I couldn’t help but feel that sense of backwardness. He’d never seen me naked. It seemed unfair to me that this was the first time he would see my breasts. I paused.
“Can you, um, not look?” I whispered, self-consciously.
He blushed. “Oh, sorry,” he muttered and stared at his hands. So patient. It was so quiet. All I could hear was his deep breathing.
“You can talk to me, though,” I said, my voice sounding a bit shrill.
The Wall (The Woodlands) Page 4
