After the Woods (13 page)

“A Russian thing, huh?” He takes the bag from his pocket and removes a package of rolling papers, slipping out one and tossing the pack to the ground. He folds the paper and drops in a pinch of weed, licking the paper sideways and twisting it over itself.

“Generally they're total skanks. Not remotely attractive, just young, with faces like sheep. Except, have you ever heard of the Russian Barbie? She's this woman who's had a ton of plastic surgery to look just like a Barbie doll. Her name is Valeria something. Her skin is matte—matte means not shiny. In this case, plastic-looking. And her waist is the size of your wrist. Oh, oh: and her blue eyes are opaque! They say she does that with contacts—”

He blows the joint dry, his eyes slanting at Liv above it.

“It must be a DNA thing, the way all these Russian people are desperate and oversexed.”

“Oversexed, huh?” Pocketing the joint, he cocks his head, smiling, and gets close to her nose. Sinister. “Maybe you can help me with my genetic defect.”

Liv doesn't blink. “My mother's no picnic, don't get me wrong. And she'd be the last person to turn her nose up at going under the knife. In fact, I'm pretty sure she'll try to use my college fund for a complete overhaul when she turns fifty. But at least she's not a whore for hire. I don't know if I could deal with that.”

What is Liv thinking, saying this stuff?

“You're lucky she didn't pass chlamydia on to you,” she continues. “Newborns exposed to chlamydia get terrible eye infections. I'm thinking about this because your eyes are super-red right now. Or syphilis. Syphilis is easily transmitted from mother to child. The mothers go crazy, like Al Capone and Hitler, and the babies end up with problems with their brains, skin, and teeth. They're often premature. Wait: you were a preemie, right?”

“Shut the hell up.”

“Surely she had HPV. I mean, everybody has HPV, so a hooker definitely had to have it. Sometimes the hormones from pregnancy can make the genital warts grow big enough that they block the birth canal. Then the baby has to be delivered by cesarean section. Were you a C-section?”

Shane glares, baring his teeth. “Enough!”

My fingers float to the lip of the window and do a nervous dance.

“I'm just saying”—Liv lifts a flop of hair from his eyes delicately—“I wouldn't feel bad about your mother. It's not like you can help that she was a whore.”

Shane grabs Liv's wrist hard and twists it. Liv yelps. He shoves her wrist forward, sending her flying backward off the stair and onto the hard ground. I scream—a gargle that I swallow—tuck my head, and bite the flesh triangle between my thumb and finger. Then I rise to see again, because he might do something more. I need to stop him, but he's crawling over to her, weeping like a baby, and she is already on her knees consoling him.

“What the hell? You made me do it. Why'd you start talking like that? I shouldn't have shoved you, you just made me so mad. I'm sorry.” He drops his face into his hands and bawls.

“Shane!” Liv peels his hands away from his face. “Shane, listen to me: I crossed the line.”

He buries his face in her chest.

“Look at me!” She lifts his pocked, gleaming cheeks and forces him to look in her eyes. “What you did was right. I said something horrible about your mother. I deserved it.” Liv's voice is different. Commanding.

“I won't let it happen again,” he blubbers.

“Shh. Your love for me is just so strong, sometimes you can't control it. It's okay. I get it. I'm flattered. It means you must really love me.”

His head rises slowly. “So much.”

She pulls his head against the middle of her chest. “I'm counting on it.”

*   *   *

I lie in a fetal position on my backseat, past when they stumble back to the car, arms entwined, past when I hear them finish making out, past when Shane revs the engine of his muscle car and does two hard skids then a long, slow burnout, past when the sky blazes orange just before the sun dives below the horizon. Only then do I open my car door, lean into the crisp air, and vomit.

 

SIX

357 Days After the Woods

“Here we are, you and me. Not what I expected. But something.”

I squeeze the tiny sharp stick I conceal in my palm, barely a stick at all, but I will jam it in his eye if he tries to touch me. My body tingles, ready to fight.

“But something,” I repeat.

He scowls. It was nervy to remind him I am human. I cower inside the polyester sleeping bag. Two sleeping bags, tucked inside a hollow log, in this spot. Premeditation. My bowels rumble, loose and spastic, reminding me of my second-biggest fear at this moment.

He stamps over and looms, night vision goggles perched on his forehead. I inch my stick nearer to the opening of the bag. He sways, reeking of smoke and wet wool. In another world, he is the guy in short sleeves and wrinkled khakis working at Best Buy. Here, the fire makes sinister shadows across his face. He shakes his finger in front of my nose.

“Not. Her.”

He giggles and falls back onto his sleeping bag, feet flying up in the air like a baby. He plants his boots and reaches up his pant leg, flourishing the knife. “Just in case you get any stupid ideas.”

A stick is no match for a knife.

He props his back against a tree to stay awake. His movements become twitches until he slumps. I slip one hand from the bag and wave it in the air.

One minute, then two.

Clouds pass in front of the moon and shadows fall over his slumped form. I am colder than I ever thought possible. But my body is still mine. After hours of this creature dragging me to wherever in this woods he is taking me to, my body is still mine, in that way.

My eyes sweep over our crude campsite with its fire that has attracted no rescuers. I trace every shadowy outline beyond it for some clue. If I'm right, we're in the exact place where Liv and I aren't supposed to go, but do. Ten feet behind me should be the north edge of the Sheepfold, a steep slope camouflaged when the ground is covered in leaves. But in early winter, when the ground is bare, you can see it's a yawning gorge. I roll over in my bag and squint into the darkness, until I detect the barely perceptible demarcation, where violet turns to the absolute absence of light. The drop.

I wonder if he knows these woods as well as I do. The pain in my ballooning ankle has gone from sharp to fuzzy. Even if I manage to hop-drag past without waking him, it will take hours to reach the groomed trail. He knows this; it is the only reason my legs are not bound. If he wakes, I will never outrun him.

There's only one thing to do. Don't use my feet.

I shimmy into my bag, sneakers pushing against the bottom seam. Raise my bound hands above my head to protect it. Close my eyes. And roll.

I careen over jagged rocks, roots, stumps. Don't think tuck head don't think tuck head. The bag shreds until parts of me are exposed. Sometimes I'm feet first, sometimes head. I coil my body tighter, my back into a hard shell. Leaf and rock enter the open top and fill the bag. Twice I am ensnared, twice I jam my elbows and knees into the earth, hurtling myself over obstacles. With every gyration I am farther away from him.

I've been falling forever when the mud slows me to a halt. Loam and grit blur my vision, but moonlight throws the ledge into relief. I've dropped at least eighty feet, and my body, thickened ankle and all, is bruised horrendously, but intact. I am covered in warm blood and mud. My hands are free. The bag hangs off me in shreds.

I'm not dead.

Even if the noise of me hurtling down the chasm woke him up, I just put eighty feet between us. For the first time, I feel like I might get home.

*   *   *

“Julia, I'm going to count from one to five, and at the count of five you're going to feel wide awake, fully alert, and completely refreshed. One, two…” Ricker counts.

“I'm awake,” I say.

“Three, four, five.”

“I said, I'm awake.”

“How do you feel?” Ricker asks.

I prop myself on my elbow. “Better than I usually feel, because I'm here and not in the middle of class, for example. There's nothing worse than the stares you get when you're standing there gaping at a wall, with no clue if you've been doing it for five seconds or fifteen minutes.”

Ricker's pen freezes midair. “You're saying this isn't the first time you've had a regressive memory?”

“It's the first time I've made one start.” I swing my legs off the couch and sit up. “Though yesterday, I made one stop.”

Ricker breathes hard through her nose. “I require total honesty in this room. Is there a reason you never mentioned your memories before?”

“They've really just revved up since I've been back at school. I'm not the one with the diplomas, but I'd say that makes sense.”

Ricker's eyes flick to the diplomas on the wall. She catches me catch her, and frowns. “Triggers most certainly cause memories to emerge. And now, triggers are all around you. So yes: it makes
sense
, as you say.” She ducks her head and starts scribbling; I lean forward slightly to peek at the page, because it feels like a power move. Get things back on the right track and such. Boundaries.

I really do like her.

“So we're on the same page,” I say. “I mean, think about it. The Berkshires were basically sensory deprivation. Besides the trees—which for a while were not my thing, but I'm warming to perennials—there was nothing to do. All I had were my weekly e-mails from Liv. And my appointments with Patty Petty. She was whacked. Did you know she tried to make me dance?”

Ricker refolds her legs, flashing a brilliant smile over her pad. She's openly, undisguisedly, blatantly not listening.

“You're smiling. Why are you smiling?”

Ricker looks up. “If memories emerge, it's a sign that the survivor has found a safe environment and has reduced the level and frequency of her daily dissociation. Now her repressed memories may be brought to her conscious mind.”

“As far as signs go, that sounds like a good one to me.”

“It's a sign your mind is working toward something.”

“It's an almost-anniversary present to myself.” I say this, hoping she'll say something about the fact that we are nearing the one-year mark of the Shiverton Abduction, in news-speak. But I'm thinking Ricker's the type to forget to buy a card.

She touches my knee. “It is a good sign. Tell me again. You began to have a memory?”

“My friend's jacket had buckles on it. When they clinked, they reminded me of the sounds Donald Jessup's jacket made.”

She rises and walks to the bookshelf. “But you were able to draw back, realize you were in the present, and stop it?”

“Right. I stepped outside of myself, sort of. Told myself it was her jacket, not his.”

“Her?” She pulls down a gold-embossed book.

“My friend. Alice,” I lie. “What, is that weird?”

She flips through the book. “It's unusual. Not unprecedented, but unusual.”

Nervous she's going to ask about Alice, I count cracks in the leather couch. There are seventeen. She runs her finger along a page. I clear my throat. “When do we get to talk about what I remembered?”

“Regression therapy can be an intense experience.”

“Trust me, I'm familiar. Imagine being thrown from an airlock. It's like being on the receiving end of a mighty suck,” I say.

“Because of their intensity, I generally don't like to examine sessions right away. There should be a benefit from hypnosis, a sense of relaxation and wellness that you spend some time enjoying. We'll discuss it at our next appointment.”

“Wait, what? We're not going to talk about it? Don't you think some of the stuff Jessup said was weird?” I ask.

“I need time to listen to my recording. I can't really say.”

“I get that we're not evidence-gathering here. And I'm not saying I want to start talking to the police again. But I thought maybe we could talk about it—”

“Julia,” Ricker interrupts me.

“Hang on. So that means I'm only getting hypnotized once every two weeks? That's not enough!”

“It's rather aggressive, all things considered. You need to understand something. We're not trying to reimagine Donald Jessup's intentions. Those don't matter. What you remember, those things may not have actually happened. And whether they did or not, it's letting out the emotion that's important.”

“May not have actually happened?” I stick my middle finger into a crack and scrape a loose staple. The warm blood comes fast, but I force myself to leave my finger there, bleeding into her couch. Stain on you, Ricker.

“Memory is fragile. Everything you recall is not likely to be correct. Under hypnosis, a person will elaborate, fill in incomplete bits to make a full story. Memory is not like a tape recorder or a video. That said, the reality as perceived by you is what we should concentrate on.”

“The reality as perceived by me. Wow,” I repeat.

“As a rule, the deeper the hypnosis, the less reliable the memory.”

“You remember me waking up on the count of ‘two,' right?” I yank my finger from the couch and grab my bag. “This was fun. But really, I don't see the point. If I can go back to the woods any time I feel like it, why do I need you? If my memories are all made up—or partly made up—why bother? I'm going to go enjoy my relaxation now. Until soon, Elaine.”

I blast into the reception room holding up my middle finger so blood won't drip on the floor. Ricker's next appointment, my doughy friend with a mole, flips me off behind his cupped hand as he passes into Ricker's office. I try to deny giving him the finger as he slams the door. The receptionist reaches through the glass with a bouquet of tissues, which I grab, wrapping them around my digit mummy-style. When I turn, everyone ducks their heads over magazines or pulls out their phones. In the elevator, Muzak picks at my nerves, and I realize I forgot my coat, but I cannot go back, not after that performance. I hurry out the exit, chased by the tinkle of bells someone tacked above the door. Ricker's office is in a bland building sandwiched between a Dunkin' Donuts and a muscle-head gym. To get to your car you have to cross a tiny patio with a bench in front of a fountain covered by a skin of ice. I sit on the bench and pull out my marbleized notebook and flip through chunks of paper to find a clean page in the back. My butt is freezing, I am freezing, but if I start to have a daymare, a
regressive memory
, I can control it now. No big whoop.