The Woodlands (23 page)

Clara said she wanted to stand so we tried to help her to her feet. The contractions were so close together she didn
’t even get halfway up before she was screaming again. When she stood, I could see she was sitting in a pool of blood. I hadn’t noticed before that Apella and I were both bloodied as well. It was dripping over the ledge and onto the railway line, spreading like a ghastly, growing shadow.

Deshi and Alexei were standing back, keeping the
fire going. They looked worried. We were all worried.

Clara started to speak, in breathless whispers between the contractions. She was in so much
pain; it was agonizing to see her this way. “I can’t, I can’t. It’s too hard, please,” she whispered.

Joseph took her burning face in his hands
, forcing her to focus on him. “Listen to me, you can do this, it’s nearly over. Then you will see your baby.” She blinked once, listening to him. She took a deep breath and focused all her energy on this last task. The pains were on top of each other, leaving barely a second to breathe. But she stopped screaming. She bore down and took control. I could almost see light shining from within her. White hot in its intensity.

It took
two hours to get to the point where Apella said she could push. Clara was beyond exhausted, but the reminder that she would soon see her child sustained her right to the end. We lifted her tiny body to a squatting position, Joseph and I holding her up by her arms. It felt like holding nothing. She was air and light. Apella told her that on the next contraction she had to push. I don’t know where she found the strength, but she took a breath and let out an almighty scream. Joseph cried out that he could see the head. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look.

Clara held herself in that position
, waiting for the next assault of pain to tell her to push the baby’s body out. She did this quietly—eyes squeezed tightly shut, body and face tense. Her usually dark skin looked pale, ghostly in the firelight. And then there was a baby in Apella’s arms. A screaming creature, covered in blood and muck. Clara held out her hands eagerly and Apella placed the child across her chest. A boy.

Joseph was grinning at me
. “You’re an aunt!” he said. I felt my own mouth creeping up at the corners, smiling too. It was over. Thank God it was over. I looked at him. I wondered if he found that as terrifying as I did, or whether he was looking forward to the birth of his own child. I leaned into Clara’s face and whispered, “I’m glad it’s a boy.” I was thankful there was not going to be a Rosa the Second running around.

She didn
’t respond, too engrossed in the baby boy clinging to her chest.

Apella was busy cutting the cord with instruments she pulled from her mysterious pack. So that
’s what was in there, medical supplies. Joseph had walked over to Deshi and Alexei, all smiles, relieved. The baby screamed again. Clara was still. The poor girl must have been so tired. Her eyes were closed lightly, her arms haphazardly flopped across her body. I motioned to Alexei; he came staggering over like he’d just been in labor. “Can you take the baby? We should let her get some rest,” I said. He took the child, wrapping him up tightly, just his springy, black hair poking out the top of the blanket. Clara didn’t move. I swept the hair back from her face, her cold face. It left a smear of blood like a brand across her forehead.

No
.

I looked to Apella. She took Clara
’s limp hand in her own, her fingers on her wrist, searching for a pulse. She shook her head minutely. She checked again, putting her head to Clara’s chest, tears forming and spilling down her cheeks. I stood. Joseph took broad steps towards me and I slipped, feeling cold liquid soaking into my clothes.

No, no, no
.

The panic was rising. My mouth felt dry, bile rising in my throat. I slid off the ledge and pushed Apella out of the way. I grabbed both of Clara
’s arms and pulled her towards me. “Wake up!” I yelled. Knowing she wouldn’t, knowing she couldn’t open her beautiful brown eyes and smile at me. The light was out. She slumped forward and fell to the side, limp like a ragdoll. Blood. There was so much blood.

Somewhere inside of
me, something snapped. It shattered and splintered, sending slithers of debris coursing through my veins, grating and fraying the sides. I held onto the metal bar of the railway line, like it was the only thing stopping me from sinking into the ground. The sun was rising, light penetrating the darkness, showing the devastation the night had hidden from our eyes.

It was over.

She was gone.

My beautiful sister.

I crumpled like a piece of paper in a flame
, disintegrating to dust.

I don’t know how long I stayed there. I heard muffled voices—people moving around me, sharp rocks clunking dully together.

Strong arms tried to pull me up from where I s
quatted, head between my knees, clinging to the rail. A baby cried. Someone punched the wall. I stayed there still.

The light was touching my hands, bare
-knuckle white. My body tensed. Someone was talking to me, but it was like I was underwater. His voice warbled and I couldn’t make sense of it.

I was teetering on the edge of a precipice
, wind in my hair, staring down into blackness. With all my courage, all my energy, I made the choice. I let go and I let myself fall, endlessly falling, cold air pulling my hair up over my head.

One finger at a time, detached.
Tick, tick, tick
. Heavy cloth shrouded me.

He picked me up in a blanket and walked outside. Silent. It was bright. I closed my eyes and focused on his
footfalls on the solid earth. Thump, thump, thump. I felt us descending. I opened my eyes and it was cooler, darker.

He lay me down gently
, kissing me on the forehead. I felt numb with no senses, like there was a barrier between me and the outside world. He rolled my shirt up and pulled it over my head. The cotton stuck to my skin. Carefully, he used his hands to peel it away from my stomach and chest, push, pry, rip. A faint copper scent stung my nose. He stood me up, removed my boots and trousers, dunking everything in the shallow pond he had brought us to. I sat there. Blank. Cold. Watching the water change from clear to pink and then clear again as it washed away. Washed her away.

He soaked a cloth in water
, and begun carefully wiping the rust-colored blood from my body. I didn’t care anymore. I let him touch me, lifting my arms, turning my head, pulling my hair back and cleaning my neck. He did it all slowly and deliberately. There was no charge in his touch. This was a kindness to one who was broken.

When he was done
, he wrapped me in the blanket and propped me up against a tree trunk like a wooden puppet. I watched, disconnected, as he soaked my clothes and rinsed them until the water ran clear.

He gathered me up,
in only my underclothes and a blanket, and slung my wet uniform over his shoulder, taking me back into the sunlight.

The world was grey. The color washed away, dripping down the sides of the trees like it was soaking back into the earth. I moved through the world but not in it.

We kept walking, leaving it all behind.

We walked through the
darkness for miles. When the light started to show at the end, I took up my initial position, clinging to the rails. I didn’t want the light on me. It burned my eyes.
Coward, coward, coward
, the light screamed, balancing a slant over my face.
You couldn’t save her
.

From then on
, he carried me as much as his strength would allow and, after his arms trembled under my weight, he held my hand and led me like a child. I followed him. I let him carry me. The fight in me was gone.

He talked as he walked but I didn
’t listen. I couldn’t hear him from behind the wall. Occasionally a baby’s cries would punch through, but only for a second before it closed over, enveloping me in buffered sounds.

I wanted t
o speak but the words were buried. With her. If I could have cried or talked about it, maybe I would have healed faster. But nothing came.

I kept expecting her arm to link in mine
, to hear her voice telling me to snap out of it. She believed things would work out. She was wrong.

I walked,
ate, and slept, but that was all. My eyes focused on something far away. Just over the hill, just behind a tree, never on what was in front of me, or who was walking beside me.

At night I slept by the fire
, my body warm but shaking uncontrollably. Closing my eyes brought on nightmares soaked in blood. He lay with me, holding my arms down to stop me from hurting myself. He spoke but all I could hear was calming whispers. No words.

I tried to recede
to the point where nothing could reach me, but something was always tugging, pulling at my shirt, trying to drag me back into the light. But without her, the light was dull, insipid, lying over the forest like a silty blanket.

For
weeks, I stayed inside myself. Joseph tried to coax me out, but even he stopped trying after a while. On the twenty-third day, I heard words. My head rose above the waves of my grief and I heard them talking.

Apella was cooing to the child.

“You’ll make a wonderful mother to little Gabriel,” a stuttering voice said lovingly. Gabriel?

I
kicked my feet, trying to keep my head above water a little longer.

“
Thank you, darling, you will make a wonderful father too.” Apella’s sweet voice was like a booming bell, reverberating and hurting my ears.

“
His name is Hessa,” I said, my voice a tiny crackle.

Everyone
stared. Apella sheltered the child in her arms, like she thought I was going to hurt him. I wasn’t going to hurt him. The couple was sitting, cradling the child under a tree. It was a spring sapling that was bending and swaying in the breeze, making shushing noises as the leaves grazed each other. Apella was holding a bottle full of grey liquid, which the baby was sucking. My head fractured as I thought of our grey milkshakes.

The trees were
no longer grey, the color returning slowly. Green leaves touched by sunlight. I moved towards the couple on my hands and knees, aware that Joseph was behind me, shadowing my movements. I sat back on my heels and gently folded the grey blanket they had wrapped him in away from his face. He had springy, black hair, caramel-colored skin, and big blue eyes. He looked just like her and nothing like her at the same time. He was definitely All Kind. But it was there, that light had passed to the child. It shone in and around him, protecting him, announcing him as Clara’s son. I held out my arms. Apella shook her head. But Joseph was right there. So was Deshi.

“
Let her hold him,” he said quietly but with force. Deshi was standing next to Joseph, looming over Apella with a stern look on his face. They both knew I would never hurt the child. I think Apella knew it too—that wasn’t the reason she didn’t want me to hold him.

Apella gently handed the bundle to me, uttering
“careful,” as she let go of the child painfully slow. I peered at his face, pulling one of his arms out of the blanket and letting him wrap his fingers around my own. That touch wrapped around me like a bright white chain, binding me light as a feather but strong. I knew this child was mine. I was his family now.

“
Hessa,” I whispered as I traced his tiny lips with my finger. I turned to Apella and Alexei’s pleading faces. I did not relish the disappointment I was about to bestow upon them. “You know you can’t keep him,” I said plainly, not meaning to repeat the words I had spoken to Clara back when we were underground. After everything she had done, what she had kept from us, this was not Apella’s redemption. She was not his family and had no place in his life. I knew now why Clara had named me her sister.

Apella didn
’t speak. For the first time, that perfect facade contorted as she burst into tears. It lasted all of thirty seconds, then she patted her tears, straightened her clothes, and walked away. Alexei followed.

I held the child, not overcome by the decision I had made. It was simple. It was fact. It was the easiest thing I had ever done. I felt two distinct hands on my shoulders.

“Welcome back, zombie,” Deshi said with a grin. He looked tired and thin.

“
I’m sorry,” I said, without looking away from Hessa. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“
Don’t be sorry. We’re just glad you’re back,” Joseph said, smiling. “So you’re a mother now.” There was a hopeful glint at the end of his sentence and I knew what he was thinking, but I wasn’t sure this changed anything.

“
No. Not a mother, an aunt,” I said, already feeling something absolute solidifying inside me,
love
. Joseph shrugged, seeming to accept that was all I could manage for now. He ran his hands through my hair and tied it back with a piece of twine, my skin buzzing from that barest touch.

“
Thank you,” I said, feeling a bubble of that liquid gold pushing through my veins. I looked at his earnest eyes, green with flecks of gold, and wondered if he would always be this patient with me. If I pushed him away now—would he come back? I held out my free hand for him to hold, which he took eagerly but gently. It was an uphill battle and the gold rose and receded, not quite able to push past the pain.

“
Are you all right?” Joseph asked. I looked down at Hessa. The baby blinked uncomfortably as drops of water hit his perfect little face. I thought it was rain at first, quickly realizing they were tears. For the first time since I had watched my sister slip away, I cried. I rocked the child and let it all out. I saw her face as she left me; I saw her face in her son. But it was not painful to see him. It was comforting. She would always be here with us, in him. The boys sat back and let me go until I could cry no more, my face red and salty.

Hessa was sleeping. Peaceful. He was unaware of our journey.
For him, home was under the trees. He had never seen the grey walls of Pau or the Classes, never seen the towering, concrete prison of the rings. He could have a free childhood. It was an exciting prospect and it motivated me even more than before.

Joseph filled me in on what I had missed. W
e had covered a lot of ground but there was still a lot ahead of us. Looking around, it seemed the scenery had opened up a lot. We were sitting at the edge of a field, tall grass and saplings dominating the landscape. It was much flatter than before and it made me feel exposed.

“
Have there been any more choppers?” I asked. I felt foolish for not knowing, for being so unaware of my surroundings.

“
No,” Deshi replied. He was preparing a bottle, spooning the grey sludge from the box in and watering it down, giving it a sharp shake.

Hessa awoke with a start, screaming. I panicked
—had I done something? Deshi saw the fright in my eyes and answered my question.

“
He’s hungry,” Deshi said as he opened his arms. I gently handed the child over and watched as Deshi adeptly fed and changed the child. He played with him for a while and then rocked him to sleep, placing him, tightly wrapped, in an emptied-out backpack. He looked at the child with a love that was unmistakable.

Joseph laughed at me, w
hich I didn’t appreciate. “It’s just a baby, Rosa. You don’t need to be afraid of it. It cries, eats, and needs to be changed.” I had a bit of catching up to do. “Don’t worry, we’ll all help you.”

Hessa now had
three parents.

Apella returned
, her face composed but shaky, her lip quivering unappealingly as she spoke. “I know I can’t keep him. I know I don’t deserve him but I want to help. Will you let me help you?” She was humbled to the point of begging. I wanted to say no. But something softened in me. I would need all the help I could get. I wasn’t going to be her friend. I was never going to like her—but I could use her.

“
Sure,” I said, deliberately trying to sound like I didn’t care. But I would be watching them both. We all would.

Watching
Hessa sleeping on top of the backpack gave me an idea. It wouldn’t do for him to sleep like that, and we needed the backpack to carry other supplies.

“
Can I have a knife?” I asked, surprised faces all around. I guess it was hard going from zombie to fully functioning human without people wondering whether you were insane.

Deshi searched around the site and found one. I set to work cutting down some of the bendy green saplings. As soon as I cut into the trunk
, the right feeling was overwhelming. I ran my hand over the trunk, enjoying every little bump. I had missed this. I sliced through the sapling, sticky sap oozing from its wounds. I cut down about eight small trees and went to work skinning them and bending them. I know everyone probably wanted to get moving but they let me work. I must have looked possessed. I didn’t speak. I just worked. I bent the wood into the shape I desired and tied it with the tough grass we were surrounded by. I felt like I was made for this. I saw things differently to the others. I could see there was a life to be made out here. The forest was abundant and provided everything we needed.

When I was
finished, I cut up one of our blankets, trying hard not to picture its last use. With a pointed stick and more grass, I sewed it into my cradle to make a lining. I had made a crude capsule. I sewed strips onto the underside so that it could be carried on my back. It wasn’t pretty but it would work. We slipped Hessa inside it still wrapped. He was cozy and protected.

Apella
put her hand up timidly. “Are you sure that is safe for a baby? He is so tiny. What if he slips out the bottom?” Both Joseph and I glared at her and she sealed her lips.

“
It’s amazing!” Joseph said, congratulating me. “I had no idea you could make something like that.”

“
Well, this is what I was going to do. Before…” I said. He looked at me sadly. I wished he would stop punishing himself. This was not his fault. None of it was. I didn’t blame him, but I couldn’t look at our situation the way he did, the way Clara did. It was not a blessing.

I grabbed his
shoulders, heat pulsing through my fingertips, having to stand on my tiptoes to look him in the eye, my stomach touching his.

“
This isn’t your fault,” I said. “Don’t look at me like you need to make up for something—you don’t.” I sounded angry, which is not what I meant. I just wanted to release him from this obligation he felt, this guilt.

He smirked
. “There she is,” he said. He always confused me with his reaction to my anger. Like he enjoyed it or at the very least, expected it. I let him go and laughed. He was so annoying, so charming.

Deshi volunteered to carry Hessa
first and I didn’t object. I was tired from all that work and could not ignore my heaviness and awkwardness. Over the last three weeks, I felt like I had doubled in size. It got in the way of everything and it moved more and more, less like a kick and more like a stretching of my skin, squashing my organs and bruising my insides.