Out of The Woods (16 page)

The fall – a tumbling, disorienting sense of being unconnected to the earth – went on and on. Halley’s sense of her body disappeared. It was like becoming a droplet of sweat in a breeze, and then becoming nothing.

When she hit the ground, she hit hard. A sensation like fire shot up her spine. She cried out. They’d fallen at least fifteen feet, maybe more.

“Eden,” she said, when she could speak, “Are you okay?”

Eden, lying next to her, was curled up in a fetal position. “I think so…but…ouch…I landed funny – I think I hurt my leg. What’s happened? Where are we?”

“I don’t know.”

Halley felt around. Long bits of grass lay on top of her, and on the ground near her. From her lap, she picked up a bit of heavy earth. She stared at it. The earth was sandwiched between layers of grass, and the grass itself looked as though… no…it wasn’t possible…but yes…the grass had been weaved together. The weave was broken where their weight had made it give way. Halley dropped it. Eden standing on the woven grass cover wasn’t enough to break the weave. It hadn’t broken until Halley got there too. It had needed their combined weight to break it. It was a trap, and it was meant for them. Trance! It had to be him!

“Say something,” Eden whispered. “I’m scared.”

“It’s okay. We’re going to be okay.” Halley paused. “I think we’ve probably fallen into an old well or a mineshaft,” she finally said. Even to her ears, it sounded like a lie.

A sound came from above them. They both looked up. Something, some kind of cover, was being dragged over the opening of the pit.

“Stop!” Halley shouted. Pain stabbed through as she stood fast. The movement of the cover continued. “Don’t close us in! We’ll die down here!”

The movement didn’t stop until the pit was nearly covered, leaving only a thin quarter-moon of light. It became too quiet.

Halley put her arm out to Eden and helped her sit up. In the space of the silence, the shock hit. Halley kept her arm around the young girl and felt her shaking, heard her gasping for breath that wouldn’t come. Her own face was tight with tension. As her eyes grew accustomed to the light, she saw they were in a deep circular featureless pit. Its sides, when Halley reached out a hand to touch them, were sleek and slippery. The ground under them was damp and as cold as death. There was no way out.

Eden fought back tears. “I didn’t know it would be like this outside the woods.” She held Halley’s hand tightly. “How are we going to get out?”

Rustling came from above. Looking up, Halley caught a glimpse of movement, but couldn’t make out what it was. Suddenly, the scream they had heard during their walk echoed through the pit. It was terrifying, the voice of a person in such deep pain that the torment had turned to anger and the anger to fury. A hooded figure stared down at them in the pit, and then backed out of sight.

The movement of the cover resumed. In a moment, it would seal off the last sliver of light.

The person began speaking, the voice a mad whisper that made the hair rise on Halley’s forearms. It was a woman’s voice. “It’s her. It’s her! After all this time. Finally her…”

Halley and Eden stared at each other.

“She knows you,” Eden whispered.

“Shhh,” Halley said. “Listen…”

“Kill her…kill the one who has caused my pain,” the woman continued. “I’ve waited so long…” The laughter came again.

The words rang in Halley’s ears, and her head felt full of a twisting presence, like a creeper vine gone wild. “Who are you?” she shouted.

The cover was moving again.

“Stop, damn you! At least let Eden go – she’s just a little girl! She hasn’t hurt anyone.” Halley pressed Eden’s hand in her own.

“Eden…hahahahah…you believe in Eden! She’s been gone for years!”

The woman’s words made Halley’s eardrums throb.

The air was becoming staler in the pit, heavy with dust.

Halley stared at Eden.

“What does she mean, ‘You’ve been gone for years?’”

“She’s crazy,” Eden said. “I’m not gone – I’m right here.” As if to prove it, she hit her chest with a small fist.

“Why are you doing this? Who are you?”

“Don’t pretend! You know who I am! It’s your fault I was left here. Your fault I’m all alone.” The voice was venomous. “You were so ugly and clumsy and stupid that they all left me. Even him!
I hate you!”

The cover closed.

Halley and Eden sat on the cold ground, holding hands tightly. They didn’t speak. Occasionally, their bodies were shaken by tremors, minor internal aftershocks, as if their flesh were processing the trauma they were undergoing.  

In the darkness, it was impossible to tell the passage of time. Time became as strange as their surroundings – seconds stretched out and lengthened, became grossly engorged, mis-shapen, ugly. Soon, night landed on them, heavy and awful.

They remained silent. It was as if they were both afraid to voice the desperateness of their situation. When the silence seemed about to dissolve them, Eden finally spoke. In a very small voice, she said, “What are we going to do?”

Halley started; Eden’s voice had come from very far away.

She breathed in, and became conscious of a slight weight on her shoulders. She was still wearing her bamboo backpack. Now, after first rubbing her vision clear with the heel of her hands, she fingered its straps, recalled its making. It brought clarity, the grainy feel of the dry bamboo. She pictured the lion-monkeys who had helped her – they would still be out there, somewhere, with their orange manes and bright, clever eyes. The eagle would be out there as well. Halley felt Eden’s eyes on her.

“What are we going to do?” she repeated, as if Halley had not heard her the first time. “I’m getting so thirsty.”

Halley opened her mouth to answer, but she couldn’t find her tongue. Her mouth was dry, like she’d been cupping a wad of cotton balls in her cheeks. With effort, she shifted her tongue around, and then tried to use it to moisten her lips. It didn’t work. The dryness was impossible, an unbearable thirst. She couldn’t speak.

Instead, she stood up. The movement felt strange, like her vertebrae had fused themselves into the bent shape of sitting, and standing straight were causing the vertebrae to break apart along thick fibrous lines. Her lower spine ached where she had hit the earth. She tried to focus on what to do. It was hard when the dark was so disorienting.

Running her hands along the smooth walls, she felt for tree roots or rocks, for anything that might give her grip and the ability to climb. She moved around the edges of the pit, touching all the sides, feeling the same wet smoothness of the walls all over. Even stretching up on her toes, it felt exactly the same. It was hopeless: they couldn’t climb out. She sank down onto her haunches.

“Halley?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what we’re going to do…”

Eden was silent, but Halley heard her gulp and swallow a sob.

“Don’t be afraid. I’ll figure it out.”

I have to. I’m the grown-up. I can’t let Eden die down here. But what can I do?

She rubbed her forehead with both hands. Their only hope was the woman – she had to lure the woman back. Get her to help them. But how?
I don’t know how.

Halley felt the powerlessness build in her, just like it had when she was an awkward thirteen-year-old girl. She recalled herself: she’d been in love with Shaun Cassidy, had his posters scotch-taped to all the surfaces in her room. She’d liked his eyes best; they were soft and kind – puppy-dog eyes. She would stare into his eyes as if he were there with her, and feel less alone.

Eden squeezed her hand, bringing Halley back to the present.

I didn’t give up then. I’m not going to give up now. I won’t surrender.
She bit the inside of her lip, and began to hum softly, building the melody and the words of a song she hadn’t sung in years.

That song: she’d first heard it on Z100 Radio, when she was thirteen. It was a “Top 40’ song, and she had spent a whole weekend listening to the radio so she could catch it playing, and tape it. Her family didn’t have money for buying music, and even if they had, Halley wouldn’t have wanted to ask for this particular song. This song was private. She was just beginning to build walls to protect her more sensitive feelings.

The quality of the cassette she’d made from the radio broadcast was poor; she’d missed the first few seconds of the song, only pressing “record” after she recognized the melody, and the part she had taped sounded scratchy and distant.

The poor quality didn’t matter though; she had still played the tape again and again and again, until the missing seconds and the scratchiness of the recording had become part of it. It would have sounded wrong if it were any different.

When the tape was almost worn out from overuse and damage (when she was sixteen, the brown tape inside the cassette had slipped loose from its holder, and wound itself around the little dibs in her tape player, but she’d carefully managed to wind it back with a pencil eraser), she used the original tape to record a new one. The scratchiness on the second tape was worse, but it mattered even less. The words were clear and they were perfect and she knew them all by heart.

The singer, a man, sung about feeling alone, about feeling this aloneness, but still not giving up. As a young girl, she had closed her eyes and felt her body sway to the song. She had sung along – softly at first – and later more loudly, and with more conviction. Where she couldn’t make out the exact words, she made them up and her words felt right. It had been comforting to know that someone else felt the same way, had felt it enough to write it into a song. Other people liked the song too, that’s why it was a hit. So she wasn’t really alone. Not really.

Here, in the dark of the pit, she began to recall the words. It took some time. “And nobody wants to know you now…” she sung in a hoarse whisper, “…and nobody wants to show you how…” The words came and her voice rose. “So if you’re lost and on your own, you can never surrender, and if your path won’t lead you home, you can never surrender. And when the night is cold and dark, you can see, you can see light, ‘cause no one can take away your right to fight, and to never surrender…to never surrender…”

The words hung in the air. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, she saw a shaft of moonlight on her arms. The cover had been shifted. Fresh air stirred. Looking up, Halley could see a fine circle of night sky.

“Sing it again,” Eden whispered.

Halley did.

A few moments later, a rope was thrown down. Its dangling end hit the ground with a thump. It had been knotted a few feet up to provide some purchase for climbing.

“I’ll go first,” Eden said quickly. “My leg feels better. And that woman isn’t trying to kill
me
. She doesn’t even think I’m real.”

“Good point. Okay. I’ll follow as soon as you get to the top.” It was better this way, Halley reasoned to herself. If Halley went first, Eden would be left alone in the dark pit.

Eden jumped to her feet, grabbing the rope, climbed hand-over-hand fast like a monkey to the top of the pit.

Halley, after giving the rope a testing tug, followed. With her feet planted firmly against the wall, she began to climb, using her legs to do much of the work, stepping up one foot at a time, in time with her arm movements. It was hard work; she was a lot heavier than Eden. Her muscles burned. Warm blood pounded through her body. Its warmth felt like a returning to life.

At the top, Halley hoisted herself over the edge and stood up, breathing hard.

Eden was silent.

“Eden?”

“Look – there she goes…” Eden said, pointing.

The outline of the woman was far away, and even that was soon swallowed by the dark night.

“She gave me this,” Eden said, holding up a large canteen.

“Water. Thank God!” Halley rubbed her hands together, feeling them still burning from the effort of climbing. “What was she like?”

Eden shook her head, her eyes filling with sudden tears.

Halley frowned, taking the canteen from Eden. “It’s ok, she’s gone now.” She studied the canteen, thinking. “Listen. I know you’re really thirsty, but this may be poisoned…let me go first.” The cap came off easily and the water had no smell. She poured a bit on the palm of her hand, to no effect. After a brief pause, she took a small sip. “Let’s give it a few minutes to make sure…”

They waited. Nothing happened.

They quickly drained the large canteen. The relief from their thirst was immeasurable. Exhausted, they lay down, Halley cradling Eden protectively against her body. She stayed awake a long time, keeping watch.

In the darkness, a horse lifted her large white head from the dew-laden grass. She didn’t whinny. Turning, she nosed the rope burn that encircled her neck. Despite the woman’s efforts, the rope had dug in. With a quiet grunt, she lowered her head back to the grass and began to graze.