Chapter 18
Dad holds onto us like he’s afraid if he lets go even for a second, we’ll disappear. The helicopter skims over the trees—the beat, beat, beat of the rotor blades slowing my mind. We’re going home.
His warm body presses into my side, and his heartbeat—or maybe it’s mine — drums like a herd of Dad’s elk, stampeding. My mind flickers through everything that happened—it’s all mixed-up though—like someone cut up a video and jammed it back together wrong: orange vests swarming the cave entrance. Singing Silent Night to Mommy. The tree and the cabin. The cold.
My body trembles, and all I want to do is cry and keep on crying. A paramedic bends over me, whispering something I can’t really hear. He smells like hand sanitizer and rubber gloves. Unzipping my jacket, he pulls at my sleeve. My arm is stiff and tired as he eases my coat away. I don’t help, just lay there like I’m outside my body, looking in. The bright blue of his eyes—like Grover’s catches my attention. He grins, winking at me. “This might pinch a little.”
Something warm moves through me. My legs and arms grow heavy and the loud roar of wind morphs into that lonely call a wolf makes. The helicopter shutters, and I grab for the edges of the seat, but my fingers aren’t listening. “No—”
Dad squeezes me tight. “You’re safe, kiddo. You’re safe. It’s gonna be…” His words drag and stretch out, like he’s talking through a wall of fog. When I meet his eyes, his face blurs, then fades away completely.
I don’t even remember closing my eyes, but when I wake, antiseptic stings my nose. Shadows dance across the walls—and for a second, I’m still trapped—but then the cool, crisp sheets and the warm, familiar scent of my mother’s perfume makes everything okay again.
Something cool touches my face. Mom sits on the edge of my bed, a damp cloth in her hand. She’s been crying because her face is all splotchy and red. She smiles and draws a breath when I open my eyes.
“Hey sleepyhead,” she whispers. A tear rolls down her nose.
“Mom.” My voice scrapes out raspy—like Mommy’s. “I’m so sorry—”
She leans in, kisses my forehead. “Shhh. Just rest, my sweet. You’re here. That’s all that matters.” More tears come and a giant hole opens inside my chest. I did this.
Closing my eyes, I lay there for a while, trying to get my mind to catch up, then everything hits at once and I jerk up, fully awake.
“Where’s Andrew? And Amelia? Are they okay? Is her leg really broken? What happened to Grover? Is he going to jail?”
Mom lets out a laugh full of air. “Okay, okay—let's start with what matters most..” She raises the bed so I’m sitting up a little, and wipes her face with the cloth in her hand. “First, everyone is safe. Andrew is in the bed beside you, and Amelia is out of surgery and doing well. We don’t have any news about your captor.” Her eyes harden and her lips flatten out.
I don’t say anything. My captor.
Dad waves from the bed next to me. His face is drawn, like he hasn’t slept in days. Andrew is curled against his chest, sound asleep, going to town on his thumb. It’s comforting and familiar. The knot in my chest eases and I lean back against the pillows.
“Welcome back, Ozzie the Great,” Dad says quietly. “As you can see, this little guy’s not going anywhere for a while.”
“What time is it?” My hand goes up to push the hair out of my face—and I nearly come unglued. Instead of a huge fluff ball of frizz, my fingers meet jagged tufts and naked scalp. The front feels hacked short, but the back is just patchy stubble. Thick ridges of stitches pull tight where I bashed my head. “Oh my god! What happened to my hair?” I run my hands over my head frantically. “Where’d it go? How’d I sleep through that?”
Mom winces. “You had some help.” She nods toward the tubes taped to my arm. “Do you want the long version or the shorter one?”
“The basics…just tell me.” My head feels like a foreign object, but surprisingly, I’m not as freaked out as I thought I’d be.
“Sweetheart, when you got here…you were a mess. Your hair had—well, it was full of lice and other things. Not to mention the fact that they had to shave the back anyway to get to the wound. It just wasn’t salvageable.” She smiles. “The front actually looks adorable.”
Images of grooming Mommy’s hair flash through my mind. The dirt. The leaves. Head lice. I don’t have to imagine what was in mine. Mommy’s, at least, was straight and manageable. My frizz could trap a buffalo.
Mom hands me a mirror. “And it’s ten o’clock—to answer your question.”
Without my glasses and with the new hairstyle, the girl in the mirror is a stranger. So I blink—just to check if the eyes really belong to me. They blink back. “Okay.” I check my teeth, then hand her the mirror. “Where’s Amelia? How’s her leg?”
Mom raises an eyebrow. “That’s it? Okay?”
“It is what it is,” I say. “I’m just…can I go see Amelia?”
Mom looks away, straightening the blanket on my bed. “How about something to eat? We can order you a hamburger or maybe spaghetti? What sounds good?”
I narrow my gaze. “What’s going on? I thought you said Amelia was good.”
Dad shifts Andrew from his chest and eases him onto the bed. “Word is her folks don’t want her disturbed. Got people stationed outside her door—no one gets in without say-so.” He lowers himself onto the corner of my bed and rubs my toes. “They’re turning everyone away. Maybe tomorrow.”
“But—I’m her friend. For sure they’d let me in, especially after everything we just went through together.” I push down my covers. Suddenly the smell of bleach is making me nauseous. “Maybe something’s wrong, like she’s hurt worse than I thought.”
Mom pats my arm. “She’s fine. You took good care of her—keeping the infection away for the most part, and stabilizing her leg.”
“That was Grover,” I say. “He did most of it.” My eyes fall to the bed sheets. The fabric is smooth and sterile—nothing like the animal skins in the cave. The blanket twists in my fists as memories pour through my brain: Grover pulling the tree off, kneeling beside Amelia to clean the wound, chewing old man’s beard for the poultice, her fever. Did we actually live through that, or did I just read it in a book somewhere?
I swallow hard. “He didn’t hurt us—Grover. He took care of us. He just wanted to help his mom.”
She hands me a cup of water, eyes flickering briefly to my dad. His jaw flexes, but he stays quiet. “Get some rest,” Mom says. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
A quiet hiss sounds behind me as the IV pump releases another dose. The warm liquid spreads through my arm, softening everything—fear, exhaustion, thought. I close my eyes and sink into the pillow.