I’m dazed. I run my hand through my hair. I know where we’re going, but I don’t understand how any of this came about. I don’t understand why they’re doing this for me. They are not my friends. I have gone out of my way to make sure of that.
Getting to Burlington takes over an hour on the interstate, and in Vermont, interstate means a two-lane road. I stare out the window. Lake Champlain sparkles on our left. Great glittering sunrise diamonds dance across its surface as the cool shadows of New York keep watch in the distance.
My head begins to hurt as the road winds and we get stuck behind a truck blowing thick clouds of diesel exhaust everywhere. Jordan realizes what’s going on with me, which I’m grateful for because I can’t talk, but she reaches back for my hand and holds on to it, which I don’t like. She gets Lex to pull over on the side of the road. I kneel in the grass and try really hard not to get sick, but of course I do. Only for the first time no one acts disgusted or scornful.
Jordan and Lex get out of the car with me. I keep my back to them, but I listen to their chatting, their voices full of light and ease. Lex is smoking, and it sounds like Jordan’s found his book of matches. He makes a habit of drawing little faces on each individual match with a fine-point pen and relishes watching the tiny red heads go up in flames when he needs his nicotine fix. Jordan calls him a sadist, which he doesn’t deny, but she’s not bothered by it. I can tell.
I don’t rejoin them right away. I let them talk. Maybe it’s the cadence and timbre of their speech or the meaning of their words. Maybe it’s the way the morning sun cuts the swirling valley mist or the way dew beads across the laces of my shoes, but my heart burns like flames lick ice. I am bound between two worlds. I don’t want to die and I don’t think I can live. How can the same God that created all this beauty have created me?
A stake of wood and a hanging sign tell me the property I’m crouched on is for sale: two hundred acres of countryside. The house sits far back from the road, and the windows have been boarded up. A weathered barn sways with the breeze, rocking gently on its exposed foundation. Beyond that sit woods. I spy a brown wolf with hungry eyes not ten feet away, wriggling beneath the post-and-rail fence. It struggles, haunches churning, forelegs scrabbling at the earth, and then it’s free. The animal drops its head, shakes, then pads into the field without caution. Approaching the tree line, it breaks into a lope, great bounding strides. Its coat shimmers like dripping honey. Then it is gone.
Swallowed up.
Jordan and Lex have their arms around mine. They’re pulling me off the fence because I’ve got one leg over already. They’re talking to me, telling me things, but my ears are filled with a desperate keening, a feral moan. They both pull harder. My shirt rips. I flail back and land hard on the ground.
“Shit!” says Jordan, wringing her hands. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t do this, Win,” Lex says sharply. “Get up.”
I think of Siobhan’s hair fluttering in the wind as she drops, so fast.
I moan again.
There is no turning back.
Jordan crouches beside me. “Can you get in the car? We’re almost there.”
I shake my head very quickly. My eyes sting again, making everything blurry. One of them shoves a water bottle into my hand.
“This is bullshit,” says Lex, despite a shushing from Jordan. “If I have to call the cops to haul your ass to the hospital, then that means I’ll have to dump my stash right here, let the wildlife get high. And I really don’t want to do that, Win. Don’t make me do that. Let’s just go.”
“I saw her,” I say as I struggle to my feet. I want to look back, past the fence, the meadow. Into the woods. I want to, but I can’t. I take a step toward the car.
“Saw who?” Jordan asks.
“My sister.”
chapter
thirty-seven
admission
The emergency room is staffed by air traffic controllers. I get the impression everything is communicated through semaphore. Or telepathy. Because besides the occasional page over the intercom, the place is quieter than it should be. A local television show highlighting fall color and apple picking plays out on one screen. On the other is a movie with Denzel Washington. The Manchurian Candidate, I think, which is pretty appropriate considering how the people waiting look hypnotized. Jordan is told to stay with me so I don’t bolt, but really, what’s she going to do if I try? Kick me in the face again? Lex writes my name on an admittance sheet, then comes back with a clipboard and some paperwork. He begins to fill it out on his own.
“Let me do that,” I say.
“I’m just filling out the parts I can.”
“What does it ask?”
“It asks why you’re here, okay? Like the sign-in sheet, only there’s more room and more questions. Hey, are you allergic to any medications?”
I sit up. “What did you put?”
“Well, if you don’t tell me, I’m going to put ‘Don’t know.’”
“No. What did you put for why we’re here?”