“Em, calm down.”
It’s Bishop, talking to me, holding me. I draw in a big, slow breath, and this time I feel the air go in deep.
“That’s better,” he says. “Now open your eyes.”
I didn’t even know they were closed. I open them, expecting endless, mind-numbing dark…and am surprised that there’s enough light to make out the shape of Bishop’s face. He’s close. Close enough to kiss.
He lets go of my shoulders. He points to his right.
At first I don’t understand what I see. It looks like a wall with hundreds of little bright spots, like tiny, glowing jewels. But it’s not a wall…it’s a mass of curved bars, twisting in and around each other. There is depth to it. The bright spots, they aren’t jewels…they are spaces, showing light coming from the other side.
Bishop walks to this strange wall. I follow him.
They aren’t bars…they are plants. Dead wooden stems with rough bark, each as thick as my wrist. Here and there I see a few brittle, brown leaves. Some withered stems grow along the floor, reaching into the room as if they sought sunlight, and, finding none, simply died.
I grab one of the curving plants, feel the rough bark against my skin. I give it an experimental shake. It barely moves. The stems have grown together, fused with each other into an impenetrable weave that might as well be a cage. The weave is so thick I can’t quite see all the way through it—whatever lies beyond looks like a big, brightly lit space.
“Bishop, what is this?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not sure. The word that comes to mind is thicket. Do you know that word?”
I don’t. It means nothing to me, the same way pig meant nothing to him.
Bishop kneels, hands exploring the stems. I see white spots among the brown. I kneel next to him and take a closer look. Some of the stems have been sliced through: the spots are pale wood that lies beneath the bark.
He touches a severed branch.
“I don’t get it,” he says. “If someone cut through this, why cut so low?”
That trip to the farm…something about that memory flares to life. A man…an old man, wearing a funny hat, talking to me. No, to us, to the class. Something about what a pig can eat…
“Not cut,” I say. “Gnawed. The pig did it, Bishop.”
As if to confirm what I said, Bishop reaches in a little farther, touches another gnawed bit of white wood. When he pulls his fingers back, there is blood on them.
We both see it at the same time. The gnawed branches outline a half-circle of empty space—a tunnel that leads deeper into the thicket.
Bishop looks at me.
“If the pig made it through, so can we,” he says.
He doesn’t ask for permission, doesn’t wait to hear what I think. He lies flat, and he starts in.
TWENTY-ONE
We crawl across dirt.
The little tunnel’s sticks scrape at my arms and shoulders, snag on my shirt and snarl in my hair. I didn’t realize that my ponytail has been coming apart. It’s hard to keep the hair out of my face. I must look like an even bigger mess than I thought.
Bishop struggles to crawl through. He’s much bigger than I am. The sharp edges tear into his bare skin. I’m behind him, his feet not far from my face. We’re both flat on our bellies. Twice I see him tangle in the thicket, gnawed wood stabbing into him, and I know the pain will make him turn back, but he snarls and growls, either forces his body through or uses the knife to cut away the offensive branches. He presses on.
He is big and fast and strong, but he is also tough. He doesn’t ignore pain as much as he endures it. He will not quit. The twelve-year-old me looks up to Bishop, wants to be like him in that way.
At any point since the vote, he could have taken the spear from me and claimed leadership. I couldn’t have stopped him, yet he hasn’t done that. He’s been true to his word.
Is he my friend? I feel that he is, and I am grateful for it.
When our torch went out, I thought the darkness would eat me up and swallow me down. But ahead of us, light, coming through the thicket. No, not just ahead of us—light filters down from above.
I stop crawling.
Plants…light.
Is it daylight?
And that awful smell, the pig crap, it’s gone. The air here smells fresh and clean.
Have we made it? Is this the way out?
I scramble to catch up to Bishop. He’s grunting, forcing his way past another tangle. He wants through so badly he’s willing to pay for it in pain, in blood.
And I wonder: is blood the true cost of all things?
He crawls free and stands. I speed up, unable to control myself, feeling the cold dirt scrape against my belly and thighs. I try to rise too early and am rewarded with a small, jagged branch digging deep into my shoulder.
“Ow, ow!”
“Hold still for a second,” Bishop says. He snaps the branch off the thicket, then gently pulls the bit of wood out of my skin.
“Are you okay?”