In a moment, she had the mesh bag full of Cal’s socks, and she was crossing the creek. The trees seemed to step aside, to let her into the darkness. After you, they whispered. She walked farther, in a direction she’d never gone. But there was a path here, slightly overgrown, and she saw the track marks of August’s carriage. She knew he carried a scythe to cut away brush as he traveled; it was as if he had cleared the way for her.
She draped a single sock on the branch of a tree. The fabric was gray and thin, and it had once belonged to Bo. Now it was a crumb that would lead her back. Hilda and Dada and Micah would be a fairy tale to her baby, but for Frida, this world here, the afterlife, was the fairy tale. If she wasn’t careful, Frida would be eaten by a witch at the end of her journey.
In a few moments, August’s tracks led to a narrow trail, thick redwoods on either side. Frida paused, hands clenching the bag of socks. She sighed. “I’m not afraid,” she said again, as if to remind herself. She placed a red sock on a branch and kept walking.
Every few minutes or so, she left a piece of clothing for herself to find on her way back. And she would find her way back. The longer she walked, the more her chest tightened. She’d felt like this before, driving lost in L.A., her Navigator and her Device dead. She’d pass through a rough neighborhood hoping to find something familiar so she could breathe again, blink again, though, by the end, every neighborhood that wasn’t a Community was rough. She was alert in that same way now. She had to pay attention, or she might get turned around, never find the thread of the route. The clothing wouldn’t be any help if she headed in the wrong direction. She had created a system: colored clothes meant turn right, black and white ones meant turn left, and gray, head straight. She kept her eyes on landmarks: The tiny stream. The vines choking a thick trunk. A lone crocus.
After she had walked for about an hour, she saw something white up ahead. She quickened her pace, even as she wanted to turn around.
It was a bathtub, with claw feet like a beast’s. The inside was rusted out and filled with brown rainwater, green algae floating on its surface. Something jagged snagged Frida’s throat, and she swallowed it down. Here was evidence of other people. A person had abandoned this here.
What was she doing? She had to pee, and she only had two pairs of socks left. If Cal came to find her at the creek, maybe to talk, he would worry. And then, later, he’d be so angry. She had to turn around before she came upon other objects. Before someone stepped in her path with a weapon.
But first, she hiked up her dress and squatted next to the tub. She pulled down her leggings and peed. There was an atavistic relief to this, and her eyes watered from the pleasure. The end of the world couldn’t take this tiny joy away from her. She was a dog, marking her territory.
Frida was here.
As she stood, pulling up her leggings, her dress falling back to her ankles, a sound caught her attention. Something like a crunch, like someone stepping on fallen leaves. She froze, that jagged thing rising in her throat once more. “Hello?” she whispered.
No answer.
Relax, she told herself, it’s nothing. Couldn’t be. But still, she thought she felt a presence not far from where she stood. Something, someone, was watching her, its breath shaping the molecules between them. She was breathing in that same air.
She stepped away from the bathtub. She would hurry back to the creek and then return to Cal. Nothing had happened; she was safe.
From behind a tree, another crunch. The sound came from her left, and she turned.
A coyote. It was standing there, watching her. It didn’t look like the starving ones that used to skulk around L.A., desperate for a cat to eat, some garbage scraps. This one was well fed, big, with coarse brownish-gray fur that looked prickly to the touch. If Frida didn’t know any better, she might think she’d run into a strange dog, tall and eerie eyed. It was so still.
A bird cawed above them.
Frida couldn’t remember what she was supposed to do. Yell at it to go away, or step back quietly, or run like mad. This animal wasn’t huge, but it could hurt her.
The coyote let out a rasping sound, its eyes arrowed into her, and Frida noticed an animal at its haunches. Something dead and small, a rabbit maybe.
“I don’t want it,” Frida whispered. She already had a hand on her stomach; already she needed to keep her child away from this. She could feel the fear growing on her like a skin, a mold. She could smell it.
The coyote pawed at its meat, rasped again. The dead thing had been torn down the middle and flattened like roadkill, limp and bloodied.
The coyote turned back to her, and Frida read its body, saw that it would pounce if she didn’t get away. Above them the bird cawed once more.
Frida turned and ran.
On her way out of the forest, away, away, away, she grabbed every piece of clothing she saw, held them in her arms as if they could protect her.
*
“You look like a burglar,” Cal said as she approached the house with the wet bag of laundry on her back.