“That’s a good girl,” she said. “It won’t be easy, but you have to believe. And you have to fight. Okay?”
This time, I knew better than to open my mouth to answer. Besides, it no longer mattered, because that ghost, that globule, that memory of her—whatever it was—had vanished into that murky green water. At the same time, Franky made her greatest effort yet. She lifted my head by the hair. And when I was delivered back into that world of air and fallen leaves and the gray autumn sky growing dim above, my free hand scrambled along the cement floor until I found what I needed. Before she could send me down a final time, I squirmed around until I was on my back, pinned beneath her. And then I used my free hand to bring a rock against the side of her head.
Once. Twice. A third and fourth time, until I saw blood. After that, her body went slack and she fell to one side of me.
For a moment, after I let the rock drop, I lay there catching my breath. As soon as I could manage, I forced myself out from under her. I stood, wet and bloodied, and looked down at Franky. Her back rose and fell with each breath, but otherwise she was motionless.
I walked away from her and began the climb up those crumbling stairs. At the top, I stared back at my house. All those NO TRESPASSING! signs my father had nailed to the birch trees, which had done nothing to keep danger away. My sister was still inside, and though I thought to go and help her, I chose the path instead. Dripping and muddy and shirtless, I stumbled along the twisted trail to the field, where I stood so many mornings and afternoons. Over that barbed fence I climbed, careful not to do any more damage to myself. I walked across the trampled grass, where those turkeys had been for so long, most of them gone now. I kept going until I reached the doors of the barn.
“Dereck!” I called, knocking and knocking. “Dereck!”
When no answer came, I slid the doors open. A man who was not Dereck stood on the other side, wearing headphones and chopping meat on a wooden block. He had gray hair and a kind face. He looked the way I imagined my mother’s father to have looked. When he saw me, he yanked the headphones from his ears and came to me. “What happened to you, young lady?”
“I’m here for Dereck,” I told him.
The man removed his white smock and draped it over my shoulders. He led me through a maze of shelves and bins and small cages to a back room, where the air was chilled. He told me to wait a few seconds. And it really did seem like just a few seconds before Dereck appeared, covered in blood too.
He took one look at me, then went to a locker across the room and pulled out his battered barn jacket. Like that day I had jumped from my sister’s truck, he offered it to me, this time slipping it over my arms and zipping up the front. As he did, I began to cry, the tears warm against my skin. Dereck put his arms around me. “What happened?” he asked and asked again, though I could not force the answer from my mouth. Not right away. Not for some time to come. And still he kept repeating that question, “What happened? What happened? What happened?”
But the words would not come. All I could do was take his ruined hand in mine and lead him away from the farm, back across that trampled field, back over the barbed-wire fence, along that twisted path in the woods toward home.
Chapter 22
Faraway Places