“Yes.”
Do they sound scared?
“Listen to me. We’re going somewhere neither of you has ever been. We’re going farther from the house than you’ve gone before. There are things out there that will hurt you, that will hurt Mommy, if you do not listen to me, now, this morning.”
The children are silent.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Malorie has trained them well.
“All right,” she says, her voice revealing a hint of hysteria. “We’re going. We’re going right now. We’re going.”
She presses their heads against her forehead.
Then she takes each child by the hand. They cross the house quickly. In the kitchen, Malorie, trembling, wipes her eyes and pulls her own blindfold from her pocket. She ties it tight around her head and dark long hair. She pauses, her hand on the doorknob, the door that opens to the path she has taken for countless buckets of water.
She is about to leave the house behind. The reality of this moment overwhelms her.
When she opens the door, the cool air rushes in and Malorie steps forward, her mind’s eye blurry with terror and scenarios too ghastly to speak of in front of the children. She stammers as she speaks, nearly yelling as she does.
“Hold my hands. Both of you.”
The Boy takes Malorie’s left hand. The Girl slips her tiny fingers into her right.
Blindfolded, they step from the house.
The well is twenty yards away. Small pieces of wood, once part of picture frames, outline the path, placed there for direction. Both children have touched the wood with the tip of their shoes countless times. Malorie once told them that the water in the well was the only medicine they’d ever need. Because of this, Malorie knows, the children have always respected the well. They never complained about fetching water with her.
At the well now, the ground is bumpy beneath their feet. It feels unnatural, soft.
“Here’s the clearing,” Malorie calls.
She leads the children carefully. A second path begins ten yards from the well. The entrance to this path is narrow, and it splits the woods. The river is less than a hundred yards from here. At the woods, Malorie momentarily lets go of the children’s hands so she can feel for the scant entry.
“Hold on to my coat!”
She feels along the branches until she finds a tank top, tied to a tree at the path’s entrance. She tied it here herself more than three years ago.
The Boy grabs hold of her pocket and she senses the Girl take hold of his. Malorie calls to them as she walks, constantly asking them if they are holding on to one another. Tree branches poke her in the face. She does not cry out.
Soon, they arrive at the marker Malorie has stuck in the dirt. The splintered leg of a kitchen chair, stuck in the center of the path, there for her to trip on, to stumble over, to recognize.
She discovered the rowboat four years ago, docked only five houses from their own. It has been more than a month since she last checked on it, but she believes it is still there. Still, it’s difficult not to imagine the worst. What if someone else got to it first? Another woman, not unlike herself, living five houses in the other direction, using every day of four years to gather enough courage to flee. A woman who once stumbled down this same slippery bank and felt the same point of salvation, the pointed steel tip of the rowboat.
The air nips at the scratches on Malorie’s face. The children do not complain.
This is not childhood, Malorie thinks, leading them toward the river.
Then she hears it. Before reaching the dock, she hears the rowboat rocking in the water. She stops and checks the children’s blindfolds, tightening both. She leads them onto the wood planks.
Yes, she thinks, it’s still here. Just like the cars are still parked in the street outside their house. Just like the homes on the street are still empty.
It is colder, out of the woods, away from the house. The sound of the water is as frightening as it is exhilarating. Kneeling where she believes the boat must be, she lets go of the children’s hands and feels for the steel tip. Her fingertips find the rope that holds it first.
“Boy,” she says, pulling the ice-cold tip of the boat toward the dock. “In the front. Get in the front.” She helps him. Once he is steady, she holds his face in both her hands and says once again, “Listen. Beyond the water. Listen.”
She tells the Girl to stay on the dock as she blindly unties the rope before carefully climbing onto the middle bench. Still half-standing, she helps the Girl aboard. The boat rocks once violently and Malorie grips the Girl’s hand too tight. The Girl does not cry out.
There are leaves, sticks, and water in the bottom of the boat. Malorie sifts through them to find the paddles she has stowed on the boat’s right side. The paddles are cold. Damp. They smell of mildew. She sets them into the steel grooves. They feel strong, sturdy as she uses one to push off from the dock. And then . . .