“Yeah!” Charlie punched the air and rushed off to locate the other end of the wire, which they fixed back into place across the entrance to the camp. I pulled up to a sitting position, ignoring my newly skinned knees, which were a drop in the ocean of my soreness.
“We’ve secured the camp,” Charlie explained as both boys carried on bustling about, “and Peter’s standing sentry by the gate. If he whistles, I pull the wire up over there. Didn’t realize it was you, though. Peter’s going to stand here all night, even when it’s dark, because he’s not scared of the dark. But I’m scared of the dark, so I’m over there in the camp doing the wire. Why have you got no trousers on, Mum? Where’s Billy?”
“He isn’t here?” I asked.
Charlie didn’t reply, so we both had our answer.
I got to my feet. Charlie was still bustling. I went over to him, crouched down on my heels, and hugged him from behind. He froze for a few seconds and then turned and folded into me. “I’m sorry I lost Billy,” I said into his hair. “I’m going to get the map now and work out where he is and then find him.”
“Can we help, Mum? Please. We want to help.”
“It looks like you are helping,” I said, getting up to inspect the trip wire. “This is brilliant.”
“Peter’s idea.”
“Good work, Peter. You two are my knights, defending the fort.” I limped up the slope to the tents, where Maggie was sitting, scratching a picture into a big round of bark with a piece of charcoal. She was telling a story to the Lost Boy. I went over and stroked her hair, but she shushed me before I could interrupt her. I sat and listened for a minute or two, watching the Lost Boy’s rapt eyes move over the bark picture.
Charlie was still behind me, gnawing away at a hangnail on his thumb. The dusk seemed to rush us like a riptide, soaking the camp in darkness. I wondered why Joni didn’t have the fire going.
“Where’s Joni?” I asked.
“That’s the thing,” said Charlie. “Lola’s gone, too.”
Chapter Ten
Rotten Wood. Henchman’s Coppice. Ashes Hollow. Torchlight across the map revealed the nature of our surroundings. As I ran my fingers over its ominous terrain, I counted up my mistakes so far. There were plenty. “Burn-the-witch, burn-the-witch,” I heard in the groan of the trees. I kicked out at a log and watched the writhing underworld revealed.
My body ached when I sat still. I strode around the campfire, just to burn off some of the black acid inside me. It was building up in my stomach again, and whenever I felt Billy—the absence of him—it rose up my gorge, threatening to choke me. His name rang through my head like an alarm: I couldn’t switch it off, and it wouldn’t let me think of anything else. My mind filled the space where Billy should be with all the horrific fates that had befallen him. I walked in circles until my leg throbbed, and then I lay down and contorted into positions where I might get comfortable, but there was no relief, so I walked again.
Joni still wasn’t back. For the umpteenth time, I followed the path to the edge of the forest, hoping she would be driving down the dirt track, ideally with Lola and Billy on board. Or at least ready to let me go out searching again. For the umpteenth time, I looked back at the tents and bit my lip over whether to leave the sleeping kids alone and go hunting for Billy. I didn’t trust myself to make the right choice. There was no right choice.
The forest was going about its usual night business, indifferent to our petty human concerns over individual lives. The trees gossiped in their rustling, old-hag voices. “Welcome to our world,” they were saying. There are no simple choices for us. Mother Nature can’t afford favorites.
I picked up a stone and threw it into the branches. It disappeared without a sound into the black velvet. I grabbed another one and lobbed it as far into the trees as I could, throwing my whole weight behind it and grunting with the effort. I picked up a handful of stones and threw one at a time to punctuate my words: “Callous. Judgmental. Supercilious. Fucking. Bitch.” The last handful of gravel pattered onto the undergrowth with the sound of water on a duck’s back. I was still standing there, panting and glaring, when a light arced over the trees. Horatio gave a warning gruff and appeared by my side. A few seconds later I heard a car bumping down the dirt track.
I was tempted to slap her across the cheek. “Calm yourself, Jonelle,” I would say, using her trashy real name. “Pull yourself together.” I didn’t slap her, though. I waited while she snotted on her sleeve, and I focused on the black pit in my stomach, which had started to plop and gurgle. I waited while the heat crept down my arms to my fingertips. Finally, it seethed up and flooded over me, and I jumped on board and rode the wave.
“My son”—I started with a pointed finger right in her face and a jumpy voice—“is three years old, and he’s out there somewhere, and you fuck off for hours so I can’t go after him and—”
“I’ve been out there. Looking. For them both,” she whined. “Lola’s missing, too.”
“It’s hardly the same. Billy’s three—three!”
“I thought I would find them.”
“And did you? Did you find them?”
She shook her head, still crying.
“Or did you just dick about wasting more time? Billy could be dying—”
Joni drew in a long shuddering breath and wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. She sagged for a moment and then looked up at me. “You left him behind to make a point. This is on you, Marlene.”
The trees rustled.
When I didn’t reply, Joni heaved herself to her feet. “I thought she would be here when I got back. I was sure.”
“She’s not here,” I managed.
“I’ve looked everywhere. What am I going to tell David? I wish he was here.” Joni drove both hands through her hair and wrenched her head back. “I’ve lost both of them.” Her face clenched as a scream got trapped behind her teeth.
I’d felt the same draining of hope, the same free fall into the void it leaves behind. But my hollow insides echoed now with a clanging urge to fight. The din was too great to find words for Joni. The only word in me was Billy.
Joni barely noticed my hand on her back, pushing her toward the yurt, into bed. Rest. She hardly heard me promise that I’d find them, whatever it took, both of them. I ushered Horatio into the boot of the car and raced off up the dirt track to find my boy.