Page 140 of Mazywood

“How did you get in here?”

“It brought me here.”

Mom sobbed, which sounded worse in triple stereo. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Imani said. “Are you?”

Their words collided. Imani thought she had missed her mother’s delayed answer.

“Not too bad,” Mom said finally.

Mom was such a terrible liar; she might be hurt badly. For the first time since she’d heard her mother’s voice, worry stabbed Imani again. “Did it bite you?”

“No,” Mom said. “You?”

“No,” Imani said.

The miracle was so great that they sat in reverence of it for a moment. Imani couldn’t believe it was a coincidence. All those ferocious teeth and piles of bones—but the Beast had never tried to eat them? Not one bite?

Imani was sure that their voices were getting closer; their real voices, not their weird tunnel voices. She had almost felt Mom’s voice bouncing off the wall beside her, where the cavern forked right. The walls swallowed sound as the cavern narrowed, stripping away the echoes. Without the echoes, it was easier to hear the direction.

“Keep talking, Mom,” Imani said. “Where are you hurt?”

“My foot. I kicked out… while it was dragging me.”

They must be close to each other. Mom sounded like she was right in front of her. Dim light glowed from around another corner ahead. Imani laid down a third glow stick.

“The baby’s okay?”

Mom half laughed, half sobbed. “The baby is fine.”

The magic words. As Imani rounded the corner with her powerful flashlight, she came to a dead-end chamber that looked like a real room compared to the rest of the cavern. No bones were in sight anywhere, just a huge bed of gathered twigs that looked oddly neat, woven with clothing, crumpled papers, and clumps of white fur. The space smelled musty, like the Beast.

In the very rear, something green sparkled in her light from a shadow—and it was Mom! She was wrapped in some kind of fancy green gown over her red robe like a shawl. Mom stood in the shadows at the back of the nook, her face illuminated in her cell phone’s light. The light was unsteady, trembling in her hands.

“Imani!” Mom gasped out her name.

“Mommy!” Imani hadn’t called her mother Mommy, at least consciously, since she was nine or ten years old, when her classmate Emily said she sounded like a baby—until today.

Imani climbed over the heap of twigs, cracking them beneath her boots’ soles as she ran toward her mother. “I knew you weren’t dead,” she heard herself repeating. “I knew it! I knew you were alive. I could hear your voice in my head.”

Imani half expected her mother to explain how she had sent telepathic messages to her, revealing a gift neither of them had realized she possessed. Instead, Mom only said, “Shhhhh.” Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. She looked so terrified that Imani looked over her shoulder to see if the Beast was right behind her. But the passageway was clear. “Come here, baby. Quick. Before it comes back.”

When Imani felt her mother’s arms wrap around her, her embrace was like slipping into a dream. The sobs Imani had blocked most of the day churned from her throat and chest. For the first time, she fully revisited the horror of seeing Mom yanked out of the car as they drove away from the lodge on that cursed road, her old life whiffing out. And then the next horror, somehow worse: hearing Mom’s shrieks from the tree, believing the Beast was eating her.

They shook against each other, needing the stony wall to support them.

Mom stroked Imani’s head and kissed her forehead. “Shhhhh,” she said. “I’m here.”

Mom lost her balance beneath Imani’s weight, and they both tumbled off their feet down into the twigs. Mom hissed with pain, but she never let go of Imani.

“My foot,” Mom whispered, not a complaint. A reminder.

“Let me see,” Imani said, moving her flashlight toward her mother’s feet. Mom was wearing one pink sneaker, but her other foot was wrapped in a filthy fabric. Imani started to pull at the knot holding the—old sweater?—in place, but Mom yanked her foot away.

“No,” she said. “Leave it.”

“Mom, I have a kit with alcohol and bandages.”