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They taught us how to build shelters, which was the fun part. We made them with one big branch propped up against a log or a rock like a spine, then we laid smaller branches and evergreen boughs across like ribs. The branches and needles layered over each other to keep rain out, and then we filled the shelters with dead leaves and stuff from the forest floor, which they said would keep us warm.
I laugh, choking laughs halfway to sobbing. I’ve had weeks with my dad, the king of the wilderness, and I was so busy being angry that I didn’t listen to a thing he said. Instead I’m remembering some stupid field day with a bunch of suburban kids who’d never spent a night out in the open in their lives.
The grief almost finds me, teeth and claws at my throat. I make a strangled sound as I remember—the terror, the sound of it, the way that second stretched out and out and out and then snapped back into an instant that was too short, too fast to do anything about.
My dad is dead.
However much it burns, I can’t escape that knowledge.
I didn’t know him. I didn’t like him. But he was my dad, and I loved him.
I don’t know how to live without him. Literally. When Mom died it was like the grief squeezed everything out of me, breath and blood and feeling. I didn’t know how I would live, then, but I knew that I would.
The grief is different now. Not as bad, maybe. But the living part is so much worse. I don’t know how to survive out here. I don’t know if I can.
“That’s enough,” I snap. “That’s enough. We are not doing this again.”
I spent two weeks refusing to do physical therapy after the accident. Refusing to talk to anyone. Refusing to move out of bed except to drag myself, crying and swearing, to the bathroom.
If I do that now, I’m going to die. I’ve lived too long where it’s hard to die. I don’t know how to be properly afraid yet. I don’t know how to tell the difference between one kind of fear and the next. The fear that makes you fast. The fear that makes you wary, lets you hear a twig snapping like it’s a gunshot. The fear that makes you freeze. The fear that paralyzes you, and the fear that keeps you alive.
I’m going to die, I force myself to think, and then I say it out loud, shout it, because I need to believe it down in my gut or I’m never going to be able to move.
“I AM GOING TO DIE,” I scream across the lake. The words tear from me and leave my throat raw.
Bo barks, backing away from me, then spinning to face whatever threat I’m screaming at. My hands shake. I press my palms against my eyes, shivering.
Bo quiets down, creeps up toward me with his head low and his tail wagging tentatively. I grab him around the neck, pull him close. His fur is wet and the smell of him is strong and musky, but I don’t care. I bury my face in his ruff. He huffs against my shoulder. The rain gets stronger, drumming against the hood of my rain shell until I want to tear it off and let myself get soaked just to get a little silence. I shut my eyes.
“I’m going to die,” I whisper. “I’m going to die.” I’m stuck on it. Unless, I force myself to add. There are a hundred, a thousand things that come after that word, but I focus on one.
“I’m going to die unless I find shelter,” I tell Bo. “Shelter first.” Something to keep the rain off me, to keep the cold out. Something that can fit me and Bo and even a fire, which means it has to be more impressive than the little hutches we made in school. I can make a lean-to, I think, if only I have something to lean it against.
I had weeks with my dad, walking out in the woods. It all blurs together now into brown and green; I couldn’t even keep track of which way the lake was, once we were in the thick of the trees. But I remember a boulder. Dropped here by some long-gone glacier, it leaned a bit, like it was drunk. The ground under it had been dry. Safe from the rain.
If only I can remember where it is.
We were checking the traps my dad set nearby. He said it was a bad spot and picked them up to set somewhere else later. He looked up at me, grinned.
“You’ve got dirt on your cheek,” he said. I went to wipe it clean. He shook his head. “Makes you look like a proper wild girl.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s going to take more than a little dirt.” I scrubbed at my cheek with my sleeve until the skin stung. He reached over, his hands all mucked up from working in the dirt, and tapped my nose.
“It’s a start,”he said. I grabbed my nose defensively. He just laughed, and I almost laughed, too. Almost. Managed to keep glaring, but only just. Had to stomp away to keep from looking like it’d been funny. That’s when I saw the boulder, and the sun was low between the trees.
What direction? Where did we go from there?
I keep my eyes closed until I think I know, drawing a mental line from the lake to the rock.
The pill is kicking in, so I’ll have to be careful. The pills make it so it doesn’t hurt when it should, and that’s when you injure yourself. I know my injuries are going to be my biggest problem. It would be hard enough for a whole, healthy person to survive. I’m hurt. I have to survive and let my body knit up.
Which means walking as little as possible today. Which means that I have to get this right on the first try, or I’ll add a bunch of wandering around I can’t afford.
“I’ve got it,” I tell Bo. I don’t sound convincing. I let go of him slowly. He sits down, watching me. Waiting for instructions.
I look at what I have with me. Backpack, duffel bag, rifle, bow, hatchet, arrows.
I reach for the duffel, stop. I shouldn’t carry everything at once, not as hurt as I am. I have to prioritize. I grab a handful of clothes from the duffel along with the bottle of pills and stuff them into the backpack. I grab the hatchet and the rifle, leave the bow and arrows in the duffel. It’s not like there’s anyone out here to take them.
I get to my feet, stop. My first task should be the simplest thing in the world. Walk to the rock. And if I was whole, if I was healthy, maybe it would be simple.
But I’m not. Haven’t been for a long time. After the accident, I couldn’t walk for weeks. And now—my foot drags. My leg seizes up. Now I’m not supposed to walk on uneven ground. I’m not supposed to run or strain myself.
I look around, as if a sidewalk will manifest itself in the wilderness. I snort. Will said it would take me another year at least before things start feeling normal, before I don’t have to take every step carefully. I shouldn’t have run yesterday, throwing myself carelessly through the trees, tripping on roots. I shouldn’t be walking now. But I don’t have a choice.
“Come on, Bo,” I say. “Let’s go.”
