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We traipsed through the woods for hours. The thick undergrowth scratched up my arms and legs, but I kept the blanket pulled tight around the baby, shielding her from being injured. My stomach growled. We’d found a creek with fresh water and had followed it until it disappeared through trees and shrubs too thick for us to continue. But as day turned into night again, I knew we couldn’t keep doing this. Something had to change. The baby was sleeping too much. She couldn’t survive on just water, and neither could we. We needed food.
Georgia sat down heavily on a log as the sun dipped low in the sky. “This is hopeless. We’ve been wandering around here for hours. Look at that.” She pointed to a gnarled tree that bent hard to the left. “We’ve definitely already been past this. We’re walking in circles.”
I’d known it for the past fifteen minutes but had been too scared to say anything. Spirits were already at rock bottom.
Nova shoved her hands onto her hips and cocked her head. “Shit. You’re right.” She sat next to Georgia, her head drooping.
That wasn’t good. Nova was the one who had kept us going. She’d refused to let us give up, determined to get us into town and find us a way out of this place. She’d filled our walking hours with chatter about going home, seeing friends and family, and never thinking about the past few horrific months again.
Like it would be that easy to forget.
If we ever got out of here, I’d spend the rest of my life in therapy, I was sure.
But better a lifetime of therapy than a lifetime in that house with those men. I grabbed Nova’s arm. “Come on. Get up. We aren’t stopping here.”
She shook me off. “What’s the point? We’re lost in the middle of the woods. We need to make some sort of camp before it gets dark.”
My shoulders slumped. She was right. But I couldn’t fathom the thought of sleeping on the cold, hard ground for another night.
I pushed the baby at Georgia. “Here. Take her. I’m going to go search for firewood.”
“We have no matches.” Georgia sounded completely exhausted.
I knew. But I had to try. I couldn’t just give up.
I left the others staring into space and looked around, getting my bearings. We’d definitely passed that gnarled tree. I could see the path we’d taken, our footsteps flattening the grass. I picked a different route, turning to my left instead. Maybe there’d be another creek, though that seemed doubtful since I couldn’t hear any water. But at least it would make starting again in the morning easier if I knew there was a way through in this direction.
My legs ached, but I dragged myself on, picking up sticks and twigs dry enough to catch alight. “The dryer, the better,” I murmured to myself, pushing up a hill, despite the threatening exhaustion. “If I’m rubbing two sticks together, they’re going to need to be as dry as the Sahara.”
It would be a miracle if I could get a fire going, but the thought of warmth kept me trudging up that hill, collecting more and more twigs along the way until my arms were full.
The hill flattened out, and I gazed down into the valley on the other side.
The sticks all fell from my arms.
“There’s a house,” I whispered. I took a few steps toward it, expecting it to disappear into a shimmering mist at any moment, because surely, I was hallucinating.
But it didn’t.
“Oh my God, there’s a house!” I wanted to roll down the hill like I had when I was a kid, tumbling over and over again, getting dizzy and grinning from ear to ear. It would have been a terrible idea now, not only because I’d probably puke but because this wasn’t exactly a lush, green grass hill like they had at parks. I’d get about twenty feet before I wrapped myself around a tree.
Footsteps came from behind me, and I spun around, my smile beaming at the others who struggled up the hill. I was sure none of them quite believed me. Hell, I had been talking to myself just before, so their skepticism probably wasn’t unwarranted.
But when they got to the top there were hugs and tears and excited chatter all around. Even though it was nearly dark, there was no talk of staying out here another night. I didn’t care if I broke my damn ankle walking down there as the light disappeared, I was sleeping in that cabin tonight.
Maybe there’d be a phone. I could call my sister.
Tears welled in the backs of my eyes at the thought of hearing a familiar voice after so long.
The other women’s smiles returned as we hiked to our safe haven. Georgia talked about all the things we were going to find in that cabin. If her manifesting came true, we’d be eating caviar and champagne in no time.
I would eat anything in the cupboards. Literally anything. I only prayed there’d be something we could give to the little one, because she needed it the most.
It wasn’t smart, I knew, but I didn’t have the heart to tell the other girls not to rush straight out of the woods and up the cabin’s porch steps. The building was dark. The odds of anyone being inside it seemed small.
Nova was the first to reach the dirty windows. “No one inside.” She tried the handle, but it didn’t give. “Surely there’s a key here somewhere…”
She ran her fingers along the doorframe, while the rest of us searched the garden for one of those fake rocks that hid keys in the bottom.
