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She saw the laminate floor of her dorm room, heard herself whimper. Could feel the shame of her body melting, every bit of her mind evaporating into fear.
You can’t live through that again, failing like that. You’ve thought it all out, you know what to do. The only thing that will doom you is hesitation.
And it’s not really about you.
She felt her ten-year-old dread. Heard her ten-year-old voice.Why won’t you let me go? Do you want to eat me so?
This is no game. This is for all that matters. All right. All right.
She tried to keep her voice from shaking.
“The attic is big,” she said. “It will take him a little time to look once he finds it.”
She paused, pulled the children to her body tight in a rough and awkward hug. They were so perfect, their skin, their smell, their hair and stale breath.
“Where do we go,” she asked, “if there’s a fire? If we smell smoke?”
“Outside to the big rock.”
“Very good! If you see fire, smell or see smoke, you need to get out the secret door. You need to go to the old front doors. Remember how I showed you the latch works? That little bar you have to lift?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“I’ll make sure the bolt is unlocked, so if you smell smoke, if you see fire, all you need to do is lift that latch. You close those doors behind you, you try to get to the rock. If it’s too cold, you hide under the bushes by the fence. It’s not so far, and there shouldn’t be so much snow there. You know where I mean? You cuddle close to each other. You take the blanket with you.”
“But you’ll take us?”
“No. I have to—I have to leave. Now.”
“No, no!”
They clung to her, crying. She realized that they seemed so loud to her, but that their sounds, every sound they made, was suppressed, as though their fear unconsciously muffled their voices.
“You have to be brave. So does Mama. I’m going to go get help, okay? Or else the Corner—the man’s—going to hurt us. You have to close the secret door behind me. You stay quiet. You stay out of the light, and stay together. Warm as you can. Only if there’s smoke, fire, do you come out.”
“No, Mama, we can go with you!”
Their despair hurt somewhere deep in her jaw. She could feel them starting to disintegrate.
“You can’t come. It’s too cold. There’s too much snow. He’d catch us.”
WHAM!
They all went silent at the noise.
“That’s the attic door.” Her breathing came faster now. “He’s found it. I have to go. He won’t hear me leaving while he’s in the attic.”
“Mama, no! No. Please!”
There was a live-wire force moving her that she recognized as the will to live. To make sure the children lived. Again she saw herself from the outside, wondered,How are you this awake? Have you ever been this awake?
“Now. I have to gonow.”
She crawled toward the panel on hands and knees, able to see where she was going this time with the light scattered from above. The children held her, followed her, grabbing and quietly keening.
She sat and faced her children with her back against the panel. They were streaked with dirt. She stared at them, their beauty, their wide, dark eyes, thickets of lashes. She swiped to softly brush hair from one face, then the other. Their hands were everywhere, trying to trap her there. She leaned toward them, kissed cheeks, noses, eyelids, fast and desperate. Hungry for every new memory. But panicking.
You don’t have time for this!
