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Now
Seconds tickpast and I’m stood rooted to the spot. Try as I might, I can’t get my feet to move. I don’t know where to send them. There is no signal that my brain can send my feet and an empty static fills my body.
Think, Amber.
Think, Amber.
Think, Amber.
Crouching onto the floor and placing a balancing hand on the mud, I try to focus my thoughts. If I was almost ten and pissed off, what would I do? If I were almost ten, pissed off, and a boy, what would I do?
I skim through the last few months of being home, flicking through my mental roster of memories. Isaac playing with the cars, laughing with Freddy, playing his computer games.Come on, Amber. THINK.Isaac and Bailey hiding in the treehouse, Isaac asking Freddy if he can build him one.
If I were almost ten, pissed off, a boy, and wanting to hide, I’d go up.
He’s going to be up.
That’s it. It’s all I need to get moving again. I’ve probably only been still for a matter of seconds, but it feels like my world has been spinning in slow motion while I searched for a clue.
Back on my feet, I start my search slower, all the time keeping my eyes focused on the bare branches of the trees. I trip over endless grasping roots as I search the desolate skyline for the flash of a blue jacket.
“Isaac,” I call softly. "Just come down and we can talk, just you and me, the way it’s always been."
Silence.
I keep calling, letting him know that I’m not giving up, that I’m not leaving these woods without him. A quick glance around me tells me that I probably wouldn’t be able to get out of here without help anyway. I have no idea where I am. I reach for my phone in my back pocket. I should probably tell someone where we are so we can both get rescued.
Shit.
No phone, no rescue, no Isaac. Just darkening woods, a million unsaid words and a lifetime of mistakes and bad choices.
“Isaac,” I shout again, my tone far more urgent. "Isaac, this is serious now. I know you’re cross, but we can sort this out. I’ll tell you everything, anything you want to know, just come down. Please." I’m pleading now, begging. It’s February, and darkness looks like it’s going to fall in a matter of minutes and no one knows where the hell we are.
“How can I know you will?” shouts a small voice. Isaac sounds unsure and scared, but the rise of a challenge is still there.
My heart thuds loudly in my chest as I search for the direction of his voice. If my heart would just shut the fuck up, it would be far easier.
“Isaac?” I try to erase the urgency from my tone, so I don’t push him further away. “I’ll tell you all about Freddy. I’ll explain everything, but I can’t shout it into the trees. You need to come down. Then we can get home, warm up and sort this all out. Isaac, Freddy’s going to be worried sick when he can’t find us.”
Panic washes over me again and I think I may add my sick to the sticky mud at my feet.
“He’ll be worried about you, not me,” he shouts back. He sounds quite far off, and very, very high. A nervous tremor twitches my hands, jerking my fingers this way and that.
“That’s not true. He loves you and if you would just let me explain, this would all start to make sense. You’d know how much he wants you."
“Wants me?”
“Yes, Isaac, wants you. It’s not just me that Freddy wants around, I promise."
I feel like I’m getting somewhere. He’s going to come down and we are going to get this sorted.
“Is Freddy Bale my dad?”
A flash of frustration hits me. I’m being dominated by a not quite ten-year-old. “Come down and I’ll tell you. I’m not shouting it out.”
A loud snap of a branch makes me jump as it reverberates around the empty woods. I run in what I hope to God is the right direction as Isaac starts to scream my name. His voice makes my blood run cold and a sweat breaks along my skin when I recognise that he’s in pain.
