All through the day, we trudge on. There’s no sign of the fork in the road again. For all I know, I could be walking in circles. Before long, I’m heading downward into some sort of valley and I wonder if it’s the same place I was a few days ago and grow even more disheartened. But when I round a thicket of gorse, I see, right in front of me, houses.
24
Shacks more than houses. Five of the ancient windowless, rough-sawn shacks sit on flat land no more than half the length of a football field. Nearby there’s a crumbling chapel, its fishbone ribs exposed to the elements, a large barn, and a small single-story building with a hitching post out front.
It’s clear no one has lived here for decades, if not a century. Lime-green moss blooms across the low-lying parts of the wooden structures, which are blackened and crumbling with age. The space in between is thick and tangled with undergrowth as nature tries to reclaim her land.
The wolf passes me and heads for the waterwheel, which sits motionless in a dry pit that was probably once a reservoir. I approach one of the shacks and push open the door. Single room with a fireplace. Two shelves in the kitchen area. Empty glass jars litter the wooden floorboards. A sapling grows out of a hole in the wall.
I look through the other dwellings. They are almost identical, apart from the odd idiosyncrasy like a badly sloping floor or too low ceiling pitch. Nothing of much use inside. A straw broom. More empty jars. Horseshoes. A wilting, leather-bound Bible.
I cross the street and enter the small building with the hitching post. The walls are lined with empty shelves, and on a wooden desk near the entrance there’s an abacus with mahogany beads, and next to that, a ledger. I open it. Neat looping penmanship is blurred and stained with mold.
I go next door to the barn. The first thing I notice hanging from the beams is a pulley system with rusty chains and three giant steel hooks. On the floor, half-hidden in weeds, there’s a long double-handled saw, a workbench flipped on its head, a steel pan, and what could be a small pedal-powered band saw.
The entire left side of the barn is gone, which means it’s possible to see right through to the chapel next door where the wolf is snuffling through the leaves.
I step through the barn wall into the chapel. Sagging floorboards groan underfoot. The wolf looks over his shoulder at me, his jaw working back and forth, then returns to foraging. Bird droppings are everywhere, calcified on the floor, stuck in hardened drips down the walls. There are nests in the rafters.
The wolf finishes whatever he’s doing and disappears outside, and I approach the corner where he was. Among the leaves are scraps of blue eggshells still moist with yolk. Saliva pools in my mouth. Real food. Protein.
Pulling a pew close, I step up and reach into a nest and find three small eggs. I fight the urge to crack them open and suck out their contents. Instead I fold them up in the corner of the tarp, and leave through the front entrance where the door is off its hinges. I circle around the chapel in case I’ve missed anything else. But that seems to be the sum of it.
Light is falling. I need to collect firewood before it gets too dark. In the bramble-ridden area surrounding the buildings, I find a good stock of fallen branches and pinecones, and spy a large lump of sawn timber half hidden in the weeds. I reach to grab it then pull back when I see the tiny white flower. Deadly nightshade. But when I look again, I am thinking the tiny bloom could belong to a potato vine. I probe the earth gently. The ground is soft and moist and comes away easily in my hands. I don’t have to dig far to find eight misshapen red-skinned potatoes.
It’s too risky to set the fire near the wooden buildings, so I form a small circle of stones in the reservoir pit and fill the ring with wood and light it. I smash a glass jar, take a thick shard, cut up a potato, put the chunks in a steel pan, and place the pan on the fire. When it looks done, I shimmy the pan out with a metal rod I found in the work barn, and break one egg over the top, which cooks almost immediately.
The wolf sits in the leaves on the bank watching. For a moment I worry he might attack me for the food. But he just stares, unmoved, as I spoon the cooked potato and egg into my mouth. And, oh God, it’s good. Five Michelin stars as far as I’m concerned. I remind myself to chew slowly. It’s been a long time since I’ve had cooked food and I don’t know how my system will react.
When I’m done, I’m tempted to cook more but I don’t. Instead I wrap the remaining potatoes and eggs in the torn plastic bag and return to the supply store and place them on the highest shelf to keep them safe from the wolf and other predators.
I settle down for the night, deciding against taking shelter in one of the shacks because I’ll be warmer by the fire. I shake out the tarp, wrap it around my shoulders, and throw a bunch of wood on the fire. The wolf looks at me then lowers his head on his paws.
*
I wake in the night to feed the fire. On the bank the wolf has not moved. He is curled up like a bun, the bush of his tail covering his snout. I’m almost jealous of the simplicity of an animal at one with his surroundings, doing exactly what he was supposed to do. Sleep. Eat. Poop. I wonder if he knows what it’s like to feel fear.
*
We stay for two nights, me and my lopsided companion. He keeps at least a ten-yard radius between us at all times, as if there’s an instinctive natural born restraining order between human and wild animal both to our benefit. He’s a useful guide, too. In addition to the eggs, he locates a bush of wild salmonberries and some other root plant that may have been a variation on a turnip. When he makes these finds, I wait a respectful distance until he’s had his fill then move in to take what’s left.
He discovers water, too, which is an especially significant find since my soda bottle is nearly empty. The small freshwater pond is located a few yards behind the reservoir pit and seems to be fed by an underground aquifer. It’s big enough to float around in, so I do, peeling off my plastic bag shoes, the torn dress, getting in to breaststroke the circumference. I turn on my back and watch the trees rock above me.
It’s in this dreamlike state, drifting weightlessly, that the thing comes back. The pest of a thing that skirted my consciousness a few nights ago. I close my eyes and try to coax it out into daylight.
My eyes flip open.
Sweet Jesus, I have missed my period.
25
It’s a terrifying thought. I do the math, click off the days on my fingers. How long since the gas station? How long since the car? How long since the act? I try and count the nights, starting with now, working backward to the grave, then back from there. All I know is I was annoyed because my period was due to arrive only one day into the trek and I had to make sure I brought enough supplies. I’ve been out here for way longer than that so there’s no mistaking it—I’m more than a week overdue.
So what if I am? It could be the trauma, the punishment meted out to my body, the stress of it all. Being late does not necessarily mean the worst-case scenario.
But even as I think this, I am flooded with doubt. I press my abdomen with my fingers. Could my rapist’s child really be growing inside me?
Then another disturbing thought registers—Disease. Herpes. Gonorrhea. AIDS.
Oh God, I’ve got to get out of here. I need to get help, now more than ever. Even though it’s late afternoon, I decide to go right now. I gather my supplies, bundle them up in a partially decomposed grain sack, and hurry to the other side of the valley.