Stolen

  “Thank you,” I whispered, my voice barely escaping through my swollen throat. Those two words hurt more than you can imagine.

  You nodded; then you laid your head down on the side of the bed, inches from my arm.

  And I slept again.

  When I woke next time, you had a cup to my lips.

  “Drink,” you were urging. “You have to. Your body needs it.”

  I moved away from you, coughed. Pain seared through my limbs. It felt like my skin cracked every time I moved, opening up into sores. I looked down. There was a thin sheet covering me. Underneath I was naked, or I thought I was. My skin was too numb to really tell. But I could feel the cold cloths were no longer on my body. I tried moving my legs, but they were raised up, tied to the bed with soft cloth. I pulled at them.

  “You said you wouldn’t,” I whispered.

  You squeezed a towel, dripping water onto my forehead. “You’ve got bad burns,” you said. “I had to raise your legs to reduce the swelling. I know I said.” You stepped toward my feet, lifted the sheet up a little to look at them. “I can untie them if you like. You heal well.”

  I nodded. Gently, you put your hand around my right foot. You untied it, then lowered it to the mattress. You did the same with the other one, and covered them both with the sheet.

  “Do you want more cold cloths?” you asked. “Are you hurting?”

  I nodded again. You padded out of the room, your bare feet sticking to the wood floor. I looked up at the ceiling, testing different parts of my body, checking what hurt most. I tried to piece everything together. I’d been escaping. I’d been sinking into the sand. But then?

  You’d been there. I’d felt your arms around me, scooping me up, cradling me against you. You’d been whispering something; I’d felt your breath on my neck, your hand on my forehead. You’d picked me up, so gently, as if I were a leaf you didn’t want to crush. You’d carried me somewhere. And I’d curled into your arms, tiny as a stone. You’d splashed me with water. And then, after that, nothing. Blackness. Just blackness.

  You came back in, with cloths soaking in a bowl.

  “Do you want to do it, or should I?” You started to squeeze water from a cloth, then began to lift the sheet.

  “I’ll do it.” I snatched the sheet from you. I lifted it and peered down at my body. Much of my skin was red and shiny, some of it peeling badly. I touched a blister on my chest. Around it the skin looked wet. I laid the damp cloths you’d wrung out over the worst parts, and it felt better immediately. It was as if my skin breathed out when the cloths touched it, then breathed in straight after, absorbing the water. It was hard to get to the burned lower parts without you seeing me naked, though I suppose you’d seen it all by then anyway. I shuddered as I remembered you carrying me in your arms. How had you touched me when I’d been like that? Was I brave enough to ask?

  After a while, I gave up on the cloths. I lay back onto the pillow.

  “How long have I been here?” I asked. “Like this?”

  “A day or so. You won’t be fully healed for a few days more. It’s lucky I found you when I did.”

  “How did you?”

  “Followed your tracks. Easy.” You leaned your elbows on the mattress, too close to me. But it was too painful to move myself farther away. You picked up the cup of water and held it out. “I took the camel.”

  “How?”

  “Rode it.” You smiled a little. “She goes pretty fast.”

  Something dried up had settled in the corners of my lips. I licked at it. I let you pour the water into my mouth.

  “You’ll start to feel better soon,” you said quietly. “If you’re lucky, you won’t even get any scars.”

  The water tingled in my throat. I gulped more. Right then, that water wasn’t brown or full of grit; it was the finest champagne. I let the excess spill down my neck. I thought of the car, bogged down deep in the dirt.

  “How did we get back?”

  “I carried you at first, then I put you on the camel. We walked through the night.” You nodded toward the cup. “Want more?”

  I shook my head. “What about the car?”

  “Didn’t find it. You were heading back toward me when I found you.”

  “Toward …?”

  You nodded again. “So I figured the car had probably got stuck or died somehow, and you were just coming home.”

  “Home?”

  “Yeah.” Your mouth twitched. “Back to me.”

  Like you’d said, I felt better pretty quickly. The next day you gave me a small handful of nuts and berries. The berries tasted bitter and the nuts were powdery and sweet, both were unlike anything I was used to. But I ate them anyway. Then I felt between the mattress and the base of the bed. The knife was still there. I counted the notches on the wood, running my fingers over the grooves. Twenty-five. But how many more days had passed since then? I carved four more lines.

  The next day, after I’d carved the thirtieth notch, I wondered about my period … why it hadn’t arrived yet. Perhaps I had dried up, like the land around me, my body needing all the moisture it could get.

  I got up and put clothes on, but the fabric stung as it touched my burned skin. I gritted my teeth and hobbled to the veranda. Even the feel of the floorboards against my feet hurt, and I had to hold my T-shirt away from my chest as I walked.

  “You should have just gone naked,” you said when you saw me. “Wouldn’t hurt so much.”

  I stopped holding out my T-shirt. “It’s fine.”

  “Here.” You stretched your glass of water toward me.

  “I’ll get my own,” I said.

  I went to the kitchen. After I’d run myself some water, I stepped through the kitchen door and out the other side of the house from you. I leaned against the wall, keeping my body in the shade. From there I could see the camel, resting in the corner of her pen. Her head was down, the harness hanging loosely around her ears. She looked so docile now, like you’d sucked away her wildness. I shielded my eyes, scanning the horizon until I found the shadowy hills of the dunes: the hills I’d thought were the mine site. They seemed so far away.

  I lowered myself onto the crate outside the door as it all sunk in. I’d always kept a small seed of hope alive, hope that I’d be able to escape. But suddenly I realized something. That view of sand and endlessness … that was it, that was my life. Unless you took me back to a town, that was all I’d ever see. No more parents or friends or school. No more London. Only you. Only the desert.

  I rolled the glass of water against my forehead, then licked a drop from the side. I left my tongue momentarily against the cool. Maybe I’d wear you down, eventually. Maybe you’d take me back. Haven’t there been cases where kidnapped girls have walked free, years later? Haven’t there been rescues, too? But how long would it take?

  There was movement to my left.

  You were hunched over near the corner of the house, underneath the window where my bedroom was. Your arms were hanging down toward something, and you were bouncing backward and sideways. I looked closer. There was a snake. You were stretching toward it, trying to get a grip, then leaping backward when it went for you. Its head was up, challenging you. It was like a kind of courtship dance. You circled each other gracefully, eyes locked.

  But you were fast. You darted toward the snake, confusing it, and grabbed underneath its head. The snake writhed, tried to turn its pink, wide mouth toward you. But your grip was firm. You lifted it from the sand and held it out in front of you. Your lips were moving, talking to it, inches away from its fangs. Then you started walking, taking it with you.

  You went past me, straight to the second outbuilding. You backed into the doorway, the snake trying to wrap its tail around your wrist as you stepped into the building.

  I dozed on the couch in the living room, only waking when the light changed from bright and white to muted and golden. I watched a beam of sunlight on the dark wood floor, turning the wood a copper color as it moved across the boa
rds. Afterward, I wandered around the house. You weren’t anywhere. I changed my clothes, finding a baggy T-shirt scrunched in the closet in the hall with the words SAVE THE EARTH, NOT YOURSELVES printed on it. It was loose enough not to hurt the burns too much. Then I went back to the crate outside the kitchen door, and waited.

  A line of ants crawled over my ankles, and there was the high-pitched screech of a bird far above. My burned skin prickled, even though it was only the softer afternoon sun against it. I pulled at the T-shirt, trying to cover the back of my neck. I stretched my legs. After a while, I wandered toward the outbuilding where I’d seen you last. As I got close, I saw you’d left the door open a crack, the padlock hanging unlocked. I tried to peer into the darkness inside, but could only make out dull shadows. I couldn’t hear anything. I pushed the door, letting the sunlight in. The room was full of boxes, all neatly stacked. There was a pathway through the middle, between them.

  “Ty?” I called.

  No answer. I listened. I thought I heard a soft shuffling, somewhere behind the boxes.

  “Ty? Is that you?”

  I took a step into the building. The cool darkness in the room felt good on my skin. I took another step so I could read the writing on some of the boxes: food (tins), food (dried), tools, electricle wires. … The writing was in pencil, spindly like a web. Yours, I guessed. Your spelling was terrible. I glanced back at the house. Everything was so still, more like a theater set than real life. I traced my fingers along some other boxes, sweeping away the dust as I went: Medical supplys, blankits, gloves. … I followed the boxes down the pathway. It was interesting, seeing these preparations, seeing what you thought was necessary for us to live. Ropes, tools, gardning supplys, sewing, feminine higene… you’d thought of everything. The farther in I went, the louder the shuffling noise became. It was soft and hesitant, more like an animal than you.

  “Hello?” I tried again. “Ty?”

  The path opened into a wider space. I squeezed sideways through the boxes and into it. The shuffling was louder, all around me. I turned. There were cabinets, on every side, from floor to head height. Some of them were made of glass, others wire. There was movement inside them, a quiet rustling. Creatures of some sort? I bent to look at them.

  Tiny eyes looked back. A curled black snake raised its head lazily and a spider as big as my hand scuttled across its enclosure. I stepped backward. Breathing deeply, I studied the cages from there, checking all the doors were closed. A scorpion lifted its tail, rattling a warning. My legs were suddenly shaky. There must have been twenty of those cages around me. They mostly had snakes and spiders inside, a few scorpions, and some other cages that didn’t look like they had anything in them at all. Why were they there? Why hadn’t you told me? My eyes settled on a silvery-brown snake. It looked like the one you had caught that morning. Its tail still flicked angrily as it watched me, its tongue darting in and out like a dagger.

  I forced myself to breathe. The cage doors were closed, everything shut in. The creatures couldn’t get near me. But I could still hear them, scrabbling, clicking their tails and sliding. The noises made my heart falter. I steadied myself against the boxes and walked back down the pathway, feeling my way along. Gardning supplys, blankits, alcohol …

  I paused at that box. I stood on tiptoe and looked at the top. The sticky tape was loose, barely fastening the cardboard sides. I glanced back at the open door, ready to jump into the sunlight if I needed to … if any loose creatures came my way; then I dragged the box toward me, bottles clinking as it moved. I pulled at the tape and the sides unstuck. Cautiously, I put my hand inside. My fingers were shaking. I was worried about what else might be in there, waiting for the soft tap of legs against the back of my fingers or the brush of snakeskin. I grabbed the first bottle I got a grip on and took it down, sneezing as dust landed on me.

  BUNDABERG RUM. A one-liter glass bottle. I could do some damage with that. One way or the other, it could knock one of us out. I took it with me and stepped out of the building, glad to be out of there. I closed the door, resting it against the frame as I’d found it, the padlock still hanging. I breathed in the cooler air, checking for the camel. She wasn’t in the rope pen, and I couldn’t see her near the Separates, either. Perhaps she was behind the rocks. The sun was starting to dip, covering everything with a peach glow. It wouldn’t be long until it was dark.

  I went straight to my room and hid the bottle under my pillow. Then I sat for a while, listening. There was only the creak of the wood as the heat started to bleed out of the house. I did another lap of the rooms, checking for you, then went out to the veranda. The sun escaped over the horizon then, and quickly (it was always so quick) it got dark. I squinted at the fading light and at the sand that was slowly changing color from purple to gray to black. I could still make out most of the shapes around the house: the outbuildings, the trailer, the Separates. But your shape wasn’t there; neither was the camel’s.

  I didn’t know how to turn the generator on, so I went onto the porch and took down one of the lanterns instead. I unscrewed the glass casing, as I’d seen you do before, and smelled the cotton wick inside. It smelled like you’d soaked it recently in fuel, so I lit it and twisted the glass back on. Light! I was a little proud of myself for making it work. I twisted the knob on the side to increase the flame and carried the lantern back to the living room.

  I sat on the couch and picked at a hole where the stuffing was falling out. My body was straining, listening for the slightest sound. A small part of me wondered whether everything had been leading up to this moment, whether you were finally going to play out your ultimate fantasy and kill me. Perhaps you were waiting until it was completely dark before you made your move. I listened for your footstep on the veranda, your cough in the darkness. If this had been a horror film, a phone would have rung at that moment to tell me you were outside, watching me.

  But another part of me was worrying about something entirely different. Another part was wondering if something had happened to you out there.

  “Stop being stupid,” I said to myself out loud.

  I waited for what felt like forever before I went back to my bedroom, taking the flickering lantern. I shut the door and dragged the chest of drawers in front of it. I kept the curtains open, watching for shadows outside. But the moon was still low, and everything was darker than usual. I put a pillow behind me and leaned against it. I watched the shadowy faces the lantern light made on the wall, all jagged and crooked-looking. I cradled the rum bottle. Then I grabbed it around its neck and rehearsed how to swing it if I needed to. I touched it against my forehead, imagining the blow it would give … feeling its weight. I spent some time unscrewing and rescrewing the lid, smelling it. Then I took a sip.

  It was bitter, hard to swallow. But I was used to drinking raw alcohol after all those nights in the park with my friends. I used to be quite good at pretending that the liquid actually tasted nice enough to want to take another gulp.

  I sipped again. It burned my throat like sunburn, only inside instead of out this time. I scrunched my face up, the way they do in the movies, as another sip went down. I looked out of the window. The desert was as still and quiet as it always was. Dead quiet. It’s amazing how scary total quiet can be, how it can mess with your head if you let it. In London I was used to noisy nights, to the honks and shouts and whirs of a big city. London chattered like a monkey at night. The desert, on the other hand, slithered around me like a snake. Soft and silent and deadly … and quiet enough to keep my eyes wide open, always.

  I tapped my teeth against the rim of the bottle. I kept swigging until the room started to spin, until I stopped thinking about whether that could be my last night on earth or whether that place would be the only place I’d ever see from then on. After a while, I stopped watching for shadows at the window. I stopped caring about the darkness. And the quiet.

  I remembered then why all my friends liked to get drunk … it was the forgetting. The sweet not knowing of
the future.

  A scraping sound woke me. I opened my eyes. The chest of drawers was moving, being pushed forward by the door. Someone was trying to get in. I tried to sit up. I was half off the bed, the bottle still in my hand. The rum wasn’t finished, but, judging by the wetness around me and the smell of stale alcohol, much of it had drained out into the sheets. I fumbled my way along the bed. I clasped the bottleneck tight, ready to swing.

  The drawers shifted to the side, and your scratched arm came around the door. I lowered the bottle as you squeezed through the gap. I shrunk away, too weak, and still too drunk, to do much else. It was gray dawn-light, early. You looked me over, your eyes taking in the bottle, your nose wrinkling at the smell. I turned away from your frowning face.

  “I had to get something,” you said. “It took longer than I thought.”

  You tried scooping me up then, but I screamed at you to let me go and bashed the bottle against your chest. So you stayed at the side of the bed, just watching. After a while, you took the bottle from my fingers and lifted the sheet up over me.

  “I’ll fix you breakfast,” you said eventually.

  I slept.

  “It’s on the veranda,” you said.

  I shook my head, pain searing through my temples. To walk that far, on that morning, seemed about as probable as escape. But I knew I needed food.

  “Come on, I’ll carry you.”

  I shook my head again, but your arms were around me, lifting me up before I could do anything about it. I shut my eyes, my head spinning, sickness in my stomach. You carried me like you carried branches, delicately, with your arms open wide to cradle me. You made me feel about as light as them, too.

  You lowered me onto the couch on the veranda. As you did, I could see that your eyes were red and tired, with dark hollows around them. But the pale sun was on your skin, making it glow. The light made everything glow that morning. It seeped into the landscape and made the sand sparkle like popping candy.