Then I saw you beside the window. The curtains were open a little, and you were staring out. I saw the frown on your forehead. There were bruises around your eye. My handiwork there, I suppose. At that moment, with the sun turning your skin light, you didn’t look like a kidnapper. You looked tired. My heart was hammering but I made myself watch you. Why had you brought me here? What did you want? Surely, if you’d wanted to do something to me, you would have done it already? Or perhaps you were making me wait.
You turned then, saw me looking. “Don’t do that again,” you said.
I blinked.
“You’ll hurt yourself.”
“Does it matter?” My voice was only a whisper.
“Of course.”
You looked at me carefully. I couldn’t hold your gaze. It was those eyes of yours. Too blue. Too intense. I hated the way they looked almost concerned. I lay back and looked at the ceiling. It was made of curves of metal.
“Where am I?” I asked.
I was thinking about the airport. My parents. I was wondering where the rest of the world had disappeared to. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched you shake your head slowly.
“It’s not Bangkok,” you said. “Or Vietnam.”
“Then where?”
“You’ll find out, I suppose, eventually.”
You rested your forehead in your hands, pressing your fingertips softly on the bruises around your eye. Your nails were short and dirty. Again, I tried pulling my feet away. My ankles were sweaty and wet, but not slippery enough to pull them free.
“Do you want some water?” you asked. “Food?”
I shook my head. I felt the tears on my cheek again. “What’s going to happen?” I whispered.
You took your head from your hands. Your eyes flashed at me for a moment, but they weren’t icy. They’d thawed a little. They looked wet. For a second I wondered if you’d been crying, too. You saw me studying you and turned away. Then you went out of the room and came back several minutes later with a glass of water. You sat beside the bed and held it out to me.
“I won’t do anything to you,” you said.
I stayed in the bed. The pillowcase got thin from my tears. The sheets sealed in my sweat. Everything stank. At some point you came in and changed the bandages on my feet. I was limp by then, melting away like my body heat.
You told me later that it was only for a day or two. It felt like weeks. My eyelids swelled from crying. I tried to think of ways to escape, but my brain had melted, too. I got pretty acquainted with the ceiling, the rough walls, and the wooden frame around the window. I drank the brownish earthy water left beside me, but only when you weren’t watching. And once I nibbled at the nuts and seeds you left in a bowl, touching them gingerly with my tongue first in case they were poisoned. Whenever you came in, you tried to talk to me. The conversation was pretty similar each time.
“Do you want to wash?” you asked.
“No.”
“Food?”
“No.”
“Water? You should drink water.”
“No.”
A pause while you thought about what I would like. “Do you want to go outside?”
“Only if you’ll take me to a town.”
“There are no towns.”
One time you didn’t leave the room like you normally did. You sighed and went to the window instead. I saw that the bruises around your eye had changed color from deep blue to a jaundice-yellow; my only indication that time had passed. You looked at me, a wrinkle deep in your forehead. Then, quickly, you ripped open the curtains. Light flooded in, making me shrink back against the sheets.
“Let’s go out,” you said. “We can look at the land.”
I turned away from the light and you.
“It’s different out the back to out front,” you said. “We’ll go there.”
“Will you let me go, out back?”
You shook your head. “There’s nothing to escape to,” you said. “I’ve told you. It’s a wilderness.”
You wore me down in the end. I nodded to say I’d go. It wasn’t because you wanted me to, though. It was because I didn’t believe you when you said there was nothing out there. There had to be something: a town in the distance, or a road, or an electricity pylon. Nowhere is a wilderness really.
You untied my feet. You unwound the bandages and pressed your hand against my soles. It didn’t sting like I thought it would. You checked my wrist, too. The cut was scabby and brownish red, but there was no fresh blood.
You tried to lift me from the bed but I pushed you away. Even that small action set me shaking. I stretched across, and got out of bed on the other side.
“I can do this myself.”
“Of course, I forgot,” you said. “I haven’t chopped your legs off yet.”
You chuckled at your joke. I ignored you. My legs started to shake so much that it was hard just to stand up. I made myself take a step. My foot twinged with pain. I swallowed hard. But I knew I couldn’t stay in that room forever.
You turned away while I put the jeans on. They’d been washed and dried once again, the stains from crawling along the dirt gone. I was desperately weak when I walked out of that room, ready to black out at any moment. I wished I had accepted more of the food you’d offered me. I walked down the corridor, and you followed. You didn’t make a sound as you walked, not even the floor creaked. I turned toward the kitchen I’d found before, but you grabbed my arm. I flinched at your touch, couldn’t look at you.
“This way,” you said.
I shook off your fingers, left a few steps between us. You led me through the living room where the curtains were still drawn, and I had to strain my eyes to see. As I took a step, something pierced my foot. My eyes filled with water but I wiped them quickly, before you noticed. I lifted my foot and pulled out a small gold-colored hook, the kind used for hanging pictures. I wondered what it was doing there when there were no pictures to put up.
We went through a kind of porch area to reach the other side of the house. I squinted at the daylight as you opened the door. There was a veranda running the length of the building.
Then I saw the boulders. They were huge, smooth, and roundish, maybe two hundred feet from the house and almost towering over it. Two larger boulders were in front, with about five smaller ones hugging tight around them. They were glowing red, lit by the sun. They looked like a handful of hot marbles, dropped by a giant. As I peered closer I could see crevices worn into them, cracks sprouting spindly trees that clung hard to the sides. Those rocks were so different from the rest of the land; they stuck out of the ground like thumbs.
“The Separates,” you said. “That’s what I’ve called them. They look unlike … kind of … separate from everything else, around this area anyway. They’re alone, but they’re together in that, at least.”
I hobbled to a wicker couch, tumbled onto it, and cradled my foot, rubbing the red mark from the picture hook. “Why didn’t I see them before?” I asked. “When I ran?”
“You weren’t looking.” I felt you watching me. When I didn’t look back, you moved across to one of the veranda posts. “You were too upset to see anything much then.”
I scanned the boulders, looking for pathways, checking for anything man-made. There was a plastic pipe leading out from them and running all the way along the ground to the house. It fed into a large metal tank at the far end of the veranda, near where the bathroom was. There were wooden posts spaced evenly around the base of the rocks as if there’d once been a fence there.
“What’s on the other side?” I asked.
“Nothing much. More of the same.” You jerked your head sideways, nodding at the dusty ground around the house. “It’s not your escape route, if that’s what you’re wondering. Your only escape route is through me. And that’s bad luck for you, I guess, since I’ve already made my escape by coming here.”
“What’s the pipe?” I asked, thinking that if a pipe led to your house then there could be
other pipes and other houses behind the rocks.
“I laid it. It’s for water.”
You grinned, almost proudly, and started feeling around in your breast pocket for something. Then you reached down into your pants pocket and took out a small handful of dried leaves and some rolling papers. My eyes lingered over your other pockets. Were there any small bulges? Could that be where you kept the car keys? You crumbled the leaves and rolled yourself a long, thin cigarette and licked up the sides.
“Where are we?” I asked again.
“Everywhere and nowhere.” You leaned your head against the veranda post and looked across at the rocks. “I found this place, once. It’s mine.” You studied your cigarette as you thought. “It was a long time ago. I was small then, maybe half your height.”
I glanced at you. “How did you get here?”
“Walked. It took about a week. When I got here, I collapsed.”
“All by yourself?”
“Just me. The rocks gave me dreams … and water, of course. It’s special, this place. I stayed here about two weeks, camping in the middle, living off those rocks. When I got home, everything had changed.”
I turned away, not wanting to know anything more about you or your life. There was a bird circling high above us, a tiny x against the darkening sky. I wrapped myself up small, cradling my knees, gripping them tighter, trying to stop the fear inside me from opening up into a scream.
“Why am I here?” I whispered.
You patted your pockets, then pulled out a box of matches. You gestured toward the rocks.
“Because it’s magic, this place … beautiful. And you’re beautiful … beautifully separate. It all fits.” You twisted the cigarette between your thumb and forefinger. Then you held it out to me. “Want one?”
I shook my head. None of this fit. And no one had ever called me beautiful before. “What do you want?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“That’s easy.” You smiled, and the cigarette in your mouth hung down, stuck to your lips. “Company.”
When you lit up there was a strange smell to the cigarette, more natural than tobacco but not as strong as weed. You inhaled deeply, then looked back at the collection of boulders.
I followed your gaze and spotted a small gap through the middle of them. It looked like a pathway.
“How long will you keep me?” I asked.
You shrugged. “Forever, of course.”
When the light faded to a gray dusk, you turned to go inside.
“Follow me,” you said.
You paused in the porch we’d come through before, beside a bank of industrial-sized batteries. There were wires attached to them, leading up to the ceiling, passing through several switches on the way. On the shelf above your head was a line of six kerosene lanterns. What would happen if I tipped one off? Would the impact stun you? How much time would it buy me to get away? You bent down, checked something, then flicked a switch.
“Generator,” you said, nodding at the batteries. “This powers everything in the kitchen and the few lights we have around the house.”
But I was still looking at the lamps. You saw, and took one down, pushing it into my hands. I grasped its bulging middle, and the thin metal handle shook against the glass. You started explaining how to use it. When you turned to get another, I lifted it toward you, but my arms were shaking too much to touch you with it. So I just stayed there, lamp midair, looking stupid. You realized what I wanted to do, though, and put the second lamp back on the shelf pretty quickly, then reached out for mine.
“You can’t get rid of me with that,” you said, the corner of your mouth curling up.
You took it from me, poured kerosene inside, and lit it. Then you pushed me from the room. Holding the lamp out in front, you led me back to the bedroom where I’d been sleeping.
“This is your room,” you said. You moved toward the chest of drawers near the door. “You’ll find clean sheets here.”
You opened the bottom drawer and showed me. Then you pulled open the two drawers above, revealing T-shirts, tank tops, shorts, pants, and sweaters. I ran my fingers over one of the T-shirts. It was beige colored and plain, size medium, and felt new.
“It’ll fit, right?” you asked.
I didn’t ask you how you knew what size I was. I just kept looking at the clothes. Everything was beige and boring. There were no brand names, nothing fancy. It looked like it had all been bought from a cheap department store. You pointed at the top two smaller drawers.
“Underwear,” you said. Then you stepped back. But I didn’t look in that drawer, either.
“I’ve got skirts and a dress or two, if you want them. They’re in the other room. They’re green.”
I narrowed my eyes. Green was my favorite color. How did you know all this? Did you know all this? You turned toward the door.
“I’ll show you the other rooms.” When you saw that I wasn’t following, you spun back and stepped up close to me, so close I could smell the smoke from your cigarette still lingering on your clothes. “Gemma, I won’t hurt you,” you said quietly.
You turned again and left. In that semidarkness, I heard the walls moan, contracting as the day’s heat dissipated. I followed the light from your lantern to the next room down. There was a low foldout cot set up along one of the walls, with a mess of blankets across it. There was a bedside table beside it, a wardrobe against the opposite wall, and a wooden chest next to that.
“I sleep in here, for now,” you said. You avoided my gaze. I avoided the way your words hung, unfinished.
I already knew the bathroom. The next door beyond it led to a large closet. There was nothing much in there apart from a couple of brooms, a mop, and some metal boxes. I followed your lamp to the door opposite, the last room off the corridor. It was bigger than your bedroom, almost as big as the room you said was mine. There was a cabinet at one end, and an armchair. There were bookshelves down the entire length of one wall, though they weren’t exactly full. You opened the cabinet and showed me the games on the lowest shelf: UNO, Connect Four, Guess Who?, Twister. They were all games we’d had at home, games I could remember playing with friends, or on Christmas mornings with my parents. But these versions were faded and old, as if they’d come from consignment shops.
“There’s a sewing machine, too, a guitar … sports things,” you said.
I glanced at the books, neatly lined-up on the shelves. In the lamplight, I could only make out some of the titles. Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby, David Copperfield, Lord of the Flies … books we’d studied at school. I couldn’t see any modern books up there, just classics. I looked at the next shelf. This one contained mostly field guides: guides to desert flowers and animals, studies about snakes. There were books about tying ropes and making shelters, and others about rocks. I saw a dictionary of Aboriginal languages. As I looked over the titles, I realized something.
“We’re in Australia, aren’t we?”
A brisk nod from you. “Took you awhile,” you muttered.
I remembered what you’d said to me in the airport, about whether I’d ever wanted to visit … and then your odd accent. It made sense. Apart from the fact that I’d thought Australia was all beaches and bush, not just endless red sand. But I felt a brief glimmer of hope anyway, a stirring that maybe everything would be OK. Australia was a civilized country, with a law system, and police and a government. People could be looking for me already, police hunting me out. The whole nation might be on alert. Then the glimmer faded. You’d taken me from Bangkok. Who’d guess to look for me in Australia?
“Who knows I’m here?” I asked.
“No one. No one knows either of us are anywhere. We’re in the middle of the Australian desert. We’re not even on the map.”
I made myself swallow. “Nowhere is unmapped.”
“This is.”
“You’re lying.”
“I don’t lie.”
“How did you bring me here, then?”
“In
the back of the car. It took awhile.”
“Without a map?”
“Like I said,” you hissed. “It took awhile.”
“I would have remembered.”
“I made sure you didn’t.”
That shut me up. Your eyes darted away from mine, and I took a step back. I remembered the chemical smell of that cloth over my face. The hazy jolt and sway of being in your car. The sickly sweet chocolates. I reached for more memories, but they wouldn’t come. I shook my head, not really wanting them to, either. I took another step back into the darkness and leaned against the bookshelf. My head was reeling. I wondered what else you were hiding from me. What other horrible little secrets.
“Someone must have seen you,” I whispered.
“Doubt it.”
“There are cameras in airports … security cameras are everywhere now.”
“Most of those cameras don’t even have film in them.” You lifted the lantern. Its light cast shadows onto your face and made dark hollows under your eyes.
“Someone will be looking for me. My parents will be looking for me.”
“Probably.”
“They’re important, you know.”
“I know.”
“They’ve got contacts, money. They’ll be on TV; they’ll post my photo all over the world. Someone will recognize it.”
“Unlikely.” You moved the light toward me; I felt its heat. “You were in the trunk most of the way here, under the tent.”
My chest tightened once more as I pictured my body curled up and contorted, thrown in like a piece of luggage. It was like a grisly horror film, only I hadn’t made it to the knife scene yet. I crossed my arms over my chest. How could I not remember any of this? Why only just tiny glimmers? Were the drugs you’d given me really that strong? I took another step away from you, backed up toward the door.
“In the airport, someone will have seen you….” I was speaking to myself, really. “Someone will have seen me. It’s impossible you could have got past all that security without anyone …”