Stolen (26 page)

You were quiet that night, more thoughtful. You soaked cloths for my burns, infusing them with a plant mixture that made them smell like hospitals. After dinner you stood at the kitchen sink, looking out at the darkness. Your body was taut, like a hunter standing in wait. The lantern light made shadows on your skin. I cleared the plates from the table and took them to you. You turned and grabbed my wrist, almost making me drop everything.

“I was serious, you know,” you began. “What I said today … I meant it. Just give this place six months, please. Can you wait that long?”

I stepped back, disentangling my wrist. I left the plates on the bench. A deep line formed on your forehead, creasing your skin like a gorge. Your blue eyes were bright underneath.

“Can you?” you whispered.

There was that familiar intensity about you, that seriousness. I could, almost, believe you. If you’d been anyone else, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I moved my head. It wasn’t a nod, but I wasn’t shaking it, either.

“Three months,” I said.

“Four.” Your face twitched. “Just please don’t try to escape again,” you said. “Not by yourself, not until I can take you. You don’t know this place yet.” You took the plates, stopping to unwind the bandage that was still wrapped around your right hand before turning on the water. “It’s just … to survive this land, you need to love it. And that takes time. Right now, you need me.”

“I know.”

You stared at me, as surprised as I was by those two words. But I did need you, didn’t I? I’d tried escaping by myself, and it hadn’t worked.

You sighed as you turned back to the dark window. “After four months, if you still want to go, I’ll take you to the edge of a town. Just don’t make me go in with you.”

“I wouldn’t want you to,” I said. I frowned. As if I could make you do anything you didn’t want to do.

You started to wash the plates, your shoulders drooping. Your fingers darted about in the water. I saw the pulse in your neck beating fast, that tiny bit of life under your tough brown skin. There were freckles around it, scattering down onto your collarbone.

“I don’t have to turn you in, you know.” I started speaking without really meaning to. “If that’s what you’re worried about, I don’t have to turn you in. You could just let me go, then you could disappear, back into the desert. I could say I don’t remember, that I’ve got heatstroke or amnesia or something. I won’t even remember your name.”

Your eyes flicked up to mine, but they were filled up with sadness, ready to leak.

There was a wind that night. I heard it as I lay in bed, picking up grains of sand and chucking them against the wood and the windows, spattering them toward me like gunfire. Or rain. If I shut my eyes I could almost imagine the sound was English rain, pelting down around me as if it were the middle of winter, quenching the gardens and fields, filling the Thames and the gutters around my house. I had forgotten how comforting the sound of rain was against the windows, how safe it felt.

You’d gone to your room before me that night. You’d been so quiet, disillusioned by me, I think. This whole adventure of yours hadn’t turned out like you’d expected. Were you beginning to regret it? Were you thinking that you’d picked the wrong girl? Perhaps you’d only just realized for the first time that I was ordinary, no one special, just as much of a disappointment to you as I was to everyone else. I turned over and thumped the pillow, frustrated by still being awake, and by all those thoughts.

Then I heard you scream. The sound slashed through the silence, making me leap up in bed. It was a desperate, animal sound, as though it came from somewhere deep within you. It was the loudest thing I’d heard for days.

My first thought was that someone else was in the house. Someone had come to rescue me and was getting rid of you first. But that was a stupid thought. No one would rescue anyone like that, except in the movies. Certainly not in the desert. Out there, rescuers would come by plane and they would surround us with lights and noise first. We would have heard anyone else coming for miles.

Even so, I listened for sounds outside, steps on the veranda. But there were no bangs or bumps, nothing to suggest that anyone else was there. Only me. Only you. And the only thing I could hear were your screams.

You were yelling words as well as noises, but I couldn’t tell what they were. In between, it sounded like you were crying. I got out of bed. I took the knife. I walked to the door on the balls of my feet, slow and soundless. When you screamed again, I pushed the door handle down, using your noise to mask the creak. I stepped into the hallway. Your screams were louder there, echoing hoarsely around the house. Your door was open a little. I tilted my ear toward the crack, listened.

There was silence for a few seconds, maybe even a minute or two. My ears rang with it. Then I heard you sobbing. It built up pretty fast, until it was uncontrollable and desperate, the way a kid sobs sometimes. I peered through the crack and into the darkness. Something was shaking on your bed: you. There was no other movement. I pushed the door farther open.

“Ty?”

You kept sobbing. I took a step toward you. There was a slip of light from the window falling on your face. It shone on the wetness of your cheeks. Your eyes were closed, shut tight. I took another step.

“Ty? Are you awake?”

Your hands were in fists, kneading the rolled-up sweater you used as a pillow. Your sheet had slipped down, exposing your back against the bare mattress. Stretched out like that, you looked too big for the bed. You had such a long, straight back, long like a tree trunk. But right then it was shaking like a sapling.

I left the door wide open behind me and glanced around the room. The window was closed, and there was nothing to suggest that anyone else had been there. Whatever you had been screaming about, you’d been screaming in your sleep.

Your sobs subsided as your face buried into the sweater. I stood there watching. You were sobbing like I had sobbed when I’d first arrived, quietly and desperately, as though you’d never stop. It was weird; it almost made me want to start crying again, too. I shook my head. You were tough and strong and dangerous. Maybe this was just an act.

As I watched, you curled your legs to your chest. You started rocking. And then the screams began again. They pierced right into me. I had to bring my hands up to my ears. I stepped closer. I had to make it stop. Without thinking about what I was doing, I grabbed you around the shoulders. Shook you. Your skin was clammy. Hot.

Your eyes snapped open, but you didn’t see me straightaway. You saw someone else. You pushed me aside and dragged yourself backward along your mattress until you hit the wall. Your eyes were wild, moving from side to side as you tried to focus. Then you started murmuring words and sounds.

“Don’t take me,” you were saying. “Please, leave me.”

I tried to find your gaze, tried to keep your eyes on me. “It’s Gemma,” I said. “I’m not taking you anywhere. Just calm down.”

“Gemma?”

You spoke my name like it was something you only half remembered. You grabbed at the sheet, pulling it around you.

“You’re dreaming, Ty,” I said.

But you weren’t listening. You crawled forward and clawed at my T-shirt. I stepped back.

“Stop it, Ty!”

I slapped your hands, pushing your fingers away. But your face was desperate.

“Don’t take me,” you sobbed, your voice like a child’s. “Mamma was here, the trees, my stars … I don’t want to go.”

You grabbed my waist, throwing your arms around it. You sobbed into my stomach. Your eyes were open but they still weren’t seeing me. You were kneading my back with your fingers, pulling my shirt. I touched your hair, and your crying subsided a little.

“It’s Gemma,” I said. “Wake up.”

I felt the dampness of your tears on my stomach, your fingers grabbing tight around my waist, not wanting to let me go. I let you stay like that until your crying stopped altogether.

“I don’t know where I am,” you whispered.

“You’re here,” I said. “In the desert. There’s no one else around.”

You wiped your eyes against my T-shirt, then looked up at me. You saw me that time; you knew who I was. Your whole face relaxed as you focused.

“Gemma,” you said.

I nodded.

“Thank you.”

“You were dreaming; I just woke you up.”

“Thank you.”

After a while you let go. You sat cross-legged on the bed and stared down at the floor. You were twisting your thumbs over each other, embarrassed, I think.

“What were you dreaming about?” I asked.

You shook your head, dismissing me. I stayed there, waiting. The wood creaked around us, and the wind battered the metal roof. You glanced toward the window as if checking it was still there.

“The orphanage,” you said quietly. “The journey in the van, leaving the land.” You glanced out at the night sky and the stars. I looked out at them, too. I thought I could maybe make out the straight line of the horizon, separating the black land from the graying sky. You sighed, running a hand over your face. “You probably think I’m a loony now, right?”

I looked down at you, huddled into yourself. “We all have dreams.”

Your big eyes were shining in the darkness like a nocturnal creature, a creature that needed to be held. “What are yours about?” you whispered.

“Home, mostly.”

“London?” You thought about the word, working out what it meant to you. “How can you dream about that place?” you said. Again, your eyes went back to the window. “How do you love it so much?”

“People love what they’re used to, I guess.”

“No.” You shook your head. “People should love what needs loving. That way they can save it.” You were quiet for a long time then, staring out of your window, just thinking. I walked softly to the door.