When they reached Grafton Notch State Park, they pulled the truck to the edge of an embankment. Eric was nervous about meeting Carl Doyle or anyone else and insisted they abandon the truck. Lucia tried to argue with him, saying that they were so close, they could be there in hours, but Eric was adamant.
“It isn’t worth the risk,” he said. “Trucks are moving targets. We’ve walked this far, we can walk to the end.”
Lucia finally agreed. Once they unpacked the truck, Lucia put the truck in neutral, and, grunting, they pushed the stubborn truck off the road. When the truck finally bounced down the edge, rolling over once at the bottom, and ending up back on its wheels amid shattered glass, Lucia noticed Eric’s t-shirt. It was dark with red slashes of blood.
They walked up into the pine-filled forest, and, not too far from the road, they made camp.
After a quick dinner of rice and lentils, Birdie settled down next to Eric with her crayons. Lucia glared at Eric.
“What?” he asked, after a long time of trying to ignore her.
“You know what,” she said. “Take off your shirt.” Eric’s eyes narrowed in anger, but Lucia’s gaze was not to be questioned.
Eric gave out a little cry of pain as he peeled the shirt off.
It was as she feared. “You tore it open,” she said, looking at his back.
Birdie looked up from her crayons with concern. “Are we going to have sew him up again?”
Eric looked at her with Birdie’s question in his eyes.
“Yes we are,” Lucia said to her. “If Eric had rested like I said, we wouldn’t have to do this again.”
“Can I try this time?” she asked, setting down her crayons.
Eric laughed. Then Lucia followed, though the thought of piercing him with a needle again infuriated her. “It hurts when I laugh,” Eric said.
“Good,” Lucia said. “I should let her, Eric. I really should.”
“Can I?” Birdie asked, not seeing the humor. “Please?”
Eric and Lucia laughed again.
“Stop it,” Eric said. “Seriously, it hurts.”
19
Luckily Eric only needed a few stitches to close the wound that had re-opened. After caring for Eric’s back once more, they walked up a hill to a small clearing near a brook. They set up camp to stay until Eric’s back wasn’t so tender he couldn’t move without tearing out the stitches.
Eric spent his time on his stomach. He had lost all of his materials, his map, his calendar, the book he had taken from Charlie’s house, his polyhedral dice, everything that had once linked him to the past world. The loss of the calendar was the worst for him. They had already replaced the map when they found a road map of Maine in the glove compartment of an abandoned car, but even if Eric could find a calendar, how could he know what day it was? Was it still August or had September crept in? With a chill of fear, he realized the time for calendars was over. They would think in seasons from now on. Their plans would be based on temperature, the migrations of birds, the fluctuating color in the leaves of trees.
His birthday was in August. He was now seventeen, he reflected. But he could no longer be sure what day that was. It was also the end of birthdays.
Had he been seventeen in the Cave? Ever since he had first been shackled to the steel rebar, he had felt seventy. He couldn’t remember being whipped. He only remembered being dragged out into the crowd, and then nothing but a red wall. He thought he had died.
Instead, he had come alive again in Maine. He was only miles from the island. It didn’t seem real. They were going to make it. After all they had been through, after everyone who had died, they were going to make it.
His heart was a hard thing now, like a stone, polished smooth with suffering and grief. He felt everything from a distance, a careful, considered distance. From this distance, his heart would not allow him to rejoice. In it there still glowed a modicum of doubt.
They hadn’t made it yet. It wasn’t over.
Four days they remained in camp. Lucia wouldn’t allow Eric to move. She changed and washed his wounds several times a day. She could tell it caused Eric a great deal of pain, but she was worried. It would be easy for the wounds to become infected. He could die. Lucia had enough ghosts haunting her. She couldn’t take another.
When she wasn’t cleaning Eric’s wounds, she was fishing and gathering food with Birdie. It was late summer and Birdie found blueberries to pick. Lucia stood at the edge of a stream with a fishing pole she found in the farmhouse in Bethel. She wasn’t as good at fishing as Sergio had been. It was impossible not to think of him, peaceful, thoughtful, gentle, pulling the fish from the water with grace.
One day, perhaps the third day of their stay, Birdie came and sat down on the moss beside the stream where Lucia was fishing. She wrapped her arms around her legs. “You know what?” she asked.
Lucia turned to her. Birdie spoke so infrequently that when she did, she commanded attention.
“What, Birdie?”
“My Daddy had to kill Mommy because she was sick.”
Lucia felt her heart drop. She went to Birdie and sat down next her, putting her arm around her. “I’m sorry, Birdie,” she said.
“She had the worm,” Birdie said. “Then Daddy had it. He told me to go to my granma’s house in Grafton. He made me write it down. He said I had to leave, but he would meet me later.” Birdie looked up at Lucia. “Daddy shot himself, didn’t he Lucia?”
Lucia shook her head. “I don’t know, Birdie.”
“He did,” Birdie said. “He isn’t ever going to meet me, is he?”
“I don’t think so,” Lucia said.
Birdie put her head down on her knees and cried. Lucia held her and tried to think of something to say. There was nothing to say.
Lucia brought out some extra clothes and took Birdie down to the stream. There, the stream curved around a corner and left a small, eddying pool, shaded by pine trees. They crept in the cold water with bars of soap and shampoo. Birdie let Lucia scrub her, though Lucia could tell she didn’t like it. They washed for a long time. Lucia had never felt so filthy, or so clean when they were finished.
Birdie had to wear a pair of jeans and an oversized t-shirt while Lucia scrubbed their clothes and put them out to dry.
It was a beautiful day.
They stretched out under the sun to dry. A blue jay squawked in a tree while little black and tan chickadees flitted restlessly from branch to branch.
Birdie reached out and held her hand.
It was the closest thing to perfect Lucia ever remembered feeling.
After four days, Eric insisted on leaving. He was anxious and irritable, jumping at the slightest noise. Lucia tried to argue with him, tried to tell him that there was no rush, they should stay a week, time enough for his wounds to heal well. But his face darkened.
“There is a rush,” he argued. “It’s late, Lucia. We need to get ready for winter. We need food. We need to build a house. We need supplies, food, maybe a generator, portable heaters, medication in case we get sick. We need coats and mittens, maybe a snowmobile.” He said none of this gently. “There is a rush, Lucia.”
“Don’t lecture me, Eric,” she said.
“Someone has to.”
They didn’t talk again. She couldn’t stop him from packing his material. Birdie helped him, after giving Lucia a shrug. Annoyed, she could do nothing but begin to pack herself.
Suddenly, it seemed, Lucia found herself hiking behind Eric and Birdie. They were on their way, the last miles on their journey.