Let's Get Lost (25 page)

3

LEILA SEARCHED THE
woods alongside Dee's parents, trying to be a calming presence. She was thankful, this time, for night's slow approach.

They'd been scouring the campsite for a couple of hours, everyone spread out into groups of two or three to cover as much ground as possible. Every few seconds, calls of “Dee!” sounded through the trees, making whatever birds remained in the area start and flutter away. The sound of their wings filled Leila with a sense of dread. But she didn't dare lose her composure in front of Brendan and Harriet. She looked uselessly at the surrounding forest, trying to spot anything in between the trees other than darkness or more trees.

Brendan had an arm around Harriet's shoulders, but he looked just as grim and torn up as she did. When they said their daughter's name, their voices sounded thin, as if hanging on by a thread. A park ranger named Rick walked along with them, shining a flashlight into bushes, looking up at branches that were way too high for Dee to have reached. Sloppily overweight, with bored eyes, Rick looked more suited to be a mall security guard than anyone who spent time outdoors, much less a park ranger.

“Kids that age,” the ranger started to say, “they tire out pretty quickly. Sometimes their instincts are a little off, and they keep wandering, getting more lost. But a girl who's been camping before, like you say, she'd know staying put is the best thing to do. If she ran away after an argument, my guess is that she'll be found when she wants to be found.”

“It wasn't an argument,” Leila muttered. She should have come up with something, some meaningless little detail that would have made Dee feel happy for her.

“Either way, I wouldn't worry,” the park ranger insisted.

“Yeah, well, I'm worrying,” Harriet said.

It killed Leila that there was nothing more active they could do but look. It made her feel useless to call out for Dee, to arrive at a clearing and stare across the plains with her hands on her hips, not knowing what else to do.

The air was getting colder. It wasn't about to freeze over or anything, but Leila pictured how tiny Dee was, how she'd left wrapped up in a damp towel, and she was struck by panic. The world suddenly felt full of threats. Hungry animals, hidden cliffs, poisonous plants that could inflict harm after just a touch. Cancer, unforeseen heart conditions, car accidents.

Leila took a deep breath. “Maybe she made it back to the campsite by now.”

“Don't think so,” the park ranger answered, all too quickly. “They would have radioed me.” He kept staring up into the trees, oblivious of the looks Leila and Brendan were shooting at him.

“Any sensitivity training in your line of work, Rick?”

“Nope,” Rick responded. “Why do you ask?”

Harriet flashed a secret smile at Leila, rolling her eyes. Her heart wasn't in the gesture, but that was understandable.

“Just wondering if that charm is natural.” Leila leaned down to pick up a twig so that she could have something to occupy her hands with. The twig was swarming with tiny black ants, though, and she tossed it back to the ground. She zipped her jacket up as high as it would go and hid her nose behind the fabric.

“I hope she didn't make it out this far,” Rick went on, not even bothering to show any real concern on his face, his voice monotone. “Another mile and we'll be in pretty heavy bear territory.”

“Really, Rick? That's the commentary you're going with at this particular moment?”

Rick adjusted his belt and continued leading the way down the path. “I'm not sure what you mean. Bears and other wildlife are a serious concern to recreational campers in the area.”

Harriet cringed, her fists tightening at her sides. Brendan, at odds with his usual relaxed demeanor, looked like he was getting very close to punching the ranger.

“Rick, how about you and I keep going this way and we let these two backtrack? In case we missed anything, or Dee returned to the campsite,” Leila suggested.

“Not a bad idea,” Rick said. “But I've been instructed to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Maclin.”

“How about I stay with them, and you just go away?”

“Still no,” Rick responded, oblivious. “What happens if you come across a pack of wolves and don't have my dart gun to protect you? What then?” He patted the holstered weapon by his side as if it were a loyal dog.

Leila shook her head in disbelief. She looked at Harriet and shrugged. “I tried.”

“I know,” Harriet said. “You go ahead and turn back. I think the more spread out we are, the better.”

“You sure?” Leila didn't want to leave them alone to deal with the obtuse ranger, although a part of her was thrilled to get away from him.

“Yeah. Just, you know, watch out for violent animals. And give us a call if you find her,” she said, pulling out her cell phone to exchange numbers.

“Cell phone signal isn't great out here.”

“Goddamnit, Rick,” Leila said.

“Go. Save yourself.” Harriet offered a smile, which seemed like a particularly brave thing to do. She was sure the last thing Harriet felt like doing was smiling. If given the choice between smiling and, say, curling up on the forest floor and bawling until her daughter came back to her, she'd probably choose the latter. But she was smiling anyway, marching on, not losing it.

Leila turned on her heels and went back the way they'd come. The path they were on was a hiking trail, a long but not especially difficult one, which ranger Rick had theorized would be the most likely for a nine-year-old to take.

She surveyed her surroundings as she walked, but after hours of doing just that, it was hard to be hopeful. But somehow, still, it was downright enthralling to watch leaves shudder in the wind, to watch whole treefuls of them shake and flutter like a mass of people interacting in a room. The beauty of the place was almost reassuring, as if no harm could come to Dee as long as she was lost here.

A branch cracked somewhere nearby. Then came the pitter-patter of footsteps, very light ones. Leila stood still, making no noise of her own to be sure she wasn't imagining things. There they were again, feet making their way across the ground. “Dee?” Leila said. Immediately the footsteps picked up their pace. They were somewhere nearby, in the trees just beyond the trail. If it were still daytime, or even the earlier stages of dusk, Leila could probably have seen her.

“Dee, it's Leila!” she called out, breaking away from the path toward the sounds of sneakers coming down on leaves, faster and faster. Before she knew it, Leila was running through the woods, avoiding bushes, hopping over obstacles, shielding herself from low-hanging branches, pine needles that stung her face as she increased her speed. “Dee! Don't run.”

She was out of breath already. In her past life, she'd enjoyed going out for runs. She knew this from the well-worn running shoes in her closet and Murakami's
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
sitting on her bookshelf. But this was the first time she'd run since playing Drunkball, since fleeing from the cops on the island, Hudson's hand in hers.

“Dee! Slow down.”

It was hard to imagine Dee's short legs moving as fast as they were. Leila prayed the girl didn't trip on something on the ground and hurt herself. The image of blood flashed through her head, and she sped up until her legs were burning, chasing the footsteps, which, improbably, were getting farther and farther away. The sound of rushing water was getting louder, almost enough to drown out the footsteps. Leila prayed for one of those clearings near the creek, for a glimpse of Dee.

Sweat ran from her hair down to her back, cold by the time it clung to the fabric of her sweatshirt.
She's going to get sick
, Leila thought to herself.
She's going to get hurt, she's going to remain lost, and it's all because I can't remember a damn birthday party.
Tears started running down her face as she thought of the pothole that had blown out two tires of her family's car, making her dad lose control. That pothole that had made the car wrap itself around a streetlight post, rendering seat belts helpless in the face of physics. One stupid hole in the ground had taken everything away from Leila, and it was
still
taking things away.

“Dee!” Leila cried out, no longer sure that Dee could even hear her.

Without enough warning, it was night. Between strides, it seemed, darkness had taken over. It was hard to tell how long she'd been running. Only a moment, it seemed, but Leila's lungs ached for air to breathe, and her legs were no longer able to push her forward at the same pace. She demanded more of them, begging them to take her just a little farther. And they did, for a moment. They kept her going, just enough for her to see a break in the line of trees, the creek running serenely in the distance.

Leila reached the clearing, nearly wheezing, her hair damp and sticking to her forehead and her neck. She avoided the urge to double over so that she could look across the field and see...a deer. A poor, frightened deer, sprinting for her life through the grass, headed for the shelter of another batch of trees. It was barely a silhouette in the dark, almost no color to it except for the streak of white down its back. But it was clearly a deer, and within a second or two it disappeared into the woods again, leaving Leila alone in the field to catch her breath.

She put her hands on her knees and leaned over, shutting her eyes against the disappointment, sweat and tears trickling down her chin and dropping onto the grass. A headache appeared, throbbing right along the scar on her nape, beating in time with her heart.

When she'd recovered somewhat, Leila walked over to the creek and splashed some water on her face, wiping it dry with her sleeve. Her face stung with the cold. It took her a while to realize that this was that same clearing pictured on the website. She must have taken a shortcut through the woods, or else she'd been running longer than she realized.

Her legs were shaking, weak. Her mouth was drier than she'd ever felt it before. She knelt down to the creek again, cupping her hands together and drinking from the nearly freezing water. When she tried to stand back up, her legs refused. Instead, she dropped down onto the grass, stretching her legs out in front of her.

That's when she saw a figure standing about a hundred yards down, right around the spot where Leila had laid herself down the night before. Small, upright, ponytailed.

Leila rushed to her feet, and, despite the tired complaints of her legs, she ran across the field. Dee was whole, unharmed, smiling, even. As soon as she reached Dee, Leila wrapped her up in her arms, unable to contain the tears of joy. A flurry of parental thoughts went through her head:
I was so worried, don't ever do that to me again, where were you, I'm just glad you're okay.
But she was too happy to say any of them, just kept on hugging the girl.

“Leila, look,” Dee said.

Leila pulled back and noticed that Dee was looking up at the sky, one arm raised and pointed at the heavens.

The Northern Lights were in full bloom. Waves of green light streaked across the sky, tinged with gold and purple. And they moved, like living, breathing things. No sky Leila had seen before could compare to the beauty she was seeing above her. It didn't feel like some accident of nature but rather something that was purposefully unleashed on the world. She understood now, why there were so many myths surrounding the Lights, why ancient peoples thought they were proof of some benevolent god wanting to remind them of his love. They were majestic, like nothing she'd ever seen before. As breathtaking as her run through the woods.

She recalled her favorite part of the story, the bit about the warrior. She waited for her dad's voice to continue the story, waited for the details surrounding the story's telling to start to fill in. But that line was repeating itself through her head in the same unclear voice in which she'd been recalling the story ever since she woke up in the hospital.

The Lights were as beautiful as she'd been hoping for, and she refused to blink as she stared up at them, scouring her empty mind for even the dregs of her past life, even the ashes of it, one single spattering of dust left over from her life before the accident. But no catharsis stirred within her, no epiphany bubbled up to the surface, not a single memory presented itself at the sight she was beholding.

Leila tried shutting her eyes and clenching her jaw, as if her memories were just hiding in some dormant muscle. The only images that flashed through her mind were those of photographs she'd been shown at the hospital, her sister's school pictures and her parents' wedding album. She remembered the picture of the four of them at the beach, how surreal it had felt to be staring down at herself without knowing when or where the picture had been taken. She shut her eyes so tightly, they hurt, and when she opened them again, little white spots appeared.

The Northern Lights were absolutely breathtaking and absolutely meaningless. She might as well have been staring at an exceptional sunset or sunrise. She might as well have been looking up at the starry Mississippi sky alongside Hudson. Truth be told, the latter would probably carry more weight. Her entire trip had been for naught, a pleasant, deluded distraction from the reality she had to face: Her previous life was lost to her, perhaps entirely.

Leila looked down from the sky and put her hand on Dee's back, happy to see that Dee was wearing a sweatshirt that looked to be warmer than hers. She wiped her face dry, then said, “I'm glad you're okay.”

Dee gave her a confused smile before turning back to the lights. “I'm glad you're okay, too. Aren't they pretty?”

Exhausted, Leila dropped down to the cool grass. “They definitely are.”

Dee joined her on the ground, laying her head on her shoulder. The Lights continued their display as if aware of their audience and purposely putting on a show. Slight changes caught Leila off guard, spurring involuntary noises of delight, which were gone just as easily as they came, as if carried off by the wind.