The Woodlands (32 page)

Five minutes after the birth of our son, Joseph
’s heart stopped. As he had before, outside, he clutched his chest in pain, tried to breathe but couldn’t, and then he fell to the side of me.

I sat there in shock and watched as they dragged him away. His usually large f
orm looked oddly small. They put metal pads to his chest and yelled ‘clear!’. His body pulsed unnaturally, rising as if attached to the pads by magnets. They did this again and again. His heart would start and then it would stop, over and over. I sat there shrouded in a blanket, an onlooker to the chaos, barely noticing the people fussing around me.

Now I sit in my room. Pieces of the puzzle slowly filter through as visitors come and go, feeding me small bits of information. They had me in with the baby to start with, but after two
days, I asked them to take him away.

One thing I knew, Apella was right all along. These people were the survivors. They were not from the Woodlands and, as of yet, I didn’t exactly know where they came from.

Joseph lay in the bed next to
mine, breathing with the aid of a machine. It pumped air in and out of his lungs for him, squeezing in and out like a concertina. The blip of the heart monitor, a comforting noise, let me know, for now, he was alive. How had it come to this, so quickly, so violently?

The kind doctor, who introduced himself as Matthew after all the confusion had subsided, explained it to me carefully, repeating it several times
, as it took a while to sink in. Joseph had been bitten by a spider.

“
A spider?” I raised my eyebrows dubiously.

“
Yes,” he said running his hand through his hair casually. “Think of it as a tiny, microscopic killer with eight legs, smaller than a grain of sand.”

“
Is this supposed to make me feel better?” I asked, scowling.

A warm smile spread across his face and I felt my temper calm. He tipped his chin,
“You asked me, remember?” His voice was the timbre of honey, slow, deliberate. Sure. I crossed my arms and listened. “Joseph would never have seen it. They are translucent and live inside the rings of the tree trunks.” Guilt stabbed me, jagged and pulsing. It must have come out of one of the trees I had asked the boys to fell for the cabin.

Matthew moved to Joseph and pointed to his ragged arm.
“The venom started here, eroding the skin as it went.” I covered my mouth, feeling the heave of a cry creeping up my throat. They had left it open so the wound could breathe. The muscle was gone and it was a concave mash of red flesh. It hurt me so much to see him this way.

Matthew returned to me.
I watched his lips moving, the way his mouth turned up on one side as he spoke, “The poison worked its way through his system, arriving at his heart. Usually it takes a long time to get to the heart, but because he ran so far, the blood was pumping faster around his body. It sped the whole process up.”

“
So he should have died,” I said, feeling deadened myself.

Matthew nodded, his hands clasped across his lap. He lifted his hand and I thought he was going to touch me but he just
rearranged the covers around my knees. “We got to him in time,” he said.

While I was in
labor, Joseph was in the other room, close to death but fighting. They administered the anti-venom and began the process of cleansing his blood of the poison. He was awake. He had asked for me and they had told him I was safe. They didn’t tell him I was in labor.

Then I
’d screamed.

“
They tried to hold him down. The nurses were swinging from his arms like pendulums,” Matthew said with humor in his eyes, “but he’s strong. He was too strong.”

I winced as I heard how
Joseph followed my screams; unaware of how sick he was or what damage he was doing to himself, dragging monitors and bags of blood and fluid with him. It was so hard to hear. If I had just kept my mouth shut, maybe he would have been ok. It made me feel sick to think of the choices I had made and what they had done to the people I loved.

Matthew moved to check Joseph
’s monitor, putting a stethoscope in his ears and listening to Joseph’s heart. “Adrenalin makes the heart pump blood faster,” he said with his hands on Joseph’s chest. “It pushed the leftover poison straight to his heart, causing the second heart attack.”

Heart attack. He was
nineteen, strong and healthy. He shouldn’t have had a heart attack. He never would have if he hadn’t met me.

Matthew put his hand on mine.
“So now we just need to wait. His body needs time to repair.”

I looked over at what was left of
my Joseph. His strong jaw looked hollowed, his sun-kissed skin was now pale and yellow. He looked ten years older than he was. All the same, he was beautiful.

“
But he will wake up?” I asked, although it sounded like pleading.

“
I don’t know, but there is hope,” Matthew said with a reassuring smile. He made me feel comfortable. His ease of talking, the way he planted himself on the end of the bed without asking, was unlike any doctor I’d ever met.

“
What can I do?” I leaned in, my eyes exploding out of my head with desperation.

He smiled
gently and patted my hand. “Just look after yourself and your baby. Joseph’s going to want to see you both happy and well when he wakes up.”

I sunk into my pillow
, which smelled like mildewed feathers. Was that all? I had tried. But for me, the overwhelming feeling I’d had after giving birth was release. I’d spent the last four months dreaming of having the thing out of me. Now that it was, it was hard to feel anything other than relief. My worry for Joseph took up most of my time—there was little room in my head or my heart for the baby.

“
Have you thought of a name?” Matthew asked as he paused in the doorway, his hand wrapped around the scuffed yellow doorframe.

I shook my head.
I’d always thought Joseph would name it. He was the one who wanted the baby. I reached over and touched Joseph’s hand. It was warm. I wondered if that was all we were going to be allowed. Just those short two months together. It had gone so fast. I wish I had taken the time to appreciate it while I was there. But then I didn’t know it was going to be ripped out of my shaking arms.

I pulled myself back in time and
dreamed of his hands touching my face, his lips caressing my neck. Where did it go? It disappeared like a wisp of smoke disturbed. I reached out to grab it but it was nothing and slipped through my fingers. I rocked back and forth, hugging my knees. I ached, thinking I might never get it back.

Every
day they brought the baby in to feed. Which I did. I wasn’t a monster; I didn’t want him to starve. Feeding was a strange feeling and I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it. I imagined Joseph would laugh at my awkwardness, my shyness about people seeing me with my shirt up. The baby fed well but screamed every time they took him away. I closed my ears to it. I couldn’t be what they wanted me to be.

I focused on
connecting the floating puzzle pieces I had garnered so far. But it was difficult, the people never stayed too long, they always seemed bustled and busy. They were cagey. When I asked them questions, they quickly made excuses and left. They didn’t seem dangerous but there was a silent threat in their aloofness.

When
Careen bounced into my room, I was surprised. I hadn’t seen her since the day the baby was born and I thought maybe she’d left. She swept her hair behind her ears, the fluorescent lights streaking it the color of autumn leaves, and said flatly, “Where’s your baby?”

I sighed
, my own hair swung like a ragged curtain in front of my eyes, the color of dull dirt. “I don’t know.”

Her
eyebrow arched, but for once she didn’t blurt out whatever she was thinking. I waited for it to return to its normal position over her stunning blue eyes before I asked, “Careen, what happened?” My arms splayed open, palms up, like I was asking the heavens, “How did it all go so wrong?”

She flinched at my emotional tone and moved away. S
eeming unaware of Joseph in a coma next to my bed, she plonked herself at his feet and put her hand on his leg. I resisted the urge to slap her because I wanted to hear what she had to say.

She paused, her eyes dancing about
in her head like she was searching for the answer up there. When she finally opened her mouth, I jumped. “The trip there was pretty boring,” she said lightly, “Your Joseph was a complete gentleman.”

“
He always is,” I snapped.

She smiled to herself, twirling a strand of hair around her finger
. “On that rainy night, he gave me his blanket.” I gathered the sheets in my fists, trying not to turn her from a strawberry blond to a patchy bald girl. “He was scratching his arm a lot but I just thought he was nervous.” I rolled my eyes, wondering how someone who’d survived on her own for so long could be so blind to her surroundings. I cursed myself again for not being there. I would’ve known something was wrong. I squeezed my fists tighter, my nails digging into my palms. It was a good pain, a distracting one, but it wasn’t enough. I knew something was wrong before he left but I let him go.

Careen
’s eyes swept over my hands, which were attempting to turn my sheets to dust, and said, “The place was swarming with soldiers. We nearly walked straight into some but Joseph saw them and pulled me behind a wall. They were talking about us.” She stood up straight, imitating the conversation they’d overheard. “Stupid kids. They must have switched it from reader to communicator.”

“
Well, they must be here somewhere and we are not to leave until we find the two boys and Apella. The rest don’t matter.”

She giggled
, covering her mouth. “You know, they were monkeys.”

I ran my hand through my tangle of hair and leaned my cheek into it
. “What were monkeys?” I asked, exasperated.

“
The yellow eyes, dopey,” she said through her perfectly shaped lips, like it was obvious. “The survivors said the monkeys were playing with the reader and made the switch. It set off a signal, which was easy enough for the soldiers to follow.” That wasn’t funny. It was frightening to know they were looking for us and they knew our last location.