The Marsh King's Daughter(74)

My father laughed again. He held the Remington on my struggling dog as Rambo limped ever closer. Rambo bared his teeth and snarled. He limped faster until he was headed for my father at an almost-run, baying like he was about to tear into a wolf or a bear.

I understood. Rambo was distracting my father so that I could get away. He would protect me, or die trying.

I sprinted for the snowmobile and jumped on and reached around my mother and opened the throttle wide. I didn’t know if my mother was alive, if we would get away, if my father would shoot both her and me. But like Rambo, I had to try.

As we raced across the frozen marsh, the wind dried my tears. From behind came another gunshot.

Rambo yelped once and fell silent.

—

THE GUNSHOT REVERBERATED in my head long after the real echo was gone. I drove as fast as I dared, blind with tears, my throat so tight I could barely breathe. All I could see was my dog lying at my father’s feet in the snow. Cousteau and Calypso and The Hunter and my mother were right. My father was a bad man. There was no reason for him to shoot my dog. I wished he had shot me. I wished I had waited longer after he went into the marsh before I started the snowmobile, driven faster, not stopped when he told me to. If I had done any of these things, my dog would be alive and my father would not have shot my mother.

My mother hadn’t moved or spoken since my father shot her. I knew she was alive because my arms were wrapped around her and her body was warm, but I didn’t know for how much longer. All I could do was drive—away from the marsh, away from my father.

Toward what, I didn’t know.

I was following the trail The Hunter had left because that was what he’d told me to do. What I really wanted was to find Cousteau and Calypso. The real Cousteau and Calypso, not the ones I made up after I saw that family. I knew they lived close by. I was sure their mother and father would help.

I had long ago left the marsh and was now driving through trees—the same trees I used to want to explore when I stared longingly toward them on the horizon. It was very dark. I wished The Hunter had told me how to turn on the snowmobile’s headlight. Or maybe he did and I’d forgotten. There was a lot to remember: Keep the throttle high when you’re pushing through deep powder. If the snowmobile pulls right, shift your weight left. When it pulls left, shift your weight right. When you drive up a hill, lean forward and shift your weight to the rear of the seat so the snowmobile doesn’t flip. Or you can ride with one knee on the seat and the other foot on the side rail. Lean back when you go downhill. Shift your weight and lean into the curves. And on and on.

The snowmobile was very heavy. Driving was harder than The Hunter had made it sound. The Hunter said that where he came from, even children drove snowmobiles, but if this was true, then Finnish children must have been very strong. Once I drove off the trail and got stuck. Twice we almost tipped over.

I was very afraid. Not of the woods or of the dark. Those things I was used to. It was fear of the unknown, of all the bad things that might happen. I was afraid the snowmobile would run out of gas and my mother and I would have to spend the night in the forest without food or shelter. I was afraid I would drive into a tree and wreck the engine. I was afraid we would end up as lost and desperate as The Hunter.

I was afraid my mother would die.

I drove for a very long time. At last the trail came to an end. I navigated down a steep hill and into the middle of a long, narrow clearing and stopped. I looked left and right. Nothing. No people, no town called Newberry, no grandparents searching for my mother as The Hunter had promised there would be.

Four tracks ran the length of the clearing, two on one side and two on the other. I couldn’t tell which were The Hunter’s. I worried about what would happen if I went the wrong way. I thought about the guessing game my father and I used to play that had two choices. Perhaps it didn’t matter which way I went. Perhaps it did.

I looked up into the sky. Please. Help me. I’m lost. I don’t know what to do.

I closed my eyes and prayed as I had never prayed before. When I opened my eyes, there was a small yellow light in the distance. The light was low to the ground and very bright. A snowmobile.

“Thank you,” I whispered. There were times when I had wondered if the gods were real, like when my father put me in the well and they stayed silent, or when he beat my mother and The Hunter and the gods didn’t intervene, but now I knew the truth. I promised I would never doubt again.

As the snowmobile came closer, the light became two. Suddenly there was a terrible honking, like a goose, only louder—like an entire flock of angry geese.

I shut my eyes and clapped my hands over my ears until at last, the honking stopped. There was a banging like a door had opened and closed, then voices.

“I didn’t see them!” a man shouted. “I swear! They were sitting in the middle of the road with no headlights!”

“You could have killed them!” a woman yelled.

“I’m telling you, I didn’t see them! What are you doing?” he yelled at me. “Why did you stop?”

I opened my eyes and grinned. A man and woman. Cousteau and Calypso’s father and mother. I found them.

—

WHEN THE POLICE FOLLOWED the trail I had left to rescue The Hunter, my father was gone. The Hunter still hung from the handcuffs in the woodshed. Everyone assumed that my father had killed him, because why wouldn’t they? No one would think for a second that a twelve-year-old child could have done such a thing. Not when they had a kidnapper and rapist to pin the murder on.