True Places(30)
Closer now, she shouted: “Hey! Hey!”
The vehicle was twenty yards away. The headlights illuminated the area separating them. Suzanne ran.
Someone inside shouted, “Watch out!” and blared the horn.
Movement in the shadows on her right. A pair of eyes shone white. Suzanne gasped and angled left, lunging for the passenger side of the vehicle. The door opened and Professor Reiner pulled her inside. Tennyson was behind the wheel holding a flashlight. He swept the beam to the side. A hyena faced them, ears forward, mouth open, eyes wide.
Tennyson sounded the horn again. The hyena loped off and cast a glance over its shoulder before dissolving into the dark.
Professor Reiner said, “Are you all right?”
Suzanne nodded and covered her face with her hands. Shame flooded her.
Tennyson shifted into drive and swung onto a faint track. “You are fine now, miss. You are truly fine.”
She nodded again, for his kindness. But the utter panic she had felt would never leave her. Betrayal, solitude, and terror would be linked inside her forever.
CHAPTER 13
Rappoport, the social worker, came into the hospital room and took a seat on the couch under the window. Iris was coloring in the intricate outlines of a flower and didn’t look up. She had gone through three books in two weeks and had decided that wherever she ended up, coloring books were a new survival necessity. She hated so many things about being in the hospital—being trapped, feeling weak, the horrible food, the stale air, the constant stream of people, the noise—but she could detach from it by coloring or listening to the iPhone, or both. She had discovered that the colors and patterns she chose depended on what she was listening to. This intrigued her. She’d never had a choice of what to listen to before except by moving closer or farther away from a bird, a stream, or a rustle in the undergrowth. Here it seemed people controlled not only sounds but images and smells and light, leaving Iris dizzy and confused. So much was possible with switches and swipes, but how was it better?
Her heartache had gotten worse because Ash had been scarce. She couldn’t depend on him the way she had in the forest, and it saddened her to the point of suffocation. She couldn’t talk to anyone about him; she didn’t know where to begin. In the woods, Ash was obvious and everywhere, like the warmth of the sun. Not here. Ash didn’t belong here, and this was the surest sign that she didn’t either. She couldn’t think and she couldn’t be useful. Her senses didn’t line up with the physical world the way they ought to, as if the light she needed was from a part of the spectrum that had been filtered out somehow, leaving her cold and in the dark.
Rappoport was talking, telling her how the information Iris had given them about her family had led to dead ends. Iris was about to ask what that meant, then figured it out on her own. Ends that were dead, like her mama and daddy. She didn’t like to ask questions of Rappoport or anyone else unless she had to. The less she knew about this world, the better.
Rappoport sighed. “Because we can’t find any of your relatives, we need a family to take care of you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I know you’re independent, Iris, and I admire that. But we have to follow the laws. Until you’re old enough, you’ll need to live with someone.” Rappoport leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “You know you can’t go back to living by yourself in the woods, don’t you?”
Iris nodded. After she had tried to leave the hospital, Nurse Amy told her she couldn’t disappear into the wilderness even if she could find her way there, which she wasn’t sure she could, and even if she was strong enough, which she wasn’t. People would look for her, bring her back. But this was the first Iris had heard about going somewhere else. For all she knew, she would just be moving from this bed to another one, trading one cage for the next. It was easy inside the cage; she was taken care of, fed, kept clean and warm, but all the comfort in the world couldn’t blur her desire to return to the life she’d left behind. Frustration, longing, and despair gnawed at her insides, and she took refuge in the coloring book.
Iris could feel Rappoport’s eyes on her. Iris continued coloring.
“Do you want to talk about how you feel about joining a family?”
Rappoport had asked her how she felt about things before. It sounded like an invitation to talk, but Rappoport was already straightening the papers on her lap, something she did as she got ready to leave. She was always in a hurry. Iris thought there must be other children Rappoport needed to see in this hospital or maybe in a different one. But it wasn’t just Rappoport. Everyone was in a hurry, which didn’t make any sense, considering food was simple to get, no one had to make a fire to keep warm, and water flowed through the buildings, ready wherever you needed it. Iris could not figure out what people did all day, since they didn’t have to hunt or collect food and firewood. She would’ve asked Rappoport or Nurse Amy or Suzanne about it, but they always seemed to be halfway out the door, in their minds anyway. Iris hadn’t seen a single person completely absorbed in what they were doing.
She wondered if they slept or just kept on checking their phones all night. What exactly did they do on their phones? They weren’t listening to the sounds of the forest, she was sure of that. She was anxious about what people were doing with their time, with their phones, in the cars, and under the rooftops she caught glimpses of out the window. She worried it was something bad, or evil. Her parents had hidden from other people, had kept Iris and Ash away, too, and Iris couldn’t help but think they’d done the right thing. This was a very disturbing place. She wanted no part of it, despite the clean white sheets and warm running water. This built-up world was like honey, smooth and sweet on her tongue—until the bees attacked.