True Places(6)

The object, perhaps thirty feet away, was definitely a person, huddled in a squat and facing the other way. She scanned the grassy area that rimmed the turnout for a motorcycle, a bicycle, a backpack, but saw only a bear-proof trash can and a picnic table. The figure, clad in dark clothing, was motionless. Asleep? Injured? Dead?

Suzanne tapped her horn. The figure stirred. All at once she realized how small it was. Suzanne lowered the passenger window.

“Are you okay?”

The body gathered itself quickly onto all fours and lurched away, up a set of stone steps. It was slight, perhaps even a child. The hair was dark and straggly.

“Hey!” Suzanne turned off the engine, snatched the keys and her phone, and leaped from the vehicle.

The figure bounded away, agile but unsteady.

“Wait! I want to help you!”

Suzanne ran up the trail, negotiating the rough steps that ended at wooden railroad tracks running parallel to the road. The tracks, dappled with mute sunlight, bent in a graceful curve and disappeared around the hillside. Beside the tracks, sprawled across the ties, was the child—a girl, Suzanne guessed, but the child’s face was so dirty and her features so thin and sharp Suzanne wasn’t sure. The child propped herself up on one hand and twisted to stare at Suzanne with abject fear. The tension in her body signaled she would spring to her feet at any moment.

“Wait,” said Suzanne calmly, keeping her distance. “I’m Suzanne. Let me help you.”

The child let out a high squeal, muffling it with closed lips. The whites of her eyes were stark against her face. The clothes she wore were too large for her; her pants were rolled up and her long-sleeved shirt was frayed and torn at the neck as if it had been viciously chewed. The soles had begun to peel off her boots, which were secured around her ankles with nylon cord.

Suzanne took two steps closer, crouching a little and smiling. She was sure now the child was a girl. A terrified girl. “Where are your parents? Are they nearby?”

The girl trembled. Closer now, Suzanne could see the girl’s cheeks were red beneath the grime. Her eyes were an unusual violet blue, the color of periwinkles.

“Are you hurt?” Suzanne reached out her hand, palm up, and inched closer. “Let me help you.”

The terror fled from the girl’s face. “Mama—” Her brow relaxed and she collapsed.

Suzanne rushed to her side and knelt. The girl’s chest was rising and falling. Suzanne touched the back of her hand to the girl’s forehead. She was on fire. Where was her family? She couldn’t have been more than eleven, maybe twelve. Suzanne stared down the track in one direction, then the other. “Hello? Anyone there? Hello?”

A squirrel dashed across the tracks and leaped into the bushes.

“Hello?”

Suzanne’s hands went cold and her pulse accelerated. She swallowed against the lump in her throat and reassured herself she was not truly alone. Sweat trickled down her spine. She turned to the girl. Not alone. Suzanne picked up the girl’s hand, so small and bony it was barely human. And hot. The girl was feverish. Suzanne closed her eyes and pushed against the swell of panic rising from her diaphragm, spreading into her lungs. Not alone.

Marshaling her strength, Suzanne scooped the limp girl off the ground, shocked at how light she was. It was like picking up a log and discovering it was driftwood. She carried the girl down the steps and spotted a ratty backpack sticking partway out of a thicket. Suzanne continued to the car and, with effort, managed to hoist the girl into the passenger seat and strap her in. The girl’s jaw was swollen and her exposed skin was marked with wounds and scars. Suzanne wondered if the girl had been attacked and abandoned but hoped the fact that she was fully clothed indicated otherwise.

Suzanne retrieved the backpack. The exterior pockets were rotted and torn and incapable of holding anything, and she didn’t want to waste time rummaging through the main compartment, so she threw the pack onto the rear seat, climbed behind the wheel, and headed toward Charlottesville and the hospital as fast as she dared. Surprised and dismayed at how far she’d driven, she wished the miles would pass as quickly as they had earlier. The girl drifted in and out of consciousness, eyelids fluttering, cracked lips parting and closing, but she uttered only low moans.

Suzanne’s phone continued to plead with her from the console. She considered pulling over briefly to call or text Whit and explain the situation, but dismissed it as pointless, as was the thought of calling 911 or the hospital. She was on the way.

On Highway 64 East, fifteen minutes outside of Charlottesville, the girl twitched and jerked awake. She screamed, eyes fixed dead ahead in terror, hands clutching the edge of the seat.

“What’s wrong?” Suzanne reached across to calm her.

The girl whipped her head, following the path of one car, then another, again and again, then seemed to switch to tracking trees as they flew by. The sharp staccato movement alarmed Suzanne. The girl screamed again, a high keening, and scrabbled at the door and window, desperate for an exit.

“It’s all right!” Suzanne checked that she’d locked the doors and windows and reminded herself to pay attention to the road.

The girl yanked at the seat belt, unreeling it, stretching it in front of her with both hands. She pulled her feet up, squatted on the seat, and slid out from under the belt. Before Suzanne could speak, the girl slipped over the console and tucked herself into a ball in the footwell behind the passenger seat.