Chapter Twenty

When I ran away from the little hut, away from the Wolf’s decapitated head and all that blood, I grabbed Lila and we took off the way we came. Since then it’s been nonstop attacks—vines snagging our ankles, pulling us into water holes; grenade-throwing flowers making us dodge and weave through explosions.

Now, we’ve finally found Scarlet and Azul, crouched together where we left them, a few of the Others patrolling the area.

Scarlet stands up. “That took long enough!”

I bend over, hands on my knees, breathing heavily.

“It was a shelter!” Lila says. “An old one. Just like Zoe said. It—”

“Well, was there anything in it?” Scarlet asks, impatient. “Did you go inside? Was he there?”

Azul lays a hand on Scarlet’s arm. “Let them talk.”

“I went inside,” I tell them, once I’ve got my wind back. “It was a trap. There was a monster hiding. Other than that, nothing. Some old fabric, that’s it.”

A monster is a weak excuse for why I freaked out and ran, but it’s the best I can come up with. What I saw in there—everything from the girl in the hammock to his decapitated head to the blood covering my feet—was in my imagination. There wasn’t a drop of blood on me when I reached Lila. I don’t know who that girl was or why I pictured her with him. I must have imagined the bracelet, too. There’s nothing like that in Wolfwood. It was all just products of my confused mind. Nothing that the sisters need to know.

“Not a portal,” Azul says, sounding disappointed.

“And no clues?” Scarlet asks. “About where he is now, or how to get home?”

I shake my head. She looks almost pleased that my hunch was wrong.

“It’s still good we checked it out,” Lila says, defensive. “We’d have kept wondering.”

“Well, now that we know, it’s time to move on,” Scarlet says.

“I need to rest.” Lila sinks cross-legged onto the ground.

Scarlet starts to object, but Azul stops her. “We’ve got Others stationed around a perimeter, and we haven’t had any trouble. This would be a good time to sleep.”

Even though there’s no nighttime in Wolfwood, we still sleep occasionally. Or, at least, the sisters do. I stay awake and guard them. Now, we all settle onto the ground, keeping close to one another. Lila rests her head on my lap. Azul sings a pretty song, a lullaby, like she always does. Scarlet keeps a rock clutched in her hand. Eventually, their breaths turn deep and slow.

As I’m scanning the foliage around us, one of those black-and-white visions flickers in my mind. Me, back at the little hut, alone. Why would I go back there alone? That doesn’t seem safe at all. And . . . wait. Something else. I see the shelter collapsing around me. It’s a clear image. I’m standing alone in the middle of that hut, the roof and walls collapsing around me. It looks like the kind of dangerous situation my instincts usually protect me from. But I know by now that if I have one of these visions, it’s supposed to happen. For everything to turn out right, that’s how things are meant to go.

I carefully lift Lila’s heavy head off my lap, stand, and creep quietly away, ignoring the accusatory stares of the Others.

There’s a true calm in the air as I follow my intuitive map—no sense of a coiled spring or imminent danger. The landscape has shifted again; the shelter is now just a stone’s throw from where the sisters are sleeping. I’ve barely traveled any distance at all when I’m approaching it from behind. Then, suddenly, from the other side: a rustle. I freeze.

Another rustle.

Then nothing. Stillness.

I move around to the opening. Step into the doorway.

The netting around the hammocks is clean and untorn, the hammocks empty. No sign of anyone.

On impulse, I set down my blade and climb into the hammock on the right, arranging myself as it sways slightly from side to side. Once I’m settled, I close my eyes. I can hear the ocean. No, there’s no ocean here. It’s the breath of the jungle. The air shifts above me. I look up. It’s him, his blond hair glowing in the light from the doorway. I’m so happy to see him! He climbs into the hammock with me, and I adjust until we’re fitted against each other. He’s warmer even than the steamy air. I wrap my arm around him. Love fills my veins. I want to make him part of me. I nuzzle against his neck, inhale his warmth.

And I smell his shame—sharp, sour.

I pull back.

He presses something into my palm. A silver bracelet. I slip it on to my wrist.

I close my eyes. Tell myself not to question his shame. Tell myself I’m happy. Keep my eyes shut and block it all out. I drift into sleep.

When I wake up, I’m alone in the hammock.

He’s standing nearby, holding my blade. He raises it above his head.

I flinch back, scared.

He brings it down on his own leg. Blood spatters the walls. He raises it again, hacks off his hand. Blood spurts from the stump. He raises it again. I want to stop him, but I’m paralyzed. I watch him chop and slash and bleed. Until, finally, I find my courage. I tumble out of the hammock, feet sloshing in blood. I grab the blade—he’s too surprised to stop me.

My heartbeat thunders.

He stares at me. Help me, his eyes say. He gets on his knees, the pool of blood lapping at his shins. Yes, I need to help him.

I raise the blade and swing it clear through his neck, sending his head flying. It hits the wall and splashes into the red flood.

I scream and drop the weapon.

He’s kneeling, headless, in front of me. A geyser.

I can’t stop screaming. I wanted to save him, not hurt him. What have I done?

I squeeze my eyes shut and scream and scream until there’s no more space in the air.

When I open my eyes, the shelter is back to its old, dilapidated state. Ratty fabric and rotted ropes on the floor and hanging from the walls. No blood. No body. I’m panting, struggling to regain breath.

I sense movement behind me and turn.

The sisters are at the open doorway.

A cracking noise splits the air above. Another black-and-white vision flashes: the hut being decimated. It’s about to happen. Everything is about to implode.

I don’t run. I could, but I’m not supposed to. I’m supposed to stand here and let the sisters watch this happen to me.

With a crashing roar and impossible quickness, the thatched roof collapses, walls sucked in, debris pressing against me as I shout, getting crushed, in my mouth, in my eyes, I’m on the ground, under the rubble, the shelter imploded, everything moving around me, pressing and cutting into my flesh, immobilizing me. “Help!” I call into the chaos. A searing pain cuts my arm. I’m moving. Being moved, pulled. By my arm. Scraping against the ground below and debris above, I’m pulled fast out of the rubble, now whoosh, I’m out of the pile and jerked up, hanging in the air, the vine cutting into my arm.

Thorns dig deeper and deeper. Pain I haven’t felt before. White hot. And then the sisters are below, and Lila is screaming, too, and Scarlet has found my weapon and she climbs to me, the blade strikes, and I fall.

Something hard under my cheek. Scuffed wood. Floor. I’m lying on the studio floor. My head . . . pounding. I struggle up, sit. My arm throbs. My mouth, cottony and dry.

I close my eyes. Hang my head. Press fingertips to temples. I don’t remember lying down. I remember . . . hanging from my arm, falling. That monster, it was holding on to me. Scarlet cut me down. I open my eyes and look at my arm. A vicious, bloody scratch wraps around it. I can’t . . . what happened? My thoughts are all mixed up. Real world—last I remember in the real world was starting painting. How did I get on the floor? I must have . . . passed out? Is that it? But how did I hurt my arm?

I use the table to help stand. Gravity’s working double.

Everything tips and sways. I brace my hands on the table. The painting swims in front of my eyes. I’m falling into it. Or it’s coming toward me. I close my eyes again. Something isn’t right. Something . . . I don’t know what I’m thinking. I look at the painting.

Color everywhere. It’s finished. The third painting is completely finished. The final vignettes show the girl in white—me—sneaking back to the shelter alone. Going inside, the shelter imploding around me. Hanging from a tree by my arm, the sisters below.

How . . . ? How is this possible? How did I get so much done? This was supposed to take me days.

My phone sits on the corner of the table. I flip it open. Messages waiting, lots. And it’s 9:04. In the morning. I started . . . when? Yesterday, in the morning. I stare at the phone. Another minute blinks past.

I painted for more than a whole day? No.

Yes, I must have. The painting is done.

Too heavy, head too heavy to manage any more thought. Body drained. I barely make it to the couch.

Bright sun blankets me when I wake up. For a moment I think I’m back in my sunny bedroom in our old apartment. Then I remember. As I move to sit up, all my limbs protest with pain. My arm—I hold it up, see that bloody scrape. Memories of before I slept start to come back. Memories of Wolfwood, which should have disappeared by now. Cutting his head off with my blade, blood everywhere. The hut imploding. Hanging from my arm. The sisters underneath me, screaming. The pain of those thorns cutting into me . . .

Then waking up on the floor, the third painting finished. That’s right—I painted for so long I finished the whole thing and then passed out. I look around the room, yellow with sun. I must not have slept very long—this is still morning light.

I stand and find my phone on the desk. All those missed calls and texts, still waiting for me. And, wait . . . it’s 11:11 A.M., the following day.

Jesus. I painted for an entire day and then slept through another?

Like a sudden monster attack, hunger grabs me. Vicious. I find the bag of food, tear open the ramen, and inhale the noodles, raw, along with the leftover coffee, now cold and stale. I don’t even care how disgusting it all tastes. I just need to get something inside of me.

My head isn’t working right yet. Drained. Like my phone, which is giving me the low battery message, down to 1 percent.

I have fifteen voicemails, twenty texts. My mother, my mother, my mother, the Fud, the Fud, the Fud . . .

I fumble nervously with the buttons as I try to retrieve the messages. The first voicemail is my mother saying I should call her back. Then one from a collection agency we pay for my mom’s debt. And then right as my mother is speaking again, the phone dies.

I slurp down a fresh coffee and devour the stale bagel on my train ride home, still ravenous despite my anxiety about what my mom wants. All those calls! She’s hurt or sick, we were kicked out, Annika called her, she called Grace . . . So many very possible possibilities. Not to mention the Fud. I can’t get fired. I can’t.

And then I start worrying about that hut and what I saw there—how I had that vision of chopping his head off—before snapping back to reality. Fuck. Why aren’t the memories leaving me, the way they usually do? I can see it all clearly, like I was really there. I know their names now: I’m Zoe, the girl in white. The sisters are Lila, Scarlet, and Azul. (Although nowhere in my mother’s captions does she give the girls names, so are these really their names or just ones I’ve made up?)

I can’t think about the throbbing wound on my arm without my heart trying to escape my chest. I just don’t understand. Was I acting it out or something? I’d stopped worrying too much about the strange experience of how I paint, but this is different. This is too weird. How could I actually get injured?

Thank god I finished the piece, at least. I’m done. Never going back. This really, really has made me see that it’s time to talk to my mother. I don’t even care how mad she is. She’s doing the rest of the paintings.

Although, all those calls . . . Who knows what situation I’m even coming home to.

I open the basement door and hurry in. She’s standing by the hot plate. “I’m so sorry!” I say. “My phone died. What’s going on?” I drop my bag and rush over to her without even taking off my shoes.

“Honey, I was so worried!” We hug tightly, then I pull back, my hands on her shoulders.

“What’s going on?” I ask again. Nothing about her expression is telling me her mood.

“You didn’t hear the messages?”

“No, just that you wanted me to call. My phone’s totally dead. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I got an interview!”

“You . . .”

“They want me to come in for a real interview, for the juice job! We only talked a couple minutes on the phone, about stuff like availability, and then they asked me to come in, tomorrow!” Now her face is all lit up.

“That’s so great, Mom!” I laugh a little, letting out the tension. “God, seeing all those messages scared me.”

“Sorry. I was excited. And nervous. I know it’s silly—it’s just a juice place. Will you help me decide what to wear?”

“Of course. Um, Grace and I didn’t get much sleep or eat much. And I need to answer some calls I missed. How about I do that, take a shower, and then we get slices? My work shift isn’t till two.” (If I still have a job . . .)

“Perfect.” She smiles.

I can’t talk to the Fud in front of her, don’t want her to know I missed my shifts Thursday and Friday and lied about a fictional grandmother dying. So I plug my phone into the charger and send Shawna several texts saying I thought I’d been clear that I’d be missing two shifts, not just one, and I’m so sorry that in my grief I must have confused her, and I’m so sorry I screwed them, etc., etc., etc. She responds immediately—angry, of course—but ends up telling me that she’ll give me a pass this time, given the circumstances. Phew.

I stay in the shower long past the hot water disappearing, letting the icy spray clear my head. Waking up for real now. As I come back to life, I let myself get excited about the fact that I finished the paintings in time for the framer and that my mother has an interview. Once they meet her, they’ll give her the job. She’ll be pumped because of that. And I’ll tell her that there’s more good news: We can still do the show and make all that money, and three of the eight paintings are already done. She’ll feel good about herself and thrilled that I figured out a way to make this happen, and she’ll be happy to help me.

I refuse to think about the bloody scratch on my arm. Refuse to think about the lingering memories. Cuddling in the hammock. Chopping his head off. Doesn’t matter. I won’t be painting again.