Once the pills were swallowed, Jalen found himself in a semicomatose state. Lights and colors surrounded him, but it was like his whole body floated in a warm bowl of Jell-O. He felt his limp torso shifting to a gurney and then vaguely remembered rolling out of the medical ward and passing the enormous whirring propellers of an airplane.
And then, black. A long weighty sleep, like someone was holding him down by the forehead. Until suddenly, there was a light. It sliced below the curtain, burning Jalen’s eyes as he blinked awake. His head throbbed and a wave of nausea washed over him. He tried to sit up, but his body would not do what his mind asked. He was in a room, in a bed he didn’t recognize.
Where the hell am I? He strained, but he still had no recollection of the place. Lacrosse posters dotted the wall. The birds chirped outside the window, their songs excruciating to his pounding head. He turned and saw a boy on the other bed, eyes closed and mouth wide open. He remembered him vaguely from the safe house in Clarkston. The kid who beat up the interrogator. Is he dead? And then Jalen saw the boy’s chest gently going up and down.
Again, the nausea. His throat and stomach seized. He rolled from the bed and batted open the door, tripping, then crawling down a short hallway where a toilet was visible through a cracked door. He punched it open and lunged for the rim and retched.
“Wyatt? You okay?” The woman’s voice coming from downstairs was unfamiliar. He could hardly open his eyes in the blinding light coming from the vanity. A few seconds passed and the voice called again, “Wyyyyatt!”
Jalen stumbled back to the room and lay down. He was closing his eyes, trying to let his body relax, when he heard the stairs below groaning beneath a great weight. Who was it? A figure appeared in the hallway, eclipsing the light. He could make out a fuzzy pink bathrobe, and then a shrill, frantic voice.
“Oh, thank god, you’re awake.” A large woman hustled over to him and lifted him by the shoulders, cradling his head. “Jalen?”
“Yes?” Jalen said. “Who are you?”
“Narcy. Wyatt’s aunt Narcy.” The woman dropped Jalen’s head back down on the pillow.
“Who’s Wyatt?” Jalen said, gripping the sides of his aching head.
“My nephew.” Narcy huffed over to the boy on the adjacent bed and give him a not-so-gentle shake. “Wyatt, sweetie.”
Wyatt moaned and his eyes fluttered.
“Lord,” Narcy said. “Thank goodness. Thought y’all were never going to wake up.”
Jalen could finally make out the woman’s full face in the lamplight. “That man from camp told me everything,” she said. “About the fall.”
“A fall?” Jalen said.
“Yes,” Narcy said. “You and Wyatt were rappelling down a rock wall when the rope came loose. Should be dead. Both of ya.”
“Rock climbing,” Jalen said, rubbing his smooth head, feeling for bumps, but he had no memory of any of it: a camp, a fall.
“And I told him,” Narcy went on. “I said this is pretty darn strange. That both of you boys would have the same reaction to a fall. Passed out for seventeen hours from a lump on the head?”
Now Wyatt, too, was attempting to sit. “Where am I?” he said.
“Home,” Narcy said.
“Millersville?”
“Nooo. We left there almost a year ago. We’re in Charlottesville … Virginia,” she continued. “They said they gave y’all somethin’ to help you sleep while they flew you home. But that must have been some Mickey they slipped ya.”
“What about Mom? Where’s she?”
“Took a little trip,” Narcy said nervously. “She’s fine. Just went down to Florida for a bit. To clear her head. She’s on her way back to see you now.”
She pointed to the backpacks at the foot of each bed. “Got your things here,” she said. “I wanted to go through them, but didn’t want Jalen to think I’m nosy, but I could wash your camp clothes.”
“Camp?”
“Camp Tamagame. Or whatever it was called. You don’t remember that?”
“No,” Wyatt said blankly.
“Your dad and brother are still there. Ever since your daddy got back from driving trucks in Iraq, that’s been his job. Remember your daddy was a driver?”
“Vaguely. How did I hurt my head again?”
“Rock climbin’.” Narcy sat on the end of Wyatt’s bed and observed him. “It’s weird, though, I don’t see any bruising.” She squinted, then turned to Jalen. “Don’t really see any lumps on you, either, honey,” she said, and then let her mind go where it always did. “You boys want something to eat?”
At that, Wyatt flung out of bed and fumbled down the hallway to the bathroom.
Jalen looked at the woman and the woman looked back. They said nothing, just listening to the sound of Wyatt’s vomiting.
“Well,” she said, tightening the long cord of her gigantic bathrobe. “I’ll be downstairs watching my programs if you need me.”
Jalen nodded. There was so much more he wanted to ask, but all he could do was lay his head back down and sleep.