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Kimmie couldn’t believe it actually worked. She wasn’t great with gauging time, but she figured it must have been close to an hour by now since they left Chuck’s trailer. And so far, no angry yells or terrifying rifle blasts had pursued her and her brother.
She and Pip were deep in the woods now, but she’d followed a trail that was relatively straight. If she turned left and then circled back, she’d end up somewhere along the Glenn. Once she reached the highway, she’d be able to figure out where they were, and it was just a matter of time before they’d be safe at the trooper’s station. In a way, she was grateful Chuck had pulled the rifle on her earlier in the evening. It gave her solid evidence she could pass on to Taylor and the others. Surely they’d agree with her that a three-year-old shouldn’t be kept in a home with a father that volatile. She and Pip would finally be safe.
They would finally be free.
She continued to sing her Mom’s little songs. Pip would whine restlessly if she grew quiet, and if she were being honest with herself, the Bible verses calmed her down too. Her body was shivering from cold, but she warmed herself with thoughts of a future safe with Pip. They’d move to Anchorage. Life wouldn’t be a fairy tale squatting in Meg’s home, but hopefully that situation would only be temporary. There must be daycares in town that needed a full-time worker and had room to enroll one more preschooler. It might not be the easiest way to make a living, but just about anything was better than staying in Glennallen with Chuck.
And no more canned chili for dinner.
Ever.
She could take Pip to church. Chuck thought all religion was nonsense and refused to let his family attend any services, but now that they were free, Kimmie could find a church in Anchorage with a good children’s program where her brother could learn about the Lord. Even though she remembered her mom’s lessons, she felt terribly inadequate to teach them to her brother. Pip would thrive in their new environment. He might even catch up on his language skills once he settled into a home and a routine that didn’t involve watching his mom and sister get beaten up all the time.
It was happening. And Kimmie had done it. Her songs turned to psalms of praise.
Bless the Lord, o my soul, and all that’s within me bless his holy name.
For the Lord is good, yes he is. The Lord is good, and his love endures forever.
I called on the Lord and he answered me. He saved me from my trouble.
Even though Kimmie had grown up singing these songs and listening to all of Mom’s stories from the Bible, they’d never felt real to her until now. Kimmie was wrong to be angry at God for failing to answer her prayers. All this time, he’d been working out the details — all the way down to the electric company turning off their power and Chuck’s having to use the outhouse — to secure their escape.
If only Mom had lived to see this day ...
But Kimmie couldn’t think like that. Instead she shifted her thoughts to the future where she and Pip would have a nice place of their own. Nothing too outlandish. A two-bedroom townhouse would be fine. Anchorage had tons of parks. Her favorite playground while growing up sported a giant jungle gym, which was more colorful and complicated than what you could find at any of the other neighborhood parks. In fact, if she remembered right, that particular playground was located right across the street from a big apartment complex. That might be the perfect place to settle down, even more desirable than a townhouse. If she and Pip found a nice apartment, she wouldn’t have to handle any of the snow shoveling or yard upkeep. It sounded better and better with each step that took them deeper into the woods.
Wait a minute. Wasn’t she supposed to be leading Pip toward the Glenn? For as straight as the trail had seemed as she burrowed into the darkness to hide, she felt now like she’d been turned around a dozen different times like a kid spun around before hitting a piñata at a birthday party. This couldn’t be right. She stared up at the sky. There was the big dipper, and if she were trained in navigation, she could probably use the North Star to figure out exactly where she was supposed to go from here, but the stellar map meant absolutely nothing to her now. It looked just like it had when she started her trek into the woods.
She stopped. “Hold on, Buster,” she told her brother when he started to fidget. She checked to make sure his blanket was still wrapped tightly around his shoulders and then glanced up at the sky again. So that way was probably north ... But what did that tell her? She was so turned around she couldn’t figure out which way she’d been walking, if she’d been walking in a single direction after all. While living at Chuck’s trailer, the sun would rise above these woods, so did that mean she was supposed to head west to get back to the highway?
It was her best guess, but there were at least a dozen unknowns that kept her feet firmly planted where they were. What if the trail hadn’t been as straight as she thought? What if turning around now meant landing straight back at Chuck’s trailer? And since the Alaskan sun always rose at an angle and never due east, what did that mean for her calculations?
Not to mention the fact that she was only fifty percent sure that she’d figured out north correctly in the first place.
The temperature had dropped significantly when the last traces of sunlight disappeared, certainly not as bad as they’d get in the dead of winter, but this escape could have never happened in the dead of winter. It had to be now.
She held her brother close, borrowing a little of his warmth and refusing to accept that she might be lost. God wouldn’t allow that to happen. He’d gotten her this far, which meant he wanted her to escape from Chuck’s awful violence as much as she did. Which meant she would find her way to safety. The Lord would help her.
Wouldn’t he?
She sank down with her back against a tree and held her brother close. “Let’s just rest for a minute here.” She wanted to unwrap Pip and cozy up beside him under the blanket, but it was so cold out she didn’t want him to lose all that warmth he’d stored up in his little portable burrow.
“You doing okay?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She knew it wouldn’t come.
“Ma.”
She paused. “What?” Kimmie was cold, but she was certain she wasn’t imagining things. She stared into her brother’s face. “What did you say?” She held her breath, waiting.
Nothing.
“Were you talking about Mommy?” Kimmie prodded, refusing to admit the sound might have been a random vocalization.
Pip stared at her blankly. He was tired. He should have been in a warm bed sleeping, not tramping through the woods. She pulled his blanket more tightly around his shoulders. “Do you miss Mommy?” she asked. Up until she said those words, she’d thought she’d been doing fine, but mentioning their mother brought a massive lump to her dry throat. She needed water. Pip must too, but there wasn’t anything they could do until they got out of these woods.
Which meant she couldn’t sit here wondering if her brother, whom everyone had considered nonverbal for the first three years of his life, had just spoken his first word or not.
She had to keep going. The more they moved, the more heat they would generate and the closer they’d get to the trooper’s station.
The closer they’d get to safety.
Hopefully.
She stood up, glancing in all directions to make sure she was still on the same path she’d been on when she decided to stop. She couldn’t be entirely sure that this would be the way to lead them to the trooper’s station or not, but there was only one way to find out.
“Come on, Buster.” She tried to make her voice sound as cheerful as possible. “Let’s go see what’s down this trail.”