L I L L Y

 

As they chugged up the rollercoaster’s gargantuan hill, Lilly was immensely grateful to be in Angus’s comfy truck. Whenever Angus shifted gears, the mechanisms protested with grinding grunts and precarious yelps. Lilly thought she might have died while trying to walk this hill, and by the noises the truck was making, it had similar concerns. She peered at the mirror attached outside her window, wondering if the logs were tied down tightly enough to keep them from spilling all over the road.

“Know what you’re thinking. We’ve crested this mini-mount a dozen times, and never lost a single timber.” He grinned at her. “There’s a turkey dinner with all the fixings in the cooler behind your seat, if you fancy a nosh.”

For once she wasn’t hungry. If anything she felt a little nauseated. “No thank you.”

“Well, it’s there if you need it.”

She’d expected the road to plummet down the other side, but when they reached the apex she saw that its descent meandered in long, gradual switchbacks. Lilly could’ve sworn she heard the engine purring, like a great cat. Angus patted the dashboard.

“She’s much happier now.”

A short while later they came to a tunnel, burrowed through the side of a rocky mountain. The truck’s headlights illuminated black curving walls that reminded Lilly of gelato, scooped out with a massive spoon. Only a short stretch of roadway was visible at a time, and there was no sign of the tunnel’s end.

“It must be really long,” she said.

“That it is. Quite long indeed. I won’t blame you if you get bored of the scenery and fall asleep.”

She thought he was joking. But on and on they drove through the slightly claustrophobic passageway. The view was so monotonous that, indeed, the longer Lilly gazed at it the more her eyelids drooped.

“Are we almost to the end?” she asked, trying to stay awake, and unsure how much time had passed.

“No, ’fraid not. I can switch on the overhead light, if you fancy reading a book.”

“No, that’s okay.” It was a tempting offer, but she felt too tired to read. She hoped there wasn’t any of Stop’s sleeping potion lingering inside her. She felt safe with Angus, but it was better if she stayed awake and kept an eye on where they were going. Someday she might want to make the reverse trip, so she needed to know how to get back home.

Angus started singing a lovely but sad ballad; it made Lilly’s goal of keeping her eyes open that much harder. No doubt it helped him endure the monotony of the endless tunnel, but the somber music nearly doomed her to the pendulous urge to sleep. Her chin flopped onto her chest, but she yanked it back up.

It flopped again.

And she yanked it up.

It flopped again.

And again.

And again.

 

 

Lilly was certain she’d resuscitated herself every time she blinked off to sleep. But daylight pierced her closed eyelids and she was forced to concede that somewhere along the way she’d taken a nap. The new terrain astonished her—the wide-open savannahs of a pristine continent, the sandy hue of the dirt road. But then something much closer caught her attention. Her hair was hanging in her face, significantly longer than it had been before they entered the tunnel.

Perplexed, she tilted her head downward to admire its full length, and then was startled by something else.

“Aaaaaaahhhh!” She tried to get away from it, but it was attached to her midsection.

It was right in the center of her, a rounded mound beneath her shirt. And now too short, the T-shirt rode up on her belly. The sleeves of her hoodie were above her wrists, her jeans above her ankles, and she couldn’t wiggle her toes in the cramped confines of her shoes. By now she was accustomed to spurts that added inches overnight; it was her belly, big and round, that filled her with the terror of wrongness.

Had she developed a tumor? Is this what the doctors had called an ossification? Maybe it’s what they’d feared all along, that eventually she’d start growing bits and pieces in wayward ways, and they would grow just as fast as the rest of her.

“Am I dying?” she shrieked, unable to process what was happening.

“Oh lass, you’re all right. It’s just the baby growing.”

“The…?” Her brain shut off for a second. She scanned the terrain—maybe there was an answer out there. Scattered among the rocky outcroppings were incredible trees, with canopies that fanned out over thick, towering trunks. The sky looked pinkish and the colors everywhere were soft and plush. It was all very beautiful, but didn’t resolve any of her questions.

“How far did we go?” How long were we in that tunnel?

“We’re almost there now. Don’t worry, the ladies will help you when your time comes.”

My time? She gazed at her belly again. “Is that really a baby?”

Naïve though she may have been, she wasn’t a doofus: with Rain she’d read Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret three times. Lilly hadn’t started getting her periods—it never occurred to her that Stop’s attack could result in a pregnancy. She felt the rage of a wildfire. And betrayal beyond what her young body could hold.

This wasn’t right. She was supposed to have a choice about these things, and she certainly wasn’t ready to have a baby—but by all appearances it was too late. In the storm of her thoughts an even darker cloud encroached. Was Angus somehow responsible for this? Not for the baby itself, but for taking her through the not-an-expression-of-speech endless tunnel? He’d been through it before; he must have known how much time would pass.

“Let’s go back!” If they went back through, maybe everything would reverse itself.

“We can’t undo it, lass—and this is the best place you could be, I wouldn’t have agreed to bring ya otherwise. The ladies will know exactly what needs doing—for the wee one, and for you.”

She slumped against the door. “I don’t want this, Angus.”

She’d managed to stay reasonably content as her body grew, some aches and misgivings notwithstanding. And she’d even succeeded in quashing her rapist—quite literally—which she hoped would help her feel better about it, in time. But now it was all too much. Leaving home. Leaving Rain. Her life had become a firecracker, the kind with a bad fuse that took off a hand. She started to cry.

“Oh Lilly, it’s not so bad, I promise ya.”

“Everything’s ruined! My whole life!”

“No, you’ll see. At this stage of the journey it seems confusing because everything’s so new.” He spoke with such certainty, such compassion, that Lilly gave him her full attention. “You can’t picture how it could possibly turn out all right.” (True, she couldn’t.) “But I know things. That’s my payment from the ladies, because the earth owns the trees and it would be wrong to get money simply for doing the right thing. So I bring the trees, and the ladies bring them back to life, and they gift me with this special thing, this special knowing. And what I know about you…” He gazed at her for a long while, grinning in wonder. “I hardly have the words for the greatness you’re going to be.”

Lilly had never felt so special in her life. All the fine hairs on her arms stood up in approval to applaud. Her smile threatened to break through and wrap itself around her head. At once she felt both very small—a delighted child—and very, very important. She leaned over to plant a kiss on Angus’s cheek.

“Thank you. I might’ve died out there without you.”

“It’s my honor, lass. And I’m getting ya there as fast as I can.”