‘Fuck’s sake, Scott, what the hell were you thinking?’ It came out more forcefully than she’d intended; Scott flinched and Carly raised a palm in apology.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound harsh. But you shouldn’t be trying to go off on your own – it’s not safe,’ she said. ‘Especially not now that you’re injured. Anything could have happened to you.’ She gave him her warmest, most reassuring smile. Butthe truth was, she was frightened too; she was quick to panic now. They were running out of time; she couldn’t afford for anything else to go wrong.
‘Ouch,’ said Scott, reaching for his ankle again. ‘Shit, it really hurts. I need to sit down. I probably shouldn’t have walked on it again so soon.’ He flopped onto the tree trunk.
‘Let’s see if I can find you something to help ease the pain,’ Carly said. Naya’s bag was near her feet, so she reached down and rummaged through. She dug out some tablets from the first-aid kit – they were only aspirin, they wouldn’t take much of the pain away, but perhaps they would do something – and popped them out of their foil packet. With no water left, she passed Scott the pills and watched him struggle to gulp them down dry, grimacing as he swallowed.
Scott nodded. ‘Thanks. Sorry for scaring you – I really did think I heard something over there.’
Carly frowned. ‘What do you think you heard, exactly?’
Scott shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. There were branches cracking, the trees were rustling really loudly... and just something in the way it was moving.’ He dipped his head into his palms for a moment, then lifted his head again. ‘I’m sorry, this probably isn’t making any sense. It’s just... it sounded like something bigger than a sloth, or a monkey. It sounded...human.’
Human.
Carly’s heart kicked against her ribcage. She swallowed, took a breath.
‘Where did the sound come from, exactly – that direction, there?’ Scott’s eyes followed her pointing finger; he nodded. ‘Right. I’m going to check it out,’ she said, standing up, then bending quickly to look Scott right in the face when she sawa look of panic flicker across it. ‘I’ll just go and look in the area for a bit. Make sure it’s not Naya, wandering around injured or something. Will you be OK here alone for a few minutes?’
‘Let me come with you, please,’ said Scott, his tone urgent. ‘I think I can walk with my crutch – I’ll get faster as I get used to it. I might not even slow you down.’
Carly thought for a moment, then: ‘I really think it’s best if you don’t,’ she said. ‘I promise, I won’t be gone long. You’ll be better off staying put here, resting that ankle.’
Scott groaned. ‘Yeah. You’re probably right. Just stay within earshot, OK? And if... you know, if you think it makes more sense for you to get yourself out of here and call for help – I understand. I’ll only slow you down now.’
Carly whistled softly. ‘Scott, come on – I’d never just leave you here.’ She smiled at him, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. Then she bent down to pick up her rucksack, swung it across her shoulder and started to walk towards the trees.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, looking back at Scott. ‘All of this is going to be over soon.’
NAYA
This must be what it feels like when you die.
Naya was drowning, and then she was breathing again. Over and over and over. Her lungs grasped desperately for air every time she bobbed briefly above the surface of the water before submerging again in a torturous cycle.
When she first fell in, the shock of the water had almost finished her off, as her mouth gaped open and closed; she knew she had to control her breathing if she was going to have any chance of survival. Once or twice, she’d seen patients who’d taken a tumble into stretches of fast-moving water; that was enough experience to know that managing to breathe for the first minute meant the difference between life and death.
But a minute had passed now, and she was still grasping at something, any kind of way out. She’d managed to stay calm for a moment, but the peace had passed and now she was panicking.
Flailing, desperate for something to grab onto, she kicked into the rocks underneath her – and then buckled as a hot jolt of pain rushed across the top of her right leg. The front of her thigh had snagged, at violent speed, on something roughand sharp in the stream. She caught a flash of red changing the colour of the water.Shit.
This is it; it’s all over now, surely.
Her life didn’t flash before her eyes exactly, like people said happened right before you die. It was more random images, random pictures, memories. The tiny seed in her belly, about the size of a grape right now, whose life would end the very same moment hers did. Her children.
Oh God, my children.
How would Elodie and Marcus cope without her? They had her mother, at least. They would be loved; they would be cared for. But who else would understand them the way she did? Who else would fight for them, claw, tooth and nail, to get them the support they needed? Her mother was nurturing and wonderful – but did she have the energy for all those battles?
And then, triggered by the image of her little boy’s face, a flash of memory: one of his fixations. A temporary obsession – he had one after another, and Naya supported and encouraged them; she knew that it was how he calmed himself and that these passions brought him so much joy – and this one had been about rivers. He’d learned the names of the biggest rivers in the world, where they started and ended, what country they were in, with encyclopaedic precision. When he discovered a new special interest, he needed to absorb it entirely, and sometimes that meant veering off on random tangents, travelling down knowledge rabbit holes. Rivers were no exception.But my God, what a useful rabbit hole.
He’d found something, in one of his Google searches, about what to do if you fell into the water. She could picture his eyes,fervent with excitement, as he told her: ‘Did you know, you’re supposed to not struggle,maman? You have to stay calm, and go with the water. Isn’t that crazy?’
Stay calm. Go with the water.
What else, what else did he tell her? There was something about feet –yes, that was it: you were supposed to keep them up.Don’t try to touch the bottom, that’s how you get injured. She’d remembered that one too late. But that was the shape she needed to be in now – feet up and together, knees bent, arms out to make a kind of fin.Back stroke – that should slow you down a bit. Wait for an eddy created by a rock, sprint in front crawl to the edge of the water and get the hell out.
Forcing her shocked, exhausted body to comply with her instructions took every ounce of strength, but she did it: pulled her feet up and in towards her knees, stretched out her arms. Immediately, she felt her body begin to slow, just a touch, but enough to give her hope.
