“The other woman who’d been taken with you.”
She nods. “Lora wouldn’t drink the tea. They brought her to show her how well I was doing, how much better shape I was in. I tried to persuade her to drink and bide her time, but to her, I was weak, surrendering when I should be fighting. She was a twenty-five-year-old wilderness guide, tough as nails. I was a middle-aged academic. We … we’d never really gotten along. She fought them every waking second and eventually, they fought back. They beat her. They gave her only enough water to survive. Then they took away her clothing. After a week, she escaped.”
I raise my brows, and Maryanne nods. “Yes, they let her escape. I realized that later. One of the men tracked her. A week later…” She swallows and rubs her face. “They took me to see her. To see … what was left.”
I tell her she doesn’t need to continue, but she says, “No, this is part of the story.” Another few minutes of silence before she says, “She’d collapsed. Exhaustion. Hypothermia. Starvation. She couldn’t go on. The tracker had tied her to a tree. Then he put tea beside her. Drink the tea, and he’d give her food and clothing. She didn’t, and so he left her there, and I…”
Maryanne swallows. “I hope she just fell asleep. Died quietly. If not…” Another swallow, harder. “Something got her. An animal. Either it scavenged her dead body or it killed her. That’s what they brought me to see, and that was a message. Drink your tea and behave, and do not even think of running, or this will happen to you.”
“So you stayed?”
“I still planned to escape. I’d give it a month, even two, until they trusted me. I’d be fed and strong, and I’d have clothing and weapons, and I wouldn’t end up like Lora when I ran. Then they gave me the other tea. There was no peaceful trance with that.”
She looks at me. “I’ve never been an angry person. No matter what my husband did, I stayed calm and looked for solutions. I had anger, though, and that tea brought it out. It induced hallucinations and violent frenzies and…”
Her face reddens. “It induced all the impulses. It unleashed the id, and it was addictive. Not so much the drug itself as the experience. Cathartic. In my already confused state, it felt as if I’d discovered something I’d been looking for all my life. Like our family friends dreaming of walking into the wilderness and reuniting with Mother Nature. I embraced it, and I’m ashamed of that now, but when it happened…”
She looks at me. “Most of the time, we drank the first tea, the same as you’d have your morning Earl Grey. Then there were the rituals with the other one, so you went from a sense of tranquil unreality to those wild, primal frenzies. There wasn’t anything else. After a while, it became harder to focus, harder to think straight. All that mattered was surviving. Hunting, finding shelter, protecting territory, satisfying needs and urges.”
She shifts position again. “When I met you and Eric in the forest that first time, I was in what you might call a down phase. We all were. In a frenzy, we’d have attacked and taken what we wanted, but in the down phase, they could think it through enough only to threaten you.”
“They’d still have killed us, though,” I say. “That’s why they asked Eric to remove his clothing. So they wouldn’t ruin it when they killed him.”
She nods. “Yes. They’d have killed him and any other men in your party. They’d have taken you. Young, strong men seem like an asset, but they’re also competition for goods and women. A young, strong woman is the truly valuable asset.”
She inhales. “I didn’t recognize Eric. That’s no excuse. I was still watching them do exactly what they’d done to my own party from Rockton, and I wasn’t lifting a finger to stop it.”
“You couldn’t.”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t have either. In that phase, I would regret what happened, but it would never occur to me to stop it. When I did recognize Eric, though, it was like a light in the darkness. That one tiny pinprick that cut through the fog. Once I started remembering, I couldn’t stop. It helped that I didn’t go back to the tribe. That wasn’t really a choice. Our entire hunting party had been wiped out, including our leader. I’d lost my mate a few months before, and that left me vulnerable. I had enemies, including the shaman, who was the dead leader’s mate. Not returning turned out to be my salvation. My mind didn’t clear overnight. Even now, sometimes I wake up, and I can’t remember how I got where I am. I’m alive, though, so I’m clearly not wandering around in a daze. I think it’s more like blackouts, lost memory.”
“Effects of long-term drug use,” April says. “My doctoral advisor had a subspecialty in hallucinogens. What you are likely looking at is something that produces effects similar to PCP. Long-term use leads to long-term effects, as with most drugs. Blackouts or loss of memory would be one of them.”
“Will that stop?” Maryanne asks.
“While I believe that ‘long term’ implies it isn’t permanent, I can’t say that without further research.”
“Which we will do,” I add quickly. “If it isn’t likely to clear up on its own, there must be treatments.”
April gives me a look. Brain damage isn’t something that heals like torn tissue, and she doesn’t want me sounding so certain, but thankfully, she doesn’t say anything. Maryanne isn’t a child needing sunshine and roses, but she is fragile, and if I lean one way, it’ll be toward convincing her that a normal life is possible.
It helps that I believe it. I’ve seen people come back from situations that I’m not sure I could have psychologically survived. Determination and optimism might not solve every issue, but it gets you a good chunk of the way there.
For all my sister’s challenges, she understands this. She would never tell Kenny that he won’t walk again, and nor will she tell Maryanne her mind might never fully heal. Her glare just warns me to watch my step, because I’m such a sunshine-and-roses person myself that I might blithely lead poor Maryanne down the happy path of delusive hope. Yeah, my sister really needs to get to know me better.
With that we reach the end of what Maryanne can tell me for now. I have more questions—so many more—but she’s tiring, and that trip down memory lane wasn’t a joyful one. As eager as I am to take her to try identifying the dead woman, she needs a rest first and, again, I’m otherwise stalled until Dalton returns, hopefully with information on where to find the baby’s parents.
NINETEEN
As Maryanne naps, so does the baby, while I make notes on Maryanne’s story. As I watch the baby soundly sleeping, I marvel at my maternal skill. All those stories about babies crying constantly and moms never getting a moment to themselves, and here I am, with time to write down all my notes and then make coffee and even leaf through a novel I’d accidentally left under my old sofa. Clearly Edwin is right, and I’m a natural mother.
Yeah … I’m not that delusional. The baby deserves all the credit for this. I’m guessing that, at this age, they sleep a lot of the time, like Storm and Raoul did as puppies. Also, having lived in the wilderness, born in winter, the baby wouldn’t be accustomed to a cushy life where Mom and Dad can jump to fulfill her every need. She’s curled up with Maryanne on the sofa, snuggled deep into a soft source of body heat, and she’s happy.
The baby does eventually fuss, and I take her from Maryanne, who is so deeply asleep that if the house caught fire, I’d need to haul her out. Alone in the wilderness she’s probably done little more than nap for months now, staying just warm enough to doze without drifting into the endless slumber of hypothermia.
When Maryanne does wake, I summon Jen to take the baby while I finally escort Maryanne to the clinic, where I hope she can identify the dead woman.
* * *