“You’re not dressed.” In her other hand is a balled-up pair of jersey-style Shiverton shorts and a T-shirt, my punishment for wearing jeans to gym. I accept them as Ms. Dean says that while she respects my need for time to readjust, there are no exceptions to the sweats rule. She’s a softie for anyone with issues, always letting the cutters wear long sleeves to hide their razor scars. Still, I give her a nice piece of cold back, waiting until she leaves to drop my sweatercoat with a thump. Next, I shimmy out of my hoodie, unzip my fly, and yank off my jeans. A Henley button-down is the last layer standing before bra and bare skin. The locker room might be warm, but the gym is a drafty space with exposed beams that stretch to the ceiling like ribs. I tear the Henley over my head and wriggle into my shorts and extra-large tee. My white legs and arms make me look spectral. The Shiverton High girls’ locker room is exactly the same as when it was built in the 1960s, with its faint smell of mildew and decades of bad energy that lingers. Echoes of teasing banging around lockers, inadequacies stuck inside mirrors. Special pains inflicted by GIRLS onto GIRLS. But I’m not a GIRL anymore. I shake my hair out, press my lips together, and stride out, hand on belly, willing my serpentine friend—the black thing in my gut that Liv doesn’t have and doesn’t need, but I do—to rise and get me through this, the real, indoor, after-the-woods world.
Ms. Dean nods as I join the far end of the line for stretches. Liv has been absorbed among the slouchy-loud girls. I will not be absorbed. She smiles at me, hard and tight. I smile back anemically, hugging my elbows and rocking slightly, just enough to feel better and not look catatonic.
So. Cold.
My hands float up and bat at my ears, burning, as though I am outside, in the woods, but I’m not, I’m in the gym, with its faint smell of mold from last year’s flood, and still the snowy flash spreads until the gym is white. The smell of night air and woodsmoke blooms around me. Now the rush, the sensation of plunging down a hole. I’m going and I can’t stop.
What Ricker doesn’t know is that I don’t need hypnosis. Not when there’s a trigger.
*
The joint shakes in his hand as he winds it. His tongue flashes to lick the paper. It falls in his lap.
“Shhhit!” His hands flutter.
“Are you okay?” I say. Begging, reasoning, and crying haven’t worked. Empathy is the only thing I haven’t tried.
“Been off-line too—too long—long,” he stammers, patting his lap. “In the six hours I sleep sleepy-time raiders plunder my camps, destroy my weapons, and take my prey. I set traps, everything, but nothing does any good. I hardly have any girls left. What’s gonna happen when I’m gone for days? Can’t play 24/7, I just can’t. How’m I gonna get ahead after this? Phew, there it is.” He lights the fat white pupa at his lips, a flame dancing at his trembling fingers, his inhalation like a long sip of water.
I take tiny breaths. Being a pot virgin, I have no idea if just being near the smoke will make me high, and the thought of losing my wits terrifies me. I wiggle away from the downwind. The movement triggers pain in my ankle, and I cry out. He looks at me quizzically.
He holds out the joint. “Want a hit?”
I shake my head wildly.
He shrugs. “Might help.”
He takes softer drags, puffing and sucking, intimate sounds that make my privates clench. I’m hit with a wave of revulsion. I stare hard at the outlines of trees and hills, trying to get back into my head, match their silhouettes with the woods I know in daylight. The fire between us burns a low flame, but it’s enough for me to imagine my rescuers will see it and come. How long ago did Liv run away? Seven, eight, nine hours? Why hasn’t anyone come?
“This was a mistake,” he says.
I shift in my spot. If I am a mistake, I am less valuable to him. That feels dangerous.
“If you free me, you could go back to your game,” I say, my voice small.
He giggles, teeth flashing in the dark like little pearls.
I force myself to mirror his laugh, but I sound like a hyena.
“What are you laughing at?” he says.
I stop laughing. “I’m not.”
“Oh, what, was that an owl?” He laughs again, uncontrollably this time. “Was that an owl laughing in the woods?”
I become very still, trying to make myself shapeless so he’ll forget I am a GIRL, because that feels the most dangerous of all.
If only there were stars to count. Math, then.
1,133 divided by 2 equals 566.5.
8,349,179 divided by 7 equals 1,192,739.8 … 6.
“Funny, isn’t it?” he sputters, taking a last drag and flicking the orange stub into the darkness.
“Yeah!” I say, unconvincing.
“Here we are, you and me. Not what I expected. But something.”
*
“What happened to you?” Liv cries, her hand out, warding off others.
In nine months of e-mails, she never did ask me what happened in the woods.
Ms. Dean mouths my name in slow motion. A ring of pale faces crowd in over my crumpled body, their voices drifting, but I make out “swallow tongue” and “orange juice” and “so sad.” Liv plants herself to avoid being shoved. Now she’s arguing with the guy next to her. Ms. Dean’s mouth moves again, but I can’t hear her over my own breaths, loud as shotgun blasts.
I sit up. “I think I have a fever.”
Ms. Dean dings my forehead with the nugget on her college ring. “You’re burning up. Off to the nurse.” She yanks me up light as paper and tosses me toward the exit.
The pack collapses, and Liv runs after me, grabbing my arm and whispering close to my ear. “It was like you went somewhere else. Where did you go?”
I look at her meaningfully.
“My God. You’re remembering.”
“Lately, yes.”
Ms. Dean turns to the crowd. “Nothing to see here but a girl with Kuru disease. Lapin, back in line. Make teams for dodgeball!”