“Shhh. ” She kisses my forehead and whispers, “Wake up, Joy. It’s not your time. ”
I don’t want to wake up. “No. ”
“Wake up, Joy. Now. ” It is her mother’s voice, the one I only heard when I was in trouble, and I’m helpless to ignore it, even though I know that when I open my eyes, she’ll be gone. She won’t be beside me, holding my hand and kissing me. The Suave shampoo and menthol cigarette scent of her will be gone again. “I miss you, Mom. ”
With a gasp, I’m breathing again. The pain is back, sharp as a piece of glass, throbbing in my skull. The air around me is thick with smoke.
Slowly, I open my eyes. It’s hard to see anything, hard to focus in the falling rain. The sky is gunmetal gray, swollen with clouds and smoke. Raindrops clatter on the fuselage of the demolished plane. In the distance, I can hear sirens and motors and voices and footsteps, but it is all far, far away.
I am deep in the woods, hidden. Huge ferns grow all around me. My shoe is hanging from a branch over my head. It bobs in the breeze.
It is amazing I didn’t hit a tree.
I crawl to my knees, grabbing a nearby nurse log for support. When I finally stand, I am struck by a wave of nausea. The world careens sickenly, then rights itself. I focus on getting my shoe, putting it on, as if I can’t be saved in bare feet.
When I finish, I look up. Across the smoky, debris- and plane-cluttered clearing, I can see the outline of emergency vehicles. A string of people is moving through another part of the dark forest. Their flashlight beams fan out like some giant, glowing cowcatcher in the smoke.
I can get there.
I take one painful, wobbling step, and then another and another. As I approach the edge of the clearing, I wait for them to see me. Any minute they’ll rush to my aid and take me back to my real life.
To the empty house on Madrona Lane where I’ll spend the holidays alone, to the Volvo with the tree strapped on top. To the calendar that will tick off days to my sister’s wedding and the birth of her child.
Don’t go back.
Is that my mother’s voice or the wind?
“No one knows I was on the plane. ” I say the words out loud for the first time, and at that, the voicing of it, I glimpse an opportunity.
No one will notice my absence until school starts.
I glance around the forest.
Behind me, the trees are thicker, closer together, but moonlight shows me a path between them. It is almost like a sign, that beam of light. Although I feel shaky, and more than a little light headed, I begin walking away from the crash site.
It isn’t long before I see a break in the trees, and hear the distant roar of cars.
Somewhere up ahead is a road.
I walk slowly through this dark and ancient forest. My head still hurts, my vision is blurring, and this place is like nowhere I’ve ever seen. It is as if I’m journeying in another dimension. Before me, everything is a labyrinth of shadow and moonlit smoke. Spiderwebs connect it all together; in the uncertain light, the strands seem to be made of colored glass. Mist coats the ground, swallows my feet and the spongy earth.
At last, I come to the end of the woods and the start of civilization. It is a road, old and untended, and I turn to follow it. The dotted yellow line painted down its center is inconsistent, an afterthought, apparently, a suggestion rather than a law. Every few feet a yellow sign warns drivers to watch out for elk.
Every time I hear an approaching engine, I hide in the trees. I don’t want some Good Samaritan to “rescue” me. It’s mostly emergency vehicles, anyway, going too fast to see a lone woman who doesn’t want to be seen.
At last I come to the edge of a town. A brightly painted sign welcomes me to the heart of the rainforest. The sign is splattered with mud and half hidden by a gargantuan fern, so I can’t read the name of the town, but I see the word Washington.
I’m not in Canada.
“But I’m supposed to be in Hope,” I say to the emptiness around me. Trees commiserate, whisper in understanding. They know how it feels to be uprooted, disappointed. It’s bad enough that my one spontaneous decision in life leads to a plane crash; I could at least crash near my destination.
Then again, what difference does it make where I am?
I step out from the veil of trees and follow the ribbon of asphalt into town, smoothing my hair as I go. I have no idea how long I’ve been walking; this place seems too unreal to be tethered by something as scientific as time.
I should be wondering where I’m going, but I don’t care. My mind is floating.
The town that isn’t Hope looks like a movie set. Night tucks in around it; what’s left glows in the light of streetlamps and holiday lighting. Santas and snowmen hang from lampposts; strands of white lights frame the windows.