My mother faced me, narrowing her eyes. “Oh God! Georgina!” she gasped and rushed over to where I laid. “Sweetheart, your head!” She pulled me off the ground and held me. “What happened to you? Thank God, you’re okay! We were so worried!” She kissed my forehead repeatedly and rocked me back and forth like an infant.
“I don’t know what happened to me, Mom.”
“We’ll worry about that later. I’m just so thankful you’re safe,” she said, with tears brimming in her eyes. “I was coming to look for you. I didn’t care what any of the council members said.”
“They wouldn’t have let you back in.”
“I don’t care,” she cried. “You’re my child. You’re more important than some ridiculous council rule.”
“What about Frankie? Huh, Mom? She’s your child too.”
She squeezed me tighter and smoothed my hair back. “Never you mind about Frankie. What’s most important now is that you’re okay.” She placed both of her hands on my cheeks and gazed at me directly in the eyes. My body slumped as she released me from the embrace. “What’s wrong with your arms and legs?” she asked, concerned.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t know,” I repeated. “When I woke up, my head was split open and I couldn’t move any of my limbs.”
Her voice raised a level. “You can’t move your arms and legs? Who did this? Huh? I will kill them! If they think cannibals are scary they haven’t seen anything yet!”
“Mom, I’ve tried, but I can’t remember anything about what happened to me or how I got here. There is a huge chunk of my memory that’s missing.”
She let out a frustrated sigh. Then she got distracted and noticed the paper on the ground. “What’s this?” she asked as she snatched it.
“It was in my bag when I woke up.”
She scanned the paper slowly. “And you don’t know who wrote it?”
“I already told you, Mom. I don’t remember anything.”
She folded up the paper and shoved it into her back pocket. Then she massaged my scalp, trying to get a better look at the gash on my head. Her fingers intertwined with my hair and she began pulling it. And it was really starting to hurt. The incessant stinging throbbed. “Stop it!” I said, “You’re hurting me!” At one point I tried to lift my arm to slap her hand away, but I still couldn’t move it fully.
Unwinding her fingers from my hair, she located the cut and spread it open. “The cut is really deep. You’re going to need stitches.”
She pulled the wound taught and I yelped. “Ow, Mom! Easy! You’re being too rough!”
Then my mother removed her hands from my head, picked up my knapsack, and flung it over her shoulder. “Alright, honey. I’m going pick you up now, okay.”
“Okay.”
She slid her arms underneath my butt and back. “On three… One…two….three.”
At first my
body folded and I heard every bone in my spine crack. Then my mother adjusted her arms and carried me over to the opening. Now I understood what people meant when they said mother’s had super-human strength when it came to their children.
We hovered over the top of the hole and my father peered up at us from the bottom. He let out a sigh of relief. Oh, Georgina. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks, Daddy. I’m glad Mom found me.”
“Me too,” he said. “You gave us quite a scare.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s not her fault,” my mother growled as she descended down the ladder.
My father ignored her comment. Everyone knew my mother would hold Mr. Baker responsible for this. I thought she had a valid point. I still couldn’t understand why the men in the council weren’t doing the gathering. They were strongest people here. They could fight off the cannibals and other wild things. Aside from Colin and maybe Dylan Edwards, the rest of the teens here wouldn’t make it out there.