How will my father know any of this? I was on a class field trip, and he wasn’t expecting my visit. It might be hours and hours before anyone realizes I’m gone.
I scream again, and the caveman grips me tighter. I find one last bit of strength to fight him, but he is simply too strong. I have no idea what he plans to do with me, but all the thoughts in my head are of the most horrific kind.
My continued futile efforts exhaust me even more, and I give up. I don’t know what else to do and can only sit there with tears running down my face.
Abruptly, the caveman shifts me in his lap and gets up to tend to the fire, leaving me sitting there on a rough grass mat. I glance briefly at the doorway, but I no longer see daylight coming from the other side. Thoughts of escaping into the night briefly fill my head, but the more rational part of me knows that shelter is the first necessity in a survival situation, and so I stay. I pull my knees up to my chest and sit there, unable to move.
The man turns back, eyes me for a moment, and then bends down. He peers at my legs for a minute before reaching out and running his fingers over my jeans. I tense, trying to figure out just what he’s doing as he touches his loincloth with his other hand.
He pauses and looks at me with his intense, green eyes. Slowly, he reaches out and strokes my hair once more. I cringe and shudder as tears fall from my eyes yet again.
I watch as he pulls his hand back, rises up on the balls of his feet, and then reaches out for me again. He slides his arms underneath my back and legs and then stands with me cradled against him. He walks to the back of the cave and lays me down in a pile of furs.
It’s much darker here, away from the fire. I can only see the caveman’s outline as he kneels in front of me, looking down as I try to look around him. I want to keep my eyes on the fire—on something I can still see—as opposed to sitting here, blind in the back of a cave.
His hand and arm are just shadows as he reaches for his waist and pulls off the only strip of clothing he’s wearing, and all my fears return.
“No, no, no!” He grabs me, crawls over me, and holds me down on the fur-lined bed. I struggle, scream, and punch his naked body, terrified of what he could do to me here, alone, in the back of the cave in God knows where—God knows when.
I scream again, kick and punch, but he just holds me down. When I exhaust myself, I can only cry and wait for him to do whatever it is he’s going to do to me. I close my eyes and wait for what I assume is the inevitable.
But nothing happens.
I feel his hand on my face, wiping tears from my cheeks. When I open my eyes, I can see such a look of genuine sorrow and pain in his eyes that I don’t know what to think of him at all.
“What do you want from me?” I whisper, but I get no response. He just stares at my mouth, brow furrowed, looking confused.
I stay as still as I can as he runs his hand over my hair, leans in and sniffs at my neck, and then lies beside me with his arms around my waist, holding me close to his bare chest. He lifts his head for a moment, looking first at the fire and then at the entrance to the cave. He lets out a satisfied huff from his nose and then settles back down.
He bumps his nose to my forehead and looks at me with soft eyes glowing brightly in the firelight. He looks…worried.
“You don’t want to hurt me, do you?” I say softly. “Why did you drag me back here? Are you going to let me leave in the morning?”
Clearly, he doesn’t understand English, and I give up trying to speak to him. If he were going to hurt me, he has had plenty of opportunity. I obviously am no match for him physically, and if he were going to do all the horrible things my head told me he might, he would have already.
Eventually, my exhaustion gets the better of me, and I try to ignore the nakedness of the man beside me as I close my eyes. I sleep restlessly, waking a few times. Each time, the caveman is there, looking down at me with concern in his eyes and silently stroking my hair. I find it strangely calming as I drift back to sleep.
The next morning, it’s clear that the caveman doesn’t want me to go anywhere. Now that my head is slightly clearer, I’m not sure where I would try to go. It’s not like I can live in a hole and wait for my father to figure out where I am. He may never figure it out.
The terror I felt when he first dragged me back here is gone. Nothing Ehd has done has caused me to believe he will harm me. If fact, he seems determined to take care of me.
It’s also clear that this caveman doesn’t use any kind of verbal speech. After a lot of patience, we get as far as names though he can’t say mine properly. Even after shortening Elizabeth to the hated “Beth” nickname, he couldn’t get it right and can only refer to me as Beh.
He’s very proud of his own name—Ehd. He smiles and practically shakes with excitement when he tells it to me. I’m paying close attention to his movements and expressions to try to understand him, but I know that no matter how long I’m stuck here, this isn’t going to be easy.
Chapter 2
I can’t help but laugh as Ehd cries out and jumps away from me, holding the side of his head as if he’s just been stung by a bee. All I had done was try to comb though some of that matted hair!
My caveman might not talk, but he sure is expressive. I’m constantly surprised at how well I can understand what he’s thinking just by the expressions and gestures he makes.
I wonder if I can teach him sign language.
“Come here, Ehd.” I take a strand of my recently washed and combed hair between my fingers and hold it out. I ditch the piece of driftwood I’d been using as a comb and run my hands over my hair again and again as Ehd stares at me, mouth slightly open. “Come on back, and your hair will be just like mine is.”
Given how much dirt and soot is all over him, it is very clear that bathing is not Ehd’s thing. However, if I have to put up with living in a cave, the resident caveman is going to smell better than he currently does.
“I know you want to touch it,” I say, smiling at him as I run my fingers through my hair, holding it out in the sunlight.