Free If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch Page A

through her mouth, and Shorty, his ears squared as if awaiting further instructions, determined to make us a package deal. I don’t mind at all.
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
I leave the door cracked and pad over to Nessa’s room. I unpack her toys and clothes, clothes that hold the scent of wood smoke from the fire I built the night before. Her own coat came from the Salvation Army, a pale pink cloth of some sort, reaching to her waist. I gather it up and breathe it in, but the ache only pounds harder.
Soon, the closet shelves are lined with her puzzle boxes and games, both Scrabble and Chutes and Ladders. A smudge-nosed, naked Barbie doll sits demurely, her legs dangling over the shelf ’s edge. I line up Nessa’s sneakers on the floor below, and set her stuffed dog and one-armed teddy in the child-size rocking chair. They’ll look nice on the bed once they’re put through the washing machine.
I fill an empty shelf across from her bed with her Pooh books, unable to count how many times I’ve read each book to her, the stories worn into my heart as much as hers.
Her socks, underpants, and undershirts go into the bureau drawers. When I’m through, I fold the garbage bags into squares, my mind returning again to Mama’s letter like a tongue to a loose baby tooth. I can feel the paper in my pocket, close as skin when I move. I stuff the bags in the bottom bureau drawer, then go back to my room, closing the door behind me.
There’s a clock on the little table next to my bed that says eightthirty in spelled-out numbers. A person doesn’t even have to know how to tell time—it tells it for you.
I marvel at the light switches; none worked in our camper, but they work here right fine. I flick the switch downward, and the room goes dark except for a beautiful cream-colored rectangle of porcelain plugged into an outlet. It looks like a sculpture, and I crouch down on the floor to see. Carved into its surface is a beautiful angel assisting two chubby children across a bridge. The angel’s wingspan reminds me of an owl’s, or an eagle’s, it’s so glorious.
I curl up next to Nessa, Shorty on one side and me on the other, making a Jenessa samwich. The blanket Delaney gave me is clean, downy, and warm. It smells like flowers. I feel like a flower.
My eyelids slip shut, lulled by the inhale and exhale of Shorty’s breath. First I say a prayer for Mama, though, that she, too, is safe and warm, her belly full up. And then I let go, a feeling so foreign after all those nights alone in the woods, a shotgun nestled in the crook of my arm. I let go like I haven’t since the white-star night, or perhaps since Jenessa was a baby. Ever since then, I’ve been a world of tired, clear down to my dusty bones.
    I fumble for my shotgun, but it isn’t there; my heart races as the shadows in the Hundred Acre Wood morph into hulking giants over twenty feet tall. Who, who? echo through the leaves, and an owl blinks down, and I answer, It’s only me. It is only me. Jenessa is gone. Frantic, I search the camper, the campsite, the curving shore of the roiling Obed River.
    Who, who?
I don’t know!
I fall out of bed, landing hard on my side.
“Smooth,” says Delaney, smirking from the doorway. “My mom
said to wake you for breakfast. Since you slept through dinner and all.”
    She wrinkles her nose. “You slept with that fleabag in the bed all night? Gross!”
Technically, I don’t know what gross is, but her facial expression does a more than adequate job of conveying the meaning. She marches into the room and yanks Shorty by the collar. The dog whimpers, pressing hard against Nessa, his body a deadweight.
“Let him be,” I order, my voice still rough with sleep. “We’ll bring him down ourselves.”
“What ever. You better bounce. If my mom went through the trouble of cooking for you, the least you can do is eat it when it’s hot.”
Bounce?
I push up from the floor, ignoring her, and gently shake Jenessa’s