Free The Killing Lessons by Saul Black Page B

the only thing that felt real in the dream.)
Don’t waste time
,
Sylvia said.
Door first. Crawl. Then sleeping bag. Something under her head. How long was she out there?
    He did all of it on his hands and knees, wretched with pain. He got the wet things off the child (but knew as soon as he removed her right boot and saw the dark swelling that her ankle was probably broken) and draped them on the stove so she’d see them as soon as she woke up. He opened the sleeping bag out completely on the Karrimor mat, very gently rolled her into it, then zipped it up around her. He eased his pillow under her head and put more wood in the stove. By the time he was finished he was drenched in sweat.

NINETEEN
    How old? Nine? Ten? There were pine needles in her dark hair. Her face was covered in scratches.
    Scratches because she was running through the woods.
    Who was she running from?
    Where were they now?
    And what use was a cripple going to be if they showed up?
    Sylvia, very focused, sent clipped, practical bulletins:
Keep her warm. Get fluids into her
.
    No landline. No cell reception. He had to get to the car. He couldn’t get to the car. It had nearly done for him just getting to the front porch and back. He had an image of himself crawling on all fours through the snow to the bridge. Impossible. It didn’t matter how many times he approached the problem, the facts remained: he was stuck here with her until L5 decided it had had enough of torturing him and released the pressure on S1, or until whoever she belonged to showed up to claim her. Someone
would
show up, obviously, sooner or later. She couldn’t be anything other than missing. But what had happened to her? And what if she died in the meantime?
    Who was she running from? He consulted Sylvia. Could feel her shaking her head, see her dark eyes bright with the mystery.
    When he’d had to undress the girl he’d wanted to do it briskly, out of a panicky care for her dignity. But the swollen ankle meant he’d had to be careful and slow (who knew what else was broken?) and he’d been ambushed by an awkward piercing sadness at the sight of her pale legs and hairless vulva. The forlornness of her bare legs. As soon as her panties were dry he’d slipped them back on for her.
    The world was full of awful things happening to kids. He and Sylvia had been childless. Sylvia had had scarring from a miscarriage when she was eighteen and he had sperm with such low motility they might as well have been dead. They’d tried in the early years of their marriage, five attempts at IVF without success. They’d felt it start to consume them, the cycle of hope and disappointment. They’d had the wisdom to know when to stop. It had made a little sadness between them. But it had also asked the necessary question: in the absence of a child to love, will this be enough? Will the two of you, for each other, be enough? And the answer, they’d both known, was yes. It had brought them closer, gently. It had confirmed them.
    Looking at this child now, Angelo was appalled by her vulnerability, the small wrists and tender throat, the eyes like shut buds. When her jeans were dry, he decided, he’d put those back on for her too.
    He felt her forehead. The chill had gone, but she didn’t stir. Her stillness was awful. If she was shivering or raving it would be something, a sign that she was still here. As it was, he imagined her spirit wandering somewhere between here and the afterlife, lost, confused, alone.
No, I can’t help with that
, Sylvia said.
She’s still with you
.
    There were more difficulties. Even with the wood-stove he was going to be pretty cold without his sleeping bag. There was one moth-eaten blanket in the chest in the bedroom (no bed) and two bath towels he’d dried yesterday, but that would be the limit of his insulation. He’d been sleeping on the Karrimor on the floor by the stove, but she needed that, so he’d have to take his chances on the busted couch, which would