The man stares at me a moment, waiting for me to respond, to nod in agreement, but I offer up not even a twitch of an eyelash. Somehow Ellen Ballister found herself in Pastoral—maybe she went in search of it, like Maggie did, or maybe she found it on accident （which seems unlikely） but either way, just like us, she forgot who she really was. She forgot she was someone else outside those walls.
But now she’s returned, with a newborn baby.
I turn away from the TVs and the man, and stride out through the doors. Word has gotten out, and I suspect it won’t be long until they come asking questions of Calla and me.
* * *
A young officer is standing beside his patrol car just outside the lobby doors, hands in his pockets, eyeing the hotel pool like he’d rather be floating faceup, smeared in sunblock, than waiting for me.
“Sir,” he says to me, not using the name I gave police yesterday: Theo. Maybe they suspected it was a lie, or at least not entirely truthful, so they’re waiting for the rest of the story to reveal itself. For me to fess up.
He opens the passenger door, not forcing me to sit in the back, and we pull out of the hotel parking lot. I’m careful not to touch anything inside the car—I don’t want to see the faces of those who’ve been arrested, handcuffed, and forced into this automobile.
The clouds are low and suffocating overhead, but the day is mild, slightly humid, and smelling of car exhaust. My police escort isn’t the talkative type, thankfully, and we sit in silence as we pass a handful of fast-food restaurants, a coffee hut, two hardware stores, and a church. It’s a small town, but it feels dense, the buildings crushed closely together, houses divided by fences.
I feel like I’m not in my own skin, watching it all whiz by, but after another mile more, we arrive at the hospital at the top of a sloped hillside.
The young officer with the short haircut and bored eyes gives me a nod when I open the door. “I’ll wait for you here.”
Calla’s hospital room is on the second floor. All bleached-white surfaces and ticking machines. Her eyes lift when I enter the room, and she holds out a hand to me, tears already wetting her eyelids.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, my mouth against hers.
She shakes her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Not your fault.”
“I should’ve gotten the gun from him quicker. I should have told you to run.”
Again she shakes her head, smiling. “I wouldn’t have left you alone anyway. You know how stubborn I am.”
I nod and she pulls me down to kiss her again.
“I wanted to come see you last night but they wouldn’t let me.”
“Doctor says I can probably leave tomorrow. Or the next day.” Her mouth falls flat and she looks pale, weak, but she’s alive. “The bullet wasn’t deep, just between my ribs. I should heal fine.”
I squeeze her hand between both my palms. I should have been here when she woke up, should have been here to talk to the doctors; I never should have let her be alone.
“I told them it was a hunting accident,” she says. “That no one was at fault.”
We’ve told so many lies since we’ve found our way out, like we’re afraid of the truth—like we’re protecting the place we left behind.
“It’s cold here,” she says at last, and I release her hand to draw the white hospital blanket up to her chin, tucking it close. But she adds, “Not that kind of cold.”
I smile for the first time. “I know what you mean.”
She traces circles with her finger inside the palm of my hand. “Did you tell them where we came from?”
“No. Only that we were living in the woods, that’s all. I didn’t tell them about the others.”
“Maybe we should.”
“It will change everything if we do. And maybe they’re better off in that forest than out here.”
“Better living a lie?” she asks. “Living in fear with Levi?” She winces and touches her left side where the bullet was dislodged from her torso.
I touch her shoulder, wishing I could take the pain from her, stuff it down inside my own rib cage.
“I don’t know.” I don’t know what happens now, where we go from here. I’m worried about those we left behind, worried what will happen to them if we do nothing. And a small part of me is also worried I won’t be able to remember the man I used to be, the man I was out here. From the man I became. I’m worried I won’t be able to tell the difference between the two.