Maddie taught her to hide in unexpected sight lines. And look where that got them.
Shaking it off—but not literally, as the roof creaks in protest with every movement—Mack pulls out a single protein bar and preemptively unwraps it. No water. If she has to, she’ll pee her pants. She has extra clothes she can change into before returning to the camp. If she can even find camp again. Her path here was all trees and twists, no landmarks. She should have paid better attention.
The sky blooms blue. The game has started.
Mack closes her eyes, and waits.
* * *
—
The sun creeps along, as the sun is wont to do. The occasional insect wanders across Mack’s legs, as insects are wont to do. Mack does nothing, as Mack is wont to do.
The waiting is dull and hot. With agonizingly slow movements, she pulls out a spare shirt and puts it over her face to block the sun. Her mouth is dry, her back uncomfortable against the uneven surface.
It’s fine.
She’s careful not to fall asleep, but exists in a heavy sort of limbo, almost like meditating. One of her foster families had a daughter who was into meditation. She taught Mack. They’d find Mack at all hours, sitting, eyes closed, perfectly still. “I’m pretending I’m dead,” she’d say. “I like it.” They didn’t. They passed her along soon after.
The oppressive heat builds. She’s glad she wore long sleeves and long pants to protect her skin, even though the shirt over her face is stifling. She almost doesn’t hear it over her own soft breaths. But—
A padding of feet. Not quite the right rhythm for a person. And then—even harder to hear over the new pounding in her chest—a sort of sniffling, snuffling noise. Are there animals in the park?
The sigh that follows sounds less animal, though. Soft, plodding steps continue on.
If it was an animal, it sounded like it walked on two feet. And if it was a seeker, Mack is disturbed. She expected ATVs. Boisterous shouts. Not near-silent searching. It makes her feel…hunted.
She’s not. She can leave at any time. Get up and walk out the gate. No one cares. She’s not hiding because she has to. She’s hiding because it’s the one skill that’s ever done anything for her.
“Fuck you, Dad,” she whispers. And she waits.
* * *
—
The carousel looks like something out of a horror movie. Not a high-budget one, either. One of the cheap, off-brand films doomed to languish in the depths of Netflix and the $2 bargain DVD bin at Walmart. The chipped and decaying horses are less gruesome and more pathetic. A once-jaunty sign is hanging loosely from one corner, slowly shifting in the wind. OFF TO THE RACES! it says, all the paint gone so it’s wood on wood, the letters raised. No one is racing here anymore. If anything, Rosiee wants to race away.
But she’s running low on time. Should she look for the book? No way could she find a single object in this nightmare landscape. She twists her silver rings nervously, aware of how close to dawn it is. Maybe she shouldn’t hide in such an obvious landmark, but nothing in the damn park feels obvious. No wonder it shut down. Imagine coming here with kids! The whole day would be spent trying to find something, anything, in the mess of greenery. Maybe it used to be more organized.
She climbs onto the carousel. The platform is rusted and falling apart. One of the poles holding a horse has snapped, and as she twists to avoid a fallen chunk of wood, the metal scrapes her arm, drawing blood. “Shit,” she hisses, covering it with her hand.
Food, bathroom, first-aid runs—all will get her out. She’ll be fine. A few drops of blood fall, squeezed out between her fingers. Is a single day enough time for infection to set in? Probably. She keeps going. Her steps are a careful dance around further injury as she makes her way to the center. Two panels around the closed interior of the ride have come loose. She slides between them, careful of her arm. She used to have curves—god, she loved her curves, the weight of her boobs, the soft comfort of her belly—but she’s lost too many pounds from stress and poverty. She squeezes in between the big metal gears that once ran the carousel. There’s just enough space to sit, and she can’t see outside. Tiny knife cuts of light pierce the space from above. Good enough.
She pours some water on her arm. It’s bleeding, but it’s not terrible. Won’t need stitches or anything. She wishes she had a strip of cloth to wrap around it. Thinking of wrapping herself up in things sends her mind away, though.
Sometimes when things got bad—worse, really, since they were always bad—with Mitch, she’d sit in the back of the closet and imagine herself small. Not skinnier, but actually small, like a child. And then she’d curl up, wrapped in her grandmother’s shawl, and stop being herself for a few precious moments.