I take a deep breath. I have to keep moving. I haul myself to my feet.
I don’t know how long I walk for. At some point my hands and feet go numb. After a while I stop noticing my runny nose, my throbbing bottom lip. When, at last, a dark wall looms ahead, I nearly sob with relief. I inch between the wall and trees, fingering the fake leaves as I walk along the hedge. Finally I reach a door, feel twin spikes of pride and fear. Who’s waiting on the other side? I reach for the handle, overwhelmed by déjà vu.
The door is locked.
Irate, I pound on it, no longer caring what awaits me. I keep hammering long after I’ve bruised the side of my hand. I call for help until my throat is hoarse. I’m met with total silence. I don’t hear a single creature stirring in the woods at my back. I have no way of getting through or over this wall.
No one is coming to get me.
I find the biggest tree nearby and nestle myself underneath it, out of the snow and waning hail. I set my watch alarm to go off every twenty minutes so I can do jumping jacks and butt kicks to warm my core. I recall the year I resolved to meditate more: ten minutes every day. I summon those lessons now, try to find some inner Zen, tamp down the voice screaming that I’m going to die out here.
Then I wait.
* * *
? ? ?
MANY HOURS LATER the sun rises. The sky looks like a bruised cheek, smoky purple against blotchy peach. The effect is ghastly, casting a jaundiced glow over the island. Still the snow tumbles; still the wind howls. Something caws overhead, but I can’t see it from my spot under the tree. By now the adrenaline coursing through my body has faded, but I haven’t slept at all. I’ve been staring at the door, willing it to open, hour after hour after hour, until I’m sure my pulse is a clock external to my body, something everyone else can hear but is ignoring.
A key turns in the lock. I scramble out of my hiding place, brush the tree needles off of my coat. The door swings open. I brace myself.
Kit pokes her head inside. “Nat?”
I squeak something unintelligible, never more relieved to see my stupid fucking sister. Kit peeks over her shoulder, steps into the forest, and closes the door behind her. In her arms are my hat and scarf.
She thrusts them toward me, then recoils. “Your lip.”
I jam on the hat, teeth chattering. “Get me out of here.”
She nods, eyes wide. “I came as soon as I found out.”
I wind the scarf around my neck. “Let’s go.”
She opens the door, and I sprint out of the forest. I take off for my cabin. Kit plods along behind me, panting hard. When I reach the front door, I double over, hands on my knees. “Tell me you have the key.”
She pulls a key card from her pocket and unlocks the door. I shove her inside. She lurches away from my hands.
When we’re both safely in the room, I slam the door behind us. I wrench off my coat, grab the comforter from the bed, and wrap it around my body, teeth still clacking. My lower lip feels like it’s grown another lip on top of it. Kit quietly takes a seat in the desk chair. I pace the room, a new rush of adrenaline zipping through me.
I glare at my sister. “What is this place?”
She glances at the smoke detector on the ceiling. “I know the methodology can be extreme but—”
“Kit, I was left alone in the woods in January for”—I check my watch—“five hours.”
She nods as if this has been a regrettable turn of events. “I don’t always like the treatments either.”
“I didn’t sign up for any treatments,” I yell.
“It’s sometimes hard to see during a learning experience what the takeaway is supposed to be, but there’s always a method to Teacher’s madness.”
I wheel around on her, dropping the comforter. “So the woman who left me for dead was Rebecca?”
She screws up her face. “Of course not. She’s way too important to administer treatments.”
“Who was it, then?”
She shrugs. “Someone on staff.”
“Raeanne?”
Her eyes flit away from mine, which means yes.
Between gritted teeth I ask, “Who told you where I was?”
Kit presses her lips together, refusing to speak. She doesn’t have to.
“I want to talk to Rebecca. Now.” The mystery of the anonymous e-mailer is no longer so mysterious. If Rebecca didn’t send it herself, she certainly had something to do with it. No one and nothing in this place is untethered from her puppeteer’s strings.
“Impossible.”