Chapter 62
Helena woke to an eerie calm in the cabin. She lay still with her eyes closed, listening. The wind had died in the night, and all was quiet. From the icy temperature, the fire must have burned out, but the smell of wood smoke lingered.
She felt a faint stirring of nausea low in her throat—a wavering sensation, as if she were a little travel sick. Her eyes flicked open, remembering: the baby.
She blinked. Wait. Baby, not fetus.
Oddly, the word didn’t spike her with panic. It just popped into her head. Baby.
She felt another nauseous swim of her stomach and thought: Okay, so here you are, making yourself known. Clearly things were happening in her body—hormones releasing, chemicals firing, extra blood circulating—regardless of what she wanted.
She wished she could call her mother. Say, Mum! I’m pregnant! She wanted to hear her mother’s voice. Oh God, she so, so desperately wanted to hear her voice, because her mother would say exactly the right thing—and Helena needed to hear that right thing, because she didn’t know what it was.
Her mother knew Helena better than anyone.
Across a phone line, a hundred miles apart, she could sense Helena’s mood from the simple greeting It’s me.
She knew her in ways that no one else would, like that when she was run-down, two dry patches of skin framed the bridge of her nose, or how she was self-conscious about her knees and always preferred to wear trousers.
They were tiny things. Nothing things. But they were also everything.
Loneliness wasn’t the absence of people, she realized. It was the absence of people who understood you.
Her mother had loved her harder and more fiercely and fully than any other human ever would.
To lose her was like losing a part of Helena’s self.
The well of grief opened right there in her chest, waiting for her to fall into all that empty darkness.
She could feel the teetering, tipping sensation and braced, ready to be swallowed.
But then another wave of nausea roiled through her body, her mouth turning slick with saliva. The sensation was so strong and sudden that she snapped upright, concentrating only on breathing.
She remained like that for some time, waiting for the nausea to pass, yet distantly aware that she’d been pulled back into the present by the new life growing inside her.
Eventually she climbed from her bunk, the skin of her blistered heels pulling tight as she stood. She rubbed her eyes, taking in the dim cabin. The adjacent bunks where Joni and Liz had slept were empty. She blinked, pushing a hand over her face, suddenly uncertain.
Erik’s pack was propped against the table, but his roll mat was empty on the cabin floor.
Where was everyone?
Then she heard a faint murmur and looked around. Maggie! She was still here, stirring in the lower bunk, facedown on her pillow.
“Mags, where are the others?”
She lifted her head. Murmured that she didn’t know.
Helena moved to the window, drawing back the thin curtain, disturbing a moth. Outside, she looked for the ridge. It wasn’t there. Billowing cloud had swallowed it whole, obscuring the entire mountain range. Below the cabin, there was nothing but a sea of cloud, dense as smoke.
It was like waking in a different world. She felt cut off. Trapped.
She crossed the cabin and pushed open the door onto daylight. The wind had dropped in the night, but so had the temperature. Her skin turned to gooseflesh, and she reached for her jacket.
She noticed Liz and Joni’s hiking boots were gone. Erik’s, too. Helena didn’t bother jamming her feet into her own, so stepped out barefoot, the stone path cold beneath her feet.
Her eyes adjusted slowly to the hazy daylight as she walked a few paces, scanning the landscape for signs of her friends.
Behind her, the cabin door opened, and she turned to see Maggie hobbling out. She’d grabbed a broom and used it as a crutch as she stepped carefully onto the path, moving to Helena’s side.
Voice thick with sleep, Maggie asked, “Do you think Erik is with them?”
“His pack is still inside,” Helena said, feeling a low, thudding sensation in her chest. She couldn’t tell whether it was anxiety at simply waking on a mountain—or whether it was an instinct that something was wrong.
Maggie lowered her voice and leaned closer to Helena. “We should check Erik’s pack.”
“For the cocaine? You still think he’s in on it?” Helena whispered.
Maggie lifted her shoulders. “It’d be one way of ruling it out.”
Helena glanced toward the cabin. “We’ll need to be quick.”
They turned and picked their way back to the cabin, Helena supporting Maggie as she helped her across the threshold.
Inside, Helena glanced once over her shoulder, then moved toward Erik’s pack. Crouching, she unclipped the buckles, pulled open the drawstring, and peered into the dark belly of the bag.
“Oh! God!” she said.
Maggie’s head snapped up. “What?”
Helena’s heart was beating so hard, her concentration so fierce, that she didn’t hear the cabin door quietly opening, Erik stepping inside.