Chapter Thirty-Five #3
The bone! Imani’s mind took her to the horrendous collection of stripped bones in the cavern she had left behind her.
She had hoped that Mom could walk out of this cavern with her, and quickly.
But now what? With an injury that bad, she was surprised that Mom hadn’t passed out from shock.
And for the first time, Imani observed how vulnerable her mother was to the cold.
Mom’s trembling wasn’t from joy; she’d been out in the cold all morning in flimsy clothes.
Imani was ready to cry again, but the promise of new tasks held her tears at bay.
“Is it bleeding a lot?” she asked. She bent over to see for herself. A few spots of blood had soaked through Mom’s makeshift wrapping.
“I’m not worried about the bleeding. It just hurts.”
Imani raced to open her backpack again. While she’d searched for her glow sticks, she’d remembered that the wrapped foil pouches the size of Pop-Tarts in her backpack were hand warmers.
Too bad she hadn’t recognized them before!
She pulled out the emergency blanket and handed it to Mom while she searched for the medicine kit Dad had found for the aspirin.
As soon as Imani thought about her father, Mom said, “Where’s Johnny? And Sharise?”
“Probably looking for me,” Imani said. “Dad was trying to get us to go back, like you said… and…” She couldn’t bring herself to talk about her defiance. “… it grabbed me.”
“They don’t know where you are?”
Meaning Dad and Sharise didn’t know where they were. Imani heard the yawning disappointment in Mom’s voice.
“Sharise saw up close,” Imani said. “Dad was right behind us, and he has the gun. He’ll find us. We’re somewhere under a cliff.”
Mom looked worried as she wrapped herself in the stiff folds of the shiny emergency blanket.
Imani remembered telling Sharise how she planned to give Mom this blanket and Sharise had looked at her with such pity in her eyes, not believing it.
And now it was happening, just as Imani had imagined it.
Despite everything, Imani felt giddy. She only wished Sharise and Dad could see they were alive. And uneaten.
Imani hoped they would have the same faith. Maybe she hadn’t been able to help having so much faith because of the name her parents had given her.
“I’m sorry if I ever teased you about watching those survival shows, little bean,” Mom said. “All the hunting and making fires… I didn’t understand why it mattered to you so much, what you were looking for. But I’m so glad now. Even this blanket… it helps so much, Imani.”
“I just wanted to know how to be ready,” Imani said. “So I wouldn’t be so scared.”
She had never imagined needing to be ready for this—but she had felt sure that something bad was going to happen, and soon.
Bad things were happening to people everywhere on the news she saw online—wildfires and earthquakes and the government kidnapping people, even children, and police shooting too many Black people whenever they wanted—so it had felt obvious that she should learn everything she could if her family ever had to run.
Why didn’t everyone get ready to run? Why didn’t they teach it in school?
In her flashlight beam, Imani squinted to read the instructions on the back of the hand-warmer pouch, written at a font size only meant for ants. She extracted what she needed: Rip open the plastic. Lasts for twelve hours.
“Here,” she told Mom. “Warm your hands up with this too. I have Tylenol. Or ibuprofen. Or something. Dad ate all the aspirin.”
“He’s hurt?” Mom said it like that had never dawned on her.
Dad had complained about chest pains and said he wanted to thin his blood, but she decided that Mom had enough to worry about. “He hit his head when he was chasing you. He got knocked out. But we left him a note and he found us.”
“But how did you find me?” Mom said. “It happened so fast…”
Imani recounted their adventure like it was an everyday thing, trying not to brag too much—but it had been her idea to follow Mom, although she had to give Sharise respect for leaving a note for Dad. Without that, and if they hadn’t dragged Dad into the house, everything might be different.
New tears came to Mom’s eyes as she pulled Imani close to hug her again.
“What’s wrong?” Imani asked.
Mom only shook her head against Imani’s shoulder.
“Are you in bad pain?”
“Yes,” Mom said. “But… mostly, I’m just so grateful, Imani. I don’t have words for it.” Then she hissed with pain.
Imani hated knowing her mother was in pain, which was worse than seeing her cry.
She unzipped the black pouch in her backpack and found the packet of Extra-Strength Tylenol.
Two oblong white pills. (Again, Imani was furious with herself for forgetting to pack water bottles.) Mom fumbled with the pills.
“Why didn’t it eat us?” Imani said, her voice low.
“Mom… there’s bones everywhere. Not here—but outside in the cavern.
Bones from years ago, probably. Like it collects them, maybe to keep them out of sight?
But it didn’t even bite us. And then? When it was dragging me here? It didn’t hurt at all! It was like—”
“Shhhhh,” Mom said. “Calm down, Imani.”
“… It felt like it was almost… hugging me.”
Mom’s grip tightened. “We can’t assume anything, Imani. We just don’t know.”
That was exactly what Imani had expected Mom to say. Imani was used to no one believing her. That was why she often didn’t share her perceptions outside of her head. It was aggravating when no one believed you, as if they didn’t consider you to be a real person.
Mom swallowed the pills dry with much effort, then she went on. “But… when it came in here and you heard me screaming… it wrapped itself around me, like you said. I didn’t think of it like a hug, but… I was shaking so much from the cold. And when it… hugged me…”
“… It was warm inside!” Imani finished. “Was it trying to warm you up?”
“Stop making assumptions, Imani,” Mom said. “Yes, I got warm. And then after a few minutes… it left again without hurting me. But we can’t afford to guess. Why would it try to warm me up? Maybe it was just trying to keep me quiet. I was calling to you for help.”
“But Mom, that’s supersmart!” Imani said. She couldn’t help the way her voice rose. “What other animal would do that? When I talked to it, it was like…”
Mom looked up at Imani with a sudden realization in her eyes. “Like it understood you?”
“Yes!” Imani said. This time, her voice was nearly a shout. Then she clapped her hands over her mouth, remembering that she shouldn’t be so loud.
But she had no doubt that the Beast knew exactly where she was. This was its home, after all. This space looked like its literal bed.
For the first time, Imani swept her flashlight around to better examine the Beast’s nest. Her beam landed on a small pile of newspaper pages.
Her head spun with the idea that the Beast was collecting newspapers so meticulously when Mom said, “I’ve been putting the papers in a pile.
Imani… they’re all about Johnny’s grandmother. ”
The direct beam of Imani’s flashlight was overpowering up close, so she shifted it slightly to better read a headline in a laminated newspaper page featuring a large photo of a young Black girl and a white dog.
LITTLE MAZY & SCOUT THE WONDER DOG SIGN HISTORIC DEAL!!!
The headline was so big, with so many exclamation points, that it could have been announcing an alien invasion.
But Imani couldn’t look away from the little girl in the photo.
Just like the portrait in the hallway back at the lodge, Mazelle looked so much like Mom in her old school photos.
Not identical—but like they could be sisters. Their noses. Their eyes.
A realization gnawed at the edge of Imani’s consciousness.
She swept her flashlight back to Mom, who covered her eyes.
With Mom’s arm raised, Imani could see the red robe and fur sleeve underneath the shiny emergency blanket.
Mazelle Washington’s robe. And Mom was wearing her perfume.
Imani could still smell it faintly, not quite pleasant. An antique smell.
“What’s that dirty green thing you’re wearing?” Imani asked.
“An old evening gown,” Mom said. “I think this was Mazelle’s too. It’s been bringing her things in here. It’s probably from the lodge. Papers. Clothes. Her shoes. I think it’s all hers.”
Imani’s explosive revelation made the room feel as bright as daylight. She wrapped her hands around her mother’s, which already felt warm from the small pouch she had brought her.
“Mom,” Imani said, remembering to whisper in her ear. “Dad said she was feeding this thing when it was smaller. Those steaks I found in her refrigerator? Maybe it was her pet, just like Scout the Wonder Dog back in the day. What if it thinks you’re her?”
Mom stared back at Imani with wonder-filled eyes.
As if she had thought the exact same thing.