Chapter 10
Days passed in a strange, disconnected blur. Emily found herself drifting in and out of consciousness, her thoughts coming into her mind at strange angles as though she kept trying to put triangles into the spaces clearly meant for squares.
Only somewhere around the fourth or possibly the fifth day did Emily’s mind return to some semblance of itself. The worst part was the nightmares. Emily kept dreaming about a huge shape that reared up out of nowhere and towered over her. There was a bright light and then nothing but darkness.
She woke screaming every time she fell asleep, and nothing Julie gave her seemed to make any difference at all. The nightmares were relentless and recurring. It was getting to the point where Emily was afraid to sleep.
Her only real comfort came from having Michael and her students visit her. They came daily, and each time, the children brought her gifts. Her bedside table was proving to be far too small for all the painted rocks, dried-out leaves, and notes wishing her a speedy recovery.
Michael brought her cookies from the kitchen and hot cocoa, and he stayed as long as he could.
But he had a lot of work. He was running the smelter and doing all the things that he usually did.
He was also working with Robert, trying to find out who was sabotaging the ore sales by slipping in impurities.
The weather got progressively worse as the days passed, and Emily knew that December was about to start. There was a nervous yet excited energy in the air, and some pine cones and wreaths were starting to make their way into the medical tent.
And then on the sixth day, she woke up and her mind wasn’t foggy and confused anymore. She sat up in bed, thinking clearly at long last.
“You look better,” Ethan said from the bed across from hers. “You’ve got your color back.”
He was also sitting up, looking much stronger.
“You seem better,” Emily said.
He smiled. “I’m going back to my own tent today. I’m all patched up. Who would have thought that one little bullet to the arm could cause such a lot of trouble?”
“And the smelter?” Emily asked, wondering if this would mean that Michael was off the hook there.
“That might take a little longer to get back to,” Ethan said ruefully. “But Mike’s been doing a great job. Everyone says so. Your uncle Felix has been very helpful in the smelter by all accounts. Stevens and Adams have been to visit me, and they both say he knows his stuff.”
“He’s full of surprises lately,” she muttered.
She meant it. She still had the image in her mind of her uncle speaking to someone who was large and looked like a troll. Emily didn’t understand where that image had come from, yet it seemed to have been branded into her memory.
“Any news on the saboteurs?” she asked. She knew she had heard something about that, but her scrambled brain hadn’t been able to put the information in a place it could access it. Everything was rattling around in her head like a bunch of loose marbles.
“I think it’s under control,” Ethan said.
“Your uncle has been really good at that too. Turns out he’s great at worming his way in with criminal types.
But they’re not telling me much. Apparently the less I know, the better at the moment.
” He shrugged and winced. “I guess we’ll both find out when things come to a head. ”
Julie appeared then, lifting the tent flap and entering with two bowls of porridge. She smiled.
“You look as though your head is clearer,” she said to Emily.
Emily nodded and accepted her bowl with gratitude. She was really hungry. She seemed to recall that her stomach had been most unsettled, and she had been nauseous the whole time. It was a blessing that was over.
Ethan also took his bowl and, sitting up in bed, ate. He then had a whole lot of exercises he had to do for his arm, or the muscle would mend poorly, Julie explained, and then sent him on his way.
“And me? Can I go?” Emily asked once Ethan was safely out of the tent.
“Yes, you can, if you’re sure that’s what you want to do,” Julie said. “You’re still having that dream. The one about the troll.”
Emily swallowed. It was still the only thing she saw when she closed her eyes. It was a huge face, with a bulbous nose that rose up in front of her and raised something in its hand like a club. Then the next thing she knew, there were lights exploding in her head, followed by darkness.
She shivered.
“Do you remember what happened the night you fell into the pit?” Julie asked.
Emily frowned. She’d been piecing it together, but her mind had been too scattered to make much headway. Perhaps now that her mind was clear, she could do it. “I don’t know.”
“Perhaps if we talk through it,” Julie said. “If you lie back and close your eyes, we might be able to get to the bottom of it.”
Emily had nothing to lose. She’d been trying to work it out on her own with limited success. She closed her eyes and lay back on the cot.
“Just remember that we’re dealing with memories here,” Julie said. “Nothing can harm you, even if you picture the events in your head. Okay?”
Emily nodded and took a deep breath.
“I was in here with Lizzy napping and Ethan fast asleep,” Emily said, seeing the events in her mind again. “There was nothing to do but listen to the sounds of the night creatures and the wind. I remember hearing snuffling sounds and footsteps crunching outside the tent.”
“Okay,” Julie said when Emily paused. “What did you do then?”
“I saw a shadow on the tent wall,” Emily said. “It looked like Felix to me, but it might have been anyone of that size. I didn’t see their face, only their shadow.”
“What did you do then?” Julie asked.
“I called out to Uncle Felix,” Emily said. “For some reason I really thought it was him, but he didn’t reply. He didn’t even stop or acknowledge that I had spoken at all. So, I went to the tent flap and peered out.”
“What did you see?” Julie asked. Her voice was kind and soft. She sounded far away and close by at the same time.
Emily swallowed. This was where things began to get harder to piece together.
“I know I stepped outside. I saw a light and I followed it. It was heading out of the camp, through the traps, and that worried me. Whoever it was would either have to know their way, like Tim, or they would get hurt. I went to try and stop them.”
“All right, take a breath,” Julie said. “You know we’re just talking about memories. You can’t change them. We just need to know what they are. They’re like a story that you happen to have been part of.”
“Okay,” Emily said, trying to calm herself. She breathed in deeply a couple of times and forced herself to relax.
“So, what happened next?” Julie asked.
“I went after the person, calling softly,” Emily said. “I didn’t want to wake the camp. It wasn’t an emergency, and getting everyone up would have caused chaos.”
“And perhaps get Felix in trouble?” Julie asked. “If it was him.”
“Yes, he would get into a lot of trouble, heading out of the camp at night and through the traps, no less. But it couldn’t have been him. He doesn’t know the way through them. Only Tim really knows.”
“Okay, let’s leave that as something we can talk about in a moment,” Julie said gently. “Let’s assume that there is a possibility that Felix knew how to get out of the camp. What happened?”
“I followed. I was trying to be careful. And then I heard voices speaking,” Emily said, concentrating hard. “One sounded like Felix, but I wasn’t certain. The other I didn’t know. It was very deep and gruff.”
“And then what happened?” Julie asked.
Emily had to think a moment because the images were so odd. “Something rose in front of me,” she said. “Something big. A mountain of a man. He had broad shoulders and a bulbous nose. I could see it in the light from Felix’s lantern, but I couldn’t see the troll’s face. It was in shadow.”
Silence. Julie said nothing as Emily gathered her nerve to continue. This was it, the bit that always jarred and pulled as though it was a wound too tender to touch. But she would have to get closer to it if she wanted the dreams to end. Emily knew that.
“The big man turned on me and grabbed my arm. He shook me,” Emily said. “I got such a fright I couldn’t even scream.”
“Did he speak to you?” Julie asked.
“No, he spoke to Felix,” Emily said, swallowing down her fear. She needed to see this memory all the way to the end. Then she might be able to sleep the night through. “The man asked Felix why he didn’t check that no one followed him.”
“And what did Felix say?” Julie asked.
“That he hadn’t thought anyone was up,” Emily said.
“He begged the big man to let me go. He pleaded, saying that I wasn’t a problem, that he knew me, and I would be a good girl.
That I would keep my mouth shut.” Emily shivered and shook.
This was it, the part she couldn’t face.
And yet she had to. With force of will, she punched through her fear and continued.
“The man didn’t believe him, and he hit me. ”
“He hit you?” Julie asked, her voice miles and miles away.
Emily nodded. “On the side of my head. There were lights and a strange ringing silence. I think I stumbled then. There was a crashing sound, and I remember falling for a long time. Then there was nothing. Nothing but black and cold.”
Julie was silent now.
Emily lay on the cot, feeling as though some huge, invisible weight had been lifted off her like a massive blanket that was too big and bulky for her to move on her own. Together she and Julie had done something Emily hadn’t thought possible.
How long she lay there, just breathing, feeling the light of the day touch her eyelids, Emily didn’t know. It wasn’t the same as the time she’d spent in the darkness. This was a time of healing, and she knew that when she opened her eyes, she would feel better.
Eventually, she opened them and sat back up again. Julie was still there, but she was writing something in a notebook.