The Cave Ch. 04

She wasn't listening. "How long have you been out?"

"Out of what?"

She rolled her eyes and sipped her coffee. Her lipstick was a very subtle shade of pink and the color stuck to the paper cup. I noticed the bird foot ring was already on her middle finger and next to the red cardigan, it looked pretty bad-ass.

"Oh. Two days ago," I said. "He left me on the side of the road. A man and his dog found me."

"Jack Anderson?" she asked, although it didn't sound so much like a question.

It occurred to me I never did ask what Jack's last name was, but my eyebrows went up. "You know Jack?"

"Everyone knows Jack. That was him in the pick-up yesterday, wasn't it?"

I nodded.

"His wife died two years ago, did you know that?" she asked. Her tone was sharp and accusing.

"Ah, yeah. He mentioned that." Small town curse, I thought with disdain. Everyone knows your business whether you want them to or not. I'd be surprised if Amy didn't already know about our kiss at the impound lot.

"He still visits her up at Calvary once a month, you know." She was moving her cup in little circles, making the coffee swirl, trying her best to seem casual, but I got her point, loud and crystal clear.

"I understand," I said.

She shot me a look. "Jack's laundry still needs to be washed in the delicate cycle, if you catch my meaning."

"Yes, I get it," I said firmly, through my teeth. I decided to switch gears. "Where did Pr—I mean, where did he leave you?"

Glowering thoughtfully into her coffee, she said, "Under a tree swing, in a pile of dead oak leaves. It was the water, you know."

"I know," I said and I knew she meant the water Pratt gave us to make us sleepy. "I realized it at the last second." I sat up and lowered my voice. "Pratt mourned you for three days. I thought you were dead."

"Three days?" She scoffed. "He grieved five over Brooke."

"Brooke..." Then it clicked. "The girl before you."

"Before Brooke, it was Rachel. After that, I don't know."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know." She shook her head. Her dark bangs swayed on her eyebrows. "Because Brooke didn't tell me, I guess."

We couldn't talk long. Amy's break was only fifteen minutes. Unlike me, Amy had some people who missed her, mainly those she worked for at the gas station. The old manager had the police go to her house and when she turned up, the man who owned the tire swing brought her to the hospital where she stayed overnight for rehydration and observation. She claimed memory loss, but at least she had a job to go back to as soon as she was ready. Her boss was being transferred to another location and she applied for the manager position and got it. Don, the man with the tire swing in his backyard, was taking Amy out for their second date tomorrow night. Amy said he had a young daughter who came over every other weekend.

Pratt, the matchmaker, I thought.

"Sounds like things are turning out for the better," I commented.

Amy snorted. "Hardly. I'm up to my eyeballs in hospital bills. And Don's mother hates me, I'm pretty sure. But..." She paused, staring down at her coffee. "I'm definitely not the same person I was going into the cave. I can't really put my finger on it. But I think I respect myself more having gone through all that."

I nodded, understanding. I also left the cave with more than I entered. Now the real world was falling short on my expectations.

"He was different with you, you know," Amy said.

"Pratt?"

"He never came to me in the middle of the night."

I felt the heat go to my face and my voice was like wind through a reed. "You heard us?"

Crookedly grinning, she swallowed her coffee, but after scanning me a moment her face went grave. "You haven't told anyone have you? Your family? The...police?"

I shook my head no. I decided not to tell her I'd thought about it, how I pictured an old-timey witch-hunting mob casing the woods with burning torches. I didn't want that for Pratt. I could tell Amy didn't either. Then something popped into my mind, something Riley had said in the cave about Stockholm's Syndrome. I reminded myself I was going to have to look that up.

"Shit," Amy said, glancing down at her watch. "I gotta get back." She hesitated. "Thanks for bringing the ring to me."

"No problem. It's yours."

Leaning forward conspiratorially, she said, "You know, I'm a little surprised he let you go. I thought he was looking for his mate."

"Well, he sort of had to. My foot got infected. It only would have gotten worse in the cave."

"Hmph," she said thinking to herself.

Walking out to my car, I stopped at the trashcan by the door, fishing for Jack's business card in my coat pocket. Jack Anderson, Contractor, it read. There was a moment I almost didn't throw it away, but I wasn't ready for it all—the care instructions for Jack's dirty laundry, the town scrutiny, the gossip, any backlash that might arise. It seemed virtually serendipitous, how his wife had wanted him to read one of my books well before her death, but I was more than ready to cast that off as coincidence. I tossed his card and left.

*

My fourth day out of the cave, I found myself speculating what Riley might be doing. By now, Pratt had certainly finished mourning me and they were probably getting to know each other without me there. Consulting the calendar I had roughed out on the back of some notes, I estimated Riley had about another week alone with Pratt before he brought in another woman for them to play with, plus another couple weeks after that before Riley would be released.

But I saw Riley a mere five days later.

I had about forty days of writing to catch up on, but after a couple days of practically no progress, I began writing two novels. One on Minnesota small town life and another chronicling my time in the cave; it was the only way I could concentrate and I essentially lived at my laptop. I did some research on the local cryptozoology, trying to find evidence on strange man-creatures whose reported existence had no proof. I came up empty. However I discovered for a small delivery fee I was able to have my Chinese Combo #5 brought to my door step instead of driving into town for it. And Todd from the grocer made a few more appearances to bring me more cereal, milk, and to restock my supply of antacids. Poor guy kept offering to call the electric company for me ("Looks like a cave n'dere!"), as I preferred to work in silence by firelight. Some nights, I camped out in front of the hearth, naked, wrapped up in just a quilt. And almost always, as the electric hiss of the flames soothed me to sleep, I dreamed of my father again. I was always coming home from school, my mother always in the kitchen and I always woke up when I got to my room, looking at my mangled face in the mirror. But sometimes it wasn't always my father crying in the garage. Sometimes it was Jack. And it wasn't always Lady who had been shot in the woods, it was Bucky. I had emailed my editor and my mother, mostly to feel them out, their level of worry. My editor was a big fat zero, my mother was maybe at a four, simply because she was my mother and her perpetual concern for me was constantly set at two, even if I was sitting right in front of her. I continued to monitor Daisy's bowl outside, but the mound of cat food remained untouched, even after I moved it to the top of the picnic table. Every evening, I circled the tree line, calling for her. It saddened me she had run away, but it had no-where near the effect Lady's death had on my father and as long as I didn't find Daisy's body on the side of the road, I could maintain she had found a family along the lake who had taken her in. Finally, my toe had also gotten progressively better. The baby detergent seemed to be working a small miracle and eventually I only wore a bandage when I went outside just to keep it clean.

Nine days out of the cave, I awoke to a cold fireplace and I stretched out on the floor. The sun was leaking through the sides of the curtains and I estimated it was about 8 or 9 in the morning. I started a pot of coffee and headed nude to the master bath for a hot shower. After, I grabbed the laundry from the dryer in the utility room and stepped into my black sweatpants and a light tee-shirt and ate cereal at my workstation while I checked my email and organized my notes for the day's writing. When I was finished eating, I rinsed my bowl out in the sink and secured a new Band-aid to my toe before I slipped on my shoes to check Daisy's bowl outside.

I got as far as the porch. The lump of clothes on my welcome mat brought me to my knees and I recognized the strands of strawberry blonde hanging lank from a pale blue stocking hat. I rolled Riley towards me on her back. Christ, she was thin. Near skeletal from the last time I saw her. And white as a cloud. Her lips were shriveled and desiccated from dehydration, but she was breathing.

Although she was a fraction of the weight I remembered her, I still hadn't the upper body strength to lift her so I hooked my hands under her arms and clumsily dragged her over the threshold, across the floor to the fireplace. I caught intermittent whiffs of sour sweat and wondered if Pratt had groomed her at all after I was gone.

I went back to close the door, but stepped out on the porch to scan the edge of the woods. Pratt knew where I lived, I realized. Was he still out there, watching? I was tempted to run out and look for him, but I also wanted to be here when Riley woke up.

Back inside, I removed Riley's hat and mittens and her black North-face jacket. Underneath, her sweater was inside-out and the loose threads were all showing. I slid the quilt over and tucked it around her, sweeping her cold hair out of her face. By the time I went to the kitchen for a bottle of water and a package of fresh saltine crackers, she was stirring awake.

Leaning over her, cupping her face, I stroked her cheek with my thumb, coaxing her eyes to open. They did, in drowsy little slits and she grinned at me sleepily. "Layla," she murmured. Then her eyes popped open. "Layla!"

"Shhh."

Riley started to sit up.

"Just relax. You're in my uncle's cabin on Pike Bay."

Gathering her wits, she darted her grey-blue eyes around the room, to the fireplace, the dark windows, to me. "It's like I moved from one cave to another. What happened?"

As I broke the seal of the bottle, I told her my theory about Pratt's water. She took the bottle from me and guzzled. Then she began rubbing her eyes. "My eyes burn, they're so dry."

"Drink more water," I said. "Riley, what are you doing here? It's only been nine days since I left."

"Only?" She raised her eyebrows at me incredulously. "Without you, it was the longest nine days of my life!"

I twisted my lips and tipped my head. "I'm sure Pratt kept you plenty entertained."

Struggling to swallow, she coughed a laugh. "Oh yeah, I had a blast watching him mope all day in bed. He's been in a funk ever since he released you."

"I don't understand."

Coughing again, she took another quick swig and replaced the cap. "Can I have those crackers?"

I ripped them open and held them up for her and she took two in both hands. "Eat slowly, sweetie."

"Yes, Mom."

I narrowed my eyes at her and she smiled. Her eyes were glassy from coughing.

"So, he didn't give you food or water for nine days?"

"Mmm," she said, mouth full, shaking her head. She gulped hard. "After three or four days of lying in bed, he finally brought me a cup of water. One cup a day for four more days. Or was it three? Doesn't matter. The last two days, he actually left the cave to bring me about a handful of berries. But Layla, he didn't do anything but lie in bed."

"I'm sorry."

"He missed you." Biting off the corner of one of her crackers, she gauged me with a long look before she fidgeted with something at the back of her neck and said, "There was someone else in the cave before me, wasn't there?"

I sighed wearily and nodded. "Actually, she was there before me." I told her about Amy, the short version, and the other women, Brooke and Rachel, although I left out the part about meeting Amy several days ago.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it wasn't supposed to end this way for you. He was only supposed to grieve for a few days and then—"

"You broke him." She shoved the rest of her cracker in her mouth.

"I didn't break him."

I barely understood her muffled "Whatever" as she dug for another cracker. She scratched again at something on her neck and gave an irritated sound of complaint. "What's on me?"

"Let me see," I said, reaching for the collar of her sweater.

I folded down the seam to expose the vertebrae necklace Pratt had made for her. It was unfinished, held closed around her neck by a rough bit of twine, the best he could do on short notice, I surmised. He couldn't take care of Riley anymore and he brought her to me because he knew I would. It made me appreciate just how little danger we were in while in the cave. Pratt knew his limits. The moment he sensed things going wrong, he deposited us out in the real world.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Your parting gift," I chuckled.

Riley tugged it out of her shirt, all the little bones ticking together like bag of seashells, but when she saw it, she gave a disgusted little scream and began to wrench on it.

"Get it off, get it off!" she shrieked.

Her abrupt reaction scared me. I hopped to my knees and scrambled to release the knotted twine at the back of her neck but the more she yanked the tighter it became and the louder she yelled for me to "Get it off, get it off!"

"Can't you lift it over your head?" I asked. I was trying to keep calm, but there was a frantic vibe in my voice I couldn't seem to subdue.

"Oh my gawd get it off get it off!" Tears streamed down Riley's cheeks.

Scurrying on my hands and knees across the carpet, I found the sewing basket tucked behind an easy chair and pawed through a half completed scarf and several knitting needles and three skeins of royal blue yarn before I found a pair of shears. I carefully moved her hair to the side, slipped the blade under the twine and clipped it apart, whipping the necklace back out of Riley's sight. The bones clacked together like the wooden pieces of a tumbling Jenga tower.

"Okay, it's off. It's off!" To prove it to her, I showed her my empty hands. Immediately she threw herself into my arms and sobbed. Her hair felt thick with oil and it left a residue on my hand as I stroked it, calming her. "You're okay," I murmured, my heart still thrumming against my ribs. "It's off."

*

I made Riley a sandwich with a side of potato chips and a tall glass of milk. She ate every crumb and drunk every drop and then took a long nap on the couch while I did some work at the dining table. She slept well passed dark and with the excitement of her arrival, I had forgotten to check on Daisy's food. I slipped my shoes on and quietly left, but the bowl on the picnic table hadn't been touched. Shivering in the fall chill, I began circling the tree-line, calling Daisy's name like I did every day, until I thought of something.

"Pratt?" I said, lowering my voice to a normal speaking volume. If he was out there, he'd hear me. "Pratt?" I held my breath to listen, staring into the dark woods.

It didn't take long for me to give up and go inside, feeling ridiculous, but as I began to make dinner, filling a pot with water for the spaghetti noodles, I wondered what else Pratt might be doing. His cave was empty now, apparently for the first time in a very long while, and he had been to the cabin, actually stood on my front porch. It was the same at Jack's house, when he'd left the rabbit. Both times, Pratt had been so close and I had no idea. What else would he be doing if he wasn't out there, watching us? It hurt my heart to think.

Riley woke shortly after I began frying the ground hamburger and wanted to clean up before dinner. I showed her the way to the master bath through the bedroom and pushed back the shower curtain.

"Towels are in here," I said and opened a small linen closet. I grabbed her two clean ones and turned to face her. Her sweater was already on the floor and her breasts hung delicately from her chest as she leaned over the tub to turn on the water. Even though I knew her breasts almost as well as I knew my own, my whole body flushed.

She tested the water, adjusted the knobs and without a second thought, unbuttoned her jeans and pushed them to the floor. A saw a flash of her naked buttocks and an instant later, she was in the shower, rattling the curtain shut. The whole thing took about ten seconds.

"Um," I called over the sound of the water, "I'll leave the towels on the counter." I waited for her response, feeling the swell of old feelings for her, but when she didn't say anything I went back to tend to dinner.

*

"I used your toothbrush," she admitted immediately when she came out. "And borrowed your clothes."

The spaghetti was almost done. The sauce was done, but the noodles needed another minute. Riley was wearing a thin white shirt of mine and a pair of light grey sweatpants she had clearly cinched tightly at the waist to keep from falling off her. The shirt was too big, too, falling over one of her bare shoulders, Flashdance style. Her hair was wet and stringy, combed back away from her face.

"What are you going to do about school?" I asked her while we ate at the counter.

She was eating too fast, blowing on each oversized forkful. She shrugged her bare, bony shoulder. "It's not too late to withdraw, try again next semester."

"Do you want to use my phone to call anyone? Let them know you're all right?"

She chewed thoughtfully, staring down at her plate as she twisted her fork around her spaghetti. "Tomorrow maybe."

She helped me clean up the dinner dishes when we were done. I settled at my workstation to get a little work done before bed and Riley lied on the couch with the remote, clicking through the cable channels and fell asleep watching something I'd never seen before. Something with witches, werewolves and vampires and I think all the characters were still in high school. Around ten, I closed my laptop, shut off the television and snapped off the tinny lamp on the kitchen counter. Riley didn't wake at all, not even when I covered her with an afghan from the back of the couch. I approached the door, scanning the moonlit yard for a moment. I almost didn't lock it.

Almost.

*

In the morning, I threw on some flannel pants and a long-sleeved tee-shirt and came out of the bedroom to a brightly lit kitchen and living room. All the curtains had been flung open wide and Riley was at the stove, stirring something in a pan. Bacon was piled high on a paper-towel lined plate on the counter and there were two place settings set with two squat glasses of orange juice.

"I made breakfast," Riley sang.

"I see that," I said, squinting. I left the windows be and climbed into one of the chairs. "For what army?"

She sheepishly grinned. "I think my eyes are bigger than my stomach. You know, I haven't had eggs and bacon since I was twelve? Twelve, Layla. Once my mother switched me to fruit and dry wheat toast, my boobs never had a chance," she finished with a wink.

I smiled and watched her, pondering about Riley's experience in the cave, how incomplete it had been. Amy left with self-respect and I think I became bolder, but it made me sad to think Riley wasn't in the cave long enough to acquire its full benefits.

But as Riley flit around the kitchen, scrambling eggs with a wooden spoon, flipping slabs of bacon with a fork, I could see she was letting something go, taking joy in something she had been denied a long time. A difference was there, but I could only see the pieces, not the whole picture. Even if I could, it wasn't my whole picture to see, it was Riley's.