Page 11 of Keepsake
Lark stared up at me, wide-eyed. Gulping for air, she hastily wiped tears from her face. “Shit,” she swore, her breathing still ragged. “Shit. I’m sorry.” She drew up her knees and dropped her head between them. “Shit, shit,” she continued to whisper.
Now Ireallydidn’t know what to do. She probably didn’t want a strange guy standing in her room. But on the other hand, she was still shaking. “Lark, are you going to be okay?”
With her head in her hands, she gave a strangled laugh. “That’s the big question, isn’t it?” As I watched, she took a deep, slow breath and blew it out. “Go back to bed. I’ll try not to yell anymore.”
“Okay…” But my feet didn’t move yet. I was uneasy for her. “Goodnight.” I would have addedsweet dreams, as Leah did. But I didn’t want Lark to think I was making fun of her. So I simply closed her door carefully and went back to my bunk.
I got into bed, but didn’t sleep yet. I listened for more sounds of distress. But all was quiet.
3
Lark
After Zachariah left my room, I lay down again in the darkness, eyes closed, focusing on my breathing. The shrink my parents had made me see in Boston gave me lots of exercises for relaxation, and I tried all his suggestions. Meditation. Deep-breathing exercises. Shallow-breathing exercises.
Each one worked perfectly, up until the minute I fell asleep. During the day I could hold it all together. But when darkness closed in and I let my guard down, my dragons shook their chains and began to roar.
Sometimes I dreamt of the hand that had reached out from between two shanty buildings, the hard fingers closing over my mouth, yanking me into the alley. That was how my ordeal began.
Other nights, the dream started when I was already bound and gagged in the dirty little house my kidnappers used. I would hear the rapid patter of a dialect I couldn’t understand. My limited Spanish had been too textbook for that corner of Guatemala. And even though I couldn’t catch all the words, I knew they were arguing over what to do with me.
My dreams took many forms, and it was hard to know exactly what happened to my body while I was sleeping. But if I had to guess, I’d bet that the crying and yelling didn’t start up until my dreams were visited by a certain skinny, doomed face.
Oscar.
If not for Oscar, I think I would have done a better job of getting past the kidnapping—the days of fear and the shame of squatting over the toilet hole in front of my captors. If the story had a happy ending, I might be able to sleep through the night.
But it didn’t. And a boy was dead. And even though some of the events which had led to my rescue were lost in a traumatic haze, Oscar’s fate was not.
Every one of my dreams ended with a pool of his blood forming on the dirt floor and oozing closer to me.
I smoothed the quilt over my body and sighed. When May had told me that I could stay in the bunkhouse, it had seemed like a perfect solution. My parents—who had already endured three weeks of wondering if I was dead—were really at the end of their ropes now. I’d come back safely to them, only to start screaming in my sleep.
Coming to Vermont was supposed to relax me. I was counting on this place to ease my mind. And sleeping in a bunkhouse meant that I wasn’t alone. There were three big, strong guys and a locked door between me and the world.Come on, subconscious! Get with the program. We are totally safe here.
Early results were not encouraging: Guatemala 1, Bunkhouse 0.
But maybe it would take a few days’ time to settle in. Hopefully the clean Vermont air would help.You are absolutely safe here, I reminded myself.Nothing ever goes wrong in Vermont.
Now if only I could get my subconscious to believe me.
The next timeI woke up, it was to the peaceful sound of three guys bumping around at daybreak. Still drowsy, I curled under the quilt and listened to their low, murmuring voices. It was heavenly to laze here knowing that if I got up now I’d only be in their way. I heard the sounds of water running and of farm boys taking turns in the bathroom.
One by one their work boots strode past my door and out of the building. The bunkhouse became perfectly quiet again, and I gave the water heater another fifteen minutes to recover. Then I got up to shower, as Ruth Shipley had suggested.
Whistling to myself, I picked out a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. I loved the idea of working outdoors with my hands. That’s why I’d taken the assignment to Guatemala in the first place—the nonprofit I worked for taught modern farming technologies to people in the developing world. When they offered me the chance to leave my desk behind to go out in the field, I jumped at it.
During the first six weeks I was there, I really got to like the place. I studied soil cultures and erosion. I shared farming data and crop seeds with the locals and drank strong, sweet coffee outside their homes in the afternoon. It was everything that my inner adventure-seeker had ever wanted.
I’d been so full of optimism. Then everything went to hell—
Moving on.
When I crossed the lawn to the Shipley farmhouse a bit later, breakfast prep was in full swing. It would be a quiet affair for just ten hungry people.
Daphne and I mixed up a vat of pancake batter while Ruth fried bacon and scrambled a mountain of eggs. May made two pots of coffee, then started a third.
At eight thirty, the men clomped into the house and went straight to the washroom. They’d already milked the cows and moved the chicken tractor. Not only did Shipley Farms have a busy apple orchard and a gourmet cider operation, they raised Jersey cows and sold organic milk to the Abrahams down the road, who made it into fancy cheese.
