In the Woods Read online

  In the Woods

  Robin Stevenson

  orca soundings

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Copyright ©2009 Robin Stevenson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Stevenson, Robin, 1968-In the woods / written by Robin Stevenson.

  (Orca soundings)

  ISBN 978-1-55469-201-9 (bound).--ISBN 978-1-55469-200-2 (pbk.)

  I. Title. II. Series: Orca soundings

  PS8637.T487I565 2009 jC813'.6 C2009-902578-7

  Summary: When Cameron discovers a baby abandoned in the woods, he tries to discover whether his sister is the mother.

  First published in the United States, 2009

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2009927571

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 5626, STN. B

  VICTORIA, BC CANADA

  V8R 6S4

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 468

  CUSTER, WA USA

  98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  Printed on 100% PCW recycled paper.

  12 11 10 09 • 4 3 2 1

  To my grandmother, Mormor, with love.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter One

  I’m in the living room watching TV when the phone rings.

  “Hello?” I am trying to sound casual in case it’s this girl from school, Audrey, who I happen to have this huge crush on. And who just happened to ask for my phone number today. Only because she got stuck with me as a partner for a social studies project, but still…

  “Cameron? It’s Katie.”

  Not Audrey. My sister. My twin sister, though people generally find this hard to believe. “Mom’s not home yet,” I tell her, flopping down on the couch.

  “I know. I just wanted to talk to you.”

  Me? Since when does Katie voluntarily talk to me? “Listen,” I tell her, “I’m sort of expecting a call.”

  “Oh. Well, okay. Um…I guess I better let you go then.”

  I’m about to hang up, but something stops me. Something in her voice.

  “Where are you?” I ask her. “Is everything okay?” I make a face to myself. In Katie’s universe, something going wrong would mean getting an A-minus instead of an A. It would mean coming second at the swim meet instead of first. Katie is Miss Gifted and Talented.

  Miss Most Likely to Succeed.

  Katie gives a weird, unfunny laugh.

  “I’m fine.”

  I sit up. “You don’t sound very fine.” There is a long silence, and I start to feel nervous. “Katie? Are you still there? What’s going on?”

  “I just…” I can hear her take a deep breath, almost a gasp. There’s another silence. I’m about to say something when she clears her throat and says, sounding almost normal, “I need you to do something for me, okay?”

  “What?”

  “Um…you know that trail around the lake?”

  “Sure.” Some of the kids from school party out there, but I haven’t been for ages. Not since last summer. Me and some of the guys from the football team went out there in August to drink beer and barbecue burgers and swim in the lake. “What about it?”

  “Could you go there?”

  “What? Now?” We used to go there for picnics when we were kids, with Mom and Brian the Pervert, but a trip down memory lane seems unlikely. We don’t talk about that time period, ever. Also, Katie and I do not hang out together. Not that we don’t like each other—we’re just very different people.

  “Yeah. Now.”

  “Why?”

  There’s a long silence, like it hadn’t occurred to her that I might want a reason.

  “Anyway,” I tell her, “I can’t. I don’t have a car, remember?”

  “Take Mom’s.”

  I snort. “That’d go over well.” I had a fender bender last year. It wasn’t my fault—the other driver had slammed on his brakes right in front of me—but Mom muttered something about safe following distance, like that was even possible in rush-hour traffic. She told me her car was off-limits. It sucks. Of course, things like that never happen to Katie. She is allowed to use Mom’s car whenever she wants.

  Not that she needs to anymore. Mom bought Katie her own car a couple of months ago. Me? I got a new bike.

  “Cameron.” She sounds impatient. “Please.”

  “Mom drove to work today, so I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Which I don’t. Anyway, what’s the big deal? What’s going on at the lake?”

  “You could ride your bike,” she says. “It’s not that far.”

  I snort. It’s a good half-hour ride, minimum, and that’s pushing hard.

  “Cameron?”

  “Yeah.” There’s something freaky about this. Katie’s not the type of girl who creates big dramas and mysteries about everything. She’s usually ultra-sensible. Maybe she’s had some kind of psychotic breakdown from too much studying. “Tell me why and I might consider it.”

  Or not. Audrey might call. She could be trying to call right this minute. I stand up and glance out the window. “It’s starting to rain.”

  “It is?” Katie’s voice breaks, and she sounds like she might start to cry. “Oh god…please? Cameron, I swear I’ll never ask you to do anything again. Ever. Just do this one thing?”

  I glance across the room and catch my reflection in the hallway mirror. I don’t know why, but I am nodding to myself.

  Apparently some part of me has already decided to do this crazy thing for her.

  Whatever. I could use a workout anyway, and I have a brand-new mountain bike that I’ve barely ridden. “Okay, okay,”

  I say. “I’ll go.”

  “Don’t tell anyone,” she says.

  Then she hangs up, and I wonder what exactly I have just agreed to.

  Chapter Two

  I scrawl a quick note for Mom—Gone for a bike ride, back by 6 pm. It’s May and not that cold, but when you’re cycling and the rain is coming down, you get pretty chilled. I’m wearing an undershirt and a light sweater under my cycling jacket, but I forgot to put gloves on. By the time I hit the highway, my fingers are practically frozen to the handlebars. Damn Katie. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do when I get to the lake. Cycle around the trail and come home? I can’t believe I agreed to do this.

  The wind is blowing straight down the highway, against me. I duck my head and pedal faster. Story of my life: I always have the wind against me, and Katie always has it behind her. While she’s pulling straight A’s and applying to universities for fall, I’m still having
trouble with just about every subject. Learning disability, the teachers and consultants and learning assistants call it. Screwed up, I call it.

  A truck zips past me and sends a sheet of dirty water up in my direction. I flip the driver the bird. Damn Katie, I think again. My fingers ache with cold. I debate turning around and heading back home, but for some reason—stubbornness maybe, or curiosity—I don’t do it. I take the turnoff toward the lake and think about the times we came here when we were kids. Fourth-graders. It was a year after Mom and Dad split up, and Mom was seeing Brian the Pervert. We didn’t call him that then, of course. He was her first boyfriend after the divorce, and Mom said part of the reason she fell for him was that he was just so great with us kids. Ha bloody ha.

  Not that he ever tried anything with me.

  I pull into the empty parking lot and glide to a stop. Katie’s car isn’t here. I hunch my shoulders and wonder again exactly what she expects me to do now.

  Even though Brian the Pervert has been out of our lives for years, I still think about him whenever I come to the lake or ride my bike by where he used to live. Even though I was just a kid at the time, I feel kind of guilty about not knowing what he was doing to Katie. Eventually she told some kid at school, who told her mom, who called social services, and it all blew up. At first Mom didn’t believe it. She didn’t quite accuse Katie of lying and ruining her life, but that was how Katie took it. We all had to go for counseling, and Brian the Pervert left. Somehow it eventually blew over, and life went back to normal.

  It’s so strange that Katie would want me to come here. I don’t think she’s been back here since those picnic days. She’s not the party type anyway. She has her friends, but she’s not hugely social. The school swim team was her big thing, but she quit that back in January. Needed more time to study, she claimed. As if. Katie could pull off A’s without ever cracking a textbook.

  I wonder if Katie was here when she called me, and if so, why she took off. Nothing about this makes any sense, but since I’ve come all this way, I figure I might as well ride the loop around the lake before I head back home. I cycle across the gravel of the parking lot and onto the packed reddish dirt trail. Tall trees stand green and slick-wet, branches dark against the gray sky, and the air smells like dirt and rain. Ahead I can see the lake, as flat and gray as the sky above. I slow down as I ride past the picnic area. It’s a large grassy expanse with a muddy beach and half a dozen graffiti-scarred tables and a public washroom that’s always locked.

  At that party back in August, Audrey and I had this incredibly intense conversation at one of those tables, and I thought maybe something might happen between us. Nothing did though. I was too chicken to try anything. I didn’t know if she’d be interested, and I didn’t want to risk looking like an idiot. So we lay on this table looking at the stars and we talked for hours, about people and how we’re all connected and the meaning of life and all that, and I totally felt like she got me in a way no one ever has. And then her friends yelled that they were leaving, and she left with them. When school started in September, we both acted like the whole conversation hadn’t even happened.

  Maybe when she sobered up she was just relieved that she didn’t make the mistake of hooking up with me. I don’t know. But by October she was going out with Dexter Harris, who is one of those supercool guys who is friends with everyone. Even I had to admit he was a good guy, despite that fact that he had crushed any hope that I might get together with Audrey. That was eight months ago, and as far as I know, they’re still an item.

  Audrey and I haven’t really talked since that night at the lake. Even if she does call me, I know it will only be to work on our project…but a stupid part of me thinks that maybe if we spend some time together, she’ll remember how well we connected that night. Pathetic and totally lame—that’s me.

  I cycle back into the woods and there is a sudden hush as the trees muffle the splat-splat sound of the rain on the lake and turn it into a soft whispering patter that is almost music. And then, over the rain-music—or through it, woven into it like one more part of the melody—I hear something else. A faint, faraway sound. It takes me a minute to realize what it is, because it is so out of place and there is no one around and it doesn’t make sense. But as I listen, it gets louder and clearer, and there’s no doubt.

  It’s the sound of crying.

  Chapter Three

  I get off my bike and lean it against a tree. Then I stand, silent, and try to figure out where the sound is coming from. I can’t make sense of it. It’s not loud—I can barely hear it—but somehow it sounds close. I step off the path into the ankle-deep mixture of dirt and decaying leaves and feel the dampness of it leeching any last traces of warmth from my frozen feet. “Hello?” I call out. My voice sounds hollow in the stillness of the woods. “Hello?” I say again, louder this time. I’m talking to myself, trying to make myself feel less creeped-out.

  It doesn’t work. I can still hear the crying.

  I take another step into the woods. For a second I wonder if it could be Katie making that sound, hiding in the trees, waiting for me to get all freaked-out before she leaps out, laughing her head off. But I don’t think so. Pranks aren’t really Katie’s thing. She’s never been a big joker.

  Maybe it’s an injured animal. Do people set traps around here? Maybe a cougar, or…I don’t know. A raccoon. Could a raccoon sound like that? So… human? There’s a prickling feeling at the base of my spine and my stomach is twisting itself into one big knot.

  “Don’t be so stupid,” I whisper to myself. “Get a grip.” I take another step and a stick cracks loudly under my foot. I’m so tightly wound that I practically pee my pants. The crying has stopped, and all I can hear is the rain. Damn Katie. There’s nothing here except me and my overactive imagination.

  I’m about to head back to the path, back to my bike and out of here, when something catches my eye. A brightness, a color, something that doesn’t belong in this place of muted greens and browns. A flash of blue. Something sticking out from behind a tree. I move toward it, around the tree, bend close. It’s a bundle of blankets. I pull back the top layer cautiously, and there it is. Not a raccoon or a cougar or anything that belongs in the woods.

  It’s a baby.

  A freaking baby.

  It’s tiny—newborn, I guess. Its eyes are closed and its face has blood on it, and for a minute I think it’s dead. Then I remember the crying and I sort of push it, poke at its chest, just gently, and its eyes sort of flicker open for a second. I bend closer and I can see that it’s breathing.

  Holy shit.

  Now what am I supposed to do?

  I pick up the baby, blankets and all, and start yelling for help. I scream at the top of my lungs for a couple of minutes before I realize that there really is no one else here and that I have my cell phone in my pocket. I unzip my pocket, awkwardly, one-handed—I don’t want to put the baby down, which is stupid, since obviously it’s been lying here for a while, but it just doesn’t feel right to put it on the dirt. Somehow I manage to dial emergency, and I’m waiting for the ring, waiting to say I’m at the lake and I’ve found a newborn and please send the goddamn ambulance like right freaking now, but instead my phone pops up a little low-battery message and shuts itself off.

  Crap.

  I just stand there for a minute. I’m almost crying, to tell the truth, and I can’t think what to do next. Then the baby gives a little grunting cry and I wonder how long it’s been here. The parking lot isn’t that far, but there was no one there, and it’d be at least a half-hour’s walk back to the main road to flag down a car. What if that’s too long? God, what if this kid dies while I’m carrying it? What if I show up at the main road with a dead baby? Walking isn’t an option. But riding a bike while carrying a newborn is probably not considered terribly child-safe. On the other hand, nor is letting a baby freeze to death.

  I lay the baby down in its blankets and strip off my jacket and my sweater. Then I pick up the
baby-bundle and tuck it inside the sweater. I tie the bottom of the sweater in a knot so the baby can’t fall out, and make a sort of sling, tying both sleeves together and slipping it over my head so that the baby is against my chest. Then I put on my jacket over top. It just zips shut, holding the baby snugly in place. I hope.

  I get on my bike carefully. When I look down, I can just see the top of its head. Then I remember that we lose most heat from our heads, so I pull the sweater-sling over top. About two seconds later, I get scared that I’m suffocating it and I uncover its head again.

  I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. I’ve never even held a baby before. This is hardly the ideal first baby-holding experience.

  “Don’t you dare die,” I tell it. “If you die, I’ll be emotionally scarred for life. You don’t want that, do you?”

  The baby doesn’t answer.

  “I mean it,” I say. I start pedaling as fast as I dare. “Look, I’m trying to help you. I’m gonna get you some help. Get you to a hospital, where it’s warm and you’ll get…I don’t know. Milk. You’ll get milk. You’ll like it, honest, just hang on…” I am rambling. I can’t help it, and there are tears running down my face. “I’m doing my best here, okay? Don’t die, don’t you dare die. I’m doing my best.”

  Just for once, I think, please please please, let my best be good enough.

  Chapter Four

  The trip out to the main road only takes a few minutes, but it feels like a lifetime. The baby seems to be breathing okay, but it’s lips look kind of blue-gray. I can see it’s heartbeat pulsing at the top of it’s head, and I don’t know if that’s normal. I mean, shouldn’t the skull cover the soft parts? It’s a bit freaky, though it’s also reassuring to see that he is obviously still alive.

  I get off my bike and stand at the edge of the road. There are no buildings or anything, just empty fields on both sides stretching all the way to the highway. The first car I try to flag down just drives on past, and I realize the driver probably thought I was hitchhiking. The next car slows to a stop, and I rush forward, heart racing, but the woman behind the wheel looks at me suspiciously and takes off. I’m left standing there, yelling furiously after her as the rain pours down. I have never in my whole life felt so completely helpless.