Taken (5 page)

First:
Stay positive by taking stock of whatever
progress you've made.
On the plus side, I had escaped from the shack. I had found a distant source of help in the distance. I had walked all day toward it. I had found some water—not a lot, but some. I was still alive, unlike the first girl who had been taken. All of that was good. On the minus side, I was hungrier than ever and needed more water. And I was scared. But at least I had accomplished something.

Second:
Confirm your whereabouts as best you can.
Okay, so I had no idea where I was. But I knew where I needed to go, and the sun was still high enough to help me see how I was doing. I hunted around until I found another stick, and I planted it in the ground. I pulled out my watch, checked my direction again, and discovered that I had managed to stay on a more or less westerly course. This was also good. It was very good. I fashioned another arrow out of twigs and pointed it toward my destination so I would know which direction to walk come morning.

Third:
Observe your surroundings to see if you can
find anything that can help you.
I looked around. The meadow I was in formed a large circle carved out of the forest. Maybe it was a natural meadow. Or maybe it was a man-made clearing. Maybe it had been a homestead at one time. Grandpa had told me that he had stumbled on lots of places over the years where people had tried to make a go of it. Some had tried to farm. Others had prospected or hunted and trapped. But eventually, because the land was too hard or the settler became ill or died, the land was abandoned. One thing was sure though, he'd said. If someone
had
settled an area at one time or another, that meant there was a water source nearby.

I paced the meadow methodically, looking for any evidence that a cabin or house had once stood in it.

I found nothing.

Nothing but wild grasses and weeds.

I glanced back over my shoulder. The stick I had planted in the ground to check my direction was taller than the grass around it. Reassured that I would be able to find it again, I set off beyond the edges of the clearing to scout for a water source.

I went as far as I dared in each direction. Still nothing. Either I had stumbled on a natural meadow or someone had found a way to live out here without water. Or they had dug a well, which lay hidden somewhere among the trees and grasses.

I headed back to the meadow. By now the sun had dipped below the treetops, and the meadow was filled with shadows. My legs ached even more, my feet were sorer than ever and I felt sick and weak from hunger. I had to make camp for the night. But should I sleep in the open meadow, or would I be safer sheltered in the woods? I settled on a compromise. I spread my sheet of plastic on the ground under a tree near the edge of the clearing, curled up on it and pulled the moth-eaten blanket over me. I lay there, every nerve ending alive to the possibility of danger, and wondered about whoever had taken me.

Where had he gone after leaving me in that shack? What exactly had he been planning to do to me? What had he done to those other girls? Had he returned to the shack yet? Had he found me missing? If so, what was he doing about it? Had he shrugged off my escape? It was possible. After all, I hadn't seen his face. I had no idea who he was. Maybe he was confident that even if I managed to make it to safety, I posed no threat. Maybe he was on the move at this very minute, looking for another town where another fourteen-year-old girl was on her way home alone. Or maybe he knew something about these woods that I didn't. Maybe he knew that I didn't have a chance of making it out.

Or—the thought made my empty stomach churn—what if he had taken me to that shack and had backed off to wait for me to escape? What if that was his thing—what if he was a psycho who liked to hunt people? I knew that the first girl who had vanished had been found in the woods somewhere, but I didn't know which woods. I also didn't know what condition she'd been in. Had she been trying to escape like me? Had she been hungry and thirsty and scared? Had he been tracking her, maybe getting close enough to watch her and see the fear and panic in her eyes? Had he finally closed in on her and…?

What if he was watching me now? What if he was waiting for me to fall asleep?

All my senses were on full alert. My ears strained for any sound. My eyes searched the trees, the rocks, the bushes. I sniffed the air and wished I had the scenting abilities of a dog or a bear. I struggled to stay awake. A loud snap somewhere in the woods behind me propelled me bolt upright, my heart pounding. In the moments that followed, it felt as if everything had vanished except me and whatever, or whoever, had made that noise.

I told myself it was nothing, maybe just a dead branch falling to the forest floor. Or maybe an animal.

Maybe a large animal. Maybe a bear. Or a wolf. Were there wolves in these woods? I started to shake all over. Wolves traveled in packs. They could be ferocious.

Somehow during the night—I have no idea how—I fell asleep.

The sun woke me, and instinctively my whole body tensed. I listened for a moment, but all I heard was the chirping of birds overhead and all around. I opened my eyes. If there was anyone out there, I didn't see him. I stretched my aching body and peered out into the meadow. If things had been different, if I had been there with my grandpa instead of all alone, I might have thought I was in some kind of Eden. The long grass in the meadow sparkled with what looked like tiny diamonds. It was the sun hitting and reflecting off the dew that had appeared while I slept.

Dew.

I sat up and stared at the droplets that studded each stalk of grass.

Dew…
Water
.

I jumped up, ran to the edge of the meadow and flung myself down onto my hands and knees to lick the grass. The moisture was cool and sweet on my parched tongue. I licked some more. As I crawled through the grass, I noticed that my movements were making most of the moisture fall to the ground. I knew, thanks to Grandpa, that it wouldn't be long before the heat from the sun evaporated all those precious droplets. What could I do? Was there some way I could collect the dew? I sat back on my knees to think. That's when I noticed that the wrists of my jacket and the thighs of my jeans were soaking wet.

That gave me an idea.

I ripped off my jacket and pulled off my T-shirt. Then I put my jacket back on and stared at the shirt. I hated to sacrifice it, but if I was going to do this, I would have to be quick, and I couldn't think of a faster way. I bit into the hem until I made a small tear. Then I grasped the shirt with both hands and ripped it in half. I tied a T-shirt half around each ankle, stood up and waded through the damp grass. It wasn't long before both halves of the T-shirt were soaked through.

I walked back to where I had left my few supplies, untied the T-shirt halves and wrung them out into the metal bowl I had packed. Then I carefully poured the water from the bowl into the metal canteen. I screwed on the top and waded into the meadow again. Back and forth I went, soaking up the dew, wringing it out into the bowl and pouring the water into the canteen until—a miracle—I heard a satisfying sloshing sound when I shook it. I kept going until I had harvested every bit of dew I could find. Finally I sank down to my knees, raised the bowl to my lips and drank every drop that wouldn't fit into the canteen. It was delicious.

I felt a little better. I had satisfied my thirst and still had water to carry with me. I retied my bundle, checked my direction, located two new landmarks and set off toward the west again. At least I wouldn't die of thirst—not today anyway.

SEVEN

M
y stomach rumbled and grumbled and groaned. As I stumbled through the woods, I thought about food—roast turkey and gravy, chicken and dumplings, Grandpa's fresh-caught fish pan-fried over an open fire, the biscuits he made some mornings that we ate hot with butter and Grandpa's homemade jam. What I wouldn't give for just one mouthful of biscuit and jam.

Or at least something to chew on.

The pine forest slowly gave way to a variety of trees. There were more birches and, every now and then, a patch of cedar. I gazed thoughtfully at the birches and remembered Grandpa asking me, “Did you know, Stephanie, that spaghetti grows on trees?”

Right. Like I was going to believe that.

“No, it doesn't, Grandpa, Spaghetti is made from wheat, and wheat grows in fields, not on trees.”

“I'm not talking about spaghetti and meatballs. I'm talking about wilderness spaghetti.”

“Wilderness spaghetti?” Uh-oh. Here we go again, I thought. Grandpa's conversation was full of wilderness this and wilderness that. “You're telling me that wilderness spaghetti grows on trees?”

“Yup.”

He sounded serious. I pictured a tree that looked something like a maple tree, but with big strings of spaghetti hanging from it, like the leaves and branches of a weeping willow made out of pasta. I described it to Grandpa. He laughed.

“You find wilderness spaghetti on the inside of the tree, Stephanie, not the outside.”

It turned out that the wilderness spaghetti that Grandpa was talking about was the inner bark of a birch tree.

“You can eat it,” he said. “When you cut it into strips and add it to soup or stew, you can't tell that it's not real spaghetti. If you have to, you can eat it raw.”

“Yuck!” I said.

But that was then. Now I stared at every birch I passed and wondered if Grandpa had been telling the truth or pulling my leg. Finally I stopped. I ran my hand over the papery outer bark of a young birch. It was true that Grandpa liked silence. But when he talked, he told old-fashioned jokes and funny stories about people he had known—mostly people he had guided through the bush. All of those stories, funny as they were, had a lesson to them, and usually the lesson was about being careful, being prepared and staying calm—in other words, about surviving. Grandpa never joked about surviving.

I dug the metal utensil set out of my pocket and unsnapped the knife. It wasn't very sharp, but by pressing hard—so hard that the end of the knife handle dug deep into the palm of my hand— I managed to make two longish parallel cuts in the bark. Then I made two shorter cuts joining the two longer cuts and peeled back the outer bark. I worked the knife deeper into the tree and peeled off a piece of the pale inner bark. I held it to my nose and sniffed. It smelled like tree. I bit off a tiny piece. It was like biting into soft, thin leather. I chewed carefully. It tasted faintly sweet, but chewing it was like chewing the sole of a ballet slipper. It took forever before it was soft enough to swallow. I ate another, slightly larger, piece. My stomach continued to grumble and growl, but I made myself wait to see if I was going to throw up or get stomach cramps or double up in agony.

Nothing bad happened.

I made more cuts in the birch tree and peeled off more bark, which I jammed into my mouth. I worked for what seemed like a long time, digging, cutting, peeling and chewing the whole time, until the grumbling in my belly stopped and I had extra pieces of bark in my pocket to eat later.

I set off into the morning.

A few hours later, when I came to another small clearing, I stopped and quickly checked my direction again. Then I walked. I walked all day. I walked until the sun began to set directly ahead of me, confirmation that I was headed in the right direction. Then I looked around for a place to sleep for the night.

This time I found no meadow, no clearing, no chance of collecting more dew. I looked for the biggest tree with the smoothest ground beneath it. After I made an arrow out of twigs and pointed it westward so that I would be able to orient myself in the morning, I gathered up armfuls of pine needles for a mattress. I spread my sheet of plastic over top of them and lay down. It wasn't even close to my comfy bed back home, but at least it was better than the hard ground. I wrapped myself in the blanket, drank the last of the water from the canteen and curled into a ball to make myself as small and unnoticeable as possible.

The minute my body stopped working, my brain kicked in. Would tonight be the night that a pack of wolves would find me? Would a bear catch my scent and come to investigate? Was
he
out there looking for me?

Who was he anyway?

What did he look like? What did he do for a living? Did people who knew him have even the slightest suspicion about his secret life? What made him do what he did?

What exactly had he done to those other girls?

If only I had listened to my mom.

If only I had done what she'd told me.

If only I hadn't been so mad at her.

If only my last words to her hadn't been angry ones.

When I'd left the house on Saturday morning and she had told me to be careful, I'd yelled back at her.

“I hope he catches me,” I'd said. “I hope he catches me and kills me. I'd rather be dead than have to listen to you and Gregg every night.”

My mom's face had turned crimson, and I'd felt a rush of victory. I'd been trying to hurt her, and I had succeeded. It hadn't occurred to me until now how she must have felt when I'd said that to her—and how she might feel now. Did she feel responsible for what had happened to me? Was she blaming herself?

Or—there it was again, the chill of panic radiating out from my spine and down my arms and legs to my fingers and toes—did she think I'd run away again? Did she think I was trying to get back at her? Was she sitting at home right now, waiting for me to finally break down and call her or maybe, as I'd done before, walk through the door, still filled with anger and resentment?

Was she glad I was gone, at least for a while? I'd been such a pain lately. Maybe she didn't miss me at all. Maybe she was relieved that she didn't have to listen to my rants about Gregg. Maybe she was as angry with me as I was with her.

I had been angry with my mom for a long time.

It started one day when my father was driving home from the city. He traveled back and forth a couple of times a month for meetings. Before each trip, he always went to the library and checked out a couple of books on tape. “If I'm going to be trapped in my car for a few hours each way, I might as well put my time to good use,” he said. He never listened to fiction books. He always chose something more serious—history or politics.