Withering Hope (4 page)

Afterward I lie on the seat I slept on last night. I didn’t bother putting it upright this morning or removing the pillow and blanket Tristan gave me last night, so it’s already resembling a bed.

"I'm going to the cockpit," Tristan announces.

"Why?"

"To sleep."

"You can sleep on one of the other seats. It'll be much more comfortable than—”

"No, I prefer it that way."

I shrug. "Fine."

I curl up in my makeshift bed, dreading the night. I've suffered from insomnia since I was little. No matter how many sleeping exercises I've tried, I don't sleep more than four or five hours a night. I shiver, my sweat-soaked clothes clinging to me. I have a suitcase with clothes nearby but no energy to get up and find it.

That's when I remember my wedding dress. As if jolted by an electric current, I rise from my seat, looking around for it. It can't be in plain sight, or I would have seen it when I searched for objects to hold water. I sink to my knees, putting my palms forward for support. The light in the plane comes from the moon outside, but it doesn't take me long to spot the creamy fabric of the dress's protective bag under the seat across from mine. I don't open the bag; I can’t look at the dress right now. Instead, I go back to my seat, clutching the bag in my arms, and begin to cry. I am glad Tristan went to the cockpit. This moment is mine and Chris’s, who must be feeling the same desperation that is rotting me from the inside out.

He'll come for me and Tristan. I know he will.

I
wake up still clutching the protective bag in the morning. It sticks to my sweaty, clammy skin, making me wish I could shower. My throat is dry and I look out the window, holding my breath. It hasn't rained. I stumble out of my seat, desperate to get out of the plane. The door is shut, though, which means Tristan is still sleeping. I decide to let him sleep, because he exerted himself more than I did yesterday. I try to open the door myself. I've seen Kyra do it a few times, but since I wasn't paying too much attention to what she was doing, all I manage to do is make a lot of noise as I try to pull it open.

"Whoa, you don't have to disassemble the plane," Tristan's voice booms.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up."

"Doesn't matter." He comes to the door and effortlessly opens it, turning it into the airstairs.

"It hasn't rained," I say.

"I know."

I descend the airstairs, and walk straight to the fire pit. The fire is extinguished, of course. My heart thrums as my eyes shoot toward the canopy. Anguish swivels inside me, threatening to tear me. Tristan said the forty-eight hours after a crash is when the search is most intense. How many hours do we have left? I make a quick mental calculation. Less than twenty-four.

"It has to rain soon; it’s the rainy season. In any case, there are fruits here that contain enough water to keep us going until it rains, but I didn't find any that looked familiar yesterday," Tristan says.

"What are the odds of stumbling upon something that's poisonous?" I ask, my dry throat pushing the thought of any danger besides dehydration out of my mind.

"Let's not find out. We’ll walk in a different direction than we did yesterday, look for fruit, and gather some wood in the process."

"Sounds like a plan."

This time when we venture among the trees, I keep my eyes open for fruit that looks familiar. None does, but I'm fascinated by what I see. Plants with thorns so thick they resemble fangs. Fruits that have the texture of berries but are as big as pineapples. Flowers with petals so meaty they must contain water. But the petals are shiny, as if they've been polished with wax, and I remember reading once that it's best to steer clear of shiny things—they may contain poison. As time passes and we walk farther from the plane, things get worse. Every move to cut or pick up branches tires me beyond measure, and my vision blurs. Thirst and hunger erode my concentration and energy with lightning speed. When my legs become too unsteady to be dependable, I stash all the branches I've collected under one arm and grab Tristan's hand with the other one. Since he seems to be stumbling too, I'm not sure if this is a good idea. We're going downhill again, and I wonder how long it'll be until we reach the bottom and what we'll find there.

"Tristan," I say, "if no plane comes… how long will it take us to reach a city if we venture out on foot?"

"Months. We're very deep in the forest. And we'd have to build some sort of shelter every night, which would slow us down."

"Could we make it?"

"It's not impossible, but it would be very dangerous. At any rate, it's not an option right now."

My hands go cold, a spark of fear spreading ice through my nerves. "Why?"

He inhales sharply. "You'll see."

My brow furrows in confusion, as I follow him downhill. A few minutes later, I'm certain we walked into a nightmare. When we reach the bottom of the hill—or at least what I suppose is the bottom—we come at an abrupt halt, unable to move forward. All around us, stretching as far as I can see, is nothing but water. Muddy, dirty water. Everywhere. It must be at least waist-high.

"Is the entire forest under water?" I ask with a shaky voice.

"I suppose there are parts that are not, but most are during the rainy season. It'll be four months until the dry season arrives and the water retreats. Until then, we can't afford to leave this hill."

Four months. If no one arrives within the next twenty-four hours, we'll be stuck here for four months. And then another thought strikes me. Grim and dark. "Tristan, even if a plane finds us … where will it land? If there's water everywhere…" Every wisp of air leaves my lungs. "Our hill is covered with trees. How can a plane land without getting wrecked like ours?"

He doesn't answer right away, and his silence sluices away my last tendrils of hope of being rescued.

"They’ll use a helicopter. Let's go uphill again," Tristan says. "We absolutely
need
to find some fruit."

Going uphill takes twice as much energy as going downhill did. I take deep, ragged breaths, dragging my feet. I’ve almost decided to ask Tristan to call it quits and just go to the plane to light the fire when he stops so abruptly I nearly smash into him.

"I think that's a grapefruit tree," he says.

"Are you sure?" I ask. The fruits do resemble grapefruits, except they're much bigger and the peel looks coarser.

"No. But the monkeys are eating it, which means it might be safe for us, too."

"Monkeys?" I tilt my head back and crack a smile. High above us is a group of monkeys.

"Come on, let's take a few of whatever these are and return."

Since the fruits hang higher up, and both of us are too exhausted to climb, we just take the few that have fallen on the forest floor and pile them on the branches we are carrying. By the time we're back to the plane, I can barely stand. Both Tristan and I drop the branches next to the extinguished fire. Tristan proceeds to cut a slice from one of the fruits. Juice drops out of the fruit and I hold out my hand.

"Not so fast," Tristan says, touching the fruit to his lips, holding it there.

"What are you doing?"

"The universal edibility test."

I stare at him, pretending it's not the first time I’ve heard of it. "We've just established that the monkeys are eating it. That means so can we."

He shakes his head, still holding the slice to his lips. "Not necessarily."

"How long do you do that?"

"Three minutes. Then I'll keep it in my mouth and chew it for fifteen minutes. If nothing bad happens, I'll swallow it, and if I have no adverse reactions to it after eight hours, we can eat it."

"Eight hours? Tristan, are you serious?"

His stiff stance leaves no doubt that he is.

"I'd rather we don't die from poisoning."

I sigh. "You're right. Can you give me a slice to test, too?"

"What's the point of you putting yourself in danger as well?"

His protectiveness takes me by surprise, filling me with a strange warmth. "It's not going to make the process faster anyway," he continues.

"Fine. But the next time we're testing something, I'll do it."

Tristan gives a noncommittal shrug. We build the signal fire, which like yesterday, sends heavy puffs of smoke upward but produces a weak flame, and then build more makeshift leaf baskets to collect water. I have to say, I'm not half bad at this. I manage to weave them much tighter than yesterday. They will hold water for sure. My baskets are far better than Tristan's, which makes me feel less helpless. But not less thirsty. Or less weak.

"You feeling all right?" Tristan asks when I sway. He helps me to the airstairs, and I sit on it.

"Any chance I can eat one slice of the fruit?"

"No, just five hours have passed. We still have to wait three more."

"But—”

"Aimee, I know this is hard, but the human body can go for days without water, though it might feel like you can't go for another minute. Be patient. It's not worth the risk."

I don't argue further, just lean back on the airstairs. After a while I crawl up a step to make a place for Tristan to sit.

"Let's go inside the plane," he says. I crawl up two more steps then can't make it any farther.

"I need a moment to rest."

My humid clothing is almost unbearable. If I move just a few more steps up and go inside the plane, things will be better. Not by much, because it's hot in the plane too, and the air is sticky. But I can't move. And part of me doesn't want to. From here, I have the best view of the sky, and I can also hear a plane or a helicopter, should it come. I press my palms on my eyes, unwilling to let any tears come. I can't lose hope yet.

We should have a heard a helicopter by now. Shouldn't the rescue mission be at its most intense right now? What happens if they don't find us in the forty-eight hour timeframe? Tristan must know, but I'm too afraid to ask him. So I just tune in my ears. Even a faint sound indicating that our rescuers are far off, would be enough for me. But only the ominous sounds of the forest reach my ears. No sound of hope.

My moment of rest turns into minutes, and then hours. I wipe the sweat that clings to my face, the unforgiving reminder that my body is losing water at an abnormal speed.

I doze off.

I wake up with a shriek. Tristan is shrieking, too. No, wait, he's laughing. He's on his feet, his clothing now truly soaked. No wonder—it's raining in torrents.

When I become aware of it, I scramble from the airstairs, landing straight in the mud. I hold my arms up and open my mouth, relishing the touch of the drops that fall with a vengeance. The rain washes the sweat away. A bit of the thirst too.

Tristan and I each drink from the filled cans. After the rain fills them again, Tristan says, "Let's go inside; this would be a bad time to get pneumonia."

Luckily we had the good sense to cover the wood we gathered and didn't use for the fire with those racket-sized leaves, or it would have been soaked by now. We each grab two cans of water and skid inside.