Foreverland Is Dead

out there and get knocked out. Maybe not. One thing’s for sure: they’ll get knocked out if the old man comes to the bunkhouse.
    “Wake up the others.” Cyn reaches under the bed.
    “No.” Roc stands in the middle of the room. “Just the three of us.”
    Cyn drops a sweater on the floor. “I’m not going, then.”
    “You can come back for them.”
    “I’m not moving.”
    Roc bounds across the room, slams Cyn’s head into the pillow, squeezing her face with one hand. The point presses against her temple. Spittle flies with each angry breath, like a dragon contemplating the next move.
    “We can ride double,” Kat says. “Cyn’s going to need help staying on the horse, anyway.”
    Roc presses down, her breath hot and humid. Cyn sees the whites of her eyes.
    She leaps off. “Hurry then, go.”
    Kat scurries to the other beds. The girls moan. Roc yanks them up. They protest, but not for long.
    Cyn slowly puts on clothes. Sluggish. Sore. Her body full of sand. The others scuffle to get dressed, whispering back and forth. Roc’s anger wanes, there are fewer threats and more action.
    Maybe Roc is saving us.
    Cyn puts on three pair of socks and looks down at the last thing.
    Boots.
    Even with the backs cut out, they’re tight.
    “Here.” Mad drops four pills into her hand. “Take all of these.”
    Cyn rolls them in her palm. She just wants the pain to go away. Dream or not, she wants it to end.
    She swallows them dry.
    And shoves her feet into boots of hot, broken glass.
    Somehow, she chokes down the scream.

48

    Miranda wakes every twenty minutes, spinning on the couch, searching for the comfort zone. Finding none. She wishes for a little music to mask the sounds of the house, the creaks of the office chair.
    It’s the door.
    She can’t stop thinking about it. She’s positive she doesn’t want to see what’s back there, but now that it’s been opened, her curiosity nibbles.
    It’s almost six o’clock.
    The sun will be up very soon. She doesn’t want to hike, not today. Not ever. If only she could run a fever, she could stay on the couch all day, listening to her favorite composers. Just her and the comforter and Mozart and Brahms. That would be a good day.
    Mr. Williams won’t be happy. Can he work that thing to zap me?
    There’s nowhere she can hide, not inside the house. He goes everywhere, knows how to work everything.
    She goes down the hall, dragging the blanket, giving the thermostat a little bump. The air handler kicks on. Lifeless dry air blows from the vent. Miranda leans into the back room, the monitors lit up.
    Light snores rise and fall from the office chair. Mr. Williams is slumped out of view. The monitors flicker with green light, one of them focused on an empty pillow. The others pan around the bunkhouse. All the covers thrown back, beds empty.
    All of them.
    She steps into the room.
    Mr. Williams snorts, jerking in the chair. He spins around, eyeballing the blanket-clad blonde standing in the doorway. It takes him a moment to process, and then remembers where he is and why.
    She’s looking at something.
    Mr. Williams attacks the keyboard, cycling the monitors around the buildings. They’re not in the dinner house. The floodlights illuminate the area with white light. Not in the garden, not outside the brick house. Not in the woods or at the small cabin— The barn door is open.
    Horses gallop into the open, free at last. Their legs stretching out, clopping the ground, snow powder tossed in their wake. Kat’s on the first one, gripping the mane with both hands, hunched over, bouncing with the horse’s stride.
    The other horses bear two riders each.
    “Sid!” The office chair flies across the room.
    Mr. Williams limps toward Miranda, almost losing his balance. He fumbles his way into the hallway.
    “Sid!”
    Their footsteps hammer the hardwood. The door slams.
    Miranda watches the monitors. Watches the girls ride out of the floodlights and into the early morning, hugging each other.
    Sid sprints past the garden in his socks. Mr. Williams isn’t far behind, aiming the fob at the distant riders. They remain on the backs of the animals, not breaking stride.
    Fading into the snow-laden meadow.
    They left me. Her head knocks against the doorframe. I deserve it.

49

    The horses run on instinct.
    Cyn squeezes Mad from behind, pressing her head against her back. “Hold on to the mane like it’s your life , ” Kat had told them.
    Cyn told them which direction to run, and