Foreverland Is Dead

may not make it out. She could be trapped here for eternity. And she was out, but she came back.
    “I know you can hear me.” Her lips hardly move. “Let us out, Patricia. Don’t do this to us, please.”
    Thump, thump, thump.
    “Please.”
    Thump.
    “We don’t deserve…”
    Cyn closes her eyes. So tired.
    So, so tired.
    She doesn’t feel the door move. Or the floor on the back of her head. But she hears the voices, feels the hardwood sliding beneath her.
    And the warmth of a fire.

    The ache begins in her legs.
    Feeling is coming back. She still can’t feel her fingers. Her tongue is a lump of meat.
    She’s leaning against the wall next to the stove.
    Kat and Mad are knocking snowy crust from her legs and arms, rubbing her fingers, her cheeks. Their words are just sounds, no different than a dog barking or a brook babbling.
    “Don’t.” Mad’s voice. “Keep snow packed on that.”
    She’s talking about the backs of her feet. Kat agrees.
    “Mmmrggg.” Cyn works her useless lips, her tongue not helping. She’s met with a crushing embrace. Kat and Mad squeeze her at the same time.
    “You came back,” Mad says.
    Cyn wipes her eyes, runs her tongue over her gums. The girls come into focus. They’re gaunt. Eyes set deeply. Open sores on Kat’s cheeks. Mad’s gums are receding. Roc is lying under the table behind them, wrapped in blankets, her bruised face peeking out. Blood caked on her bent nose.
    They start asking questions. It becomes noise again. Cyn raises her hand.
    “We’ve got to go. Now.”
    “It didn’t work,” Kat says. “When we grabbed the tree, it didn’t work for us.”
    Pain is sneaking up Cyn’s legs, spilling nausea into her stomach. She pulls her feet up so her heels aren’t touching the floor. The snow on the back of her legs is pink. The shivering eases, lifting the veil on the cold fear hiding beneath.
    “You saw the cliff,” Cyn says, pushing the words out. “When you touched the tree, you went to dream.”
    “Yeah, but—”
    “Don’t run from it. You have to fall.”
    Kat and Mad don’t answer. They know what’s out there, what it feels like. They feel it every time they go to sleep.
    “I know you’re scared, there’s fear in the unknown. Fear in the gray. Allow that. Fall into it.”
    Cyn shudders, biting back the urge to heave.
    “Allow yourself to fall…and you’ll wake up.”
    They’re nodding. They don’t mean it, but they’re nodding.
    “Trust me.”
    Roc throws the cover back, sits up. Her face is purplish, left eye swollen shut. But she’s nodding. She knows.
    We all fall.
    Cyn looks around. “Where’s Jen?”
    The front door slams open. Winter howls inside.
    Mad stifles a sob.

57

    Miranda is no longer horrified.
    Disgusted, sure.
    She hides her face in her hands and pushes. The smell is of no consequence. Her olfactory senses have long been corrupted, the candles used up. Still, she closes her eyes and finishes her business, to get it over with. The lid snaps into place and she slides it next to the water heater.
    She doesn’t enjoy hovering bare-assed over a five-gallon bucket to move her bowels.
    The furnace rarely turns on. The thermostat is in the hallway. Mr. Williams has control of that. He’s conserving power. He also has a space heater out there to keep his bunions from freezing off.
    Miranda has five layers of clothing. She only has to brave the elements when it’s time to pull out the bucket.
    Her food is stacked against the back door, the only room she still refuses to investigate. She cracks the lid on a bottle of water, takes a tiny sip. Not too much—just enough to keep from dehydrating. The food supply is dwindling.
    And she’s not leaving the back room.
    Ever.
    When the food is gone, she’ll starve. She’s sure of it.
    She can’t say she’s accustomed to hunger. It’s still there, twisting her stomach like a dishrag, wringing out every ounce of comfort. She thinks of it constantly, but still, it’s not as bad as it used to be. Maybe when you see atrocity worse than hunger, it creates a sort of peaceful perspective.
    Why are we still here? He said the dream would end when Patricia’s food was gone.
    That’s when she stopped believing him, when she no longer thought this was a dream. Cyn is gone. They said she found her way out, just grabbed onto a branch and disappeared. All the rest tried, they grabbed it the same way and nothing happened. But Miranda is sure that something else went down. They killed