My slickered friends were talking but I couldn’t make out their words through the buzzing in my ears and the thickness of the blanket. I thought at first the buzzing was left over from my cold-water bath, but by and by my tired brain sorted it into the sound of wheels on the road coming through the floorboard. The rocking and the warmth of my cocoon sent me back to sleep.

I woke up to feel cold air on my head. My arms were numb where they’d been tied behind me, my tongue thick with suppressed nausea.

“Is she still out?”

I didn’t know the voice. Cold, indifferent. The voice of the man who’d called in the threat? Only two days ago? Was that all? I couldn’t tell, either of time or the voice.

“She isn’t moving. Want me to open her up and check?” A black man’s thicker tones.

“Leave her as she is.” The cold voice again. “An old carpet we’re dumping. You never know who may see you, even down here. Who might remember seeing a face.”

I kept myself as limp as possible. I didn’t need another blow to the skull. I was pulled roughly from the car, banging my poor head, my aching arms, my sore back, on the door, clenching my numb fingers to keep from crying out. Someone slung me over his back like an old roll of carpet, as though a hundred and forty pounds was nothing to him, as though I was nothing more than a light and careless load. I could hear twigs snapping underfoot, the swishing of the dead grasses. What I hadn’t noticed on my previous trip here was the smell. The rank stench of putrifying grasses, mixed with the chemicals that drained into the marsh. I tried not to choke, tried not to think of the fish with their rotting fins, tried to suppress the well of nausea that grew with the pounding in my head as it bounced against my bearer’s back.

“Okay, Troy. X marks the spot.”

Troy grunted, slid me from his shoulder, and dropped me. “Far enough in?”

“She isn’t going anyplace. Let’s split.”

The rank grasses and soft mud broke my fall. I lay against the chill earth. The cool mud soaking through the blanket brought a moment’s relief to my sick head, but as I lay there my body’s weight caused water to ooze up through the mud. I felt the dampness in my ears and panicked, thrashing uselessly. Alone in this dark cocoon, I was going to drown, black swamp water in my lungs, my heart, my brain. The blood roared in my head and I cried tears of utter helplessness.

24

In Grimpen Mire

I had passed out again. When I slowly came to I was wet all through. Water had oozed into my hair and was tickling my ears. My shoulders felt as though someone had stuck iron bars into them to separate them from my breastbone. Somehow, though, the sleep and the cold muddy water had healed my head a little. I didn’t want to think—it was too scary. But minute by minute I could still make it if I used a little sense.