Perception

LXXXV

Never in her life had Anna been more relieved than she was when the police car came over the track and ground to a halt on the edge of the clearing. The siren was off now, but the blue lights were still flashing, casting eery shadows over the trees.
Well. Could anything ever be as eery as what had happened today?
An ambulance stopped beside the police car, and two paramedics jumped out and ran towards Anna and the girl, who was still lying semi-conscious on the grass.
"Hi. Do you speak English?" Anna said as they approached, not particularly wanting to test her tentative grasp on the Dutch language right at this moment.
"Of course." one of the men answered.
"I think she's been drugged. She seems to be waking up now, though. Her heart's been beating and she's been breathing all along." She rattled off the stats as if she'd worked in an emergency room for years.
The EMT nodded and pointed to the box in the pit next to them. "She was buried? Do you know how long she was in there for?"
"Yes, she was, there was a pipe coming out of the box though, so she must have had oxygen. Best guess... I'm guessing about two hours?"
The EMT flinched ever so slightly, but he recovered straight away.
"Are you any relation to her?"
Anna opened her mouth to reply when suddenly she felt it again, coming through the wind above.
"Don't tell them anything about who you are to her, Anna."
She was so relieved to her the voice again she almost slumped forward, but she caught herself just in time.
"No, we... well, I guess I'll tell the story to the police in a bit?"
She looked up to where the police were handcuffing the woman, who was still unconscious. She must have hit her pretty hard. A second ambulance was approaching down the track now, Anna guessed to look the woman over.
My aunt?
Suddenly the EMT looked at her with kind eyes and put his hand on her shoulder for just a moment. "Well. You seem to have done an amazing thing here. We'll take her off to hospital now."
She nodded. "Can I give her my phone number on a piece of paper? I'd love to speak to her when all this... well, when she's awake and stuff."
"Of course."
Anna looked right into her cousin's half-open eyes and smiled at her.
"You'll be okay. I'll come and visit you, okay?"
Slowly the girl nodded.
"Okay."
The whisper was so soft that Anna wasn't sure whether she had imagined it.

She watched from a little distance away as the EMT's loaded her onto a stretcher and put her into the back of the ambulance. Only as the doors closed and the van drove away slowly, did the voices of the police men enter her head.
"Can you tell me more about what happened?"
The man was addressing Eli, and she moved over to stand by his side quickly. The woman was on another stretcher now, handcuffed to the side rail, and she was being taken to the other ambulance.
"Eli was drugged, too." she said quietly, feeling the remnants of the voice somewhere within her. "We were camping, and when I woke up he wasn't there. I came out of the tent and looked for him everywhere. I had started running through the forest when I heard him scream from a house somewhere. I managed to throw a rock through a basement window and got him out. He was really groggy then, but we fled into the forest and he was able to tell me that there had been someone else in the basement. So when we saw her truck we managed to follow the tail lights and we waited until she left. Then we dug up the box and got the girl out. But she came back..."
She paused for a moment and swallowed the recollection away. Then she carried on in the same soft tone.
"She came back and took Eli, threatened him with a knife. I... I don't know how I dared, but I picked up the shovel and hit her."
She could feel the tear welling on her eyelid, and suddenly her knees buckled under her and she sat down quickly on the grass, hugged her knees to her chest and put her head in her hands. The enormity of it all crashed into her now, new waves on the same battered shore, and she couldn't help the tears that flowed over her cheeks any longer.
The police man crouched down beside her while the other man shone his light in Eli's eyes.
"Are you okay, sir? Do we need to call you another ambulance?"
Eli shook his head vociferously. "No. I'm fine now. I was real groggy, like Anna said, but I'm completely fine again now. I don't want to go to hospital."
The man opened his mouth, Anna guessed to reason with him, but seemed to think better of it after seeing the resolve in Eli's eyes.
"Do either of you know this woman? Do you have any idea why she would have wanted to take you?"
Eli's voice was soft but steady.
"No, I have no idea."