
As I lay and think, trying my best to remember what happened to me since climbing off the bus I hear hushed chatter coming from the other room. It’s hard to hear at first, but as I focus my attention on the voices I can hear bits and pieces, depending on who’s talking. The Sheriffs voice is difficult to hear because he has a hushed tone and he also has a thick Alaskan twang. However, Doctor Willows voice is clear and concise and I can hear some of what she is saying when she speaks even though she is speaking in a whispered tone.
Robins voice, well I can hear every word he speaks. He has one of those deep voices that reverberates through the wooden walls, even though he is speaking softly. He has a nice comforting tone to his deep voice. It reminds me of when we were young children, before our parents died. My father would always be up before sunrise and he would make his morning coffee and hum quietly to himself, and although he did it quietly, his deep voice would travel through the walls of the house and wake us all gently with his tune. I don’t know if he did it so we would all wake up early with a lovely tune or if he thought he was humming so quietly that none of us could hear him.
Either way, it was the best way to be woken in the morning. Even now, I still wake up before sunrise and hum my dads tune to myself and I think, that’s why I’m still an early bird.
Callie always calls me the annoying go getter! Thinking on it now, Callie doesn’t have the same love of waking up early like I do. Maybe the early mornings remind her of dad too, and instead of making her feel happy, it makes her sad.
At first it’s comforting listening to the others talk in the other room. It helps to distract me from the boredom of being restricted to bed.
Robin plans to go out and check on the livestock and something about butchering a pig.
Willow plans to make some kind of stew that can be left to cook while she tends to me. I hear her asking the Sheriff if he would try getting the radio to work seeing as the snow has let up a little.
It sounds like there’s a lot to do around here for everyone, except me. I drift off into my own inner thoughts as the voices drone on with their conversation, that is, until I hear my name mentioned by Robin.
I prick my ears and listen closely.
Robin says, “ Doc, do you think she’ll ever remember what happened to her? Maybe she’s just saying she can’t remember.”
Willow replies, “like I told her earlier, it’s normal to have memory loss after a traumatic event. I mean, being r***d and tortured and shot with an arrow and dropped in the wilderness, left for dead naked and injured. It’s traumatic Robin, god knows it may be for the best that she doesn’t remember what has happened to her. These memories are best left alone until she can speak to someone qualified enough to help her deal with what’s happened to her. As an MD I am able to do what I can with medicine to heal the body, but I know nothing about how to heal the mind. It’s probably best she continues thinking like she does, that it was just an accident of some sort.”
Sheriff now in an annoyed tone and louder then before, “but we’ll never catch the sons a bitches that done this to her if she can’t give me any details. For all we know it could be one of our own townsmen that’s done this to her and maybe there’re others, or have been others that we never knew about. You know what happens to a carcass in these forests. They get picked clean by the wild animals and the chances of finding a body or dismembered skeleton in these dense forests is slim to none!”
Willow, “ shh, hush now Henry, she’ll hear us. Go fix the radio would you.”
I am stunned, I have words zooming through my head at a hundred miles an hour,
“r**e!”
“Torture!”
“Shot!”
“Left for dead!”
“Carcass!”
All of a sudden something switches in my head and I get a rush of memories come back to me. It all plays out in my mind as clear as day.
Barry!

