The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [77]
The girl hesitated.
“It’s all right. I’m sorry I scared you,” Zoe said, waving the child toward her with her hands. “I’m not really a mean old lady. Come here, little one.”
The girl walked toward her, stumbling a bit, limping badly on her bare left foot. Her face was contorted with her silent weeping, and she fell into Zoe’s arms.
The little girl felt bony and frail in Zoe’s embrace. This can’t be happening, she thought. This child was not part of her perfectly laid plans.
“Come with me,” Zoe said, and she led the limping child to the porch, sitting her down on the one crooked step. The girl’s T-shirt was filthy, the right sleeve nearly torn away from the body of the shirt. Her shorts were ripped, and she smelled of feces and perhaps of vomit. Her bare foot was scratched and bleeding.
“My name is Ann,” Zoe lied. “What’s yours?”
“Sophie Donohue,” the girl said. She lowered her head and the tears started again. “I want my mom.”
“Of course you do,” Zoe said. She glanced anxiously toward the woods. “And where is she?”
“In Vienna.”
Zoe was confused. “Austria?” she asked.
Sophie shook her head. “Vienna, Virginia.”
“Oh. And what are you doing out here, honey?”
“I was at Girl Scout camp and…”
“At Girl Scout camp?” Zoe was surprised. “Aren’t you way too young to be a Girl Scout?”
“No,” Sophie said. “I’m a Brownie. I’m eight. I just look a lot younger.”
“Yes, you’re a little thing.” Sophie could easily pass for a six-year-old, Zoe thought, but then she hadn’t had that much experience with little girls. She’d barely seen Marti at the age of eight. That was the year Zoe had taken her singing and dancing routine on the road.
“So,” she said, “you were telling me how you got lost.”
“I don’t know exactly what happened,” Sophie said. “We had an accident, I think. Somehow. I don’t know. All of a sudden, I woke up and I was lying against a tree…a down tree….” It seemed hard for her to find the words she needed. “A tree on the ground…”
Zoe nodded her understanding.
“And in front of me was a car on fire. I think I was in the car, and somehow I got out, but I don’t remember.”
“Who was in the car with you?”
“Alison and Holly. Alison’s the leader and we were taking a shortcut. And Holly is my friend.”
“And did either of them get out of the car with you?” Zoe glanced again toward the woods.
“I didn’t see them. I think they might have been in there. Inside the car.” Sophie’s face was a wide-eyed mixture of fear and sorrow. “I think they were in the fire. I was afraid to look, and it was so hot. It was hurting my eyes.”
Zoe struggled to make sense of Sophie’s words. The nearest road was five miles away, of that she was certain. Surely this child hadn’t walked five miles alone through the woods. “Where was this, honey?”
“I don’t know.” She pointed behind her. “Somewhere…I know you’re supposed to hug a tree if you get lost in the woods, but I wanted to get away from the fire. And then I couldn’t figure out how to get back to the road. I kept turning and turning and—” she lowered her head “—I got so lost.”
“How scary,” Zoe said. “When did this all happen?”
Sophie shook her head slowly, her red-rimmed eyes unfocused. “I don’t know. But I think I’ve been alone for three nights.” She looked toward the woods from which she’d emerged. “I’ll never go in the woods again,” she said. “I hate them. Every time I fell asleep, I had nightmares.”
Zoe caught another whiff of the foul smell emanating from Sophie’s clothes. “Did you get sick?”
Sophie nodded. “I think it was some berries I ate. I shouldn’t have, but I was so hungry. And then I got diarrhea and…I feel gross.”
“And you hurt your arm, I think.” Zoe took the small, scratched and dirty arm in both her hands to examine it. “Did you break it, maybe, or…oh, you burned it.” There was a long, narrow red burn running the length of Sophie’s forearm. She had been closer to that fire than she’d thought.
“Hurts.” Sophie carefully removed her arm from Zoe’s hands and held it tight against her body.
“Okay, my little friend,” Zoe said. “We need to get these