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The day Laura Lee comes back from the dead, it’s the day Lottie knows that the wilderness heard her prayers. She felt foolish, she’d admit as much, on her knees in the middle of the woods, her head spinning, her knees digging into the dirt, feeling weak and soft, like clay melting in the sun.
She had never prayed in her life, but watching Laura Lee’s plane crash into the water like a star falling straight out of the sky, she thought, if there has ever been a time to pray, it must be now.
She didn’t expect anyone or anything to hear her. No God, no wilderness, no nothing. Lottie only expected her words to bounce off into the sky and vanish into some black hole, like they’d never been there in the first place, like they’d always done.
Lottie expected her sound and her voice to be unheard and for the world to be unmoved, because her silence did just the same. Lottie expected this, because all of her life, the world has been spinning and spinning and spinning, regardless of whether she was caught up or not. It has been spinning, and nothing she ever did changed that.
And Laura Lee, the first girl who ever believed in her, she vanished. Vanished like the first drops of mildew, like the first snowfall, like the sun disappearing, drowning itself in the very same water that engulfed Laura Lee’s plane with a cold, unforgiving embrace. The girl had looked at her with faith in her eyes and a fire in her soul, told that this was what she was meant to do, that this, in the end, was a part of the heavenly Father’s plan.
Lottie kneels in the dirt and wonders why Laura Lee’s death would be part of that plan, too. A most cruel plan, indeed.
She doesn’t quite know if two days or ten days pass by. She looks to the wilderness, the winds and the ripples in the water and the scrapes in the ground, but time is a cruel thing and they lose track of it before they know it, and her faith is fading, too.
What Lottie does know is that it’s in the first rays of the morning sun, when the ball of fire is still crawling its way up in the horizon again, that she finds Laura Lee again. It’s in the morning that she wanders aimlessly by the water for hours, that the words from Misty have suddenly faded to nothing more than a buzz, when her eyes falter and rest on the form of a girl at the edge of the shore.
A girl resting in the sand. A girl washed up, her clothes drenched and her hair sticking to her exposed skin, still raw from her fresh burns, like seaweed. Or maybe a girl from somewhere far up in the sky, a fallen angel who’s burned away her wings.
Whatever the reason, the day she finds Laura Lee on the shore, that’s the day Lottie thinks, maybe, possibly, there’s a reason for all of this. Or maybe, possibly, the fragile belief in herself that Laura Lee created with her words, maybe, finally, they seemed like they could be true.
She had trusted her dreams and visions and words with this girl, and she had believed her. Lottie can’t remember the last time someone believed her. An unwavering faith, at that, not some chuckle at a young girl’s illusions, not jokes at the cost of her mind and her confidence and her sense of self.
No, Laura Lee looked at her. Not through her. Lottie had started to believe that maybe this wasn’t possible at all, that she had become a spirit wandering among the living, desperate to be seen and heard and touched.
No, when Lottie brushes the wet hair out of Laura Lee’s face, her hand touches her wet cheek, she’s solid, she’s there. Laura Lee is real, and Lottie is grateful. When she puts her ear against her chest, she can hear her heartbeat in there, calling out to Lottie, speaking in a language she feels like she’s heard before but can’t decipher. She tries harder.
Laura Lee is alive, and the girls can’t believe their own eyes, but Lottie can.
Whatever prophecy brought her back, Lottie is grateful. Coach Scott may be as skeptical and wavering in his faith as the girls are, but he watches Laura Lee’s sleeping form regardless, he helps Lottie and Taissa prepare another sickbed for her, he watches Lottie, she can feel his gaze at the back of her head, that grown up disbelief and concern drilling into the room.
He wouldn’t understand. None of them understand. Lottie does.
Laura Lee sleeps for four days. Maybe three. Maybe five. Lottie can’t say for certain how many nights she sits up watching her, waiting, watching the fluttering of her eyelids and putting her ear down to her mouth every once in a while, just checking that she’s still breathing, and gets filled with that same unreal joy every time, because sometimes, even she can’t believe it’s true.
Lottie realises she may not be good at praying, not like Laura Lee did it. She realises God may be hesitant to hear her call out to Him, may be skeptical of her, so she calls out to the wilderness instead, and she keeps the girl as warm as she can and sacrifices her own comfort for hers, hoping it’ll wake her up faster.
On the first day, Lottie is ecstatic. On the second day, Lottie is already desperate, wondering why God would give her Laura Lee back only to rip her away like a cruel joke, trapped in her eternal gloom. On the third day, Lottie is furious, and looking at the sleeping girl feels something like torture.
On the fourth day, Lottie stops counting. Maybe. Maybe it’s the sixth day. Maybe it’s ten days, maybe it’s only two.
There’s something about time in the wilderness that changes shape and size and sound, she thinks. Something that knocks on the doors of the cabin and crawls up and down the walls. Lottie is by Laura Lee’s side again, and she hears the girls whispering in the other room, even though they think she doesn’t.
It's morning when it happens. Lottie only realises she had drifted off with her back against the wall when Coach’s voice calls out to her, and she follows it until she opens her eyes and feels the sharp pain of her sore shoulders.
Coach is on the other side of the room, staring at her with wideblown eyes, his recent cloudy state of mind seemingly vanished. Lottie blinks twice before it dawns on her that he’s not looking at her at all. He’s looking at her feet, where Laura Lee has been sleeping for two or five or ten days.
Laura Lee is sitting by her feet. Sitting.
Lottie has to rub her eyes as she jolts up, gawking at the sight in front of her. At Laura Lee sitting there, staring at her, suddenly wide awake, like she had been transported back in time.
She almost thinks it, it must be a dream, it must, but the girl’s scars on her face tell her otherwise, as does the cold air still prickling at her bones, as does Mari’s curious eyes, she can already feel her presence in the doorway, hear her voice announcing the moment to everyone else who might be willing to hear it, not that Lottie pays much attention to any of them.
Laura Lee is awake. God has raised his hand over and protected her, Laura Lee, His most precious, favorite child, and Lottie knew it, even when all the other girls told her otherwise.
“Laura Lee,” she finds herself muttering, the name weighing heavy in her mouth.
The girl frowns, an expression entirely alien to her face. And perhaps, Lottie thinks she can see God’s hand still raised above them, shielding them from the rest of the world, darkening the skies. “Who?”
It’s been another three days, and the girls walk around Lottie and Laura Lee on tip toes, steering their eyes away like it’s forbidden to do otherwise. Lottie doesn’t think she’s looked at anyone else other than Laura Lee for the past three days.
As much as Misty tries to help, her first aid training doesn’t make as much of a difference when it comes to memory loss. When Lottie finds Laura Lee awake and smiles at her, the girl doesn’t smile back, but she assures herself, Taissa, Misty, Mari, Coach, it’ll all pass very soon.
The girl who touched the skies almost died, of course, she wouldn’t just bounce back immediately. She’ll need time.
It’s been three days, and Laura Lee still doesn’t look at Lottie the same way as she used to. Lottie takes her face in her hands and checks her vitals, just like Misty did three days ago, and the girl looks right through her, her face painted with confusion, indifference, no recognition, as if Lottie was a ghost trapped between two planes of existence.
She looks at Lottie like she isn’t even there. Not really.
And Laura Lee walks the camp like she isn’t really there, either. She’s still dealing with pain, and she takes Lottie’s hand when she offers it, her shoulder, her arm, guidance, assistance, but it’s not the same way it used to be, not at all. When Lottie washes her face, Laura Lee stares out the window, and she wonders what world she must be in now.
“What am I doing here?” the girl asks her, the first words she’s spoken to her, to anyone in three days.
“Our plane crashed,” Lottie explains, “We were on our way to nationals.”
“In what?”
“Soccer.”
“You play soccer?” Laura Lee asks, tilting her head in curiosity.
“So do you,” Lottie chuckles lowly, “You wanted to save us. Fly back and get us some help, but… But your plane crashed. I thought you were dead. We thought you were dead. But God brought you back to us.”
Lottie smiles. Laura Lee looks as if she’s never seen a smile before.
“How long have you been stranded here?”
“I don’t know anymore,” she tells her honestly, willing to admit it only in the privacy of the two of them and no one else, “We found the cabin, but Van is injured, and the food won’t last forever… I mean, that’s what you said.”
The girl nods. “What did you say my name was?”
“Your name’s Laura Lee.”
Laura Lee seems to consider this. “Why?”
“I-” Lottie starts, “I don’t understand.”
“Why did Laura Lee…” the girl’s words falter, “Why did I think I could save you?”
“I don’t think you did,” Lottie bites her lip, feeling her courage falter as well. It’s still hard to look at Laura Lee’s burns, still hard for her to tend to them without wondering how her world might’ve looked had she lost the girl forever. When she sleeps, she’s tormented by the image of Laura Lee’s engulfed in hellfire. She thinks God might be taking some of His kindness back, if he thinks playing tricks on her is going to help them, help her, help Laura Lee.
“I think God told you to do it,” Lottie decides, “I think that was your mission. He gave it to you. He knew you were meant for something grand.”
Laura Lee is shaking. Lottie realises she’s still wearing the dress that once belonged to the girl in front of her. She wishes she had something to give her for the cold, since God’s hand seems to be busy elsewhere.
“Why would God put me in danger like that?” the girl asks. Lottie has no idea.
When Jackie dies, Lottie asks Laura Lee to pray for her. And to pray for them, too, pray for the biting cold to spare the rest of them, while they still have time. But while her faith in the wilderness still remains unwavering, Laura Lee has forgotten how she used to be God’s favorite daughter.
The girl never admitted this herself, but Lottie could tell, as she lowered herself into the water, guided by Laura Lee’s voice, her strength, her presence that she knew must have been meant for this, for something angelic.
Or, maybe, she birthed from the wilderness, too. Maybe God and the wilderness met and planted her here, just for Lottie, only for Lottie. That must be why she was given back to her.
Yet, Laura Lee has forgotten. Lottie kneels in front of her once they’re alone again from the girls’ prying eyes, and yet, the girl sits down with her eyes to the ceiling and her hands touching the floor.
“I don’t think anyone can hear us out here,” she tells her.
It doesn’t sound like Laura Lee at all. Lottie wonders why God would separate himself from her, if he did it on purpose, or if the sky, the ocean, the earth, if something intervened. Ripped Laura Lee away from Him, like an umbilical cord cut too strong, too rough, too soon.
“God is all around us. Isn’t that what you used to say?” she asks her, hearing the desperation in her own words. She can’t get Jackie’s frozen face out of her dreams, accompanying Laura Lee’s burning body perfectly.
“Laura Lee may have told you that,” the girl says quietly, “I didn’t.”
“You are-”
“What is Laura Lee to you?” her companion questions, “What was she to you?”
Lottie retreats, retracts, lowers her folded hands, like she’d just tasted a glimpse of the burn Laura Lee must have felt up in that plane, up between the clouds. She can feel it in her finger tips.
“She’s my friend,” she decides, although it tastes wrong on her tongue, although she doesn’t know why she hesitates.
“She was your friend,” Laura Lee corrects her.
“You’re my friend,” Lottie sighs, “You’re still you, Laura Lee. You’re still you.”
She insists on it. Laura Lee’s memory hasn’t come back. Weeks have passed, and Taissa smiled sadly to her and told her it’s okay if she needed more time. Lottie doesn’t need more time. She knows Laura Lee will come back.
“I don’t know,” the girl laughs bitterly, “I don’t know you. I don’t know anyone. I’m not Laura Lee. I have scars I haven’t even felt. A God I haven’t ever known.”
“I’m Lottie,” she tells her, like she’s done it so many times before, “I’m your teammate. When no one else would hear me, you listened. You saw me. You baptised me. You made me believe I could be something. When our plane was crashing- when I thought I was going to die, you took my hand. You were praying, but you took my hand.”
“I don’t see Him,” Laura Lee tells her, and Lottie wouldn’t mistake the fear in her eyes, she wouldn’t, “He may have been Laura Lee’s God, but he’s not mine.”
“Stop that,” Lottie insists, feeling her breath being taken away, by the wind in the trees, choked out between God’s fingers, that are anything but kind, “Stop talking you know Laura Lee- stop doing that. You’re acting like a different person, you’re not-”
“I can’t just be like you want me to be,” Laura Lee says.
Lottie doesn’t know what to say. Lottie wants to sleep. Lottie wants Laura Lee to wake up again and be fully herself, she wants her to blink and recognize Lottie again. Be there for her the way even God couldn’t do it.
“You’re my Laura Lee,” she says, “You’re still her. You just have to remember, that’s all.”
“You need her,” the girl concludes, “You don’t need me.”
When Lottie lies down that night, the girl has moved to the other side of the room, but she watches her anyway. She feels the distance between them pulling on her, pulling on the fabric of her being, snipping the string. She watches the rise and fall of the chest of that girl over there at the wall, who looks like Laura Lee, but she hasn’t been Laura Lee in a long time.
In the morning, Lottie wakes up before anyone else and goes back to the water, and she dives in. She feels the water embrace her like its own child, feels it lick her skin, feels it welcoming her home.
And despite her lungs fighting her to return to land, she searches the sandy bottom of the lake until her eyes are burning and her lungs are burning, until the wilderness is begging her to retreat.
Laura Lee must have stayed down here, Lottie is sure of it.
That shell of a girl up there, the one that used to be Laura Lee, her wings have been clipped, and Lottie knows they must be down here somewhere, waiting for her to find them, aching to be reunited with their owner. Lottie knows she could find them, stitch them back, make her whole again.
The water seems as empty as the girl back at the cabin does. Lottie takes another gulping breath and dives deeper, and she returns once again to the shore and to the world, with nothing but water in her hair and salt between her teeth.
She wonders again where God took her. She wonders if God really is so lonely up there, so putrid and alone, that He’d selfishly rip out Laura Lee from the world, take her all for Himself. Unite with His favorite daughter again, His best one, His most loyal one, and rob earth of her goodness.
Lottie curses His name, the way Laura Lee would never do. Lottie is lonely, too.