The squirrel endured a great number of injuries in the next few weeks, losing several limbs and its eyes and ears before at last refusing all nourishment and succumbing to starvation. At this time the animal was skinned and its carcass buried; and a few weeks later, when we dug them up, we found that the bones had been picked clean by insects and bacteria. We allowed them to bleach in the sun for several days, and then I was permitted to take them home. I kept them in my cigar box, with some birds’ bones I had found, and my cicada shell, and my map. It wasn’t until the following summer, when the Doctor and I began to experiment with larger game, that I was forced to give up the box. By this time, however, the sacrifice of worldly goods had become routine, and I handed the box over without the slightest hesitation. I knew that the lessons I had learned from its contents would be with me always.
It was my memory of that younger, newly emboldened version of myself that brought me back to my senses, and focused my mind on the problem of escaping from the wooden cage. The cage was, of course, made of wood, save for the shackles and chains that bound me to it — and now it occurred to me that, if it was the same cage I knew from my childhood, it could not possibly be as strong as it once was. I gathered my strength and tugged as hard as I could with my right leg. The cage emitted a promising squeak.
My ankle, however, had begun to bleed, and it was with considerable anxiety that I realized I hadn’t felt the wound. The sight of the red blood, set off against pale flesh, filled me with revulsion and desperation. I set to work freeing myself.
I heaved my body up off the floor, trembling with the effort. Then, gently, I tugged upon the chains that held my left arm and left leg. My body swayed to the left, then swung back to the right — which motion I reinforced with a tug on that side’s chains. When I reached the rightmost point of my swing, I tugged on the left side again, then the right, then the left, until I was swinging as far as I could go.
Blood rushed back into my muscles, giving me the strength to continue — but the revivification of my nerves brought terrible pain to my limbs. I stifled a cry, continuing my swinging, and soon the cage itself began to groan, then squeal, then rock back and forth.
At this point, my muscles were crying out for relief. But it seemed unlikely that I could ever again achieve this momentum, and I found the inner reserves to continue. The cage was leaning now, first one way, then the other, and for a moment I wondered if perhaps I had made a grievous mistake, that I might be torn apart with it — and then, with a terrible screech and a sickening lurch, the entire thing leaned, then cracked, then folded up like a cardboard box.
Of course I was inside. The roof of the thing — a thick piece of hardwood ply, if my observations were correct — lay on top of my bruised and bleeding form, having crushed my face as it fell. I could feel blood coursing out of my nose. I managed, somehow, to roll over, my chains having broken free of their mounts, and push up the roof with my back. In a few seconds, I had managed to wriggle out from under it, and lay in the courtyard, delirious with pain. It was there that I fell unconscious.
When I woke, my clothes, pack, and quiver lay by my side, and the shackles had been removed from my wrists and ankles. In the peculiar state of mind that my incarceration had engendered, I did not stop to consider the implications of this fact — namely, that Doctor Avery Stiles had seen me lying there asleep, and had freed me completely, leaving me armed.
It was ten minutes, perhaps, before I was able to sit up. With great slowness and deliberation, I dressed and took up my quiver and pack, and when I was through I carefully got to my feet, bracing myself against the wall of the compound.
The courtyard was echoless, the night clear, the moonlight bright.
I stumbled to the compound doorway and quietly made my way down the stone staircase. The Doctor wasn’t there, only the glowing remains of his fire. My childhood possessions, as well, were gone. I climbed back up and staggered toward the tunnel in the west wall, my knees quivering, my breaths quick and shallow. I crouched down before the tunnel opening and crawled through. I had escaped from the castle.
I stood outside the curtain wall, scanning the treeline with my tired eyes. My muscles throbbed, and I wanted nothing more than to lie down on the ground and go to sleep. But I could not. I had to find Doctor Stiles.
Convinced that no one was watching, I limped across the clearing and stepped over the deadfall and into the woods. Little moonlight penetrated here, so I waited as my eyes, already starved for daylight, adjusted to the gloom, and my body tingled and ached. I breathed in the humusy air and tried to imagine what the Doctor was doing out here, and where he might be. Was he waiting for me? Did he expect me to escape? Did he wish to test me, once again, in the wild?
I was not permitted to go to the castle with Doctor Stiles the week after my all-night adventure, nor the week after that. I was uncertain what had transpired between my parents, but there was a tension, and more than once I spied my mother, through the bathroom keyhole, applying makeup to a bruise. Her resistance to my father, at the time, seemed to me pigheaded and foolish — why couldn’t she see that what the Doctor was teaching me was for my own good, that I was being formed into a man? I had not, of course, forgotten the terror and agony I endured that night in the woods. But already those emotions seemed like the products of a childish imagination, signs of weakness to be renounced and forgotten. I hardened my heart against my mother’s best intentions.
Now, in the forest, my vision had returned, and my body was once again under my control. But I remained still for some time, alert for the presence of my quarry. There had been a breeze when I emerged from behind the castle wall; now the wind had died to nothing, and the woods were silent.
Perhaps it was a sixth sense that caused me to think of the rock. I took a step back, then another to the west, until an opening revealed itself between the boughs of the tall pines, and I was able to see up the cliffside to the northern lip of the “ankle.” At first, I believed that I was seeing nothing more sinister than an unremembered outcropping. But then it moved, and I realized that it was the Doctor’s form, outlined against the starry sky. He had been there, watching me, waiting for my next move.
Before he could decide to give up his wait, I retreated farther into the trees and made my way west, and then south, toward the “toe.” The woods were fairly sparse for the first twenty or so feet beyond the treeline, and I stuck to this easier terrain, taking care not to strain or twist my weakened legs. It wasn’t long before I had made it to the southern end of the rock, and I crept to the clearing’s edge, and peered out from the cover of the woods. The moonlight sharply outlined the rock, and I searched its face for any sign of Doctor Stiles. If he still stood on the northern lip, my angle of sight made it impossible to tell.
I waited several more minutes, to be sure I was safe, then gathered my strength and sprinted across the clearing to the “toe.”
It was easier, this time, to climb up over its lip, and onto the broad plateau where the lone pine grew from its soil-filled bowl. I soon found myself at the base of the “ankle,” staring up into the moonlit night, and trying to remember the series of hand- and footholds that had taken me safely to the top. Time was of the essence — Doctor Stiles wouldn’t stay there forever, and I did not wish to meet him on the rock face, where his doubtless superior climbing experience would put him at an advantage. I could not be burdened by my pack, so I lowered it quietly to the ground, keeping only my climbing shoes, gloves, and quiver. My helmet I had left behind at the house, never dreaming that I would need to scale the rock face again — I would see if the smug sporting goods clerk had been correct in his confidence that it was unnecessary.