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into the jungle, but in my mind I was in Georgia, eating peaches and singing like a bird and holding my baby as he stared into my eyes, both of us lost in a world of wonder and love.
    It was all that I’d ever wanted.
    The next time I opened my eyes it was raining. We had stopped and I was being pulled from the canoe. I jerked against my restraints in a sudden panic.
    A gentle, low male voice spoke in a language that sounded garbled. Even so, its fluidity struck me as perfectly mathematical, like that of a master percussionist’s drum roll. I could not mistake his tone—he did not want me to struggle.
    A soft chuckle from the others reached me. They dragged me up a muddy bank by my ankles, then dropped my legs onto marshy ground.
    The bag was removed from my head and I blinked up at pouring rain. Lightning slashed through the sky and for a stuttering moment I caught a glimpse of my new world.
    The jungle rose in jagged angles on all sides, crawling with vines, and leaves a hundred times the size of any I’d seen before. We were at the bend of a muddy river. Rain poured from the sky in long unbroken strings. A tall, dark-skinned man stood over me, his scarred chest bulging, arms limp by his sides.
    It was a staggering canvas, here on the edge of the world that tested the bounds of human sanity. And then the lightning was gone and I was in darkness once again.
    The form remained still for a moment, then squatted, pulled the gag from my mouth, and tilted a gourd to my lips. Cool water flooded my mouth. I choked and sputtered, then lifted my head and gulped.
    When he thought I’d had enough, he removed the gourd, replaced the gag, and dribbled water on it so I could suck at it. Then he pulled the bag back over my head and threw a covering over me. At the time I thought it might be plastic, but later I learned it was thatched palm leaves. Rain pelted the hood over my face.
    They made no attempt to feed me. If they had, I doubt I would have eaten. I was too heartbroken, too exhausted, too ill to eat. There was nothing I could do but lie still in the steady downpour and cry, mind filled with thoughts of my son.
    I knew that Stephen hadn’t been found by these men, at least not alive. I would have heard his cry by now. There was no way to silence such a young child indefinitely. The image of his limp body, bound up in one of their bags, haunted me for a long while, but I finally reasoned that they would have no use for a dead baby. In this I found a sliver of comfort. I much preferred him returned to nature than seized by cruel hands.
    I, on the other hand, was alive and worth their taking. To what end, my imagination knew no bounds. I begged God to save me, but he remained utterly silent. I felt betrayed, abandoned, and a fool for having thought a dream could be more than wild fantasy. My sisters had been right. And now my son was dead.
    And yet I clung to the barest hope that God would somehow rescue me.
    Little sleep came to me that first night. I replayed the dream in my head, desperate to find the beauty of that song that had lured me from safety into the jaws of death. But each time I recalled the dream, the once-enthralling and -haunting tones sounded more and more like a mocking melody.
    Calls and howls from unseen creatures in the jungle replaced that song, and I soon found myself hating, even cursing the once-loved call in my dreams. I could not stop imagining leeches and snakes crawling over my legs and belly. My captors had wrapped me like a mummy, but slippery creatures could surely find a way in through the seams.
    I had just slipped into an exhausted and thankfully dreamless sleep when I felt the wrapping on my legs being unwound. The rain had stopped. Daylight dotted the tiny holes in the bag over my head. Words were mumbled, melodic and low. The man caring for me began to prod my legs with a hot stick. But the hiss of burning, wet flesh wasn’t of my own. It took me a few minutes to realize that he was burning