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when you weren’t watching. And once I nibbled at the nuts and seeds you left in a bowl, touching them gingerly with my tongue first in case they were poisoned. Whenever you came in, you tried to talk to me. The conversation was pretty similar each time.
    “Do you want to wash?” you asked.
    “No.”
    “Food?”
    “No.”
    “Water? You should drink water.”
    “No.”
    A pause while you thought about what I would like. “Do you want to go outside?”
    “Only if you’ll take me to a town.”
    “There are no towns.”
    One time you didn’t leave the room like you normally did. You sighed and went to the window instead. I saw that the bruises around your eye had changed color from deep blue to a jaundice-yellow; my only indication that time had passed. You looked at me, a wrinkle deep in your forehead. Then, quickly, you ripped open the curtains. Light flooded in, making me shrink back against the sheets.
    “Let’s go out,” you said. “We can look at the land.”
    I turned away from the light and you.
    “It’s different out the back to out front,” you said. “We’ll go there.”
    “Will you let me go, out back?”
    You shook your head. “There’s nothing to escape to,” you said. “I’ve told you. It’s a wilderness.”
    You wore me down in the end. I nodded to say I’d go. It wasn’t because you wanted me to, though. It was because I didn’t believe you when you said there was nothing out there. There had to be something: a town in the distance, or a road, or an electricity pylon. Nowhere is a wilderness really.
    You untied my feet. You unwound the bandages and pressed your hand against my soles. It didn’t sting like I thought it would. You checked my wrist, too. The cut was scabby and brownish red, but there was no fresh blood.
    You tried to lift me from the bed but I pushed you away. Even that small action set me shaking. I stretched across, and got out of bed on the other side.
    “I can do this myself.”
    “Of course, I forgot,” you said. “I haven’t chopped your legs off yet.”
    You chuckled at your joke. I ignored you. My legs started to shake so much that it was hard just to stand up. I made myself take a step. My foot twinged with pain. I swallowed hard. But I knew I couldn’t stay in that room forever.
    You turned away while I put the jeans on. They’d been washed and dried once again, the stains from crawling along the dirt gone. I was desperately weak when I walked out of that room, ready to black out at any moment. I wished I had accepted more of the food you’d offered me. I walked down the corridor, and you followed. You didn’t make a sound as you walked, not even the floor creaked. I turned toward the kitchen I’d found before, but you grabbed my arm. I flinched at your touch, couldn’t look at you.
    “This way,” you said.
    I shook off your fingers, left a few steps between us. You led me through the living room where the curtains were still drawn, and I had to strain my eyes to see. As I took a step, something pierced my foot. My eyes filled with water but I wiped them quickly, before you noticed. I lifted my foot and pulled out a small gold-colored hook, the kind used for hanging pictures. I wondered what it was doing there when there were no pictures to put up.
    We went through a kind of porch area to reach the other side of the house. I squinted at the daylight as you opened the door. There was a veranda running the length of the building.
    Then I saw the boulders. They were huge, smooth, and roundish, maybe two hundred feet from the house and almost towering over it. Two larger boulders were in front, with about five smaller ones hugging tight around them. They were glowing red, lit by the sun. They looked like a handful of hot marbles, dropped by a giant. As I peered closer I could see crevices worn into them, cracks sprouting spindly trees that clung hard to the sides. Those rocks were so different from the rest of the land; they stuck out of the ground