Part 5 (2/2)
Abbie nodded, trying to swallow, trying to stay with me.
”Anna is going to be okay.” I made her look me in the eyes, and I made myself believe what I was saying. ”G.o.d's hand is on her. No matter what. You know that, right?”
”But what if... what if she's not okay?”
”That's why I have to stay, Abbie. You understand that, don't you?”
She nodded again and pushed the heel of her hand across her cheek; she was still bleak but breathing somewhat evenly. In through her nose. Out through her mouth. I kissed her temple and took her hands between mine and asked her, ”Will you pray with me?”
Abbie nodded. I touched my forehead to hers.
”Heavenly Father... please... we need your peace. And your strength. And your love. Please let your peace come over Abbie. Calm her heart, Lord, and her soul... and help her breathe. And help me... help me be... whatever I need to be now. And be with Anna. Please, keep her in your care and let her know she's not alone.”
We sat still for a long moment. There was no sound but the thrumming heartbeat of the helicopter outside. After a while, Abbie put her arms around my neck, and I hugged her tight, willing her to know how I cherished her, not willing to be the first one to let go.
When she pulled away, I said, ”Okay?”
Abbie said, ”Okay.”
And I knew she would be. But I also knew now that her life hung in the balance, too, her fate tied to Anna's in a way that none of us could truly understand. As we climbed out of the back of the ambulance, I silently said another prayer for both of them.
”ANNABEL.”
”Yes?”
She's smart, my Annabel. I suspect she knew there was a moment of tough love coming.
”Anna, it is time for you to go back.”
”I don't want to go. I want to stay with you.”
”It's time for you to go, Annabel. The firemen are going to get you out, and when they do... Anna, you will be totally fine. There will be nothing wrong with you. My Holy Spirit will be with you. Don't be afraid. I'm sending my guardian angel to be with you.”
Annabel received His promise like a child. On faith.
”Anna? Annabel...”
A faraway voice was calling her name.
”I'm a fireman. I came to get you. Can you hear me? Anna, can you answer me?”
She opened her eyes. The gold glory was gone. Annabel was alone in the darkness.
Chapter Six.
He reveals mysteries from the darkness And brings the deep darkness into light.
Job 12:22 IN THE BELLY OF the tree, Anna scrambled to her feet, trying to breathe, but the air was closed up and earthy. A tiny dot of light pierced the darkness above her, she told me later, and she thought it might be an open knot in the tree and that if she could reach it, she might be able to put her mouth to it and take a breath. A narrow ledge jutted about eight inches from the wall just above her head.
”Like if I were right here,” she said, outlining a spot on the rug, ”there would be this ledge inside the tree, like here.” She held her hand flat just above her forehead. ”And I tried to get up on it, because I thought if I could get up there, maybe I could find a way out. But it was really small and hard to get up there. Slippery. Because everything was all muddy.”
It was observed in the ER later that her nails were embedded with moss and dirt from her clawing effort to climb onto that ledge.
”I bet that was scary,” the nurse said, but Anna just smiled.
”It was dark,” she told me the next day, ”but Jesus sent an angel. So once I came back, I could see inside the tree.”
Once I came back, she said, as matter-of-factly as she would refer to hopping off the school bus at our gravel drive.
The angel wasn't what Anna expected an angel to be.
”She looked more like... like a fairy, I guess. And then she got more and more clear, and then it was like-Mommy, G.o.d winked at me through the body of the angel. And I knew He was saying to me, I'm going to leave you now and everything's going to be okay. And then the angel got, like, solid again, and she stayed with me the whole rest of the time. She s.h.i.+ned a light so I could see the inside of the tree where I was. I could see the walls then, and they were like this...”
Here Anna made a motion with her hands, showing me the tree's mysterious inner world, which I eventually saw for myself after Kevin climbed up there on a sunny day with a light and a camera. The inside of the tree is actually quite beautiful; the soaring walls are marbled and muscled, flowing with shades of ebony and mahogany and ghostly white.
”The feel of it was hard and smooth but scratchy in parts,” said Anna. ”Like soft, but then hard. Like firewood that's been split. And the floor was just kind of muddy.”
On the ground, half hidden by mud and roots, was the headlamp Abbie had dropped down to her two hours earlier. Annabel sat down and fiddled with it for a while but couldn't figure out how to make it work. And that was okay, she said. She didn't need it. They just sat quietly together, Anna and her angel, surrounded by a halo of silent light.
”And that's how I was able to grab the rope,” Anna said. ”The only way I could get ahold of it was because my guardian angel s.h.i.+ned her light on it.”
I'D RESUMED MY POST below the grotto. Kevin remained on the move, checking in with members of the team, coming by every once in a while to grip my hand. Abbie stood nearby, one protective arm around Adelynn's shoulders. Two of the rescue workers still on the ground had given Abbie and Adelynn their coats, a small gesture that meant a lot as the night air cooled enough for us to see our breath when we prayed.
The plan for getting Anna out safely-an engineering feat that involved ropes, ladders, pulleys, and a lot of patient expertise-evolved as a coordinated effort between crew members on the ground and on the ladders with Kevin somewhere in the middle of it all. Problems were a.n.a.lyzed and solved as they rose to the surface.
First, they came up with a little harness they hoped she'd be able to tie herself into. It was like the seat of a baby swing, essentially, fas.h.i.+oned from thick but pliable rope that would hold her weight but wouldn't hang up on the jagged ridges and outcroppings inside the tree. Then the crumbling lower lip of the opening had to be taken into consideration. If it broke away, the shards would rain down on Anna's head. If it cut into the rope as they hauled her up, it could fray and break when she was high enough to be even more seriously injured than she already was. Not knowing the extent of her injuries, they had to be painstakingly slow as they brought her up; it was imperative that there be no jolting movements to her neck and spine, no quick upward lurches that might crack her head on the irregular walls.
”The real problem is when we get her up to the top,” I heard someone telling Kevin. ”We can't just drag her over the ledge. We need to establish a second point of contact so we can take her all the way up and then swing her out.”
They would need a taller ladder, they realized, along with another pulley.
It's funny how G.o.d sometimes hears our prayers before we even know what we're supposed to pray for. As the Briaroaks crew prepared to drop the harness down to Anna, a call came in from the dispatcher. Another agency had dispatched the Cleburne Fire Department by mistake about twenty minutes earlier. The Cleburne engine was halfway to our place now, and they were on the radio, asking if they should turn around and go back or continue on over, just in case we needed a few extra hands. They had a forty-five-foot ladder and pulley system on board.
Bryan relayed the news up the ladder to Mike and Tristan and told the dispatcher, ”Tell them to come on over. We're ready to start bringing her up.”
High above our heads, Mike kept calling Anna's name. ”Annabel? Anna, if you can hear me, say h.e.l.lo. Can you say h.e.l.lo for me, Anna? Anna, we're gonna get you out of there, all right? And your mom and dad are right here. We're all right here, Anna. You don't have to be scared.”
She never looked up or called out to them.
”We're lowering the harness anyway,” Bryan told us.
There was nothing else to do at that point but hope that Anna would be able to do what they needed her to do.
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