In Place of Never

by Julie Anne Lindsey

  Cross adjusted into a squat. “No. Mouse said she was watching television and smelled smoke. She thought the crew had made a fire. We stay up playing cards or singing most nights. She went to take a look and discovered the flames.”

  Pru huffed. “I thought she had a headache or a bedtime or something.”

  I cringed. “How’s she doing? A fire is pretty rough.” Considering the marks on her cheeks, she must be terrified.

  Cross stared through the dangling willow limbs toward his friends. “You mean because of her scars?”

  I nodded. He wasn’t looking, but I hoped he knew.

  “Mouse is tougher than she looks. She’s a survivor.”

  “What scars?” Pru asked.

  Cross focused his attention through the limbs. “She was in a fire when she was younger. She has scars on her face, neck, and hands, probably other places too. It happened a long time before she joined the group. The Lovells found her wandering the streets late at night and took her in. She didn’t speak and she was scarred so they didn’t take her to the police in case she had been abused. They kept her with them and made calls to authorities asking about a missing girl with scars. The police had no reports that matched. They stayed in the city for months before they left.”

  Pru wrinkled her nose. “I think that’s called kidnapping.”

  Cross pressed his lips into a tight white line. “I thought the same thing when I met her. Then again, I left with them too.” He shook his head. “I joined up when I was sixteen. Mouse wasn’t much younger when she came to them.”

  The look on Pru’s face spoke volumes. I had no right to say anything about Jason when my new guy friend was a runaway and an accomplice to a kidnapping.

  “So they collect kids?”

  “No.” Cross grimaced. “Once Mouse trusted them, she talked. She told them about being an orphan and living with other abandoned kids in the poorest section of Cleveland. There was a fire one night and she woke up in the hospital. No one else survived. They moved her from place to place when she was healed, but foster care is a flawed system, and she was traumatized for years.” He rubbed heavy palms up and down his arms. “It’s a cruel world. Being a little girl with scars like hers had to be unthinkable. I don’t blame her for taking off and I don’t blame the Lovells for taking her in. Her parents abandoned her. The system failed her. Hell, no one was even looking for her.”

  I bit my lip against the building arguments. Dad would’ve found her a proper home, but that time had passed. Mouse was at least eighteen now, maybe twenty.

  I couldn’t reconcile the Lovells’ behavior. There had to be a better answer. What if someone was looking for her? “I’m surprised the Lovells didn’t turn her over to child services.”

  Cross shot me a look of exasperation. “Me too, but they didn’t. They do things their way. Mouse never wanted to leave, so I never pushed. Hell, I was a kid when I came on board. Who was I to judge? Besides, back then I worried they’d change their mind about me. Send me back to the system.”

  Pru nodded slowly. “How old is Anton?”

  Jeez.

  “Twenty-one.”

  “And Mouse?” I asked.

  “Twenty.”

  Pru stretched her legs out before her and clasped her knees in her palms. “Anton’s dating a younger woman.”

  I groaned. “She’s not that young. She’s older than me.”

  Cross smirked. “They aren’t really dating. It’s complicated. Mouse is overinvested because she’s always looking for someone to belong to. We were friends when I came on board, but she was needy and I’m not what she needs. I’m…”

  “Damaged?” I asked.

  A ghost of a smile passed his lips. “Yeah. She gave up after a year or so and started following Anton instead. He’s too nice to put a stop to it. Honestly, I think he’s glad for the company. Romance never quite works out for him.” He looked my way. Had he asked about all those lost loves? Did Anton know what happened to them? “He’s always looking for what his parents have. I guess it’s hard to meet another Roma traveler when you’re traveling. Meanwhile, he and Mouse are getting to know each other better.”

  Pru stiffened. “Shh.” She pointed to Dad and his lackeys leaving the scene. “We need to go.”

  I dusted my palms. “She’s right. We’ve got to go. Sheriff Dobbs is one of Dad’s posse members. His oldest son, Brady, was Faith’s boyfriend. I guess her death ruined their family too. We need to get home before they see us here or know we’re gone.”

  Cross lifted his hand. His fingers wrapped around mine. “Wait.”

  I held my breath.

  “Anton’s coming.” He released my hand as the branches of the willow swayed.

  Anton swatted the skinny limbs. “What are you doing under here?”

  Pru scowled. “We can’t hear anything. What’s happening out there?” She pointed to Dad. “That’s our dad, Pastor Porter. Did he say anything to you?”

  Anton leaned against the tree trunk. “I heard him tell the sheriff he’s taking those three guys home.” He turned to Cross. “Sheriff Dobbs will get back with us after the fire department finishes their report. The crew’s on edge. They’re ready to fight anyone getting too close to the trailers. Collin’s setting up night patrol shifts to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The official cause is fireworks.”

  I frowned. “Fireworks?”

  “Someone set off a bunch of bottle rockets under the trailers and on the luggage racks. The reports won’t say arson, but I don’t see how bottle rockets could cause all that damage. Won’t matter. I bet the verdict will be kids goofing off. Accidental. Some lame cover-up like that.”

  Pru moved to Anton’s side.

  “Let’s go.” I kicked grass and pebbles. “Dad’s on his way home.” My heart raced. Accidental. Some lame cover-up like that. We’d heard that before.

  Anton shrugged. “I don’t know where the other guys live, but he has to take them home first. Can we talk a minute?”

  I bit my tongue against a building tirade. If Dad caught us, I’d never see Cross or Anton again. Not to mention I wouldn’t get any more answers about Faith’s last days here. I’d be grounded much longer than the Lovells were in town. I wouldn’t get to question Nadya.

  Anton’s jaw twitched. He cracked his knuckles and toed the dirt. “I wasn’t completely honest about Faith and me.”

  The river grew quiet. Crickets quit chirping. My ears rang. “What do you mean?”

  “I met Faith the day we came into town. She’d just broken up with her boyfriend, and I was hanging signs on telephone poles for our show. She let me buy her a coffee and we talked about your town. I was eighteen and lived on the road. She was seventeen and had never left St. Mary’s. She fascinated me.” He swallowed. “I ran into her again the next day, and we took a walk by the river. We kept running into one another and talking. She met the family. She snuck out a lot that week.” He smiled. “Then I saw her at the River Festival, and she was upset. She’d had a run-in with her ex-boyfriend. She wanted to get away, so I invited her back here with me. I knew the crew had a bonfire going. She agreed and we shared some wine. Traded broken-heart stories.” He chuckled without humor. “I really liked her.”

  I pulled in a sudden breath. My eyes stung from the intake. I’d stopped breathing while he spoke. “What happened?” I croaked the words.

  “She and Rose made friends. She let Mom read her palm. She watched the cast practicing for our big show in Cincinnati the next weekend. She seemed fine. Happy.” His head dropped forward. “I misread the signals. Too much wine. Not enough life experience. I tried to kiss her and she bolted. I blew it. She spilled her heart out to me about the way her ex pressured her for sex and then I tried to touch her too. It was a stupid move, and I regretted it for a long time after we left here. I’ve thought of her often, but I’d forgotten exactly what she looked like until you showed up with that picture.

  “When I heard a
bout the songwriting contest in St. Mary’s this year, I pushed hard to get here. I figured she’d be home from college and we might meet again. I planned to apologize, maybe catch up on the past three years.” A sad smile tugged the corners of his mouth. “Some people come into your life for a minute and leave a long-term mark. You know what I mean? News that she died…was a lot to take in. I needed time to process.”

  Pru squeaked. “You kissed my sister?”

  My lips burned where my teeth sank too far into the flesh. Was this happening? “We’ve got to go.”

  I waved my palms at Anton and Cross. “I need time to digest all that. Plus, I really don’t want to be grounded until eternity. Let’s go.” I kicked Pru’s shoe.

  Cross stood and stepped into my path. His soulful brown eyes said things I didn’t have words for, like how I shouldn’t worry and how it mattered to him that I did. “Can I text you later?”

  I nodded. My stubborn tongue weighed a ton. Memories of Cross’s breath on my face at Red’s rushed through me. Images of Faith crying wrecked my heart.

  He touched my shoulder with long, confident fingers that burned a path down my arm to my elbow. The thin fabric of my shirt did nothing to stop the snap of my skin under his touch.

  I sucked in a small, shuddered breath. “I’ll talk to you later, Cross.”

  He held my elbow another long beat before he stepped away.

  Pru shoved free of the willow with me behind her.

  I stopped short outside the limbs. “Anton?”

  A low rumble came through the branches.

  “Thank you for your honesty.”

  I grabbed Pru’s arm and we ran full speed until our feet hit my bedroom floor.

  She collapsed on my bed and knocked her shoes onto the rug. “Anton knew Faith.”

  I leaned against my bedroom door. “Yeah and he was the last one to see her alive.”

  Chapter 9

  Resolution

  Pru snapped my iPod into the speaker and looked through my playlists. “Do you have something against current titles?”

  I ignored her and tapped my fingertips over the keys on my laptop. Taste in music was one of many things we didn’t have in common.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m bringing up Faith’s blog.”

  Pru bounced to my side. “Shut up. She kept a blog? Why didn’t I ever find it?”

  I turned in shock. “You looked for her online?”

  “Well, yeah. If it wasn’t for the Internet and local gossip, I’d never learn anything around here. How do you think I learned about sex?”

  I slapped a hand over my mouth and shut my eyes. “You didn’t type that into a search engine.”

  Pru cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah. I did, and it was disgusting. Luckily, I hung in there long enough to revise my search a few times. Eventually, I found an educational site for fact gathering, but I got the gist of how sex looks from all the popups.”

  A deep belly laugh rumbled through me. “Oh my goodness, that’s horrible.” Tears swept over my cheeks. The laughter continued. “What did you think? How old were you?”

  “Thirteen.” A snicker broke through her sincere expression. “What did I think? Are you kidding? I was scared to death. Some of those women were really bendy.”

  “No.” I swung my chin left and right.

  “It’s true. I made a weekend of researching the topic. By the time we went to church on Sunday, I was certain the doors would lock behind me.”

  Laughter pinched my sides, and I pressed my palms against both ribs. “Stop. It hurts.”

  “Yeah, that was almost as bad as when I got my first period.”

  I moved one hand to my chest. “Oh, no.” Mom had been gone by then. “Pru.”

  She waved a hand in front of the laptop screen. “Don’t worry about it. I figured it out. My laptop and I have had many grand adventures. Between health class, Google, and my girlfriends, I got through it.”

  I leaned my shoulder against hers. “I should’ve been there for that stuff. I’m really sorry.”

  She shrugged. “You’re here now. So, show me the blog.”

  I hit Enter and Faith’s blog came to life. It was a free blogger site, personalized by our sister. One of her drawings served as the avatar. “She didn’t fill in any of the personal details. I think this was meant to be private.”

  “How’d you find it?”

  “We shared a room and I’m nosy.”

  Pru touched the header on the screen. “In Place of Never?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What does it mean?”

  I’d read every word on every page a thousand times. “I think it means she had dreams bigger than West Virginia. She kept poems here and pictures of her art, but she didn’t write regular entries. No commentary. Nothing about her or her life here. Nothing about us. She lists favorite quotes and passages from books she read. It’s very vague and artsy.”

  Pru shoved me out of the way. “Let me see.” She scrolled to Faith’s first entry and moved forward through time. “She started this six months before she died?”

  “Yeah. She started on New Year’s Eve and stopped…July first.”

  “Does Dad know about this?”

  I snorted.

  “Right. Never mind.” She clicked through the photo gallery. “Her drawings were kind of dark.”

  “Powerful,” I corrected.

  Pru moved through the quotes. “She was a feminist. Do you think that was why she cut her hair?”

  “I don’t know.” Faith had never asked for my opinion about that. One day she’d come home from school with half her hair and behaved as if it wasn’t a big deal. “She said she donated it to Locks of Love.”

  “Do you think she was making plans to leave us?”

  I didn’t know if she meant for college or for forever, and I couldn’t answer either question. Pru didn’t press for an answer. I reread Faith’s words over Pru’s shoulder. She highlighted a short entry. “Is this about Brady?”

  I leaned forward, focusing on the passage I’d never thought significant.

  You weren’t supposed to be here.

  You weren’t supposed to leave.

  I wasn’t supposed to love you.

  Nothing’s as it seems.

  “She and Brady were together. This was written in May. I don’t know.” I tapped the date stamp.

  Pru’s eyes widened. “Maybe they broke up and got back together and she never told anyone?”

  I strained my memory while Pru read on. Faith had had more secrets than I realized. The poem could mean anything. The words were sad. “Mouse said Faith was sad.”

  “Newsflash. Mouse is insane.”

  Agreed. “Oh.” I straightened. “This one repeats every few weeks. She added a line sometimes or changed something small, but it has the same title as her blog. I used to type it to feel close to her again. It was her first entry, so I think it’s a poem of resolution. It’s pretty.”

  Pru centered Faith’s words on the screen.

  In Place of Never

  In place of never, I will find my truth. I will conquer and divide. I will challenge all the lies.

  I will turn darkness into light. I won’t fear the fight. I will lay up my treasures. White wings. Heart of feathers.

  I will explore things unknown, discover things unseen.

  I won’t listen to the venom. Won’t drift away in silence. Won’t beg them for acceptance.

  In place of never, I will live today.

  Transform my loss to love, ascend with you, meet you, know you.

  We’ll have forever soon in heaven above.

  Pru settled back on her heels. “Ascend with who?”

  “God, I guess. I think this is a poem about new beginnings. It was New Year’s Eve. It was her senior year. She was making changes. Look. Laying up treasures. ‘Fight the fight.’ That’s from the Bible.”

  “I know. Don’t
you think this sounds a little like a good-bye?”

  I hadn’t. “No. I think it sounds hopeful. It sounds like she’s found strength to do things differently.”

  “What things?”

  I flopped back in my chair. “I don’t know. It’s a poem. I think it sounds strong.”

  “Maybe.” Pru crowded me out of my chair at the computer. I moved to the bed to think about her interpretation of Faith’s poem.

  I jumped when headlights flashed over the house and settled in the driveway. I peered down at the top of Dad’s car. “He’s home.”

  The front door opened and snapped shut, echoing through the silent house. Dad climbed the steps on heavy feet and stopped at the second floor. “Pru?”

  She darted into the hall outside my door. “I’m with Mercy.”

  Pru and I had washed our faces and combed our hair the moment we got home. We’d stuffed our clothes in the laundry to subdue the subtle scent of ash and outdoors clinging to the fabric. Our new look and wrinkled pajamas gave the misconception we’d shared a lazy night of indoor punishment.

  The stairs groaned under heavy feet. Dad’s cheeks were flushed and his hair stood at odd angles from the night’s wind. He expelled a long breath at my threshold. “May I?”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  Dad walked into my room for the second time in years. He’d helped set up the bed when I refused to sleep in my old room, but he hadn’t returned until yesterday. “I thought you’d both be asleep.”

  Pru and I stared.

  A measure of confusion wrinkled his brow. Sadness tugged his lips.

  I rolled off my bed and planted my feet on the floor. “Are you okay?”

  He released another long breath. “I haven’t seen you two together like this before. It’s nice.”

  Pru nodded. Her fingers wound in the hem of her shirt. “Thank you for taking my door.” She slid her gaze from Dad’s face to mine. “I think it let Mercy in.”