by Anna Carey
Page 38
“All right, all right,” Otis said, throwing up his hands. He laughed, his gray eyes meeting Marjorie’s. “It feels like old times. ”
I remembered the picture of the beach and the scrawled note from the girl named Libby. “Do you have a daughter?” I asked, setting my cards facedown in front of me.
“Two,” Marjorie said. She wiped off the table, scraping at a dried tomato seed with her fingernail. “Libby and Anne. ”
Otis stood. His back faced us as he dumped a bucket of water into the sink. “They were what you hope for when you have children,” he said. “They were twenty-seven and thirty-three. ” When he turned back he had tears in his eyes.
“We don’t talk much about that anymore, though,” Marjorie offered. The dishes clinked together in the sink. “Anyway, Otis just meant that it’s good to have you girls here. ”
I thought of my own mother and the letter she had written me. She had tucked it into my pocket on the day that the trucks came—the last thing I’d ever have of her. It was lost now, back with my other keepsakes at the dugout, never to be held again. I thought about how she had snuggled next to me in my bed, reading me stories about a talking elephant named Babar. She had tied my shoelaces, dressed me, and combed my hair. I love you, she said silently, with every button she buttoned, every wrinkle she pressed flat. I love you, I love you, I love you.
“We’re happy to be here, too,” I said.
But Marjorie was looking at something over my shoulder. The lines on her face seemed deeper, more severe, as she walked to the bookshelves. Her hand touched first the top shelf, then the black metal radio beneath it. “Someone moved the radio. ”
The way she said it—slow, tinged with anger—scared me. Otis rested his arms on the counter, his gaze settling on Lark.
“Why are you looking at me?” Lark said. She wheeled backward, pulling her sweater tight around her shoulders. “I didn’t do anything. ”
“I did,” I said, the breaths tightening in my chest.
Marjorie tilted her head, studying me. “What did you do?” she asked, her voice louder than usual.
Arden turned to me now too, a look of confusion on her pale face. She set down her cards.
“I had to send out a message to someone—but it was in code. ”
“What code did you use?” Marjorie said urgently, coming toward me. She twisted the end of her purple scarf until it was a hard, tight coil.
Arden gripped my arm. “To Caleb?” she asked.
“Who the hell is Caleb?” Otis asked. I flinched, my breath quickening.
Marjorie circled the table to reach me. “It doesn’t matter who he was,” she said, squeezing her fingers into my shoulder. “It matters what code she used. Now tell me, which one was it?”
Marjorie and Arden stared at me, their eyes pleading and urgent. I stood, backing against the wall. “The code—the only one. ”
Marjorie slapped her hand onto the table, sending her glass toppling over, water running to the floor. “There isn’t only one. There have been thirty different codes since the Trail started five years ago. ”
The room grew too hot. My body slicked with a thin layer of sweat. I could barely make out the words. “He especially loved people—”
“No!” Otis cried, pounding his fist on the counter. “No, no, no!”
Lark’s eyes welled. “What? What’s wrong?”
“It has to be some mistake,” Arden said hastily. “Maybe she didn’t do it right, maybe it never went out. Who would listen to it anyway?”
“Everyone,” Otis snapped. “Everyone—that’s who. ”
Marjorie was rubbing at her forehead. The sunlight glowed through the curtains, making her skin look pink. Finally, she turned to Otis. “Get the bags. We don’t have much time. ”
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling my throat constrict.
Outside something sounded in the distance. Everyone froze. Through the chorus of birds and wind, I heard something foreign, something terrifying: the steady roar of an automobile engine.
Marjorie went to the window, pulling back a fingerful of curtain. “They’re already here. ”
“Who?” Lark asked, biting her lip nervously.
Otis opened a cabinet above the counter, feeling around behind some glass jars. He pulled down a handgun and tucked it into the belt of his pants. “The troops. ”
Marjorie ran to the sink, pulling three of the five soaking dishes out and throwing them, with a clatter, into a lower cabinet. She plunged her fingers in the soapy water, searching for the extra forks and knives, but Otis pushed her away. “Don’t—” he directed. “Just go. ”
Her arms were soaked to the elbows, white suds clinging to her skin. “Follow me,” she finally said, starting down the stairs. Lark reached for the tail of Marjorie’s shirt, her cheeks now wet with tears.
“What did you say?” Arden asked. She grabbed my hand as we raced down the stairs. “What did you say in the message?”
The engine grew louder as the troops approached the house. Tires crunched across the yard. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t tell her that I had relayed, in great detail, who I was and where I was. I couldn’t tell her I’d snuck up into the living room at night and risked all of our lives.
In the basement, Marjorie threw open the cabinet’s wood doors. “Help me,” she pleaded, sweeping the cans off the shelf in one great motion. They fell to the cement floor, their corners dented.
Arden yanked the shelf out and Lark and I ran inside the secret room. Arden came in fast behind us.
“Don’t say a word,” Marjorie whispered as she re-stacked the cans on the shelf.
Upstairs, the front door banged open and male voices, deep and gruff, demanded something.
“Hurry,” Lark cried, her fingers tapping on the wood shelf. “Please Marjorie, hurry. ”
Marjorie bent over and collected the cans in her arms, putting them back onto the shelf. Her wrinkled hands moved slowly, revealing her age. “I’m going as fast as I can,” she said, her voice quaking. “I’m going. ” She wiped at her face. I realized, then, she was crying. Thin streams ran along the lines of her face.
The voices grew louder. The sound of boots crashed overhead, sending tiny pieces of plaster raining down on us.
“Just my wife,” Otis said, then more footsteps. Marjorie was cradling the last of the cans when the soldiers, clad in green and brown, appeared on the stairs. Arden squeezed my hand, pulling me deeper into the room.
I pressed my other hand against Lark’s trembling mouth, trying to silence her. The glass doors of the pantry fell closed. Through the spaces in the stacked cans we could make out parts of the room. We stood there, in the shadows, watching as the men came down the stairs.
In an instant, Marjorie straightened—her face stiffened and her hands relaxed by her sides. “What can I do for you this time, gentlemen? Lieutenant Calverton,” she said, acknowledging the older soldier, who had a crooked nose and hair streaked with silver. Beside him, a slender man with pale skin kept his hand on his gun. “Sergeant Richards. You’ve come to harass us again?”
They stood at the bottom of the steps, both clean-shaven, their faces taut and shiny. “Enough games, Marjorie,” Calverton said. “We know you’re hiding a girl named Eve here. She’s the property of the King. ”