Restoring Harmony

by Joëlle Anthony

  That was it?

  The Boss tapped her fingers on her thigh. “Hmmm . . . the interest. Not good enough.”

  “What about the house?” I asked.

  “What about it?” she said.

  “Don’t you own this house, Doug? Maybe you could sell it . . . or . . . or give her the house.”

  “I tried to sell it,” Doug said. “No one wants to buy it.”

  The Boss let her gaze wander over the yard and then back to the house. “Do you really own it? Outright? Your name’s on the deed?”

  “Yeah,” Doug said. “My parents left it to my sister. Now that she’s dead, I’m the proud owner of this worthless shack.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about worthless,” the Boss said.

  She walked over to the French doors and stepped inside. A minute later, she came out. “No furniture,” she said. “That’s a plus. Nothing to get rid of. I suppose the Organization could always use a big house like this for storage. Especially one that isn’t traceable to us by any kind of paperwork and is legitimately owned by someone else. And it’s out of the way, but not too far from the market.”

  She walked over to Doug, who was still lying on the ground. She lifted one foot and placed the heel of her shoe right onto his hand, pinning it to the deck. “I don’t like to kill family men,” she said, digging her heel into his palm just enough to make him wince. “But I will if I have to. For now, I’ll take the food and this house, and we’ll call it even. You’ve got one week to vacate or you’re mine. Understand?”

  “Yes. Yes, thank you!” Doug said, trying to sit up, but falling back, shuddering with pain.

  “Don’t thank me,” she said. “Thank Molly.” She turned to the men. “Load up that food, and let’s get out of here.”

  Spill helped them without ever looking my way.

  30

  September 28th-Uncle Ralph reminds you, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”

  I PERSONALLY WOULD’VE PACKED UP AND LEFT right after the incident with Doug, but unfortunately, he’d disappeared and left us with Brandy and Michael.

  “We can’t just leave,” Grandpa said.

  “Forty-eight hours,” I told him. “That’s all I’m giving him. And then we’ll have to figure out something to do about the kids.” I didn’t know what, but I wanted to get home and now that I had the gold, I wasn’t going to wait any longer.

  It rained for two days straight, and we were all on edge. The kids snapped at each other, and Grandma couldn’t distract them with games or books. Brandy wasn’t speaking to either me or Grandpa because even though I don’t think she’d seen Doug lying on the ground all bloody, she knew we’d kept her from him for some reason.

  Doug’s forty-eight hours were almost up, and I wanted to leave, so I went over to his house one more time, just to see if maybe he’d come home in the night. I pounded on his back door, but no one answered so I stuck my head inside and yelled for him. Finally, I went in and spent about ten minutes searching the house. He was definitely gone. He’d left the kids and run off.

  I hurried back home through the rain, furious that we’d let him out of our sight. What was I going to do now? I couldn’t turn Brandy and Michael over to Child Welfare, but I couldn’t just take them to Canada, either. I raced up the stairs of our deck, my head down against the wind, and crashed right into Spill.

  “Sheesh!” I said. “You scared me to death.”

  “Sorry.” He smiled, but there was worry written all over his face.

  “Nice of you to finally show up,” I snapped. I brushed my wet hair out of my face. “I thought maybe you might’ve come around yesterday.”

  Spill shuffled his feet. “I was kind of busy.”

  “Doing what? Roughing up some other gambler?”

  He looked at me, curious. “Are you mad at me?”

  “Maybe,” I said. I knew I was pouting like Brandy did when she was being unreasonable.

  “Why?” he asked. “What’d I do?”

  “More like what you didn’t do.” He didn’t respond. “I thought we were friends, Spill.”

  He smiled like he didn’t get what was bugging me. “We are.”

  “Well, you could’ve stepped in so we didn’t have to give all that food to the Boss.”

  “That’s what you think?” His voice had turned surprisingly cold.

  I looked at him, but he wouldn’t meet my eye. “Well . . . couldn’t you?” I asked.

  “For your information, Aunt Lili let him off easy. Yeah, she can use the house, but she could have any place she wants. She knew Doug had Brandy and Michael, so she was being nice.”

  “That was Aunt Lili? Your aunt Lili is the Boss?”

  “Of course. What’d you think?”

  I hadn’t thought anything. Why would I have made that connection? “You could’ve mentioned that before!”

  He shook his head, frustrated with me for some reason. “I just assumed you knew.”

  “How would I know?”

  He shrugged. “Everyone knows.”

  Did my grandpa know? And Doug? How come no one had told me? Had they just thought I knew too?

  “Look, forget about Aunt Lili,” he said. “And forget about Doug. Come inside. I need to talk to you.”

  I went with him, but not because he asked me to. I went because I was cold and wet and I wanted to get warm. Inside, I wrapped a blanket around myself and sat on the end of the settee, crossing my arms, hoping to look tough.

  “Is the money from the whiskey enough to get us home if we have Brandy and Michael too?” I asked.

  “You’re going to take the kids?”

  “I’m not sure, but Doug seems to have disappeared.”

  “I think it’s great that you want to take them, and there’s enough gold,” he said, “but we have a bigger problem than money.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He sat down on the settee next to me. “Well,” he said, “you’re not allowed to leave now.”

  I groaned. “Did they officially close the border?”

  “No. I mean, not that I know of,” he said.

  “So what are you talking about then?”

  Spill’s face looked pale. He ran his hands through his hair. “Anyone who’s involved with the Organization in any way,” he said, “even inadvertently, is ranked for the risk they are to its ability to operate without legal interruption.”

  “Spill, would you speak English?”

  “You witnessed the Organization threatening Doug,” he said. “Aunt Lili was forced to raise your risk status to Level Four.”

  “English!” I said again.

  He sighed. I had the feeling he was complicating his explanation because he didn’t really want me to understand him. “Because we were friends,” he said, “you were ranked a Level One Risk. That means the Organization couldn’t discount the fact that you might go to the police with information, but you probably wouldn’t because you didn’t know enough, and because you were my friend. But now that you saw the altercation with Doug, you’re a Level Four Risk. That means you can’t leave town.”

  “Who says?”

  “Aunt Lili.”

  I’d been worried for a minute, but if his aunt was in charge, what was the big deal?

  “So talk to her,” I told him.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Her word is final. And the Organization will enforce it.”

  “You mean I can’t ever leave Gresham?”

  He nodded.

  I stood up and brushed myself off like the matter was settled.

  “Too bad for the Organization because I’m a Canadian citizen and I’m going home anyway.”

  “They’ll stop you.”

  “Will they kill me?”

  “Well . . . probably not. You really have to be a Level Eight or higher before they’ll do that.”

  “So what will they do?” I asked.

  “They’ll watch you closely for a while,” he said. “And they’ll make all routes out o
f town pretty much impossible until you give up.”

  “You mean like stake out the train station?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “And the house. You’ll have a twenty-four-hour guard for at least a few weeks.”

  “So I just have to starve here because I can’t leave?” I demanded.

  “You won’t starve. You have the gold to buy food at the market. And Aunt Lili told me you can start playing your fiddle there too. She might even hire you for some private parties.” He smiled like he’d given me a gift.

  “Oh, well, that is good news.” I grabbed a book off the end table and threw it across the room, just in case he missed the sarcasm.

  “Mol-”

  “What about you?” I asked. “If I’m a Level Four, doesn’t that make you like a Level Fifty? How can you just leave to go off and be a cobbler?”

  He looked down at his handmade boots. “Oh, well . . . maybe I’ll stay.”

  “You can’t stay!” I said. “You’ll have to join the Organization for real.”

  “Yeah. . . .”

  I grabbed his hand and pulled him up off the couch. Why was he acting so defeated? “You have to get out of here too. We all have to get out of here!”

  “It’s not that easy for me, either,” he said. “Part of the deal is I have to run away too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They don’t just let me go,” he explained. “I have to sneak off. If I can make it out of the country, then I’m free.”

  We were facing each other and I was still holding his hand in mine. “Why did Aunt Lili apprentice you as a cobbler if you can’t even leave?”

  He laughed, but it sounded bitter. “She’s hoping I’ll show some initiative and get away.”

  “I thought she was in charge. Why can’t she just say ‘See you later-make sure you write’ and send you on your way?”

  Spill sighed. “The Organization only exists because it has a system of rules that everyone agrees to follow. Even the Boss. If she just lets me go, then she’s in violation of the code of ethics and they’ll remove her.”

  I dropped his hand. “You mean, kill her.”

  “Yeah.”

  I stared at him hard. “Will they kill you if they catch you?”

  He gave me a halfhearted smile. “Not if I leave before I’m twenty-one. Then they’ll just bring me back if they catch me.”

  “I can’t believe this!” I said. “What are we going to do?”

  He sank back on the settee like he was out of ideas. “We’ll think of something.”

  The chair across the room swiveled around until Grandpa was facing us. “I have an idea,” he said with a tiny smile.

  31

  SPILL SPENT THE ENTIRE DAY WITH US, GOING OVER Grandpa’s plan in detail. They’d worked out a bunch of stuff I didn’t understand, but in the end, it was me who had been able to provide us with two crucial parts of the escape plan.

  First, there was Jane, the old woman I’d met on the train coming down here. She’d told me if we needed a place to stay on the way back, we could visit her. I still had her address in Kelso, Washington, and Spill said he’d get a message to her somehow. I worried a little about involving her, but Grandpa convinced me that the Organization would never know, and that we needed her help.

  The other connection I had was Tyler, Poppy’s boyfriend, in Seattle. Hopefully he could help us get into Canada.

  We’d sorted ourselves out, but there was the little problem of Doug. He seemed to have disappeared for good. We weren’t sure what we’d do about Brandy and Michael if he wasn’t back by the time we had to leave, because we couldn’t take them along. They didn’t have passports or birth certificates, and we weren’t their legal guardians. All of that would make getting them into Canada impossible, even if we wanted to take them, and I still wasn’t sure that was a good idea anyway. How would my parents react to me bringing two more kids to the farm?

  The next day, we put our plan into action. Randall had been assigned to make sure I didn’t make a break for it, and acting happy was going to be especially difficult with him following me everywhere I went because the whole thing made me angry. But pretending to accept the situation was part of the plan.

  I took my fiddle out to the deck, where Randall sat by the fire. He’d added a black overcoat and a red wool scarf to his suit.

  “Now that the Boss said it’s okay, I’m going to the market to busk,” I told him.

  He nodded and followed me through the yard. He’d boarded up the front door from the outside, so going through the creek was the only way to get to the street.

  “Doesn’t someone have to guard my grandparents?” I asked.

  Randall didn’t answer, and his face remained passive. Spill had told me that guards aren’t allowed to speak to their captives, but getting him to talk was also part of the plan, so I didn’t give up.

  “It’s good to have company,” I tried.

  He smiled like I amused him, but said nothing. Oh, well. I had a few more days to get him to talk. Assuming Grandpa could do his part in time. That was a big if, but it had to work or we really would be stuck here forever. Aunt Lili was giving a formal party in two days and Spill thought that since most of the Organization would be there, that night was our best chance for escape. Our only chance. If we were caught, I’d be upped to a Level Eight Risk and they’d separate me from my grandparents.

  At the market, I took out my fiddle and tuned her. It had finally stopped raining, but the air was chilly and I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to play before my fingers were too numb to get the notes right. I hoped I didn’t have to stall too long.

  I set up near the food vendors, and Randall sauntered over to the doughnut tent to chat with an enormous man and his equally large wife. I noticed Randall kept me in his sight line at all times. I began with “Brianna’s Reel” and followed it with two new songs that Grandpa had taught me. I’d just finished when Spill strolled up.

  “Hey, Handsome Molly, why don’t you play my favorite?”

  I glared at him over my fiddle. “Why don’t you get lost?” I said, and began a new tune.

  He hung around, though, listening.

  “Are you still mad at me?” Spill asked when I stopped playing.

  I shook my head. “I’m not mad,” I said, “I’m just never talking to you again, so could you please just leave?”

  “It’s a free country,” he said.

  “Fine. I’ll go somewhere else.”

  I guess because I’d stopped playing, Randall thought he’d better come over, which was perfect because the whole point of our fight was for him to see it. Before I could get my case, Spill picked it up off the ground. I grabbed at it with my free hand, but he held on.

  “Don’t touch my fiddle!” I said.

  “I’m not.” He laughed. “This is your case. You’ve got your fiddle.”

  I pulled harder. “You know what I mean! Let go!”

  He yanked it out of my hands and held it behind his back. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s talk about it.” He made a face like he was really sorry, and I almost laughed at how bad of an actor he was.

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” I reached around him, trying to get the case.

  “Look, it’s not my fault,” he said. He smiled like there was nothing wrong, which was a lot better than his fake-concern face.

  “It’s all your fault!” I yelled. I was a pretty good actress, I thought.

  By now people were lingering to hear what we were arguing about.

  “Molly-”

  “You can’t explain it away,” I said, planting one hand on my hip. “I’m stuck here because of you.”

  “You know I was trying to help,” Spill said. Now he actually looked sorry, and I knew that even though we were pretending, he meant that part. “I didn’t mean for things to get all messed up.”

  “Fine,” I said, tucking Jewels under my arm. “You can keep the stupid case. I’m going home.”

  �
�Wait,” Spill said. “Take it. I’m sorry.”

  He held it out, open, so I could set Jewels inside. I snapped it shut and tore it out of his hands. I stormed across the market, practically running, and didn’t slow down until I was going up the hill towards home. Randall came huffing behind me.

  “You okay?” he asked. His face was red.

  “What do you care?”

  “It’s not his fault you can’t leave,” Randall said. His breath was still coming out in gasps. “You spied through the fence.”

  I scowled at him, not answering. We were coming up to the turnoff to Creekside, and while I was breathing pretty easily, poor Randall was really fighting for air.

  “It won’t be so bad once you get used to the idea,” he said, puffing. “Living here.”

  “Well, it’s not like I have a choice.”

  I guess that’s when Randall remembered he wasn’t supposed to talk to me, because he clamped his mouth shut. Or maybe he was just so breathless he couldn’t speak. I left him on the deck and hurried inside and into the garage, where Grandpa was working.

  “Did you get it?” he asked.

  “I think so!” I set Jewels down on the workbench and opened the case. Under the piece of silk I always kept to wrap her in were four sheets of paper that Spill had slipped inside during our tug-of-war.

  “And do you think Randall fell for the fight?” Grandpa asked.

  “Hook, line, and sinker,” I said, grinning.

  32

  September 30th-I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.

  -Vincent van Gogh

  BY THE TIME BREAKFAST WAS READY, GRANDPA WAS already huddled over his workbench. I had to force him to come out for lunch so Randall wouldn’t get suspicious, but he refused to stop for dinner.

  “If we’re going to be ready by tomorrow night, I need to keep working,” he told me.

  I’d made a huge pot of potato and leek soup, one that would last us a week, just to throw Randall off a little. I didn’t know if he’d noticed or not, but the soup smelled delicious, and in the end, I talked him into having some, which was also part of the plan. I needed to make sure he trusted me not to poison his food. Which, of course, I hadn’t. And I didn’t even plan to, either. But I did need his trust.