Piper stared at the orchid and recalled the look of disappointment on Tad’s face when she’d met his kindness with indifference. She thought about him until she drifted off into a pine-scented nightmare in which squirrels the size of grizzly bears ate babies by the wheelbarrowful.
In the moments before the alarm went off, Piper was climbing into a giant squirrel nest as big as a swimming pool in a daring attempt to rescue Grace. It was nothing new; she’d been in the nest plenty of times and knew the plot of the nightmare well. Only this time when the giant squirrel attacked, Tad climbed up a colossal orchid stem, jumped into the nest, and fought off the creature, giving Piper a chance to escape with the baby for the first time ever. Tad. Her hero. She was jarred awake by the buzzing alarm before she could return to help. She considered hitting the snooze button to go back for him, but she had a debt of homework to address, so she slid out of bed and into her slippers.
Piper showered, dressed, and cranked out her assignments with little difficulty. She thought to water the orchid, and it dawned on her that she didn’t know the first thing about taking care of one. She would have to do some research. Of course, she could just ask Tad, but that would be awkward after how she’d behaved in his driveway. She packed her book bag for the day and headed downstairs.
“Good morning, sweetheart.” Jane mouthed the words so she wouldn’t startle the baby. She was sitting at the table, cradling Grace in her arms. A cup of yogurt sat on the table with a little spoon sticking upright out of the top. Grace had some yogurt on her chin, but her eyes were closed. It looked as though she’d fallen asleep in Jane’s arms right in the middle of breakfast. “I hate to do this to you, Piper,” Jane whispered, “but I need you to stay home from school today.”
“Me too?” Creeper asked. He was sitting across from their mother, hunkered over a mountain of bacon and a heap of scrambled eggs. His eyes were alight with hope.
“No, not you, mister,” Jane said. “Finish eating and brush your teeth. No dragging your feet. The last thing I need is for you to miss the bus this morning.”
“Aw.” Creeper pouted. “No fair.”
Piper wasn’t thrilled about her arrangement either. “Why do I have to stay home? I’ve got a million things I need to—”
“And I need you, Piper,” said Jane. “Grace isn’t feeling well today. Your father left for work before the baby woke up, and I have a presentation this morning at the office. I want you to keep an eye on your sister until I can get home, which should be around noon. Can you please do that for me?”
Piper went into panic mode. The last time she’d been on solo babysitting duty was a year ago in Washington. She’d managed to wriggle her way out of it ever since. But this time it was an emergency. She’d have to wriggle harder.
“Mom, Mr. Traynor has been threatening a pop quiz in math class all week. If I miss it—”
“If you miss it, you’ll live. I’ll speak to your teachers this afternoon so they understand the situation.”
Piper scowled. “I’ll fall behind in class.”
Disappointment was etched on Jane’s face. “What happened to you, Piper? You used to dote on Grace, but lately you treat her as if she has the plague.”
Piper fell quiet. She’d hoped she hadn’t been that obvious.
Jane stood with the baby. “Please clean the table. I’ll get Grace comfy in her crib, and then I have to get going. I expect you to watch over her.”
“Fine,” Piper muttered.
“That doesn’t mean taking the baby monitor into your room and closing the door. I want you to sit with Grace. Bring your laptop into her room if you want; just keep the volume low. You’re to call me if your sister shows the slightest sign of feeling worse. Are we clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
That was that. Creeper was on time for the bus and Jane was on time for her presentation. Piper, as she viewed the situation, was the only one inconvenienced by her mother’s master plan.
Piper dragged a beanbag chair and her laptop into the nursery. She spent the first hour surfing the Web for pageant gowns. She planned to go to All Things That Glitter with Olivia on Saturday to buy a dress in person, but it wouldn’t hurt to get an idea of what she wanted in advance. Her search yielded a blue strapless number she liked, and she e-mailed the link to Olivia for a second opinion. But despite her best effort, she couldn’t purge Tad from her mind.
She searched for instructions on orchid care and found a website that told her everything she needed to know. There were pictures of different kinds, though none as pretty as hers. Denbrobium Piper Anne was one of a kind. Tad had created something extraordinary just for her. Perusing the website, she realized how much work he’d put into raising hers. A ton. She felt even worse for the way she’d treated him. Piper started typing him a text, but when she finished, she deleted it and set the phone down.
It was almost ten o’clock when Piper thought to check the crib. Grace was awake but barely moving. Usually, whenever the baby saw her Pippy, she got all giddy and did a wormy dance on her back. This time she just stared up at her older sister without connecting, eyes wide and unblinking.
“You really are sick, aren’t you?” Piper hoisted Grace up into her arms and held her close. The baby felt heavier than Piper remembered. She struggled to think back to the last time she’d done this. Feeling Grace’s limp body pressed against her chest, she had the same pangs of guilt she’d felt over Tad, only a gazillion times worse.
Piper paced the floor speaking softly to her sister. Grace remained unresponsive. Her arms hung limp like a rag doll’s. At eleven o’clock, Piper decided she was in over her head and texted both her parents with an update. Jane responded first:
Heading home now. Hang tight.
A few minutes later, her dad replied with a similar message.
The next hour was a blur of frantic activity. Brad was the first through the door. He took the baby from Piper, and she brought him up to speed. With Grace cradled in one arm, he used the other to stuff a diaper bag. Jane showed up five minutes later and stole Grace from Brad. Since Jane’s car was the last in the narrow driveway, they would take it to the hospital. While Jane fastened the baby into her car seat, Brad put the diaper bag in the trunk.
“I’m coming with you,” Piper insisted.
“Someone has to be home when Creeper gets off the bus,” Brad reminded her. “I promise we’ll call you as soon as we know something.”
Piper watched the car curl around the cul-de-sac and then speed off down their street in the direction of the highway.
For the rest of the afternoon Piper was a nervous wreck. She hadn’t been this scared for Grace since that terrifying day in Washington when the rabid wolverine peered into her bassinet with murder in its glassy black eyes. Piper had been lucky then. She’d managed to spray the crazed animal with the hose before it could bite Grace. She blew it off the picnic table and onto the ground, then she speared it with the barbecue fork, killing it instantly. She’d snatched up Grace, sprinted into the RV, and locked the door behind her. She used the walkie-talkie to warn her family, and they hurried back immediately. An hour later they were on the road to Seattle, shaken but thankful to have made it out of the woods unscathed. The Canfields listened to the radio as they sped down the Mountain Loop Highway and learned all about the airborne rabies outbreak that had spread through the forest of the Cascade Mountains. The big rain killed off most of the infected animals—extreme hydrophobia was a symptom of the virus, and the ones that got wet literally died of fear—but there were reports of isolated attacks still coming in, most of them within a few miles of Heather Lake. Her friends and family called her a hero (although that was the farthest thing from the truth). Whatever was happening to Grace now wasn’t something Piper could solve with courage and a water hose. This time she was utterly helpless.
Shortly after four, Creeper arrived home from school. Piper was sitting at the kitchen table listlessly poking at a piece of key lime pie, occasionally
taking a bite. She didn’t care about the calories. The last thing on her mind was squeezing into a pageant dress.
“Where is everybody?” Creeper dropped his book bag onto the table and started gutting it clean of homework. The rule was he wasn’t allowed to play Minecraft until he’d finished his assignments, so as usual he jumped right into it.
“At the hospital,” Piper mumbled. “Grace got worse.”
Creeper looked up from organizing mini-stacks of textbooks and papers. “Really?” He sounded genuinely worried. “Is she going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. I hope so. I’m waiting to hear from Mom and Dad. There’s more pie in the fridge if you want some.”
“Pie before dinner? You’re gonna get in trouble,” he said, as though nothing would please him more.
“Fine, then don’t eat it,” said Piper. “I don’t care.”
Creeper wavered for a moment, then he went to the fridge and carved out a huge wedge of pie, bigger than the piece he left in the tin. He sat down across from Piper and attacked it. Between goopy gulps he asked, “What do you think is wrong with her?”
“How should I know?” Piper snapped. “Do I look like a pediatrician?”
“Why are you barking at me?” he shot back. It was a fair question—he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Just leave me alone, okay?” Piper shoved her plate away, got up from the table, and stomped out of the kitchen and into the living room. Creeper followed her.
“You sat for Grace today,” he reminded her. “You know more than I do! Tell me what happened.”
Piper rounded on him. “Oh, so it’s my fault she went to the hospital?”
“I didn’t say that!” he hollered, stomping his foot.
Neither of them would be able to recall the fiery words that led up to their brawl—hot tempers fueled by fear can short-circuit a person’s memory—but for the first time in years, Piper and Creeper were locked in a wrestling match, rolling around on the carpet in front of the TV, screaming like banshees. Piper, three years older, was bigger than Creeper, but he was wiry and had done nothing to deserve her anger. Sometimes right makes might; it was an even match at first.
“Get off me, you ugly troll!” he screamed.
“Stop kicking me, you little dweeb!” she yelled.
“Ouch! That hurts!”
“Let go of my—ow!”
Things got really ugly when Piper sunk her heels into Creeper’s stomach and kicked out, launching him backward across the room. He landed with a sickening crack. At first Piper thought she’d busted his skull; fear gripped her like a vise. Her brother rolled over, and she saw that Creeper had landed on something he valued way more than his head: his video game console. This brought the fight to an immediate halt as Creeper inspected the damage.
“Please be okay, please be okay…” he muttered under his breath.
The console wasn’t okay. There was a split down the center of the plastic case.
“No, no, no,” Creeper whimpered as the circular green power light dimmed dark, like the eye of a dying robot. The boy turned beet red. His body began to tremble. His fists clenched. It just got real.
Piper tried to calm him. “Creeper…I’m sorry, it was an accident.…” It was no use.
“Why are you so mean to me?” he roared.
“I’ll pay for it,” she promised.
“You’ll pay for it, all right!” Creeper snarled. He pounced on top of her.
The second round of the fight was much shorter than the first.
“Stop it! Both of you, right now!” Their father was standing in the doorway. Brad’s posture was slack; he looked emotionally spent. His eyes were pink and watery. The kids had seen their father cry only once before, in their parents’ wedding video during the recitation of their vows. But that had been a happy cry. They could tell right away this time was different. They stopped fighting immediately.
Piper rose to her feet and wiped a gloss of blood on her lip. “What happened, Dad?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong?” Piper had pulled Creeper’s shirt up over his head to blind him. He was peeking out at his father through a sleeve hole.
Brad shut the door behind him. “You two are ridiculous! I can’t believe with everything that’s going on…Dang it! You’re not babies anymore! You’re not babies.…” He trailed off.
“Where’s Mom?” Creeper asked, pulling his shirt back into place. It was all stretched out now and looked two sizes too big.
“And Grace?” asked Piper. “Dad, where’s Grace?”
“Both of you, sit on the couch. Opposite ends, please.” Brad dropped his keys into a bowl by the door, then sat down between them, his head bowed, elbows on his knees. He sighed heavily, deflating at the chest and shoulders.
Piper was afraid. “Dad?”
“We need to have a talk,” he said softly. “We need to talk about Grace.”
It was a Friday afternoon; the weekend had arrived, but Tad wasn’t exactly thrilled about it. Two weeks had passed since Piper was in his greenhouse. Whatever he’d hoped to accomplish with the orchid had been a colossal waste of effort. Fourteen months of effort to be exact, the total length of time it had taken for him to patiently coax the plant from seed to flower. He’d intended to give her the sprout as a welcome-home gift when she came back from the cross-country RV trip. Instead, he’d watched it grow in his bedroom, and then his greenhouse, until he could barely stand to look at it. Did she even like it? In the end nothing had changed. He was still the Ghost of Piper’s Past.
He considered riding his bike by her house to see if her family was home or away on vacation. The last time he’d been at the Canfield residence was a year ago. It’d been a total train wreck. Remembering, he could almost feel the puff of air as Piper slammed the door in his face. Today he’d made it halfway to her house, then turned around and went to Dairy Queen for ice cream. Dark times called for dark chocolate.
Tad barely made it home ahead of a summer downpour. It was so gloomy outside that his mother had turned on both overhead lights in the kitchen—a rarity in August, when the sun stayed up late. Mrs. Cole was standing at the center island, mincing vegetables on a butcher block. Tad, deciding to fix a predinner snack, raided the fridge with the barbarity of a Viking.
“Get your big head out of there!” his mother scolded. “I’m serious, Tad. You see me making dinner here.”
“I see you chopping celery,” he replied. “When you start kneading pizza dough, then we’ll talk.”
“Don’t test me, kid. I’ve got a big knife here.” With a bemused expression on her face, she held it up to show him.
He snorted. “So I have two choices: starve to death or risk you gutting me like a fish? Would Dr. Phil approve of your parenting method?”
“Starve to—? Tad Bartholomew Cole, I can see the ice-cream stain on your shirt. So help me, if you ruined your appetite…”
Tad knew better than to tell her why he’d self-medicated with ice cream. His mother didn’t like Piper very much. Forget about that girl, she’d say, as always. If she doesn’t want your friendship, then she’s not worth your time. But his mom only felt that way because she didn’t understand. He and Piper hadn’t drifted apart, like kids do sometimes when they grow up. They’d been ripped apart by a single unfortunate event. He didn’t think Piper hated him. How could she? The rabies plague in Washington wasn’t his fault. And wasn’t he sort of the co-hero in the story? Or at least the hero’s sidekick? After all, if he hadn’t called when he did, she might never have known the wolverine was rabid until it was too late.
His mother passed him the fruit bowl. “A banana will do.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He tore the ripest banana from the bunch and peeled it.
Mrs. Cole went back to her prep work. “So what’s new, kiddo? You seem a little crabby lately. Everything okay in your world?”
Tad shoved the banana into his mouth. Sometimes he had to guard his thoughts around his mother. Since his father died t
hree years ago, the two surviving Coles had become so close that sometimes Tad felt she could read his mind, especially when he was troubled. He wasn’t in the mood to talk about his feelings for—
“Piper Canfield?”
Tad looked up from a stack of mail to find his mother leaning over the sink, staring out the window at the greenhouse. “Huh? What about her?” he asked.
Mrs. Cole tapped on the windowpane. “A girl who looks exactly like Piper Canfield just ran across the yard and went into the greenhouse. Tad, were you expecting—?” But Tad was already sprinting for the back door.
“Stop!” his mother ordered. “Raincoat!”
Tad yanked his dad’s yellow slicker off the coat hook across from the door; no time to go upstairs for his own. He threw the slicker on. To his surprise, it fit perfectly. He bent quickly to flip the hood over his head. Before his mother could say another word, he was out the door, hurdling puddles on a mad dash to the greenhouse.
Upon entering the glass building, Tad was hit by the scent of rich dirt and a sense of disappointment. The greenhouse was empty. Had his mother imagined seeing Piper? There were some plants that when fussed over too long could mess with your vision, but celery wasn’t one of them.
He heard muffled sobbing.
“Piper?” There was no reply. He followed his ears through the aisles.
He rounded a corner at the eggplant and found Piper sitting on the ground, slumped over, drenched, and shivering despite the humid recirculated air. She was clutching her orchid pot snugly to her chest. Tad saw that the flower’s stem was broken at the top of the spike, between two gnarled nodes. Its petaled face was dangling by a thin strip of splintered cellulose, the plant’s version of skin. The victim’s broken body shook in Piper’s hands.
The Murk Page 4