Trent lays a hand on my arm, and my skin seems to heat up under his fingers. “You want to ride with us? We can just follow the cab.” He glances toward his car, where Jonah is waving madly from his booster seat, trying to get my attention. He’d like to share his fries with me.
“No. But thanks. I need to talk to the driver some more on the way.” Really, I think he’s told me all he knows, but I want to keep the young man busy so he doesn’t check in with the office. His father may have a different opinion of my using Grandma Judy’s fare to transport me to a mystery location. He may be savvy enough to realize this could bring up a privacy issue. “And I don’t want to take any chances on his getting away from us.”
Trent’s fingers trail down my arm as he lets go…or maybe that’s just my imagination. “We’ll be right behind you, okay?”
I nod and wave at Jonah, who gives me a fries-and-teeth grin, and then we’re off. The midday traffic is light on the thirty-five-minute trip, so it’s easy for the driver to chat. He tells me his name is Oz and that when he drove my grandmother she always gave him cookies, or chocolates, or sweets left over from parties and gatherings. Because of that, he remembers her well. He’s sorry to hear she’s in a care facility now. Clearly, he’s oblivious to all the newspaper coverage and controversy. He’s been busy working after having taken over much of the driving for his father, who’s having some health problems.
“I was worried about her the last time I brought her here,” he admits as we leave the highway and wind through rural roads, presumably drawing near our destination. Walls of lowland shrubs, climbing vines, and tall pine trees tighten around us, pressing inward as we turn, then turn again. “She was getting around okay, but she seemed kinda confused. I asked her if I could walk her in the gate, but she wouldn’t let me. She said there’d be a golf cart waiting for her on the other side, like always, and not to worry. So I let her off. That was the last time I drove her.”
I sit silently in the backseat, attempting to conjure the images as Oz talks. I try, but I just can’t fathom the things he’s describing.
“The week after that was my dad’s heart surgery. We had a substitute driver filling in for a month or so. Next time I drove on a Thursday, I came to the house, and there was nobody there. Been that way ever since. The substitute driver didn’t have any idea what happened. Last he saw of her, he let her off at a shopping mall, and she said she’d see him again the next Thursday. We’ve tried calling the number on her bill, but nobody answers, and nobody’s there when I show up. We wondered if something might’ve happened to her. Sorry if we caused a problem.”
“It’s not your fault. Her caretakers shouldn’t have been letting her leave alone in the first place.” Good help is hard to find these days, but my grandmother was also surprisingly adept at convincing her helpers that she was perfectly competent and we were being overly controlling. Obviously, they were allowing her to take off in a cab on Thursdays. Then again, she was the one writing their paychecks, and they weren’t unaware of that fact. She wasn’t above dismissing household help that gave her trouble.
The car bumps over an old WPA bridge with crumbling cement railings and moss-covered arches. The driver slows, but I don’t see any sign of houses or mailboxes. From all appearances, we’re out in the middle of nowhere.
Good thing Oz knows exactly where he’s going. Anyone who didn’t would’ve missed the turn completely. The barely visible remnant of a gravel driveway sketches two scraggly paths through the roadside grass and across a drainage culvert. Just beyond, a massive stone entranceway lies hidden among trumpet vines and blackberry brambles. Heavy iron gates, each perhaps eight feet in height, hang askew, their weight supported by leaves and runners, the hinges long since rusted away. A decaying chain and padlock seem almost like somebody’s idea of a joke. No one has driven through these gates in decades. Just beyond them, there’s a sycamore tree six inches across, its muscular arms reaching through the bars and slowly lifting one gate higher than the other.
“There’s the way in.” Oz points out a narrow path leading to a walk-through entrance beside the main one. It’s obviously functional, the trail beneath it patted down enough that the summer grass hasn’t completely taken over. “That’s where she always went.”
Behind us, a car door slams. I jump and glance back before remembering it’s Trent.
When I turn around again, I’m struck by a strong feeling that the gateway should be gone. Poof. I’ll wake up in my bed at Drayden Hill thinking, Now that was a strange dream….
But the gate hasn’t vanished, and the path is still waiting.
CHAPTER 22
Rill
Fern freezes halfway across the sitting room. Her body goes stiff so that I can see every little string of muscle. A second later, she’s wetting herself for the first time in weeks.
“Fern!” I snap under my breath because I don’t want Mrs. Sevier to hear me and come see what Fern’s just done. Our new mommy’s so proud of Fern that she takes us to the movies and talks about trips we’ll go on together and how we’ll see Santa at Christmas and what he’ll bring for us. She’s even got it in her head that we should all drive to Augusta to visit her mama. I don’t want to go to Augusta, but I also don’t want any trouble now that Mrs. Sevier has started letting us out of her sight a little more.
I hurry across the room and strip off Fern’s dress and shoes and socks, use them to sop up the puddle. “Go on upstairs before she sees.”
I can hear Mrs. Sevier talking to someone in the front parlor.
Fern’s mouth quivers, and her eyes fill up with tears. She just stands there while I roll up the wet clothes and stuff them behind the ash bin where I can take care of them later.
All of a sudden, I know why Fern’s not moving. There’s another voice in the parlor. The closer I get, the more it sends ice slivers through me, right down to the bone.
“Go hide under your bed,” I whisper against Fern’s ear, and push her toward the stairs.
Fern runs up to the second floor and disappears. Breath comes in and out my nose in short gasps as I flatten myself against the stairway wall and creep closer to the open parlor door. In the kitchen, Zuma turns on the electric mixer. I can’t hear the voices for a minute, but then I do.
“…a very unfortunate situation, but it does happen,” Miss Tann is saying. “It’s never my wish to take the children away once we’ve found good homes for them.”
“But my husband…the papers…We were promised that the girls would be ours to keep.” Mrs. Sevier’s voice wavers and cracks.
A teacup rattles against a saucer. It seems like forever before Miss Tann answers. “As well they should be.” She sounds like she feels sorry for our troubles. “But adoptions are not final for one year. Birth families can be so difficult. The grandmother of these children has petitioned to gain custody of them.”
I gasp, then hear the soft sound of it and slap a hand over my mouth. We don’t even have a grandmother. Not that I know of, anyhow. Briny’s folks are dead, and Queenie hasn’t seen her people since she ran off with Briny.
“This can’t…” Mrs. Sevier lets out a sob that sounds like it’ll break her in two. She sniffles and coughs and finally forces out some words. “We…we can’t let this…D-Darren will be home for…for lunch. Please…please wait. He’ll know what…what to do.”
“Oh my, I’m afraid I’ve upset you more than is necessary.” Miss Tann sounds sticky sweet, but I can picture her face. She’s smiling the same mean smile she had when Mrs. Pulnik was holding me down on my knees. Miss Tann likes the way people look when they’re afraid. “I wasn’t planning to take the children with me today. You can fight this foolishness, of course. You should, in fact. The grandmother has no real means of providing for the girls. They would have a terrible life. May and little Beth are depending on you to protect them. But you must realize that…legal work can be…costly.”