“To be honest, I’m not sure. Just trying to subtly persuade him, I guess.”
Frida didn’t want to laugh, but she couldn’t help it. “My brother can’t be persuaded.”
“That’s what I told Peter.”
“You two talk about my brother?”
Cal nodded.
“Without him?”
Cal nodded again. “When we have the opportunity. Peter thinks Micah’s a great leader, but that he needs to be kept in check. His ego, and all that.”
“And you think you can change him?”
Cal shrugged. “I guess Peter got him to loosen up. He once stole Micah’s clothes while Micah was taking a shower, then put them on one of the goats. I guess that finally broke your brother. He was buck naked and couldn’t stop laughing. Maybe that convinced Micah he could think of this place as family.”
Family. Frida put a hand on Cal’s cheek.
“Tell me what you did in the meeting today,” she said.
He smiled, but it looked more like a wince. “You know I can’t.”
Frida imagined Micah telling Cal about Pines. Her brother would describe in detail how August got inside and what he did once he was there. They were big secrets, she imagined, and they would have to be whispered. Frida couldn’t summon Micah’s words, though. It was like trying to continue a dream after she’d already woken, and she hated that she didn’t know what would happen next. She wanted to know what Cal knew. Didn’t she?
“You can tell me,” she said. “I’m your wife.”
He shook his head. “I want to, baby, you know that. But if they find out I did, I would lose the access I’m gaining. You have to understand.”
“I see.”
If he wasn’t going to divulge, well, then, neither was she.
“I can’t,” he said. His words were sweet, but he wasn’t even looking at her. “I crossed my heart and hoped to die.”
“Stick a needle in your eye?”
“Is that really what the saying is? Jesus.”
He was already standing, as if eager to be away from her.
*
Frida rested all day, and the next morning, when she got up to bake, the Hotel was still dark. She felt fine, thank goodness. Dawn was a ways off. Would morning sickness coincide with the rising of the sun?
She read the hallway walls with her hands, tiptoeing to the staircase, and wondered what she’d say once she reached the kitchen. She wanted to ask who had drawn that picture. She wanted to ask if Anika had been a mother. Frida wished she could tell Anika that she herself would be one in just a few months. Now, at least, she was certain of the pregnancy. Last night at dinner she’d refused the kale dish, the sight of greens making her queasy, and she’d fallen into bed soon after, as exhausted as she’d ever been. Her body was in this child’s clutches, and he wasn’t—she wasn’t?—letting go.
If only she could tell Anika; Anika would understand. But no, Frida had promised.
They would make plain wheat bread today. No frills. Frida had decided last night. She and Anika had been too decadent lately, acting as if their reserves of chocolate, of coconut, of vanilla extract, were endless. If August went on a trip to Pines and returned empty-handed, she and Anika would be blamed for raiding the root cellar. Or she would be; Anika, special and feared, was probably above reproach. Yet another fancy dessert might imply irresponsibility to the rest of the Land, and that needed to be avoided.
The kitchen was dark when she reached it, the oven unlit. Where was Anika? Frida’s heart hiccuped. She imagined the baby flipping inside her like a quarter, heads to tails.
“Hello?” she called out.
She hadn’t told anyone about the drawing she’d seen in Anika’s room, but when she’d left it, she hadn’t closed the door, and someone might have gone in there uninvited. The drawing had to be a secret; why else hang it on the ceiling? What if someone had found out that Anika had told Frida about Pines? As an outsider, perhaps Frida wasn’t supposed to know. Anika could be in trouble. Come to think of it, Frida hadn’t seen her at dinner. Don’t panic, Frida told herself. Not yet.
She wanted to run back upstairs and wake Cal. She would tell him everything in one long breathless rush, the same way he’d confessed Bo’s story. That morning, weeks before, he’d led her back inside, and in the center of the very house the Millers had died in, he told her the truth. All of it. She wondered if that would ever happen again.
Now there were other people to consider.
She waited in the kitchen, her body alert and taut as a predator’s. She could just make out the outline of a candle on the table and the box of matches next to it. Well. At least she could solve the first problem. Frida was striking a match against the strip of carbon when she heard the door open.
Anika walked in with a scarf around her neck and a glow stick in her hand. Frida had always imagined Anika walking through the Hotel in the dark, sniffing her way to her destination like a wolf seeking its dinner.