“Well, we should call home,” I say. “Let Mom and Dad know where we are. They’re probably worried sick.” Nana Pete and Honey look at each other and then back down at the floor. “What? We’ve got to at least tell them when we’ll be back.”
“We’re not going back,” Nana Pete says quietly. From the windowsill, I can feel Honey staring at me. I know that look. It’s the look she always gives me just before we are about to go into Emmanuel’s room to be questioned for something we’ve done wrong, a look so full of willpower and stubbornness that it can’t help but penetrate my fear. Usually I wait for it, like a talisman that I can glimpse and then rub before the ordeal begins. Now it makes me nervous.
“What are you talking about?” I laugh lightly. “Of course we’re going back. Benny has to get back home so he can get better. And we have—”
“We’re leaving, Agnes,” Honey says evenly. “All of us. We’re going back to Texas with Nana Pete. To live.”
The floor beneath me feels as loose as quicksand. I steady myself on the edge of the bed. “What? Why?”
Nana Pete steps forward. “Because I cannot, in all consciousness, allow you to stay in a place like that anymore.”
“A place like what?” I am aghast. “Like Mount Blessing?” Nana Pete nods. I look over at Honey. “Honey!” I plead. “Tell her! It’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with Mount Blessing.”
Honey bites her lip and then shakes her head. “No, Agnes.”
I look at Nana Pete again. “But you’ve been coming up to Mount Blessing for years! Why all of a sudden do you want to take us away from it?”
Nana Pete clears her throat. “Because I didn’t know about the Regulation Room before.” When she starts talking again, her voice is stronger. “That in itself is reason enough to burn that place down to the ground. It’s sick, Agnes. Sadistic. No one should ever have to undergo what y’all have been through in that room. And then, with Benny’s accident and Emmanuel sewing his fingers back on … ” She pauses, shaking her head. “Maybe I’ve had blinders on all these years, but I just had no idea. I’ve never seen anything like it. This is not the way normal people live, darlin’. Emmanuel belongs in a mental institution. Or jail.”
“Jail? What are you talking about? Emmanuel doesn’t belong in jail! He’s in charge of us. He’s the holiest person I know. He’ll never let you—”
“Emmanuel is not in charge of us,” Honey asserts. “And he is not holy. He just thinks he is and he’s made everyone else in that place think he is, too. He’s a monster, Agnes.”
I blink, trying to separate the words I am hearing from something shifting in my heart. “What about Mom and Dad? They’re not monsters, Nana Pete. I know you don’t get along and everything, but … ” I struggle to hold back the tears. “But you can’t do this to him. We’re his kids, Nana Pete, whether you like it or not.”
Nana Pete blinks. “I know, Mouse. And that is the hardest part of all of this.” She drags her hands slowly down the sides of her face. “But what is happening to you is called child abuse. Do you know what that is, Agnes?”
I take a step backward. “We’re not being abused! We deserve it! Emmanuel has to do it for the retraining of—”
Nana Pete grabs my hands, hard. “It’s abuse, Agnes. There’s no other way around it. And there is no such thing as retraining people, okay, darlin’? People are free to make up their own minds, not be trained to think and act like seals. If the police found out what was going on in that room, Emmanuel would be hauled off to jail so fast it would make your head spin.” I wince under her grip and try to pull away. She just holds on more tightly. “It’s not your fault, Agnes. It’s not your fault that you don’t understand this or that you think its okay. Emmanuel has you and your parents convinced that all of you deserve such … such … ” She stops, unable to go on, and then gestures toward Benny’s hand. “And now he thinks Emmanuel performed a miracle on Benny’s fingers! I mean, if we hadn’t brought him here … ”
I stifle a sob, thinking again of Dr. Pannetta’s words. No miracle. No miracle.
“Agnes,” Honey says, stepping forward. “Listen to what Nana Pete is saying. Please.”
With one final tug, I wrench free of Nana Pete’s grasp and hold on tightly to the edge of Benny’s bed. The edges of the room are beginning to swim. Could the devil, disguised as Honey and Nana Pete, be speaking? Of course he could. The devil can disguise himself any way he wants.
“Listen?” I spit out. “You think I’m going to listen to you two, who think you can decide for the rest of us what’s best? How about considering my feelings? Did it ever occur to you to ask me my opinion about all of this?”
“Of course we did,” Honey says matter-of-factly. “And we decided not to because we knew you would do exactly what you’re doing now.”
“Which is what?”
“Freak out.”