She slaps Silla.
“Your father would beat you blue if he knew you were running off to be with some boy.”
Silla’s cheek burns. It sings. “I’m going away from here. From you. And not for some boy.”
Mam’s contempt drips like acid from a mouth stretched with age. She is grotesque, Silla suddenly realizes, because she was once beautiful. Beauty faded and embittered, marred by wounds so fierce that no scars remain, is the birthplace of the grotesque.
“I’m taking Nori.”
“And where do you imagine you’ll go? To Cath?” She dances a crazy singsong. “Crayyyy-zee Sil-la to crayyyy-zee Cath-ee.”
“I should have taken her away a long time ago.”
Mama moves very fast. Before Silla can blink, she has swooped down and lifted Nori into her arms.
“To hell with you, then,” she whispers. “You’re fourteen. You can take care of yourself. Two peas in a pod you and Cath will be. But you leave my baby here.”
Nori’s shoulder and collarbone bend at an awkward angle.
“Look at your daughter!” Silla hisses. “Look at what he did to her arm. She can’t even use it properly! And you wouldn’t even take her to the hospital. You’re poison, both of you. And maybe Cath is crazy, and maybe I am, too, but if that’s true, then you’re to blame. You’re crazy if I ever saw madness, Mama. I love you, but you’re killing us!”
And then, there she is.
Silla’s mother. The real mother. The mother who loves her. The mother who wants to save her.
Silla can see it in her eyes, which are shining with tears.
“Take her,” Mam says, handing a pale Nori over. “Take her away. Now. Quickly—before he wakes. Before I forget, and change my mind! Go! Go!”
Silla turns and runs, grabbing the bags on the way out.
At the door she hear Mam’s whisper.
“Take care of her like she was your own.”
Silla and Nori run through the morning smog, directly for the train station.
Cause: An unlikely ally.
Effect: A successful escape.
Gowan is sitting beside me on the forest floor now, holding my hand. He lets the silence grow for a moment, and then reins it in.
“Okay. Now tell me the truth.”
I open my mouth, and then I’m sobbing, shoulders heaving with each gasp. “Gowan, I—” The sobs take over.
“You can,” he says, telling me a truth. “You can do it.”
“I can’t open this again—”
He kisses me on the cheek and whispers, “Slowly. Piece by little piece.”
I suck in a breath, squeeze my eyes shut, and say it. “My mother… was carrying the getaway bag. She was coming with us. I was carrying Nori. We had to be quiet, more than quiet, or he’d wake up. We got as far as the living room, almost to the front door…”
“And then he woke.”
“… yes…”
“And he was angry?”
“Drunk and angry, but different, too… He was out of control. Seeing us trying to leave him was enough to push him over. Mam confronted him. She told him, ‘Stan, we’re going.’ And he grabbed her wrist. She threw me the bag, but before that she pulled free a hammer. One of Dad’s hammers. She raised it and told him to let her go. But he wouldn’t. She hit him on the head—over his eye, but she was small and frail—he grabbed the hammer from her and knocked her down. Nori was wedged in my arms, clinging to me. I just couldn’t move. I just stood there and stared as my mother fell.
“Then Dad was on top of her, his hands… his hands around her neck. He was choking her. And then I did move, I ran forward to try to help—but she gurgled, ‘No!’ I saw what that cost her. I could see her eyes turning red—” I break off, retching, and the rest of my words are garbled together with my grief and my chokes and my sickness at myself, rushing from me in a tide. “He was killing her! She used her last breath to stop me from saving her, and her cry was so desperate. I looked her in the eyes and I saw her plea there: Run. She was telling me to take Nori and to run, and…
“… I did. I ran. I ran away while my father killed her, and now I have a part in her death. I’m the reason! If I hadn’t told her I needed to take Nori away, she wouldn’t be dead. I’m a killer. I killed her. I watched her die! I let her die! I killed her!”
Gowan is holding me now, rocking back and forth, stroking my hair. “No, no, you’re not. You saved Nori. You honored your mother by doing that. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
It takes a long time for me to cry my grief into exhaustion. When I do, I’m empty.
“I’m just like him.”
“Never,” Gowan whispers, kissing my thin skin, what’s left of my hair, my cracked lips.
“And now I’ve lost Nori, too.”
“We’re going to get her back.”
“And then,” I say, turning to him, “I’ll lose you, too.”
“Stop this. You’re not going to lose any more people. Come on, let’s get searching again. I’m sure we’re going to find her, Sill. You have to believe it.”
“Believe a lie?”