“It’s all right. I get it.”
No, he doesn’t. He can’t understand me when I don’t even understand myself. I lean back against the seat and close my eyes, weary to the bone. I remain that way, trying not to think, but at the edge of my mind, I recall the ache of longing I felt for Linus back when I was in my cell, when this thing inside me sent me the vision of us together on the prairie. The real Linus is a thousand times more complicated. It shouldn’t be possible to miss someone when he’s right here in the car with me, but I do.
With my eyes closed and my heart plucked open, I don’t notice where we’re going until we descend a steep incline and pull up before a strange, unfamiliar cottage.
18
STAY OUT
WE’RE BY THE SEA. Even with the windows closed, I can hear the rumble of the ocean, and I’m instantly curious. I’ve always wanted to see the ocean.
Linus parks beside another car under an overhang made of coruscating plastic. Dark rows of pods and debris line its gullies. A nearby cottage, caked in peeling stucco, perches on a steep embankment, with stilts supporting one side. I’m disconcerted by a pair of signs nailed to the front porch.
CONDEMNED: EARTHQUAKE HAZARD
OLBAID EVACUATION ZONE. STAY OUT.
“I thought you were taking me to Lavinia’s,” I say.
Linus pulls the key out of the ignition. “This is her old place, from before she was relocated. She said we’d have more privacy here.”
“Do you know how far we are from the power plant?”
“A couple miles.”
I take another look at those rickety stilts. “Do you think it’s safe?”
He tilts his head, peering out. “Comparatively.” He turns back to face me and nods toward Dubbs. “How is she?”
“Still asleep.”
“Hold on. I’ll come around for her.”
A moment later, he lifts my sister away from me, and he’s careful to shelter her blond head against his shoulder as he straightens. His tenderness triggers a tug of longing in me, and I glance away. The sky has turned overcast, and the air is suffused with soft gray light. Far below, the shoreline churns with the lacy white lines of the incoming waves, and the horizon is so huge, it seems like an optical illusion, both distant and flat.
Stepping warily in my socks, I follow Linus around to the front porch where a rotting board gives under my feet but doesn’t break. Before we can knock, the door opens, and Lavinia waves us in.
“You had me worried,” she says. “Where’d you find them?”
“By the fence. They were on their way out,” Linus says.
While Linus lays Dubbs gently on the couch, Lavinia holds a couple pillows, and then she tucks them around my sister and settles a creamy blanket over her wet gown. Lavinia leans over her to hold Dubbs’s wrist for a pulse, and then, with a satisfied expression, she straightens.
“What do you think?” I ask her.
“She has a nice pulse. I think she’s sleeping and she’ll wake when she’s ready,” Lavinia says. “She has a sweet face. She’s eight, you say?”
“Yes,” I answer.
Lavinia turns her gaze to me, and I’m startled to find she’s changed from when I last saw her in her apartment. She’s brighter and clearer. Her gray hair is whiter, and her updo with the braid is looser, for a softer effect around her face. Her lipstick is a more muted, flattering hue, and she’s wearing a pearly green, cottony outfit that brings out the color of her eyes behind her glasses. Her old home must agree with her.
A hovering seagull outside the window catches my eye before it drops from view. Lavinia’s place isn’t nearly as shabby inside as it is from the outside. I can tell it was once lovingly cared for. Pale blue walls are offset with white trim. Two folding beach chairs with woven seats face the curved wicker couch, while a wood-burning stove, darkly solid, sits in the corner. A wooden crate is overturned as a coffee table. Half a dozen glass balls of red, yellow, and blue hang in an old fishing net, and glass doors fogged with moisture close off a back porch that hangs directly over the steep escarpment.
The best thing, though, is the view to the water. Or maybe the soft, airy light. I can’t decide which.
Lavinia sets a hand on my shoulder. “How about you?” she asks. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”
“I’m pretty wiped out,” I admit. “How long was I gone?”
“Four nights,” Lavinia says. “This is Saturday, April second.”
“Four nights!” I echo, astounded and bereft.
They must have kept me asleep longer than I realized. And my parents! We still don’t know where they are. Berg has had them since early Monday. That’s six days!
“Have you heard anything about my parents?” I ask.
“I guess that means you didn’t find them,” Lavinia says grimly. “There’s been nothing in the news.”
I have to check Peggy’s Facebook page. “Do you have a computer here?” I ask.
“Of course. Hang on,” she says.
I sink down on the couch near Dubbs’s feet, and as soon as Lavinia passes me her laptop and the slow Internet kicks in, I pull up Facebook and Peggy’s profile. She has nothing new posted, and neither do her kids. Deflated, I push the laptop onto the crate and slump back.
“Nothing,” I say. “I can’t believe this.”
“Tell us what you found at Grisly,” Lavinia says, taking a seat in one of the folding chairs. Linus takes the other. “I saw that wild business with the dragon and your sister when you first arrived. Quite an effect,” she says. “But then where did you go?”
It takes a while to tell them about my discovery of the vault of dreamers, and then my dark hours after I was caught. They’re outraged to hear I’ve been mined again, and clearly impressed that I was able to escape, rescue Dubbs, and find a way out.
“But the biggest problem is that I still don’t know where my parents are,” I say, frustrated. “Whistler told me they weren’t in the vault, but Lavinia and I saw the footage of the truck arriving at Grisly.”
“Either Whistler was lying, or the truck dropped off Dubbs and took your parents somewhere else,” Linus says.
“Why would Berg do that?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” Linus says. “Could he have known you were going to Grisly? Maybe he was worried you’d find them there.”
“I never know what Berg knows,” I say darkly. I hate mysteries.
With a faint click, Lavinia fingers her bead necklace. She juts her chin at me. “You did a good job setting up my cameras. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I say.
Beside me, Dubbs sniffs. She shifts to tuck her fist under her cheek in such a normal motion that it gives me hope.