Grace felt her father step into the doorway of the bedroom, but kept her eyes shut. He spoke to the woman with the silver and blonde hair, his voice a low rumble. “She’s still asleep? Why is she sleeping so much? It’s been three days.” His voice rose steadily, until it was hard not to wince. When her dad got cranked up, it was best just to hunker down and wait for it to blow over. “You know what, I don’t care how she feels about seeing the doctor. I’m going to ride over to the nature center and get him, something’s not right –”
“Hush.”
And just like that, he hushed. Grace almost raised her eyebrows, remembering just in time that she was supposed to be sleeping. She wasn’t clear on what the relationship was between her father and this woman, but she had never, ever known him to be successfully hushed. Not by her mother, and certainly not by his second wife.
She sensed movement and slitted her eyes, watching the woman rise and move towards her dad. Their low voices mixed and tumbled as they moved down the hall, leaving her alone. Grace took a deep breath and opened her eyes, turning her head to stare at the window. By the light, it was late afternoon. She stretched and rolled onto her side, letting her eyes travel around the room, which was done in shades of neon, predominantly hot turquoise. A teenaged girl’s room. Maybe a college student’s, she thought, noting the graduation tassel hanging from the shelves that looked like things were missing – gaps where books or pictures should be. Whoever she was, she was probably dead, so it didn’t really matter.
She heard someone coming back down the hallway and thought about closing her eyes, then sighed. She’d hidden long enough. Time to take the next step. The silver-blonde woman stepped into the room, and smiled to see her eyes open.
“You’re awake.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, keeping a respectful distance. “I’m Naomi, a friend of your dad’s. Do you remember?”
A kaleidoscope of images flashed by: the bonfire, her dad crushing her in his arms, hurrying, hurrying, almost to the point of running, splashing sometimes in the creek, motorcycles that made no noise, then so many voices and too many lights. She was pretty sure she’d shut down right about then. “Not much. Where are we?”
“My old house. This is my daughter Piper’s room. There are people nearby, good people, but your dad wanted to bring you here. He felt like it would be safer. He’s just outside, watering the animals. He’s not very good at sitting, so I keep giving him chores to do so he’ll stop pacing.” She winked, and started to stand. “I’ll go get him.”
“Wait.” Grace wasn’t ready to see her dad, wasn’t ready for his questions, for the way he always knew things even if you didn’t tell him. “Is your daughter dead?” She grimaced. “I’m sorry. I don’t know…how to ask. I’m not used to being around people…in a normal way, I guess.”
“It’s okay. You’ll figure it out. Your dad has been telling me how smart you are.” The woman smiled again. Her eyes were so kind, and so sad. “Piper’s alive. I’m trying to find her. My little Macy died, not quite a year ago. She was ten.”
“My little brother died, too. Benji.” It was the first time Grace had spoken of him since they’d left Limon. “He was twelve. Him, and my mom. My step-dad, too.”
Naomi’s face fell into lines of sorrow. She looked down, swallowing hard and shaking her head. “Your dad will be so sad to hear.” Tears made her eyes bright when she looked back up. “Do you want to tell him? Or do you want me to?”
Grace’s mind went completely blank. She felt her heart accelerate, her breathing quicken. “I don’t… I don’t know…” What was her problem? She’d been living by her wits for weeks now, and a simple question made her hyperventilate?
“Hush, now.”
The gentle command worked on her, just as it had worked on her dad. The woman – was she supposed to call her Naomi? Or Mrs. Something? – took her hand, rubbing and patting. Grace felt a deep calm suffuse her, a sweet peace. Why, she was like Quinn. Of the Earth. At the thought of Quinn, though, her anxiety came roaring back.
“Uhm, you know what?” She sat up experimentally, and was pleased when the room only wobbled a little bit before settling down. “I’ve got to go…run an errand.”
It was a ridiculous excuse and she knew it, but she needed to check in on Quinn and the baby, make sure they were still safe. Had her dad really said it had been three days? She’d been gone too long, far too long. And she needed to regroup, think about how to achieve her remaining goals. She wasn’t sure how her father would fit into all that, but she’d figure it out. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and noticed for the first time that she was wearing different clothes: Soft fleece pajama bottoms covered with little yellow chickens wearing glasses, and a bright yellow pajama top emblazoned with the words “Brainy Chick.” She looked around, more than a little panicked.
“What happened to my clothes? I need those clothes.” She noticed then how clean her hands were, and lifted them to touch first her hair, then her face. Both squeaky clean. This time, her voice sounded panicked. “I need those clothes – they’re how I get close to the gang without people getting close to me. And my stuff – I need to go get my stuff, my pepper and –”
“Grace. Gracie, listen.” Naomi captured her twisting hands. Again, Grace felt the grounding effect of her, the pull towards calm stillness. “I know you’ve been on your own for a while, but we’ve got you now. Your dad and I. You don’t need to go back to that gang, not ever. We’re going to take you home, to Woodland Park. Just as soon as you’re up to it, we’ll go.”
Her puzzle lay around her in a million pieces, unfinished, ruined. A sudden surge of rage burned the back of her throat like acid, and she struggled to hold it back, struggled and failed. She lurched to her feet, staggered, and ended up clinging to the curiously empty bookshelves. “I’m not ready to go! I can’t! This is something I have to do, do you get that? Only I can do this!”
Naomi rose to her feet, and somehow, said just the right thing. “I know how tight you’ve had to hold on. I know you’re not ready to let go yet. And that’s okay.” She let her words sink in for a moment, then spoke again. “You need to eat something. No matter what you decide to do, you’ll need your strength. How about if I get some soup and fruit, and you can fill me in on what you need to do, and how we can help?”
Grace’s shoulders dropped a fraction. Again, she thought of Quinn. Whenever she had gotten upset, his voice had sounded just like this woman’s, reasonable and low. Without making a big deal, Naomi helped her sit back down on the bed, fluffing some pillows behind her back and tucking the bright quilt around her quivering legs. She smiled at Grace, but there was a break in her voice when she spoke.
“I’ve missed babying my girls, tucking them in, just being a mom to them. I appreciate you letting me fuss.”
Grace nodded, leaning back against the pillows. Her eyes drooped for real this time, and she had fallen into a light doze by the time Naomi returned with a bed tray table. She waited until Grace had scooted up, then set it across her lap.
“It’s just canned vegetable soup and a fruit cup, I’m afraid. I hope you like peaches.” She snapped a cloth napkin open and laid it gently on Grace’s chest to protect her pajamas. “We’re a little short on groceries, or I’d make something homemade. If this stays down, there’s plenty more, so just say so.”
Grace swallowed the saliva that had pooled in her mouth at the first fragrant waft of steamy soup. “This is wonderful. I haven’t eaten this well in a long time,” she said. “Thank you.”
Naomi nodded, then moved to sit in a nearby rocking chair, swaying gently to and fro as Grace ate. She made herself take it slow; since she’d left Quinn, she’d rarely had more than a single meal a day, sometimes less than that. Naomi had been right; the food settled both her stomach and her mind, infusing her with strength and helping her think more clearly. She felt like her head was finally attached to her shoulders again, instead of floating away.
When she finished, she set her spoon down and sighed. “That was so good. Thank you,” she repeated, and again Naomi nodded. She took the tray and moved it to the hot pink student desk at the foot of the bed. Then, she sat back down in the rocker.
“Grace,” she said softly, “Where’s your baby?”
Her head went woozy again. “I, uh. I’m sorry. What did you say?”
Naomi rocked on calmly, her face as gentle as her voice. “I cleaned you up when we got back here. Washed your hair and your body, put you in clean clothes.” She traced a finger from her belly button downwards. “You have a dark line on your tummy. It’s called ‘linea negra,’ and it often comes with pregnancy. Also, your breasts are still leaking milk. I saw that you had them wrapped really tight.”
“Does my dad know?”
“I haven’t said anything to him yet, but yes, I think he does know, on some level anyway.” Naomi didn’t move towards her, but Grace felt a wave of warmth and caring surround her. It was like basking in sunshine. “Did the baby die?”
“No, I, uh…” She was having enormous trouble stuttering out even simple words. “I can’t, that is, I don’t want to…talk about it,” she finished in a rush. “I can’t talk about it. But can you help me? There’s something I need to do.”
“If I can, I’ll help. When your dad learns that Benji is gone, he’ll want to get you to Woodland Park as quickly as possible, to safety.” She turned to look at the window, her expression faraway. “We were going to go on to look for my daughter Piper, but she’s on her way. I thought maybe I was just imagining it, but this morning, I was sure.” She turned back, and for the first time, Grace realized what a pretty lady she was. Her face was glowing with joy. “My daughter’s on her way here. I can feel her, and she’s getting closer. But that probably doesn’t make sense to you, does it?”
Grace narrowed her eyes. “You’re talking about the psychic thing, right? The gang was always looking for people who had changed. And…somebody I knew said he was different now. He could do this thing with plants, feel what their properties were, and so on. Are you different, too?”
“I am. So’s your dad. What about you?”
So much easier to talk about this than the baby, though Grace didn’t doubt they would circle back. She had a feeling this woman was tough to distract. “I’m not sure. I’ve always had this thing, where my brain forms a picture, even if I don’t have all the pieces. And I can memorize huge chunks of information after hearing it just once.”
She paused, thinking about how to put into words what she sensed. It was fun to talk about this, and her words flowed more and more easily as her enthusiasm grew. “But I think it isn’t fully realized in me yet. Maybe there are different levels in different people. Maybe I’m still evolving. It’ll be interesting to see.”
Naomi smiled wryly. “Your dad was right. There’s nothing wrong with your brain. You’re going to love my Piper. She’s brilliant, too.” Then, she circled back. “Grace, why were you with that gang? They weren’t holding you prisoner, were they? Were you escaping when we found you? We’ve tried and tried to imagine the circumstances, and we haven’t come up with an explanation. Will you tell me?”
“Are you going to tell my dad?” She couldn’t seem to get away from that question, could she?
Naomi’s lips firmed, and her eyes were stern. “You’re asking me to keep a lot of secrets.”
“I’m afraid.” Grace closed her eyes, and groped for words. “I’m afraid of what he’ll do if he knows. It’s just for the best.”
“You want him to stay safe. They hurt you, and you don’t want him to go off, looking to hurt them in retaliation.”
“Yes!” That wasn’t it, but it worked a whole lot better than the truth. “It wouldn’t change anything. It’s over and done. I was with them, because I was trying to get information. I wanted to do the right thing, to make up, see? To make up for it. For –” She gestured vaguely at her stomach, and Naomi frowned in confusion. Grace shook her head and tried again. “I knew how to get close to them, because of before. I could listen and learn things about their plans, learn how their group was structured, their social framework, things like that.”
Her brain saved her then, kicking her up to the analytical level that had been her sanity for the last month. “If we understand the group’s underlying ideology, analyze their sources of support and power, we can strategize ways to destroy them. So they can never hurt anyone, not ever again.”
Naomi was still staring at her, but there was something that looked like awe in her eyes now. “Criminy, Grace. Where did you learn all that?”
Grace shrugged, pleased to have her intelligence recognized. It had been so long since she’d gotten a pat on the back for being smart. She couldn’t believe how much she’d missed it. “I love history and social studies,” she said. “And I did a term paper on the methodologies of non-violence. I think some of the concepts could work.” She looked down modestly, tracing a finger along the seam in the quilt, and couldn’t resist sharing. “The teacher gave me an A+ on it.”
“I’ll bet he did.” Naomi’s voice was so soft, and there were tears in it. Grace looked up to see her rubbing at her mouth, trying to hide the quiver there. She smiled, but some of the tears spilled free. She wiped at them and heaved a deep, shaky breath. “I’m sorry, honey, it’s just that you’re breaking my heart a little bit. It’s a mom thing. Nothing for you to worry about.” She sighed again and fixed Grace with a look that would not be distracted. “Grace, you need to tell me who the father of your baby was. I’m pretty certain I’m putting together what happened to you, but I need you to tell it all out, as much as you can. Then we can decide together what to tell your dad.”
And just like that, Grace was slammed back down into the place where words wouldn’t come, where stuttering was the best she could produce. “I…it’s just that I don’t…it doesn’t really matter, see?”
Naomi moved to sit by her on the bed. Up close, Grace could see where grief had cut lines in her pretty face. The older woman picked up her hands and held them so delicately, like they were baby birds. “How about if I tell you what I think I know, and you can tell me ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ You can just nod or shake your head, if that’s easier. Shall we try?”
Grace nodded. Over the next few minutes, Naomi talked, and Grace responded, yes or no. Naomi had guessed so much of it, it wasn’t that painful. Not until they came to the whereabouts of Grace’s baby did they hit a roadblock.
Naomi frowned. “I don’t understand, honey. I know your baby is alive, but where is it now?” She swallowed, but kept her tone gentle. “Did you abandon it? It’s okay to tell me, it really is.”
“No.” Grace closed her eyes, and felt exhaustion pull her towards sleep, but she needed to finish this. She opened her eyes again, and said, “Quinn. He’s a boy from home – we traveled together from Limon. He saved me.” The words came easily now, to her intense relief. “He helped get me away from the gang. He took care of me and kept us safe. He delivered the baby. She’s with him.”
“That’s where you want to go, isn’t it? You left them, to spy on the gang, and you want to go get them, take them to Woodland Park with us.”
“Yes.” The word came out as a sob. Grace clutched Naomi’s hands, and felt the awful remorse rise in her chest like the swell of the tide. “Yes,” she sobbed again. “We need to go get them. I shouldn’t have left, but I had to go. I had to, and I have to tell him how sorry I am!”
Sobs tore out of her, faster and faster, until the torrent would not be stopped. She curled on her side and cried out a year’s worth of grief and fear, cried for her mom, for her baby brother, for the gaping loneliness where Quinn belonged, for a baby girl who had been born of violence and pain. And she cried for herself, for the terrible things she hadn’t even known about until they’d been done to her.
Dimly, she heard the bedroom door open, heard her father’s worried voice, felt his big hand cup the back of her head. She opened her swollen eyes to see his face, almost unrecognizable, twisted as it was in pain. “Gracie,” he rasped, “Tell me how to make it better, sweetheart, and I will. Just tell me how.”
She reached her arms up, and he sat down beside her, scooping her close to cradle her in his strong, strong arms. She pressed her face to his chest and just breathed him in, the scent of childhood, love and safety. The terrible tightness in her chest eased, the endless need to watch her back, to sleep with one eye open and both ears on. She dropped into sleep to the murmur of his voice, the slow circling of his hand on her back.
Afternoon slid into night, and she drifted in and out of sleep, rousing to eat again, sometimes hearing the murmur of their voices, sometimes just listening to the beat of her dad’s heart as he held her. Only once did she wake to find him gone, in the early gray of morning. Naomi was there, humming a soft lullaby, her pretty hands stroking Grace’s butchered hair. Grace rolled onto her back and raised her own hand to touch the uneven, choppy mess self-consciously. Fresh tears slid free.
“I had to cut it,” she said. “I did a terrible job on purpose. It looked so bad it made me cry, isn’t that dumb? After everything else?”
“Not one thing dumb about it.” Naomi reached up to touch her own hair, smiling ruefully. “I just avoid mirrors. My stylist would have a heart attack if she could see me now. When we get home, I’ll see if I can clean it up if you like, or maybe Layla could try. You’re going to like her, I have a feeling. Your dad went to take care of the horses. If you’re up to it, we’ll start for Woodland Park today. We’ve got gear to camp with if you get tired. What do you say we get you up and see how steady you are?”
Grace sat up, and the room didn’t wobble at all. Naomi hovered close by as she used the bathroom – they had rigged up a bucket similar to the one Quinn had improvised for use as a toilet – then came back to sit on the edge of the bed while Naomi searched through the drawers and closets. “Piper is bigger than you, but we’ll find something that works. Do you have a favorite color?”
Why the question made her cry again, Grace couldn’t begin to explain. Naomi looked up at the first wet sniffle and moved to pat her back matter-of-factly. “Honey. I’ll tell you what I always told my girls: Tears are like rain. They help you grow, so just let them fall.” She crouched down so she was at eye level. “Do you like dogs?”
Grace sniffed again, thinking of the dog pack she and Quinn had always been on the lookout for. “I used to. Why?”
Naomi smiled and rose, going to the bedroom door. She spoke to someone outside in the hallway. “No, Hades, not you, you’re too much of a tank. All right, you can come in, but you’re going to lie down like a gentleman, got it? Persephone, why don’t you go see if that beautiful girl over there would like to meet you?”
Grace’s eyes widened when the biggest Rottweiler she’d ever seen stepped into the doorway. He cocked his head at her, whined, then looked up at Naomi, who just pointed at the floor. Grumbling, he curled up right where she had indicated, watching with liquid eyes as a golden fairy-like dog danced across the room, her tail a wagging blur.
Through her tears, Grace smiled. “Oh, she’s so cute!” She held her arms out, and the little dog leaped into them, quivering with delight. Grace laughed. She actually laughed, and it felt so, so good.
“That’s Persephone you’ve got, and this is Hades,” Naomi said. She moved to crouch by the big Rottweiler, who pressed into her stroking hand. “This guy can be overwhelming, but he would never, ever hurt you. His heart is a great golden thing, isn’t it, my sweet boy?”
Grace held Persephone up, who licked the end of her nose and made her laugh again. “Ruler of the Underworld and the girl he tricked into marriage.” She kissed Persephone’s bright head between her butterfly-like ears. “How could you fall for that pomegranate thing? Wasn’t it a little obvious?”
She looked up, and Naomi was once again watching her with a hint of awe. “You’re kind of like a living, breathing encyclopedia, aren’t you?”
Grace cuddled Persephone close, marveling at how good the warm weight of her felt in her arms. “My brother used to call me ‘Groogle.’ My name, plus ‘Google.’”
“I remember.” Her father’s voice. Grace looked up, and he was standing in the doorway, smiling at her in joy and in sorrow. “Naomi told me, about Benji and your mom, and Wayne. I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone, sweetheart.” Before Grace could wonder what else Naomi had told him, Persephone struggled free of her arms and raced across the room to launch into her dad’s arms. He caught her and bent his head to kiss her just where Grace had.
Naomi moved to sit beside her on the bed, speaking low. “It’s okay. He knows some things, but not all. He also knows that you’re not ready to talk about some of it yet. We’ll just take it slow, okay?” Then, she inclined her head towards Martin and Persephone, who was now licking his chin in frantic adoration. “Don’t feel bad. Persephone was mine, until your dad came into the picture. If he’s in the vicinity, I’m chopped liver.”
Martin set Persephone down, and she scooted back to Grace’s lap, curling into a tiny, snuggly ball. Grace stroked her soft fur, threading her fingers carefully through the drape of her ears. “It feels so good to hold her. Like a –” She’d been about to say, “Like a baby,” but her throat closed up. There was a beat of silence, then her dad spoke.
“She feels like a baby, doesn’t she? I thought so, too, the first time I held her. It was a comfort to me. Still is.” He looked down at the floor, then spoke to his boots. “I lost your step-mom, Grace, and little baby Michael.”
Grace leaned into Naomi. “Daddy. I’m so sorry.” She re-oriented around this information. “So it’s just you and me left. Just us.”
Martin looked up, and his eyes touched Naomi. He smiled crookedly. “No, sweetheart. Not just us. Now, you three are a real pretty picture and all, but we’re wasting daylight. Gracie, did Naomi tell you we’d like to ride out today? Do you feel up to it?”
Grace nodded, then buried her face in Persephone’s fur to hide. “There’s somewhere we need to go first. Something we need to do.” She shook her head slightly, remembering that she didn’t need to keep her secrets alone anymore. “We need to go to Garden of the Gods – well, Rock Ledge Ranch, really. There are people there we need to take with us.”
She could feel them looking at each other, and the silence was thick with unspoken words. Then, her dad spoke. “Can you tell us a little more?”
Grace could feel the effort he made to invite the information rather than demanding it, and it made her heart clutch with love for him. Her pushy, demanding Marine dad had mellowed right out. She looked up, peering through Persephone’s ears. “It’s Quinn Harris. And…” She couldn’t speak of the baby. Not yet. She’d cross that bridge when she came to it. “Do you remember? His family lived just to the north of us, that ranch with all the boys?”
“You were dating William.”
Grace nodded, but didn’t elaborate, not on any of it. William’s death. Why she had traveled from Limon with Quinn, but wasn’t with him now. The identity of the other person she had alluded to. She didn’t need to. Her dad just nodded, and started re-working his plans. “All right, if that’s what we need to do, it’s done. We’ve got three horses. We’ll have to share, with one of us walking, I guess –”
“There are horses there. Quinn’s Koda, and a little mustang named Kava that was at the ranch when we got there. She’s a sweetie.” Her dad didn’t need one bit of this information, but it was information she could give. “There are supplies, too, if we need them. We canned a bunch of stuff from the garden last summer, we had a really bumper crop of tomatoes and green beans, it was crazy…”
She let her voice trail away. Her dad was watching her with a worried frown, and he folded his lips in on themselves to keep himself from asking any one of the hundreds of questions he must have. Grace stood up, then knelt to put Persephone on the floor. “I feel really good. I’m ready to go. Just let me get dressed.”
She ate breakfast while her dad and Naomi ferried supplies to the basement, where there was a hidden storage room, Naomi explained. Apparently, they’d been provisioned for a much longer trip, and they were planning to leave most of it behind. Grace would be riding the pack horse, an Appaloosa named Pasha; they’d included a saddle for her in their gear, planning on bringing kids back with them. By the time she finished eating, they were ready to go.
They rode out, accompanied by brilliant sunshine, stopping first to say goodbye to the group at the Bear Creek Nature Center. Naomi hugged a man named Ed, promising to see him again, and Grace’s eyes swept the crowd automatically. A pair of teenage boys were staring and nudging each other. When her eyes met theirs, they both grinned and puffed up, like boys do. She dropped her eyes, folding her arms around herself. She could hardly remember a time when she would have grinned back.
When they reached Old Colorado City, Grace took the lead, winding them through one of the many paths she’d memorized, stopping them constantly to check their back trail and listen. They stopped at her last hidey-hole, and her dad followed her inside. She emptied out the grubby backpack she’d been using, taking only the dog-eared, precious manuscript, and they were on their way again. On the edge of the park, she insisted they stop for the count to 1,000. She could feel Martin and Naomi looking at each other again, talking about her without words, but she didn’t care. This had to be done properly.
Instead of climbing the ridge, Grace led them straight into Rock Ledge Ranch, her heart pounding. Pasha picked up on her energy and broke into a trot, then a canter. Grace let her go, exhilarated, and rode into the tiny clearing by the cabin ahead of her father and Naomi. She slid out of the saddle by the small, circular corral, and looped Pasha’s reins around one of the logs. Then she ran to the cabin.
“Quinn! Quinn, it’s me, Grace!” She didn’t want to startle him by bursting in, and hesitated at the door. She heard her father and Naomi ride up, and for the first time, she noticed how still everything was. Too still. Her whole body started to shake. “Quinn? Quinn, please answer me!”
She shoved the cabin door open. Empty. Cold. Deserted. Her breath started coming in sobbing gasps. She ran back to Pasha and hurled herself onto her back, wheeling her to ride for the barn and the Chamber house, praying, praying. At the barn, she found all the stables and stalls empty – the goats and sheep were grazing out in the open field, and the chickens had likewise been released from the coop. The horses were nowhere to be seen.
And she knew before she burst into the kitchen at the Chamber house, before her frantic eyes had darted around, noting the layer of undisturbed dust. Her father stepped into the kitchen just in time to catch her when her legs crumpled underneath her.
They were gone.