The Blood Lie (14 page)

The diner grew mute.

“Savages,” Buzzy Degon finally said from the counter. “Well, sooner or later the truth will come out. Then they'll get theirs.”

“Stop already,” said his wife. “Someone's gonna find the little girl.”

“What's left of her,” Buzzy said, toying with his sugar doughnut. “Let's just hope it's nobody faint-hearted.”

Gus just smiled.

“Why did the chickens all fly away?” Martha had her face pressed to the dining room window. Her hair was still wet from her morning bath, and the back of her neck was prickled with goose bumps. Jack stood behind her, not knowing what to say. “Is that why Mama didn't want to go to the rabbi's?” she asked. “Because of the chickens?”

Jack lifted a hand to her bony shoulder. “Mama's sad about the birds,” he said, “just like we are. She doesn't feel like going anywhere. So we're going to stay home. For now.”

“Oh.” The word dampened the window. “But why did the chickens go away? Harry told me chickens can't fly. I knew he was wrong. I wanted to make a roof for them, for the coop, to keep them in, and he told me I didn't need to. He's such a stupid liar.”

“Am not,” said Harry, staggering sleepily into the room, at which point Jack shot him a glare. “Just because I was wrong doesn't make me a liar. Besides, if you'd built that roof, the chickens couldn't have flown off to look for Daisy.”

Martha peered at Harry with a mixture of interest and suspicion.

“Haven't you ever heard of homing pigeons?” Harry asked, dropping into the captain's chair at the head of the table. “They go out and look for things or deliver messages or do whatever their trainers want them to do. Birds are smarter than you think. And I'm pretty sure those chickens are gliding around the sky, looking for Daisy.”

Martha looked up at Jack, but he wouldn't look back. Then she walked over to Harry and put her fists on his knees, eyeing him, trying to decide whether to believe him. “Will they come back when they're done looking?” she finally asked.

“Maybe,” Harry said. “Maybe they'll come straight back to live inside a fence where people steal their eggs and dumb dogs scare the feathers off them. Or maybe they'll decide they like their freedom and stay out in the wilderness. Maybe they'll decide to live in Paradise Woods with the other critters, for all we know. That wouldn't be so bad, would it?”

Martha considered this question solemnly. She climbed into Harry's lap and examined his face. He looked right back at her. “Can we get more chickens if they don't come back?” she asked.

“Definitely,” Harry said. “Anyways, I'm hungry. Let's go see if there's any
challah
left.” He took her hand and led her to the kitchen.

Emaline was tired of answering the door. Actually, she was just plain tired. She never went back to sleep after her bad dream. How could she, with all that dread whirling round her
head? She was afraid for Daisy, terrified of what might have happened to her. She was worried about her mother. And now she couldn't stop thinking about Jack, agonizing about what he must be going through. All she wanted was to be left alone, but even that was too much to ask for.

Today since sunup, a steady stream of well-wishers had come by to drop off more food. By mid-morning, Mrs. Durham had resorted to taking a sleeping pill, one of the pills left over from the crushing insomnia following her husband's death. Now she was sleeping right through the incessant knocking and chatting, so it was up to Emaline to answer the door.

“I don't think I can look one more person in the eye and tell them I'm okay,” Emaline told Lydie as they sat in the kitchen with their beads. “Why does everyone keep asking me how I am? I'm horrid, that's how I am. Can't people see that their smiles and their greeting-card wishes only make it worse? Can't they give me a little privacy instead of casseroles?”

One of the earliest callers this morning had been Mrs. Lingstrom. She brought a jar of peaches she'd put up over the summer. Emaline thought George's mother looked a little ill or might even have been crying. She didn't mention it, though—she didn't want to get into a conversation. She was just relieved that George wasn't with her. She couldn't face him, not right now.

When the knock came shortly after noon, Emaline ignored it, hoping whoever it was would just leave their package on the steps and go. But a minute later, the knock sounded again. Reluctantly, Emaline got up and peeked through the lace curtains in the living room. “It's the Thompson twins,” she
whispered to herself. Vanessa Lee and Virginia Lou, from her class at school. Vanessa held a picnic basket on one arm, and both girls were smiling. Apparently, they didn't know that everything worth smiling about was gone.

Emaline didn't go to the door. Instead, she went back and sat with Lydie in the kitchen, resuming her beading despite the repeated knocking. “Pay no attention,” she told her cousin. But the knocking only got louder.

“Let me get rid of them,” Lydie said. She went to the door, bracing herself for the hard slap of the Thompson twins' cheerfulness.

“Hi, ladies,” Lydie said. “I'm sorry it took me so long to answer. We were—”

“That's all right,” Vanessa said brightly. “We've got something for Emaline.” From the size of their basket, it was probably a complete supper. More food that would go uneaten.

“I'll take it to her,” Lydie said.

“Oh, but we were really hoping to see her,” said Virginia. “Just for a minute?”

“Good morning, Vanessa, Virginia,” Emaline said, walking from the kitchen doorway to her cousin's side.

“Emaline,” they cooed. One of them said, “You're all we've been thinking about. The only thing.”

Emaline raised her arms to receive the basket, but instead of handing it to her, the twins stepped apart.

Behind them stood Daisy.

DAISY!

Daisy was back! Mud plastered her legs and arms, and a red trickle marred her chin, but she was alive and safe and very much home.

While Lydie shrieked, Emaline could only stare. Her eyes grew glassy and large, and her mouth trembled as her hands flew straight out to her sister. “Daisy!” she cried, crossing the threshold. She scooped her sister up and carried her inside, burying her face in the little girl's hair.

Daisy's golden eyes got wet, and she started to sob. Her knees, skinned and as filthy as if she'd spent the last twenty-four hours crawling on the ground, dug into Emaline's sides. The girls squeezed each other tightly, then tighter still, until Daisy gasped for breath.

“Thank God,” Emaline sighed, rocking and twirling and looking like she was winding up to go airborne.

“Em,” Daisy said through her tears. Her tangled hair smelled of grass. “Em, I got lost.”

“I know,” Emaline said, although that wasn't exactly true. She hadn't known whether Daisy was lost or stolen or dead.

When Emaline picked a few pieces of dried leaves from her sister's hair, Daisy winced, “Ouch!” and rubbed the back of her head.

Emaline felt Daisy's head. “Hey, you've got an egg here. What happened?”

“Dunno. I—don't remember.”

“You're bleeding too,” Emaline said, pointing to her chin, but when she wiped the red liquid, she found it was sticky and smelled sweet. “Cherry or strawberry?”

“Strawberry—licorice, from my friends,” she said, craning around to see the twins.

“How'd you know I was lost?”

“Everyone knew, silly,” Virginia said. “Everyone's been troubled sick over you.”

Daisy frowned. “Is Mommy mad?”

“Of course not,” Emaline assured her. “She's going to be very, very happy. I promise.”

“I wanna see Mommy,” she said, and then she started to cry again.

“I'll take you right upstairs to her. But Vanessa, Virginia, how—where—did you ever find her?”

“To tell the truth,” Vanessa said, “we weren't actually looking for her. She found us. We were going to have a picnic over to the point after church.” She raised her basket as evidence. “We'd just biked to the edge of the woods and were spreading out our meal, and there she was, right at our blanket. A little ragged and plenty hungry, but walking on two feet. All the way out to the point—imagine! She's got a couple pieces of my pie in her now.”

Emaline tried to grasp Vanessa's words, but they were too crazy and mixed-up. “Daisy, Daisy,” she asked, “what happened in those woods?”

Daisy shrugged. “I got lost. I couldn't get out. It was dark, and I couldn't get out.” She shuddered and laid her head heavily on her sister's shoulder.

Lydie asked, “Didn't you hear the people out there hunting for you?”

“I hid,” she said, “ 'cause Mommy told me about strangers. I hid good. They went away. But then it was too dark. I had to wait till daytime to come out, and then I saw Virginia and Vanessa—and lots and lots of food.”

“Were you scared?” Emaline asked.

“A little.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

“I didn't have any dreams.”

“Were you so cold in that bit of a coat?”

“A little.”

Emaline ran her hand down the front of Daisy's coat. She could feel her ribs and her hard little belly through the fabric. At the pocket, something soft bulged out. She reached in and extracted, of all things, Daisy's underpants wadded into a ball. “Hey,” Emaline said, “why aren't you wearing your panties?”

Daisy blushed. “I climbed over a fence with pointy things,” she said, holding the panties up so Lydie and the twins could see the rip. “I'm thirsty.”

“You come with me then,” Emaline said. “We'll go see Ma and then you can have whatever you like all day long. But first, I think you owe our friends here a big thank you.”

Daisy looked hard into Vanessa's face. She studied Virginia's poodle curls and faux pearl earrings. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but only yawned. Then she tightened her legs around Emaline, reached forward, and shut the door in the twins' face.

“Daisy,” Emaline said, reaching for the door, “that's not nice.”

“No!” Daisy pushed her sister's hand away from the knob and held the door closed until she heard the twins' footsteps going down the porch stairs. Then, when she was satisfied that the door wasn't going to fly back open, she relaxed. “I want Mommy.”

Emaline carried her mud-crusted, tear-stained, candy-drizzled prize upstairs, with Lydie following. Daisy pushed open the bedroom door with one foot and then climbed down from her sister's arms and tiptoed over to the bed. Her mother was sleeping heavily, her pillow half off the bed and her rosary at her side.

“Mommy!” Daisy shouted. “Mommy, I'm home!”

Emaline had to go over and give her mother's shoulder a little shake. First one eye opened—slowly and with effort—and then the other. Mrs. Durham was still trying to focus her vision when Daisy jumped on her. “Mommy! Mommy!”

“Daisy?” she said quietly, very quietly, afraid of waking herself if this was only a wonderful dream. “Daisy! My darling!” She grabbed hold of Daisy and sobbed so hard the bed shook.

Emaline sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing the back of the little girl with the torn stockings and matted hair.

“I'll call Mother,” Lydie said after a while. “Get her to tell the radio station and the police.” But they didn't hear her.

When Lydie checked on them just before heading home, Daisy was nestled against her mother like an extra layer of skin, and Emaline had one arm tucked around her sister's waist. The three of them mirrored each other's deep-sleep breathing and held each other like they'd never let go.