The Family (20 page)

“Follow me.” He began to lead her toward the stables. She followed obediently. She desperately wanted to know what had happened to her mother, but to say anything would be to give Avery away. She would have to wait.

When they arrived at the stables, Farriss was there. He looked solemn, sad.

Something was wrong; Twig could feel it. Sapphire. Had the guards done something to her? Been too rough when they took her back to the stables yesterday?

“Farriss, what’s wrong?” Twig asked quietly.

Farriss glowered at her, but he did not say a word. Adam led her back to Sapphire’s stall. She was there. She was fine. She whinnied with delight at the sight of Twig. She pressed her head into Twig’s neck and lovingly enveloped Twig’s hand with her big pink tongue and mouth. Twig let out a deep breath, her pain from last night dissipating as she nuzzled into the softness and breadth of Sapphire’s neck.

“You need to say goodbye to her, Twig,” she heard Adam say behind her.

“What do you mean?” She must have misheard him.

He took her hand and pulled her gently away from the horse. Sapphire stuck her head out of her stall, moving her head from side to side to indicate she wanted more of Twig’s affection. Adam held Twig’s shoulder while Farris put a bridle on Sapphire’s head and then led her out of the stall into a ring in front of the stables.

“I don’t understand.” Twig turned to look at Adam. He nodded, indicating for her to walk to the ring, but he stopped her from actually entering. Farriss disappeared into the stables and then came back with a large black satchel. Twig watched him in horror. Something was very wrong. She felt bile rising in her throat.

“What are you doing?” She could only manage a whisper. Her eyes filled with tears, her throat closing. Farriss removed a case from the satchel and took out a syringe that had a very long, thin needle. He filled the syringe with liquid.

“Tell her what you are doing, Farriss,” Adam said.

“I am administering a tranquilizer,” Farriss said. His voice was a stone of anger and distance. He was obviously in pain. Twig saw blackness at her periphery. A liquid blackness seeping inside of her.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute since Farriss administered the shot. Sapphire’s limbs went sickeningly limp and folded beneath her. The horse dropped to the ground. Twig opened her mouth and vomited. Adam held her back from running to Sapphire’s side. She began to shake violently. This was happening too fast; this couldn’t be happening. She had to stop this.

Farriss took out another syringe. Twig grabbed onto Adam. “Please,” she begged. “Please stop this,” she could barely speak. “I’ll do anything. Stop this now.” She trembled and clawed at him. He put his arms around her. He nodded toward Farriss to continue.

Farriss took a deep breath. He wiped his brow with his sleeve. Wiped the tears that had begun to spill from his large, dark eyes. “Are you certain, Father?”

Adam nodded in response, tightening his grip on Twig.

“Please let me say goodbye,” Twig managed to say. “Please, I beg of you.”

Adam released her. She tore away from him and ran to Sapphire. She fell to her knees and put the horse’s head in her lap. She stroked her, covered her in kisses. She let her fingers fly over the horse’s muzzle, head, ears, and mane, trying to memorize every inch of her. Sapphire’s eyes were open, blinking. Twig stared deeply into them. “I’m here, baby. I’m here. I’m so sorry.” She was sobbing.

“Farriss, continue.” Adam was standing over them now.

“Twig, put her head down,” Farriss said. “Stay away from her mouth. She may bite.” Twig looked at him, confused. His voice was so hoarse it came out as a whisper. He injected the horse once more.

“Keep talking, Farriss,” Adam instructed.

Farriss didn’t take his eyes off Sapphire. “I’ve administered a sodium pentobarbital barbiturate. It will depress her central nervous system to the point of respiratory and cardiac arrest. It will kill her.”

Sapphire began to thrash about, suffocating from the inside.

Twig’s own lungs feeling as if they were shutting down on her. She was crouched next to Sapphire’s head now. Almost as soon as it started, the thrashing stopped. Twig watched Sapphire’s belly still moving up and down, but in the limpness of her head, her sudden stillness, Twig knew she was gone. The only life left in her was the cruel workings of the body, something strange and mechanical still persisting when all else was gone. Sapphire was gone.

The horse’s belly went still. Farriss waved his hand over her eyes; they stayed motionless, her pupils dilated, still and infinitely black.

“She’s gone,” he announced.

Twig felt something collapse inside her. Waves of thick black tar covered her insides. She lay down next to her horse, pulled herself into a fetal position and rocked to stop the pain. She pressed herself into Sapphire’s neck until Adam picked her up.

“You are washed clean now, my darling,” he whispered in her ear, carrying her away. “Your sins are washed away.” He carried her out of the corral and back toward the compound, speaking to her calmly and evenly the whole way. “I know how painful that was for you, but I had to teach you. I had to get your attention, my dear sweet love. You are going to be my wife. You are held to a different standard. You cannot waiver. You are a leader now.”

“Was it a trick?” Twig said, barely hearing what he was saying to her. “Please, Father, tell me you just wanted to scare me. Please. Tell me if we go back, she will be fine. She’ll wake up. You just wanted to scare me…”

Adam sat down with Twig still in his arms. She was so weak with grief she collapsed into him. She waited for him to tell her Sapphire was still alive. She would see her again, she would ride her again, care for her again, feed her, groom her. Her heart would beat beneath Twig’s devoted embrace.

“It grieves me to hurt you like this, my little one.” His face contorted with pain as he looked at her. “But it has to be. You will never forget now. You will recover from this, and you will find new strength. I promise. This pain will go away.”

“No,” she said, still shaking violently. “I will never be the same.”

“No, you won’t. But you’ll find, ultimately, that that is a good thing. It was a bad attachment. An attachment like that is something that will only weaken you, draw away your focus. And your focus needs to be on your Family, on what I teach you.”

“On you,” she said.

“Yes, on me.”

“I can stand now,” she said. She had to get away from him. “Can I go to my cottage now, Father?”

He looked at her for a moment, searching her face for something. He took a deep breath. “You may hate me now, Twig. But this will draw us closer.” He looked at her with sympathy. “Go home now. Go rest. You are excused from the day’s activities, but I want to see you at dinner.”

* * *

Avery was in the kitchen pacing when Twig walked in.

“We need to get our stories straight,” she said as soon as she saw Twig. Her eyes were wild with anxiety. She was visibly shaken. She didn’t notice the state Twig was in.

“He’s forced me into a real corner.” Avery was firing words out like bullets. Twig had slumped into a chair, not listening to a word her mother was saying. Right now she didn’t care about anything. She was so filled with pain and shock that she felt half dead.

Avery stopped talking when she finally noticed Twig wasn’t listening. She squinted her eyes at Twig and asked quietly, “What’s happened?”

Twig closed her eyes. Fresh tears she didn’t think she had left spilled down her cheeks. She felt utterly alone. Avery came to her side and kneeled down next to her, her brow furrowed with worry. She took Twig’s hand gently and repeated her question. “What’s happened, Twig? Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?” Avery took Twig’s face in her hands, and Twig broke into sobs, her slight back convulsing. Avery gasped. “Did he—” she paused. “Did he touch you?”

Twig opened her eyes and looked at her mother. “He killed Sapphire,” she said. She gazed at her mother, her expression pleading for some sort of explanation, some sort of help.

“Oh, Twig,” Avery sighed. She shook her head with sympathy but was obviously relieved. “I’m so sorry, Twig. Come here.” Avery took Twig in her arms.

“She’s gone, Mommy.”

Avery just held her. “I’m so sorry, baby. So very sorry.”

“It feels like someone has ripped my chest open. It hurts so bad.” Twig started to feel like she was going faint. The black was at her periphery again; she was dizzy. She pushed Avery away and put her head between her knees to keep from passing out. “I need some water. I was in isolation all night.”

Avery ran to the sink and got Twig a glass of water. She looked around the kitchen, but all they had were bananas. “Just take a small sip, and when you can manage it, take a small bite of this, just to get some potassium back into you.” Twig took the water, but she shook her head at the banana. She was too nauseated.

She looked at Avery. Something in Twig began to harden. This was Avery’s fault. This was the result of her selfishness. If she had come with her yesterday, none of this would have happened.

“What is wrong with you?” Twig said stonily. “Really, what is wrong with you? This is your fault.”

“What do you mean?” Avery asked, confused, eyeing Twig warily.

“You couldn’t just come with me yesterday? You were
tired
? A little
sad
? Just didn’t
feel like it
? Did anything happen to you when you came back? Did you spend a night in isolation pissing on yourself?”

“Twig, calm down.”

“I am sick of being calm! You are a selfish monster, and you have been lying to me my whole life!”

“Twig, what are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Do you want to have this conversation now?”

“Yes! Yes, I want to have it now! Do you? Are you going to run away from me like the coward that you are? Or are you going to actually talk to me?”

“I was planning on talking to you when you came in. I talked to Doc, and he gave me a pretty nice ultimatum.”

Twig took a few more sips of water. It felt better to be angry than to feel the pain of the loss of Sapphire.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Twig? I know you are angry, but maybe we should try to get you some broth or something—”

“I’m okay. We need to talk about this. What did Doc say to you?”

“He told me you came to him, asking about your childhood, your father, and me. The thing I don’t understand, Twig, is why would you go to him and not come to me?”

Twig turned sharply toward her mother. Her anger was rising again.

“I was going to tell you yesterday at Gran’s!” Twig said, completely exasperated.

The two women stared at each other in silence for a moment. Twig was nearly shaking, holding back her rage.

“It was all lies. I just want you to know that. Everything he told you. You are not crazy,” Avery whispered, trying to appeal to Twig. “He told me to tell you that you were imagining things, but you’re not.”

“I know,” Twig answered. She was calming down. She was too exhausted to hold this pitch of emotion much longer.

“You know?”

“I mean, I think I know. Tina said as much.”

“Tina?” Avery looked confused.

“Yes, she overheard my talk with Doc,” Twig said warily.

Had the last forty-eight hours been real? Now she began to wonder if she’d dreamt it all during her feverish sleep in isolation. Had she really had that conversation with Tina? It seemed so unreal now.

“And she told you Doc was lying? Why would she do that?”

Twig sucked her breath in. “She said I’d have to do her a favor one day.”

“A favor?”

“Give her money. She said she is going to leave one day, and I that I need to give her money to do it.”

“Jesus.” Avery was shaking her head. “She can’t threaten you. You’re the apple of Adam’s eye right now. What is she thinking?”

“He has a really nice way of treating the apple of his eye,” Twig said bitterly. She thought of Sapphire.

“May I?” Avery pulled out the chair next to Twig. Twig nodded but got up to refill her water glass.

“Keep sipping. You need to take it slow.” Avery had experience with coming out of isolation. “So you didn’t buy it when Doc said you were as crazy as your mother?” Avery looked at Twig. They were both calmer now.

“I bought it completely, actually. I mean, not that I think you’re crazy, Mom. I just bought what he told me. Why wouldn’t I? If it weren’t for Tina, I would have taken the pills he gave me. I would have thought that I had lost my mind, or was close, anyway.” She stopped talking for a moment, thinking. “Do they want to make me lose my mind? By killing my horse?”

“This is all my fault. All of it. You are right, Twig. I’m a terrible person, and I am a terrible mother.” Avery looked at the floor.

“It’s true.”

Avery looked at Twig, surprised.

Twig smiled—a strange, hopeless smile, but a smile. “You kind of are. But Doc and Adam make you look pretty good. And you’re the only mother I have.” Twig’s voice turned serious again. “But don’t ever do that to me again, Mom.”

“I won’t,” Avery said quickly. “I promise, I won’t.” The two women were silent for a while.

“I thought he loved me,” Avery said suddenly, her voice low and sad.

Twig looked at her mother. “Go on,” Twig said.

Avery smiled for a moment. “I had just started graduate school at NYU. We, your father and I, lived in Connecticut, and I was commuting a few times a week to the city.”

“You were in graduate school in New York City?”

Avery smiled again. Something flickered in her gray eyes. “I was going to be an anthropologist, if you can believe it.”

“I can believe it, Mom,” Twig said sweetly, coming out of her fog. She reached for the banana and began to peel it.

“I was certainly messed up then, but in a different way. I sort of had your energy and spunk without your wisdom to curb it all. You have this ability to contain your emotions that I’ve never had.”

Twig thought about Leo and wondered how much wisdom she had. She had also been meditating daily since she was eight years old. It kind of made keeping your emotions in check easy. But she kept quiet and listened.