Before We Were Yours(27)

A hope spark tries to catch fire in me, but I can’t find it much tinder. It snuffs out when Miss Tann looks my way.

Fern crawls up my chest, her knees poking into my belly. “I want Briny,” she whisper-whines.

“Hop to. Time to go inside. You’ll be just fine here,” Miss Tann tells us. “If you’re good. Am I understood?”

“Yes’m,” I try to answer for all of us, but Camellia’s not giving up so easy.

“Where’s Briny?” She ain’t happy about this whole thing and she’s working up to a blind-mad fit over it. I can feel it like a storm blowing in.

“Hush, Camellia!” I snap. “Do what she says.”

Miss Tann smiles a little. “Very good. You see? All of this can be quite simple. Mrs. Murphy will take care of you.”

She waits for the driver to come around and open the car door. Then she climbs out first, taking my little brother and pulling Lark by the hand. Lark looks at me with wide eyes, but like always, she won’t fight. She’s quiet as a kitten in the hay.

“You next.” The woman wants me, and I scoot across, my knees knocking into the brown-eyed boy and girl on the floorboard. Fern wraps her arms around my neck so tight I almost can’t get a breath.

“You two, now.”

The kids who were in the car before us clamber out onto the driveway.

“Now you.” Miss Tann’s voice lowers when she looks at Camellia. She turns Gabion and Lark over to me and stands right at the car door, her legs braced apart, her body blocking the way out. She’s not a small woman. She towers over me and she looks strong.

“Come on along, Camellia.” I’m begging her to be good, and she knows what I’m asking. So far, she hasn’t moved an inch. She’s got her hand around behind her back, and I’m afraid she’s planning to try the other door. What use would there be in that? We don’t know where we are or how to get back to the river or find the hospital. Our only hope is that, if we’re good like Miss Tann says, we really will get to see Briny and Queenie.

Or that Silas will tell them what happened and our folks will come find us.

Camellia’s shoulder jerks a little, and I hear the handle click. The door sticks, and Camellia’s nose flares. She turns around to push, and Miss Tann sighs and leans inside.

When she lumbers back out, she’s dragging Camellia by her clothes. “That is enough of that! You will straighten up and behave yourself.”

“Camellia, stop!” I yell.

“Mellia, no, no!” Fern’s voice is like an echo.

Gabion throws back his head and screams, the sound bouncing off the house and floating into the trees.

Miss Tann twists her grip so she’s got a good hold on Camellia. “Do we understand one another?” Her round cheeks are red and sweaty. Her gray eyes bug out behind her glasses.

When Camellia squeezes her lips tight, I think Miss Tann might swat that look right off her face, but she doesn’t. Instead, she whispers something close to Camellia’s ear, then stands over her. “We’ll be just fine now, won’t we?”

Camellia’s mouth still looks like she’s sucked a lemon.

The moment teeters like a bottle on the edge of the Arcadia’s deck, waiting to topple down and be swept off in the river.

“Won’t we?” Miss Tann repeats.

Camellia’s dark eyes burn, but she nods.

“Very well then.”

Miss Tann puts us in a line, and Camellia marches up the steps with the rest of us. From behind the iron fence, boys and girls of all sizes watch. Not a single one smiles.

Inside, the big house smells. The curtains are pulled everywhere, and it’s shadowy. There’s a wide staircase in the front hall. Two boys sit on the top step. One of them reminds me of Silas but bigger, except his hair is red as fox fur. These boys don’t look a thing like the kids in the yard or the boy in the tree. They can’t all be brothers and sisters.

Who are they? How many are there? Do they live here? Are they all here to clean up so they can see their mamas and daddies at the hospital?

What is this place?

We’re taken into a room where a woman waits behind a desk. She’s small compared to Miss Tann, her arms so thin the bones and veins show. Her nose pokes from her glasses, hooked like an owl’s beak. It wrinkles when she looks at us. Then she smiles and stands and greets Miss Tann. “How are you today, Georgia?”

“Very well, thank you, Mrs. Murphy. It has been quite a productive morning, I daresay.”

“I can see that it has.”

Stroking her fingers along the desk, Mrs. Murphy draws trails in the dust as she moves toward us. One side of her lip comes up and an eyetooth flashes. “Good gracious. Where did you unearth these little waifs?”

The kids cluster close to me, even the ones I don’t know. I hang on to Fern on one hip and Gabion on the other. My arms are starting to go numb, but I’m not letting go.

“Aren’t they a pitiful lot?” Miss Tann says. “I do believe we’ve removed them just in time. Have you space for all of them? It would be the simplest thing. I expect to move some of them quite quickly.”

“Look at that hair….” Mrs. Murphy comes closer, and Miss Tann follows. Miss Tann’s bulky body shuffles side to side as she walks. For the first time, I notice that she’s got a bum leg.