Before We Were Yours(28)

“Yes, quite something, isn’t it? Four curly blonds all from the same family and…that one.” She snorts and turns an eye on Camellia.

“Oh, surely she isn’t one of this batch.” Mrs. Murphy looks at me. “Is this your sister?”

“Y-yes’m,” I say.

“And her name is?”

“C-Camellia.”

“Quite a fancy name for such a common little thing. And all those silly freckles. Looks as though the stork dropped you into the wrong nest.”

“She isn’t one to cooperate,” Miss Tann warns. “We’ve had trouble with her already. A little black sheep, in more ways than one.”

Mrs. Murphy’s eyes narrow. “Oh my. Well, I do expect good behavior in this house. Those who fail to meet my expectations will not be allowed to keep company above stairs with the rest of the children.” She runs her tongue along her teeth.

My skin turns cold. Fern and Gabion wrap their arms tighter around my neck. It’s clear enough what Mrs. Murphy means. If Camellia makes her mad, they’ll take her away and put her…someplace else.

Camellia nods, but I can tell she don’t mean it a bit.

“These other two with the dirt-blond hair were…found along the way.” Miss Tann gathers the boy and girl who rode on the floor with Camellia. Both have long, straight straw-brown hair and big brown eyes. The way the little boy is hanging on to the girl, I’m sure she’s his big sister. “More river rats, of course, although the camp down there was nearly empty. They must have gotten word somehow.”

“Such darling faces.”

“Yes, truly. These with the curls are almost angelic. They’ll be in great demand, I predict.”

Mrs. Murphy pulls away. “But good gracious! They stink of the river. I can’t have that in my house, certainly. They’ll have to stay outside until bath time.”

“Don’t let them out until you’re certain they fully understand the rules here.” Miss Tann drops a hand on Camellia’s shoulder, and Camellia’s head twitches so that I can tell the woman’s fingers are digging in hard. “This one is a runner. She tried to bolt from the car, of all things. Those cows along the river bottom do know how to produce them, but not how to teach them to behave. This batch will need some work.”

“Of course. Don’t they all?” Mrs. Murphy nods. She focuses on me again. “And your name is?”

“Rill. Rill Foss.” I try not to say anything more, but it spills out. I can’t make sense of what they’re talking about, and my heart is pounding. My knees tremble under the weight of my baby brother and sister, but that’s not the only reason. I’m scared to death. Miss Tann plans to leave us here? For how long? “When can we go see our mama and daddy? They’re at the hospital. Mama had a baby, and—”

“Hush,” Mrs. Murphy says. “First things first. You will take the children into the hallway and sit them on the floor along the stairwell wall, smallest to largest. Wait there, and I’ll expect no noise and no shenanigans. Understood?”

“But…”

Miss Tann lays a hand on my shoulder this time. Her fingers squeeze around the bone. “I do not expect to have trouble from you. Surely you are smarter than your sister.”

A pain shoots down my arm, and I feel Gabion slipping. “Y-yes’m. Yes, ma’am.”

She lets go of me. I hike Gabby up again. I want to rub my shoulder, but I don’t.

“And…Rill. What sort of name is that?”

“It’s from the river. My daddy gave it to me. He says it sounds pretty as a song.”

“We’ll call you something proper. A real name for a real girl. May will do. May Weathers.”

“But I’m…”

“May.” She shoos me out the door, the other kids dragging along with me. Camellia gets warned again not to do anything except sit quiet in the hallway.

The little ones whine and whimper like puppies as I try to skin them off and set them down. Up the stairs, the two boys are gone. Somewhere outside, kids play Red Rover. I know that game from the schools we’ve gone to. When it’s the school year, Queenie and Briny usually try to tie up someplace near a river town so Camellia and me, and now Lark, can go. The rest of the time, we read books, and Briny teaches us arithmetic. He can make a cipher out of almost anything. Camellia’s a whiz at numbers. Even Fern knows her alphabet already, and she’s still too young for school. Next fall, Lark will start the first grade….

Lark looks up at me now, with her big mouse eyes, and a sick feeling bubbles in me like a black-water eddy. It’s got no place to go. It just spins round and round in circles.

“Are they takin’ us to jail?” the little girl—the one whose name I don’t even know—whispers.

“No. ’Course not,” I say. “They don’t put little kids in jail.” Do they?

Camellia’s eyes slant toward the front door. She’s wondering whether she can light out of here and get away with it.

“Don’t,” I spit under my breath. Mrs. Murphy told us not to make noise. The better we are, the more chance they’ll take us where we want to go, I figure. “We need to stay together. Briny’s gonna come get us soon’s he knows we’re not on the Arcadia. Soon’s Silas tells him what happened. We’ve gotta be all in one place when he shows up. You hear me?” I sound like Queenie when there’s breaking ice on the water and she won’t let us hang over the rail in case a floe might hit the boat and shake us off into the river. Times like that, she wants us to know she means it when she says no. She don’t get that way too often.