Before We Were Yours(67)

“Y-yes’m…n-n-no’m.”

“Well, which is it?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

Her fingers close around my chin. She stretches my neck and leans close. I smell talcum powder and sour breath. “Not so talkative now, are we? Perhaps you’ve seen the error of your ways?”

I manage a tiny nod.

A smile pinches her mouth, and her eyes take on a hungry shine, like she can feel the fear in me and she likes it. “Perhaps you should have thought of that before you invented some ridiculous story about your fictitious sister and poor Mr. Riggs.”

Blood pounds in my head. I try to make sense of what she’s saying, but I can’t.

“There never was any…Camellia. You and I both know that, don’t we, May? There were four of you when you came here. Two little sisters and one little brother. Only four. And we’ve done a marvelous job in finding homes, thus far. Good homes. And for that, you are most grateful, aren’t you?” She motions to Mrs. Pulnik. The weight lifts off my shoulders. Miss Tann pulls me up by my chin until I’m standing there in front of her. “There will be no more of this nonsense out of you. Do you understand?”

I nod and hate myself at the same time. It’s wrong. Everything I told Miss Dodd was true. But I can’t go back in the basement. I have to find Fern and make sure they haven’t hurt her. Fern’s all I’ve got left.

“Good.” Miss Tann lets me go and folds her hands one over the other and rocks back on her heels, her dress swaying around her knees.

Mrs. Murphy laughs under her breath. “Well, the little guttersnipes do have brains in their empty heads after all.”

Miss Tann’s lips curve upward, but it’s the kind of smile that makes you cold when you look at it. “Even the most unwilling can be taught. It’s only a matter of what means are needed to properly impart the lesson.” She squints, looking me over from head to toe before the clock on the fireplace mantel chimes and grabs her attention. “I really must be on about my business.” She brushes past, leaving her powdery scent in the room. I try not to breathe it in, but it sticks in my nose.

Mrs. Murphy sits down at her desk and picks up some papers like she’s forgotten I’m there. “From now on, you will be grateful for my hospitality.”

“Y-yes’m. C-could I see Fern now?” It’s all I can do to make myself ask, but I have to. “M-Mrs. Murphy?”

She doesn’t look up. “Your sister is gone. She’s been adopted. You’ll never see her again. You may go outside for playtime with the other children now.” Sorting through the papers, she picks up a pen. “Mrs. Pulnik, please be certain that May has a bath before you move her upstairs to her new bed tonight. I can’t bear the smell of her.”

“I will see that this is accomplishedt.”

Mrs. Pulnik wraps a hand around my arm, but I hardly even feel it. When she leaves me outside, I just sit for a long time on the porch steps. The other kids wander by and look at me like I’m an animal from the zoo.

I don’t pay them any mind.

Stevie comes and tries to crawl into my lap, and I can’t even stand to have him close. It makes me think of Fern.

“Go on and play with the trucks,” I tell him, then walk off across the yard, all the way to the fence behind the church house, and crawl up under a nest of wild grapevines to hide.

I look through the leaves at the bedroom windows where the girls sleep and I wonder, If I jump from one tonight, will I die?

I can’t live without Fern. We’ve been joined at the heart since she was born.

Now my heart’s gone.

I lay my head down and feel the pinpoints of sun on my neck, and let sleep come over me, and hope I won’t wake up.

When I do, someone’s touching my arm. I jerk away and wobble into a squat, thinking it’s Riggs. But the face that looks back at me makes me believe I’m still in a dream.

I must be.

“Silas?”

He puts a finger to his lips. “Sssshhhh,” he whispers.

I reach through the bars, my hands shaking and stretching. I have to see if he’s real.

His fingers close over mine. He holds tight. “We found where you was, finally,” he says. “A lady at the hospital got your mama and daddy to sign some papers right after the babies came. They told your daddy if he’d sign it all, he could get Queenie’s doctor bill paid for and the babies would be buried proper. But that ain’t what the papers was for at all. It let them come and take you off the Arcadia. When Briny and Zede went to the police, they said Briny had signed y’all over to the Tennessee Children’s Home Society––there was nothin’ to be done about it, and that’s that. We been hunting y’all for weeks. That lady, Miss Dodd, she finally found us and told us where y’all was. I been comin’ here and watchin’ this place every chance I get, hopin’ to see that you’s still here.”

“They’ve been keeping me inside. I got in trouble.” I look around in the vines. I still can’t believe what’s happening. I must be making it up in my head. “Where’s Queenie and Briny?”

“Takin’ care of the Arcadia. Getting her ready to set off on the river again. She’s been tied up a long time.”

I sag against the bars. My skin goes hot and red. Sweat runs under the ragged nighty I’ve been wearing for weeks now. What’ll Briny think of me when he knows the truth? “They took everybody. They took everybody but me. I couldn’t do what Briny said. I couldn’t keep us together.”