The Overnight Guest(16)

“I’m sorry,” Josie whispered.

“That’s okay,” Becky said. “My parents fight too.”

Outside the window, fireflies blinked and cicadas roared. She heard her mother calling for Roscoe. Josie thought of Ethan in his bedroom, seething with anger. She wondered what he had been up to all evening, why he had been so secretive as of late. What did her brother have to hide?



8


Present Day

Wylie pounded up the steps and did a cursory search of each of the rooms. As she threw back the shower curtain, a horrible thought hit her. “Shit,” she hissed and rushed back down the stairs. She threw open the front door and cold air and a swirl of snow swept in. She squinted into the wall of white. The storm had increased its fury. She couldn’t see beyond the front step. “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered. The child would never survive out there for very long.

Wylie took a deep breath and tried to get her wits about her. He had to be somewhere around here. She started over and retraced her steps, rechecking the closets and behind doors. Finally, she peered behind the sofa and wedged next to the wall was the boy. Dressed in the sweatshirt she had given him, he was fast asleep, thumb in his mouth. On the floor next to him was his pile of wet clothes.

Wylie strode over to the front door and flipped the dead bolt. She pulled the sofa a few feet away from the wall, giving the boy a little more space, and knelt down next to him.

His head rested at an awkward angle on the hardwood floor. Wylie reached for a throw pillow and slid it beneath his head. He barely stirred. His skin was alarmingly pale, and a strange, angry red rash encircled his mouth and crept toward his cheeks. The cut at his temple had stopped bleeding but was a bit bruised and swollen. The tips of his toes that peeked out from beneath the blanket looked waxy and hard. Small blisters had erupted on the curved edges of his ears. Frostbite.

He shivered in his sleep, and Wylie pulled the comforter from the sofa and tucked it around his small body. He was thin. Too thin.

Wylie still had so many questions. How did he end up here? Who did he belong to? She had to wait for those answers. At any rate it looked like she was going to have an overnight guest.

Wylie gathered up the boy’s wet clothing. She winced at the musty, moldy smell that emanated from them. She checked his pockets in hopes of finding something that might help identify him. There was nothing but a small figure of an action hero. She set the toy on the kitchen counter and then tossed the clothes into the washing machine.

Wylie added a few more logs to the fireplace. The wood crackled and popped and the flames danced. The wind howled and buffeted the house; the lights dimmed and then brightened again.

Wylie sat down next to Tas on the sofa. She was exhausted but the thought of how the boy got there nagged at her. In this weather, it seemed impossible that a child, dressed as he was, could walk a mile from the nearest house to the front yard of the farmhouse. He had to have come from the road. Maybe there had been a car accident.

Wylie went upstairs to a window that overlooked the front yard. She wanted to see if she could spot any hint of what might have happened. The hackberry trees were other-worldly, their sharp limbs shimmering, bending beneath a heavy glaze of ice. The lane that led to the gravel road beyond the property disappeared into white mist.

How far did the boy have to walk before collapsing in front of the house? It couldn’t have been that great of a distance. Visibility was terrible, and he was such a small boy; he couldn’t have walked that far on his own. Perhaps a vehicle went off the road somewhat nearby.

Wylie returned downstairs and pulled on her down parka and boots with cleats that would hopefully anchor her to the icy ground and keep her from falling.

She looked down at the sleeping child and considered waking him to let him know she was going outside. He was sleeping so soundly, she decided to just let him rest. Hopefully, he wouldn’t wake up while she was out and panic.

Wylie grabbed a flashlight and her hiking sticks with sharp points that could penetrate the ice. Once outside, the frigid air instantly took her breath away but at least the wind had died down a bit.

The ice was an inch thick and Wylie took a tentative step out the door and let out a breath of relief when her feet didn’t fly out from beneath her. It was only half a football field to the top of the lane, but it would be slow going, hopefully with the help of the ice cleats and the hiking sticks, she would be able to stay upright.

She moved methodically; the tap, tap of her pole tips sinking through the snow and striking the ice was like a drumbeat urging her forward. Holding both a flashlight and the hiking sticks was awkward. The light’s beam dizzily bobbed up and down with each step. She passed the spot where she found the boy. It was as if he was never there. The tracks and body-shaped indentation were already covered with fresh snow.

By the time Wylie was halfway up the lane, she was breathing hard and sweating beneath her coat. She resisted the urge to remove her stocking cap and turned back to look at the barn and the house through the gauzy veil of snow.

From this vantage point, they looked almost magical. The eaves were dripping with silvery icicles and a frosting of snow covered the roofs. Smoke puffed from the chimney and the windows glowed with warm light—no wonder he had tried to make it there.

She scanned the iron-gray sky above. Soft snowflakes fell in lazy circles to the ground. No rough-legged hawks circled the area in search of rodents in the empty fields. No black-masked horned larks with their high-pitched, delicate song. The air was quiet except for the sound of her own heavy breathing. All the creatures were hunkered in for the next round of storms. Wylie needed to hurry.