Bury Me(50)

“He’s still alive and yes, he’s there. Tobias wasn’t transferred nine months before I was born like I thought,” I mumble, going through the woman’s words in my head again, realizing I was right all along with my suspicions, and I feel even more sure of them now than I was five minutes ago.

“Okay, so what does that mean? You don’t think he’s your father now? It was all just suspicion anyway so it’s not like we had any concrete proof,” he reminds me, pushing the ledger back where it was.

“I think we have even better proof now,” I inform him, ripping the page out of the ledger with the visitation times. “He wasn’t transferred in 1946, but an immediate and emergency transfer was called in to Strongfield on the same day I was born. That seems a little bit strange to me. How about you?”

Nolan runs his hand through his hair and shakes his head back and forth slowly. “Yeah, that’s a little too coincidental even for me. I’m assuming you’d like to go on a little road trip, since Strongfield is only an hour away, and if the times on the paper in your hand are visiting hours, that means we still have five hours left today.”

Turning away from the counter, I grab the spare set of my father’s car keys from the hook hanging on the wall. Thankfully, I don’t need to wait for another random bit of luck that my father will emerge from his office, allowing me the opportunity to steal his car keys that are always kept in his desk—or be forced to have Nolan pick the lock and try to come up with a lie about why I need the keys.

Feeling an abnormal burst of happiness and, strangely, not at all uncomfortable with it, I decide to try my hand at being just a little bit nice, tossing the keys to Nolan and informing him that he can drive. It’s the only bit of control I feel comfortable conceding to right now.

When we walk out the front door, I make sure the “Closed Indefinitely” sign is still hanging right in the middle of it. I put it there the first day my father locked himself away and refused to deal with anything, including the running of this prison. After one hour of dealing with annoying, nosy tourists, I wrote the words in big, bold letters and taped the sign prominently to the door. I’m not sure what will happen if the state finds out how long my father has been ignoring the business, since this is a historical building and they fund everything, as well as give us a place to live free of charge. Frankly, I don’t really care.

After I woke up from my accident, every morning my mother would braid my hair, and repeatedly tell me all the facts about the girl I supposedly was, but there was only one I liked to hear: I had a full scholarship waiting for me at a very nice college a few hours away, and that scholarship included room and board, as well as all of my meals. Even if I never figure everything out or regain all of my memories, at least I’ll be able to get the hell away from this place that seems to be the root of everything that has gone wrong in my life, leave my father far behind, and never look back ever again.

Nolan opens the passenger door of my father’s car like the perfect gentleman he is, closing it when he’s sure I’m all the way inside. I watch as he walks around the front of the vehicle and I whisper my mantra that is constantly evolving.

“My name is Ravenna Duskin. I’m eighteen years old, I live in a prison, and I’m going to meet my real father.”





Chapter 18





I tried to spend the hour-long car ride to Strongfield State Penitentiary in silence, so I could plan what I would say to Tobias Duskin, but Nolan wanted to talk, as usual. Since I couldn’t force him to shut up by grabbing the steering wheel and swerving us into a tree without injuring myself as well, I gave up my desire for quiet time so we could go over the list of things I knew versus things that were still questionable.

“Okay, the first thing that felt off to you was the way you wore your hair and the clothes in your closet, both of which your mother insisted were your style and your daily uniform, correct?” Nolan asks as I look out the window watching the scenery fly by.

“Correct,” I reply. “Both of those things felt completely wrong the very first day I woke up after the accident.”

Nolan nods, flipping on the wipers when a few drops of rain splatter against the windshield. “You felt better when you took a pair of scissors to your clothes and let down your hair, and we found an entire suitcase of clothes that you somehow knew were yours.”

“Yes,” I quickly answer, turning my head to look at his profile. “But even though I feel more like myself now, you confirmed what my mother told me about my clothes and hair—that the entire two years you worked at the prison, excluding the few days leading up to my night in the woods, I did in fact always wear those ugly dresses with tightly braided hair. So that’s still a little weird.”