The-Hummingbird-s-Cage(53)

And what’s courage, anyway, but delusion? You pick yourself up only to get beat down all over again. That doesn’t make you brave—that makes you a punching bag. I stayed ten years with a sadist because I was too witless to see him for what he was. And when I did, I was too big a coward to get the hell out.

And yet . . .

I focused again on the ceiling. On its vast, vacant depths.

And yet . . . I did get out, didn’t I?

. . . a kind of salvation.

I did get out. And brought Laurel with me. We broke free of him. Whatever else, we were in a good place now, with good people. And after all this time, he still hadn’t found us. Hadn’t managed to make his own way here, for all his threats to never let us go. Ever. That was something, wasn’t it?

Whatever else Morro might be, at least it was getting that job done. Even a rabbit hole can keep a wolf at bay.

I pulled myself up and leaned back against the headboard. My body felt leaden and sluggish, as if it had been weightless for a while and needed to acclimate.

There was a food tray on the nightstand. The tea was still hot.





Night-light





Later, I grew restless in the wee hours and got up. Laurel had slipped into my room again and lay fast asleep on the far side of the bed. I slid into my robe and headed down the hallway to the stairs, then down to the living room. Jessie hadn’t drawn the front curtains—they were still wide-open to the darkened café and the empty road. The room felt exposed. I hadn’t sat vigil on the porch in a while.

I unlatched the front door and stepped out. The narrow valley was hushed except for the pulsing chirp of crickets. I headed to the railing on the far side of the porch where I could see the Mountain clearly. And, no surprise, that tenacious light. Anywhere else, that light might be nothing more than a cell tower. Here, it was more likely a burning bush.

It was a riddle, but there were others—the stars here were strange, too. Strangers. For weeks now I’d been trying to trace the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper. The Lion, the Hunter, the Big Dog, the Hare . . . any of them. But they just weren’t there. My constellations were gone. The stars here kept to their own patterns, their own boundaries, and I didn’t know their names. Old ship captains used to orient themselves by the stars. Celestial navigation, they called it. If they tried that here, where would these stars lead them?

A cold wind gusted through, and I pulled my robe close and headed back inside, latching the door and drawing the front curtains. Then I turned.

Across the living room, a light emanated from the kitchen.

And there in the open doorway was the dark shape of a man.

Years of reflex kicked in and I yelped and stumbled back, hitting the wall with a painful thud.

“Whoa, Joanna, it’s me.”

Olin’s voice.

I gasped, clutching my throat. “You scared the life out of me!”

Then he was beside me, taking my arm, steering me toward the kitchen. “I just made some cocoa,” he said. “Come sit.”

On the table, a teapot was steaming on a serving tray. He fetched a mug from the cupboard and filled it, then settled across the table. Jessie’s half-moon reading glasses were perched on his nose and there was a magazine in front of him—a Farmer’s Almanac. He gave me a rueful smile. “Better?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s just . . . I guess I still startle easily.”

“What’re you doin’ up this time of night?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Guess I had my fill lately. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” he said. “What for?”

“Leaving Laurel to you and Jessie. And the horses—all the work.”

“Don’t you worry—some days I’m not fit company, neither.”

He took off the glasses and laid them on the Almanac. I examined the cover more closely—even upside down it was easy to make out the year.

“Olin,” I said. “That magazine is from 1938.”

“A good year,” he said, wiping cocoa from his mustache. “Got more of ’em in my den. We visit now and again.”

If he sounded absurd, who was I to judge? I hid scraps of paper in a tea tin under a floorboard.

“Penny for your thoughts,” said Olin.

“They aren’t worth that.”

“Seems to me you saw somethin’ from the porch just now. Ain’t a coyote, was it?”