What did Rose’s file say? Did they know about the tapping? Alice was sure they did. They seemed to know about everything… everything but maybe where that black-haired girl was.
Someone touched Alice’s shoulder.
Maxine.
She had reached over the top of her sister, and then swiftly removed her hand when Alice turned toward her. But Alice could still feel the lingering warmth near her neck where Maxine’s fingers had been.
There had once been a time when Alice would have suffered from that touch for days. Now she allowed it to sink deep inside her like a soothing balm. Not that Alice allowed either reaction to escape, so when Maxine smiled at her, silencing the incessant ticking of the clock and relieving the deep ache of Alice’s spine against wood, Alice only blinked back.
* * *
Following lunch and periodic excusing, Mrs. Ragno replaced Miss Sweeney, and since Ragno wasn’t in trouble for allowing an elopement and was more interested in hearing the gossip from the other staff about what had happened the night before than in a bunch of girls sitting on benches, the girls began to exchange a few whispers. They were careful not to take advantage. Well, maybe Neddie did, but Ragno was slightly used to Neddie’s voice, which helped to shield their whispers.
“Do you think she made it?” Maxine asked.
“If not this time,” Alice said, “next time.”
Alice was sure of it. That girl had a hard look in her eyes. She would make it. Alice had hoped it all morning. She always hoped that anyone who ran made it. It meant the institution was wrong. The doctors were wrong. The nurses and matron and attendants were wrong. And the girl with wild black hair was out there. Not in here… under the protection, shelter, and care of a state school established for idiots, imbeciles, and morons.
Lifelong. And permanent.
London’s entire body was shaking with cold, except for her feet, which she couldn’t feel. She’d run for about three hours straight. Mostly through the woods. Not feeling her feet as she’d tumbled over rocks and waded knee deep through slippery wet leaves had been a good thing. But now, curled up under her dirty hospital blanket in the back of someone’s toolshed, her frozen feet had begun to ache like a bastard.
It was early afternoon. She’d heard activity in the house that belonged to the toolshed, but no voices. London hadn’t gotten up to investigate. She lay on the dirt floor only partially hidden behind a stack of broken wooden boxes, shovels dangling overhead. It smelled nice, though, the dirt. Clean. The air, too. She’d never been out in the woods like this, like last night, surrounded by so many trees. Except for the freezing-cold part of the experience, she had enjoyed herself, and she looked forward to being out there again. As soon as it got dark.
By tonight they’d feel less sure about where she could be and would begin searching a wider area. They might even have given up by then. Although, tonight she’d have to figure out where the hell she was.
She lay her head back down on her arm and listened to the cooing and scratching of chickens in the yard. God, her feet ached, and she had to piss harder than a rainstorm. She rolled to her side and tried to think about something other than feet and pissing.
She thought about Rose. How that kid could smile.
She knew she’d put Rose and the others in a jam by running. They were being punished for it right now, she was sure. It was how those places worked—how they always worked. Putting the bitch with the bangs in trouble warmed London’s heart. Putting Rose in trouble didn’t. She hoped that little trinket could keep from spilling about the window.
London sighed. Worrying about that girl made the pee feel like it was pressing against her teeth. She couldn’t wait anymore.
Crawling unsteadily to her knees, London slowly returned her feet to life. The shed didn’t have a window, but it wasn’t built tightly, as the cold air streaming in all last night could attest to. Choosing an especially large crack between the planks, she peered out into the yard. Her view was about a ten-foot expanse, which included the back door of the house.
There was no one.
After standing back and taking in a few breaths, she slowly pushed the shed door open. There was the lightest of squeaks, but nothing that the warble of the chickens didn’t drown out. London now had a total view of the gray clapboard house, the overgrown lawn, the sagging, empty laundry line, and the ripped curtains hanging in the dirty windows. The only things moving were the chickens.
She swooped out the door and closed it ever so quietly, then sped around the side of the shed until she was completely behind it. Wasting no time, she squatted and was in absolute heaven while she gazed out over an empty cornfield. But then someone sneezed.
She stood, back against the shed.
There was a loud squeak of hinges and then the slam of the shed door.
“Goddamn it,” someone whispered. Another loud squeak as the door opened again, and this time stayed open.
London didn’t move. She listened to the man bumping about inside. But then, silence. She craned her neck, trying to hear what was happening.
Nothing. Nothing was happening. This wasn’t good.
Footsteps left the shed and headed for the house.
Shit.
London darted around the shed to the next corner and caught sight of an old man hurrying toward his back door. He was carrying her blanket.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Without another thought, she bolted for the field. And in less than thirty seconds tripped over a broken stalk of corn, and hit the wet dirt hard. Back up, she was running again. Knees jutting up high into the air so that she’d avoid another fall. Her chest heaved, and her breath rasped loudly in her ears. Had he seen her? Was he chasing her right now? She kept running. Everything a blur. The sun. The sky. The stalks. The brown, muddy earth. She ran for the tree line, which never seemed to grow any closer.
A shot rang out.
London dropped to the ground and lay there. Her heart pounded against the dried cornstalks.
She wasn’t shot. It had been a warning.
Slowly she turned her head and looked back. There he was, standing on his back porch, shotgun in his hands, her blanket thrown over his shoulder. She judged the space between them to be more than a hundred yards, his age to be at least seventy, and the tree line close enough anyway. He couldn’t do it.
Up she leaped.
He shot again, but this time London didn’t fall to the ground. She kept on running. She made the tree line and disappeared into the shadows.
About twenty yards in she stopped to think and catch her breath. The man didn’t have many neighbors, and she hadn’t seen an auto. It would take him a while to raise an alarm, but London knew the first thing he would do was describe how she’d taken off into these woods.
She had to go back. She had to head out in the opposite direction.
London turned toward the tree line she’d just about killed herself to reach. She approached it slowly. She could make out the house and the back steps but didn’t see him. He was most likely on his way to report her. The field was long and wide. She’d have to walk along its edges to bypass the house. She couldn’t risk walking out in the open. He might still be there, shotgun ready.
She started to her right, but her eyesight did a funny thing, mixing up the sky and the ground so that she had to reach out and steady herself on a tree. Her vision cleared, but her heart beat heavily, and she was forced to sit on a fallen branch.