Haddie was deeply focused on her drawing tablet on the table in front of her, her colored pencil scraping softly over the paper. Scarlett clicked the mouse on the laptop in front of her, opening the program she was using to design the planned remodels on the house. She raised her gaze, glancing around the room. The size would work for her needs, but the entire layout would have to be reworked, the space gutted. Then she’d bring in industrial appliances, a prepping station . . .
The scraping of Haddie’s pencil drew her attention, the back and forth motion growing ever faster as her daughter worked diligently to color something in. Scarlett focused on the picture, what looked to be a page almost completely covered in black. She frowned, leaning forward. “What are you drawing, honey?”
Haddie blinked, her hand stilling as she looked up at her mother. Scarlett frowned, taking in the drawing from upside down. “Are those . . . horns? What is that, baby?”
Haddie glanced down at her drawing, looking at it curiously as if seeing it for the first time, as if she hadn’t been the one to create it. She tilted her head. “I don’t know.”
Scarlett watched her for a moment. Her daughter’s imagination had always been vivid. But though her drawing looked particularly morose, she didn’t appear distressed and Scarlett released a slow breath, and then took a sip of wine as Haddie went back to her work.
“See anything cool while you’ve been out exploring the property?”
Haddie stilled for a moment. “Just the flowers I brought you. And . . . something with horns.” She gave a small nod down to her picture, her lashes lowering. “And a fox.”
Scarlett frowned. “Oh . . . honey, maybe you should stay out of the trees. There are probably lots of wild animals that live in there.”
“The fox didn’t want to hurt me, Mommy.” She said it with the surety of a sage, as if it was an inarguable fact. As if she’d communicated with the fox and it’d told her of its intentions.
Scarlett regarded Haddie. She’d always seemed to sense things about people, and yes, even animals. Sometimes she went right up to a dog, kneeled down, and began petting him, and other times, she’d pull Scarlett to cross the street if one was coming toward them. She responded the same way with people. She either liked them immediately, or never warmed to them at all.
Merrilee had once asked Scarlett if she thought Haddie might be on the autism spectrum, but Scarlett had rejected that. It wasn’t that she was in denial, it was just that no one knew Haddie better than she did. Haddie had a vivid inner world, that was true. But she was overly emotional if anything. She felt things deeply and was keenly intelligent. She could be . . . secretive, but she also wore her heart on her sleeve. Plus, she had never had a problem with eye contact as many children on the spectrum did, in fact she seemed to seek it out. Sometimes Scarlett was sure the little girl was looking straight into her soul. Haddie was . . . unique, but Scarlett didn’t think her uniqueness could be tested or quantified. Haddie was just . . . Haddie.
She’d like to ask Haddie’s father about the things that made their daughter special, to find out if it might be something genetic, but of course, that ship had sailed. She’d promised never to contact him again and signed her name on the dotted line.
Very literally.
“Maybe from now on just . . . keep to the edge of the woods, okay? I want you to be able to hear me if I call.”
“All right, Mommy.” The pencil sounded on the page again, this time with less intensity. Without looking up from her drawing, Haddie asked, “How long did your friend Kandace live here, Mommy?”
Surprised by the question, Scarlett paused. Had she told Haddie that? Well, obviously, she must have. Or once again, maybe she’d overheard her talking to Merrilee about Kandace. Haddie could be so quiet it was easy to forget little ears were always listening. Kandi. “Only a short time. Less than a year.”
“When this was a . . . school?” The pencil continued to scratch softly on the paper, a lulling sound now that Haddie moved it more slowly, more steadily, and with less fervor.
“Hmm-hmm.” She glanced out the window behind Haddie where the forest met the sky, thinking of her childhood friend. Her first real confidante. When Scarlett’s father had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, Scarlett’s—mostly unskilled—mother had had to go back to work. She’d taken a housekeeping position at the Thompson family estate, and Scarlett, often trailing along behind her, had befriended Kandace, the only Thompson child, who was three years Scarlett’s senior. Scarlett had been grieving her father, and with his passing, had been thrust into what felt like an entirely different life. Kandi had taken her under her wing and offered the healing gift of friendship. While Scarlett’s mother cleaned, Scarlett and Kandace would play make-believe and dress up in the expansive attic, usually donning one of the five wedding dresses Kandace’s mother had gotten married in over the past thirteen years of Kandace’s life.
Despite Kandace’s older age, and her often seemingly indifferent attitude, Scarlett knew that deep down, Kandace was tender and kind. She’d been desperately looking for validation—attention and affection—and never receiving it from the one person who should have given it naturally: her mother.
It was no wonder she’d made the choices she had. It was no wonder she’d sought “love” in all the wrong places. It was no wonder she’d ended up at Lilith House, a reform school for wayward girls.
Even after Scarlett’s mother took a new position with a different family, she and Kandace kept in touch—even if months would pass between phone calls—until right before Kandace left for Lilith House. Lilith House where Kandace had eventually run away from, never to be seen again. Scarlett had known that Kandace had headed down a dangerous path, she’d known that Kandace was skating the razor’s edge of decisions that had consequences she’d never come back from. She’d hoped . . . along with Kandace’s mother, she was sure, that Lilith House would help put her back on the straight and narrow. Instead . . .
Scarlett’s eyes again went to the edge of the vast forest beyond. Where did you go? she wondered. Where are you now? They’d searched the woods. She wasn’t there. But being here made Scarlett feel somehow closer to the troubled girl who’d shared her heart with her, and few others.
“Tell me about Ruby Sugar.”
Scarlett smiled. Haddie knew about Ruby Sugar, the name Scarlett had chosen for her business, but like all of Haddie’s favorite stories, she liked to hear it being retold. “Kandace and I played a game where we were wedding designers. We used our names to create the company name. Ruby is another word for Scarlett, and sugar is the main ingredient in candy.” Or . . . Kandi.
Haddie smiled. “I like that, Mommy.”
Scarlett smiled back. She did too. Especially because when she’d seen the ad for Lilith House and recognized it as the school Kandace had been banished to, and then run away from, she’d gotten a feeling that was so strong, so absolute, that she’d picked up the phone before she even made a conscious decision to do so.
A sound caught her attention and she turned her head toward the wall where she thought it was coming from, listening intently. It sounded like . . . faraway screaming, the rising wail of human misery. Scarlett stilled, goosebumps rising on her skin. The noise subsided, but another one picked up. This time it sounded like crying—the very distant sobs of an infant.