I moved farther in, toward the one area I cared about. The small hay mattress lay crumpled on the floor. From the looks of it, some animal had made it a home. But it remained. I swore if I looked hard enough, I could still see our footprints in the dirt. Where we’d danced and where we’d fought. Where we’d snuggled in the winter under thin blankets and listened to our stomachs rumble. Where we’d giggled and cried.
And where we’d read. Over and over and over. Every book we could get our hands on. But mainly this one. The one I’d retrieved from the Mayfield house. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. My mother’s book. Kathryn’s book.
I could only hope Kathryn would understand. Maybe she had grown up during these past few months and forgotten childish things like Oz. Or maybe, like me, she had clung to them as a last thread of home in a world that was meaner and scarier than either of us could ever have imagined. I had no way of knowing. But when she came back—if she came back—this book would be here for her.
It was a risk. But I couldn’t leave the book with Henry; he would burn it the moment he discovered my escape. And it would be months before I could write to Kathryn, if ever. I had no way of knowing how long Henry would keep up the search. Maybe the book would give her hope, as it had done for me. That I was still out there. And that somehow, someway, just as Dorothy had traveled through Oz, never ceasing in her quest to return home, I would not give up until I found my way back to her.
I tucked the book under the mattress, hoping the dugout’s new animal residents would find it lacking in taste. A sudden thud at the door ripped away my attention. I pushed my back against the earthen wall, holding my breath. Another thud. And another. But not at the door.
I crept toward one of the windows and wiped away the dust and grime. There was water on the glass. Two drops, three, four. Fat, heavy, loud drops. And more on the way. I backed away and flung open the door. The smell of leaves and earth and life rushed in to meet me. Droplets from the sky released tiny dust clouds as they landed on the hard ground. Rain. It was raining.
I stepped forward. The water was surprisingly cold. It dripped down my neck and beaded on my nose. I touched the moisture on my arms, feeling the drops burst beneath my fingertips. It was real. Thunder rumbled in the distance as another wave of water dove toward the ground, harder this time. More insistent. The sweet release of a thousand prayers washed over my body. Now, of all times, God answered. I lifted my face to the heavens and laughed.
Lightning flashed, chased by thunder, closer this time, drowning out my giggles. The rain changed, falling in thick sheets, urgently, years’ worth of precipitation released in one moment. No longer gentle and tender. Painful, driving, determined. Stinging my skin and burning my eyes. The rain had come home, and its return would not be a quiet one.
The water at my feet turned black as the sky from which it came. Answered prayers or not, I had to go. Now.
Squinting against the storm, I pushed forward. The rain was solid, disorienting, the landscape draped in gray. I tripped over clumps of grass and hidden fence posts. There was nothing to see but water. Water . . . and lights. Two of them.
Against the torrent, headlights.
I stumbled backward, landing on my bottom in a pool of mud. Oh no. No.
The lights raced forward, blurred but resolute. There was no mistaking them. Somehow Henry had found me.
I ran toward the dugout blindly, stopping to breathe only when I crossed the threshold. I closed the door, but the wind and water continued to roar, rattling the frame. I paced the floor, leaving droplets in my wake. He would be here in minutes. And he would find me. There was nowhere to hide in a dugout and only one way out. Already a river flowed past the doorstep, the ground having forgotten how to drink.
I shrieked as something shattered the window behind me. I was too late. But instead of Henry, a large ball of ice rolled to a stop at my feet. Hail.
From outside came what sounded like a thousand stampeding hooves. Mother Nature was in a foul mood, and she had released her full anger on Oklahoma. But even over her wrath, I could hear another sound. The slamming of a truck door. And the screaming of my name.
I ran. Henry’s frame was silhouetted against the lights, his face disfigured by rain and rage. He looked massive. Monstrous. An evil I could never escape. But still I ran.
The drops pierced my skin like needles. Hail slammed the ground, putting dents in the soft earth. It battered my head and beat against my back, tearing my flesh and stealing my breath. And still I ran. What other choice did I have? There was nowhere to hide. The trees were long gone, ripped out to make room for the plows. Even the grass was missing, dusted over by storm after storm and now buried in mud. A sharp pain cramped my stomach.
“Melissa!”
His voice was close.
Keep going. Keep going.
Lightning raced across the sky, reflecting off the rain and momentarily blinding me.
“Melissa!”
Suddenly the ground beneath me gave way. I tumbled down several feet before something caught my dress, causing me to jerk forward. My face scraped against rock. The water was louder down here, echoing off the shallow walls, lapping at my fingers. A dry creek bed returned to life. I fumbled with my dress. Barbed wire, blown here in a recent storm, snagged the fabric, like fingers reaching up from the ground to hold me. I tugged frantically, biting down screams as hail pelted my head and bloodied my arms.
And then he was over me. Veins bulged from his forehead as water poured down his purple face. He reached for me, chest heaving. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I let out a small cry and yanked at my dress. It ripped, but not enough. I pulled and pulled.
Henry advanced on me, ignoring the water covering his feet. There was no sneer this time, no wicked joy. Nothing at all but murder on his face.
The last of the fabric ripped free. I turned to crawl, but Henry yanked my arm upward. I yelped, choking on the rain.
“You are mine, Melissa. Did you forget that? Just like everything else in this county. Mine!”
His face was inches away, so close I could still smell breakfast on his breath.
“Nothing is going to change that. Not the dusters, not the farmers running with their tails tucked, not the bank, and certainly not some ungrateful little sneak who’d be picking out of the garbage if it wasn’t for me.” One hand curled around my throat.
I gasped. The pain was immediate, fiery. I swung my hands, trying to knock him away.
Another hand on my throat. Squeezing tighter and tighter. “You could have had everything, Melissa.”
Spots formed in the corners of my vision. Air. I needed air.
Henry gritted his teeth. His blue eyes had never looked colder.
Hail still pelted my skin but the pain felt a million miles away. I was going to die. Right here. In this creek bed. I would never see Kathryn again. Or Pa. The baby in my womb would never draw breath. I wasn’t strong enough to save us. My hands drooped; my eyelids fluttered as I collapsed into myself. It was time to let go. Finally time to let go.
Suddenly the hands released their grip, and my body fell to the ground. I sucked in a breath greedily, coughing. Feeling flooded into my hands and feet. Pain and coldness and weight. A sheet of rain crashed into the water around me, now as high as my thighs. I wiped the drops from my eyes with tingling hands.
Henry was gone.
I twisted around, light-headed. Nothing but water all around me, the roar of splashing hail muted by the blood in my ears. A muddy wave rushed forward, pushing me downstream several feet. I grasped for an anchor, but the ground below gave way beneath my hands. Another wave struck me, harder this time. Then another. I gagged as water surged over my face, then retreated, filling my mouth with grit. My arms flailed against the tide as it finally pushed me into something solid. A boulder. On the bank. I wrapped my arms around it just as another torrent rushed over me. My body jerked forward with the current, causing my fingers to slip. I held on tighter, musc
les burning. I was losing my grip. I couldn’t hold on.
And then, finally, it passed.
There was no time to be relieved. A wall of brown raced toward me. The next wave would be here within seconds.
Clutching the boulder with wobbly arms, I tried to pull myself up. My legs refused to move. Their weight had quadrupled, the muscles inside frozen. Leaving a hand on the boulder, I plunged the other into the water. Where my legs should be I found only earth. The water had sealed my lower half under a layer of mud and rocks as thick as concrete. I was stuck.
The wave rushed closer.
In the middle of a drought, I was going to drown.
“Melissa.”
It was the eyes I saw first. The eyes I’d fallen for, dreamt about, tried to find myself in now stared at me from a spot just up the bank at the water’s edge. Pale-blue eyes rimmed with red in the driving rain. A piece of hail the size of a baseball lay cracked near his forehead. Henry’s face was splattered with mud, blood oozing from his temple and covering the rocks under his head. He reached one hand toward me groggily. “Melissa.”
Water surged between us. To my waist now. I could no longer feel my toes.
Muddy waves lapped at Henry’s mouth, then retreated. He groaned and pulled himself toward me. Inch by inch, breath by breath, those eyes never leaving my face.
The water rose, now up to Henry’s chin as he slithered over the ground.
Silt covered my arms.
His hand swung at me, catching the sleeve of my dress, weakly trying to claw its way to my throat. His lip curled into a snarl before the water pushed against us, sweeping his fingers away. “You . . . are . . . mine.”
With his dying breath, he was still trying to kill me.
I closed my eyes, releasing my tears and waiting for it to be over. Another rush, stronger this time, securing my body in its muddy tomb. Henry gurgled beside me, closer. I didn’t bother to look. Let him come. Let the water come. Wash it all away like the Oklahoma soil.
And then, from beneath the dirt and rocks, something twisted. Something inside me. The baby. For the first time, I felt the life inside me stir. A kick, harder this time. Demanding attention, challenging my defeat. I was letting myself drown, but beneath the water, my daughter was not ready to give up.
And with that tiny little flutter, suddenly I knew. The pain and the loneliness, the drought and despair were not signs of God’s absence, but His way of showing me just how big His presence truly was. God had never left me. He’d been here all along. In memories of my mother, a testament to a life lived for Someone bigger than herself. In Annie, full of grace and love I didn’t deserve, yet offered to me just the same. In my daughter, a reminder of His hope in a world of brokenness and sin. And in me. For so long I’d focused on what I’d lacked, what had been taken from me—my mother, my father, my sister, even my home—while God had been trying to show me what had always and would always remain: Him.
Water rolled across my face. I tried to breathe but took in only river. Lungs burning, I thrashed against the mud. No. I would not die here. We would not die here. Not like this, suffocating in the very thing Kathryn and I—all of Boise City—had spent countless hours praying for. At long last, the heavens had parted, and the rain had returned, cleansing us of the dust, the death, the pain. Deliverance. The bad days behind us, the future ahead. All I had to do was survive.
I cried out as my arms finally broke free. With one last burst of energy, I pushed myself upward. The mud released my legs with an awful sucking sound. Water rushed in to replace them. They were purple and lifeless, buckling when I tried to stand. Clenching my teeth, I grabbed the nearest rock and pulled, attempting to drag myself up the side of the bank. It gave way under my grasp. I lunged for another rock. It too slipped from its spot and tumbled to the water below.
The river rushed forward, once again trying to cover my legs. No. No, no, no. Not like this. Not me. Not my child. Not when we were so close. And not without a fight. Screaming in frustration, I punched into the mud. The ground wrapped around my fist like a glove, holding me steady as I pulled my legs up behind me. I swung my other arm above me, letting my skin sink into the cold Oklahoma clay. My muscles burned. Sharp rocks tore into my skin. But still I crawled. Inch by inch I crept up the riverbank as the water murmured behind me, spurring me on.
At last I reached the top. Legs tingling, exhaustion flooding me, I collapsed. The rain was a drizzle up here, the wind reduced to a lazy breeze. Hailstones carpeted the ground, covering the late-summer hills with an unexpected blanket of ice. As gray clouds floated westward, I lay on my back with my eyes closed, inhaling the smell of contented earth.
Catching my breath, I pulled myself to my knees and peered over the edge. Henry lay several feet below me, arm extended upward, all but his head covered by water. His mouth opened as if to speak, then closed again as the water pushed against his lips. Instead, his gaze found my own and held it for the slightest of moments. Enough to convey the contents of his heart.
“I was never yours,” I whispered. “I am His.”
His eyes remained open as the waves roared forth and carried him downstream, the pale blue rolling back in his head, still swimming with hatred as they disappeared beneath the water.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
KATHRYN
Dr. Barrett’s office was in the east wing of his house. Yes, east wing. He had to specify because there was more than one. It was as if the house multiplied, growing bigger with every passing day. And I was a parasite inside its belly.
He agreed to take a look at my foot once I gained back my strength. I told him I’d gain back my strength as long as he kept me away from Helen. He’d laughed at that, though I didn’t know quite what was funny.
After two days, I told him I was tired but not too tired. He told me I still had to rest but I didn’t have to stay in bed no more. But when I asked for my shoes, he told me they were no good. I wanted to tell him they’d gotten me this far and were just fine, thank you very much. I wasn’t about to go crawling around his mansion on my hands and knees just because someone didn’t like my shoes, but before I could say anything, he gave me a crutch and a new pair of socks. Cotton socks. Real soft and squishy, like pillows on my feet. So I figured that was okay.
The first few days I spent exploring the house. But I always felt like I was in the way. The Barretts had servants—servants—who were forever in a hurry. I could never be alone. No matter what room I found myself in—and there were a lot of rooms—there was someone else in it. And their stares made sure I knew I was interrupting.
Whispers followed me wherever I went. Once, I was walking through an upstairs hallway, lost as usual, and found myself unable to shake the sensation of being followed. Pausing and counting to ten, I rounded the corner and found the culprit: a maid sweeping the floor after me. I thought I was clean. She thought otherwise.
So that was the end of my exploring. I spent a lot of time in the bedroom upstairs, the one with the yellow wallpaper and lace doilies and pink carpet. And lights that came on just from a click of a switch. On and off, on and off, like magic. From the crystal-clean windows, I had a perfect view of the front lawn. Of the green grass and bright-blue sky. The orange flowers on the bushes and red-tinged brick. Nowhere in Boise City had colors like this. I wasn’t sure if it was real or a trick of the glass.
But mainly, I watched the people. All day long people coming and going in suits and dresses of every color. Every evening the women click-click-clicked up the sidewalk, their hair and makeup done up like Hollywood. That first night after I’d been let out of bed, one of the servants knocked on my door and asked me to join the Barretts for supper. When I hid, Dr. Barrett himself knocked.
“Miss Baile—would you please open the door?”
Nope. I sure wouldn’t. Not even with the please.
“I’d like you to join us for supper. Some colleagues of mine would like to meet you.”
Sure they would. So they could stare at
me.
“Kathryn, please.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Dr. Barrett. But there was nothing in the world that could have gotten me to leave that room and join him and his fancy-pants friends for dinner. Especially if Helen was going to be there. Which I’m sure she was. So I ignored him. After ten minutes, he stopped. And he never asked again. A tray was left outside my door with food and clothes. I ate the food but refused to change my dress. I was finally getting the new one worn in. Seemed silly to dirty up another.
The one indulgence I did allow myself was the bath. At the Barrett house, I was drawn a bath every single day. Of my own water. It seemed so wasteful. But who was I to say no? Every night, I soaked in the huge tub until the water turned cold and my skin wrinkled. I never felt completely clean. There’s some dirt you just can’t get off. But it felt good to float anyway.
No one knocked on my door. No one bothered me. Helen had disappeared. And I was a shadow.
After two weeks, Dr. Barrett finally summoned me again. But not to dinner. It was time.
“Miss Baile. So nice to see you again. Please, please. Have a seat.” He gestured to a long flat table in the middle of the room. “If you wouldn’t mind . . .” He nodded toward my sock.
I removed it slowly, trying to hide my foot behind my other leg. But Dr. Barrett flipped on a light and pulled it closer. I looked away. I’d lived with my foot my entire life. I could never escape it. I had bathed it, cared for it, walked on it for fourteen years. But it had never looked uglier than it did under that light in this room, with all its fancy furniture and clean linens. The skin was bruised and puffy, splashed with purples and reds. The bones seemed sharper, the toes more gnarled. It was hideous. Monstrous. Embarrassing.
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