“I always thought that was illegal,” I said.
“Illegal don’t always mean ineffective,” Tres continued. “Gullary tilted crime free. And then the mines closed, most moved on, and there wasn’t none left to commit crime. That’s when SMX was built, and suddenly Gullary had all the criminals it could handle, safely locked away. Jobs returned, people returned, but so did petty crime, and your grandpa knew what to do. He grabbed a bucket of paint and smeared it crimson on a door. And the Circle begun again, stickin’ good folks in SMX for a night.”
“That’s where you were.”
“Two nights, that was my penalty for drunken conduct. Now, admittedly, drunk I was.”
I struggled to wrap my head around the possibility. “My granddad threw you in there.”
“He did, and the next night he threw in eighteen more. An underage drinking party. Probably purposed to fill ‘m with the fear of God. Eighteen kids, in the cell right by mine.”
“The big one. The foul one,” I said.
“Yeah.”
The night grew cold, and Stormi felt far away, though she pressed harder into my chest. It was Tres and me.
“I don’t know how they got into the cell. How twenty hardened criminals broke free from the secure unit and got into our unmonitored wing, but they did. And the things done to those kids. I could hear it. Every cry. Every scream . . .”
So could I. I’d heard the screams mid-seizure.
“They killed them all. The senior class of Gullary vanished that day.”
We sat for a while in the truth, a horror that filled in so many pieces, I didn’t question it. Stormi didn’t either.
“You’d think that justice would follow quick and sure, but guilt does strange things to a town,” Tres continued. “Your grandpa convinced the Circle, the town, that every resident would be punished for the crime. And maybe he was right, as they all knew about the red door. He told the town that if the outside found out what’d been done, all would be held responsible, SMX would be closed, and their jobs would again disappear. The pressure to keep silent was great, especially from those who didn’t lose nobody, and so the secret held, bound up inside Gullary.”
“But you, you could have spoken. You heard it all,” Stormi finally spoke, her voice vacant.
“Nobody would’ve heard me. Jonah the First done realized what I knew, and my punishment for drunkenness commuted from two days to a life sentence.”
“No.” I shook my head. The urge to protect your kin runs deep, and though I had no reason to doubt Tres, my objection spewed forth. “Granddad wouldn’t have done that.”
“Oh, it gets worse. When your dad took over, he left the system in place. He knows what transpired as well, son. I’m sorry, but your dad knows everything. He knows Cartwrights done lost a kid. Pickerings lost a kid. And he sure as hell knows he lost a daughter.”
I flopped onto my back, staring up at rafters. Breath came shallow. A daughter. My sister. And my jaw tightened.
A monster. I’d always considered myself to be the family creature, hideous in form. I suddenly could not remain still and jumped up, because if true, if Tres told the truth, a more sinister monster roamed our trailer.
“I have a sister? Had a sister?” And here I asked the stupidest question I’ve ever heard, but grief dulls the mind. “Does my ma know?”
“I’m sorry, son. I am so sorry.” Tres sounded like he cared, but he’d been sitting on this for months.
I rose and approached.
“Sit down, Jonah,” Tres said.
I kept walking.
“Jonah, sit down.”
“No. Not this time. You knew. This whole time I’m giving you food off my table, you knew I once had a sister and my dad knew I had a sister, and you just, you just . . . Screw you, Tres! Screw you!”
“How dare you question me, you arrogant child!” He rose, and we stood, pain to pain. But I couldn’t hold it, my heart throbbed and I couldn’t hold it. I no longer trusted anybody—not Stormi, not family, not Tres—and my legs buckled. Stormi eased me back to a sit, and minutes later, Tres too eased himself down.
We sat in silence. “Who were they?” Stormi asked. “The kids. Do you remember all their names?”
Tres stared at me. “You’ll forgive me for not caring too much about Evangeline, your sister. Your dad has stolen my years, my life!” He rubbed his face hard. “I only think on one. Lanie. Her name was Lanie. And she was beautiful.” Tres swallowed. “And she was mine.”
“Your daughter?” Stormi asked.
He stiffened. “My girl. A man should never hear the sound of his girl being . . .” Tres cleared his throat. “So I sat and I waited for justice to fall, and it did. The storm came. Odd, the form ‘justice’ takes. Those that committed the crime survived. You met three of them at Gina’s funeral. The rest, you probably encountered in the Hive. The twister threw open an escape hole and I stood, staring out at freedom, but I couldn’t leave, couldn’t throw my hat in with ‘m, ’cause I heard their voices while they did what they did, and ’cause I knew help was comin’ to Gullary.” He looked sharply at Stormi. “A truth teller like me.”
Tres shuffled in front of Stormi. “Why do you think you’re here? Right here. Blind luck?”
Stormi had atrophied on the spot, like so much petrified wood.
“You drove, I’ll bet. And you drove here. Well, welcome home. Windrow, it’s where you was born. Born to my precious other daughter. Becky. Your mom’s name. Died in the storm here, the same one that took Gullary, but you was spared. Spared for a specific purpose, I believe. To expose what’d been done, what’s been hidden by the Circle. The Jonah Circle. That was your job in Gullary. You familiar with Exodus 20:5? Read up. But love for Jonah done blinded you. You was blinded by the pain you would cause Jonah if he knew, knew what his family was, and is.”
“Love?” I asked.
“Shut up,” Tres said. “It became clear Stormi needed a push. Consider this your push.”
“What do you want me to do?” Stormi sounded small.
“Unearth what’s been buried. Do right by all the kids, by my daughter. By your aunt. Nobody’ll listen to a criminal, but you, if you go back and say what’s been done, we’ll see true justice fall.”
“You really are my grandpa?”
“Sorry, darlin’. You don’t get to choose family.” He scooted back. “You also don’t get to choose your gifts. You can see a little before, you can see. It was in your mother, which is why she left that God-forsaken town. It’s in me.” His face softened. “Which is the only reason I could best that Arthur in chess.”
“The letters. The two halves that fit!” I said.
“Yeah, I could see hers, see the words, the shape. She likely could have seen mine, if she would’ve let herself.”
Stormi shifted around, her back toward Tres. For minutes she sat in silence. When she spoke, I could barely make out her words.
“What if I don’t return? What if Jonah and I move on?”
Tres stood, his voice terrible. “Then Jonah will never see his family again.”
“I have no family,” I hissed.
Tres paused. “I figured you’d say that. And hate me if you want, but I’m the only one telling you the truth. If Stormi don’t go back, you’ll die.”
I felt a wallop of heat and light and the world spun. There was no aura, no warning that Old Rickety was here. He suddenly was, and in a moment, I wasn’t.
I woke beside Stormi.
But she wasn’t actually beside me. Always, her hands soothed me as Old Rick departed. Not this time. She sat, now her back turned to me, her hands in her lap.
“Stor, Stormi?”
She didn’t answer.
My gaze flitted around the garage. “Where is he?”
“He blew out the way he came.”
“Did I dream him? Did we both dream him?”
“No.” She stroked her necklace, the one that should’ve been in my pocket. “Do you know where you got th
is?”
I closed my eyes. “I told you. Tres.”
“He bought it for his Lanie, one day before. He was going to give it to her. He wanted me to have it.”
“We don’t have to go back,” I said. “Old Rick isn’t so bad.”
Stormi swore, the first and last time I ever heard her do so. “I hate loving you.”
CHAPTER 16
I woke with Stormi’s words filling my thoughts, and I slowly rose, brushing myself off.
“Stormi?” I peeked out a crack in the wall, and my stomach sank. “Stormi!”
I ran outside, and slowed, my heartbeat finding its proper rhythm.
She was leaned over the cement wall, reaching for junk and setting the pieces on the concrete ledge.
I wandered to her side, but she did not slow.
“Whatcha up to?”
“I lived here.” She retrieved a baby rattle, stared at it, then tossed it back. “When this happened, this was my home.”
“Technically, you had blown away by the time they built this.”
Stormi paused long enough to deliver a potent scowl.
“But yeah, I mean, you were here.” I picked up one of her salvaged items, a musty book jacket. Gone with the Wind.
“Appropriate,” I said.
“Why?” she asked. “Why do you think that’s appropriate?”
“Well, the title and all.”
“Ever read it?”
I shrugged. “Not all of it. I saw the movie.”
“Scarlet’s afraid to do what she must. To save what she loves, she thinks she’ll lose herself.”
“And that’s you?”
“I think I lost myself long ago. I think I’ve been running from myself and I finally caught up. I need to go back.”
I turned and walked back to the truck, and hopped inside. It would be a disaster to return. If half of what Tres said was true, an absolute disaster. All the guilt for Gina, for Tres’s escape, and certainly Arthur’s death, all of it would land on her. And I would be complicit. Dad and Ma wouldn’t consider me involved in the diabolical, but I would be pegged as a mesmerized poodle, panting after Stormi and assisting her evil plans.
Yep, that would be me.
Here, far from Gullary, the seizures were intensifying, increasing in number, but I felt myself. As if I had control of myself, and it felt good. Plus, she said love. Or Tres said love and she didn’t correct him. No, she had said it. She loved me. I loved her.
Away from Gullary, we loved each other.
I had no guarantees if we returned.
In time, Stormi joined me. “You understand why I can’t stay here.”
“Yeah, not here, but not Gullary either. I don’t understand why you would think of going back to Connor and Ms. P and a bunch of people who think you’re responsible for everything.”
“Maybe I am.”
I reached up and grabbed her hand. “You aren’t.” I sighed.
“Listen, how about you give me a day? We don’t talk about Gullary. We don’t talk about Tres or Arthur. We live, we just live for a day. At the end, if you still want to go, we will.”
I kissed her hand. “Give me one day.”
Her gaze traveled from her hand to my eyes. “One day.”
“It’s only one day.”
Ma picked me up from school and drove to the bus depot. At thirteen, my back had begun its most profound shift, and she was concerned, no, terrified.
“The International Scoliosis Association puts these camps on all over the country. You’ll make friends. You’ll feel normal.”
Translated: You’re such a loser.
When I arrived, a man bent beyond belief met me at the bus stop, offered a condescending smile, and herded me toward his car. Two other cottonwoods hunched in back, staring downward.
I slipped in the front and straightened as best I could, to prove I wasn’t like them, that I didn’t belong in this car or at this camp. To my discredit, I spent the entire next day ranking the angles of other kids’ backs. By the time I left, I had assigned 101 kids a number. Me, I was 101.
I returned triumphant. I had seen how miserable others looked, and it made me feel good.
I ran over to Stormi’s as soon as I got home. We went for a bike ride, and I told her about all the twisted, deformed kids at camp.
“Were you kind to them?”
Stormi sounded like Ma.
“I wasn’t anything. Those kids are way bent. They’re not like me.”
Stormi let go of a handlebar, reached over, and stroked my back. My, she looked sad. At the time, I thought nothing of it, but already, she knew.
We drove into Harmony, Kansas, beneath a bluer sky.
Sure, it was all a ruse, a game, a trick to forget all that awaited us, but the fantasy took hold, likely because we wanted it to. We both wanted it to so badly.
“We should get married.” Stormi glanced over, wild-eyed.
“Us? When? Wait, what? You actually want to?”
“More than I can say.” She slowed the truck. “Do you?”
Well, shoot. I’d visited every situation pleasurable to a hormone-filled guy. But marriage, that lay in a different universe.
“I guess, someday.”
“You guess? That’s all the conviction you have?”
“No, Stormi, I can muster more, but leaping into marriage with me?” We pulled up in front of the post office. “Seems a tiny bit . . . monumental.”
“I always knew we would.” Storm leaned over and kissed my cheek, long and deep and real. Shivers visited the embarrassing parts, and I shifted in my seat.
“Come on.” Her eyes twinkled. “Let’s send our invitations.”
We hopped out and Stormi took my hand and pushed into the post office. She pulled me to the counter, grabbed a few blank sheets from the recycle bin, and handed me a pen.
“Okay, we each should send one invitation. Who would you invite?”
I thought a moment. “My lying folks, I guess.”
Stormi exhaled. “I’d invite Connor, so he could see it. Write to your folks. Tell them we eloped and got married.”
“But we didn’t.”
“Now you’re sounding like Arthur—” She paused and exhaled. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You can untell them tomorrow, but today, we celebrate.”
I stared at my blank sheet.
Ma, Dad. I’m getting hitched. I’m getting married to Stormi, because I love her and she loves me, and I’m not some monstrous eunuch. Inside, I burned. So you screwed up. You treated me like a castrated child, but you turned out dead wrong and now this is what you get, a prophetess for a daughter-in-law, and she knows everything you do.
I dropped my pen. I could have kept going, but I didn’t want them to spoil my engagement day.
Behind me, Stormi leaned over the counter, returning with two envelopes complete with licked stamps. She took my letter from the counter and inserted it without so much as glancing. She scribbled an address, and I watched my rage drop into the mail slot.
We exited and Stormi stretched. “We can’t find a justice of the peace on such short notice, but we can skip that and get to the enjoyable part.”
At this, I tell you my body trembled with a severe joy. What type of anticipation does this statement bring? Her and I. Us, together.
“Uh.” My voice tripped over itself. “Where should we, you know?”
Stormi glanced around, and then pointed. “Right there.”
I spun to see the location of my greatest desire. A frown spread over my face. “Culbertson’s? That’s a department store.”
My love’s eyes gleamed. “Think of all the things they’ll have. Sheets. Bedding.”
“Um, there are bound to be other people there. Certain firsts might be best done in private.”
“It’ll be a first for me too, you know.”
Here, a twinge of sadness took me. How can that be true?
Stormi continued. “That’s where we’ll register. You and I. A full day o
f shopping together.”
“So, shopping.” I exhaled. “That’s the enjoyable part?”
“What were you thinking?” She walked by me, elbowing me hard in the gut.
I grinned and watched her for a moment, before gaining momentum and following her across the street.
I do not know how long we were in that store.
My mind fogged over after ten minutes of towels and bedding and kitchenware. I only know we emerged to a sun low in the sky, with a sheet listing items to be purchased for the wedding of Stormi Pickering and Jonah Everett III.
“You know, Jonah, there are some things we really should talk about.” She swung my arm and we strolled down Main Street. We took a left at the library and wandered into Harmony Park. She and I plunked into the swings, and rocked gently.
“Things like what?”
“Well, let’s start with kids. Yes or no, and how many?”
“Seriously?”
She shot me such a doleful look; there’d be no ducking the question.
“Okay, yeah, well, I like kids, in general. It would just be hard to see a bent-over little person and think, I did that. I caused that. And I’d hate to pass on my Floppicus on the flooricus to a kid.”
She slowly nodded. “You won’t.”
“Won’t have kids or won’t pass it on?”
“Depends on how you answer my question.”
I puffed out air. “Okay, well, we should have kids. I mean, as long as they’re girls and look like you. It would be a shame not to.”
“I agree,” she said, settled. “But they’d be boys. And I want at least three.”
“Three? I can hardly take care of myself.”
“Which brings us to another issue. How are you going to make a living? I don’t want to work outside the home when our boys come.” She paused. “That museum isn’t exactly gainful employment.”
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