Where the Forest Meets the Stars

by Vanderah, Glendy

  “What happened?”

  “A grand failure is what happened. You know what Ursa said to them?”

  “What?”

  “First she went on about being an alien. My foster parents were prepared for that because I’d warned them. But when smart little Ursa saw that wouldn’t scare them off, she told them she came from a planet of people eaters.”

  The purple people eater.

  “You know what that rascal told her new foster parents? She said when they went to sleep she would stab and kill them—and she would eat them. They have another foster child who’s only one, and Ursa said she would be the most delicious and she would kill her first.”

  “Obviously she was saying the most extreme thing she could think of to scare them off. Ursa doesn’t have a violent bone in her body.”

  “How could those people know that and take the risk? Especially when they have a baby in their house?”

  “Do you want me to talk to them?”

  “They’re done! They left in a hot hurry, and they want nothing to do with her.”

  “Now what?”

  “Door number two—the couple we’d chosen as second best.”

  “You’d better warn them. I’ll talk to them, if you want.”

  Lenora rubbed her hand up and down the back of her short hair. “Maybe you’d better.”

  The next day, Jo gave the runner-up couple a crash course on Ursa Alien Dupree. They were nice people. The husband ran an engineering consulting firm, and his wife was a former gym teacher who now stayed home with their six-year-old son. They weren’t able to have any more biological children.

  Jo talked to Ursa before the couple came in, begging her to cooperate. Ursa refused, insisting that she only wanted to live with Jo. Once again, Jo left the hospital with Ursa’s plaintive sobs haunting her.

  When Jo returned to the hospital the next day, the foster couple was in Ursa’s room for their second visit. Jo was going to leave, but they asked her to stay. “Let’s talk,” the wife said. “I want us all to be friends.”

  Jo tried to get Ursa to open up, but she was sullen and only answered direct questions with curt replies. When Jo tried to show the foster parents Ursa’s drawings, she said, “I don’t want them to see those! They’re private!”

  When Jo told Ursa it would be nice to have a little brother, she said, “I don’t want any stupid little brother!”

  “You’ll have a swimming pool, Ursa,” Jo said. “Won’t that be fun?”

  “It won’t be!” Ursa said. “I only want to swim with you and Gabe in Summers Creek!”

  “Please try to be the nice girl I know you are,” Jo said.

  “I won’t be nice to them!” Ursa said. “I only want to live with you! You said you wanted that, too! Why are you trying to make me like them?”

  “I’d better go,” Jo said.

  “Yes,” Lenora said. “Thanks for trying.”

  Jo hugged Ursa, but Ursa wouldn’t let her go. “Don’t leave!” she wept. “I’ll be nice! Don’t go!” Two nurses and Lenora had to pry her arms away. Ursa screamed, “Take me with you! I love you, Jo! I only want to be with you!” Jo hurried down the corridor, avoiding the somber gazes of the doctors and nurses.

  At seven that night, Jo ate a cup of yogurt and a few grapes in her hotel room. She had to force herself to eat even that. She’d been nauseated and listless since her tearful phone call with Gabe that afternoon. In the morning she would say goodbye to Ursa for the last time. Staying was hurting her too much.

  At eight, the first in a series of thunderstorms hit Saint Louis. The city would be under a tornado watch most of the night. Jo went to bed, blackout curtains drawn and air-conditioning turned high. She hardly heard the pounding of thunder and rain on her windows. She closed her eyes and went fetal beneath the covers, arms folded against her bony chest. At 9:52 she was awakened by an unexpected call. “Lenora?” Jo answered.

  “She’s gone,” Lenora said.

  Jo threw her legs over the side of the bed. “What do you mean? She went home with them?”

  “She ran. We can’t find her.”

  “How could she possibly get out of a hospital as secure as that?”

  “You know how—she’s damn smart! They think she’s still hiding somewhere in the hospital, but they haven’t found her.”

  “How long has she been missing?”

  “It’s been about an hour since a nurse reported her missing.”

  “Did the cameras catch anything?”

  “They’re checking now. At first they thought finding her would be easy.”

  “They don’t know Ursa.”

  “But you do. You warned us. What if she got out? What if she’s out in the city?”

  Ursa could have pulled that off, and getting out of the hospital would be her aim. But Jo didn’t say that out loud.

  “She’s probably hiding in a patient room or something like that. I’m sure they’ll find her.”

  “Will you come? I thought maybe if you called for her . . . if she heard your voice . . .”

  “Of course. I’m on my way.”

  “Meet me at the main door and I’ll get you in. They have everything locked down.”

  A half hour later, Jo had been searching hospital rooms with Lenora for only ten minutes when a security guard stopped them. “She’s not in the hospital,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” Lenora said.

  “We were looking for a little girl in a hospital gown, but she’s wearing regular clothes. This is from a surveillance camera.” He held up a picture of Ursa walking down a hospital corridor.

  Jo took the photo. Ursa was wearing Jo’s navy-blue University of Illinois T-shirt and her black yoga pants rolled up to look like capris. “Those are my clothes,” Jo said. “They’re the spare set I kept in my backpack in case I had to spend the night with Ursa. I noticed them missing a few days ago and thought they’d fallen out.” She scrutinized the photo more closely. Ursa had on her purple gym shoes. Jo had last seen them on Ursa the night of the shooting. “How did she get her shoes?”

  “Those were all that could be salvaged of her bloody clothing the night she came in,” Lenora said. “Usually personal belongings are put in a bag and stored in the patient’s closet.”

  “Does the video show how she got out of the hospital?” Jo asked.

  The security guard nodded, his expression bleak. “She walked out the main lobby doors holding a man’s hand. That’s why it took so long to identify her on the footage. She had on regular clothes, and she appeared to be with the man.”

  Jo had to hold on to the wall to stop from swaying.

  “Do you think the man abducted her?” Lenora said.

  “Considering the girl’s history, we’re afraid that’s a possibility,” the guard said.

  “Have the police been notified?” Lenora asked.

  “Every city cop is on it. They’ve put out an AMBER Alert, too.”

  Jo had a flash of insight. “She wasn’t abducted. She held the man’s hand to look like she was with him.”

  “You don’t know that!” Lenora said.

  “I don’t,” Jo said. “But Ursa knew she couldn’t walk out those doors alone.”

  “How would she get a complete stranger to hold her hand?”

  “Believe me, Ursa has her ways.” Again, Jo studied the photograph. One of her hands was clenched tight around something. Maybe she’d taken more than clothing from Jo’s bag. Jo unzipped the front pocket of her backpack and found her hotel card key. She dug around for Gabe’s key, the spare she kept in the paper envelope. It was empty. “I may know where she’s going,” Jo said.

  “Where?” Lenora said.

  “Come with me,” Jo said, shrugging on her backpack.

  “We have to tell the police,” Lenora said.

  “The police can’t be involved until we find her. If she sees them, she’ll run.”

  “Good point.”

  Lenora grabbed her raincoat on their way out into
another downpour. Jo still had on the oversize sweatshirt Gabe had left behind, now soaked through to her shirt from her walk to the hospital. Out in the city, police officers were everywhere, their squad car lights mirrored in pools of rain at all intersections.

  “Poor girl,” Lenora said. “She must be terrified in this storm.”

  “I doubt it,” Jo said. “Ursa loves thunderstorms.”

  Lenora saw where they were headed. “Did she know the name of your hotel?”

  “Last week she asked me a lot of questions about where I was staying. I just thought she was bored. She even asked if I used a metal key to get in my room, and I told her about the card keys.”

  “That means she’s been plotting this for a while.”

  “She was waiting to see how things turned out. She ran today because she’s desperate. She knows no one will help her—not even me.”

  “Then maybe she won’t go to your room.”

  “I know. That’s what worries me.”

  “What if she decided to trust that man like she trusted you?” Lenora said. “If he hasn’t brought her to the police yet, he must have bad intentions.”

  “I didn’t bring her to the police, and I didn’t have bad intentions.”

  “But how long until that luck runs out?”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you that.”

  They entered the hotel and rushed to the elevator, Jo limping on her sore leg. The elevator stopped on several floors before they finally arrived at the sixth floor. At room 612, Jo put her key in the slot and pushed the door open.

  Ursa wasn’t there. Lenora watched her check under the rumpled comforter and beneath the bed. She looked in the closet. There was only one place left to look. She flicked on the bathroom light and opened the shower curtain. Ursa was curled in a ball in the tub, her clothing and hair soaked with rain. She looked up at Jo with mournful brown eyes. “Jo . . . I ran away,” she said.

  “I see that.” Jo lifted her out of the tub and held her.

  Ursa clung to her, crying. “Don’t you love me anymore? Why do you want me to go live with those people?”

  “I don’t. But there’s nothing else I can do.”

  Ursa wept miserably as Jo carried her to the bed. She was wet to the skin and shaking with chills. “We need to get these clothes off, love bug.” Jo sat her on the bed.

  “Why is she here?” Ursa said when she saw Lenora.

  “I was afraid for you,” Lenora said.

  “No matter where you make me go, I’ll find Jo!” Ursa said, new tears falling. “Jo and I know how to be happy without you!”

  Jo took off her shoes and stripped away her wet pants and T-shirt. She pulled a clean shirt over Ursa’s quaking body and lifted her into the bed, tucking the blanket and comforter around her. After she turned off the air conditioner, she went into the bathroom to change out of her wet clothes. When she came out, Lenora was pushing numbers on her phone.

  “Please don’t have police come here right now,” Jo said.

  “I have to tell them to stop looking,” Lenora said.

  “I know, but can we just have a moment?”

  Lenora nodded. When she connected with hospital security, she said she had found Ursa and asked them to tell all law agencies that she was safe. She took off her raincoat and slumped in a chair with a weary exhalation.

  Jo crawled into bed with Ursa. The rule about separate beds didn’t matter anymore. She would give Ursa what she needed. She spooned the small girl against her body and kissed her cheek. “Warm enough?” she asked.

  “I want to stay here forever,” Ursa said.

  “Me too,” Jo said. “Please never doubt that I love you. No one can take that away from us.”

  Thunder growled. Rain clawed at the window. Jo held Ursa in her safe nest, and all the while fate sat watching.

  38

  A month later, on a rare cool day in late August, Ursa stood between Gabe and Jo, her hands clasped in theirs. Beyond the white marble cross, the minister turned his car onto the cemetery path and drove away. Lenora Rhodes started her car and followed behind him. No one else had come to watch Portia Wilkins Dupree laid to rest, not even her mother. Portia was twenty-six when she died trying to protect her daughter, the same age as Jo.

  Ursa let go of Jo’s and Gabe’s hands and spent a minute rearranging the flowers into a new constellation around the grave. “Bye, Mama. I love you,” she said when she finished.

  She took hold of their hands again. “I want to see Daddy now.”

  They walked to the grave of Dylan Joseph Dupree. He was buried next to his mother, and the empty plot next to her was for her husband. Dylan’s father lived in a nearby nursing home, his mind too impaired by Alzheimer’s disease to understand who his granddaughter was. Because there hadn’t been room to bury Portia next to Dylan and his parents, Jo had purchased a plot as close to Dylan’s as possible. According to Ursa’s wishes, Portia’s cross was the same as the one over Dylan’s grave.

  Ursa let go of Jo’s and Gabe’s hands as they arrived at Dylan’s grave. She took a folded picture from her pocket and laid it against the bottom of the cross. It was an image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, located in Ursa Major.

  Dylan had loved anything to do with stars. Before his life fell apart, he’d wanted to be an astrophysicist. He’d named his daughter Ursa for the Big Bear in the sky, and he’d taught her the names of stars and constellations. When Ursa was afraid of the dark, he would open her window a crack and tell her good magic that fell out of the stars was coming in her window. He said the magic would always keep her safe. After he died, Ursa opened her window wide every night, trying to let in lots of good magic. That was how she escaped the grasp of the men who nearly killed her.

  Ursa walked to the cross and kissed the top of it. “I love you, Daddy.” She pointed behind her. “This is Jo and Gabe. You would like them. Gabe likes stars like you do.” She straightened the picture of the galaxy and turned around.

  “Ready to go?” Jo said.

  “Ready,” she said.

  They had one more grave to visit. They got in Jo’s car and drove from Paducah, Kentucky, to Vienna, Illinois. As they approached Turkey Creek Road, Ursa leaned between the seats as far as her seat belt allowed. She hadn’t been back since the night she was airlifted from that very intersection and taken to Saint Louis for surgery.

  “What is this?” Jo said when the road came into sight. “Have I traveled forward in time?”

  “I thought you said we don’t look that much alike?” Gabe said.

  “Only because of the age difference.”

  The older version of Gabe smiled and waved from his chair under the blue canopy and FRESH EGGS sign.

  “You didn’t tell me he’s the new Egg Man.”

  “I didn’t know,” Gabe said.

  “He never did this before?”

  “I’m as surprised as you are.”

  Jo parked her Honda next to Gabe’s white pickup. “He even uses your truck.”

  “I told him to use it for farm stuff,” Gabe said. “His car is nice and gets beat up by the gravel.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Ursa shot out the back door and ran to the egg stand. George Kinney stood and shook her hand. “You must be Ursa.”

  “I am,” Ursa said.

  “I’m George and very happy to meet you.”

  “Why do you look like Gabe?” Ursa asked.

  “Because Gabe had two dads, and I’m one of them,” he said.

  Gabe embraced him.

  “How’d it go?” George said.

  “No hitches,” Gabe said.

  “Kat and I worried they’d change their minds.”

  “Is that why you’re out here—to watch for us?”

  “I’m out here because the damn eggs are piling up to the roof.” He opened his arms to Jo. “Get over here, Wonder Woman.”

  “I have significantly less in the chest than her,” Jo said.

  “The better to hug you,” Geo
rge said, squeezing her in his arms.

  “We’re having a funeral for Little Bear,” Ursa said.

  “Well, that’s really nice,” George said. “I hear he was a good dog.”

  “He was the best dog,” Ursa said.

  “We’d better go,” Gabe said. “Jo has to get on the road right after lunch.”

  “I’ll pack up and see you at the house,” George said.

  “Need help?” Jo asked.

  “Come on, I’m not that old.”

  Jo, Gabe, and Ursa drove the familiar rough wind of Turkey Creek Road. Ursa stretched high in her seat to see out the window. “It looks different,” she said.

  “The plants grew and the colors are beginning to change,” Jo said.

  “Where are the nest flags?”

  “I took them down when my study ended. The indigo buntings are getting ready to migrate.”

  “They’re leaving?”

  “They’ll go in a few weeks, but just for the winter. They’ll be back in the spring.”

  They drove onto the Kinney property, steering for the inviting yellow cottage on the hill. Before Jo turned off the motor, she looked at the hickory tree.

  Ursa sprang from the back seat and ran toward the prairie behind the house.

  “Ursa, it’s this way!” Gabe called after her.

  “I’m getting flowers for him!” she said.

  Jo watched her vanish into the tall grass. Gabe took her hands and pulled her close to his body. “Do you still sell eggs?” she asked.

  “I haven’t since the shooting.”

  “Will you again?”

  “I don’t know.” He stared in the direction of the road, but his eyes were distant. “The egg stand was a thread that kept me connected to the outer world.”

  “You have something more substantial connecting you now?”

  He smiled down at her. “More like the thread was cut and I fell into the real world.”

  “How’s that going?” Jo asked.

  “Good. But sometimes I’m afraid to trust how good it is. What if it all starts again?”

  “The people who love you will help you.”

  He kissed her. Before any time seemed to pass, Ursa had enveloped them, one arm around Jo and the other on Gabe. She rested her head against them.