Gypsy (The Cavy Files Book 1)

by Trisha Leigh

“Thank you. We really appreciate it,” Athena breaks in, his gaze flicking to the entryway.

  I can almost read his mind, and it says, We haven’t given them enough time.

  “Maybe if we tell you our names, you’d remember at least some of our moms. I mean, I know it’s a long shot…” I trail off, waiting for anything from her that suggests she’s even going to try. That she cares about what happened to us at all.

  “That would be fine, although I do need to attend dinner with the girls at five thirty.”

  Twenty more minutes should be plenty of time. It would have to be. I swallow, looking around at my friends. My family. They encourage me with smiles and nods, but it’s clear from the way their eyes focus inward that their mothers are the last thing on their minds right now. We’re all wondering what’s happening with Haint and Goose, and whether or not they’re having more success. There’s nothing this old bat will reveal about our moms that our families haven’t, except maybe when it comes to Mole and Pollyanna.

  They should have gone first. “You go, Tate.”

  My offer takes her aback, returning her gaze to the present, and her expression softens with gratitude. “Okay. My name is Tate Annabelle Donovan. My mother’s name was Annabelle Stephens, and she came here from a small town called Seabrook when she found out she was pregnant.”

  Pollyanna’s mother’s story is virtually the same as the rest, which means she didn’t come here of her own volition. Maligning this woman and the House’s practices would be counterproductive, no matter how much sitting here playing nice gives me the urge to smash every single elegant decoration to smithereens.

  “And you, young man?” Mother Nan fixes Mole with a questioning look.

  “Shiloh Adams Lee. My mother was Lauren Davis.”

  “Yes, your history I recall, due to the prominent nature of your father’s family. Your mother, poor dear, came from humble birth and would never have done as a match for a Lee boy. There was a disagreement between the families after Lauren chose to place herself under the legal protection of the Lees, and they felt you would be better off with older parents who could better care for you.”

  A different story—a sad one, a scary one—tangles with Mother Nan’s. It’s darker, like a shadow of truth beneath the glaring lie, but seems easy to guess at. If the Lees are as powerful as she suggests, they no doubt coerced a frightened girl with no money and no options into trusting them, then sent her here.

  Maybe that’s not the way it happened, but it’s how it happened in my mind. Nausea feeds the storm in my center until it crashes with rage and contempt for these women who seem so indifferent to the pain they caused. I need to get out of here, and there’s only ten or so minutes left until Mother Nan kicks us out, anyway. I nearly fall over the arm of the love seat getting up. Everyone looks at me, their expressions ranging from annoyed to confused.

  “I’m sorry, I need some air. Y’all stay.”

  The entryway looms, then disappears behind me as I barge through the front doors and back onto the white-painted porch. It’s still too close to this place, where our lives began and our mothers’ ended. Too near that woman whose motivations are obscured, who is able to ignore the humanity in those she’s tasked with helping, to let me feel safe.

  I stumble down the steps and across a small expanse of loose sand and grass onto the hard-packed beach. The constant, calming suck of the waves stops the angry swirl inside me from exploding, manages to trap my screams at the unfairness of it all.

  Footsteps cross the sand behind me. The cautious, halting gait announces Mole, but I’m too upset to turn around and help him find me. He’ll do it on his own, and the extra time will give me a moment to get my shit together. Everyone in that room has been through the same thing, but they’re not freaking out.

  “You okay?” He doesn’t reach out, doesn’t touch me, but stands close enough to share a little bit of heat.

  “Yeah.” I wipe my face with an unsteady hand. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you, Gypsy. This place gives me the fucking creeps, too, and sitting there listening to that unfeeling bitch talk about my mother like they did the best thing for her made me want to set my ears on fire.” A crooked smile touches his lips. “But I mean, if I can’t see or hear, we’d have to change my name to Helen Keller.”

  It’s a totally inappropriate jest, but it makes me snort all the same. Our caretakers hadn’t been interested in political correctness when they saddled any of us with our monikers, and after learning what the term cavies actually means, it seems as though we’ve spent our lives being the butt of a cruel joke.

  “I know. I just… It hurts to imagine my mother here.”

  “They were strong, Gypsy. And we survived. So those nuns can fuck themselves.”

  It’s a good thing we’re not religious or I’d be scanning the heavens for divine lightning bolts. Or maybe not. Not everyone who accepts a life of service does so for the right reasons. We’re all wondering whether our Philosopher and Professor, who claimed interest in nothing but figuring out the key to our mutations, had been working for the very agencies they’d warned us never to trust.

  Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I want to believe they cared. That even if they were working for some form of government, they had faith that if we harnessed and honed our talents and offered them up in service, that we could be respected.

  The waves crashing on the shore inch toward our toes, hushing my thoughts. My mind settles, easing into nothingness, and Mole and I watch the tide come in silence.

  We might have spent a lifetime staring out at the unreachable horizon, but in reality, it can’t be more than five or ten minutes before the rest of the Cavies join us.

  The beach is deserted on the darkening, chilled December evening. Even so, we hike until we’re well away from the horrid Saint Catherine’s House and anyone who might be watching through rheumy, hateful eyes. Haint melts from thin air along the way, and Goose appears in a gush of wind stronger than anything the ocean could muster. Mole stops first, dragging Pollyanna with him onto the sand. The rest of us follow, shivering from the cold.

  “We found the files,” Haint says. “All of ours are together, under a mass file labeled ‘Special Circumstances.’”

  “We took pictures of our mothers’ intake pages because we didn’t think there was enough time to read them all and try to memorize them, and we thought you’d each like to see yours. There’s definitely a commonality between their initial medical exams.” Goose scratches his ear, glancing out at the water. “They’re all listed as having a chromosomal anomaly, an inversion in one of the genes on chromosome ten with no known affiliated disorder or potential for birth defect.”

  The information doesn’t quite compute, even though we know about genetic anomalies. Chromosome ten houses over fourteen hundred genes, a hundred and thirty base pairs, and produces a handful of diseases, the majority of which are fairly innocuous. Some are thought to contribute to certain kinds of cancer, as well as eye disease. It’s never been the focus of any research on mutation that I can recall.

  The others’ blank expressions suggest they can’t, either. The cancer-causing mutations would interest me since my father said Abby died of something that sounded like cancer, but not one that’s linked to any known chromosome ten abnormality.

  “There’s more,” Haint breathes. “All of our files were classified ‘Special Circumstances’ before we were born. It’s like they knew we were going to have something in common.”

  I shake my head, slowly, trying to get all the pieces to fall into place. Like those games we played with as children, a flat scene under a piece of plastic with three or four little holes. There were three or four corresponding tiny metal balls, and the trick was to get them all in the holes at once.

  The information, the metal balls, rolls to and fro in my brain, but there are too many holes, and as soon as one falls into place, something else knocks it loose.
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br />   “They as in the nuns?” Athena asks, denial stamped on every pore of his face. “Or they as in the people who own this place? I mean, someone ordered that genetic testing. It’s not part of normal prenatal workup unless there’s a cause for concern.”

  Haint shakes her head. “We scanned files from other patients, not filed under any specific category, and every girl admitted here went through exhaustive genetic mapping.”

  “So?” Pollyanna voice challenges us, as ever. “They basically sell babies, right? Maybe the kind of people who adopt from Saint Catherine’s want to know their kids are perfect.”

  “And maybe that’s why we were sent to Darley. Because we’re not.” Athena chews on his nails, making gross gnawing sounds.

  “No.” Mole shakes his head. “They were doing complete genetic workups because they were looking for something specific.”

  “I agree. There must have been some reason they noted those chromosome ten anomalies and categorized our mothers differently.” Frustration joins my never-ending parade of anger, making it hard to sit still.

  “I think it’s worth assuming that, while our mutations are unprecedented, they might not be random. That whoever runs this institution singled our mothers out because of their chromosomal anomalies, then ensured those were passed on to us in a specific way.” Haint says all of this as though it’s a logical leap, when in reality it takes more than a few bounds to get there.

  “You think they were looking for that anomaly because they suspected it would allow a mutation?” I ask, trying to make two and two equal four.

  “No, I said I think it’s possible.”

  Pollyanna frowns. “What the fuck isn’t possible at this point?”

  Haint breathes in and out and cuts a glance Goose.

  He bites his lip, then nods. “I’d say it’s more than possible. There were others in the Special Circumstances file—names and details going back more than seventy years. All of their mothers displayed some form of chromosomal abnormality.”

  My heart seizes, his words floating around like little wisps of clouds. They look real, but until we meet one of those people to confirm it, my fingers won’t latch on. “The rest of the Cavies. The older ones.”

  “We think so. And now we have names.”

  It’s after seven by the time I make it home. I texted my dad before we went into Saint Catherine’s, telling him I was with the Cavies and I’d be home in time for dinner, then turned off my phone.

  I’m home now, and the look on his face when he meets me at the door suggests he’s not amused.

  “Where in the hell have you been? I’ve been calling you since I got home, and I didn’t buy you that phone so you can ignore my calls.”

  My backpack falls to the floor when I try to sling it onto a bench in the entry. “I had to turn it off. We were at the Saint Catherine’s House, seeing if they remembered anything about our moms or our adoptions.”

  “I don’t care if you were having dinner with the president. We may not have a lot of practice at being a family, Norah Jane, but you’re my responsibility now. That means you answer your phone when I call.”

  He pauses, waiting for something I can’t give—a good excuse, maybe? The silence between us grows, nudging my lips and urging me to break it. In the end, I do, but feel as though I lost some battle of wills.

  “I’m sorry I made you angry.”

  His hands land on my shoulders, squeezing tight. “I’m not angry, Norah. I was terrified.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Are you kidding? I’ve had you in my life a couple of weeks, and you’ve already been attacked in broad daylight. I’ve been worried sick, and I want you to care enough not to do that to me again.”

  Tears burn my throat and blaze a path toward my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not used to thinking about anyone but my friends from Darley, but that’s unfair. I’ll do better.”

  The promise to always tell him where I am, what I’m doing—to never frighten him again—sticks somewhere between my heart and my mouth, smothered by guilt. It’s not possible, or fair, to promise anything. We’re going after Flicker, once we figure out how, and who knows what happens then.

  “Good. I’m happy to hear that.”

  I start up the stairs, feeling heavy in my heart and brain and pretty much everywhere.

  “Wait just one second, please.” His features rearrange into something new. It’s grim. No, stern. “You’re grounded.”

  “I don’t know what that means.” The term’s familiar, of course, but only in theory. In fiction. What it means for my life is a mystery, but it doesn’t take long to solve it.

  “It means you don’t use your phone.” He pauses, his forehead wrinkling. “No, wait. That’s counterproductive. It means not seeing your friends from school, and only seeing your friends from Darley if it’s preapproved by me, in person, in the spoken word.”

  It warms my heart that he doesn’t want to take them away from me. He’s been so willing to understand, and the shame over ruining even one of his days fills my stomach with rocks. “Okay.”

  “And you can make dinner for the next week.”

  “I don’t know how to cook.”

  He smiles, and our eyes connect. Everything’s forgiven, if not yet right. “You’re a smart girl. Learn.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It’s takes five days of computer research, with all of us pitching in—plus some wunderkind the twins found in Beaufort digging, too—before we find one of the other kids filed under Special Circumstances.

  Jeannie Marks. That’s her name. It’s so… simple. Common. Then again, based on my own name, I don’t know what I expected.

  Despite what I promised my father, there’s no way to explain this situation, so we’re cutting the last couple of hours of school to go talk to her instead of waiting until later tonight. I’m guessing this falls on the list of things I shouldn’t do without telling an adult, but I’m already grounded. Can a person get double-grounded?

  I’m almost home free, hurrying toward the door that leads into the courtyard, when I run into Jude. “Hey! Where are you headed? Don’t you have class?”

  I lick my lips, casting glances up and down the hall in an attempt to thwart any other potential interruptions. “Oh, I… um, well…”

  “Don’t bother lying, Crespo. You suck at it. Spill your guts.”

  I close my eyes, knowing there’s no time to come up with a good story and that he wouldn’t believe me even if I did. “We found the name of one of the kids who grew up at Darley before us, and some of us are going to talk to her.”

  His eyes pop wide. “What? How?”

  “I don’t have time to tell you now.”

  “Why are you cutting school? Can’t you go later?” His eyes narrow, lock on mine. “You’re not telling your dad.”

  “Jude, please. Everyone’s waiting.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  I bite back a groan. “That’s not—”

  “Seriously. I don’t like the idea of you going to some stranger’s house. She could be crazy, or involved with the people who held up my dad. Plus, I’m invested now.”

  “I’ve got plenty of backup. Shiloh’s going, plus Eve and a bunch of the others you haven’t met. I promise nothing is going to happen to us.” The thought is almost enough to make me laugh, except he’s being so sincere and sweet, and it would probably give off the wrong signal.

  “I’m not saying you can’t take care of yourself, or that your friends don’t count, I just… I thought we were kind of a team on this now, that’s all. After everything the other day.”

  The hurt deepening his voice, shining in his eyes, twists my heart. It makes me wish I had made him angry, instead. That would be better than being careless with his feelings—even though one of the main reasons I don’t want Jude involved is because I care for him.

  “I’m sorry. I am. All I can tell you is that I like you, and I care about you, and that’s exactly why you need to
stay away from everything that has anything to do with Darley Hall.”

  I hurry away before he can say anything else, before the sorrow on his face debilitates me further. Reaper’s waiting in the courtyard, a sour look on her face that could be because I’m a few minutes late, except she always looks like seeing me is the worst part of her day. Her attitude plucks at what’s left of my patience, but I can’t take my icky feelings over disappointing Jude and take them out on her.

  “Hey. You ready for this?” I ask, gritting my teeth.

  “I’m ready to quit dawdling and find Flicker.”

  “That’s what we’re trying to do. Unless you have a better idea on how to go about that?”

  She doesn’t answer, just leads the way across the parking lot. Jeannie Marks lives near the College of Charleston, so we’ve got a bit of a hike ahead of us. We’re supposed to meet the others at the corner of King and Market, and Reaper and I walk the rest of the way in silence. Irritation urges me to lash out, to grab her and force her to tell me what the hell is the matter, but I don’t. She’ll spill when she’s ready and not a moment before. With everything we’re facing this afternoon, fighting with her seems an unnecessary addition.

  My emotions tangle like a ball of yarn that’s been batted around by a litter of kittens. Trepidation over meeting Jeannie Marks—what she’ll be like, if she’ll tell us anything, what she’ll tell us if she does. An odd kind of sorrow that after this afternoon it won’t be just the ten of us Cavies anymore. Our world is about to expand to include people we don’t know, maybe can’t trust.

  Then there’s the guilt over upsetting my father, and knowing it’s going to happen again and again until we figure out how to be safe.

  Fear overwhelms all the rest, because it’s hard to believe that’s ever going to happen. How can the ten of us, even with everything we can do, hope to convince the government to leave us alone?

  I’m a hopeless snarl by the time we reach the corner of Market, which is pretty much a ghost town this time of day, and see Polly and Mole waiting. Their faces are wound so tight that if they started ticking, it wouldn’t surprise me. Reaper greets them with the same lack of enthusiasm she generally reserves for me, which should make me feel a little bit better, but doesn’t really.