CHAPTER FORTY NINEStopStop was indeed in the town’s tiny hospital, which was little more than a glorified clinic, really. They delivered babies there and bound up broken bones and put Branny Jacob’s eye back in after Tom Kidd had popped it out with the butt of his knife, though. Twice. “The first time you pop out my eye, shame on you,” the nurse said to Branny after he came to, “but the second time that you do it, shame on meStop lay in bed, hooked up to tubes and monitors and wires. His hospital gown was on backward so they could easily reach in and adjust all manner of medical doodads on his chest, and he had an IV slowly dripping a clear, benign looking substance from a bag into a long tube that ended on the back of his hand.“Oh, Daddy,” Bryony said, dropping to her knees beside the bed. She kissed her father’s shriveled hands and smoothed his white hair away from his gray face. “I have missed you so much, and talking to you on the phone isn’t enough. I need to see you with
CHAPTER FIFTYTeddy BakerThis is what Teddy Baker thought:He thought, “I recognize the look in that man’s eyes. It shone from my own eyes long ago. He is going to kill Bryony, and she seems too weak to notice. That is not like her. Something is wrong.”He thought, “Why is she with him and not with her husband?”He thought, “Am I willing to risk my life to save hers again? It really is her fate to die, it has always been so, and who am I to deny it?”His heart, which had been stretched by his wife, and even more by his baby girl, was big enough to encompass the Star Girl. Besides, he still recalled their one and only kiss, and how it felt, and the sweet sound of her breathing as she leaned toward him, and his certainty that she would not be breathing in the morning if he got his way. That kiss, her breathing, and her guileless gray eyes had made his heart chant the same mantra it was chanting now.Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong.And human nature sel
CHAPTER FIFTY ONESorrow“I’m sorry, but I have to be alone for a while,” Bryony said to Peter. He nodded and stepped outside, quietly closing the screen door behind him. Bryony wandered around her childhood home, touching the walls and running her hands over the counters, shiny from years of use. She picked up the phone, called Eddie, and let it ring and ring and ring.“Hey, it’s Eddie. Leave a message, will ya?”There was a beep, and Bryony didn’t know what to say for a long time. She wanted to be positive; she wanted to make sure he didn’t worry. He had so much to concentrate on, after all. But at the same time, she wanted him to realize how hurt she was. She wanted him to be on his knees saying: “Baby, I’m so sorry, please forgive me. How could I ever have been so misguided?” They would then fling themselves at each other and there would be tears and warm kisses and they’d rub the tips of their noses cozily together.Now all was not well, and this very real not-wellness made i
CHAPTER FIFTY TWORescueThere was a tapping on Bryony’s bedroom window. She awoke slowly, groggy and disoriented. The thoughts of her father, Eddie, and her sweet unborn baby slammed into her, and she wearily realized this was life. It wasn’t going to get much better. She had been programmed to flee for the promise and hope of a better world, when perhaps the best thing to do would be turn over and close her eyes so she wouldn’t see the face of death when it overtook her.Then more tapping.Bryony slipped out of bed, opened the window, and peered out onto the street. There stood Teddy Baker, half hidden behind the rough dry brush in the yard.Why, it was her girlhood fantasy come true. How very bizarre.“Teddy, what are you doing here?”Teddy smiled at her. “Nobody calls me Teddy anymore. I’ve gone by Ted for the last ten years.”“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”“No, don’t apologize, Bryony. I like it. It reminds me . . . of a time long ago, and I realize now that is a good thing t
CHAPTER FIFTY THREEPlease LiveBryony nodded, and clutched the shoes to her chest like a talisman.“Thank you so much, Teddy. It can’t be easy to come here and say this to me. In my heart I think I always knew Peter was what you say, but I don’t want to believe that, you see. It means I have been foolish, which I have, and that Eddie has been blind, which he has. It means I should have run a long time ago, and I didn’t, and now I am sorry. It means when he saved me, he didn’t do it because he’s a good person, and I so dearly want him to be a good person. Please thank your wife for me, and kiss your beautiful girl, and take care of my father for me. Place him in the desert, and let him tamp it down and hold it back. I fear I shall never return here. Never again. I have nothing to come back for.”Teddy leaned through the window, kissed Bryony on her cheek and ran his hand over the stitches on her face.“I wish I could help more than this, but I can’t. Please live, sweet girl. You g
CHAPTER FIFTY FOURIdeallyPeter woke up with a start. Something was wrong. What was it? What was it?He was somewhere unfamiliar, and this realization had him on his feet beside the bed in no time. Had he been caught? Had he been taken? He would rather die before being taken, and he didn’t remember a struggle of any sort whatsoever.A quick scan of the room jogged his memory. Ah, yes. This was Stop’s house, the home where Bryony grew up, and he was sleeping in the bed of a dead man, but being who he was meant this didn’t bother him any. Stop had seemed like a good and decent man, and heaven knows his daughter adored him, and the fact that he had disliked Peter on sight, well, it only said good things about him, too.Downstairs Bryony would be sleeping, curled up on her side with, he imagined, her fingers close to her mouth like a child. She had fallen asleep in her clothes, but if she had the time to choose whatever she wanted to wear, would she be wearing a white nightgown to co
CHAPTER FIFTY FIVECloudsThe car wouldn’t start, and Bryony knew this was unusual. Didn’t it start perfectly only today? Hadn’t it been a good and serviceable vehicle? Now, suddenly when she needed it most, it chose to let its internal parts rust and die and spew fluid hither and yon?She didn’t think so.Bryony peeked up and saw a man in the window of her father’s room. At first her heart skidded to a stop—Daddy!—but then she remembered her father was dead, and the man silhouetted there was Peter, and she had been warned against him within the last few hours by two people who cared for her.And she was a kind girl, a tender girl, but she was also a smart girl when her eyes were opened, and her father and Teddy succeeded in opening her eyes. Peter didn’t move from the window, and his body language told Bryony he was most likely off in a world of his own, so she used this to her advantage. She opened the car door as quietly as she could, slid out, and hit the ground doing what she
CHAPTER FIFTY SIXThe KnifeThe thing that must be remembered about Peter is that he, too, is a runner. Whereas Bryony planned to keep a little extra energy in her tank so as to make it the entire five miles, Peter had no such plans. He was sprinting, because he did not need to make it to the edge of town: he only needed to make it to the girl.His feet hit the ground like pistons, cold and mechanical, and he held the knife tightly in his grip, blade down.Oh, oh, how tragically this shall unfold.