“And if I hadn’t helped him reach the West Coast, you would’ve killed him by Albuquerque to soothe your bruised ego. You were the one to place that ancient demand upon him to steal his own child back instead of settling custody like civilized people. But as for arresting him at your wedding? You deserved that. It was all you, you, you. Did you ever even think to ask him what he might have wanted? Excuse me.”
Chin high, I strode to the girls’ room, not surprised to find the heavy door behind their closet wide open. Lucy was dragging her comforter into the space, Buddy wanting to play and dancing beside her. Inside the room, Zack was busy clearing space. Ray stood beside Quen, holding his leg as he used binder clips to fasten a second blanket to one of the cabinets. “What can I do to help?” I asked, thinking the large room looked more like a vault than a closet with its airtight cabinets of books, shelved artifacts, and paintings stacked on end.
But I stopped stock-still when I saw the small glass baby bottle sitting among the rest. I reached for it, my fingertips tingling as I took it in hand. I knew without asking that this was the bottle that had once held my soul, an impromptu container when my body was too broken to keep it intact. “You kept it?” I said, and a shiver ran through me as my finger traced the rough spiral Trent had etched into the bottom to confuse and direct my soul.
Trent looked up from fastening the other end of the tent to a shelf of ancient elven knickknacks that could probably fund the college educations of an entire high school. “Do you want it?” he said. “I couldn’t throw it away, and I always thought it felt as if it had a shadow of your soul in there, like a reflection.” He hesitated, wincing at Lucy now running back and forth to bring her stuffed animals in, one by one. “Ah, can you organize Lucy? Help her winnow it down, maybe? Ray needs to pick out a book yet, too.”
“Sure.” I set the bottle back with a small click. It was probably more secure here than on Kisten’s boat. Lurching, I snagged Lucy with one hand and wiggled my fingers for Ray. Lucy laughed and giggled, swinging as she half-dragged me and Ray out of the safe room. Ray looked scared, and I picked her up, thinking she smelled like a snickerdoodle. “Lucy?” I said as I sat on one of their low beds. “Your dad says to pick three.”
“All of them.” Lucy pulled the animals on her bed to a blanket on the floor to drag in.
“But why?” I said, thinking my momitude needed work. “There won’t be room for you.”
“All of them,” Lucy said again, turning to the toy box after she emptied her bed.
“Any ideas?” I said to Ray, and she clung to me, a book about a black horse in her grip.
I sighed, my eyes going to the open closet door when Trent’s voice rose in unusual anger. “It’s the only space contiguous to our current living situation. I’m sensitive to you wanting to leave my mother’s rooms as they are, but if she doesn’t have her own space here, I’m going to lose everything I’ve gained. I know you have a way in. If you don’t tell me, I’m going to blow the fireplace apart and make my own door.”
Fireplace? I thought, thinking he must have meant the monster of a hearth on the first floor. I swear, the hearth was big enough to park my MINI in. What had they done? Bricked up a wing with it?
Then I winced, flushing as I realized Ellasbeth was standing at the doorway, having heard it as well. Opening an unused wing of the estate? Ellasbeth staying over for naps, albeit on the floor? My shoulders slumped, and I felt more alone, even with Ray on my lap, patting her book as if to distract me. I knew Trent was trying to find a way to pacify everyone, and Ellasbeth moving back in, into a closed wing or not, might be enough to buy a few enclave votes.
Chin high, Ellasbeth crossed the room. “Knock, knock,” she said brightly as she halted in the doorway to the safe room. “Oh, that is a fine tent. Lucy, Ray, come and see.”
I didn’t care if she was better at this mothering