back and she raised her head to see the shock on his face as he asked, “She left you to die and killed herself?”
Allie nodded. Normally when she thought about this, she became angry and emotional. This time, however, she wasn’t feeling much at all and merely said, “My fever was crazy high when she came to me, but I remember it very clearly. She told me she loved my father more than life itself, and even at that point, with one child dead and one dying, couldn’t bring herself to betray him and seek medical help. But she also couldn’t live with the fact that her doing nothing had killed my sister and was most likely going to kill me. So she was going to take her own life. If I died, she and Jilly would be waiting to greet me when God took me home.”
“I thought she was Catholic,” Magnus growled with disgust. “Suicide is a mortal sin according to the Catholic church.”
Shrugging, Allie said wearily, “At that point, I think she was just crazy. The whole time she was telling me all of that, she was patting my shoulder and smiling as if what she was saying was perfectly normal and should be good news because I’d have her and Jilly to greet me when I died. Then she just got up and left my room. I tried to follow, but the effort caused me terrible pain and I passed out without even managing to get out of bed.”
Allie was silent for a minute, and then continued. “When I woke up, my father was there placing cold cloths over my forehead. He told me mother had ‘lost her faith in our God’ and hung herself. It was just the two of us now. We’d have to live right and pray for her soul and that of Jilly’s.”
She paused briefly, wondering where the usual anger was. Allie hadn’t spoken of this often. In fact, aside from Bethany’s mom and the police, Stella was the only other person she’d told about her past, but she’d felt rage and anger and grief every time she’d told the story before this. Now she just felt sad as she thought about the family she’d had. They’d been so screwed up.
Shaking her head, Allie said, “I didn’t die. My fever broke, and my father nursed me back to health. We never spoke again about Jilly or my mother, other than his telling me he buried both in a very old little graveyard at the back of the property. It was illegal, but so was refusing to seek medical help for children, so I doubt he cared.” She shrugged. “It took a couple of weeks for me to get my strength back, but once I thought I could manage it, I packed a bag and left. I just walked out of the house and kept walking.”
“Where did you go?” Magnus asked, and she could hear the concern in his voice.
“To Bethany’s family,” Allie said with a faint smile. “She’d given me her new address before they moved and I found it eventually with the help of a farmer who picked me up on the edge of the city and gave me a ride the rest of the way into town and to their house. To say they were shocked to see me would be a bit of an understatement,” she added with amusement. “They were all very nice, but Bethany had changed. The country girl was gone, she was all city now and I could tell she didn’t know what to do with me. There were a house full of teenagers there, some kind of party, and she was just embarrassed by me in my homespun clothes. As for Brandon, he just acted like he didn’t even know me. But Mrs. Wilson sat me down and made me tell her everything. Then she drove me to the police station and made me tell them.”
“Was your father arrested?” Magnus asked.
“He would have been. They mentioned criminal negligent homicide in regards to my sister, and something about burying their bodies on the farm, but I can’t remember what the charge was.” She took a moment to try to remember, but then shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. He wasn’t there when they went out to the farm. But they dug up Jilly and my mother and took them in for autopsies to strengthen the charges against my father. He, however, was long gone,” she added, and then explained,