The Reckless Oath We Made - Bryn Greenwood Page 0,23

I went out to the front room, Elana was there watching some kind of educational video, and Charlene was in the kitchen.

“Good morning, hon. How do you feel about French toast for breakfast?” she said.

“Oh, you don’t need to fix me anything.”

“Well, it’s already cooking, so you might as well have some. Does Marcus like French toast?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s just having a hard time getting up this morning.”

“That’s all right. I’ll fix him some breakfast when he gets up. Go on, sit down, and I’ll bring it to you.”

In the dining room, Gentry was reading the newspaper, but he folded it up when I sat down.

“How slept thou, Lady Zhorzha?” he said.

“Oh, okay.”

“My mother said thou passed the night ill, that thy nephew was much distressed, and for that I am sorry.”

I don’t think Gentry understood I was trying to tell a polite lie. “Well, he had to find out eventually, I guess.” That was what I said, but then I spent a whole minute trying not to cry.

Charlene carried in a baking pan with these huge, fluffy slabs of French toast on it. It was the most beautiful French toast I had ever seen. Golden brown and bubbly and dusted with powdered sugar. After the first bite, I cut a second one, but didn’t eat it. I stuck the syrupy mess in the middle of my palm and stood up.

“It thee liketh not?” Gentry said, and he actually looked at me, so I knew I was acting pretty kooky.

“It’s perfect. It’s the most amazing French toast I’ve ever had.”

It was so incredible, I carried it down the hallway to Marcus, and waved it under his nose.

“If you get up now, you get French toast,” I said. “Otherwise, you’re getting oatmeal for breakfast.”

That probably wasn’t true, but it got him up. I led him down the hallway with the bite of French toast like bait on a hook.

“Look who decided to get out of bed,” Charlene said.

He ate two whole pieces without saying a word, which was a record for him. After he finished the second piece, he said, “When can I go see Mommy?”

I’d been thinking about having a second piece of French toast, too, but that killed the urge. I felt like the whole night had been a terrible dream, and I was going to have to live it again. Like Groundhog Day.

“Buddy, I don’t know.”

“But you said the police were going to bring her home. When?” He had a little mustache of syrup and powdered sugar that was so cute I would have laughed, but it was just fucking sad right then.

“They are,” I said. “They’re gonna find her and bring her home, but I don’t know when. I hope really, really soon.” All the same stuff I’d told him last night.

“Can we go to the prison and look for her?”

“She’s not there. I told you, they took her away. We’re gonna go to Grandma—”

“You don’t know she’s not there if you didn’t go look,” Marcus said. It was the kind of thing LaReigne told him when he’d lost a toy. How do you know it’s not there if you didn’t look? I guess he thought it worked for everything. He sniffled, but instead of crying, he shouted, “You don’t know! You don’t know!”

“Master Marcus, be not wroth with thine aunt,” Gentry said. I wanted to tell him to mind his own business, but I was a guest in his house. Plus Marcus stopped yelling and looked at Gentry, who took the newspaper and unfolded it. “’Tis here, writ in the paper. Canst thou read?”

“No. I can only do my alphabet.”

Marcus was still sniffling, but he got up on his knees in his chair to look at the paper. Gentry cleared his throat and started reading: “As the manhunt for escaped inmates Tague Barnwell and Conrad Ligett enters the third day, authorities have widened the scope of their search, following the discovery of hostage LaReigne Trego-Gill’s car in a rural area near the Nebraska state line.”

More than a few times I’d wondered if Gentry ever spoke modern English, but I wasn’t sure if this counted. After all, he was reading the newspaper, not making up the sentences himself.

I’d never thought of letting Marcus hear all the news, I guess because I was trying to protect him. Plus, normally, when you read him a story, he asked a hundred questions, and I didn’t have answers. He listened to Gentry read the article all the way through in