leaving only the glow of a full moon and a smattering of lights that seem to float over the watery horizon. Leaves and sea grass whisper, and on the beach ghost crabs scuttle sideways through the sand. I sweep the light over them, taking care not to ruin the feeding frenzy by stepping on someone.
The breeze slides along my neck and through my hair, and I want to walk and relax and enjoy the soothing song of the sea. I own meditation music that sounds like this, but I seldom take time for the real thing. Right now, that seems like a shame. I’d forgotten how heavenly this place is, a perfect meeting of land and sea, undisturbed by giant high-rises, or bonfires and ATVs.
I come to Trent Turner’s cottage before I want to. My pulse quickens as I slip along a well-worn trail through shrubbery and cross a short boardwalk to a leaning gate. His cottage is of about the same vintage as Grandma Judy’s. It sits on short stilts on a large lot, with a small outbuilding in the side yard. A stone path leads to the porch steps. Overhead, moths flutter in circles around a single bulb.
Trent answers the door before I can knock. He’s wearing a faded T-shirt with a tear along the neck and sweats that sag around his hips. His suntanned feet are bare, and he’s sporting an impressive case of bedhead.
Crossing his arms, he leans against the doorframe, studying me.
I’m suddenly all hands and feet, like an adolescent on a first date to the middle-school dance. I don’t know what to do with myself.
“I was starting to wonder,” he says.
“Whether I was coming, you mean?”
“Whether the phone call was just a bad dream.” But his lips curve upward, and I gather that he’s joking.
Even so, I blush a little. This is such an imposition. “I’m sorry. I just really…I need to know. What was your grandfather’s association with my grandmother?”
“Most likely, he was doing a job for her.”
“What kind of job?”
He looks past me toward the tiny cabin tucked beneath the trees in the side yard. I sense the struggle in him. He’s wrestling with whether or not he’s betraying the deathbed promise. “My grandfather was a finder.”
“A finder of what?”
“People.”
CHAPTER 14
Rill
It’s getting on toward dark by the time the viewing party slows down, and the workers start gathering kids to put them into cars and take them back home. By then, I almost don’t want to go. All afternoon long, there’ve been cookies and ice cream and licorice whips and cake and milk and sandwiches and coloring books and new boxes of Crayola colors and dolls for the girls and tin toy cars for the boys.
I’m so stuffed, I can hardly move. After three weeks of not enough food, this place tastes better than anything.
I feel bad that Camellia is missing it all, but then I don’t know if she would put up with it either. She doesn’t like to be cuddled…or touched. I steal a cookie for her and slip it in the front pocket of my pinafore dress and hope nobody checks us over before we leave.
The people all call us dearie and sweetie pie and Oh, precious! So does Miss Tann while we’re here. Just like at the bookmobile, she tells tales that aren’t true. Her eyes twinkle, and she smiles, like she’s enjoying getting away with it.
Just like at the bookmobile, I keep my mouth shut about what is true.
“They’re perfect in every way,” she says to the guests over and over. “Wonderful physical specimens and mentally advanced for their ages as well. Many come from parents with talents in music and art. Blank slates just waiting to be filled. They can become anything you want them to be.”
“He’s a fine little thing, isn’t he?” she asks a man and a wife who’ve been holding on to Gabion all day. They’ve played ball and cars, and the man tossed Gabby in the air while he giggled.
Now that it’s time to leave, the lady doesn’t want to give Gabby back. She walks all the way to the front door, and my baby brother holds on around her neck just like Fern is holding on around mine.
“I ’anna ’tay,” Gabby whines.
“We gotta go.” I shift Fern to my other hip as Mrs. Pulnik tries to shoo us forward onto the porch. I don’t blame Gabby for fussing. I hate that we have to go back to Mrs. Murphy’s house too.