to dance. “Look at the alien go!” Tabby called to Jo. “Jojo, get over here!”
“Come dance with us!” Ursa shouted.
Everyone turned expectant smiles on Jo, which made remaining in her seat more humiliating than dancing. She took Ursa’s other hand and tried to look like she was dancing. Ursa had no idea how to dance either, but she didn’t care. She laughed and jumped and shimmied, as radiant as Jo had ever seen her, as if starlight shined straight from her Hetrayen soul.
12
At the start of the trip back to Southern Illinois, Ursa used her third and last piece of paper to draw a picture of Tabby. An hour later, she was still working on the portrait.
“How can you draw in a moving car without getting carsick?” Jo asked.
“I’m used to doing things at star speed,” Ursa said.
“You mean light speed?”
“We call it star speed. It’s different from light speed.”
“You love drawing, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe I’ll get you colored pencils. Those crayons are too thick to get good detail.”
“I know,” Ursa said. “I made the purple jewel in her nose too big.”
“Art is supposed to represent how you see the world, not exactly copy it.”
“I wish I could exactly copy Tabby.” “Why?”
“So I could always have her with me.”
“I know the feeling. She’s the most free-spirited person I’ve ever met. Even when I was really sick, she could make me laugh.”
“It’s done.” Ursa handed Jo the drawing over the seat.
Jo glanced at it as she drove. “This is good! It looks like her.”
“Tabby is my third miracle.”
“Really? Tabby ranks up there with baby birds and kittens?”
“She’s kind of like a baby. She didn’t know she was supposed to grow up, and that makes her more fun than other grown-up people.”
“Good assessment.”
Ursa looked at the approaching exit ramp. “Why are you slowing down?”
“To get gas.”
She looked around in all directions. “Wait . . . where is this?”
“A city called Effingham. I usually stop here. There’s a station that has cheap gas.”
“I don’t want to stop.”
“I’m out of gas. I have to.”
“Can’t you go somewhere else?”
“Why?”
“I don’t like this place.”
Jo looked in the rearview mirror. “Have you been here before?”
She didn’t answer.
“Have you?” Jo said.
“I said I don’t like it because it’s ugly.”
“Maybe it is, but we’ll only be here for ten minutes. You’d better use the bathroom. They have a clean one here.”
“I don’t have to go.”
“You had two Sprites.”
Ursa scrunched down in her seat. “I’m going to sleep.”
Jo fueled the car and used the restroom. She also bought two Necco rolls, a candy she rarely saw in stores. That was the other, more important, reason she stopped at that particular gas station.
Jo thought Ursa was asleep when she returned to the locked car, but Ursa sat up a few miles down the highway. “Want a Necco?” Jo said.
“What is that?”
“A candy I like.” She handed the open roll back to Ursa.
“Can I have a purple one?”
“How far down is it?”
“Only three.”
“Go ahead, but purple isn’t grape if that’s what you’re expecting. It’s clove, and some people don’t like it.”
Ursa pried out the purple wafer and laid it on her tongue. “I like it!”
Half a Necco package later, Ursa said she had to go to the bathroom.
“Why didn’t you go in Effingham?”
“I didn’t have to go when we were there.”
Jo stopped in Salem and took her into a bathroom. They made it all the way to Turkey Creek Road without another bathroom break. After they turned onto the road, Ursa asked if they could see the kittens. Earlier that day, they’d stopped to tell Gabe they were going to Urbana, but when they saw a silver SUV parked in front of the cabin, Jo decided they shouldn’t disturb him and his mother when they had visitors.
As they approached the Nash property, Ursa begged her to stop. It was 7:10, early enough for a quick visit, and Jo wanted to make sure Gabe didn’t have the wrong idea about what had happened the other night. But the silver SUV was still parked at the end of the potholed drive. “Maybe we should leave,” Jo said.
“Gabe won’t care.” Ursa was out the door before Jo could stop her. A woman with a lightly grayed ponytail came through the front door of the cabin. She was in her midforties, her features broad and bullish, and the extra pounds she carried on her tall, powerful frame made her appear more intimidating than overweight. But it was probably the harsh blue of her eyes that made Ursa