“Daddy!”
Darius nodded. “She was too young. But if this makes her old enough, by the standard of her culture—”
“It will.” He shook his head. “We never thought—but it will, and I suppose that’s best. Colene always was a good judge of people, and if she loves you—”
“I do,” Colene said.
“We can make space in the house, so you won’t have to camp out—”
“No, they like it out here,” Colene said quickly. It was apparent that she had not told her father about Seqiro or Burgess. “Well, maybe Nona could come in.”
“Of course,” he agreed. “We have a rollaway couch-bed we can make up. Come on in, Nona.”
Nona took advantage of the moment to relay her news, silently. Amos may have found out what is wrong with Burgess. A trace substance in the air, because we cross the Modes too quickly for him to absorb it. He is seeking a replacement.
Colene’s radiance intensified. She was far from depressed now! That’s the greatest news! I knew Amos could do it.
They started in. Then Colene paused. “Something else, Darius.” She shut her mouth, and thought the rest for them only. Amos is doing us a great favor. He doesn’t want any return favor, but I want to give him one. We need to find out about the Sin Eater. I think I’ll be busy, but Darius, if you can—
I will try. Where is my source of information?
Amos.
They went on in, leaving Darius to ponder. “Colene, I need to warn you, this is going to come as a shock to your mother,” her father said.
“Is she drinking?”
Nona understood from the thought that the question was whether her mother was consuming alcoholic beverages. There were some on Oria who did that to excess, and it was not a good thing.
“No. She’s in a program, and she’s been straight. She prays daily for your return. She’s the one who set up the note on the table.”
“That helped,” Colene said. “I had business to do in town. I think Mom will accept me getting married, if you do.”
“If she knows you truly want it,” He hesitated, then broached another subject. “The people you were with, last time—”
“Slick and Esta.”
“After the way all of you disappeared, there was publicity. The—the vanishing was dismissed as someone’s invention; they assumed that all of you had managed to sneak out of town. The police grilled us, but couldn’t prove anything. It turned out that the man was a gangster, and the girl had been severely abused; her stepfather’s awaiting trial now. It seemed that the gangster was the child’s uncle; he kidnapped her to save her from further molestation. He had a record a mile long, everything except molestation. They concluded that it was the single good thing he did in his life, an act of atonement. You knew that, didn’t you?”
“I knew it,” Colene agreed. “I set it up. They’re happy now. He’s out of the crime business, and she’s got nothing but happiness ahead of her.”
He hesitated again. “In the course of the investigation, some other things came out. The police—we—I don’t like to say this—”
But Seqiro was making his thought plain to them. “They found out about the rape,” Colene said.
“It was just a rumor,” he said quickly. “We said it couldn’t be true. You would never—”
“It happened,” Colene said evenly. “That’s why I had to get away.”
“There was no proof. They couldn’t even identify the perpetrators. No one would talk. Just this ugly rumor, how four high school boys tricked this thirteen-year-old girl into coming to an apartment, and plied her with liquor, getting her so drunk she didn’t even resist. You read about that sort of thing all the time, but never believe it could happen to your own daughter. You—you never said anything.”
“There didn’t seem to be any point. What would you have done if I had told?”
“I’ll do it now,” he said, turning grim. “Give me their names.”
“Dad, why should you care about any of that? You’ve had a mistress for years!”
He swallowed. “It is true. It is not easy to be the spouse of an alcoholic, and I needed something to compensate. But I never raped anyone. Like your gangster friend, I am clean in this respect. I abused you only by my absence, and my ignorance, and I want to correct that now. Give me their names.”
The names of two passed through Colene’s mind, so strongly that Nona heard them. But she set her little jaw. “It wouldn’t do any good. I won’t be here to prosecute, and anyway they always treat the girl as if she’s the criminal. It would just drag me and you and Mom down into the gutter, and those freaks would get off anyway. The judge always believes the liars. I just want to forget about it. I’ve found a good man now, and good friends, and if that’s partly because of the spin that gang rape sent me into, then maybe it was a favor in the long term. Understand, I’d like nothing better than to see those freaks get theirs, but this isn’t the way.”
“You want marriage instead of revenge,” he said.
“I want marriage,” she agreed. “And Mom—if she’s straight, now, I don’t want to hurt her. So if we maybe could just forget this—”
“If that is the way you want it, it is forgotten,” he said grimly. He glanced at Nona. “Your friend won’t speak of it?”
“I will not speak of it,” Nona said, though she, too, was sorry that the rapists would not be punished. She herself had almost been raped at one of the alternate worlds in Julia, and she hadn’t liked the notion a bit. But she was aware that Colene, though still deeply angry about the rape, was being practical; she wanted to marry Darius, and knew that something like this could interfere with that by diverting the attention of her parents at this critical time. Colene knew what she wanted, and was choosing her course to achieve it, realistically. Colene was a tough girl.
No, not tough. I just don’t want to lose sight of what I truly want, and maybe lose it.
Colene’s father chose another subject. “Now the marriage. I will arrange it. You and your man will have to come in for the blood tests tomorrow; I can get the doctor to cooperate. But Darius will have to show identification to get the license.”
“Uh-oh,” Colene said. “He’s from another world.”
“Seqiro may be able to handle that,” Nona said. “By changing a mind.”
“Say, yeah!” Colene refocused on her father. “We’ll have Darius ride to the license office on a horse. There’ll be no trouble; they’ll accept his ID.”
“On a horse!” The man smiled. “And will the horse attend the wedding, too?”
Colene had to smile. “I think not. Wichita Falls is too far for him to trot, and I need him here. Darius and I will just drive down to the civil ceremony with you, and come back here right after.”
“Civil ceremony? Your mother will—” He broke off. “There she is now. Perhaps I should handle this. There may be some emotion.”
“You do that, Dad.” Colene smiled. “Nona and I will just stay here and nod our heads.”
Nona braced for the emotional scene to follow. She was not disappointed.
CHAPTER 12—SIN EATER
DARIUS woke and stretched. Burgess is unchanged, the thought came. Seqiro was not in the tent; he was grazing the lawn. He could do this without attracting attention because he simply diverted the interest of any who might notice him. He was good at controlling the minds of human people, especially those who had no resistance to it. He had surveyed the neighborhood, and had no problem with the residents.