“We could make a snowboy,” Troy suggested.
“Yes, that would be good.”
Despite the coolness of the air, Dad’s face was sweating. Genie tried to catch her breath. Now that she had yelled at him, and all the rest, she felt shaky, too. Although they were sitting close to each other, it seemed to her that Dad was far away, that something important had changed between them. She wasn’t sure she wanted it, and even as she wished that it was a week ago and she and Carrie had never talked about rememberings or called Irene Kelly, she could hear one of Grandfather’s sayings, “What’s done is done, even though we might wish and wish to change it. So when there is no going back, you must go forward.” Until now, that had only been something she thought when she broke a plate or a glass while doing dishes. Now she had broken her whole family.
“Did I hurt you?” Dad asked.
He had, but she shook her head.
“Good. I never, ever wanted to hurt you, Genie. Always remember that, okay?” He started crying. Although yesterday she had wondered once or twice if he had been crying, she had never seen him break down in front of her before. He brought his knees up and put his right arm over them, then rested his forehead on his arm, hiding his face.
Genie, on his left, moved closer to him. She took his free hand and held it tight. “I know, Daddy. I know. Please don’t cry.”
“I’ve ruined everything,” he said.
“We’ll be all right,” Genie said, patting his arm. She quickly glanced over to where the boys were playing and was relieved to see that they were engrossed in gathering snow for their snowboy.
Dad wiped at his face, took some big breaths, and sat up a little straighter. “I’m sorry,” he said again, but in a stronger voice. “It doesn’t help for me to fall apart, does it?” He pulled her closer and said, “Whatever happens, I want you to know that I love you and Troy and Aaron and Carrie.”
“I know, Dad. We love you, too. Don’t be sad.”
He took another big breath. “I don’t know how long Cleo is going to be inside, so I’m going to tell you some things, just in case-well, just in case.
“Genie, I made a big mistake-a lot of big mistakes. We’re here because I-I liked Cleo, and I believed that Cleo would keep us safe. But instead…instead, we’re all in danger here.”
“Why don’t we leave?”
“I want to, but we have to be careful. If we’re not careful, someone could get hurt. Cleo…Cleo has special skills.”
“All those guns-”
“She kills people, Genie. I’m being very serious about that.”
“She’s a murderer? All those guns-Dad-let’s get in the car and get away!”
“She has the keys to the car. Besides, I think she has some kind of alarm and God knows what else set up in the garage now, too. She warned me that it would be unhealthy to try to go in there. And one of the first things she did when she got here was to destroy my cell phone.”
Genie frowned.
“Even though she’s a little…out of control, she likes me, Genie. And she wanted to help us. But she’s not like other people. She doesn’t think like other people do. I don’t want her to hurt you or the boys. For now we have to make sure she stays calm and doesn’t feel threatened by us, all right? Sooner or later we’ll get a chance. Or she’ll figure out that she can do better on her own and leave us.”
Genie frowned. “Dad, she won’t want us to tell people about her. If she kills people…”
“That’s why we have to be cautious, Genie.”
“The guns. The booby trap-”
“You know about the booby trap?” He looked shocked.
“It’s under the house.”
“It’s…it’s like a bomb, Genie. She can easily go back under the house, hook it up again, and trap all of us inside. If someone comes through the door while that thing’s hooked up, it will blow them-and all of us-to kingdom come.”
He took another shaky breath. “From this cabin, someone can look out and see down the slope, right?”
“Yes.”
“She can see people coming up the road. She even has perimeter alarms set. You know what those are?”
“I know what a perimeter is…”
“Those alarms go off if anyone comes close to the cabin. They won’t ring out or anything-they’re a set of lights near her bed and by her desk downstairs. She checks them all the time. If you had gone up the driveway, she would be able to tell.”
“Mom and Carrie will be worried. They’ll look for us.”
She saw the stricken look on his face.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Mom has been hurt. Very badly.”
Genie tried to take this in. “Did Cleo hurt her?”
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. She says she didn’t. She says Mom fell down the stairs before she got there. It’s my fault. It’s my fault…”
Because you gave Mom pills in her drink, Genie thought, remembering the mortar and pestle. Cleo lies, and you lie, too. She suddenly felt cold inside, and wanted to move away from him, but she stayed still. “Carrie…” she whispered.
“Carrie is safe.”
She looked up at him.
He held the letter up. “Did you and Carrie write to Ms. Kelly?”
“No,” she said.
“Tell me why Ms. Kelly came to our house, Genie. Tell me the truth. It’s really important. I mean it.”
So she told him everything she knew. When she came to the part about figuring out about the pills in the Bloody Mary, she skipped over that, but thinking of it helped her find some defiance. “And I remember someone named Mason. Who is he?”
He looked away. “Your brother. He’s in prison.”
Brother, yes! Her mental picture of him came more sharply into focus. Then the next words registered. “In prison!”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He hesitated, then said, “He was wrongly accused of a crime.” He took a deep breath and added, “If anything happens to me, Genie, try to get Aaron and Troy away from here. If you find someone to help you, tell them to call the police. If they won’t call the police, don’t go near them. A good person will call the police if you ask them to, okay?”
She nodded.
“Ask the police to take you to Grandfather and tell him that he must take you to your aunt Elisa-to her, and only to her.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s-she’s someone who will love you. I promise you that. She will know who you are. She’ll…she’ll help you to get your brother out of prison.” He paused. “You have another brother, too. His name is Caleb.”
Caleb. A face came to mind with that name, a face not so unlike her own. A dark-haired, teasing teenaged boy, a boy who helped her to learn to read.
She felt confused, unable to take in all he was telling her, to fit these half-remembered people into her own idea of herself. Mason and Caleb were her brothers, but Dad had never mentioned them before. Dad let Mason stay in prison, when he knew it was wrong. Why? An aunt she had never met would love her and take care of her… She knew Dad wasn’t telling her everything, but she couldn’t even manage to make sense of this much of it.
“Aunt Elisa will be good to you, I promise,” Dad said.
Genie decided she could straighten out the past later. She had bigger worries ahead of her. What was going to happen to her family? The boys…
“Will she love Aaron and Troy, too?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
“And Carrie?”
“Yes.”
Something about the way he said that single word tipped her off. “You know what happened to her!” she accused.
“Yes.” He seemed upset, and she feared the worst, but he said, “Carrie is fine, I think. But Uncle Giles tried to hurt her, because she surprised him when she came to the house with Ms. Kelly.” He became even more upset as he talked about it. “There was no excuse for it! None! He should have just let her go.” He paused, tried to calm down again. “Cleo rescued them-Ms. Kelly and Carrie. Unfortunately, Uncle Giles fought with her, and she killed him.”