Jo’s mailbox appeared faster than he expected. He braked hard, swung onto the driveway, and snaked up the drive. The little house was dark, the patch of gravel out front empty of cars.
He shut off the Ford and got out, his heart still beating fast. He walked quickly to the edge of the slope, where he could look down on the stretch of shadow where the road lay. No headlights, no sirens. The only sound was the rattle of leaves in the chill breeze. His right hand shook along with the invisible leaves.
He patted the vial of vintage in his pocket but didn’t take it out.
All right, then.
He walked back to the house, calling, “Sandra! Rainy!”
He went from room to room through the dark, using only the flashlight because the house lights might attract Tommy or the Guardsmen. The girls weren’t inside, but he’d guessed that-known it-as soon as he’d entered.
He went out to the back door and flicked the light across the backyard. The tree seemed to jump out at him, gray bark materializing out of the night. He raised the beam of light until he saw the bit of frayed rope still dangling from the tree limb. It would take a strong man to hoist someone up into the tree. An iron grip to hold on while he slipped the rope around her neck.
Paxton walked to the edge of the lawn where the forest began. “Rainy! Sandra! It’s me, Paxton.” He walked into the trees. “Girls? You can come out now.” He stumbled against a root, stumbled again, and aimed the light up into the canopy. “Tommy’s gone-he’s already checked the house. Come inside. I’ll make you some soup.
“I have Sal-tee-eens,” he sang out.
He swung the light across the ground. A dirt path ran up into the trees, climbing the side of Mount Clyburn. He followed it with the light-and froze.
A small black figure hung from a tree branch, legs slowly twisting.
He shouted wordlessly, and the next moment the silhouette became a girl hanging by her arm. She let go and dropped to the ground, landing easily. She straightened and smiled into the glare of his light: a bald, dark-skinned girl dressed in jeans with a torn knee.
“Rainy?”
She ran down the path to him, her huge backpack bouncing, and threw her arms around him. “Paxton! We missed you!” Her hug nearly drove the breath from his lungs.
“You scared the hell out of me!” he said.
She laughed-he’d forgotten how she could laugh.
“Where’s Sandra?” he asked.
“She’s coming.”
They walked up to meet her halfway. She looked like an old woman: she wore a blanket draped over her shoulders, and below that was a long dress and furry boots. The path was steep so that when they reached each other her head was above his. She leaned down to him from her hips, embracing him at the shoulders like a grown-up. She seemed years older.
“You look cold, Sandra. Come on, let’s get you in the house. I brought food.” Then quickly: “Don’t worry, Tommy’s not there. He’s already checked the house and left.”
The girls didn’t answer. He’d have to decide how much to tell them, and how quickly. First, he thought, food.
They searched for another flashlight, and when they couldn’t find one they decided that it would be safe enough if they pulled all the drapes and set one or two lamps on the floor-no overhead lights. He warmed up the cans of soup on the stove-Rainy said, “Of course it’s soup, it’s the only thing you know how to cook”-while Sandra, wearing the blanket like a poncho, sat at the table making hors d’oeuvres of Saltines and peanut butter. “I should have brought popcorn,” Pax said. “This is like a sleepover.”
“We’ve never had a sleepover,” Sandra said.
“What, never?”
“When we lived here, nobody was allowed to come over,” Rainy said. “And when we lived at the Co-op, everyone was already there.”
Sandra kept apologizing for not bringing the laptop and for not coming to see him, even though it wasn’t her fault or Rainy’s: Tommy had grounded both of them the night of the town meeting. “We were watched all the time,” Sandra said. “Either Tommy or the white-scarf girls.”
“What’s with those scarves?” Pax asked. “Do you get them when you reach thirteen or something?”
Sandra laughed. Rainy looked at him with those flat eyes. “No.”
“How am I supposed to know?” he asked.
“That isn’t a Co-op thing-not the Co-op Mom started,” Rainy said. “Some girls just started wearing them.”
“To show they’re pure,” Sandra said. She leaned across the table, gave Rainy a peanut butter-smeared cracker, and Rainy placed it in Paxton’s mouth.
“You need to eat more than us,” Rainy said. Then: “They’re not beta enough. Older women, like Mom and the reverend, they’re tainted.”
He made a questioning noise and tried to swallow the cracker.
“You know…” Sandra said.
“You mean sex?” Pax asked.
“Sex with men,” Sandra said.
Rainy shook her head. “The white-scarf girls think it’s something special that they went through the Changes before they went through puberty,” she said. “Like a hat’ll make them closer to natural-born.”
“Like us,” Sandra said.
“Right,” Pax said. “You don’t need no stinkin’ hat.”
“We’re the first natural-borns,” Sandra said. “The white-scarf girls practically worship us.”
“And hate us even more,” Rainy said.
He found bowls in the cupboards and rinsed them out. At least the water was on. And the electricity. “Hey,” he said. “Did your mom own this place or rent it?” Somebody had to be paying the utilities. The twins looked more blank than usual. “Never mind.” He doled out the soup, and the girls made him clean and fill a bowl for himself.
After awhile he said, “So these scarf girls, why don’t they like you?”
“I said hate,” Rainy said. Then she shrugged. “They hated Mom, and we sort of inherited it.”
“But why? What did she do to them?”
Sandra looked at Rainy. Rainy said nothing.
“Girls, come on,” Pax said. “I know she left the Co-op for some reason. You told me that she argued with lots of people.”
“Mom had an abortion,” Rainy said.
“Rainy!” Sandra shouted.
“He should’ve already known that,” Rainy said to her.
Pax looked at the table for a time. “You’re right,” he said. “I should have known that.” Jesus, why hadn’t he come back sooner? Why hadn’t he reached out to Jo? He’d left her to raise the girls alone, but he’d told himself she was better off without him. She was the self-assured one, and she had Deke. Hell, she had an entire clade to help her raise the girls and look out for her. He hadn’t suspected for a moment that pregnancies would keep coming, or that her people would turn on her.
“So,” Pax said. “They exiled her.”
“You don’t know how our clade feels about… that,” Rainy said. “The white-scarf girls were outraged. They threatened her. And the doctor too. They burned things on Dr. Fraelich’s lawn. We had to leave.”
“Without Tommy,” Pax pointed out. Did he threaten her too?”
Generations of grandchildren stretching out in an unbroken line, Tommy had said. More real than you are.
“He would never hurt Mom,” Sandra said.
Pax said, “You told me they argued all the time. He must have been furious that she’d had an abortion.”
“Stop saying that word!” Sandra said. “Stop talking about it!” She pushed away from the table and stumbled as she got up. Rainy leaped up to catch her and Sandra shoved her away and ran from the room, blanket trailing like a cape.
Rainy looked at him, her face unreadable, then walked after her sister, calling softly, “Sandra, Sandra, come on now, sweetie…”
A half hour later he knocked softly and went inside the girls’ bedroom. The room was dark, but he made out Sandra’s nightgown-clad shape on the lower bunk, and Rainy sitting on the floor beside her, one hand on her sister’s back.