Gilbertsville was the same as she had left it, but something had changed at the Voorsanger household. Jess could sense the difference as soon as they pulled into the dirt drive. Sarah sat forward in the rear seat, her excitement and fear a nearly physical presence in the rental car with them.
Cristina Voorsanger came out of the screen door as Patrick cut the engine. She wore a faded flower-print dress and a knitted cotton shawl, and she looked years older, the lines in her chapped face as deep and raw as if they had been etched with acid.
They all got out of the car. Cristina stopped dead in her tracks as Sarah came out from behind Jess, and her face went white.
“We’re here to see Annie,” Jess said. “Her little girl wants some time with her.”
Cristina did not say a word for over a minute, and they all stood and watched her, waiting. Her breath puffed white before her face as she studied the girl, her eyes devouring her features, searching for something.
Finally she looked up at Jess and Patrick. “Knew you’d be coming,” she said. “I could feel it. Then I read about the fire back in Boston, at a children’s facility? I could guess the rest.” She turned back to Sarah. “You like cookies? Bunch of people dropped them off this week.” She glanced back at Jess. “Ed passed. Heart gave out. Doctors said it just up and ruptured in his chest, just like that. Never given him a whit of trouble before.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs. Voorsanger.”
“Please, I told you. It’s Cristina. Who’s this handsome man?”
Jess introduced Patrick, who came forward and shook her hand. “Pleasure to meet you,” she said. “Excuse my outfit, I’m not myself today—”
The bang of the screen door made them all turn. Annie Voorsanger had come out onto the front steps. Her black hair was loose now and fell to the base of her neck. She wore a sheer cotton nightgown the color of cream, lace gathered about the wrists and along the hemline. The outline of her naked body showed through the fabric. She was barefoot.
“Annie,” Cristina said sharply, “what on earth—”
Jess could feel the energy gathering, the familiar buzz lighting up every nerve in her body and overwhelming everything else. This time it seemed to be coming from two directions at once, or three. Annie stumbled down to the cracked front walk, took two shambling steps forward, then fell to her knees. A high, keening noise wrenched itself from her throat.
Sarah tore past them all, into her mother’s arms. They clutched at each other. The keening noise grew louder as the electrical charge crackled and released itself all at once, as a sharp breeze lifted the dust from the ground around them and swirled a tornado of debris, the mother and her daughter cocooned as they sat among the broken flagstones.
Cristina told them they could stay as long as they wanted, and Jess had the feeling she was pleased about the arrangement, if still apprehensive at what the future might bring. But Annie was clearly different now, her eyes showing more life in them, though she still did not speak. She and Sarah formed an immediate and permanent bond, or perhaps one had been there all along; they sat for hours together, neither one of them saying a word, all conversation going on at some other level where voices were no longer necessary.
When Sarah was not with Annie, she and Jess spent the time together, their own bond permanently forged as well. Jess read aloud to her, or played board games like Parcheesi and Candyland, which Cristina had dug up from the shelves in the cellar, or they took walks down the long dirt drive and admired the crunch of brown leaves underfoot.
Jess knew this life could not last forever, but right now it was a good one. She felt herself healing inside, regaining the confidence in herself she had lost. Soon she would have a better idea of where she wanted to go from here, but for now, this was enough. Patrick remained the perfect gentleman, though she knew he wanted more from her.
Perhaps in time, she would be able to give it.
One crisp fall afternoon, less than two weeks after they had arrived at the Voorsanger farm, Sarah took Jess by the hand and led her outside. Patrick was in the kitchen helping Cristina clean up after lunch, and Annie was napping in the bedroom upstairs.
Sarah pulled her eagerly down the path and to the rear of the barn. “I want to show you something,” she said, her eyes shining. “You know how I’ve been feeling better lately? My chest is almost healed. The scab came off today, and it’s only a little pink and puckered there now. Before, I couldn’t do… you know. Maybe a little, but not much. But now…”
She turned and faced a small drift of leaves that had piled up against the side of the barn. Her little face screwed itself up into a look of deep concentration.
It was a particularly calm day, not a cloud in the sky. But suddenly a touch of wind wafted over them, the temperature plunged, and the pile of leaves swirled and lifted up, bits and pieces drifting and darting around their faces.
“You see?” Sarah said, turning back to her as the debris settled around their feet. Her little face was shining with pride. “I can control it just fine, nothing happens now. I can do whatever I want, and nothing bad happens!”
Jess touched the girl’s face. “Good for you,” she said. “Good for you, Sarah.”
But the girl had something else in mind today. “Now you do it,” she said.
“I can’t, honey. I’m not like you.”
“Sure you can,” she said, insistent. “You just close your eyes, and reach out, and you… push. Just push. Try it. Please?”
Jess felt a fluttering in her chest, and frowned. In the weeks since the accident she had sensed something different about herself, something foreign that had settled down to live deep inside her breast. But it had been so long since she had taken any of the drug, surely whatever effect it might have had on her was long gone now.
She turned back to the remains of the leaf pile. The wind had died down, and the sun felt warm on the back of her neck. “Go on,” Sarah said eagerly. “Try it.”
Jess closed her eyes. She imagined herself reaching out with long fingers like wind, pictured the leaves lifting themselves up and scattering before her touch.
Inside her mind, something twitched; she opened her eyes to see the slightest breath go whispering through the pile. A single cracked and brown leaf trembled at the edge of the ground, whirled and lifted up as if suspended in the air, and then drifted down again and was still.
“There,” Sarah said, into the silence, into the cold and still loneliness of the bright fall afternoon. “I told you, didn’t I? I told you so.”
Jess nodded. She wrapped her arms around her chest and shivered.
On the long walk back to the house, Sarah reached out and took her hand. Her grip was warm, and Jess’s hand remained so long after she had let go.