Aside from Chantal, no one took much notice when I arrived at the brown brick house that sat at the edge of the property known as Piney Woods Girls’ Ranch. Of course, later on I figured out why Chantal was so interested in me—finally something lower than her on the food chain had shown up on the scene.
I was a chubby eleven-year-old—legs bloodied from mosquito bites, bleary from bad sleep, nerves strung tight, nails bitten raw. It was an early September evening, and for the past week, I’d known something bad was on the verge of happening. My mother had been gone seventeen days this go-round, the longest stretch yet, and I’d finally been turned in to DFCS by Mrs. Tully because, she said, her husband was tired of having me around. She told the caseworker that, by God, she’d done her damnedest, but she couldn’t find one single relative to take me in.
Mrs. Tully had sent me into her shower, but my knees and elbows were still caked with grime. My long dishwater-blonde hair desperately needed a trim, and the few clothes I’d brought were stained and ragged. Nevertheless, I was there at the brown brick house and, on the whole, glad of it. I was scared but also relieved that I wouldn’t have to wait for my mother anymore. I was also more than a little excited about a warm bed, a meal, and maybe a bathtub with bubbles. It did occur to me—in a vague way—that I might have landed myself someplace far worse than my lonely apartment, but nothing in the house seemed amiss, so I tried to ignore the way my stomach constantly went from fluttering to tight.
There were three tormenters in the brown brick house—the Super Tramps, they called themselves, and whenever Mrs. Bobbie scolded them for it (their nickname, not the tormenting, which she seemed oblivious to), they screeched in outrage: “It’s just after the rock band! Mr. Al’s favorite group!” They weren’t wrong about Mr. Al loving Supertramp. He played that album all the time on the huge stereo system he had set up in the living-room built-ins, so much that “The Logical Song” ran maddeningly on a loop through my head anytime things got a little quiet.
Mrs. Bobbie hated that the girls called themselves after the band. I also think she hated that her husband liked that music so much too. She was just that kind of woman. She didn’t appreciate anyone enjoying themselves too much outside of church and school. Which was probably why she was forced to either ignore Mr. Al or be constantly, supremely annoyed with him.
He was a shambling man with a mane of shaggy blond hair and friendly, sleepy eyes. A stoner, even though I didn’t recognize it at the time. A man who did happen to enjoy himself on a daily basis and without one ounce of guilt, earning himself Mrs. Bobbie’s displeasure, fair and square. I didn’t pick up on any of those details at the time. I just knew I liked and trusted the man. He was master of the awkward side-hug, gentle ruffler of hair, bringer of fun. The father we all quietly—unwittingly—yearned for.
Even though the Super Tramps were technically right about the origins of their nickname, Mrs. Bobbie knew they were full of shit and just trying to get her goat, so she usually banished them upstairs. It wasn’t much of a punishment. They’d sashay up to the room they shared, slam the door, and giggle themselves limp on the three twin beds that they’d arranged in the center of the room. I heard everything through the walls, and every bit of it drew me in. I especially liked the sound of that laughter. It was throaty and nasty and knowing. I got the feeling these girls always somehow had the last say with Mrs. Bobbie.
The Super Tramps had been living in the two-story brown brick house at the end of the dirt road along with Chantal, who was fourteen, for a number of years before I got there. I didn’t know exactly how many. I wasn’t allowed that level of security clearance. To me, my new roommates imparted other, more pertinent, information, like:
You have boogers in your eyes, and you smell like an asshole.
You better never, ever fucking look at me. You got that?
The Pinkeys are coming—tomorrow, probably—to adopt you.
The Pinkeys, I learned, were a family of hillbilly cannibals with bear traps for teeth who lived in the national forest behind the ranch. I was told they came around every couple of years to select a young girl to take home with them for housekeeping duties and, if things didn’t pan out, possible ritual child sacrifice.
While Mrs. Bobbie kept the daily routine of the brown brick house humming—meals served at six a.m. and p.m. on the dot, a rotation of chores for us girls when we got home from school, and mandatory family Bible study each night before bed—the Super Tramps actually ran the place. Omega, the leader, was seventeen—fiercely beautiful, with a Cleopatra haircut and pillowy woman-lips that, when coated with cheap drugstore lipstick in fuchsia, made her look like she’d just blown out of a photo shoot for one of the copies of Glamour Mrs. Bobbie hid in her bathroom cabinet. You wouldn’t want to be assigned kitchen cleanup with her, though. She talked to the knives while she washed them, like they were actual people.
“You ever stabbed someone?” she would croon to a blade, then cut her eyes at me.
Tré and Shellie were sixteen, juniors at Mount Olive Christian Academy, where the ranch girls were given scholarships to attend. Shellie was pretty but pale, with a headful of peroxided straw and a perpetual spray of acne across her jaw. Tré was a freckled wraith who wore a pair of men’s Carhartt coveralls that Mr. Al had handed down to her; muddy, oxblood-red Doc Martens (that I never figured out how she obtained); and a stack of rainbow-colored hair bands as bracelets. She told everyone she was a Wiccan high priestess, except Mrs. Bobbie and Mr. Al, who were Baptists and wouldn’t have appreciated it. I was eleven and had no idea what Wiccan was, but I was duly terrified by my new sisters.
Which was what Mrs. Bobbie said they were. Along with Chantal, they were my new big sisters.
That first night at the ranch, the hot night in September that the social worker dropped me at the brown brick house, I was overwhelmed, although at the time I couldn’t have said why. Part of it was that I was used to a small apartment, with a tiny cramped living room and bedrooms the size of closets. This house had walls, but to me, it felt boundaryless. It was the biggest house I’d ever been in, and I had the sensation of standing on an open field, unprotected, my flanks exposed to an unseen, lurking enemy.
Where did everyone belong?
As I stood in the tidy, Lemon Pledge–scented living room, my secondhand backpack of meager belongings hanging off my rounded shoulders, I pictured the pantry—its dimensions and how much food must be kept there and what kind. It was weighing on me, making me feel nervous, the thought that there might not be enough food for me to eat in the morning. Had they known I was coming? Where would I find breakfast way out here in the country? Hunger gnawed at my stomach. In the rush to get me to the ranch, the social worker had forgotten I hadn’t had supper.
I trembled in the center of the vast unknown as it expanded around me, and my stomach growled. After Mrs. Bobbie told me there were three older girls upstairs (sisters, she called them), she introduced Chantal, who was standing by the plaid sofa, digging her finger in a hole in the fabric. Mrs. Bobbie said Chantal was fourteen, even though she was not much bigger than me. She had long, frizzy hair, blonde with a sickly green tint to it, and when Mrs. Bobbie dragged her closer, I saw that she had different-colored eyes—one green and one blue—that reminded me of a dog that used to wander around our apartment. It was a mean, spindly mutt, and I always tried to feed it scraps when it would let me get close enough.
“Chantal,” Mrs. Bobbie said. “Daphne’s come to stay with us because her mother’s not feeling well.”
It was true, to a point. On a regular basis, my mother—jonesing for whatever it was that made her feel better—would disappear for days from our apartment complex, leaving me to fend for myself. This had been going on since I was five or six, and the neighbors had always been kind. Every time I knocked on their doors, they let me in. I didn’t blame Mr. Tully. After a while, you were bound to get tired of a hungry, smelly kid eating all your cereal and chips and using up your toilet paper.
Chantal seemed inordinately interested in me, watching me with her strange eyes.
“Hi,” she said. Her voice was deep and raspy. It made her sound worldly, older than her years.
“Hi,” I replied.
“Why do you squint your eyes like that?” she asked, which I thought was a strange thing for her to notice, considering she had the freakiest-looking eyes I’d ever seen on a person.
“Maybe Daphne needs glasses, Chantal,” Mrs. Bobbie said in a singsong voice like I was a kindergarten baby. “Your mama ever take you to an eye doctor, Daphne?”
I shook my head no. Just then, a hulking man in an embroidered button-up shirt passed by the room. He stopped, lifted a hand, and beamed at me.
“Greetings, princess.” Two dimples slashed his pudgy, whiskery cheeks. I smiled back. I couldn’t help it.
“Mr. Al, come say hey to Daphne,” Mrs. Bobbie said.
The man bounded up to me and shook my hand with one of those long complicated secret handshakes. I tried to keep up. “Daphne-Doodle-Do, how do you do?”
“Fine.” I giggled softly.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Eleven.”
“Well, I’m thirty-two, so I guess I got you beat.” He winked at me.
“Bedtime,” Mrs. Bobbie announced, before Mr. Al could say anything more.
I was to share a room with Chantal, down the hall from the Super Tramps. It was a tiny room with a bunk bed and one dresser. Chantal told me I got the top drawers and the top bunk. I used the bathroom, changed into a ratty, pilled-up Strawberry Shortcake nightgown that Mrs. Bobbie had given me, and climbed the ladder. I hung my backpack over one of the posts, then felt a jolt underneath me.
I peeked down. Chantal was lying on her back, mermaid hair fanned out on her pillow, her hands folded over her chest, her feet jammed against the bottom of my bunk. She grinned up at me, and I could tell her front tooth was chipped.
“Earthquake,” she said.
I hadn’t meant to tell Glenys so much. In fact, when I was finished, my stomach was in knots. Storyteller’s remorse.
I looked down—over the sheer cliff that dropped out from under my feet—and backed a couple of steps away. It seemed I couldn’t stand that close to the edge without being bombarded by images of a small body tumbling over the cliff.
I forced my eyes down to my watch. “Oh, wow. Lunch in half an hour. I’m sorry, talking your ear off like that.”
“Nonsense.” Glenys folded her arms and lifted her face to the breeze. “I enjoyed it.” She cracked one eye. “Did you find it really horrible to tell me those things?”
I laughed. “A little, I guess.”
“Feel any lighter?”
“I do.” In fact, I was feeling kind of buzzed now, high from the atmosphere of secrecy and the thin mountain air.
“Would you like to walk back down?” I asked. “We can split up halfway, so nobody knows we were fraternizing.”
She smiled. “I think I’ll stay a little longer, if you don’t mind. I’d like to spend a little more time alone.”
“Of course.”
“I’m so glad to have met you, Daphne,” she said.
I smiled. “Me too.”
“And I’m always happy to listen, if you find the need to talk.”
I didn’t reply, but I had the feeling that didn’t bother her. She was a strange woman—who didn’t seem to mind stretches of silence or expect to be told anything but the unvarnished truth. I allowed myself a brief moment to consider what it would be like to tell her everything. To open the door I’d shut all those years ago and let the rest of the story pour out at last. I felt a stab of something in my throat and realized it was a sob. I backed a few steps farther away and started back down the path.
I wondered if she watched me go. If she noticed I was dashing tears off my face with the sleeve of my sweater as I clomped over the rocks and roots. I hoped not. I’d cried more in the past hour than in the past ten years, but I’d be damned if I let anyone see it.
My face was red and raw by the time I returned to our deserted room. I guzzled a bottle of water from the minifridge in the corner, then I twisted up my hair and splashed my face with cold water. At twelve thirty, I heard a sharp knock and opened the door to find Heath holding our elegantly appointed lunch tray, complete with a bud vase containing a single branch of red maple leaves.
“Oh, wow.” I grinned. “The waitstaff is really hot around here.”
I set our table near the fireplace. There was a tiny white worm crawling on the pale underside of one of the maple leaves. I eased it onto the edge of my spoon and gingerly dropped it in the crackling fire. I watched it writhe, then sizzle, and I turned away, feeling sick. Heath sat across from me, unfolded his napkin, and started in on the meat-and-black-bean stew. He looked utterly normal—so normal, it was hard to believe he’d just been in a session with the doctor.
“How’d it go?” I asked lightly.
“It was revelatory.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh yes. I’m absolutely insane. One hundred percent. There’s no saving me.” My jaw unhinged and he broke into a grin. “Daphne, take a breath already. We just talked. It was no big deal.”
I jabbed my fork into the concoction of rice and beans and tender pork. Lifted it to my mouth and told myself to chew. It was only day one—Heath wouldn’t have made any major progress with Dr. Cerny. There was still time to learn something from Heath’s ex-girlfriend, Annalise. Maybe not enough to wrap up every last thing with a bow and convince Heath we should go home, but maybe a start.
“You okay?” he asked.
“You seem . . .” He studied me. “Nervous.”
“Really?” I shoveled a forkful. “I feel fine. It’s probably the house. I’m just not comfortable here yet. And I’m not comfortable with all this free time.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t go journal in the bird garden.” He snorted.
“I hiked to the top of the mountain.”
He put down his fork. “You did?”
I nodded.
“How was it?”
“Nice. Beautiful, actually.”
“And better than spying on our neighbors.”
I laughed, and we ate the rest of our lunch in silence, then Heath washed up and brushed his lips against my temple. “Gotta go.”
“But you already had your session,” I said. “It’s our free block. Remember, the free block you were so excited about?”
“Oh, God. Yes. I’m sorry. I’ve got to fill out some paperwork. Personality assessments. Aptitude and diagnostic tests and stuff like that. And the releases—I’ll pick yours up too, while I’m at it. You going to be okay up here by yourself?”
“Sure. Of course. I may head down to the library. Find a book to read.”
He caught my fingers. “Thank you. For doing this. I know what you’re sacrificing.”
I squeezed his hand. “Well. I’d rather be here for you than assembling shared workspace pods. That much I can promise you.”
He grinned. “That’s not really much of a compliment.”
“Always us.” I kissed him.
After he left, I slipped on my shoes and headed downstairs. I circumnavigated the foyer, listening for anyone, opening cabinets and pulling out the drawers of every big sideboard. No one happened along, and the furniture yielded nothing—not a set of keys, not even the smallest scrap of paper. There were no keys in the library either. Reggie must’ve stashed them in a more secure place: the doctor’s sunroom office or maybe even up in his suite. I’d have to wait for a more expedient time to find out, when his office was empty. For now I’d have to find something else to occupy my mind.
I drifted to the carved bookcase. Most of the dust-coated books looked like they hadn’t been read in ages. Which stood to reason. I was probably the only person who came to Baskens who actually had time to read. I perused the shelf. All the oldies but goodies. Dickens, Shakespeare, Hawthorne. Every last one of the Brontë sisters’ titles: Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, The Professor, Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Wuthering Heights.
I thought back to Cerny’s strange toast last night in the kitchen: I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free.
I took Wuthering Heights to the sofa and flipped the pages, the story coming back to me in bits and pieces. Mr. Earnshaw, appearing back at his home, Wuthering Heights, presents a surprise to his children, Catherine and Hindley. Heathcliff, a dark-skinned, dark-eyed Gypsy child who speaks gibberish. The interloper immediately sparks in Hindley an intense jealousy, as Hindley is a bully, racist, and overall dickbag. Catherine, on the other hand, is instantly smitten and sticks to Heathcliff like an imprinted duckling.
I read for a while, then let the book drop to the floor and stretched out on the sofa, my legs and lower back aching from the hike. I knew how the story ended, how Heathcliff and Catherine devoted their lives to loving, then destroying, each other. Emily Brontë may have been melodramatic, but she’d hit on something real. It was true—similar souls sought each other out. Damaged gravitated to damaged, the same way Heath and I had recognized ourselves in each other, then locked into our unshakable orbit. It was too bad the story ended so tragically. Too bad Heathcliff and Cathy couldn’t have just admitted that they belonged together.
Because surely they did belong together.
Sleep stole over me quickly. I woke sometime later, and the book was gone, returned to the Brontë section of the shelves. Whoever had done that had also left a bottle of water and a plate of small coconut-dusted cookies on a nearby table. I swung my feet down and chugged the water. In a daze, I headed for the front stairs. My legs felt like tree trunks, my head three sizes too big. Even after the nap, I still felt wrung out. Maybe it was the hike—or the fact that I’d told Glenys about the ranch. I checked the clock on the mantel in the front hall. Five after three. Great. In our room, the camera would be up and running again.
I climbed the stairs, thinking about Catherine’s and Heathcliff’s lovely doomed lives. About how good it had felt to tell Glenys about the Super Tramps and Chantal and Mr. Al while standing at the precipice of a mountain. Maybe there was a pattern to it all. Maybe the universe had brought me here because it knew what I needed—to be hardy and free, to finally let go of my burden and soar.