Sisters in the Wind(49)

A familiar voice says my name.

“You know what we want. You have until next Saturday. Sleep well, Lucy.”

My heart thumps loudly in my ears. The air is sucked from my lungs. The scent memory of burning flesh fills my nose.

I can’t remember which fire I’m reliving.

By the time I scramble to pull up my sweatpants and exit the stall, she’s gone. I’m on the bathroom floor. Either I tripped over my cane or slipped on the wet floor. Or both.

Did I re-break my leg? I cry, too afraid to pull myself up and find out. But if Daunis finds me like this, I’ll be on house arrest for the foreseeable future. And that is not an option.

By the time I reach the arena mezzanine, there’s no trace of her. Daunis and Jamie skate at a leisurely pace. When they round the ice, Jamie beams.

His someday glows and shimmers like something otherworldly.

He looks up, sees me, and points toward the open section of the rink. It’s his signal for wrapping things up.

He’s too far away to see the terror on my face.

They found me.

She was three feet away.

I have to remind myself that if they wanted me dead, I’d be dead. The blast was never supposed to kill me. It was supposed to be a warning. We only stayed late because of the cake. Everyone was supposed to be clocked out by then. Even Tim the cook.

One week.

They are relentless.





PART THREE

FULLY DEVELOPED





A fire enters the growth stage as it continues to burn … The fire’s heat at the growth phase can ignite everything combustible, including smoke from the fire itself. This is called a flashover … After flashover occurs, the fire is in the fully developed stage when the temperature reaches its highest point, sometimes almost 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. These are dangerous wildfires that spread rapidly and can consume trees and huge areas of forest and grassland … A fully developed wildfire will continue to burn until it runs out of fuel.

—Western Fire Chiefs Association: The Four Stages of Fire Growth Explained





WHEN I WAS FIFTEEN


2006

Devery was right. Group homes could be fun.

After fleeing from the Sterlings, I was furious and mistrustful of everyone. My social worker transferred my case to another county. She would keep tabs on me, warning that any additional “trouble” would send me to a juvenile detention center.

Devery said to avoid those places at all costs.

So I arrived at Hoppy Farm anticipating a lonely experience. I was ready to isolate myself into whatever form would keep me safe from boys like Steven. The long drive to the middle of nowhere reinforced my mindset. The new social worker filled the gas tank in Indian River and phoned ahead with an estimated arrival time.

“Just in case we miss a turn,” she said. “You know about seasonal roads in northern Michigan. Snowed in all winter and rained out in the spring. Not a cell tower to be had. No signal for miles. Nobody coming by until summer.”

Just my luck to go from Mrs. Wanda-the-Wicked Clark to Miss Debbie Strong, a.k.a. Debbie Downer. Even the gray sky—April disguised as February—matched the mood in my social worker’s car.

Besides my trusty backpack, I had my black trash bag. Between fleeing the Sterlings and arriving at Hoppy Farm, my new social worker had taken me shopping for clothes and shoes at a Walmart in Cheboygan. Armed with a purchase order for up to three hundred dollars of a “special clothing allowance,” she kept track of each item on a clothing inventory checklist, adding the prices as we went along. I could have opted to purchase actual luggage, but decided a pair of running shoes one size larger made more sense. I’d turn sixteen years old in a few months, and my feet were the only part of me still growing.

My new social worker explained that the Hoppy family operated a 160-acre farm. It was a centennial farm, meaning it had been in their family for over one hundred years. Surrounded by state forest on three sides, Hoppy Farm was miles from the nearest barely-there town, which was another twenty or thirty miles from the bigger town of Alpena, on Michigan’s sunrise side.

I had mixed feelings about the isolated location. On the one hand, the extreme ruralness felt familiar from Beaver Island. I’d grown to love it there. My experience with the Sterlings, however, had left me anxious. Steven regularly showed up in my nightmares; I watched for him during the day as well.

We arrived at Hoppy Farm in the early evening. It was mid-spring, when each day stretched a few minutes longer. The sky cleared for the sun to paint the large white farmhouse in a golden glow.

The instant I opened the car door, my nose twitched at the faint, pleasant scent of a wood-burning stove. I halted, suddenly homesick for Miss Lonnie. By the time I pushed the feeling away and grabbed for my trash bag, my new foster parents had reached the vehicle.

Mr. and Mrs. Hoppy were an ordinary-looking, white, middle-aged couple who seemed well suited to farm life. Both wore college sweatshirts, jeans, and sturdy, well-kept boots. Mr. Hoppy had a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. Mrs. Hoppy’s long blond hair was braided down her back, just like Miss Lonnie’s.

Mr. Hoppy offered to take my items up to the room I’d be sharing with another girl. I let go of the bag but held on to my backpack. The social worker scowled at me. If Mr. Hoppy took it as a slight, his face didn’t reveal anything.