Then she shakes her head, as if shrugging away dust. So don’t burn it down, please, she says crisply.
Are you going back to help my mother? Bird asks.
For the first time the Duchess looks uncertain.
You know your mother, she says, and Bird nods, even as he wonders if this is true. When she gets an idea in her head there’s no stopping her. But she’s coming to me when she’s finished, and we’ll be here tomorrow morning to pick you up.
And then what, Bird and Sadie both think, but neither of them dares to ask.
The Duchess checks her watch again.
I’d better go, she says. I won’t get back until midafternoon as it is, and if there’s traffic—
She picks up her keys from the table and turns back, looks from one of them to the other.
Don’t worry, she says, her voice unexpectedly gentle. Bird, Sadie. Everything will be fine.
Of course it will, Sadie says. We’re here, now.
* * *
? ? ?
When the Duchess is gone, Bird and Sadie—suddenly aware of all the months that have passed between them—lapse into bashful silence. Tacitly, they take stock of their surroundings. In the big main room, a table and three chairs, a kitchenette; in the bathroom, a shower and toilet and a small louvered window through which they can see nothing but trees. Two bedrooms, a larger one, cream colored with a big double bed, and a smaller one—pink—with a twin bed in the corner.
Without asking, Sadie kicks her shoes off in the big room, but Bird doesn’t mind. It’s clear who the house was built for—parents, child—and he is happy to let someone else play the role of adult for a little while longer. He settles on the sofa in front of the fireplace, and beneath him the aged leather crackles.
What is it like, he says. Living with the Duchess. What is that like?
Sadie laughs. Domi? she says. She seems super scary, but she’s not.
As if a seal has been broken, she begins to chatter away. The first day, she said, she hadn’t seen Domi at all. She’d been given a bedroom—up on the top floor, with a huge antique map of the world hung on the wall—and left to her own devices, and she’d spent all day exploring the museum of a house, trying to figure out what kind of place she’d landed in, what kind of woman Domi was. Margaret said she could be trusted, but Sadie was not used to taking things on assurance. Late that night, she’d found her way into Domi’s office and was still behind the desk, reading the papers scattered there, when Domi came in.
And just what do you think you’re doing? Domi demanded, and Sadie had looked up, studying her with new eyes.
So all these checks, she said, ticking her finger down Domi’s ledger. To all these libraries. You know what they’re doing. You’re—helping.
A long moment, where they appraised each other anew.
Why, Sadie asked, and Domi said: It’s one small thing. To start to make things right.
Sadie shut the checkbook. I want to help, she said.
She’d expected Domi to laugh, but she didn’t. Instead Domi had sat down in the chair across the desk, as if Sadie were in charge and she was the supplicant, asking for a favor.
Maybe you can, she said.
They’d spent days talking, Sadie telling Domi everything she remembered about the authorities, her host families, the whole system of PACT. How they’d moved her, who had met her, where she’d gone. What she’d seen in the libraries, those months in which they’d hidden her. What she’d wished she’d done, and what she’d wished others had. Domi listening. Learning.
I couldn’t go out, Sadie says to Bird. In case anyone spotted me. But Domi found me stuff to do. And she’s been looking for my parents. Trying to trace where they’ve gone.
She pauses and swallows, and Bird knows better than to ask.
She said not to give up yet, Sadie says. She says—well, she says you just never know.
The day before Bird arrived, Domi’s last lead had come up empty, and she’d broken the news to Sadie gently, the way you’d break news of a death. We’ll keep looking, she’d promised, holding Sadie tight.
If you could have anything else, Domi had asked eventually, breaking the silence. What would you wish for.
Sadie considered.
A whole day where I could do whatever I wanted, she said. Without anyone watching or judging or tracing or tracking me. Just one day like that.
Hmm, Domi said. Might be tricky. But maybe there’s a way. If you can wait a bit, until the right time.
* * *
? ? ?
And now here they were, she and Bird. A day with no one watching or judging. A day to do what they wanted.