Lucy’s escape from the compound had been carefully planned, and so it suited that her days now were lived less dangerously than Vern’s, whose own fleeing had been a haphazard affair. Where Vern had sped away in the dark of night on a whim, Lucy had left midday. Her leaving had been arranged to fall on Juneteenth, one of the few non-Cainite holidays acknowledged on the forty-acre compound. The person who’d come for Lucy was taking advantage of the distractions of the celebration.
That day, a cloudless, sun-saturated sky had tethered Vern inside. She’d been in the attic of the temple since morning worship services. Her mother had tried to convince her to go outside, to put on her straw hat and sunblock, but Vern had felt the intrusive rays of the sun even through the window.
“I aint coming. You can’t make me,” Vern said.
Mam exhaled and wiped floury hands off on her apron before taking a seat next to her daughter. “Today’s about freedom. That’s something you actually care about. You sure you don’t want to participate?”
“I’m sure,” said Vern. She was freshly thirteen and no less full of preferences and opinions than she’d been since she’d hit age two, exhausting her mother with the force of her personality.
“Mrs. Casey made peach cobbler.”
“So?” Vern asked.
“I don’t want you being left out,” said Mama.
“I like being left out,” Vern said, exasperated by the utter ridiculousness of such a statement. “What if you were going to—I don’t know—a torture carnival where everybody was supposed to try out different torture devices, and they was all, Oh no, why don’t you want to participate? Aren’t you going to feel left out? Everybody’s getting tortured but you! It just doesn’t make any sense, Mam.”
“You can’t keep locking yourself away like this.” Mam shook her head and tutted.
“I’m locked away in Cainland. Might as well be locked up in here, too.” Vern scooted away from her mother on the bed, drawing blood as she bit the inside of her cheek.
“You’re not locked here. I don’t see no doors.”
“Metaphorical doors, Mam,” said Vern.
“You know I can’t make you. I could never make you do a damn thing. But I think you’ll regret it. It’s not a day to be alone. Loneliness kills. Did you know that?” Mam stood up and put her hands on her waist. “Happy Juneteenth. Try, my sweet darling, to be happy for just once in your life. You might like it.”
Vern sat on the window ledge for the duration of the carnival, her right eye squeezed shut and the left eye mashed up against her telescope. It had been a gift from Reverend Sherman for her astronomy lessons. She couldn’t follow along without help seeing the night sky. He’d converted the attic into her study and observatory.
The fan in the corner of the room blew a few strands of Vern’s golden hair onto her forehead, but most of her hair was crinkled and coarse enough that it stayed firmly put. Mam had hot-combed it last night in preparation for today, burning the hairs into silky straight compliance, but it was a hundred degrees and even with the ceiling fan and a smaller fan blowing right up against her face in the night, she had sweat it out before sunrise. By noon it had mostly reverted to its natural afro state.
Catching something in the corner of her eye, Vern tilted the telescope leftward toward the stables. Lucy was standing there talking to a woman, no one Vern recognized. Vern almost went to open the window and shout to Lucy, but the two had been fighting since Lucy’s mam ran away from the compound a week ago. Caught in an eddy of grieving, Lucy rankled and sparked at everything, calling Vern names whenever Vern asked, How are you?
That’s a dumbass question, Wonder Bread.
It was Vern’s least favorite insult. Wonder Bread was what you called white folk. Vern wasn’t white or anything close to it. Lucy only said it because of how much it made Vern’s insides bleed with sadness to be compared to that just because she was albino.
Vern squinted through the telescope but couldn’t see well enough, so she went to her drawer to get another gift from Sher man, her camera. She wound on an additional lens. After zooming in the camera, she took several pictures of the stables where Lucy and the stranger stood.
Vern hooked up her camera to her photo printer, hating herself for using it. She was the only one on the Blessed Acres allowed such luxuries. Sherman made exceptions to the self-sufficiency model when it came to Vern because he was trying to woo her. That man was desperate to be liked by her. She’d rather the cane than the syrup. His gifts were a lie and then some.