On the drive home, Antonia kept the car windows open. The pie sat on the passenger seat, in danger of falling each time she stepped on the brakes. She only had a week or two to go until the baby arrived. No wonder she was exhausted. If Kylie were here, they would meet up at Antonia’s apartment to watch an old movie and order a pizza and make each other laugh with imitations of members of their family. Kylie did a great Gillian, becoming a bombshell who was smarter than anyone in the room. Oh, how Antonia missed her sister. How she worried that she would be lost to her forever. She breathed deeply, remembering when they would pluck apples from the trees in their aunts’ garden where there was an orchard of a variety called Look No Further. Home, Antonia thought, and for all her logic, she nearly cried right then. That was when her phone rang.
IV.
Tom had sent Kylie to the shop on the outskirts of the park to pick up something for supper, which would give him time alone to more fully inspect the book. “Let me try to figure it out,” he suggested. He held out a hand to collect the book, a smile on his handsome face. “A second pair of eyes never hurt,” he urged, and, when she hesitated, he added, “You don’t have all the time in the world.”
Kylie thought of Gideon in his hospital bed. Still, she felt a twinge of anxiety as she handed over the book.
“There you go,” Tom said, once the book was his. He seemed pleased with Kylie, as if she were a student who had passed a test. It hadn’t been easy to claim the book, which she always kept with her. He’d had better luck with her phone, which he’d fished out of her backpack and tossed into a ditch while out by the orchard of twisted black apple trees behind the house. “Have a nice walk. It will take your mind off your troubles.”
Kylie did feel her spirits lift once she was in the forest. A fern, a leaf, a tree, a path, all of it was comforting and reminded her of home. She had been thinking of the house on Magnolia Street all day, missing it terribly, remembering the times she and Antonia had sneaked into the garden at dusk to look for rabbits. There were often dandelions turned to fluff in the grass that Antonia would hold up to Kylie’s face. “Make a wish,” Antonia would command. “Wish and never tell!”
Tom’s desire for revenge, intriguing at first, had become exhausting. The store was close by and Kylie cut through the forest onto the road that merged with the High Street if you went east and led to the motorway if you went west. The roadside market was small, with bins of fruits and vegetables out front. There was a single parked car in the lot, there with all the windows open and the radio playing. The group of young American hikers who had turned away from the manor when they felt the darkness within were here, exhausted from their days in the forest, now stopping for drinks and crisps. Kylie’s heart leapt; somehow she had managed to misplace her phone and she had a desperate urge to call her sister.
“Hey there,” one of the young women called out. “I thought I saw you before.” She sounded like a New Yorker. “American, right? You look a little lost.”
“I’ve misplaced my phone,” Kylie explained. “Could I borrow yours? My sister’s having a baby in Massachusetts. I just want to see if she’s all right.”
The young woman handed her phone to Kylie through the window. The hikers were all seniors in college, and this was their big end-of-the-term vacation, the sort of trip Kylie and Gideon had meant to take together. “My sister’s having a baby, too. We’ll both be aunties.”
Kylie returned the young woman’s smile, then turned and called Antonia. She was shivering even though the night was warm. She didn’t know what time it was in the States, afternoon she supposed. The phone rang and rang, and just when it seemed as if no one would answer, her sister answered with a clipped, “I’m driving.” Logical, wonderful Antonia. Kylie had never missed her more. “Who is this?” Antonia added, not recognizing the number.
“It’s me. I’m in England.”
“Kylie! Why don’t you answer the phone? They’re all over there looking for you.”