Chapter 42: Chapter 42
When her mother had said she lived in a hut, Ru wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t this. That was a good word for it, however, as the entire dwelling, which was round, couldn’t have been more than twenty feet across in either direction. She had a bed, a chair, a small cooking area, and the restroom was partitioned off with a curtain, so Ru wasn’t sure exactly what was back there but she assumed it was a small shower and a toilet. The kitchen sink wouldn’t have been more than a few steps from the area.
It was nicely decorated, and even though Ru had never seen a building with a thatched roof before, on the inside, it was hard to tell, as the ceiling was made of varnished, interwoven wood. There were two small windows by the front door whose floral print curtains consisted mostly of blue hues and complimented the light blue on the walls and bedspread. A dresser sat mostly against the wall by the bed, the curvature of the building creating a struggle to get anything flush, and Ru imagined her mother must not have a lot of clothing. There was no TV but a stack of books and a laptop sat on a small table next to the chair.
“Well, this is quaint,” Rider said, smiling as they all stepped inside. He’d had to duck to get in the doorway, as had Cutter. “I think I’ll just wait outside.”
“Why don’t we all wait outside?” Cutter suggested. There was no argument from the girls, and with a quick squeeze of Ru’s hand, he followed the rest of the team out.
Ru had noticed the beautiful view as they approached the house. They’d walked over since it was only about a half-mile, and Ru wanted the clarity of the cool breeze on her face as she sorted through everything her mom had said. At least her friends would be able to watch the ocean waves roll in and out as they waited for her to finish her conversation with her mom. While Lyric was certain Nat hadn’t put anything together yet to be able to track them using Ru’s essence, the way Reapers could often sense a Keeper coming, there was always a chance he’d be able to track them down using more conventional methods—like videos or rental receipts. So, she knew it was important that they didn’t miss the window of low tide that afternoon that would allow them to get off of the island. Visions of a mob of Reapers sitting around at the airport in their long robes with scythes in their hands made Ru chuckle on the inside, and she wondered what she’d managed to get herself into.
Once the others had stepped out, Maggie offered Ru a seat in the chair and crossed to the bed. Bending down, she pulled out a box large enough to fit a pair of knee-high boots and set it on top of the comforter. She carefully lifted the lid. Ru leaned forward in the chair to be able to see, but her mother sat on the bed and patted the spot on the other side of the box, so Ru swiveled and sat down where she’d directed.
On top was a yellow crocheted blanket. Her mother pulled it out first and handed it to her. It was soft and looked to be handmade. Ru held it to her nose and inhaled. The scent reminded her of her mother, and closing her eyes, she tried to envision falling asleep beneath this cozy blankie as a small child, but if those memories were inside her mind, they were buried deeply. Still, it was nice to hold it.
“This… is from the hospital.” Ru’s mother handed her a tiny wristband that read “Baby Girl Ronobes.” The birthdate was her birthday, and it proclaimed she’d been in New York General Hospital. “We hadn’t decided what to name you yet,” her mom explained. “Larkin wanted to study your scars.”
That made sense, so she nodded. The tiny band wouldn’t even stretch halfway around her wrist now.
Her mom showed her a pink hat, which she said she’d worn home from the hospital, a pressed flower she said her father had picked for his little girl at the park, and a tiny lock of hair in a plastic bag from the first time they’d trimmed her baby curls.
Picking up an envelope, Maggie said, “These are the only pictures I have.”
Her eyes wide, Ru reached out and took them. She wasn’t expecting this. She flipped through them carefully and saw herself as a newborn, pictures of her mother holding her, looking exhausted, and her proud daddy, who looked much like he had in the picture she’d stolen from her grandmother’s house. The stack was thin, but at the back there was a picture of her as a little girl sitting on her dad’s lap in front of a flower bed, her mom next to them.
“That was taken at the park,” Maggie explained. “Not too many days before…. Anyway, we didn’t have cell phones or anything, so we didn’t get the kinds of pictures people do these days. We didn’t want to be traced, and they really weren’t nearly as easy to take photos with back then. Not even sure if they had cameras. Maybe the really expensive kind.”
“Right,” Ru said, struggling to think of a world where a person produced a camera to take a picture. “These are great. Thank you.”
“Sure. Ribbon had walked around the house gathering a few things before I showed up, and she had them ready. Such a good friend.”
Ru remembered how her Nana had mentioned Ribbon with bitterness in her voice. Now, she wished she’d gotten a chance to meet Ribbon while she was in Los Angeles. This woman had not only been a good friend to her mother, she’d helped the two of them escape, and she’d likely seen Ru when she was a little girl. Of course, why her mother had to escape was still not completely clear to Ru….
“Here are a few of the drawings we did.” Maggie offered a small sketchbook. “The one of your back is in the middle.”
Ru accepted the book but hesitated to open it for a moment. She’d assumed all of the drawings on the table in her mother’s room at her Nana’s house had been done by her mom, but now she knew that her dad had drawn at least one of them, the one that had eventually led them here. Her grandmother hadn’t even known that the sketch of the Celtic cross hadn’t been produced by her mom. Some of the other images, such as the crying angel, had been thought provoking, if not disturbing, so she wondered what she might find here.
Ru opened the book, and the first sketch was an intricate drawing of a flower, an iris, she believed. The next was of a cat perched in a window sill, and it made Ru laugh, reminding her of Piper. She continued to flip, more quickly than she wanted to. While she would’ve appreciated a day spent leisurely discussing all of the drawings with her mom, now wasn’t the time. They had no idea when Nat would figure out where they were.
As she continued to turn the pages, the sketches became a bit more meaningful, some a bit darker. There was one of an angel falling from a dark sky, another of a figure surrounded by flames. Her mother looked away from that one, and she was certain she was thinking of her father. Ru wondered which of them had drawn it and when. Eventually, she came to the one she was looking for. Her own back, though much smaller. She assumed the hands around her were her mothers, as she rested on top of a blanket that was likely the one sitting next to her on the bed.
The markings were very clear, probably more so than they would’ve been if the picture had been taken with a camera. Ru imagined her father would’ve wanted to capture every detail of them. They definitely looked different in the drawing than they did now. “Do you mind if I take a picture with my phone?”
“Of course not,” Maggie replied, half-smiling. She still looked disturbed by some of the other images.