'What do you expect me to do?' his father said calmly.
'I don't know!' Norton was growing increasingly exasperated.
'Hunt her down! Kill her!'
'Kill Donna? Your little Mend?Billingson's daughter?'
Norton pressed forward, finger pointed in the air in the classic lecturing position. 'She's notBillingson's daughter,' he said. 'The two aren't even related.'
For the first time, something like worry crossed his parents' faces.
'Of course she's his daughter,' his mother said.
'Did he ever say that? Did he ever tell you that?
Have you ever seen the two of them together?'
'Well, no. But...' She trailed off, obviously thinking.
Now he had his father's attention. 'How do you know this?'
'He told me.Billingson . Before he disappeared.'
'Disappeared? He's--'
'He's gone. She killed him. Or had him killed.' He knelt down on the floor in front of his father. 'You know what this House is. You know what it does. You know why we're here--'
His father fixed his mother with a look of black rage.
'I told you not to--'
'She didn't say anything. I found out on my own.'
He looked into his father's eyes. 'She's the one who told you not to say anything. She's the one who told you not to tell us, right?'
His father nodded reluctantly.
'She's evil.'
'I know that! This whole House is evil!'
'No, it's not.'
Darren and Bella and Estelle had been quiet all this time, and Norton glanced over at them. They looked scared, but not exactly surprised, as though what they'd feared had turned out to be true.
'She likes to play blood games,' Bella repeated softly.
Their father nodded. 'Yes,' he said tiredly. 'She does.'
They talked. For the first and only time, he and his parents and his brother and his sisters talked like families in movies and on TV talked--openly, honestly--and it was a liberating experience. He felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and he learned that Donna had approached all of them, had appealed to each of them, had offered herself to his mother and father, had presented herself as a friend to his sisters, a girlfriend to his brother.
He himself was the only one who had taken the bait, and while they'd all known about it, while she'd practically flaunted it in front of them, they had never mentioned it to him, never brought it up between themselves.
Such things just weren't talked about in that family in that time in that place, and it was the lack of communication as much as his own weakness and stupidity that had inflamed the situation and led to its inevitable end.
Was that end still inevitable?
He didn't know, but he thought not. He felt good, he felt free, he felt closer to his family than he ever had before, and while it might not be the case, he had the distinct impression that merely by talking, merely by hashing things out, they had changed the course of events, they had avoided a repeat of what had happened the first time.
It was several hours later that his mother yawned, placed her crocheting needles into her sewing basket, rolled up the afghan on which she was working, and said, 'It's time for bed. I think we've had enough startling revelations for one night.'
The kids, tired, nodded and stood, heading off unbidden to their respective bedrooms.
His father stood as well, and offered his hand to Norton, who took it and shook. He could not remember ever shaking his father's hand before, and the action made him feel more like a grown-up than anything else in his life ever had.
'We'll find her,' he promised. 'All of us. And then we'll decide what to do.'
Norton nodded. He was feeling tired himself, and he walked out of the family room and, waving good night, went down the hall to the entryway and started up the stairs to his bedroom. The unfamiliar expansiveness he'd experienced earlier was gone, and the House seemed cozy and comfortable, not frightening or forbidding at all but . . . homey.
He wasn't quite brave enough to take a shower yet, but he did walk into the bathroom to wash his face. The water that came out of the sink faucet was red and thick, and no doubt he was supposed to believe it was blood, but it smelled like water, and it rolled off his hands, leaving no stain, and he bent down and splashed it onto his face, enjoying the cool refreshing wetness.
He fell asleep happy.
Mark Mark opened his eyes.
And was sitting on the porch.
It was night. To the north, a domed semicircle of orange--the lights of Dry River--shone like a beacon in the desert darkness. There were other lights, individual lights, spread across the plain to the south, east, and west: the ranches of their neighbors. Above, the sky was moonless, but he could make out familiar constellations in the star- crowded sky.
On the bench swing opposite his chair, his parents sat, heads together, rocking slowly back and forth. On the top porch step, to his right, sat Kristen.
The family was all together.
Unresolved issues.
He squinted through the darkness at his sister, but though the only illumination came from the pale square of sitting-room light shining from a window some ten feet down the porch, he could still see Kristen clearly, and he understood that this was her as a child, this was the Kristen he had known, not the Kristen he had only recently met.
She said something, obviously a reply to a question someone else had asked, and he realized that they were in the middle of a conversation, one of those slow languorous summer-night conversations where thoughts were mulled over before spoken and long lapses between question and answer were the rule rather than the exception. They'd had these conversations often when he was little, and it was when he had felt closest to his parents. This was the time after the day's chores and rituals had been completed, when there was nothing that had to be done and the requirements of the day were finished until tomorrow, and it was the only time when his parents seemed truly relaxed, not overworked or overburdened or under stress.
It was the only time that they weren't working for the House, the only time they'd been allowed to be themselves.
He hadn't known that then, but perhaps he'd sensed it. These porch sessions had been almost sacrosanct to him, set off in his mind from the daylight life of his family, from their life inside the House, and it was why he was now so reluctant to bring up Billings and the girl and everything else. He knew he had to talk to his parents about it, but he did not want to shatter the mood, and he decided to wait until he could naturally broach the subject within the context of the conversation.
The night air was cool, the day's heat dissipated, and above the ever-present odor of the chickens, he could smell mesquite and a whole host of night-blooming desert flowers.
He listened to his mom, listened to his dad, listened to Kristen, and it was so nice to be here with them again, alone with them. His parents told stories of the past, laid out plans for the future, and they were still talking when he drifted off to sleep.
When he awoke, it was morning.
He'd been left where he'd fallen asleep, in the chair, but someone had given him a blanket and he was
