wrapped up in it, curled like a shrimp. The sun was high in the sky, and he heard the sound of his father's truck clattering up the drive, so it was obviously past breakfast time, and he wondered why he hadn't been awakened and forced to eat his meal in the proper manner at the proper hour.
They'd never gotten around to discussing the girl.
They hadn't discussed Billings or the House, either. He roused himself, pushed off the blanket, stretched out, and stood up. His muscles were sore, and there was a hard crick in his neck. Yawning tiredly, he walked over to the front door and walked inside. He expected to smell breakfast, or at least the remnants of breakfast, but even as he walked through the dining room into the kitchen, there were no odors of food. The dishes in the sink were all from last night.
'Mom!' he called. 'Kristen!'
'Mom went to town for groceries.'
His sister was standing in the doorway, staring at him, and he had a quick flash ofdeja vu. He'd been here before, standing in this exact same spot, with Kristen standing in the exact same spot and saying exactly the same thing. He wondered if this whole experience at the House had been cobbled from preexisting events, edited together like a videotape or a CD-ROM game.
No. Kristen walked into the kitchen, took a sack of bread out of the refrigerator, and popped two slices into the toaster. He knew nothing like that had ever happened at their House; snacks had never been allowed and meals had always been eaten together.
This was really happening.
'Dad's outside,' Kristen said. 'I think he's unloading the feed. He probably wants you to help him.'
Mark nodded dumbly, then walked outside, pushing open the kitchen door and stepping onto the side porch.
He thought of grabbing a bite to eat, but he really wasn't hungry. He'd eaten breakfast with Daniel and Laurie and Norton and Stormy, then found himself on the porch at night after the Houses split, and slept for a while, so even though it was morning here, it felt like lunchtime to his body. And he usually skipped lunch.
He stepped off the porch, walked across the dirt and around back. The already hot air was heavy with the muted sound of thousands of chickens, clucking and movingrustlingly in their cages. The four chicken coops, long low buildings of tin roofs and unpainted slat walls, stretched away from the House on a slight grade.
His father's pickup was parked next to the second coop, on this side of the metal silo, and Mark walked over, the gradual slope causing him to unintentionally increase the speed of his step.
He saw the retarded girl in the doorway of the chicken coop behind his father.
The old man was unloading pallets of feed, lifting them off the pickup and piling them on the ground next to the sagging slatted building. She would hide whenever he faced in her direction, retreating into the coop, but the second he turned his back on her, she would jump into the doorway and pull up her shift, exposing herself and thrusting her thin dirty hips out suggestively.
It was the first time Mark had seen her since he'd come back, and he felt the same rush of cold fear he'd experienced before. This was outside, in the sunlight and open air, with his father hard at work between them, but he felt the same way he had years ago, alone in the dark hallway.
Scared.
His father put down a pallet, reached into his back pocket, and grabbed a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He noticed Mark standing there and motioned him over. 'I was wondering when you were going to wake up. Why don't you give me a hand here.
My back's killing me.'
Mark nodded, moved forward. His attention was still on the girl in the doorway.
Your father does it.
He looked away from her, and tried to concentrate on the task at hand, he and his father each taking one end of the remaining pallets and stacking them on the ground, but he kept seeing her out of the corner of his eye, kept seeing her dirty shift flip up, and he wondered if the old man saw it too and was just pretending not to.
He makes it hurt.
Finally, they finished. His father wiped the sweat from his forehead once again. 'I'm going into town to pick up another load and get your mother. Don't wander too far. I'm going to need your help when I get back.'
Mark nodded as his father opened the driver's door of the pickup and climbed in. The engine rattled to life, and Mark stood there as the truck bounced up the slight slope to the drive.
He turned back toward the chicken coop.
The girl was still in the doorway, but now she was unmoving, staring at him. 'Mark,' she said, and he remembered that voice, remembered the way she'd said his name, and a chill surfed down his spine.
She moved slowly forward, away from the coop, toward him, and he took an involuntary step backward.
She stopped. And then she was on the dirt, on her hands and knees, shift flipped up, and just as before, she looked slyly over her shoulder. 'I still like it best up the ass.'
He had no desire to copulate with her in any shape, form, or manner, but he was seriously tempted to kick her as hard as he could. The thought of his boot connecting with her midsection, knocking her over, knocking that smile off her face, hurting her, making her pay for what she'd done, tempted him sorely, but he knew it would not really accomplish anything. She would not really be hurt--whatever she was--and he would only be snowing his hand, revealing his true emotions.
And that, he figured, was probably the most dangerous thing he could do.
So he remained in place, staring impassively at the girl, and she laughed obscenely, a dirty nasty sound that was at once seductive and derisive, dismissal and promise.
She thrust her buttocks out at him, and he turned away, began walking back toward the House, and the wild sound of her obscene laughter followed him all the way.
He was waiting for his parents in the kitchen when they returned.
Both his mother and father walked in, each of them carrying a sack of groceries.
He took a deep breath. 'Mom. Dad. We need to talk.'
His parents looked at each other, then looked at him.
It was his father who spoke. 'What about, son?'
'About the House.'
'I still have those pallets to unload. I thought you could help me--'
'About the girl.'
Again, his parents looked at each other.
'Sit down,' Mark said, motioning toward the seats he'd pulled out for them at the kitchen table.
They talked.
He did not press his father on the girl, but he described what had happened to him in the hallway, and made it clear that that was why he'd wanted to get out of the House, to run away. And that was exactly what she wanted, he explained. She wanted to weaken the House, wanted to break apart their family, wanted to get them out.
'But I'm not going to let her,' he said. 'I love you. I love you both.'
'I love you, too,' his mother said.
His father nodded, put a hand on his arm.
Mark started crying, and tears obscured his vision, and he closed his eyes and rubbed them, and when he opened them again he was alone in the kitchen. The windows had remained, but there was no porch outside, no chicken coops, only a white blanket of fog, and he understood that he had returned.
He felt warmth on the back of his neck, and he jumped up and turned around, but it was Kristen, standing there, smiling at him.
'You did good,' Kristen said. 'You did fine.'
He smiled wryly. 'Is everything resolved?'
'Do you still resent them?'
'No.'
'Then I guess so.' She hugged him, and he felt warm sunlight, but he thought he could hear, from somewhere
