Then Hugh and Horace pressed their faces through the doorway, curious to see whom we’d met, and Olive scooted between their legs and sat in the middle of the floor, and pretty soon all of us were squeezed into the bathroom together, even Melina and the blind brothers, who stood creepily facing the corner. Seeing so many people, Sam’s legs shook and she sat down heavily on the toilet, overwhelmed—but her sister was thrilled, asking everyone’s name as they came in.
“Where are your parents?” Bronwyn asked.
“Father’s shooting bad people in the war,” Esme said proudly. She mimed holding a rifle and shouted, “
Emma looked at Sam. “You said your father was upstairs,” she said flatly.
“You broke into our house,” Sam replied.
“True.”
“And your mother?” said Bronwyn. “Where is she?”
“A long time dead,” Sam said with no apparent feeling. “So when Father went to war they tried shipping us off to family elsewhere—and because Father’s sister in Devon is terribly mean and would only take one of us, they tried shipping Esme and me off to different places. But we jumped off the train and came back.”
“We won’t be split up,” Esme declared. “We’re
“And you’re afraid if you go to a shelter they’ll find you?” Emma said. “Send you away?”
Sam nodded. “I won’t let that happen.”
“It’s safe in the tub,” said Esme. “Maybe you should get in, too. That way we’d all be safe.”
Bronwyn touched her hand to her heart. “Thank you, love, but we’d never fit!”
While the others talked, I turned my focus inward, trying to sense the hollows. They weren’t running anymore. The Feeling had stabilized, which meant they weren’t getting closer or farther away, but were probably sniffing around nearby. I took this as a good sign; if they knew where we were, they’d be coming straight for us. Our trail had gone cold. All we had to do was keep our heads down for a while, and then we could follow the pigeon to Miss Wren.
We huddled on the bathroom floor listening to bombs fall in other parts of the city. Emma found some rubbing alcohol in the medicine cabinet and insisted on cleaning and bandaging the cut on my head. Then Sam began to hum some tune I knew but couldn’t quite name, and Esme played with her duck in the tub, and ever so slowly, the Feeling began to diminish. For a scant few minutes, that twinkling bathroom became a world unto itself; a cocoon far away from trouble and war.
