My sister smiles softly. I already know she’ll wipe her face before her fingers make a move. No matter how many good or bad events happen in her life, she can’t free herself of the day Papa died.
“Should we have our bedrooms up here?” Dove asks.
“Is this where you want your room?”
Dove wipes her face again and lowers her head. “I want to stay with Mama and Future.”
“They’ll be just downstairs.”
“I don’t want to be up so high,” Dove admits, looking embarrassed to share despite us never keeping secrets. “It’s pretty from downstairs looking up, but it’s scary to be up here looking down.”
“Are you safe?” Mama asks, walking into the room. “I didn’t see you for too long, and I worried.”
“Dove doesn’t want to live upstairs.”
“Summer’s room is upstairs,” Dove says, wiping her face again.
“Well, you’re not Summer,” Mama explains while grinning at a giggling Future. “And she’s not you. I don’t like it up here. It feels wrong, like the apartment building. I’d rather be in the basement. We have our own kitchen.”
“But all these rooms are empty,” Dove says. “Summer’s house is so full.”
“Because they’ve lived there for a long time,” I explain. “Anders was here all alone. What did he need with this room or any of the others?”
“It seems sad to leave it empty.”
“Look at Future on the carpet,” Mama says as my brother rolls on the soft, gray-gold flooring. “He doesn’t need a bunch of toys. He can come up here and roll.”
Dove smiles nervously. “Do I have to go to school?”
“No,” Mama and I say in unison.
I take my sister’s hands. “You can’t be Summer any more than I can be Lana. We don’t know how. Just like Summer and Lana couldn’t live at the Village or the Collective. They wouldn’t know the rules. You need time to learn them. One day, or maybe never, you can do the school stuff. But you can never be anyone except you.”
Dove lowers her gaze. “What if we have to go back to the Village?”
“The Volkshalberd turned on us,” Mama says, hugging Dove. “They promised if we got rid of our old beloved mementos and acted like them, that they would accept us. But they wanted to hurt Pixie for helping Anders. They wanted to give you to that oaf tyrant with his gross skin and beet stink. The Volkshalberd lied to us. I won’t go back, even when the Marks family is gone. If Anders doesn’t want us here, we’ll search for the other Dandelions and go to them.”
Exhaling roughly, Dove calms herself. “I wasn’t happy at the Village.”
“It was part of our journey to our new home,” I say, and Dove smiles. “This house was very strange when I got here. I still don’t understand why there are so many buttons. However, this home is beautiful, and we have so much space. My heart also enjoys knowing Anders is nearby.”
Future crawls over to us and asks me to sit on the ground with him. We all do before eventually rolling around like him.
Mama presses her fingers into the deep carpet. “Why is the floor soft here and in the basement but not on the main floor?”
“Because that’s how Bronco’s house is.”
“Where is Anders’s family?” Dove asks from the other end of the long room where she crawls on her elbows and knees with Future.
“Those terrible people are dead. They were cruel to him. That’s why he gets lost in the darkness of his mind sometimes.”
Mama nudges me with her shoulder. “If Anders will let us, we’ll be the family he deserves.”
“He’s been alone for so long that he sees himself as a weed,” I say, missing him so much that my chest hurts. “As part of our garden, Anders will know how beautiful he truly is.”
Mama’s warmth toward Anders destroys what’s left of my sour mood. I spend the next few hours playing upstairs with my family before sitting in the backyard where we count clouds.
When Anders arrives home, I leap onto the furniture to get higher to hug him. He wraps me tightly in his strong arms until I can barely breathe. But I don’t complain. I feel the burdens resting heavy on his shoulders. When he explains how we’ll spend the evening at Bronco’s house, I hold him tighter.
I try to be brave by not asking questions. Mama, Dove, and I pack a few things for overnight while Anders locks down the house. When the five of us climb into the SUV together, I feel as if we’re a family whose story is just beginning.
ANDERS
During the last hour before sunset, I memorize the Village’s layout. I also study our most recent picture of John Marks with his overly tanned skin, bald crown, and white hair starting partway down his skull. Finally, I look over photos of his platinum blonde sister, Steph, and his bald brother, Craig. The latter is rumored to have OD’d in Chicago years ago, but I want to be ready for anything.
Steph is definitely in the Village. According to Fairuza, the “balloon-breasted” woman would frequently read aloud from mystery books as if the ideas were her own. The Volkshalberd were expected to gasp at the big moments and clap at the end.
“Some of the brainless toadies cried,” Pixie said, rolling her eyes.
I have to believe more than a few of the seventy-plus people still in the Village must know the Marks family is bad news. But they were raised to think a life without suffering led to impure bloodlines. Starving to death probably feels like a gift to some of them.
I’m afraid to tell Pixie I’m leaving. She reads me too well. If I look worried, she’ll know this club job isn’t like those from the last few nights. Pixie’s anxiety will feed mine, and I need to remain calm.
Yet, I really want the
