“That explains everything,” River said. “No wonder she abducted someone else’s baby.”
“I was not abducted,” Raven said.
He looked both amused and angry. “You weren’t hers, she took you, and she ran away with you. I think that’s officially called abduction.”
“I was hers,” Raven said.
River drained his glass. “You have a bad case of Stockholm there, sis.”
“I’m very sorry,” Jonah said to Aunt Sondra and Raven. “My son is having some problems.”
River rose out of his seat with a stagger. “I am. My glass seems to have gone dry.”
“Jasper . . . ,” Jonah said, nodding at River.
Jasper took his brother’s arm.
“And away we go,” River said as his brother led him out of the room.
“I believe dinner is ready,” Jonah said. “Please come into the dining room.”
Two women wearing uniforms came out of the kitchen to serve them. Beef tenderloin, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Gram Bauhammer said a prayer, most of it gratitude to her god for “returning Viola to the love and guidance of her true family.”
Raven wanted to throw her plate of food at the woman.
River and Jasper came back. “I apologize for my rude behavior,” River said to Raven.
He and his brother sat across from her and Aunt Sondra. Jasper was brought a completely different dinner. From what Raven could tell, he was vegan. He even looked a little like Jackie. Raven looked down at her food to stop her urge to cry.
Jonah and Jasper attempted to keep a conversation going. They mostly talked about what Jasper was doing at college. Gram Bauhammer inserted her strong opinions throughout. She told Aunt Sondra, “River would be in school with his brother if they didn’t give scholarships to people who have no right to be in an Ivy League school.”
“I have no right or desire to be at Cornell,” River said. “You’ll remember, I didn’t apply.”
“Only because you knew they would give preference to all those—”
“Mom, please keep those opinions to yourself,” Jonah said sharply.
Gram Bauhammer cast a sour look at her son but said no more.
Raven had no stomach for the food or the strange family seated around her. She ate just enough to be polite and kept quiet.
As dessert was served, Jonah asked, “Raven, is there anything you’d like to ask us?”
She wanted to ask them why they were forcing themselves on her. She wanted to ask if she could leave and never see them again. But she was curious about one topic all but Jasper had avoided: the woman who looked like her, the one who had painted birds and flowers on the nursery walls. “I would like to know about Ellis,” she said.
“Also known as your mother,” River muttered.
“We’ve been out of contact with her for a long time,” Jonah said.
“Since not long after you were abducted,” River said pointedly. He stared at her, expecting her to challenge the word abducted.
She had no interest in playing games with the drunken attention-seeker. “Where does she live?” she asked.
Jonah looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know.”
River snickered, and his father aimed a dark look at him.
Their exchange implied that Jonah did know. She wondered why he’d lie.
Raven was relieved when the dinner ended. She whispered to her aunt that she wanted to leave. Sondra drew in a deep breath, then slowly exhaled, that familiar sign of an impending fight. “Come sit with us in the living room,” her aunt said.
Raven went but refused to sit.
“The situation is this . . . ,” her aunt said. “I have to get back to my work and family in Chicago, and you have nowhere to live but here. At least for the time being.”
“I have a house in Washington! I’m not staying here!”
“You don’t own that house yet. It belongs to my sister until I can prove she’s deceased.”
“Ms. Danner will be my guardian. I’ll live at her house.”
“Neither she nor a judge would agree to that when you have a legal guardian. Your father is here for you, Raven. He’s here to help and guide you.”
Raven looked at Jonah. His smile came off too weak to inspire confidence.
“This is your family,” her aunt said. “You need time to get to know them.”
Raven had a desperate feeling she knew well, her raven spirit wanting to fly away. But then she remembered she had no raven spirit. She felt as she had in the hotel bed, cold and sick and empty.
“Jonah has talked to a psychologist who will help you get accustomed to your new home,” Aunt Sondra said.
“You’re leaving me here?” Raven said. “You lied to me at the hotel?”
“You have a family that’s been missing you for sixteen years, and you have nowhere else to go. This is a reality I can’t change.”
“I’m never going back to Washington?”
“You’ll go back, but I don’t know when. I’ll have anything you want sent over. I promise the movers will be careful with your belongings.”
She didn’t want to cry in front of them, but she couldn’t hold it back. “This is why she didn’t like you, isn’t it? You lied to her and bullied her and never did what she wanted. No wonder she didn’t trust you!”
She saw guilt glaze her aunt’s eyes.
“I bet you’re lying about leaving her body where she wanted it. I bet you already had police look for it!”
“I haven’t,” her aunt said.
“Not yet. But you’ll do it when you go back there. You’ll leave me here and ignore everything she asked in her letter. She wanted me to live there. With her spirit. She wanted me to have a guardian and stay on that land.”
Her aunt looked at Jonah, pleading for help.
“Raven,” he said, “what Audrey Lind wanted for you is based on a lie. She took you from us. All these years, you were supposed to be here.”
“I’m glad I wasn’t!” Raven said. “Who would want to live in this family?”
“Ha!” River said, holding up his glass to toast her.
Everyone ignored him.
“I’m sorry you don’t like it here,” Jonah said. “That’s completely understandable when you’re used to another way of
