When Ellis opened the door, a huge dog came out and barked at Raven and her aunt.
“Quiet, Quercus!” Ellis said. “He’s friendly. Are you okay with dogs?”
Raven couldn’t answer. The only dog she’d ever known—or not known—was the werewolf.
The dog licked her hand. “Quercus is a good name for him,” she said.
“You know what it means?” Ellis asked.
“Yes, the genus of oaks.”
Ellis seemed surprised that she knew.
Raven was happy to see the house had wood walls and floors, same as her log home. And the furnishings were simple and few, as Mama liked. The house was smaller, but it felt good. There was even a stone fireplace in the living room.
Ellis showed Raven and her aunt around. There was a guest room, where Ellis put Raven’s suitcase. The patterned quilt and wood bed with posts were beautiful. Aunt Sondra said, “I love the country feel of this house. The antique furniture is a perfect complement.”
“Most of the furniture was more trash than antique when I found it,” Ellis said. “My business partner is a carpenter who can work magic with any junk I haul home.”
Raven loved the screened porch at the back of the house. It looked down a hill at a garden—all native plants, Ellis said—and beyond it were more woods and fields.
“Are those fields out there part of your property?” she asked Ellis.
“Yes. Those are old pastures I’ve seeded with native wildflowers and grasses. And beyond that is bottomland forest with more big oaks and a marsh.”
“How many acres do you own?” Aunt Sondra asked.
“Twenty-eight. About five acres of that is used for the nursery.”
“This place is perfect for you,” Aunt Sondra said to Raven.
Only Mama’s land in Washington could be perfect for her. But the Florida land would be all right until she was allowed to go home.
“Did you live in a rural area in Washington?” Ellis asked.
“We live on ninety acres of woods and fields,” Raven said.
“It’s beautiful,” Aunt Sondra said.
Ellis had a cold look in her eyes. “Isolated, I suppose?”
Aunt Sondra nodded.
“Did she take the baby straight there from New York?”
“I assume so. She bought the acreage around that time. She lived in a trailer on the property while the house was built.”
“Weren’t you at all suspicious that she suddenly had a baby?”
Aunt Sondra said, “Raven, why don’t you go unpack your clothes while I talk to Ellis?”
Raven almost refused to let them talk about Mama behind her back. But she also wanted to know what they’d say. She pretended to leave the screened porch but stayed around the corner, where she could hear them.
“I live in Chicago,” her aunt said. “I didn’t see my sister very often. I assume she’d been visiting our mother’s grave the day she took the baby. That cemetery is very near the woods where you left the baby.”
Silence.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have worded it that way,” Aunt Sondra said.
“Why not? It’s true,” Ellis said stiffly.
“I didn’t find out she had a baby until Raven was about seven months old. Audrey called me in a panic because the baby had a high fever. I flew out with a doctor to help.”
“She was afraid to take the kidnapped baby to a doctor. That should have made you suspicious.”
“No, that fear was typical for her. At a young age, she developed phobias about doctors. Our father sent her to physicians to help her with her mental illness. Those irrational fears became extreme after our mother died. Audrey was very close to her and traumatized by her death. She believed the doctors, medicines, and hospital killed her mother.”
“Didn’t you think it was strange that she had no birth certificate or evidence of a father?”
“Again, that fit Audrey’s life. She was a loner who preferred wilderness to society. One day when we met—she was thirty-two, I think—she told me she was trying to get pregnant. She was suddenly obsessed with having a child.”
“Was she in a relationship?”
“No. From what I could tell, she was randomly meeting men and trying to get pregnant. I was concerned about that, but more so because I didn’t know if she could competently care for a child. When I found out about the baby, she told me the father was a man whose name she didn’t know. She said she’d birthed the baby alone in a forest. That was why there was no birth certificate.”
“The school took her without one?”
“I asked the doctor who gave Raven her immunizations and wellness exams to create one for her.”
“You and this doctor went there often?”
“Once or twice a year.”
“And you never saw anything unusual?”
“I admit I did the first time I went there. The house was protected with video cameras, alarms, and locks. But as I said, Audrey had other irrational fears, so that didn’t seem too unusual for her. And these days, lots of people monitor their properties with video cameras.”
“But if you visited only once or twice a year, you didn’t really know what was going on.”
“I knew how it was to live with my sister. She’d had emotional problems from a young age. So yes, I was worried. I did everything I could to normalize Raven’s life. After she turned five, I pressured Audrey for years until she finally gave up on homeschooling and let Raven enter second grade. That was important. The socialization of public school did wonders for Raven.”
After a long silence, Raven was about to leave for the guest room when Ellis said, “All these years, I’ve been tortured by the thought of someone hurting her.”
“The doctor and I never saw any hint of abuse. I wouldn’t say her childhood was normal, but I can assure you, she was loved.”
Raven pressed her hand over her mouth to hold in a sob. No matter what bad things everyone said about Mama, she had certainly loved her. And Raven loved her back.
She sensed the conversation was over and hurried to the guest room, wiping at
