Then, they faded away and I was left with only the chipped wood cabinets, faded yellow curtains, and cluttered counters. I’d sat on those counters and talked with Lisa more times than I could recall. It’s where she’d told me she had a crush on Asante, where she’d revealed she was in love with him, and where I’d first confessed one of my strange visions to someone else.
I was left with the hollow certainty that this room would never again know the love and happiness that Lisa’s family exuded.
How many times had I sat at that table before the gateway opened and eaten pancakes with my hands? How many times had I sat there before and after the war and felt safe in a way I never did in my own house?
“Who lives here?” Kobal asked.
“It’s Lisa’s parents’ home,” I whispered. I ran my fingers over the kitchen table as I walked over to the window in the back door. At one time, there had been a fence dividing this yard from the neighboring ones. The fence had been torn down years ago to make room for more farming area.
“I spent so much time here as a kid that it became my second home, my onlyrealhome. It’s where I came the times my mother kicked me out, or was being especially vicious. Lisa’s parents took me in every time without question. They loved me. I… I loved them.”
My hands fisted at my sides when I realized I was talking about them as if they were already dead. I struggled to maintain control of myself and blinked away the tears burning my eyes. Turning, I walked past Kobal and back through the living room. I spotted the others standing guard outside as I climbed the steps by the front door to the upstairs.
Kobal stayed close behind me as I went through the rooms above. I knew the house was empty, but I still searched for any hint as to where everyone could have gone, seeking some sign that they were still alive.
More memories assailed me when I entered Lisa’s bedroom. The purple walls hadn’t changed since we were kids. The dolls, bears, and knickknacks lining the shelves were exactly as they’d been before the war. When I was a child, I’d envied Lisa’s toys and secretly coveted some for myself. After the war, they’d become dust collectors that we both forgot about.
She’d never taken them down, never changed them, and as far as I knew, she’d never played with them again. I suspected she’d kept them that way to preserve the memories of happier times, when she’d been innocent and the world had been kinder. Instead of being envious of them, I enjoyed coming here and seeing all the toys that reminded her of better times.
From the window beside Lisa’s bed, I gazed at the house only a hundred feet away. Its sagging porch, broken siding, and missing shingles from the roof were in far worse repair than the other homes surrounding it. The front windows were missing their ledges, and one was also missing a pane of glass.
I’d lived in that house for most of my life; just the sight of it caused cold dread to settle in the pit of my stomach. I rested my fingers against the window as I tried to bury the memories of all I’d endured in that pitiful structure.
I was no longer the girl who had grown up there, or the woman taken from there months ago. Yet just thinking about my mother was enough to make me feel like a frightened child, an angry teen, and a resentful woman all over again.
I had no choice but to return to that place.
My shoulders slumped as I turned to face Kobal in the doorway. His eyes ran over the assortment of toys lining the shelves before settling on the pictures set out on the nightstand beside me. The pictures were of Lisa, her parents, and Asante’s school picture from the second grade, but she also had two of us.
One of them was taken when we were seven. We had our arms entangled around each other’s necks as we grinned at the camera, revealing our missing front teeth. The other was from when we were sixteen. My jeans were torn, and Lisa’s shirt was unbuttoned at the collar as we sat on a rock near the canal. We were both leaning against each other and staring at our feet. I clearly recalled that we’d been kicking our feet back and forth while we talked in the hushed whispers of teenagers who had so many secrets they could never share with the world, and all of them were life and death. At the time, we hadn’t realized she’d been there, but Lisa’s mother had sketched the picture.
Bending down, I stretched my hand under Lisa’s bed and grabbed the strap of the duffel bag I knew she kept stowed there. I pulled it out and rose. With one swipe of my arm, I shoved all the pictures into it. I would return to the other house later to gather things for my brothers, but I wasn’t leaving here without those pictures.
I hefted the bag over my shoulder and turned back to Kobal.
“I have to go next door,” I said. “I have to return to where I lived.”
CHAPTER 48
River
I didn’t run next door, didn’t fly up the stairs with the same reckless abandon I had everywhere else. I couldn’t. I may not be the same person who had left here, I’d literally been through Hell and back, yet my feet felt weighted down by cement blocks as I trudged up the steps to a house that had never been a home for me.
The faded gray front door sagged on its rusting hinges. The doorknob had busted off since I’d been here, leaving only the broken mechanical bits inside the door behind. Kobal slid his arm around my waist to pull me closer. My body tensed against his when he pushed in the mechanical bits and something clicked.
Resting his hand on the door, Kobal swung it inward. I couldn’t stop myself from wincing at the creaking hinges. I’d faced Lucifer, but this small noise still made me shudder at the thought of waking my Mother. I would pay for it if I did.
I shook my head to clear it of the haunting image of my mother coming at me as a clammy sweat coated my skin.
Shadows played over the hallway from the sunlight filtering in behind us. It illuminated the peeling paint and patches of exposed and, in some places, broken plaster. The stale scent of mildew permeated the air. Cobwebs dangled from the ceiling, and a thick layer of dust coated the walls and hall table. The dirt caking the floor made it impossible to tell if it was hardwood or a rug there.
A few leaves skittered down the hall when a breeze blew through the doorway. The other homes had appeared recently abandoned; this one looked as if no one had lived here in months. My mother had never been one for housekeeping; that had fallen to me and Gage. Then, she’d sold me to the government, Gage had gone to live with Lisa, and no one had helped her anymore.
For many years, the drone of the TV greeted me whenever I opened this door. Now there was only more silence. Swallowing heavily, I set the duffel bag on the ground outside the door and stepped inside.
I walked into the doorway of the living room where my mother had spent most of her life. Standing in the threshold, I gazed at the tufts of yellow stuffing poking through the worn brown fabric of my mother’s favorite armchair. Because the springs had busted through the seat years ago, she’d sat on two pillows while she endlessly watched the news reports on TV.
I froze when I spotted the blonde head sitting in the chair where I’d often seen it. I couldn’t move as my knees locked and my feet planted into the ground. Blinking, I tried to figure out if I was hallucinating or if my mother actually sat there. The more I blinked, the more I realized she wasn’t fading away, or moving.
