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Vivian’s mother was worse, for she hardly stopped crying. Same story, different women. She took her child to her cousin, shortly after Vivian had fallen ill with her first seizure. The oracle had given Vivian’s mother a choice, and the woman had made it.
Lila didn’t go back to the kitchen right away. She dug through clothes and toys and schoolbooks, not sure what she was looking for until she opened Vivian’s dresser. Underneath a pile of cartoon-themed pajamas, she found a little notebook with a lock.
Vivian kept a diary.
Lila picked the lock and read through the girl’s scribbles. Vivian had been anxious before she met the men, worried they might not be nice. She’d been happy when she finally met them, relieved that Jake could cook better than her mother, relieved that Valerie wasn’t such an annoying little sister after all. She’d written whole pages about how much she missed her mother and how she didn’t understand why she had to leave.
Her mother had kept her older brother. Why not keep her?
Had she been sent away because she had the same sickness as the oracles?
Did it make her bad? Didn’t her mother want her anymore?
In the last few pages, she’d begun to muse on what she should call the men. Should she call Finn her uncle? She wasn’t sure if it was a slight against her real uncles or if either of them even wanted it.
Lila closed the lock with a sharp little click and slipped it back into the girl’s drawer.
Sneaking back into the den, she stood behind the two girls and watched their cartoon for a few minutes. “Do you like it here with your uncle?”
Valerie nodded shyly, then looked to her new big sister for help. Since she didn’t know what she could say, she didn’t say anything.
“It’s okay,” Vivian said. “I mean, Valerie doesn’t like eating vegetables, and Finn and my uncle don’t let her leave the table until she finishes them. They don’t let her have ice cream all the time or candy every five seconds, but she still likes them. We both do. They’re nice. They read to us. They let us make messes. Mother never let us do that. They said we can run and scream and shout until we make ourselves sick once we move into the new house, we just have to be quiet until then. That’s the only bad part.”
“Uncle Jake and Finn are nice.” Valerie nodded.
“You call Finn by his first name?” When Vivian shrugged, Lila saw an opening. “I’d probably just start calling them both uncle. You know, if he was as nice as you claim.”
“But Finn’s not our uncle.”
Lila shrugged. “Uncle and dad and sister just mean family. Sometimes you have to make your family where you can.”
Vivian pulled at her lip, lost in thought. She wasn’t old enough to realize that Lila had been fishing through her diary, or perhaps she was just too innocent to believe that someone could read it if there was a lock.
“Be nice to your uncles,” Lila said, leaving them to their cartoons. She entered the dining room in time for Tristan to shovel a last bite of eggs into his mouth. Dixon spooned his bowl of oatmeal, squinting at the cartoons in the other room.
“Are we good?” Tristan asked around his food.
“His story checks out. The kids are happy enough here.”
Jake turned his gaze on the two girls in the den. “They told you that?”
“They didn’t have to. I read Vivian’s diary.”
Jake’s mouth gaped. “That’s an invasion of privacy. You shouldn’t—”
“Take it down a notch, Jake. I had to make sure they were okay. I hope you’d do the same thing in my position.”
“Are you going to arrest us? Are you going to take the girls away?”
“Why should I? You’ve become caretaker to two girls at the request of their parents. This isn’t a matter for the militia or anyone else, as far as I’m concerned.” She returned his palm and stalked toward the door. “I’ll have my people release your husband. Tell him to stop following me, or I’ll charge him.”
“Wait,” Jake called out, just as she reached the door. “The oracle wishes to see you as soon as possible.”
“Well, the oracle can see me in a vision giving her the finger.”
“You don’t believe in the oracles?”
