"It doesn't matter. Thanks for the ride," Rob said.
Lydia hunched her shoulders. "Sure," she said. It was the voice of someone who hasn't been invited to a party. Then she said in subdued tones, "Could I use your bathroom?"
"Oh—sure," Anna said. "Hang on, I'd better go inside first." Mom isn't going to be expecting us, she added silently.
Moving quickly and lightly, Anna ran up to the house. The others waited in the car, looking through steam-clouded windows. After a few minutes Anna came back, leading a short, motherly woman who looked bewildered but humorously resigned. Kait thought suddenly that she knew where Anna got her serenity.
"Come inside, all of you," the woman said. "I'm Mrs. Whiteraven, Anna's mother. Oh, my goodness, you're wet and half-frozen. Come in!"
They went in, and Lydia went with them.
Inside, Kaitlyn got a quick impression of a crowded, comfortable living room and two identical boys who looked about nine or ten. Then Anna's mother was hustling them into the back of the house, running hot baths and gathering clean clothes.
"You boys will just have to wear some of my husband's things," she said. "They'll be big, but they'll have to do."
Some time later Kaitlyn found herself warm and faintly damp from a bath, dressed in Anna's clothes and sitting in front of the fireplace.
"Your mother's nice," she whispered to Anna. "Isn't she a little surprised to have us turn up like this? Did she ask you any questions?"
Not yet. She's more interested in feeding us and getting us warm. But I know one thing—she hasn't heard anything from the Institute. She thought I was still at school.
They had to stop talking then because Anna's little brothers came in and started asking her about California. Anna managed to tell them about it without mentioning Mr. Zetes or the Institute.
Mrs. Whiteraven bustled back in. "Anna, your other friend was just waiting in the hall. I sent her to wash up. We'll have dinner in a few minutes, as soon as the boys are ready."
"But she isn't—" Anna began. She broke off as Lydia walked into the room, looking small and almost pathetic. It would be too rude to say "she isn't my friend" when Mrs. Whiteraven had just invited her to dinner.
After all, she did give us a ride, Anna said to Kaitlyn, who shrugged.
Rob, Gabriel, and Lewis appeared wearing billowing flannel shirts and jeans tightly belted to keep them on. Kaitlyn and Anna nobly refrained from giggling, but Lydia grinned. Lewis grinned back at her, unabashed. They sat down with Anna's mother and father at the table.
Dinner was hamburgers and smoked salmon, corn and broccoli and salad, with berry pie for dessert and Thomas Kemper's Old Fashioned Birch Soda to wash it down. Kaitlyn had never been so happy to see vegetables. All five of them from the Institute dug in with an enthusiasm that made Mrs. Whiteraven's eyes widen, but she didn't ask any questions until they'd finished eating.
Then she wiped her hands on a dish towel, pushed her chair back, and said, "Now, suppose you kids explain what you're doing in Washington?"
Chapter 11
Kaitlyn looked from Anna's mother to Anna's father, a grave man with steady eyes who'd scarcely spoken during dinner. The kitchen was warm and quiet. Yellow light shone from the overhead lamp onto unfinished pine cupboards.
Then Kaitlyn looked at Rob. They were all looking at one another, all five who shared the web.
Should we? Anna asked.
Yes, Kaitlyn thought back, feeling agreement from the others. But only your parents. Not…
Anna waved a hand at her twin brothers. "You guys go play, okay? And…" She glanced at Lydia and faltered. Kaitlyn knew the problem; Anna was gentle by nature, and it was difficult to say "get out" to a guest who'd just eaten at the same table.
You're too soft-hearted, she thought, but Gabriel was already speaking.
"Maybe Lydia and I could take a walk outside," he said. "It's stopped raining now." Standing, he looked every inch the gallant gentleman—if you didn't count the mocking glint in his eyes. He extended his hand to Lydia courteously.
There wasn't much Lydia could do. She went rather pale, so that her three freckles stood out more prominently. Then she thanked Anna's parents and took Gabriel's hand. Lewis gave her a hurt look.
Be careful, Kaitlyn thought to Gabriel as he and Lydia walked out.
Of what? Psychic attacks—or her? he sent back, amused.
Anna's brothers went, too. And then there was no further excuse for delay. With one final look at her mind-mates, Anna took a deep breath and began telling her parents the whole story.
Almost the whole story. She left out some of the more gruesome bits and didn't mention the mind-link at all. But she told about Marisol, and the crystal that enhanced psychic power, and Mr. Zetes's plans for making his students into a psychic strike team. Rob went and got the files he'd taken from the hidden room.
"And we've been having these dreams," Anna said. "About a little peninsula with gray water all around it, and across from it is a cliff with trees and a white house. And we think that the people in the house might be sending us the dreams, trying to help us." She told about Kaitlyn's two encounters with the caramel-skinned man who came from the white house.
"He didn't seem to like the Institute," Kait put in.
"And he showed me a picture of a garden with a huge crystal in it—like Mr. Z's crystal. We figure that maybe they know about these things."
Mrs. Whiteraven frowned. Her black eyes had been snapping and flashing throughout Anna's story, especially when Anna told about Mr. Z's plans. Mr. Whiteraven had merely gotten more and more grave-looking, one of his hands slowly clenching into a fist. Like Tony, they seemed to have no trouble accepting the reality of what Anna was saying.
Now Anna's mother spoke. "But—you're saying you set out for this white house without any idea where it is?"
"We have some idea," Anna said. "It's north. And we'll know it when we see it—the peninsula is lined with these strange rock piles. I keep thinking they're familiar somehow. They look like this." She got a pencil and began drawing on the back of one of the file folders. "No—Kait, you're the artist. Draw one."
Kaitlyn did her best, sketching one of the tall, irregular rock stacks. It came out looking a bit like a stone snowman with outspread arms.