“They’ve been through a lot,” I agreed, the memory of the dying cop flashing through my mind. “Right now, they probably just want somewhere safe to stretch out and sleep for a while.”
“Let’s get them squared away then,” she suggested. “You can fill me in on it all later.”
I followed her to the living room, where Bud was already asleep sitting upright in a green wingback chair by the crackling fireplace, despite the noise of the exhausted adults trying to corral their equally fussy kids. The adults who weren’t busy trying to calm down kids were nodding off where they sat or stood leaning against door jambs wherever they could. It was a lot of people to cram into this house, but Grandma Letty managed them like a general, working with the few remaining conscious parents to get whole families set up in the rooms upstairs or on pallets in the living and dining rooms.
Forty-five minutes later, the house was quiet and dim except for the occasional opening and closing of a bathroom door. Tarah had shyly asked if she could take a shower, and Grandma Letty had sent her off to the master suite upstairs before nudging me over to a barstool at the kitchen island. Grandma Letty took a stool opposite me, and I finally had time to look around. Her kitchen wasn’t as big as Mom’s, the appliances regular sized instead of the industrial versions Mom preferred, the cabinets older, more traditional and less contemporary. Cozier. I could feel myself sort of melting into the barstool and had to fight the temptation to use the island as a pillow for my head.
“Fifty people tucked in in under an hour,” I said, forcing a tired smile. “Even for a grandma, that’s got to be some kind of record.”
“This was nothing. I had practice. Getting you and your brother to go to sleep when you were little was much harder.”
I had a brief memory of her hollering at us to settle down, back when we lived in our old house. I’d forgotten she’d come to stay with us a few times when I was a kid.
“You’ve sure gotten yourself into it this time,” she murmured before taking a sip of chamomile tea. “This is a lot of lives to take responsibility for, Hayden. I mean, I’ve heard of people creating their own careers, but this isn’t a career you’re building here, hon. It’s a life calling.”
Life calling. The words sent actual chill bumps racing down my spine.
I gulped. “This isn’t a career or a life calling. I just promised I’d get them here safely so they could figure out what to do next.”
One gray eyebrow arched. “I see. So your grand plan was to get them through the woods to Grandma's house and then dump them off for me to deal with?”
I scrubbed my hands over my gritty face. “I didn’t say I was going to abandon them. I’ll help them out if they need it.”
I didn’t like the way her eyes narrowed at that.
She took a slow sip of tea. “What about that cute girl you were standing so close to on my front porch? Does she have somewhere to go from here?”
I thought about my answer to that one. “Tarah’s not really a witch. She can’t do magic, though she claims different. So she might be able to go back home with the right help from a lawyer to clear her name. She’s only guilty by association.”
Both her eyebrows rose. “I see. So she’s just tagging along for the fun of it then?”
“Well, it started with her trying to free her dad. He’s a scientist who got arrested at a protest while trying to convince some outcasts to let him test their powers. He got thrown into an internment camp out in west Texas. But then she ended up being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and got thrown into the camp too, along with everyone else here.”
“Ah, now I understand. She’s why you broke everyone out of that camp, isn’t she?”
I nodded then told her about getting shot, waking up to see one of the prisoners kill a cop at the gas station in Oklahoma, and having to work with that same outcast in order to secure the charter bus. As I summed up the mess of events, the house shifted and creaked from the temperatures dropping still further outside.
“So you did it all because of her,” she whispered, her eyes widening beneath their saggy hoods of loose skin. She was silent for a few seconds before shaking her head and sighing. “Such is the power of love.”
Love. The word did weird things to my stomach and chest. A random memory flashed through my mind of Tarah’s lips softly curving into a smile…
In a firmer voice Grandma Letty asked, “What about Tarah’s father? You didn’t say what happened to him. Were you able to free him from the camp too?”
“Yeah. He went back home to get Tarah’s mother and take her into hiding somewhere. Tarah should have gone with them, but she’s sticking with this group for the story. She wants to be a journalist like her older brother. Probably thinks she’ll get the Pulitzer for it.” I stared down into my mug.
“Is this the same Tarah you and Damon used to play with every day?”
“Yeah. How’d you know about that?”
“Your momma and I have always kept in touch. By the way, you and Tarah should probably bunk in my room since it’s just about the only space we’ve got left by now. She’s short enough that she should be able to fit on the loveseat in there without much trouble. You okay with a pallet on the floor beside her?”
I nodded, turning my mug around and around in silence, the sleeping arrangements the last thing on my mind at this point.
“Okay, so you saved the girl, you saved her dad, you saved a whole bunch of others, and you got ‘em all here in one piece. You ought to be grinning like the Cheshire Cat right about now. So what’s with the long face?”
I sighed. “This situation’s no good for Tarah, but I don’t know what to do or even if I can do anything. She needs to be with her family. I’d try to change her mind about staying with this group if I thought she’d listen. But she’s way too hardheaded. She thinks she’s lucky to have been mistaken for an outcast and thrown into the internment camp and forced to go on the run with them. Like it's some big career making opportunity for her or something.”
I looked up at her, expecting to see some sympathy on her face. Instead she was scowling at me.
"You make having a little ambition sound like a sin," she said.
"Well, it's certainly nothing worth risking your life over."