“Mommy. You’re hurt.”
Scarlett bobbed her head. “Yes. But I’ll be okay. I have to get us all out of here. Now.”
Scarlett stood, leaning down to pick Haddie up, to run, to find Millie, to escape whatever had taken them deep into these darkening woods.
“Mommy,” Haddie said more forcefully. “Come with me.”
“Come where? Baby, we have to find Millie. You can tell me later—”
“Millie’s that way,” she said, pointing her finger in the direction from which she’d come.
Scarlett nodded, her breath coming just a little easier. “Is she hurt?”
“No, Mommy. She’s with him.”
Her blood chilled. “Him? Who’s him?”
“Him. He’s light, Mommy. Very, very light. So light I couldn’t feel him at first. But I can now. I learned. Please, Mommy. Come see.”
Scarlett blinked down at her daughter, taking in her pristine dress, her hair still in the same mint-green barrettes she’d clipped in that morning, white sandals slightly scuffed but otherwise undamaged. It appeared her daughter was not only completely fine, but might have been carried gently through the forest. But how is that possible? She held out her hand. “Take me to Millie,” she said.
Haddie smiled, grasping her hand, and pulling her along. They only walked about three hundred feet through the carpet of pine needles, rounding a bend and coming upon a large rock between two massive trees. “You can come out,” Haddie called. “I found her. I found my mommy.”
All of Scarlett’s organs felt as though they’d turned to stone as she stood, clutching her daughter’s hand, waiting with bated breath for what was about to appear with Millie, but trusting, trusting Haddie because she was obviously not afraid.
Millie stepped out first and Scarlett sucked in air, lifting her injured arm as much as she could and holding out her other hand to the girl. Millie smiled, rushing forward. “I was scared at first too,” she whispered.
Scarlett looked up, stilling, staring, squeezing both Haddie’s and Millie’s hands tightly as . . . something else emerged. At the sight of it, she drew back, pulling the girls, a cry of fear on her lips. He had horns only . . . no, they were perched on a small cap of what had once been the animal skull, fashioned into a type of hat. He was draped in leather and fur, and fabric pants that were far too short. He had an ancient-looking drum strapped around his neck, and despite its obvious age, the bleached leather was still stretched taut. Her eyes darted from one thing to the next, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
He was a man . . . just a man. Not an animal or a demon. As he moved forward, his shoulders were curled inward, head angled downward and to the side as though he was the one fearful of her.
“It’s okay,” Haddie said softly. The man slunk closer, finally lifting wide, scared eyes to her, peeking up from under his shaggy dark hair and offering her the shy smile of a small child. Scarlett made a tiny sound of shock and confusion, stumbling backward a step. She let go of the girls and clapped a hand to her mouth momentarily, breathing as she attempted to get her bearings.
Scarlett dropped her hand. “How?” she asked. “How?”
“I don’t know, Mommy,” Haddie said. “But he’s light.” Haddie signaled him to come forward.
The man let out a soft, snorty giggle, lowering his head again bashfully and moving closer.
Scarlett couldn’t stop staring at him.
What in the world is your sign of sin?
I don’t know. I never knew what mine was. I worried. I wondered if it was something they knew that they never told me, some illness I couldn’t see or feel but that might one day show itself. I don’t know.
It was Camden, but not. It was his brother, his twin. He had to be. But how? Why??
“Oh my God,” she murmured aloud, the story she’d read in Narcisa’s own pen forcing itself to the forefront of her mind, the way they’d left her baby in the woods to die because of a disability. Had they done the same with Camden’s brother? If yes, why one but not the other? Her thoughts spun crazily. This man was obviously mentally impaired. Had there been some sort of trauma at birth? Had one twin been deprived of oxygen, while the other’s condition remained unknown? Had this boy been deemed completely worthless like Narcisa’s baby, while his brother was shoved in the basement of Lilith House, believed to be sinful, but ultimately useful, just as Narcisa and some of the other natives had been? The ones they’d used as their whores and their slaves.
Valueless. But exploitable.
A moan of pain and fury emerged. Oh the evil. She couldn’t bear it. It kept coming. It kept blindsiding her.
“What’s your name?” she murmured.
He smiled shyly, but turned his head. “He doesn’t talk in words,” Haddie explained. “Not many anyway. But he can talk,” she insisted.
Scarlett shook her head. “How, Haddie?”
She seemed to think about it for a minute. She glanced at Millie momentarily and then back at Scarlett. “Some people . . . are on different channels.”
Scarlett frowned, glancing at the childlike man. “Tell me.”
Haddie wrinkled her nose. “Like how Sofia the First is on Disney channel, and Word Girl is on PBS. You have to switch back and forth. If you’re only on Disney, you can’t watch Word Girl. It’s not even there. It’s like it doesn’t exist, but it does. It is there, it’s just on another channel.”
Scarlett glanced at the man, at Millie, and then back at Haddie, giving herself a minute to digest what Haddie was saying. The moment in the church daycare came back to her. You’re nothing. Nothing at all. That’s what Haddie had said about the boy with the leg braces. She shivered, goosebumps causing her skin to prickle. Was it possible that since that moment Haddie had learned to . . . somehow communicate with people who otherwise couldn’t? Who operated on a different sort of . . . channel?
“Did you say something to the boy who lives near Millie that let him know you understood him?”
She bobbed her head. “Yes, Mommy. I wanted him to know I was on his channel.”
Scarlett struggled to understand but she knew one thing: This, this was the inner world she’d been wanting to share in. She could not mess this up. She had to be the mother Haddie needed. She had to try to understand, to believe in her even if it didn’t make sense. Cam’s reaction to the possibility of Haddie having a mental illness handed down by her father suddenly flashed in her mind.
“Does it matter?”
“What? Whether or not he has a mental illness?”
“No, whether Haddie has a predisposition. What will you do?”
“I would know better how to treat her.”
“It seems like you’re doing just fine, Scarlett.”
He’d been right. Haddie didn’t need treatment. She needed understanding and love. Acceptance and . . . awe. She’s so incredibly precious. And she’s spreading that gift . . . that light . . . everywhere she goes.
Even in a forest with a man who’d been left to die. Scarlett’s heart overflowed with love.
She nodded over to the man. “Did he tell you why he took you?” she asked Haddie.
“He didn’t take us,” she said. “I called for him and he came.”