Orphan Maker (8 page)

While Gwen gathered her wits, Loomis continued to fight her demons, growling, her teeth bared as she fought the covers. “No!” she cried. “Leave him alone! He’s got nothing to do with this!”

Was it a nightmare or something based in reality? Who had nothing to do with what? Who was attacking her? Gwen chewed her lower lip. She didn’t think Loomis was the violent type. Would waking her give cause for a beating? Gwen had been down that road before. She had standards now. Being the punching bag in a relationship wasn’t one of them. The choice was removed from consideration when Loomis sat bolt upright in bed with a shout. Still uncertain, Gwen froze, not wanting to draw Loomis’s attention though they sat a hairbreadth away from each other.

The floor creaked in the hall, and there was a gentle tap on the door. “Marissa?” Rick called. “You okay?”

Loomis took a breath, her chest hitching. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“All right. I’ll see you in a bit.” His bare feet made little noise on the floorboards. Gwen heard a door close in the distance.

The woman beside her turned away, dropping her feet over the edge of the bed. She took a deep breath and scrubbed at her face. It appeared Loomis had forgotten she shared a bed with a stranger. Gwen’s movement was slight, just enough to jiggle the mattress and remind the distraught woman that there was someone else in the room. Loomis gasped and turned to stare at her in the gloom. Gwen’s heartbeat sped anew at the intent stare. She tried hard not to flinch away from the ferocity seething just beneath the surface of Loomis’s expression.

Moments passed. Loomis relaxed, her shoulders slumping as she looked away, the bedsprings squeaking as her weight returned. “Sorry to wake you.”

“That’s okay. We all have nightmares sometimes.”

Loomis chuckled without humor. She pushed herself to her feet, and went to the armoire at the foot of the bed. “Go back to sleep. The day starts early out here. You’ll need your rest.”

“What was it about?” Gwen asked, curious as to what haunted this influential woman. Powerful people sometimes had strong monkeys on their backs. “Talking about it sometimes helps.”

Pulling on a threadbare robe, Loomis grumbled. “What’s past is past. Nothing to be done about it now.”

So it’s something from the past.
Unable to let it go, Gwen asked, “Was it your boyfriend, the one who had nothing to do with it?”

Loomis, who had made it to the door, stopped in her tracks. She turned, hand on the doorknob. “What do you mean?”

Her tone was dangerous, and Gwen responded accordingly. She dropped her gaze and turned slightly away, presenting herself in as unthreatening a manner as possible. “You talked in your sleep. I was just repeating what you said.”

Appeased, Loomis growled, “I’ve never had a boyfriend. Don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff. It was just a dream.” She left the room, closing the door behind her.

Gwen watched her go, thoughtfully considering her answer.“You’ve never had a boyfriend?”

***

The front of the cabin was mostly glass. As dawn began to pink the sky to the west, Loomis made her way into the kitchen with plenty of light to see by. As quietly as possible, she started a fire in the woodburning stove. The entrance to the boys’ loft was just overhead. She didn’t want to wake them, though she doubted anything short of a stick of dynamite would wake Kevin after the day he’d had yesterday. Cara or Heather had filled the teapots the night before. Loomis put one on the stovetop, knowing it would be awhile before the fire built up enough to heat the water. Overhead, the ceiling fan slowly revolved, its motor humming in the silence, reminding her she needed to find a replacement motor soon or they would lose the extra circulation.

Loomis leaned against the butcher-block island and rubbed her face. She’d totally forgotten Gwen’s presence in her room. Feeling the bed move had scared about twenty years off her life. It was a damned good thing the shotguns were hanging against the far wall of the bedroom, or Gwen would be picking buckshot from her teeth. The nightmare had been no better or worse than it ever had been. She relived the past with some frequency, though it recurred more often when she was stressed. Having a houseful of strangers would constitute stress, she guessed. Loomis hoped her mind would settle enough to allow the nightmare to slip back into its dormant stages.

Good Lord, there was so much to do. For one thing, the homestead didn’t have shoes for Kevin or Lucky, though somewhere in one of the barns there was a trunk of baby clothes. They would need more of those since Heather was due in five months or so. And another crib, diapers, clothes for the new family members, a new fan motor, and anything else they could get their hands on.

Then there was schooling. Kevin probably had never gone to school before the plague. Loomis doubted Lucky or Gwen had spent much time reading since Orphan Maker, either. They had to be tested to see where they needed to start applying themselves. Maybe Lindsay Crossing had just been lucky, but Loomis was certain that keeping the kids learning had a lot to do with their survival. Even now, five years later, the monthly town gatherings were still a habit as everyone got together and discussed what projects they worked on and what they learned from them. The flow of ideas was what had kept them alive in the past, and continued to do so now.

Today’s priority was morning chores, of course. The ewes wouldn’t want their morning milking to be neglected. Then the garden needed water, the horses to be fed, the woodbox here and in the summer kitchen refilled, the chickens and rabbits fed and watered, the traps checked for any vermin… The list of tasks at the Loomis homestead went on and on. In order to get more goods, they would have to make a scavenging trip to McAdam. That would be an overnight trip there and back. She would need Terry with her. He was good at getting into tight spots and finding hiding places. Rick would have to stay behind this time. Loomis didn’t really think her family was in danger, but with forty odd city kids in town they had to be a bit more careful. What if they were forerunners for some sort of invasion?

Loomis scoffed at herself. She was letting her nightmares make her paranoid. There was no way those kids were a threat. Most of them could barely stand for any extended time due to malnutrition, let alone attack Lindsay Crossing. Maybe Gwen was a threat, she thought, a grin crossing her face. That woman had a sharp enough tongue for it anyway.

The teapot began to rumble as the water boiled, soft wisps of steam puffing from the spout. Loomis jumped forward to grab it up before it could start whistling and wake the rest of the homestead.

***

Gwen wanted to follow Loomis. There were limits to how much she could push, boundaries that had to be maintained, so she remained in bed. As much as she wanted to know more about the nightmare or that provocative statement about never having had a boyfriend, Gwen had to keep in check until she knew Loomis better. If Gwen forced the issue, she would never gain Loomis’s trust. And trust was a priority.

Her mind whirled as she sank back into the mattress, pulling the blankets over her shoulders once more. If it wasn’t an old cut buddy, who was being threatened in the nightmare? A friend? Did Loomis have any male friends? Maybe it was her brother or cousin. Those were the only boys here. Gwen turned on her side, spying the framed photograph on the nightstand. Was it one of their other brothers, the ones that were dead? That would mean whatever Loomis dreamed of had happened before the plague had ravaged the world.

She’d never had a boyfriend? Gwen couldn’t conceive of a hottie like Loomis being pure. Every guy she knew would give their left nut for a skill twist with Loomis. She smirked to herself. Her included, even if she didn’t have a left nut. Loomis was totally off tap with those dark hazel eyes and thick auburn hair. Saggy pants or not, she had a phat build, too.
I bet there ain’t an ounce of pudge on her.

Gwen’s eyes drifted closed, her fatigue overcoming the rapid-fire thoughts in her head. She snuggled further into the bed, drawing Loomis’s pillow toward her and hugging it close.

Kevin kept running his hand over his scalp, absently exploring the area denied him by the mass of hair that had grown over the years. Now that much of it was missing, he seemed fascinated by the texture of what remained. He stared hard at the primer before him, lips silently working as he tried to read one of the words.

Loomis sat across from him. “We already know that you know your letters. You know what they sound like. Just make the sounds of what you read out loud.”

Terry glared at her from beside Kevin. “Give him a couple of minutes.”

Loomis bit back a grin. She had hoped another boy would adjust her young cousin’s attitude but hadn’t expected this. Rather than become mellower, Terry had turned into a rebel with a cause—defending and teaching his new “brother.” While his negative tendencies still rang true, he used them to protect Kevin from his ignorance rather than cause trouble. This morning he had taught Kevin how to properly hoe weeds in the garden and gather eggs, both tasks completed with little to no damage for a change. In fact, she couldn’t recall the two boys being separated from one another since the moment they had finished their argument the day before. Childhood being as fickle as it was, she hoped their burgeoning closeness would strengthen.

Terry hovered beside Kevin, pointing a finger at one of the words on the page. “She means sound it out. See? Rrr…uuuhh…nnn. Run. Like that. I know it sounds dopey, but it’ll help until you can read better.”

Kevin took a deep breath, and began the next word, hesitantly whispering them aloud. Loomis couldn’t hear, but Terry leaned close. Deciding it would be good to let them continue the lesson without her, she sat back and observed the others.

Delia had spurned reading once again for her handmade flash cards. The girl had her addition and subtraction down pat, something Loomis envied. She had struggled with math for years, and at six years old, Delia was already beginning simple multiplication. Of course, the girl was barely able to read a word, so Loomis figured it must balance out in the end. Sitting beside Loomis, Megan practiced her penmanship. A book of letters lay open before her, and she carefully copied them onto her slate, her tongue sticking out in concentration. Loomis grinned and rubbed the girl’s back. She received a smile and snuggle in return before Megan went back to work.

Heather and Cara each had one of the city girls for instruction. Heather and Lucky sat at the other end of the table with a stack of books. They had worked down from adult literature to children’s books, and had discovered that Lucky read at the fourth-grade level. She struggled with the words, but her skill was better than Kevin’s. That was more than Loomis had hoped; Lucky was sixteen, and had been in sixth grade at the time of the plague. She hadn’t lost as much as Loomis had feared.

Cara and Gwen were on the couch doing the same exercise. Curious, Loomis left the table to see how they fared. As she drifted closer, she was amazed to hear Gwen reciting a paragraph from a history book, one that had been written for high school students. Considering how prickly the woman was, Loomis didn’t comment. She continued past them to sit at the breakfast bar with her brother. Gwen broke off a moment, glancing at her, but returned to her reading. Her vocabulary was a little rusty here and there as she stumbled, but all in all she comprehended what she was saying.

How could someone who couldn’t speak a sentence without a swear word read so well? Gwen was cantankerous, contrary and prone to argument in Loomis’s opinion. But there she sat, smoothly reading an eyewitness account of the Black Hole of Calcutta from the mid-eighteenth century. It boggled the mind. She turned on the stool, looking at the project on which she and her brother were working. He had a large handmade map unfolded across the counter, and a number of notebooks spread across the remaining space. “How’s it going?”

“Not bad.” He showed her his slate. Paper was a rarity, and they had to work mathematical equations and write out rough drafts with chalk before transferring them to the notebooks. “I’m still having a bit of trouble with the double moons. Since they’re on two different orbits, they’re messing up the tidal pattern.”

“I hate math.” Loomis pulled the slate toward her.

Their three older brothers had been avid gamers in their youth. They had given the bug to Loomis when she was eleven, and she had passed it on to Rick after the plague. Unfortunately, neither Cara or Heather were interested in Dungeons & Dragons, so gaming had been set aside in favor of more normal educational pursuits. Pining to be involved in some aspect of the game, she and Rick had spent the last two years building their own world from scratch. It had been illuminating as they researched astronomical and physical science textbooks from the junior high school library in town. The challenge had been to make this fictional place follow the recognized laws of physics.

“You know, Terry’s almost old enough,” Rick said. “And the other three might find it interesting. Maybe we could actually play a game.”

“Maybe.” Loomis frowned in concentration at his equation. “I know I’ve got a couple of adventures ready to go if they’ll go for it.”

“Me, too.” He peered calculatingly over his shoulder at the others.

Loomis slid the slate back. “Is this correct? I thought we decided the second moon had less mass than this.”

Rick turned back to their project, and flipped through a notebook with a frown. “I thought so. Here it is.” He read the data and thumped his forehead. “You’re right. I put in the wrong numbers.”

As much as she wanted to get lost in the creation of a world and its cultures, she sat back. “Fix it later. We’ve got to have a meeting.”

He reluctantly agreed, though he changed the numerical information on the slate before closing the notebook.

Loomis turned on her stool and clapped her hands. “Hey, we need to talk. Everybody gather around.”

As expected, Megan came running to her favorite person, demanding to sit on Loomis’s lap. Delia kept her flash cards with her as she plopped onto the couch beside Cara, shuffling through them with restless hands. Kevin and Terry drifted over to sit on the edge of the hearth, Terry giving last-minute pointers on reading. Lucky seemed relieved at the break and gathered Oscar from the crib Rick had located that morning. She and Heather sat on the loveseat, giving Loomis their undivided attention.