Ruin Falls (37 page)

Liz unzipped her pack, and got out the raincoats. In addition to the rain, Liz had also missed the presence of Cody, who had trailed Ally to the reunion and was standing, thumb in mouth, drops trickling down his face.

The canopy had prevented them from getting too badly wet. Liz brushed water off both children’s clothes, then buttoned them up and secured their hoods. The routine maneuvers of care kept her from having to think about what came next.

Liz had to find Reid, but after that she had no idea. The existence of other children wasn’t something she’d worked out.

Spotting another item in the sack, Liz beckoned Ally closer. She pointed to Izzy’s yarn head, then looked up to drink in Ally’s joy.

Ally snatched out the doll and cradled her to her chest, swaying back and forth, and murmuring words too hushed to hear.

Liz couldn’t help but smile. “Okay, enough. You don’t want Izzy to get wet.”

Reluctantly, the little girl relinquished her doll.

“Cody?” Liz asked, once Izzy was sequestered again. “Where’s your mom?”

Cody and Ally exchanged looks.

“Al?”

Ally hadn’t let go of Liz’s hand; now she dropped it reluctantly and turned to Cody. “It’s okay, Cody. This is
my
mom.”

“I don’t know,” Cody said, a tremor beneath the words. “She asked Ally to watch me.”

Despite everything, Liz registered the pride that raised Ally’s shoulders and leveled out her small chest, and she experienced a flush of motherly delight. Then she wondered what could’ve happened to make a woman entrust her child to a six-year-old.

“Okay,” Liz said as if that were a perfectly natural state of affairs.

The children linked hands.

Continuing in a casual vein Liz added, “I think I’m going to walk both of you out. We’ll meet your mom a little later, Cody, okay?”

Cody gave a single nod.

“But first we have to find Reid,” Liz said, still briskly. If she acted as if all of this were completely reasonable, no problem at all, then perhaps things would fall into place. “Do you know where he is right now, Al?”

The scope of this place wasn’t immediately apparent, but there was emptiness beyond the final rim of trees, and Liz sensed that it might be massive.

“Just Reid?”

“What, sweetie?”

“If we’re going,” Ally explained, and Liz nodded encouragingly. Her daughter seemed to be accepting the premise unquestioned, which was good. It had occurred to Liz that there might be protest. “Is it just me and Cody and Reid? Or the others, too?”

“The others,” Liz echoed. How to keep her daughter from knowing that Liz didn’t particularly care what the adults did? They had come here of their own accord; they could leave the same way. Getting the
children out was key. “Sweetie, I think we’ll let the grown-ups kind of come a little later. You know? I’m sure it won’t be long.” Though of course that was the last thing she was sure of. Especially in the case of Paul and his demon partner.

Ally was shaking her head impatiently. “I don’t mean the moms or dads. I mean the rest of the kids.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

R
ain tatted overhead, lone droplets penetrating the roof of leaves. One swelled on Liz’s cheek as she turned her face toward Ally’s.

“There are—more children? You mean besides Reid?”

Ally nodded decisively. “There’s Reid, and Tom, and that weird little girl, I can’t remember her name—”

“Carthage,” Cody said with perfect enunciation.

“Don’t call someone weird,” Liz said automatically.

She lifted her head to the elephant belly sky. How to find three other kids? The rain would both hide and hinder Liz. Ally and this little boy were too young to move fast, they would slow her down. But they also knew things; they could tell Liz where to go. Would she be putting them in danger if she asked for their help? Liz could put herself at risk to find Reid, but she wasn’t willing to endanger Ally or Cody. If the Shoemaker came, would they be safer back here in the forest, concealed behind a tree? Or staying at Liz’s side?

It didn’t matter. Liz couldn’t imagine leaving Ally ever again. Whatever they faced, Liz would simply have to protect both children from it.

But as she lifted her hands to her eyes, their soreness eased by the moisture in the air, she knew there was little she could do if the Shoemaker set his sights on her again.

Liz stayed crouched on the wet ground for a period of time she couldn’t pinpoint. Time was like blood in these woods, endlessly replenishing itself, but she sensed she was squandering a resource they might need.

“Okay,” she said at last.

Both kids had stood in place without making a sound. They were patient and compliant children, and Liz couldn’t imagine anyone better to aid her in this recovery mission, yet she still feared for their chances.

“You said you thought they’d be inside the barn?” she asked.

Cody nodded solemnly. “Because of the raining.”

“Nah,” Ally said, sounding so like her brother that Liz’s heart gave another dip. “They’ll be outside.”

Having Ally here beside her was a miracle, but Liz also needed her son.
Please don’t let me be asking too much. Please let us succeed
.

“They don’t care about getting wet,” Ally went on. “I bet they’re still taking down that laurel and the catberry in the barnyard.”

Was that what the children were doing here at this enclave? Clearing brush? Liz allowed herself some small measure of relief.

“Okay,” she said again. “Then lead me to the barn.” Constructing an approach, she added, “We’re going to make it like a game.”

“Like Hide-and-Seek?” asked Cody.

“Exactly,” Liz said. “And Follow the Leader. Kind of a mash-up.”

The kids smiled when she did.

“And then we’ll surprise Reid and the others and we’ll—”

Which was when Liz’s plan petered out. They would have to play it by ear. With any luck, those kids would be as unsupervised as Ally and Cody had been, and Liz could beckon them away, Pied Piper–style. All the treats in her pack would be put to good use.

Ally and Cody were nodding.

Then Ally said, “Why don’t they just meet us here?”

“Well, that would be hard, sweetie,” Liz replied. “I don’t want to shout too loudly. And they might not hear us over the rain anyway.”

“I know
that
,” Ally said. “But we could call them.”

“Call them?” Liz said. “How?” A thought lit. “Does the cell phone work over here? Do you have it, Al?”

“Not with a
phone
,” Ally said, delighted by her mother’s error. She turned to Cody.

The little boy began fumbling beneath the collar of his shirt, but the raincoat made his fingers trip. Soundlessly, wordlessly, Liz bent down and unzipped it for him.

The boy drew out a whistle on a string.

“We have a system,” Ally said. “Of signals. Reid invented it and Tom makes us practice them.
All
the time. He forces us to.”

“Signals?” Liz echoed, gazing down at the tiny silver whistle.

Both kids nodded fervently, faces lit up despite the grayness all around.

“Like … like—” Cody said.

“Time to eat,”
Ally put in.

“Or … or
a grown-up is coming,
” Cody said, finally getting the words out and beaming at Ally.

“Or,” Ally said, ignoring the little boy to gaze up at Liz.
“Come right now.”

Liz stared at her. “And the grown-ups? They don’t understand these signals?”

Ally laughed, spark-fast. “No way. They think we’re just playing.”

Liz reached down and took each child’s hand in one of her own and began to walk them toward the edge of the woods where she had first spotted Ally.

“Well,” she said, “I’d say that you both had a very good idea. Why don’t you try the signal, Cody? The one that tells them to come?”

Cody nodded obediently. He pulled the whistle out of his shirt again, and put its miniature slot to his lips.

“You can do it,” Ally told him. “Remember? Three short, three longs. That was for an emergency.”

Three shrill notes cut through the air, then three longer ones sounded.

“Do it again,” Ally suggested.

Cody did, his eyes on Ally.

The notes rang out, distinct and true.

Nothing. Only the soughing of the rain.

“Again,” Ally urged.

“I’m all out of breath,” Cody complained.

“Want me to try?” asked Ally.

Liz too was reaching out her hand.

But Cody opened his mouth again.

He was about to blow when out of the ghostly gales of rain, visible in parts, first feet, then legs, then torsos, three children appeared from different directions, covering the distance to where Liz and Ally and Cody stood.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

T
wo of them resolved into clarity first and Liz was left scanning the mist for her son, her gaze flitting back and forth, raindrops obscuring her vision.

She heard Reid’s voice before she saw him.

“You came.”

It was dull and angry, though recognizable; the voice of the boy on the phone last night, rather than the nimble-fingered son who had been taken out of the hotel.

Still blind, Liz walked forward, arms reaching toward the sound of that voice until she met the block of Reid’s chest, felt his wet face, a little higher now than before their so-called vacation, and spoke into the top of his head. “Yes, Reid. I did. I’m here. I came.”

Her boy, who seemed older, who had grown in just these three weeks, began to cry.

There was a snorting noise from behind.

“Did you call us out for this happy family reunion?” a boy asked. “Because I’m not a part of it. So I’m leaving.”

“No, wait!” Liz said.

She reached down, wiping Reid’s face before tackling her own. She took in the sight of the other two children. The one who had spoken was oldest; he had a good half a head on Reid, and a burgeoning sturdiness
in his legs and arms, while the other was that boy’s polar opposite, a tiny sprite of three or four, with a froth of strawberry curls.

The big boy half turned, regarding her with a look of scorn.

And Liz knew whom he must belong to, and she also knew what she could say.

Two can play the mentalist game, Shoemaker
.

“Sure you don’t want to go with us?” Liz asked lightly. “Get out of here? Away from your dad?”

“We’re leaving?” Reid said.

The other boy maintained his contemptuous expression.

Liz ignored it as she began digging in her pack. “Here. I thought you guys might be a little hungry.”

The kids descended on the goods—fruit and nut bars, thumbprint cookies, knock-off M&Ms in diluted colors—as if they’d been stranded on a desert island.

“A
little
hungry!” Reid cried. “We’re a lot!”

“Hey, Mommy, can we really eat all this?” said Ally.

“Can I have some?” asked the blond kid.

“Me too, me too!” said Cody.

The big boy stood there, watching the children scrabble around as if they had just knocked down a piñata. After a moment, he thrust out his hand.

“Hey,” he said. “Leave some a that for me.”

Liz told them her plan, and the children nodded chocolate-smeared faces and murmured assent with crumbs in their mouths. Not a single protest. Maybe the treats had reminded them of all they were missing. Or maybe they were just in a sugar coma, insensate, content.

“My mom already said we’re leaving,” Cody announced. “She just needs to do a little thinking first so the man doesn’t find out. And we can’t go in the rain.”

The big boy—Reid had called him Tom when they jostled over the sweets—lifted his head when he heard that.

The children cast their eyes up to the sky, worriedly for the most part, although Tom wore a licking-his-chops expression, as if the coming implosion excited him.

Liz was worried herself. Thunder was harmless, getting wet only a little less so. But she had just seen a prong of lightning arc above the canopy. And lightning could fell a tree so fast in these woods, none of them would be able to get out of its way.

Cody’s mom’s hesitation made sense, but Liz knew the Shoemaker in ways the moms who had chosen to live with him clearly didn’t. And the Shoemaker was worse than any storm.

“We’ll meet up with your mom—with all your moms—once we get out. I have a friend who will come in and search for them here.”

“My mom’s not here,” Tom said scornfully. “You think she’s a nutcase loser, too?”

Liz had indeed been wondering who might have chosen not just to come with the Shoemaker, but to have a child with him.

She wiped her wet hands off as best she could and began to load up the remaining food. “Well, that’s good,” she said. “Then we can call the non-nutcase-loser from a real phone.”

Tom looked at her, his expression flickering for a second. “Cool.”

Liz gave Reid her raincoat, deciding that its draping folds would slow the little blond one down too much. Then she decided on an order in which they would walk, big sandwiching little, and indicated their direction. They would take the same way out she had followed in. There was something of a trail now; it would be a little easier to navigate.