“I always make you jump.” Mary moved into the room, an imposing figure in her black and white pantsuit. “I wonder why you’re so easy to scare.”

  Right now, it was because her cold gaze had gone first to my bed and then to my closet.

  “Sorry, mother.”

  She was silent for a short pause and I tried not to tense.

  “Do you like her?”

  “Sure.” I added nothing for her to build on, no lie to be trapped in, and her eyes narrowed under those thick glasses.

  “You’ll stay away from her.”

  I will not! My thoughts were often the opposite of the words forced to come through my lips. “Okay.”

  I continued to comb my hair, trying not to look at her. Did she know about my magazines?

  I barely heard her move before my mother appeared behind me in the mirror, cold gaze trying to dig into my heart to discover what evil I might have allowed into our lives.

  “It’s a sin. Lusting for your family is incest and I’ll not stand for it.”

  I didn’t try to tell her that it wasn’t like that. She wouldn’t have understood and by the time it was over, she would have twisted my words into a confession.

  “You’ll be punished.”

  I tried to ease the damage I was about to take. “I am sorry, mother. They were so bright!”

  Her lined face softened a bit, thinking I hadn’t liked that either. “Yes, but temptation is everywhere. You must be strong enough to resist. How can I send such a weak boy out to train?”

  That was hitting below the belt, but with her studying me, I hung my head and pretended a shame that I did feel. It was for allowing her to treat me this way. Eventually, the day would come when she couldn’t keep me here.

  “You’ll spend this year laboring for your aunt Judy. Maybe longer”

  I looked up in surprise. I’d been asking to go since I was ten and the decision threw me off, distracted me. “What?”

  “You’ve been a good son, an obedient son, and I’m being lenient with you this one time. It’s still punishment.”

  Her expression never changed, but her tone was as warm as I’d heard in a long time.

  “There are cows to be branded, hay to be baled, and pigs to be cared for. You’ll work, but you’ll also have fun with your cousins. Soon, you’ll enter the family training. Best get those other silly notions out of your mind now.”

  “Yes, mother.”

  She drifted from my room a few minutes later, with plans set for me to leave in two days.

  My mother kept me running the entire time. She wasn’t taking any chances that I might steal a few minutes with that strange little girl.

  Not wise enough to recognize how I’d been tricked, I was vaguely unhappy to be leaving Angie so soon after meeting her, but I was overjoyed at getting to go to Judy’s farm. Being set free meant everything to me.

  I was played like a banjo around a campfire. Clever, simple, it began a pattern of hurt that repeated throughout all of our years together. I was always being ripped out of Angie’s life. My mother saw to that, devotedly.

  Chapter Two

  Alone in a Crowd

  November

  Marc

  Working on my aunt’s farm wasn’t exactly fun.

  My cousins were wild. I wasn’t and we didn’t mix well. My first encounter with them on the farm didn’t help. Upon my arrival, all the cousins (male and female) flooded from the house to drag me into the sweltering barn where they tore my clothes off. It was their way of telling me that my jeans and nice shirt weren’t acceptable here.

  They dressed me in a pair of scratchy blue trousers and a stained black shirt, and then sniggered while I figured out how to use the suspenders to hold it all together. The clothes were too big, as were the shoes and farming hat that I was forced to wear. I looked like I was a Beverly Hillbilly, except there was no black gold to make me rich. I wasn’t even going to be paid for this work and I mourned my favorite pair of jeans.

  The farm was a sprawling ten acres of woods and flat grassland that was bordered by two other farms and a main road that was still dirt instead of pavement. Cows, pigs, chickens, horses, and many other animals called this area home, but it was nothing like what I was used to. The house here was big, but that’s where the similarities ended. This one was falling down, had peeling paint, and carried a very…used odor. Our home was neat and clean, pristine in places, and smelled like cleaning supplies. I shuddered to think of what the barn would be like in the height of summer. I guessed shoveling shit wasn’t done very often. I couldn’t blame them for that, but the entire farm had the feel of owners who only cared enough to do the basics. The attraction was being away from my mother’s relentless control.

  The cousins were so wild because they were unsupervised for most of their day. Chores on the farm were doled out in the mornings and people labored on their own–even the kids. Everyone gathered at the house for the evening meal. After that, they were on their own again for getting themselves to bed. I had been denied that lifestyle of freedom and personal choices since my dad left. My mother controlled all my waking moments, and I figured that hard work and ill-fitting clothes were a small price to pay for not having to censor my every thought and action to fit what she thought was appropriate.

  Once I was properly dressed, I had to be given a tour of the farm so that I didn’t get lost. This meant being run from one building to another until I was pouring sweat and confused. Intentional? I became certain of that when I was told the garden was the place to milk the cows and the barn was where they were supposed to shit. I knew better of course, but it was also suggested that I play with the animals instead of doing my chore list, and at least goof off a little so that the rest of them didn’t get in trouble. They knew the work ethic my mother insisted on. They didn’t want me to show them up. As someone who’d come to relearn to be wild, that wasn’t in my plans.

  After taking a shot at milking the cows and shoveling the crap that I’d been so surprised by upon arrival, the need to cool off was nearly overwhelming. We all took off running for the swimming hole when I insisted on viewing it, but their words of caution flew right by me. The swimming hole was actually a wide creek that the family used for fishing and laundry. They couldn’t tell me how deep it was when I asked and I didn’t care. I was going in.

  I quickly outdistanced the farm kids, despite them being stockier and having more muscles. I had regular meals, medical care, and a determination they were lacking.

  “Come on!”

  I ran faster as we hit the edge of the swimming hole that my escorts had been boasting about all morning. Despite the November month being here, it still felt like September and I couldn’t wait to cool off. They’d sworn the hole wasn’t safe now, that the currents had changed even if the temperatures hadn’t, but I was determined to prove who I was. I didn’t fear the water at any time. I swam through it like a dolphin, thanks to lessons at the private school I attended.

  “Wait!”

  I ran for the edge as hard as I could to be certain I would clear any rocks below.

  “No, don’t!”

  I flew off the edge with a scream of freedom that I was sure my mother could hear in our home, thirty miles away.

  I hit the chilly water and plunged under with a huge splash. I had gone in feet-first to protect myself from unknown objects on the bottom, but I realized my mistake as soon as I hit the nets. I shouldn’t have jumped at all.

  My feet tangled in the ropes and I sank like a stone as I twisted and kicked. The cold water closed over my head, pulling me down with my own weight, and I opened my eyes so that I could work on getting free. Those lessons had included an emergency course that had included something like this.

  I was only under the water for about twenty seconds, untangling my ankles as I slowly let out my breath, but when I surfaced, all of my cousins were on the bank, shouting frantically.

  I swam to the side of the swimming hole and hefted my water-logged weight from the muddy liquid. “That was great!”

  I walked by my stunned cousins with pride, but I knew I wouldn’t do it again until they said it was safe. If those ropes had tangled any worse, I might not have been able to get loose before my air ran out. I’d been lucky.

  My cousins thought I had a death wish after that and studied me like a bug under a jar. I couldn’t go anywhere without them tagging along or spying for my aunt, but I adjusted to the audience without too much trouble. I was used to being checked up on. Occasionally, I evaded them and explored on my own, but I always completed the chores on time so that my mother wouldn’t bring me home early. I assumed Judy would tell her if I didn’t do my share.

  The only time I saw my aunt Judy was during the evening meal, when twenty-two of us crowded around a long table that was set with the same three dishes in the center, night after night. On my first evening, still slightly damp and beginning to chafe, it was meatloaf, with mashed potatoes and gravy. We drank tepid water from the well, and it was the one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. Mary Brady hated any type of loaf made from meat.

  After the meal, the adult males ambled out to the barn to smoke (and to drink moonshine), while the adult females cleaned the table and took the younger kids for their baths. The rest of us were supposed to wash up and get into bed. I lingered at the table, studying the content kids, the lightly chatting adults, the happy postures that were surreal. I wondered who was right. My aunt Judy ran things one way and though mother disliked it, she’d recognized the need for a place like this. It kept the public out of our affairs, and allowed the adults in our family to ship their kids off for months of peace. It didn’t seem bad or wrong, but it also wasn’t right to me. I wasn’t going to be happy here. It would be better than home, but that was it. This wasn’t where my heart could belong.

  As darkness fell, I followed the other kids to the stairs and climbed into a chaotic room with pallets on the floor, lining both walls. There was a small bathroom at both ends, marked for each sex by the clothes tossed onto the floor around them. The bathrooms were filthy and I wondered if crapping outdoors would add to my wild image or diminish it in favor of a reputation for being gross.

  My cousin Scot pointed at a pallet that wasn’t taken and I dropped down on it without washing up. So did Scot and his older brother Rodney, one on either side of me. Across the hot, narrow room, the younger boys were playing a dice game and I wondered what the stakes were. Judy barely got by, according to the financial reports. It couldn’t be cash. I found out a few minutes later, when the loser whined about the extra chores.

  In the corner, two oil lamps burned from hangers in thick ceiling beams and I noticed the lack of widows. There was one. Was it because glass was expensive or was it because of kids like me, who came here to leap before they thought?

  I shrugged off the unease and tried to get comfortable on the scratchy blanket. I didn’t want to know what the beds were made of, but from the feel, I was guessing a wooden frame and chicken feathers.

  The lamps were dimmed after the rest of the kids came up and I listened to the house settle down around me. It wasn’t fully quiet yet when Scot and Rodney got out of bed.

  “You coming?”

  Both cousins were staring at me and I felt that Brady pride rise. Rod and Scot were both big, hulking boys, but I wasn’t scared of them like I was their father. Larry carried his weight as if he knew how to throw it around upon command. I respected that as much as I feared it.

  “Where?”

  “We like to take in a show before bed,” Rodney joked mysteriously.

  I didn’t answer. It wasn’t a good idea.

  “He’s scared of his mommy,” Scot teased.

  I followed them down the rear stairs and out into the warm air without another word. I wasn’t scared of anything.

  We took a path that I found eerie because of the lack of light and I think my cousins felt it too because their customary jokes and quips were absent. No one said a word until we reached the end of the field.

  A large farmhouse with no barns or sheds came into view and Scot pointed toward the rear of the home. “Dogs there. Be quiet.”

  The boys trotted toward the opposite side of the house and I followed, suddenly wishing I’d stayed in the bed.

  We emerged behind a row of short bushes and I ducked with them as a small bathing area came into view. Set up outside, the wooden stalls were in use and I gaped at the naked women. I’d never viewed one, let alone five. My magazines had black bars over all the best parts. The guy in town said it was the only ones he could sell without my mother having him removed.

  Next to me, the cousins were staring too, but they were also getting set to enjoy the view in another way and my stomach flipped.

  For a moment, I held my ground, not wanting to seem like I was afraid. But I was. I knew deep down that if I did this, it would break something inside of me that I wouldn’t be able to fix.

  I left.

  The cool wind blew the images and the taunts from my mind and I enjoyed the trek back alone. It was easy to imagine that I was older in that moment, that I was making one of those hard choices my mother was forever warning me about.

  Reality set in before I reached my aunt’s farm. I wasn’t always going to be able to do the right thing, and Angie would be one of those issues. If I were smart, I would avoid her like my mother wanted me to and hope this need went away. I would escape and become a Marine. From there, I wouldn’t need anyone. I would be able to take care of myself and I would have a code to live by that I considered worthy. If I were smart, I would refuse the future I saw with Angie.

  You’ll be alone forever! a voice in my mind growled. She is destiny.

  That voice terrified me and I squeezed my lids shut in concentration. “Go away!”

  There was an awful shudder and I swayed on my feet as silence fell in my thoughts and from the crickets. I didn’t like hearing voices. If my mother found out, who knew what she’d do? Maybe have me locked up somewhere like she did aunt Peggy.

  Ahead of me, the road narrowed into that patch of almost complete darkness…and a shadow emerged, staggering toward me.

  I stiffened in fear for a moment like a girl and as I recognized my uncle Larry, I vowed to work harder on that. No one wanted a Marine who was spooked by every shadow he saw. I needed to have nerves of steel in dangerous situations.

  “Who is thats?” Larry slurred.

  “Marcus,” I answered, spotting the bottle in his hand.

  Around me, the crickets began to chirp again and my heart settled into a normal rhythm.

  Larry came closer and then stopped, peering at me with bloodshot orbs.

  I waited respectfully, wondering what type of punishment I would get for being caught out of bed and half a mile away. Anything but being sent home, I begged silently.

  Larry wiped a hand across his nose and scratched at his cheek. “Been out with my boys?”

  “No, sir.” I wasn’t about to rat them out to their father. I hoped they would do the same for me with my parent.

  Larry chuckled, frown easing. “Widow Morgan has some pretty sisters. They’ve been staying with her this year to help on their farm. Husband got the cancer, you know, from working in that feed plant.”

  I nodded as if I did. Larry was tall and dark, with a pointed nose and green eyes that were always bloodshot. He made me nervous.

  Larry leaned in, breath coating me in whiskey fumes.

  “Why are you here, boy?”

  “To work and help,” I answered quickly.

  “And to spy?”

  “No, sir!” I protested a bit louder than I’d meant to.

  Larry belched in my face, making me backup to avoid gagging.

  “Good. Your mother…”

  I waited, but he didn’t finish and I didn’t ask him to. If he said something awful, I might have to do something about it, but I was too young to cross her yet.

  “Did you leave? Where are the boys?”

  “I left,” I answered, but didn’t give him more.

  Larry tried to smile at me and it came out in a grotesque mask that sent chills over my sweaty skin.

  “You’re a good son, Marcus. You do exactly what Mary tells you. As long as you never step out of line, you’ll have this life.”

  I wondered if he knew those words instantly made me want to break every rule that my mother had set down.

  Larry regarded me knowingly and took a long swig of his bottle.

  I struggled to keep quiet, not positive that I could trust this drunken, angry man.

  Larry wiped his mouth on his hand and let out a loud belch. “Yep, a good kid. She’ll use you right up.”

  Larry staggered away from the farm where his sons were openly doing the things that I had only started experimenting with this year. The thought of doing it while standing next to them had been horrifying.

  “Hey, good kid,” Larry called, stopping a bit away.

  “Yes, sir?”

  Larry chuckled bitterly at the politeness. “Don’t tell your mother about tonight, huh? She’ll give the wife hell and that’ll trickle down.”

  “No, sir. I won’t,” I answered. I hadn’t been planning to.

  “Good,” Larry approved, glancing over his shoulder. “Don’t go in the way you came out. The hens are listening for creaking floorboards.”

  I suddenly decided to try to like this uncle, despite his miserable behavior. “Thanks.”

  “Need all the help you can get in this family,” Larry grunted. “Good luck.”

  Sneaking back in without using the front stairs meant either climbing to the window or using the backdoor to get to the narrow fire steps. I chose to climb. I was good at that and I didn’t care for cramped spaces.

  The warped wood gave me plenty of hand and footholds, (and splinters) but I was only halfway to the single second floor window when I heard voices. Glad of the shadows, I held still and hoped whoever it was kept going without noticing the boy clinging to the side of the farmhouse.