“Whaaat?” Jenny giggled. She didn’t even know what that one meant.
“Technical talk, kiddo.” Her aunt rubbed her face with her hand. She looked tired, like she was trying to scrub herself awake. “Movie over?”
Jenny shook her head no.
“Oh. You want to stay in here with me for a while?”
Jenny nodded yes. She sat down in one of the spinner chairs and tried to pay attention to the mini-screens flashing around them. Her aunt stopped noticing everything but the picture in front of her. She watched the screens while both hands moved over something that looked like a giant computer keyboard and a PlayStation controller. The picture on the screen would stop, go back, play, go back, play, stop, go faster, stop again. It made Jenny dizzy. Every now and then, her aunt would write something down or lean back and hit a button that made a bunch of machines all clunk and whir at once.
It was boring. All Jenny had to do was sit and spin and think. After a while, she had to ask. “Were you fighting with that guy?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Aunt Maddy mumbled.
That was one of those things grown-ups said all the time that Jenny really hated. Things like how are you? or see you later. Things that didn’t mean anything. Did they think she was stupid? If Aunt Maddy wasn’t getting along with the people at work, Jenny knew she wouldn’t want to stay in this job. Where would they go? What would they do?
Inside, Jenny got that scary feeling again. It felt like shrinking, like all her guts were disappearing. Jenny felt if she breathed too hard, her hollow inside might pop and she’d vanish, like a bubble. Forever. She bit her finger where the blood had come out before but it didn’t help. “Aunt Maddy?” she said, real soft and quiet. “Aunt Maddy, I feel shrinky inside again.”
Her aunt leaned closer to the screens, straining to see or hear something Jenny didn’t understand.
“Damn,” Maddy whispered. The picture flashed. Stop. Go again. “What? Sorry, Jen, I gotta work here. Don’t talk to me, unless it’s an emergency.”
Jenny stood up and walked to the door, dragging her backpack. She didn’t try to be especially quiet. She didn’t have to.
(Rachel, V.O./Audio only): “Thomas said something once, when I first visited him and I was stiff about the Englischer. ‘The closer you look at Plain people, the more you see that things are not always so good. And the closer you look at the Englischer, the more you see it is not all so bad.’”
SUNDAY
8:55:12 a.m.
I could feel the blood tickling its way down my leg into my shoe.
“Where have you been?” Jenny demanded the second she opened the front door. “You were running.”
She sounded like a high court judge. I pushed past her and limped toward the kitchen. Squish, squish.
“Is that blood?” The icy, early morning wind snapped her nightgown around her legs. Jenny didn’t budge. She stood there in bare feet, scowling at me. Kids have no sense of self-preservation.
“Close the door, you’ll freeze to death,” I said.
Cold water from the kitchen faucet dulled the throb in my palms and cleared the dust off my face.
She followed me as far as the kitchen door. “What happened?”
“I fell.” My eyes wouldn’t stop watering. Because of the dust. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. “Go get dressed.”
Jenny took a giant step away from me, eyes wide.
“Wait, Jen-find me the phone, would you?”
She nodded, then vanished.
I don’t run every morning. For one thing, running’s boring. For another, Jenny’s not too fond of the idea. But sometimes, when my brain is too thick, the only thing that clears my head is running. Pounding it out through my feet-down and out, step, breath, step, breath-somewhere along the way, the picture in my head focuses and I can see again.
I’d spent half the night on the computer researching everything I could find about the Amish and my new hometown. I’d filtered out a list of local experts I could interview about the Amish culture, relevant local history and once again re-read the stuff Melton gave us on Jost’s time in foster care. I was missing something.
Around eight minutes past six, I threw on a sweat suit and slipped out into the pre-dawn dark to run the story loose.
So far, I had a suicide that could have been an accident, a firefighter who would have been an Amish guy, and a girl who should have been a bride. Coulda. Woulda. Shoulda. I’m on to something all right. It’s the road to hell.
Right on schedule, some underworld hound comes roaring up on my heels, driving a silver SUV.
“Son of a bitch!”
The car roared up alongside me, riding the shoulder and spitting gravel. I jerked right and misjudged the slope into the drainage ditch. My ankle buckled. My knee popped. My ass went down.
The guy slammed on his brakes, skidding to a stop twenty feet ahead of me. I scrambled upright, favoring the knee and flipping him the bird with every finger I’ve got available-not to mention providing plenty of audio-when the jerk-off guns it, fishtails gravel all over me and takes off. I got the first letter of the license before the dust hit my eyes.
Six months ago I was one of the toughest videographers in the business. Now, I’m the Joe Atlas wimp getting sand kicked in my face.
What the hell has happened here?
Jenny was of the same opinion. She stood there in the kitchen doorway, fists on her bony hips.
I slid down onto the cold ceramic floor and braced my back against the sink cabinet. I could tell it was going to be a few minutes before I could even make a call; my teeth were chattering too hard to speak clearly. Typical aftereffects of adrenaline: chills, shivering, light-headedness. All completely normal.
Eyes narrowed, Jenny peeked around the corner cabinet.
“I’m not dead, Jen. I’m just sitting on the floor.” The words set off another bout of chills.
Jenny remained skeptical. “Why?” she asked.
“Felt like it.”
With a huffy snort, she came over to sit beside me and check out my leg. I must of hit a rock when I went down. There was a gash near my knee about four inches long. I’d used my sock to slow the bleeding, but it was still seeping down my calf. I’m fine with other people’s blood; mine bothers me.
“I bet you need stitches.”
“Probably.”
“I got stitches once.”
“Yeah?”
“It hurt.”
“Your mom pinch you for those, too?”
“No. She had to hold me down.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll be right back.” Jenny patted me on the head, once, and scrambled out.
Inside, my muscles registered full of juice, ready to fly. Outside, I was crusting over with drying sweat and dust. A wobbly drip of bright red blood clung to the rivulet that streaked my calf. I flexed my toes inside my running shoe and watched the drop release-splish, splash-quickly followed by two more. The white ceramic tile made a dramatic contrast where it landed.
Everything tunneled down to breathing. Slow, in through the nose. Out through the mouth.
A few months ago my sister had a car roar up behind her. But she didn’t slide down a ravine to safety. I opened my mouth and gulped air, trying to settle my stomach.
Do not think. Do not puke.
No way could I tell Jenny a car was involved. Neither of us would survive the resulting panic loop.
Work. Work was the way out of this, away from this feeling. Work brought calm.
Calm would help Jenny.
I hit the auto-dialer. Ainsley picked it up in one ring.
“You got the morning off, College.” I’d made arrangements for Ainsley and me to go in and rough cut with the engineer. “Call Mick and ask him if he can meet us tonight for a few hours, instead of this morning.”
“Sweet. Why?”