He himself was the only one who had taken the bait, and while they'd all known about it, while she'd practically flaunted it in front of them, they had never mentioned it to him, never brought it up between themselves.
Such things just weren't talked about in that family in that time in that place, and it was the lack of communication as much as his own weakness and stupidity that had inflamed the situation and led to its inevitable end.
Was that end still inevitable?
He didn't know, but he thought not. He felt good, he felt free, he felt closer to his family than he ever had before, and while it might not be the case, he had the distinct impression that merely by talking, merely by hashing things out, they had changed the course of events, they had avoided a repeat of what had happened the first time.
It was several hours later that his mother yawned, placed her crocheting needles into her sewing basket, rolled up the afghan on which she was working, and said, "It's time for bed. I think we've had enough startling revelations for one night."
The kids, tired, nodded and stood, heading off unbidden to their respective bedrooms.
His father stood as well, and offered his hand to Norton, who took it and shook. He could not remember ever shaking his father's hand before, and the action made him feel more like a grown-up than anything else in his life ever had.
"We'll find her," he promised. "All of us. And then we'll decide what to do."
Norton nodded. He was feeling tired himself, and he walked out of the family room and, waving good night, went down the hall to the entryway and started up the stairs to his bedroom. The unfamiliar expansiveness he'd experienced earlier was gone, and the House seemed cozy and comfortable, not frightening or forbidding at all but . . . homey.
He wasn't quite brave enough to take a shower yet, but he did walk into the bathroom to wash his face. The water that came out of the sink faucet was red and thick, and no doubt he was supposed to believe it was blood, but it smelled like water, and it rolled off his hands, leaving no stain, and he bent down and splashed it onto his face, enjoying the cool refreshing wetness.
He fell asleep happy.
Mark Mark opened his eyes.
And was sitting on the porch.
It was night. To the north, a domed semicircle of orange--the lights of Dry River--shone like a beacon in the desert darkness. There were other lights, individual lights, spread across the plain to the south, east, and west: the ranches of their neighbors. Above, the sky was moonless, but he could make out familiar constellations in the star-crowded sky.
On the bench swing opposite his chair, his parents sat, heads together, rocking slowly back and forth. On the top porch step, to his right, sat Kristen.
The family was all together.
Unresolved issues.
He squinted through the darkness at his sister, but though the only illumination came from the pale square of sitting-room light shining from a window some ten feet down the porch, he could still see Kristen clearly, and he understood that this was her as a child, this was the Kristen he had known, not the Kristen he had only recently met.
She said something, obviously a reply to a question someone else had asked, and he realized that they were in the middle of a conversation, one of those slow languorous summer-night conversations where thoughts were mulled over before spoken and long lapses between question and answer were the rule rather than the exception. They'd had these conversations often when he was little, and it was when he had felt closest to his parents. This was the time after the day's chores and rituals had been completed, when there was nothing that had to be done and the requirements of the day were finished until tomorrow, and it was the only time when his parents seemed truly relaxed, not overworked or overburdened or under stress.
It was the only time that they weren't working for the House, the only time they'd been allowed to be themselves.
He hadn't known that then, but perhaps he'd sensed it. These porch sessions had been almost sacrosanct to him, set off in his mind from the daylight life of his family, from their life inside the House, and it was why he was now so reluctant to bring up Billings and the girl and everything else. He knew he had to talk to his parents about it, but he did not want to shatter the mood, and he decided to wait until he could naturally broach the subject within the context of the conversation.
The night air was cool, the day's heat dissipated, and above the ever-present odor of the chickens, he could smell mesquite and a whole host of night-blooming desert flowers.
He listened to his mom, listened to his dad, listened to Kristen, and it was so nice to be here with them again, alone with them. His parents told stories of the past, laid out plans for the future, and they were still talking when he drifted off to sleep.
When he awoke, it was morning.
He'd been left where he'd fallen asleep, in the chair, but someone had given him a blanket and he was wrapped up in it, curled like a shrimp. The sun was high in the sky, and he heard the sound of his father's truck clattering up the drive, so it was obviously past breakfast time, and he wondered why he hadn't been awakened and forced to eat his meal in the proper manner at the proper hour.
They'd never gotten around to discussing the girl.
They hadn't discussed Billings or the House, either. He roused himself, pushed off the blanket, stretched out, and stood up. His muscles were sore, and there was a hard crick in his neck. Yawning tiredly, he walked over to the front door and walked inside. He expected to smell breakfast, or at least the remnants of breakfast, but even as he walked through the dining room into the kitchen, there were no odors of food. The dishes in the sink were all from last night.
"Mom!" he called. "Kristen!"
"Mom went to town for groceries."
His sister was standing in the doorway, staring at him, and he had a quick flash ofdeja vu. He'd been here before, standing in this exact same spot, with Kristen standing in the exact same spot and saying exactly the same thing. He wondered if this whole experience at the House had been cobbled from preexisting events, edited together like a videotape or a CD-ROM game.
No. Kristen walked into the kitchen, took a sack of bread out of the refrigerator, and popped two slices into the toaster. He knew nothing like that had ever happened at their House; snacks had never been allowed and meals had always been eaten together.
This was really happening.
"Dad's outside," Kristen said. "I think he's unloading the feed. He probably wants you to help him."
Mark nodded dumbly, then walked outside, pushing open the kitchen door and stepping onto the side porch.
He thought of grabbing a bite to eat, but he really wasn't hungry. He'd eaten breakfast with Daniel and Laurie and Norton and Stormy, then found himself on the porch at night after the Houses split, and slept for a while, so even though it was morning here, it felt like lunchtime to his body. And he usually skipped lunch.
He stepped off the porch, walked across the dirt and around back. The already hot air was heavy with the muted sound of thousands of chickens, clucking and movingrustlingly in their cages. The four chicken coops, long low buildings of tin roofs and unpainted slat walls, stretched away from the House on a slight grade.
His father's pickup was parked next to the second coop, on this side of the metal silo, and Mark walked over, the gradual slope causing him to unintentionally increase the speed of his step.
He saw the retarded girl in the doorway of the chicken coop behind his father.
The old man was unloading pallets of feed, lifting them off the pickup and piling them on the ground next to the sagging slatted building. She would hide whenever he faced in her direction, retreating into the coop, but the second he turned his back on her, she would jump into the doorway and pull up her shift, exposing herself and thrusting her thin dirty hips out suggestively.