3
After her own quick shower, Jo sent the girl into the bathroom with a clean towel. She shut the door, listened for the water, and hurried outside with her phone when she was certain the girl was bathing.
The forest was gray, the same shade of twilight that had delivered the changeling to the cottage the night before. Jo walked down the driveway, swiping her fingers at mosquitoes, and beads of sweat mixed with water dripping out of her hair. Little Bear skulked nearby, following her every move like a spy for the alien child.
Connecting to the internet and finding the nonemergency sheriff’s number took more than seven minutes. When the sheriff’s operator answered, Jo rushed through the call, afraid the girl would come outside and hear her. She told the woman she needed a deputy to pick up a girl who might be homeless. She gave her address and a few directions to get there. The woman asked questions, but Jo only had time to say that she was very worried about the girl and she wanted someone to come out immediately. She hid the phone in her pocket and rushed back to the house.
Just in time. The girl was in the living room wrapped in a towel, long hair dripping down her thin shoulders. Her dark eyes studied Jo’s. “Where were you?” she said.
“I heard something out there,” Jo said, “but it was only the dog.” She walked closer to the child, hoping that what she saw were smears of mud the girl had failed to wash away. The marks weren’t dirt. She had purple contusions on her throat and left upper arm, and her right thigh was scraped and bruised. The high neck of her hoodie had covered the bruise on her throat. Her left arm appeared marked by fingers, as if someone had gripped her hard. “How did you get those bruises?”
The girl backed away. “Where are my clothes?”
“Who hurt you?”
“I don’t know what happened. Those were on the dead girl’s body. Maybe she got hit by a car or something.”
“Is this why you’re afraid to go home? Someone hurts you?”
The girl glowered. “I thought you were nice, but I guess you aren’t.”
“Why am I not nice?”
“Because you won’t believe me.”
Jo was relieved. She’d been afraid the girl knew she’d called the sheriff. And good thing she had. The situation definitely required police. Jo hoped they would take the call seriously and come quickly, but in the meantime she had to keep the girl occupied.
“Let’s get you dressed and make those eggs,” she said.
Jo couldn’t let her wear the same filthy clothes. The girl didn’t mind putting on one of Jo’s T-shirts and leggings rolled to the calves. She helped Jo in the kitchen, even washed some of the dishes before they ate. Jo tried to get her to talk about where she was from while they cooked and ate, but she kept to her outlandish story. Despite the “green stuff,” a few baby spinach leaves, the girl scarfed down three scrambled eggs. She followed the eggs with a big slice of apple pie, after which she said her stomach hurt.
Once they finished cleaning, the girl pleaded for Little Bear to be fed, and Jo let her give the dog leftover beans, rice, and chicken that had been in the refrigerator too long. They put the food on a plate on the concrete slab behind the house, and the dog ate it even faster than its alien guardian had eaten. “I’ll wash the dish,” the girl said.
“Leave it out there. Let’s talk in the living room.” She didn’t want the girl anywhere near a door when the sheriff arrived.
“Talk about what?” the girl said.
“Sit down with me.” She led the girl to the shabby blue couch. She hoped the girl would confess what had driven her into the forest before the deputy arrived, while she still had some trust in someone. “I’d like to know your name,” she said.
“I told you,” the girl said.
“Please tell me your real name.”
The girl put her head on a pillow and curled up like a poked caterpillar.
“There are people who can help you with whatever’s going on.”
“I’m not talking about this anymore. I’m tired of you not believing me.”
“You have to talk about it.”
The girl pulled a lock of her damp hair across her nose. “I like the smell of your shampoo.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“There is no subject.”
“You can’t hide from it forever.”
“I never said anything was forever. After five miracles, I’ll be gone.”
“Damn it, you’re stubborn.” More like terrified. What had happened to the poor kid?
“Can I sleep here?”
The little alien didn’t look well. Her hollow cheeks were pallid, and plum half moons beneath her lower lashes enlarged the size of her fawnlike eyes. Jo’s mother’s eyes had looked like that before she died, but without eyelashes and with a sheen of morphine. “Yes, you can sleep here,” she said. She unfolded a blanket over the girl and tucked it around her thin body.
“Are you going to sleep?”
“I’ll read a little, but I’m too tired to get far in my book.”
The girl rolled onto her back. “What do you do all day that makes you tired?”
“I look for bird nests.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“That’s weird.”
“Not for a bird biologist.”
“That’s what’s weird. I heard most Earth ladies are waitresses and teachers and jobs like that.”
“I guess I don’t fall in the category of ‘most Earth ladies.’”
“Can I look for nests with you? It sounds fun.”
“It is, but right now you have to sleep.” Jo rose and walked to the nearest bedroom of two.
The girl sat up. “Where are you going?”
“To get my book. I’ll sit with you while I read.” She entered the dark bedroom, grabbed her old copy of Slaughterhouse-Five, and brought it into the living room. She sat at the end of the couch next to the girl’s feet.
“What is that book?” the girl asked.
“It’s called Slaughterhouse-Five. It has aliens in it.”
The girl made a skeptical face.
“Really. They’re called the Tralfamadorians. Do the Hetrayens know them?”
“Are you joking me?”
“I’m—”
A pounding fist banged the outer screen door. The deputy had arrived. He or she had probably knocked once and Jo hadn’t heard. She’d had the noisy window air conditioner turned on high to hide the sound of the approaching squad car.
The child had frozen like a cornered deer, her wild eyes fixed on the front door. “Who is that?”
Jo put her hand on the girl’s arm. “Don’t be afraid. I want you to know I really care about what hap—”
“You called the police?”
“I did, but—”
The girl sprang to her feet, throwing the blanket over Jo’s arms to ensnare her. She speared Jo with a glare of wounded condemnation, and in the next seconds, a blur of girl streaked into the kitchen. The rear door was unbolted and the screen door thudded shut behind her.
Jo pulled off the blanket and laid it over the warm niche where the child had been. She wouldn’t have used force on the girl. No one had any right to expect that of her.
The fist pounded again. Jo went onto the porch and faced a uniformed man through the screen door. “Thanks for coming,” she said. “I’m Joanna Teale.”
“Did you call about a girl . . . a ‘homeless’ girl, you said?” the man said with a local drawl.
“I did. Come in.” She led the deputy onto the porch. He looked toward the open wooden door, his face sallow in the glow of the bug bulb. “Is she in the house?”
“Come inside,” Jo said.
The deputy followed her into the living room, closing the door behind him to keep in the air-conditioning. Jo faced the man. His nameplate said he was K. DEAN. He was in his midthirties, balding, a little pudgy, and his plain, round moon of a face was eclipsed by a deep scar that ran from his left jaw up his cheek. With the casualness of habit, the man dropped his gaze to Jo’s chest. Certain he’d find nothing as riveting as his scar there, Jo waited for his eyes to return to hers. Two seconds, maybe less. “The girl ran away when you knocked,” she said.
He nodded, peering around the house.
“Do you know of any missing kids or AMBER Alerts around here?” she asked.
“I don’t,” he said.
“There aren’t any missing children?”
“There are always missing children.”
“From around here?”
“Not that I know of.”
She expected him to ask questions, but he was still looking around as if evaluating a crime scene. “She showed up yesterday. She’s around nine years old.”
He turned his attention to her. “What made you think she’s homeless?”
“She had on pajama bottoms . . .”
“I think those pants are what kids call a ‘fashion statement,’” he said.
“And she was hungry and dirty. She wasn’t wearing shoes.”
His slight smile didn’t move his scar. “Sounds like me at age nine.”
“She has bruises.”
Finally, he looked concerned. “On her face?”
“On her neck, leg, and arm.”