Kingdom Keepers III(15)

“I love Disney World,” Jess said. “Especially Epcot. And it had been forever, and we just wanted to go there.”

“Did you plan on missing dinner and curfew as well? Did you realize you might lose your passes? You know how much one of those costs?”

For Mrs. Nash everything came down to dollars.

There was a stomping upstairs that won her attention and distracted her. Seven other foster girls lived in the house along with Jess and Amanda, in a total of three bedrooms, with two baths. Making a ruckus was strictly forbidden and the rule against it even more strictly enforced. Mrs. Nash had been born strict.

“We had no intention of missing dinner,” Jess said. “The meals here are so…wonderful.”

“There’s no need for sarcasm, young lady.”

There was great need for sarcasm where the meals in this home were concerned, but Jess held her tongue. “Yes, Mrs. Nash.”

“Why wouldn’t you wait for the weekend?” she asked, still concerned with the money involved.

“We acted spontaneously,” said Amanda, answering her. “We realize now that was a mistake.”

“You’re both grounded for two weeks. Do you understand me? Directly from school to this front door. ‘Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.’ Are we clear?”

“Yes, Mrs. Nash,” both girls said, nearly in unison.

“Your behavior reflects poorly on this house and my ability to care for you girls. I hope you’ll consider that the next time you think about doing something as foolish as what you’ve done. And next time,” she said directly to Amanda, “you think about going on a ride, you might think about using the girls’ room first. You’re a young woman, for heaven’s sake, not a four-year-old.”

“Yes, Mrs. Nash.”

“Up to your room,” she said. “You will do your homework and miss dinner. I’ll keep plates for you in the fridge. You can warm them up after you show me your homework.”

“Yes, Mrs. Nash.” Again, nearly in unison.

Mrs. Nash eyed the girls suspiciously, wondering if they weren’t mocking her by saying her name in concert. But Mrs. Nash wasn’t intelligent enough to understand fully what people were thinking or trying to do; it was everything she could do to understand what people were actually doing. She understood punishment. If something confused her—which was often—she punished the offender. It was a simple formula for her that had worked nicely for nearly twelve years of looking after wayward girls: punish first, figure it out later.

“Well? What are you waiting for?”

The girls took off upstairs. Suzie Gorman and Patricia Nibs had been spying on them from the stairwell. The girls took off as Amanda and Jess approached. Upon their arrival at Nash House, Amanda and Jess had been hazed and harassed by the other girls. But then, one day, after Amanda had peed into a toilet with plastic wrap over the bowl, all the furniture in one of the rooms had instantly rearranged itself—with no one in the room. From that moment forward, the tricks had stopped and Amanda and Jess were kept at a respectful distance, never included in anything to do with the other girls, but never tortured or threatened either. It was a workable, serviceable arrangement.

In their room now, open to the hallway—there were no doors on any of the bedrooms, only half-hinges left where the doors had been removed—the girls sat down on Amanda’s lower bunk and pulled out their notebooks. There were no desks or bookshelves in the room. All available space was given to the three beds—a bunk bed and a twin-size roller bed—and a single, four-drawer dresser that the girls shared for their few clothes.

Amanda started in on her math assignment. But she looked over at Jess and saw that instead of her homework Jess had her diary open in her lap and the wrinkled, mascara-stained receipt unfolded next to it.

“What’s up?” Amanda said.

“It’s just…it was like a dream. You know? One of my dreams.”

“Outside The Land?”

“Yes. But I didn’t get it all. Nowhere near all of it. And I thought…” She sketched into the diary a clearer image of what she’d begun on the receipt. It looked to Amanda like a piece of a wall, but with horses drawn on it. And then, the same letters as before:

MKPFP IFP

It was almost like a torn piece of a photograph; part of the picture was there, part missing. The horses looked as if they’d been stabbed from the top with what appeared to be lances.

“Do you remember it?” Amanda asked.

“Not all of it, no. But what I do remember is pretty clear. Like the rest of them.”

“And you think it’s important?”