Kristin Hannah's Family Matters 4-Book Bundle: Angel Falls, Between Sisters, The Things We Do for Love, Magic Hour (130 page)

They both stared at the girl hiding in the forest of potted plants.

In the quiet room, the girl’s breathing was loud and fast.

“This whole thing just gets stranger and stranger,” Ellie said.

Julia couldn’t disagree with that.

“Well,” Ellie said at last, “I need to get back to the office. I don’t know how long I’ll be.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her back pocket and handed it to Julia. “These are Peanut’s and Cal’s home numbers. If you need to go to the library again, they’ll stay at the house with the kid.”

“Thanks.”

Julia walked Ellie to the door, let her out, then shut it again. She didn’t bother locking it. So far, the girl seemed terrified of the doorknob.

She went to the table, where she made a few more notes, then set her paper and pen away.

“It’s dinnertime.”

The girl remained hidden in the plants, watching her.

“Food.” She tapped the tray Ellie had left.

This time the girl moved. She crept out from the cover of green leaves and came to the table, where she started to attack the food in her usual way.

Julia grabbed her wrist. “No.”

Their gazes clashed.

“You’re too smart for this, aren’t you?” Julia got up, still holding the bird-thin wrist, and moved around to stand beside the girl. “Sit.” She pulled out a chair and patted the seat. “Sit.”

For the next thirty minutes they stood there, locked in a battle with a one-word soundtrack.

Sit.

At first the girl howled and snorted and shook her head, trying to pull free.

Julia simply held on to her, shaking her head, saying, “Sit.”

When the histrionics didn’t work, the girl shut up. She stood perfectly still, staring at Julia through slitted, angry eyes.

“Sit,” Julia said, patting the chair again.

The girl sighed dramatically and sat down.

Julia released her instantly. “Good girl.” She washed the child’s hands with baby wipes, then walked back around to the other side of the table and took her seat.

The girl attacked the food, eating as if it were a recent kill.

“You’re at the table,” Julia said. “That’s a start. We’ll work on manners tomorrow. After your bath.” She reached down for her notebook and put it in her lap, flipping through the pages while the child ate. Maybe there was an answer in here, but she doubted it. This was a case of questions.

A paragraph she’d written this afternoon caught her eye.

A perfect mimic. The child can repeat birdsong note for note. It almost seems as if they’re communicating, she and the bird, although that’s not possible.

“Is that the answer, little one? Did you see me using the toilet and simply mimic me? Was that a skill you needed to learn in the wild?”

She wrote down:
In the absence of people, or society, how do we learn? By trial and error? By mimicry of other species? Perhaps she learned to learn fast and by observation.

Julia lifted her pen from the page.

It felt like half an answer at best. A child who’d grown up in the wild, within a wolf pack or among other animals, would have learned to mark territory with urine. She wouldn’t see the point in using a toilet.

Unless she’d seen one before, however long ago. Or she recognized a new pack leader in her and wanted to belong. “Who are you, little one? Where do you come from?”

As always, there was no answer.

While the girl was eating, Julia slipped out of the room and went downstairs.

The house was quiet.

In the carport she found the two cardboard boxes that held the town’s donations. One was filled with clothes. The other held all kinds of books and toys.

Julia went through everything again, condensing the best, most useful items into one box, which she carried back upstairs and set down on the floor with a thud.

The girl looked up sharply.

Julia almost laughed at the sight of her. There was as much food on her face and hospital gown as had been on her plate. The whipped cream/coconut ambrosia fruit salad clung to her nose, her cheeks, and her chin in a white beard.

“You look like Santa’s mini me.”

Julia bent down and opened the box. Three items lay on top. A beautiful, lacy white nightdress with pink bows on it, a doll in diapers, and a brightly colored set of plastic blocks.

She stepped back. “Toys. Do you know that word?”

No reaction.

“Play. Fun.”

The girl stared at her, unblinking.

Julia bent down and picked up the nightgown. The worn cotton felt soft to the touch.

The girl’s eyes widened. She made a sound, a low, growling noise that came from deep in the back of her throat. In a movement almost too fast and silent to be believed, she got out of her chair, ran around the table and yanked the nightdress out of Julia’s grasp. Clutching it to her breast, she returned to her hiding place behind the potted plants and crouched down.

“Well, well, well,” Julia said. “I see someone likes pretty things.”

The girl started to hum. Her fingers found a tiny pink satin bow and began stroking it.

“You’ll need to get clean if you want to wear the pretty dress.”

Julia went into the bathroom and turned on the bathwater, then sat on the edge of the tub. “When I was your age I loved taking baths. My mom used to add lavender oil to the water. It smelled so good. Oh, look, here’s a little bottle of it left in the cabinet. I’ll add some for you.”

When she turned around again, the girl was there, standing just inside the open door, looking in.

Julia held out a hand. “No hurt,” she said gently, turning off the water. “No, hurt.” Then: “Come.”

No response.

“It feels so good to be clean.” Julia skimmed her other hand through the water. “Nice. Come on.”

The girl’s steps forward were so small as to be almost nonexistent, and yet she was moving. Her gaze ping-ponged between the adhesive-tape-covered faucet and Julia’s hand.

“Have you seen running water before?” Julia let the water stream from her fingers. “Water. Wa-ter.”

The girl was at the bathtub’s edge now. She was staring at the water with a mixture of fear and fascination.

Very slowly, Julia bent down to undress the girl, who offered no opposition at all. It surprised Julia, that easy compliance. What did it mean, if anything? She took the hospital gown away, looped it over the towel rack, then took hold of the girl’s bird-thin wrist and gently urged her toward the tub. “Touch the water. Just try.” She showed her how, hoping the action would be mimicked.

It took a long time, but the girl finally dipped her hand in the water.

The girl’s eyes widened. She made a sound that was half sigh and half growl.

Julia stripped down to her bra and panties, then got into the tub. “You see?” she said, smiling. “This is what I want you to do.” When the girl stepped closer, Julia got out of the tub and sat on the cool porcelain edge. “Your turn. Go ahead.”

Cautiously, the girl climbed over the tub’s porcelain edge and lowered herself into the water. The minute she was in, she made a sound, almost like a purr, and looked up at Julia. Then she slapped at the water and kicked her feet and splashed around, and set about exploring. She licked the tiles and touched the grout and sniffed the faucets. She cupped water in her hands and drank it (a habit to be broken, of course, but later).

Finally, Julia reached for the bar of lavender-scented soap in the dish. This, she handed to the girl, who smelled it, then tried to eat it.

Julia couldn’t help laughing. “No. Icky.” She made a face. “Icky.”

The child frowned, tried to grab it.

Julia rubbed her hands together to make a soapy foam. “Okay. I’m going to bathe you now. Clean. Soap.” Very slowly she reached out, took the girl’s hand in hers and began washing.

The girl watched her with the intensity of a magician’s apprentice trying to learn a new trick. Slowly, as Julia kept washing her hands the girl began to relax. She was pliable when Julia gently turned her around in the tub and began washing her hair. As Julia massaged her scalp, the child began to hum.

It took Julia a moment to realize that there was a tune within the notes.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Julia straightened. Of all the unexpected twists today, this one was the most important. “Somebody sang that to you, little one. Who was it?”

The girl kept humming, her eyes closed.

Julia rinsed the long black hair, noticing how thick and curly it was. Tendrils coiled around her fingers like vines. She saw, too, the network of scars that crisscrossed the tiny back; there was one near her shoulder that was especially ugly.

Where have you been?

The song was a glimpse into a part of this girl’s true history; the first one they’d seen. More questions were unlikely to solicit answers. Julia knew what she needed was more primal than that.

She decided to sing along with the humming. “How I wonder what you are.”

The girl splashed around until she was facing Julia. Her blue-green eyes were so wide they seemed too big for her small, pointed face.

Julia finished the song, then planted a hand to her chest and said, “Julia. Ju-li-a. That’s me.” She grabbed the girl’s hand. “Who are you?”

The only answer was that intense stare.

With a sigh, Julia stood and reached for a towel. “Come on.”

To her amazement, the girl stood up and got out of the tub.

“Did you understand me? Or did you stand up because I did?” Julia heard the wonder in her voice. So much for professional detachment. This girl kept throwing curveballs. “Do you know how to speak? Talk? Words?” She touched her chest again. “Julia. Ju-li-a.” Then she touched the girl’s chest. “Who? Name? I need to call you something.”

Nothing but the stare.

Julia dried the girl off, then dressed her. “I’m putting you in pull-up diapers again. Just to be safe. Turn around. I’ll braid your hair. That’s what my mom always did to me. But I’ll be gentler, I promise. Mom used to pull so hard I’d cry. My sister always said it’s why my eyes tilted up. There. All done.” She accidentally bumped into the bathroom door. It shut hard; the mirror on the back of it framed the child in a perfect rectangle.

The girl gasped so loudly it sounded as if she’d just washed up on shore. She reached out for the mirror, trying to touch the other little girl in the room.

“Have you ever seen yourself before?” Julia asked, but even as she asked the question, she knew the answer.

None of this made sense. The pieces didn’t fit together. The wolf. The eating habits. The song. The toilet training. They were tiny pieces that made up the puzzle’s border, but the central image, the
point,
was unseen yet. Certainly she would have seen her reflection in water, at least.

“That’s
you,
honey. You. See the beautiful blue-green eyes, the long black hair. You look so pretty in that nightgown.”

The girl punched her reflection. When her knuckles hit the hard glass, she yelped loudly in pain.

Julia moved in beside her and knelt down. Now they were both in the mirror, side by side, their faces close. The girl was breathtakingly beautiful. She reminded Julia of a young Elizabeth Taylor. “You see? That’s me. Julia. And you.”

Julia saw when understanding dawned.

Very slowly the girl touched her chest and mouthed a sound. Her reflection did the same.

“Did you say something? Your name?”

The girl stuck out her tongue. For the next forty minutes, while Julia put on a tee shirt and sweats and brushed her teeth, the child played in front of the mirror. At one point Julia left long enough to get her notebook and digital camera. When she returned to the bathroom, the girl was clapping her hands and bouncing up and down in time with her reflection.

Julia took several photographs—close-ups of the girl’s face—then put the camera away. Notebook in hand, Julia wrote:
Discovery of self.
And documented every moment.

It went on for hours. The child stared at herself in the mirror long after the sky had gone dark and shown its cache of stars.

Finally, Julia couldn’t write anymore. Her hand was starting to spasm. “That’s it. Come on. Bedtime.” She walked out of the bathroom. When the girl didn’t follow, Julia reached down for a book. They finished
The Secret Garden,
so she chose
Alice in Wonderland.

“Fitting, wouldn’t you say?” she commented to herself. After all, she was alone in the room when she said it, and equally alone when she began to read aloud. “Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, and ‘what’s the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversation?’ ”

In the bathroom, the jumping stopped.

Julia smiled and kept reading. She had just introduced the white rabbit when the girl came out of the bathroom. In her pretty white eyelet nightgown with pink ribbons, and her hair braided and tamed, she looked like any little girl. The only hint of wildness was in her eyes. Too big for her face and too earnest for her age, they fixed on Julia, who very calmly kept reading.

The girl came up beside her, sidled close.

Julia stared at her. “Hello, little one. You like it when I read?”

The girl’s hand thumped down hard on the book.

Julia was too startled by the unexpected movement to respond. This was the first time the girl had really tried to communicate, and she was being quite forceful about it.

The girl smacked the book again and looked at Julia. Then she touched her chest.

It was the movement Julia had made to emphasize her own name.

“Alice?” she whispered, feeling a kind of awe move through her. “Is your name Alice?”

The girl thumped the book again. When Julia didn’t respond, the girl thumped it again.

Julia closed the book. On the cover of this ancient, well-worn edition was a painting of a pretty, blond-haired Alice with a large, brightly dressed Queen of Hearts. She touched the picture of the girl. “Alice,” she said, then she placed her hand on the flesh-and-blood girl beside her. “Is that you? Alice?”