It was as if Bobby had no concept of what was happening. His head was caught in a simple place where problems didn"t really exist.
I put my hand on his shoulder. "Listen to me, Bobby. I have to leave, okay? I have to go find out if my other parents are okay."
"Can I go with you?"
"No. You have to stay here with Kathryn."
"Where are you going?"
"I told you, I have to go back to where I came from."
He stared down the road, uncertain. "Where"d you come from?"
"Back there, down the road a long way."
"You can"t go that way. The dogs"ll eat you."
"They will?" I followed his stare down the road. "Are you sure?"
"There"s lots of dogs. They scare me."
"What kind of dogs?"
"Black dogs. Mommy says they keep the bad people out and the good people in. If you go that way, they"ll bite you."
I studied the landscape shrouded in darkness ahead, torn by indecision.
"Is there a way through the swamps?"
He looked at the foliage to our right. I could just see the moonlight glinting off the water at the base of a large tree beyond the dry ground.
"The alligators will eat you," he said. Then he looked up at me. "Will you go fishing with me tomorrow, when you get back? I can teach you how to fish."
Panic swept through me. Having tasted the little freedom I"d found by getting out of the house, I was even more desperate to get away.
"Is there any other way to get away from here?" I asked, turning around.
"I think so."
"There is?"
He grinned wide. "I can show you."
"You can?"
"Yes . . . I . . . I can show you."
With that he was already moving in his unnatural, slightly awkward gait, hurrying the opposite way, back past the house.
I wanted to ask him where we were going, but he was rushing and the house was looming against the night sky to our right and I didn"t want to make any sound.
Still no sign of Kathryn. She and Wyatt were still asleep.
Bobby led me wordlessly to a wide path on the other side of the property, rushing like a trooper on a mission, barreling straight ahead. Around a small grove of trees that grew on dry ground.
"Where are we going?" I whispered. But he was too intent on his mission to respond.
He hurried around the last tree and thrust his arm forward, pointing ahead. "There."
I pulled up sharply and looked out over a large body of black water: a lake with a perfectly smooth surface that looked like oil at night.
The one phobia I had was water. A boy named Carver had pushed me into the pool at the orphanage and, not knowing how to swim, I"d nearly drowned before being pulled out, coughing and hacking up water. I"d never been in a pool since.
The last of my hope drained from me as I stared at that threatening body of dark water.
"This is the way out?" I asked.
"You can get a boat!"
"A boat? Do you have a boat?"
"No."
"Does Wyatt have one?"
"No."
"Then where would I get a boat?"
He shrugged. "Zeke"s got a boat."
"Where?"
Again Bobby shrugged. "At his house."
"Where the dogs are?"
"The dogs will bite you."
I stood blinking, at a loss. Turned slowly around. There was this lake ahead of us, swamps on either side, and the one road that led past Zeke"s place where a pack of Dobermans or some other breed of bloodthirsty dog waited to snarl at and bite anyone who came close.
There was no way out. I was trapped. The finality of my predicament settled over me like a lead blanket and there on the bank of the black lake, I began to panic.
"I"m trapped?" I cried in a half whisper. "I can"t stay here! I have to go home! This wasn"t my choice, I was forced to come here, I don"t want to stay here!"
My voice had risen as my anger boiled to the surface for the first time since Wyatt had taken me.
"I can"t do this!" I snapped, this time facing Bobby who watched me with wide eyes. "They can"t force me to stay! They said I could leave any time I wanted. I want to leave now!" My hands were balled into fists and I shoved them down by my sides, as if that might make my point clearer. "Now!" Then again. "Now!"
Bobby was at a loss. He looked out at the water, confused. It occurred to me that my harsh words might have hurt him, but I couldn"t just think about him now. I"d been dragged out of my home bound and gagged in duct tape, held hostage in the woods for three days, and then taken far away to a swamp, blindfolded.
Bobby was confused, because he was a little slow in the head, so maybe he couldn"t understand just how terrible my situation was, but that didn"t make my predicament any better.
I stood there next to him for a long minute, smothered by more fear and anger than I"d felt since first waking from my amnesia, six months earlier.
Bobby had remained abnormally silent. When he turned his head and looked up at me, his eyes were swimming in tears.
"Are you my sister?" he whispered in a strained voice.
My anger softened. But only a little. I didn"t want to answer, because right then I didn"t want to be Bobby"s sister.
A soft whimpering sound broke the focus I"d placed on my misery. It grew, and I realized that Bobby had responded to my silence by crying. He stood there on the bank, staring out at the black water with tears leaking down his face. Sobbing softly, with a hitch in his cry.
"Bobby?"
He kept crying. And hearing him, a new fear rose in me. A concern for him. For Bobby. He stood before me as innocent as a dove, and yet crushed. I couldn"t, in good conscience, ignore him.
I put my hand on his shoulder. "It"s okay, Bobby. Please don"t cry."
He responded by turning into me, mouth open and strained as he cried.
"Please don"t leave me." He said it hitching through his sobs. And with those words, my heart broke for him.
And he wasn"t done.
"I don"t want you to go . . ." he cried, slowly pressing his head into my shoulder.
I put my arm around his shoulders and held him close. "Sh, sh . . . it"s okay, Bobby."
But it wasn"t going to be okay, was it? There was a deep fear in Bobby"s cry that chilled me to the bone. He was hiding something behind his simple mind that reduced him to tears.
"It"s going to be okay," I said, putting both arms around him. I knew that he wanted to hear me say that I wasn"t going and it seemed to me that, at least for now, that was the truth, even if not by my own choosing. But still the truth.
"It"s okay, Bobby. I"m not going. I promise, I"m not going anywhere."
Immediately his crying eased. Then stopped after a few sniffs. His face went blank and his eyes were closed, and I wondered what was going on in his mind.
And then, almost as suddenly as it had begun, his dark mood left him. He opened his eyes and straightened, staring up at me like a puppy.
"Can I teach you how to fish?" he asked. And then quickly, "Do you like moonshine? It makes you pure."
"I think I might like fishing," I said.
His face lit up. "I caught a big catfish! Bigger than my arm."
"You did?"
"Do you like to eat fish?"
"I think so."
"I like fish. Do you like eggs?"
I smiled at him. "Yes, I like eggs."
He laughed, delighted, snorting. It was the cutest little laugh I had ever heard and I nearly laughed aloud with him. But I was too overwhelmed with my own predicament to go that far.
"Mommy has a surprise for you tomorrow."
My mind was pulled back to the fact that Kathryn actually was my mother. Mommy. It sounded strange. And Brother. Bobby really was my brother. My own flesh and blood.
"What kind of surprise?"
He shrugged. "She said you"re going to make everything perfect again."
I had no idea what that could mean.
"Bobby, can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Does Mommy ever hurt you?"
He looked at me with a blank stare. "Hurt me?"
"Why are you so afraid of me going away?"
"I . . . Because you"re my sister."
"That"s right." I smiled at him. "And you"re my brother."
He beamed like a full moon. "You"re my friend."
And maybe his only friend, I thought.
"But Mommy doesn"t ever hurt you? Maybe when you"re naughty?"
He looked out at the lake. "No."
"Never?"
"Mommy said that if you go, there will be no one left to save me."
"Save you? From what?"
He shrugged. "From sin. I"m not perfect like you are. I was born bad."
I knew then that I couldn"t leave Bobby alone, at least not until I knew that he was going to be okay without me. Or unless I could take him with me.