Page 36 of The Chain House

Markie must have sensed Jennifer’s confusion, and said, “There were four of us. Before you came.”

Iris started crying harder. Markie shushed her and gently patted her back, glancing over his shoulder toward the line cook refilling eggs into the container at the buffet. They didn’t need an adult they didn’t trust walking over and getting into their business. It was no secret that, as children on a ranch full of adults, they felt isolated and unwanted. The rest of the adults believed wholeheartedly in the “No Children” rule at Freedom, either coming here without them or, in some drastic cases Jennifer had heard of, giving their children or child up for adoption before entering. Children, to them, were chains, Sal Batise preached, just one more chain keeping them tethered to a world of burdens. He was the Breaker of Chains, because at Freedom, you truly were free of everything that may have bound you. And Jennifer couldn’t help but think that the rest of the adults eyed them like they secretly all hoped they were gone.

Jennifer had made it known days ago that the only two people on the ranch she trusted were Yellow and Raven, and sometimes the bald guy who did magic tricks and called himself Clown, and after some careful, perhaps even cautious contemplation, the other three had agreed.

Yellow and Raven were their comfort zone.

Yellow and Raven were different. In a way, with how they watched over them, mostly in secret, they’d become parents to all of them. And because of it, weeks ago, the children had made a pact to stick together no matter what.

Jennifer, as quietly as she could, demanded they tell her who Steven was.

Markie leaned over his pancakes. “He wasn’t here as long as we’ve been, but longer than you. He lived with us in the barracks. He … died … a couple weeks before you came.”

“How?”

Iris wiped her eyes, somewhat composed now, and said, “He went into the woods.”

“And the demons got him,” Peter said.

Jennifer watched them all, and it immediately registered how serious they were. Of course, the demons got him, just like they’d gotten her mother. “But I saw a boy in that window. He was wearing a red shirt. He had brown hair. Did Steven have a red shirt and brown hair?”

“Yes.” Markie’s voice shook, and his right leg wouldn’t stop moving under the table. “His favorite shirt was a Cincinnati Reds baseball shirt.”

Jennifer noticed the three of them exchanging glances. She took it as them questioning what they’d previously believed—what they’d been told—and asked them, while they appeared vulnerable, “Did any of you see Steven enter the woods that night?”

Again, they shared looks, before Markie seemed to answer for all of them: “No.” It was like deep down they’d all questioned it but were always afraid to admit it. “He went to sleep when we did one night, just like always, and when we woke up the next morning, he was gone.”

“And you assumed he ran away … into the woods?”

They all nodded, one by one, but, Jennifer noticed, from Markie’s lead, like he was telling them by his expressions that it was okay to open up. Like it was about time they finally faced this, and then Markie suddenly looked as mad as she’d ever seen him. “They told us he ran away,” he said. “We asked where he was, and they told us he’d run into the woods. And that the demons got him. And we believed them because …”

“Because why?” Jennifer asked.

“Because we’re stupid kids,” Markie said.

And Peter said, “He was talking about running away for weeks.”

“Why?” Jennifer asked, although she could guess why—she’d been contemplating running away herself since she arrived under the cloak of darkness with her mother weeks ago.

“Because he hated this place,” Iris said as she bit into her biscuit with butter and jelly. Her tiny hands were shaking.

Peter said, “They were extra mean to him.”

“He got special attention since the day he arrived,” Markie said. “He didn’t want it, but sometimes he’d get called away and taken into the main house.” He said to the other three, “So maybe she did see him. Maybe he didn’t die like they said.”

Jennifer agreed but couldn’t get past what Markie had said about special attention, and even now, as they spoke, she saw Yellow and Raven out the window, no longer talking but walking toward the main house like something was about to go down, and her three friends were now noticing it too. Raven was so often around Yellow that the two of them might as well have been connected at the hip. Like a couple. And that’s how they were approaching the main house now, like a couple. She’d heard whispers of it, of late, about Yellow and Raven being secretly married, which was illegal on the Freedom Ranch. Partners weren’t a thing here, Jennifer knew, because everybody was free to do it with anybody at Freedom.

Especially with Sal Batise.

Every female on the ranch wanted to do it with him.

Jennifer wasn’t so young she didn’t know what doing it was, even though she’d never seen it being done; the sounds of it were bad enough. Anytime, day or night or any hour in between, she could hear adults doing it inside various barracks as she walked by. Men coming outside afterward and buckling their belts and women straightening out their dresses, staring at them, like this was no place for a child, and Jennifer thinking, No shit, all while their innocence leaked out of them daily. Because, as Jennifer had heard more than one of them whisper, there wasn’t much else to do at Freedom once their chores were done, aside from getting high on the limitless supply of gummies Sal handed out to the adults like daily vitamins.

And as Yellow and Raven disappeared into the main house, Jennifer conjured up the nerve to bring up what had been heavy on her mind since she’d left Yellow outside the Kitchen House. “I told Yellow that he waved at me. The boy. And she got all scared or something, or mad, and asked if it was a wave or if he placed his hand on the glass. I mean, what’s it matter?”

Markie said, “It matters. Which did he do?”

“He put his hand on the glass,” she said, recalling it clearly now. “Just like this.” She showed them her right hand, fingers splayed out like a starfish. When Markie nodded, knowingly, Jennifer said, “What’s that mean?”