Page 59 of Other Birds
When Charlotte ran away ten years ago, the hard life of living off the land at the camp had been starting to take its toll physically on her mother, but Samantha Quint had still been a beauty. Now, the only thing recognizable about Sam was her china-blue eyes. She was heavier, but most people who had once lived at the campwere probably heavier now because there was easier access to food on the outside. Sam’s face was a road map of dirt-caked lines, her hair was in a long, oily braid, and she was missing several teeth. Everyone else from the camp Charlotte had ever looked up seemed to have rebounded and moved on in some way, like the camp had been nothing but a bad dream. But not her mother. No one at the camp had loved Marvin McCauley more than Sam had, which was probably why she had fallen so far. She looked like she’d completely lost her direction, her only momentum being memories and resentment.
Charlotte understood that her once-beautiful mother had grown up poor and uneducated and abused, which was why she’d been so susceptible to the allure of Minister McCauley. The Church of McCauley had been a magnet for people like her. The church had made them feel important, probably for the first time in their lives. Minister McCauley had encouraged their belief in an us-against-them world, and he had convinced them that by building their own community they were going to win. These were people who had never won at anything in life. But moving there came at the price of their children, because Minister McCauley had hated children. Children couldn’t do the same amount of work as the adults, they couldn’t bring in money, so servitude to the adults was the price they’d paid for the privilege of living there.
“You always wanted to be like her, didn’t you, Pepper?” Sam said, lifting her hand to point at Charlotte. Charlotte realized now why the others seemed so wary. Sam was holding an old butcher knife, the wooden handle covered in black tape as if to prevent splinters. “The moment you met Charlotte, she was all you could talk about. Charlotte this, and Charlotte that. Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte. I should have known you would take her name, you little thief.”
Charlotte willed her mother to stop.They don’t know,she silently said.Don’t tell them.
“I thought you were dead. Hell, I wanted you to be dead. But I never once thought to look up Charlotte Lungren. Then one day I happened to type in her name at a library, and up came a blog post by a woman who had gotten henna done by agreatartist named Charlotte Lungren on Mallow Island. And, lo and behold, there was a photo ofyou.”
Charlotte remembered the client. She remembered the photo. She normally never let her photo be taken. One mistake. One little mistake. That was all it had taken.
She dared a look over her shoulder at Mac and Zoey and Oliver. They didn’t yet have a reason to believe that Charlotte’s name was really Pepper Quint and that she had taken the name of her best friend, the real Charlotte Lungren, after she’d died at the camp. And she didn’t want them to know, not ever.
“I’ve been watching you in this pretty place, with these friends,” Sam was saying, using the old knife to indicate Zoey and Mac and Oliver. Charlotte automatically shifted slightly to put herself more fully in front of them. “Once your neighbor died, I started sleeping next door because there’s no place on this damn island to camp without the police finding you and making you move. But then that lock went up on the gate. Do you want to know where I’ve slept since then?Behind a dumpster.Whileyougot to live in here. What a sweet little life you’ve made with the money you stole.”
It suddenly became clear what the events leading up to this meant. Her mother had been the one who’d taken the cash out of Charlotte’s purse, not Benny. And she’d broken in a second time, but couldn’t find anything else. Her mother had been on the island forweeks,while Charlotte had actually begun to think she could stay.
“You don’t deserve this,” Sam needled at Charlotte’s continued silence. “You don’t get to live this way after what you did.”
That finally lit something inside her as, no doubt, her mother knew it would. She was never happy until she had pushed every button. “After whatIdid? That place nearly destroyed me! It did destroy Charlotte. And you didnothing.You were my mother. You were supposed to protect me. That was your one job. I deserved every cent of that money I took. Charlotte deserved it.” She paused to try to calm down. Her anger wasn’t going to do anyone any good.
“He had to start selling the guns because of you!”
Charlotte had figured as much. If Minister McCauley’s plan had indeed been to leave after the real Charlotte Lungren died from his failed attempt at faith healing, his plan had been foiled by small, meek, sixteen-year-old Pepper Quint breaking into his office and taking all his cash that night in retaliation. He would have been forced to sell the guns he had amassed illegally to get more of the money he needed for a new start.
“How much do you want?” Charlotte asked, the only path she could see out of this.
“I want it all,” Sam said.
“You can’t have it all. How much to leave?”
“You think I’m going to leave?”
Charlotte paused. “Then how much to let them go?”
Sam smiled and Charlotte realized she’d just let her mother see her soft spot. All she’d wanted was to get Sam away from them, but now Sam knew that hurting them would hurt her. “Do you really think it will be that easy?”
They stared at each other for what felt like eons. Continents shifted. Glaciers melted.
Then a quiet voice came from the living room. “Excuse me.”
Sam leapt to the side, her knife swinging toward the voice, then to Charlotte, and back again. “Who the hell are you?”
A thin, broken-looking woman had appeared in the living room from the patio. It was hard to determine her age. Fifties? She gave an overall impression of yellow—sallow skin, stained teeth, crew-cut blond hair. In the light of day, she would probably blend in with the sunshine and disappear completely. “I’m no one,” she said. “I live across the garden.”
“Lucy?” Zoey whispered, taking a step forward to try to see around the door into the living room.
Oliver caught her by the arm and said, “Don’t, Zoey.”
Charlotte watched Lucy’s eyes dart to the bedroom door at his voice. There was absolutely no doubt in Charlotte’s mind that Oliver was the reason Lucy was here.
Her mother was assessing Lucy. It wouldn’t take more than a single breath to knock her over. “This is none of your business,” Sam said. “Get out. And don’t you dare call the police. This is between me and my daughter.”
Lucy just stood there.
“What’s the matter with you?” Sam said. “Go away!”
Lucy’s eyes again went to the bedroom door, where Oliver was hidden just out of sight. “I thought you’d want to know that the last bus off the island leaves soon.”
