Then Marigold felt confusion sweeping into her own brain so that she almost forgot where she was, or who she was. She saw flashes in her mind of a tall young man wearing suspenders, smoking a pipe. She saw the image of a young woman, small, blonde, blue-eyed, holding a baby on her hip.

These images abruptly came to an end when the old woman jerked backward. The woman wiped her tears with her sleeve. “Who are you? What are you doing in this house? You’re not Emily.”

The woman’s eyes seemed clear. “This is my house,” she said. “I’m in my own house. This is my kitchen. I’m standing in my own kitchen.”

Marigold stepped toward the door.

“What did you do to me?” the woman said. “Who are you? How do you know me? What’s happening to me?”

“I don’t know,” said Marigold.

“Wait! I demand to know who you are. Why are you here?”

Marigold darted out the screen door. And in moments she was running through a dark farmland toward the woods. The food in her belly was bouncing with each stride, making her sick. She ran until she almost lost the food inside her. She leaned forward, hands on her knees, breathless.

She stared at her hands. They still burned like they’d been lit on fire. She pressed a hand against her cold cheek. She looked upward at the moon. It was beautiful, the moon. But she couldn’t touch it. And she couldn’t touch Maggie either.

“Sweet dreams, Maggie. Mama loves you.”

Sixteen
The Fugitives

“We’re going to the Gulf of Mexico,” said Blake, using a hacksaw. “You ’n’ me.”

“Really?” said Coot.

“Yessir. Gonna get me a little boat and go fishing off Point Clear, just like my daddy and me used to do.”

E. P. was sleeping in his chair. He was drooling on himself, and a puddle had formed on his shirt below his chin. He snored loud enough that Coot could feel it in his spine.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Coot asked Blake.

“Sadly, yes,” said Blake. “Just look at that fool. It would take ten bottles of dope to kill a man that size.”

“You sure?”

“Yep, I’m sure.” Then Blake laughed. “But I wouldn’t wanna be him tomorrow morning. He’ll feel like a duck walked all over his tongue.”

Blake pulled the hacksaw against the padlock that was fixed on a cargo trunk beneath E. P.’s cot.

Coot wandered closer to E. P. and stared at the man’s big face. He felt bad. Coot’s mother used to tell Coot they owed their lives to E. P. She said he’d saved them. Coot didn’t know what that meant, but he couldn’t imagine this angry sleeping man saving anyone.

“Where’s Point Clear?” Coot asked.

“Close to Mobile.”

“Is that where you’re from, Mobile?”

“You better know it.”