1
Lucy
Ten years ago
The rumble of a car engine and tires crunching over gravel pierce the heavy silence. I sit up quickly and peer over the hood of a dented brown Chrysler. A truck is coming up the weed-lined driveway toward me with a man at the wheel. This is the third vehicle today to approach the run-down weatherboard house with its yard full of overgrown grass, rusting farm equipment, and old tires. Each time I hear the throb of an engine, the knots in my growling, empty stomach tighten, and hope flares in my heart.
I don’t recognize the vehicle.
My heart sinks, and I sit back down in the dirt.
I once saw a skinny white dog at a gas station, trembling in the parking lot with her tail tucked between her legs. When a car approached, she would lift her head eagerly, and her tail would start to wag, but when she saw who got out of the vehicles, the light would go out of her eyes, and she would sink back into herterrified crouch. When Mom came back from paying for the gas, I asked her why the dog kept doing that. She stared at the pitiful animal for a moment, then started the car and drove away. I kept pestering Mom to answer, and she finally snapped, “Because no one wants her. The owners threw that dog out of their car, and the dog is too stupid to know that they’re never coming back.” My heart broke for the animal, who was confused and frightened and all alone in the world. I begged Mom to go back so we could rescue the abandoned dog and make it feel loved again, but she told me to shut up and kept driving, and I cried all the way home.
Right now, I don’t feel like Lucy Cinders, ten years old, pretty good playing the flute and multiplying fractions, but too small to be good at sports or shoving people back on the playground when they shove me first. I am that skinny white dog, waiting for someone who’s never coming back.
I listen to the car coming to a halt behind the three beaters that are parked beside the house. When I peer around the wheels, I see a tall, lanky man getting out of the driver’s seat.
“You two stay in the car. I’ll be right back,” the man mutters. He has dull skin and shadows beneath his hollow eyes. It’s the same look Mom gets before she disappears for days.
The man goes inside the house, the screen door slamming behind him. The truck door opens, and a girl about my age, ten or so, clambers out, her lower lip jutting.
A moment later, another passenger gets out. It’s a boy who looks a few years older than the girl and must be her brother. He’s tall and nice-looking, with dark eyes and curly hair, wearing faded jeans and a dark T-shirt. He moves around the truck and takes his sister’s hand with a protectiveness that makes my chest ache.
The girl moves toward the house, but the boy tightens his grip and stands firm.
“I want Dad,” she complains.
“You can’t go in there, Lil.” The boy sounds angry, but not with his sister. His thumb rubs her hand comfortingly, and I feel a sharp stab of envy.
“Let’s go for a walk,” he mutters, and turns toward where I’m hiding.
I duck back out of sight, making myself as small as possible with my arms wrapped around my knees. As the boy and girl pass by, he sees me out of the corner of his eye. He stops in his tracks and stares.
When I meet his brown eyes, his surprise shifts into understanding. He knows exactly what it means to be crouched in the dirt beside a drug house. He glances toward the house, and then back at me.
“Are you waiting for your mom or dad?”
He thinks Mom’s inside with the other grown-ups who are taking drugs. I’m too ashamed to tell him that she got what she needed in that house a long time ago.
Then she drove off and left me here.
When I don’t answer, he says, “You shouldn’t wait there. Come with us into the backyard.”
My arms tighten around my knees. This place is terrifying, and the terror only grows worse if I’m not right here, waiting for Mom. She will come back. Shehasto. Though with every cold, lonely hour that passes, that seems less and less likely.
“I want Dad,” the girl whines.
The boy’s grip on his sister’s hand is so tight that his knuckles are white, and his dark eyes are hard and angry. He takes a small, calming breath before he says with forced cheerfulness to his sister, “Do you remember the creek down past those trees? Let’s go look for fish.”
The distraction works. His sister’s face brightens.
The boy turns and offers me the same smile, but I can tell he doesn’t mean it. Whatever’s eating at him—whatever he’s hidingfrom his sister—is crushing him. He hates being here as much as I do.
“Come with us. You’ll like the creek.”
“I’m staying here,” I tell them.
“Why?” the girl asks in a snotty tone, impatient to get to the creek now that her brother has tempted her with it.
