Chapter 26
“ I ran away from home,” Raven said. Sitting on the rock, she gazed into the bubbling creek, but to Nick, her eyes seemed to be focused on a faraway place.
“I grew up in Charlotte. North Carolina.” She laughed, but it was a sour sound.
“Had the bright idea that I would run away to Disney World, in Orlando. I’d live with Minnie Mouse and the Disney princesses, like Tiana and Merida.
How stupid, right?” She glanced at Nick but didn’t wait for a reply before she continued.
“I was thirteen, totally na?ve, but I knew I had to get away.”
“Get away from where you lived?” Nick asked in a soft tone.
“My mom’s boyfriend. He was more interested in me than he was in her, I guess.
I told her about it after he came into my room one night and got in bed with me, and touched me in my private places.
You know what my mom said? She said I was jealous and didn’t want her to be happy, that I was trying to steal her man. ”
Nick felt ill. “I’m so sorry.”
“It got worse from there, with him. He knew he could do whatever he wanted and my mom wouldn’t believe me.
I had saved up some money in a piggy bank so I left, took the bus.
I had enough bus fare to get me to Atlanta.
I guess I should have stayed there, I had some cousins there, but I didn’t know how to get in touch with them, and I didn’t totally trust them anyway.
I thought they’d turn me in to my mom. So I hitched some rides.
All I had to do was smile at these guys and bat my eyelashes and they would take me with them. See?”
She smiled at Nick, demonstrating, and despite her bedraggled condition, he could understand how she had been able to successfully charm her way into vehicles with men who ought to have known better.
“But you didn’t make it to Orlando,” he said.
“My last ride, he had to drop me off outside of Macon, he said, because he had to go home to his wife. I had to start walking. I thought I’d just run into another guy at a gas station or something. But . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“But what?” he asked.
“To you, this will sound crazy because you don’t understand this place . . . but I was drawn here, like this.” She pantomimed a fisherman reeling in a fish.
“Drawn here? Like this place was some kind of magnet?”
“Right!” She snapped her fingers. “I was passing by, on the road that I remember outside here, and I heard things coming from here, amazing things, and I got closer and saw the big fence.”
“There’s a ‘No Trespassing’ sign on the fence. And the fence surrounds the entire property.”
“But I heard things coming from here. Kids laughing. Families having fun. People singing. It sounded like?—”
“Disney World,” Nick said, and felt a coldness rush through him.
“Like a carnival, a fun place.” She nodded, her eyes sparkling, as if she were still enchanted by the memory.
“I went through this weird gap in the fence, sort of like a magic door, ’cause it just appeared all of a sudden,” Raven said.
“I kept hearing that carnival, just ahead, and smelling delicious food, and I saw a Ferris wheel—seriously. It sounds so stupid to say it now. It’s obvious this place tricked me.
But that’s what was there back then, as clear as this water running through the creek.
” She stuck her hand in the brook and splashed water on her fingers.
Nick didn’t know what to think about her story.
What she claimed was absurd and impossible.
But if she had given him her correct age—seventeen—that meant she had been on the land for four years (if she even knew how to keep track of time), living in deplorable conditions.
Psychologically, such a life would have had a damaging effect on her critical faculties.
(But why did I feel a chill?)
And in such a state of mind, she could believe that she had really been drawn here because it had seemed as if a magical amusement park lay just ahead.
“Anyway, one of the helpers found me and took me to the big house,” she said. “It definitely wasn’t that amazing castle you see in all those Disney movies.” She laughed, a bitter sound. “Not during the day anyway.”
“How did the others wind up here?” he asked. “Any idea?”
“We all have our own stories, I guess, but everyone who’s told me how they got here, they seemed to be going through tough times, too, whenever they got close to this place.
Homeless or depressed, or whatever. And they heard or saw different things than I did.
It’s like the land knows what we want deep down, and it uses that to call us .
. . to lure us onto the property.” She shuddered.
“Who are these so-called helpers? Tell me about them.”
“They’re like the slaves on Westbrook. Well, I guess they were slaves at first, but they’re different. Like, upgraded.”
“Upgraded?”
“They’re stronger—a lot stronger.” She rolled up the sleeve of her dress and showed him her scrawny arm. He could see faded fingerprints on her forearm. “I got this from when Miss Lula grabbed me. She didn’t like how I was cleaning the kitchen and I got stupid and gave her some lip.”
“Who is Miss Lula?” he asked.
“She runs the house. Crazy mean, but she comes off nice at first—until you piss her off. I really hope your girlfriend doesn’t make her mad. She’ll be sorry. Miss Lula ain’t no joke.”
Nick had to pull his thoughts away from the danger Amiya was in, or else he would go nuts with worry and lose his focus. Focus, he realized, would be key to them getting out of here.
“I need to understand this place, Westbrook,” Nick said. He wished he had a pad and pencil to keep all of his facts in order. “We have the helpers, okay. The ones who picked me up, Betty and some guy?—”
“Jimmy,” Raven said. “I was watching.”
“Jimmy,” Nick said. “He’s a helper. How many helpers are there, total?”
“Seven,” she said. “I know all of them. I know their routines. I have to, to stay away from them.”
“You escaped,” he said.
“Five months ago. I keep track of the days in my head. I got away a hundred and fifty-five days ago and I’ve been here at Westbrook for one thousand, four hundred, and seventy-two days. I’ve always had a good memory for numbers.”
Nick nodded, impressed. “How did you get out and get keys to the chains?”
“I had help, inside,” she said. “One of the other house slaves, we came up with a plan. He didn’t make it . . . the Overseer caught him.” She shivered, and glanced nervously at the sky.
“Who is the Overseer? Every time someone brings up this person they get scared, and supposedly he comes out at night?”
“I’ve only seen him once,” she said. “At sundown, I go into a hiding place and I don’t come out ’til morning.”
“But who is he?” He was struggling to temper his frustration with her nonsensical replies.
“I don’t know. He marked me—that’s the one time I saw him.” She tapped her head, the wound of the old scar on her face. “He’s the one who does the marking of everyone. The mark keeps you here.”
“It’s just a symbol on your skin,” Nick said. “Hell, I have a buddy in a frat who got branded when he pledged. It’s not keeping you bound to this place, Raven.”
“You don’t understand.” She only shook her head. “But you don’t have the mark yet, and neither does your girlfriend. That means you can get away—and maybe you can help me get away, too.”
Of course , Nick realized. That’s why she’s helping us. She thinks we can help her escape.
These people, these helpers, the so-called Overseer . . . they had done one hell of a mind job on Raven and the others. To have influenced these captives to actually believe they couldn’t escape because of a mark on their skin? It was one of the most insidious cases of brainwashing he’d ever seen.
“I need to understand how my grandfather plays into this,” Nick said. “You called him the Caretaker?”
“No one’s supposed to touch the Caretaker,” she said. “Not even the Overseer or the Master, I think.”
“Jesus, now we have a master, too?” He laughed. “This is too much, seriously. The master lives in the big house, huh?”
“Exactly.” Raven didn’t laugh. “I think they took your girlfriend to be the Master’s mistress.”
Nick’s laughter died in his throat. “His mistress? What?”
“The Overseer runs Westbrook, but the Master still lives in the house. Like the Overseer, he comes around at night. Wakes up, I guess. All he seems to care about are the women. He never bothered me. I guess I wasn’t his type.”
Nick was trying and failing to wrap his mind around the outpouring of information. “What does he do with the women?”
“Whatever he wants,” Raven said, plainly. “They don’t have much choice about it, either.”
Focus , Nick thought, though he felt almost paralyzed with worry for Amiya. Find out what I need to know and make a plan.
“Back to my grandpa, the Caretaker. Have you ever seen him? Did he ever come around the plantation?”
“He lives over the bridge,” Raven said. “I can’t cross over the bridge because I have the mark—no one can, except maybe the Overseer. But I saw the Caretaker in other places, not on the plantation but around the lake. Like I said, you can’t talk to him. I never tried.”
“If you had talked to my granddad, he would have helped you leave this place,” Nick said. “I’ve known him my entire life. He’s a good man.”
Raven shook her head, smiled sadly.
“The Caretaker knows about all of us,” she said. “But he won’t help us.”
Nick was tempted to argue with her that Grandpa Lee could not have possibly known what was going on back there, but he had an uneasiness in his stomach about voicing such words. The truth was, his granddad must have known. The question was: Why did he allow it?
“My granddad is around here somewhere,” Nick said. “I need to find him, and I need to get Amiya out of the house.”
“Before dark,” Raven said.
“Can you help me?” he asked.
She picked up a pebble, got to her feet. She tossed the rock across the creek, making it skip across the short span of water.
Finally, she glanced at him. “You think I’m crazy. You don’t believe half of what I told you.”
“I think you’ve been through a lot, Raven. You’ve lived out here for four years. I think you have a distorted perception of things.”
“I wish,” she said, and turned away. She tossed another pebble into the water. “But I can show you something that’ll change your mind. Come on.”