Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
S carlet woke up to the phone call from her mother. Blurry-eyed, she pressed the phone to her ear and heard, “Is she with you? Is Ivy with you?”
In the pit of her stomach, Scarlet already knew.
Scarlet scrambled out of bed and burst out the door and into the hall. Her mother was talking too fast; she couldn’t make sense of it. She could hear her father in the background, his voice booming. He used several swear words. It was rare that he cursed.
“I need you to come over right now,” Catherine ordered.
Scarlet’s heart skipped a beat. This can’t be happening, she thought.
That was when she remembered how long Ivy’s hair was getting.
That was when she remembered how cagey Ivy was about her boyfriend.
Scarlet fell to the ground outside Nathan’s bedroom. The world spun.
“Did you hear me, honey?” Catherine demanded. “Get in the car and come here right now!”
Catherine’s reaction was a typical human reaction. She was frightened, and it came out as anger. Scarlet’s was the same.
Already, tears drained from her eyes and stained her shirt.
Nathan’s door burst open. In her ear, Catherine continued to cry. But Scarlet found herself safe in Nathan’s arms. He held her as though he already understood. Maybe a part of him had always expected Ivy would be taken, too. Or perhaps he could already read her mind.
Maybe the first person you kiss can always read your mind, Scarlet thought. Then she chided herself for being so dumb.
“I’ll be there soon,” Scarlet told her mother. “I love you. It’s going to be okay.”
She hung up and blinked up at Nathan’s face. She bit her tongue to keep from sobbing.
“Come on,” Nathan said. He hauled her to her feet and helped her to the kitchen, where he brewed a pot of coffee. “We know more than your mother does. We know where they are.”
Scarlet stared into the black coffee and remembered yesterday how they’d crept down the trail to the fence that kept them out of the massive house just beyond; how they’d waited as long as they could until the sun began to set; how they’d raced out to their car and kept watch near the beach, where the same people had built a bonfire, and men had given speeches, and women had danced. In fact, it looked a little like a party. But Scarlet was sure their ideologies were backward. She was sure the women were being brainwashed. Maybe the men were, too.
Now, her sister was probably at that house in the woods.
Was she wearing one of those horrible hippie dresses? Was she acting like those other young women—as though she hadn’t a single original thought in her head?
Nathan collected the film equipment and the computer with all the footage on it. They planned to show everything to Catherine and Quentin. Maybe they always should have done that. But Scarlet had wanted to craft her very first documentary by herself.
She was in over her head.
Nathan drove Scarlet to the house Quentin and Catherine had purchased last year; the house with the room painted lilac that Ivy and Scarlet shared when they were both home. Nathan carried everything inside and hung back while Scarlet hugged her parents and little brother. James, especially, was despondent. He’d probably heard Catherine and Quentin crying and yelling. It had affected him.
Nathan shook hands with Quentin and Catherine.
Scarlet thought, He’ll probably never be my boyfriend now.
And then she wondered, Did I really want him to be my boyfriend? She wasn’t sure anymore.
Scarlet had invited Nathan to The Copperfield House last night after they’d left the beach. But he’d been too despondent. “I can’t pretend I’m happy in front of your grandmother,” he’d explained. “I don’t want them to think I’m this boring, lifeless guy just because I’m so upset about my sister.”
Now, they would understand.
Nathan and Scarlet sat down with Quentin and Catherine at the kitchen table with cups of coffee. Quentin’s eyes were rimmed with red.
At first, Catherine tried to start. “I’ve been researching these people,” she explained. “They took a young woman from Manhattan. Felicity Fellini.”
Scarlet tilted her head. “She must be related to us? Through Great-Grandpa?”
Catherine flinched. It seemed like a difficult question although Scarlet couldn’t fathom why.
Scarlet explained the backstory. She’d seen the young women in the dresses earlier this summer and decided she wanted to create a documentary.
“That’s how I met up with Nathan. It turns out his sister left with them, too,” Scarlet explained timidly.
Nathan stared at the ground.
“Oh, Nathan.” Catherine shook her head and cupped her coffee mug with both hands. “When did she leave?”
“Before the end of the spring semester,” he explained. “My parents don’t know what to do with themselves. But they absolutely won’t talk about it.”
“That was my experience, too,” Catherine said. “The mother who asked me to look for her daughter waited until the last possible second to bring it up. I suspect that her husband didn’t approve.”
“It’s all about appearances,” Nathan agreed with a sigh.
Scarlet pulled her computer from her bag and set it on the table between them. “We’ve taken a lot of footage. Here.”
Scarlet showed bits and pieces of everything they had so far: the interview with the parents and the dock worker; the video of the man in black who’d smacked the front window of her car; the bonfires; and their following them to the fenced-in mansion where, it seemed, they were all staying.
Scarlet watched her mother’s face as she watched. She was captivated.
When it was over, Catherine looked Scarlet in the eye. It was clear she was proud of her. It was clear, too, that she was terrified.
“I wish you’d have told me about this sooner,” Catherine offered.
“I wanted to do it on my own,” Scarlet said.
“She’s like us,” Quentin said quietly, smacking his thighs.
Catherine wet her lips. “We have to be careful. We can’t let them know how much we already know.”
“That’s what Nathan said,” Scarlet remembered.
“Good instincts,” Quentin said.
“I have a few ideas,” Catherine said. Her eyes were stormy. “But I have a lot of work to do.”
Scarlet saluted her mother. “Let us know what we can do.”
It was remarkable how determined her mother was to survive and succeed. That translated easily to her love of her children—and her desire to keep them safe.
“We’re going to find her,” Catherine affirmed, then turned to look at Nathan. “We’re going to find them both.”