Chapter 44
Forty-Four
Holly’s mother held her for a long time.
This one went beyond the brief, but warm hugs Mirth typically gave.
Holly was used to those, which were full of affection without the drama.
Mirth’s arms wrapped around her and stayed there, and Holly felt the strength in them, and the slight tremor beneath the strength.
She pressed her face into her mother’s shoulder and breathed. This one had all the drama.
She smelled like home. Like the house in Canada. Like the orange-scented soap and freshly fired pottery that clung to everything within a mile of their wooded home. How was that possible? Holly didn’t care. She inhaled and held on.
Her father waited exactly as long as his patience allowed, which was about four seconds, before wrapping his arms around both of them. “All right,” he said, his voice thick. “My turn.”
Bean, who had already been gearing up for a walk, launched himself at the new people with enthusiasm. He circled their legs in a frenzy of wagging and vigorous sniffing. Andrew reached down with one hand and scratched the beagle’s ears without releasing Holly or Mirth. “This must be Bean.”
“That’s Bean,” Holly managed, her voice muffled against her mother’s shoulder.
“Friendly little guy,” Andrew said with a smile. “About time you got a dog.”
Bean was at that moment attempting to climb Andrew’s leg, but Andrew didn’t seem to mind.
“He came with the place,” Holly said, swiping away an errant tear. “Then he grew on me.” Just like the place, but she didn’t add that part.
They eventually separated and settled on the couch, Holly in the middle with Mirth and Andrew on either side.
Bean, having completed his assessment of the newcomers and found them acceptable, returned to Holly’s side and pressed himself against her thigh.
Luv had positioned herself near the doorway with her optical sensors at a discreet blue, giving the family space while remaining within earshot, because Luv was constitutionally incapable of not eavesdropping.
Holly looked at her mother. “Mom. Are you okay? Being here?”
Mirth’s gaze had been moving around the living unit since she’d walked in. She took in the plants on the windowsills with undisguised curiosity. “This room felt much bigger when I was little,” Mirth said quietly. “My mother had it flooded with color.”
“It used to be dark and drab,” Holly said. “I uncovered the windows my first day here.”
Her mother nodded slowly. Her face was a complex mix of emotions, but she didn’t appear to be struggling. “I was afraid this place would feel like a prison,” she said. “The way it did for my mother. But it doesn’t.” She reached over and squeezed Holly’s hand. “It feels like yours.”
Not for much longer. Holly’s throat tightened.
“As for me,” Mirth continued, straightening with the practiced composure of a woman who had spent decades managing her own emotions professionally, “I find that I’m surprisingly all right.
There’s something to be said for facing a place you’ve avoided for most of your life and discovering it can’t hurt you anymore.
” She glanced toward the bedroom doorway. “Is my old room still there?”
“It is. I didn’t touch it. Everything is exactly as you left it.”
Mirth was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps I’ll look in on it later. When I’m ready.”
“No rush,” Holly said, and meant it.
Andrew leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Holly, we need to talk about what’s happening here.”
“I know.” Holly rubbed her face with both hands. “I’ve been…avoiding the world for almost a week. I know I’ve handled this badly.”
“You’ve handled this like someone who’s been pushed past her breaking point,” her mother corrected. “There’s no shame in that.”
“How much do you know?” she asked. “I haven’t been great at calling lately.”
“Understandable, considering how overwhelmed you’ve been.
” Her parents exchanged a glance that contained an entire conversation and arrived at a consensus in the space of a heartbeat.
“We received some communications,” Mirth said carefully.
“From people here. Several people, actually. They reached out through Mr. Binn at first, to let us know that things were going badly at the station, and that you were taking it hard.”
“Who?” Holly asked. Alyce was the only one she could think of who would do something like that, but there were “several.”
“We’ll get to that. The point is, when Mr. Binn contacted me about your request to sell and told us of the circumstances…” Mirth paused and chose her next words with her characteristic precision. “I knew we needed to come.”
“We hired a private transport with subsonic capability from the Gamga-B space ring,” her father added. “Cut the travel time down to five days.”
“Five days.” Holly stared at them. “That must have cost a fortune.”
“It cost what it cost,” Andrew said with a shrug that was meant to be casual and was not. “You’re our daughter.”
“People have been in contact with us the entire way,” Mirth said. “Updates on the station. On you. On what was happening.” She hesitated. “Holly, there’s something you need to know.”
Holly looked from her mother to her father. They were doing a terrible job of hiding whatever this “something” was. Andrew’s face was practically vibrating with suppressed information, and Mirth had the careful expression of a woman trying very hard not to smile at an inappropriate moment.
“What?” Holly asked.
“You should come outside,” her father said.
“Why?”
“There are some things that people want to say to you.” Mirth stood and offered her hand. “In person.”
Holly’s stomach clenched. “How many people are still here? I assumed most residents had left. I’ve been hearing transports departing for days.”
Her parents exchanged another glance.
“Every resident is still here, Holly,” Mirth said. “No one left.”
Holly stared at her.
“They want to talk to you,” her father said, with the look of a man who was physically restraining himself from saying more. “Put your shoes on. Or, finish the task.”
Holly put on her other shoe. She clipped Bean’s leash and stood. Her legs were rubbery from days of disuse and her heart hammered with an emotion she was too afraid to call hope, so she went with anxiety.
Her parents flanked her as she walked through the lobby and pushed open the hotel doors. Holly stopped just past the steps.
The residents of Moone’s Landing stood in the square, arranged in a loose gathering near the fountain.
Alyce, with her arms folded and her braids pulled back, her gold eyes fixed on Holly with an expression that dared her to cry.
Sam, standing apart with his hands in his pockets, his jaw tight, but present.
Harry, in his mushroom-print jumpsuit, holding a flask of tea that Holly suspected was intended for her.
Mish, with her lopsided bun and her dirt-stained hands, her fourteen children arrayed behind her in their two neat rows.
Orba and Sula, still and luminous at the edge of the group.
Tyer, leaning against a lamppost with his arms crossed and his white hair falling over one pointed ear, looking bored in a way that didn’t quite conceal the fact that he had chosen to be here.
Luv had rolled out behind Holly and taken up position at her shoulder, her optical sensors a steady, fierce blue.
Even Cody, with his careless smile and vague disinterest, waved from the edge of the group.
There were more, too. Residents who had lived here quietly and simply, and whom Holly had hoped to get to know better.
And at the front of them all, standing alone in the open space before the fountain, was Rasker.
Holly’s breath caught.
He did not look like the consultant who had stood in the doorway of room seventeen with his bags packed and his face arranged into nothing.
He looked tired. His dark blue hair was uncombed, falling across his forehead in a way she had only ever seen when he’d just woken up.
His clothes were wrinkled. His jaw was shadowed with stubble she hadn’t known Nakrians could grow.
And he was smiling at her. It was a real smile, exhausted and unguarded and so real, it made her heart squeeze.
He stepped forward. The square was silent.
“There will be no sale of Moone’s Landing,” he announced.