Page 70 of What Doesn't Kill Her
“What?” Kellen whipped her head around and stared at Max. “How?”
“It was sitting on a rock and watching. I hadn’t seen it before, but no mistaking what it was.” Max shuddered slightly.
“The Triple Goddess,” Rae announced with a grand gesture that made Kellen look through the double doors into Zone’s workshop.
The marble head stared regally at her from a tall table covered with tools and papers.
Kellen put her hand to her chest. Her heartbeat stuttered and hurried.
Max continued, “No one else was around, so I picked up that thing and came here.”
Kellen tried to make sense of this turn of events. “I yelled at them. Told them the head was theirs. Put it on the top of the rock where they could see it. I used that thing as a diversion to get us away. Why didn’t they take it and run?”
“Three bodies, Max said. It sounds as if they killed each other over it,” Zone said.
Max interrupted, “Rae, do you want something else to eat?”
“Can I have peanut butter and banana?” Rae asked.
Max plucked the last banana, overripe and bruised, off Zone’s counter.
“Hey!” Zone said.
Max opened Zone’s jar of peanut butter, smeared it on the banana and handed it to Rae.
“Peanut butter? Really?” Kellen felt almost ill. “If I never have another bite of peanut butter, it will be too soon.”
Rae stopped, the food halfway to her mouth. “Why, Mommy? Why?”
“Because I said so.”Because I said so?Really? As a kid, Kellen had heard that phrase from her mother and father, her aunt and uncle. She had hated hearing that, and she told herself she would never say that to a child. Now it slipped out without a thought. Had everything she said to Rae been passed down through countless generations of her family?
Abruptly, Kellen knew her arm hurt, her head hurt, and mystery of the head or no mystery of the head, she couldn’t stay up any longer. She had no more reserves. She stood, her hips and back creaking, her thighs protesting. “I’m going to lie back down.”
“Good idea.” Max had a funny tone to his voice. “Maybe you should have listened to me and stayed down in the first place.”
Rae said, “Uh-oh,” and scrunched down in her chair.
Kellen turned back to snap at him and realized—a flush climbed Max’s face from chin to forehead, and a red flame kindled deep in his brown eyes.
And Rae looked like someone who recognized the danger signs. She met Kellen’s gaze and used her sticky banana-and-peanut-butter hand to indicate a mouth opening and closing.
Kellen’s gaze flew back to Max’s.
“Very funny, Rae.” His voice rose. “What did you think you were doing stowing away in that van?”
“I wrote you a note!” But Rae looked guilty and concerned.
Max went to the sink, wet a paper towel and cleaned Rae’s sticky fingers and face. “You wrote me a note. What did you think I was going to do when I found out you’d run away?”
“I didn’t run away. I was with Mommy!”
Max turned to Kellen. “What were you thinking letting her come with you?”
Zone turned a kitchen chair backward, sat down and cradled his chin in his hands. He watched the action and grinned.
“I didn’t let her come with me. I didn’t find her until—”
“You couldn’t have called me?”
