She pointed out the fields of flowers as they walked up to the main house but didn’t get close. “I bet you just love them,” Sam said. “I bet you pick huge bookoos every day.”
“Bouquets?” She tickled his ribs. He danced away, hisshoes scuffing the dirt path. She didn’t tell him that the flowers unsettled her, that their color tugged at her gaze and the smell made her sleepy. Sam chattered as they neared the elegant sprawl of the house, talking about how Lucas D. was his friend again. “He wasn’t my friend when we lived at the motel, but now he lets me play with him at recess and wants to come swim in our pool.”
“Then he’s not your friend.”
“Oh yes he is. He said so.”
Angry, she was about to explain what was wrong with Lucas D. when Amara stepped out of the barn. Amara’s eyes instantly met Kacey’s and widened in what looked like fear. Kacey didn’t want to look away from her face, didn’t see what there was to be afraid of. Then instinct made her turn her head to glimpse Sam running up to her husband’s studio.
“Don’t go in there!” she and Amara shouted.
Sam stopped. “It looks like a playhouse.”
“Well, it isn’t.” Kacey’s heart banged at her ribs. Amara said nothing, at first, then slowly approached Sam and hunkered down so that she could look directly in his eyes. “Would you like to see a lamb?” Amara asked.
“A baby lamb?”
“One your sister saved.”
“I didn’t,” Kacey said. “You did.”
They ignored her. “Kaceyisa saver,” Sam agreed. Amara took his little hand and led him to the barn, away from the studio, and Kacey watched the lamb fumble toward herbrother across the straw. “Good lamb,” Sam said, petting its head. “Can I come here again and play with him?”
“No,” said Amara, “but you can name him.”
After some thought, Sam said, “I will name him Lamb.” The look Amara and Kacey exchanged was amused, but Kacey also thought that it was nice to name something for exactly what it was. Then the expression in Amara’s black eyes shifted to warning. Kacey said, “Let’s walk you home, Mouse.”
He protested at first, but then said fine, he would go if Amara came with them. To Kacey’s surprise, Amara agreed. As the three of them walked back, Sam brought up Lucas D. again and said, “My sister says we aren’t friends, but she’s wrong.”
“Your sister is right. Friends are for always, not sometimes, and not just because they want to use your pool.”
“You and Kacey are friends, right?”
Amara considered him. Kacey held her breath. Is that what they were, could be? Was friendship why Kacey’s gaze lingered on Amara’s long hands, her full mouth? “Yes,” Amara said finally, and then they were at the door. “Goodbye, Mouse.”
Kacey and Amara were quiet as the two of them returned to the main house, Kacey remembering the horror in Amara’s eyes, the horror in her own throat, as Sam rushed toward the studio. She remembered Amara’s silent warning in the barn, and how she had listened. Kacey touched the green fabric of Amara’s shoulder. “Thank you,” Kacey said.“Is the rule for you, too? Is no one allowed in the studio?”
“Stay away from it. I say this for your own good.”
“Easy enough. He doesn’t have many rules.” As soon as Kacey said it, the words shocked her. Rules? Was that what love was, following someone’s rules? Who was she that she felt compelled to follow them? Who was he to make them?
Amara looked grim. “Itisa playhouse,” she said, “of a kind.”
Kacey almost asked her to explain, then stopped herself. It felt as if someone had closed a hand over her throat, blocking the words. Kacey searched for safer ground. “My brother’s name isn’t really Mouse, of course. It’s Sam. Do you want to know why I call him Mouse?”
Amara’s expression softened. “I know why,” she said. “It is because you love him.”
Her husband didn’t return. He didn’t call Kacey or text, and Kacey began to think that maybe he never would. Sometimes, curiosity would prickle all over her like a rash, but when she began to dial, to get some answers from him, dread made her stop.
At dusk, she went to the barn. The other workers had vanished, but Amara was still there, cleaning out dirty straw. She glanced at Kacey and shook her head, clumping in her boots to set the rake near the other tools, which were neatly arranged near boxes labeled as rat poison, and Miracle-Gro that must be for the flower-laden window boxes that decoratedthe barn’s red exterior. “Want to walk with me?” Kacey asked.
“I have to work.”
“Then I’ll help.”
Amara gaze traveled from Kacey’s ponytailed blond hair to her bright white Keds. Amara shook her head. “You’re not the kind made for work. Princesses do work only at the beginnings of stories, to prove how good they are. You are past that now.”
Stung, Kacey said, “I’m not a princess. I’m not a story.”
