Page 168 of Double Bucked

My breath catches in my throat. I don’t dare look at her. My heart beats fast, rapid hummingbird wings in my chest.

There it is. The truth.

She pulls out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. “Do you mind?” she asks.

When I shake my head, she lights it. She inhales and breathes out a thin, smoky stream before starting. “I was twenty-four,” she says. “Belleflower Festival was my entire life. Every day, I woke up and trained to be perfect. Hoped I’d be that pretty miss Belleflower Queen. When that day finally came and I got the invite under my pillow…” She smiles crookedly at the memory. “You’ve never seen a happier girl. We had the parade. The after-party. Randall Preacher—he was a catch back then. When I found out he was my King, I just about laid an egg. We danced. He told me all sorts of things a girl like me wanted to hear. And then he took me into that room.”

My stomach turns. Knowing. Maeby looks off in the distance for a moment, toward the deep blue mountains. She absently rubs a hand over her shoulder, where those long scars climb her back. “Didn’t seem to matter that I said no. Or that I fought like an alley cat. Wasn’t long after that I found out I was pregnant. Course, I didn’t tell anyone about what had happened that night. Not my friends. Not my parents. Not after all those years of being taught how important my purity was. Randall was the only one who knew, so even though it made me sick to do it, I told him. He said he’d help me. Make sure no one would ever have to know. I was so ashamed, but…not of you. Never of you.”

Her eyes meet mine. They shimmer.

I nod, encouraging. “I know.”

“It wasn’t until after…when you were born…they took you away from me, just like that, and put you in his arms. That’s when I realized then what a terrible mistake I’d made. But by then, it was too late. Now, they had you to hold over me.”

She takes another sharp hit from the cigarette. She lets it out with a hiss.

“I wanted to run out of town, but I couldn’t leave you behind. They tried to give me money. Said I could have anything I want. Except the one thing I wanted, of course. You.” The edge of her cigarette has burned to a long cylinder of ash. It falls down the backs of her knuckles. She doesn’t even flinch. “I gave up. Became depressed. They didn’t want me around. No one wants a sad Belleflower Queen. I got them to leave me alone, mostly. Except once a year, the night of the festival. All former queens are required to show up for the coronation. Entertain the Benefactors and usher in a new Belleflower Queen. It made me sick to my stomach, leading these poor women like cattle to the slaughter. But anytime I told them to shove it, they’d find a new way to hold you over my head. Said as long as I kept coming back, you’d never have to wear the crown. Crock of bullshit that turned out to be.”

She chokes suddenly. Her voice cracks, and her hand trembles.

“All those years of silence,” she murmurs. “All those years I can’t take back?—”

I stop walking. I take her hand in my own. When she doesn’t pull away, I lace my fingers in hers. She squeezes me tightly.

“We can take it back,” I tell her. “Everything they took from us. We’ll take it all back. I promise.”

Suddenly, she puts her arms around my shoulders. All my bones go stiff when she pulls me into a hug.

There it is. Mother and daughter.

I’m hugging my mother.

I wind my arms around her and slowly embrace her back.

“Promise me you’ll start over,” she says. Her voice is tight and urgent in my ear.

“I promise.”

We stand there for a long time, just holding each other, as the wind picks up and tousles around the dead leaves, coaxing out the old.

61

EVERETT

Outside the wide, glass windows, workers flutter around our plane. A monster in its class. And in approximately thirty-nine minutes, it will take us across the Atlantic Ocean.

Goodbye, Belleflower, Kentucky.

Good. Bye.

Claire is at the desk when they announce they’re starting to board. Despite the many times I’ve told him not to get up without me, Ransom puts his weight on his suitcase and rises from the plastic seat.

He stops here. I watch his gaze travel out the wide glass windows.

I slip in beside him. “Are you alright?”

“Yep. Just…need to catch my breath a second.”

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