Page 58 of Under

Chapter 45

Dan circledthe big lot three times before he double parked behind a tiny blue car near the back. “This car is a friend of Chickadee’s, he’s not going to leave anytime soon. So this is it, you ready? It’s not pretty.”

The sky was sagging, dark, thick, and heavy with rain. A drizzle seeped out, not raining down as much as thoroughly wetting everything as if from every direction. The windshield wipers swept back and forth with a flimp-floomp noise. Beckett said, “You’re kind of freaking me out, how bad can it be?”

Sarah turned around in her seat. “We just need you to be ready for the conditions.”

“The rain—what conditions?”

Dan asked, “Do we have time to look for an umbrella or ponchos? We’re going to be soaked through.”

Beckett said, “I’m down to an hour.”

Dan said, “Okay, then. We should go. Wet never hurt anyone.”

They all opened their car doors, stepped out, and were already soaked through.

Beckett followed Dan. “Do we go up to the building?”

Dan said, “You, my friend, as a relative of Chickadee’s, are not welcome at the building.”

“Oh. But Luna is okay, right?”

“Sure, enough.”

Beckett followed Dan and Sarah through the rain — across the big sprawling completely full parking lot, to a sloping lawn that ended at a big chain-link fence.

Visibility was low in the grey gloomy rain, but Beckett made out a large group milling in front of the fence. Walking closer, he could see umbrellas, camp chairs, tents, tables and close to sixty people. As he entered the crowd behind Roscoe, Beckett recognized friends from back home.

People welcomed him, shook his hand, crowded around. People that he didn’t expect — his former football coach, his former science teacher, Chickadee’s film crew.

And then Chickadee.

“Beckie!!!!” She threw her arms around his neck, holding him tight to her soft jiggling front, rocking him back and forth. Dilly threw her arms around them both, creating a huddle. Beckett buried his face in their shoulders. And they told him how much they missed him, loved him, and then he looked up.

Luna.

There, on the inside of a chain-link fence.

Beckett pulled away from his Aunts’s embrace. “What’s happening?” He swung his head up and down and around taking in the scope of the pen. His eyes darted along the back, noticing the Waterfolk huddled under the tree line, seeking shelter from the rain. “What is this?”

Chickadee grasped both sides of his face, “Beckie these are the camps, please don’t get upset, your Auntie has this all under—”

“What are you—” He picked up a section of the chain that connected her waist to Luna’s pen.

“I’ve chained myself to this fence.” Hoarsely, she yelled over her shoulder in the direction of a building, “And I will not leave until our Luna is out!” To the crowd she bellowed, “Is anyone going to leave until everyone gets to leave?”

The crowed around her yelled, “Hell no!”

“See Aunt Chickadee is going to get Luna out of here. Now what happened with your case?”

Beckett eyes returned to Luna over his aunt’s shoulder, a few feet away, separated by a crowd and that fence, and the necessity of speaking to Chickadee and Dilly first. “I get to meet my battalion. I have to serve six months. I go in an hour.” Luna’s smile fell, her eyes brimmed with tears. Beckett scrubbed his hand over his newly shaved head. “Look, Chickadee, I have to speak to Luna.”

“Yes, Beckie, of course you do.”

She stepped aside, the crowd parted, and he strode to the fence.

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