Tuck Everlasting: Chapter 20–Epilogue

“That’s right,” said Winnie unflinchingly. “They’re my friends.”

There was a pause, and the murmur of other voices; then a match striking, the acrid smell of fresh cigar smoke.

The sun was a ponderous circle without edges, a roar without a sound, a blazing glare so thorough and remorseless that even in the Fosters’ parlor, with curtains drawn, it seemed an actual presence.

The sun was a ponderous circle without edges, a roar without a sound, a blazing glare so thorough and remorseless that even in the Fosters’ parlor, with curtains drawn, it seemed an actual presence.

Winnie’s mother and grandmother sat plaintive all afternoon in the parlor, fanning themselves and sipping lemonade, their hair unsettled and their knees loose. It was totally unlike them, this lapse from gentility, and it made them much more interesting.

The thunder ebbed.

Another flash of lightning lit her face for an instant and Winnie saw an expression there of deep concentration, tip of tongue protruding, brows furrowed.

Her hips were free—now, look out!—here she came, her skirts tearing on the rough edges of the boards, arms flailing—and they were all in a heap on the ground.

Another crash of thunder muffled Jesse’s bursting, exultant laugh.

There was no trace of her at all, or of Tuck or Miles or Jesse. Winnie was profoundly grateful for that. But she was also profoundly tired.

She had heard first a bustling in the front of the jail, and smelled fresh coffee, and had sat up, stiff with apprehension.

In fact, he was soon shouting that if she were older, he’d have to keep her there—that it was a crime, what she had done. She was...an accomplice. She had helped a murderer escape.

Over and over they asked her, shocked at first and then wistful: why had she done such a thing?

Then she remembered the actual feel of the toad, and the revulsion passed. She knelt and touched the skin of its back.

Mae and Tuck clattered on into the village proper, past a catholic mixture of houses which soon gave way to shops and other places of business: a hot-dog stand; a dry cleaner; a pharmacy; a five-and-ten; another gas station; a tall, white frame building with a pleasant verandah, The Treegap Hotel—Family Dining, Easy Rates.