The Wrong Way Home: Chapters 3–5

Ever since we had that conversation, we haven’t talked much. Of course, we don’t always talk every day anyway. We’re often on a different schedule, and at meals adults tend to sit with adults and kids with kids. It’s also kind of a hassle to go back and forth to the adult women’s dorm, because it’s on the other side of the Ranch’s sprawling main house. But still. There’s been a new tension between us.

Later, I head to the women’s dorm to find Mom. Inside, it’s softly lit and smells like a combination of the lavender essential oil mixture we use on the bedding and something pungent and medicinal. Most of the women are here, getting ready for bed.

Two of the older women are sitting on Iris’s bed, chatting softly as they tend to her. One is braiding her hair, and the other is massaging a tincture onto her arms and hands, which must be the source of the smell.

A surge of energy courses through me. Because maybe this is it. The beginning of my rite.

Mom’s waiting for me by the fireplace in the great room, like she said she’d be. The fire is down to embers now. Someone will be back to build it up as soon as the sun crests the trees.

The only light is from the dying fire, but I can see she’s got a woven tote bag slung over her shoulder, so full of stuff that it’s lumpy and bulging.

She nods toward the doors. “Come on. We don’t want to be late.”
I follow her into the foyer, where we keep all our coats, hats, and winter boots.

Mom closes the main door gently, so gently, behind us.
Maybe she’s going to drop me somewhere, and it’ll be up to me to get back to the Ranch on my own: no supplies, no food, only my wits and my inner strength.

We drive until the snow-covered woods and long winding roads are far behind us. We drive until all I can see is gray asphalt and dingy buildings.

We drive until the snow-covered woods and long winding roads are far behind us. We drive until all I can see is gray asphalt and dingy buildings.

She reaches behind her into the back seat. There are two red duffel bags. They look brand-new—and completely synthetic.

I know I won’t be able to sleep, so after a while, I go and peek through the blinds. I can see the flash of headlights from the highway, hear the thrum of tires against the road.

She veers off the highway so quickly the tires shriek. The car behind us swerves and honks its horn in a long, angry blast as it whizzes by.

Every night we stay in the same dreary kind of motel off the highway, with a TV bolted to the wall and multiple locks on the door.

Somewhere in Arizona our ugly brown car starts sputtering. When we stop for gas, it doesn’t turn back on.

I think about the dense woods cocooning the property, with the meandering, secret paths we made ourselves with wheelbarrows full of mulch.

“My friend Paul was corresponding with your dad on my behalf about the housekeeping position? And our…special circumstances?”

He turns to me and smiles. “Hey. You must be…it’s Frankie, right? I’m Alex.”
“Fern.” I flick my eyes back to Mom and lift my chin defiantly. “I actually go by Fern.”

There are two beds with dark green quilts, a worn wooden desk, and a television on the wall above a dresser. Everything is old and a little shabby, and the air is as damp and salty in here as it is outside.

Forest was short and stocky, with a big bushy beard.