Took twenty years this time.
Amazed, unable to hide her shock, she turned back to El Juez. “Why didn’t Neeve stay? She spent so much time here, went through all that trouble to have a child—to have a child with you—why didn’t she stay? Why did she leave the baby behind? She could have stayed!” When Neeve returned to the Estuary, when her cut-out implant was discovered—she must have already given birth. And she’d hid it all this time.
“Don’t know,” El Juez said, shrugging. Tension pulled at his shoulders. “Not sure she ever meant to stay. When she left the last time, I thought she’d be back. She left Ella here because she said you folk would take the baby away from her.”
That was true. Someone who so egregiously stepped out of bounds, as Neeve had done, couldn’t be trusted to care for a child. The baby would have been fostered out. But no one on the Coast Road had even known there was a baby.
“You never went to find her?”
“No, wouldn’t go down there. Didn’t need to. She knew where to find us.”
Neeve had tried to stay in the camp with her child, but couldn’t. It wasn’t home, and for all that she was a recluse, she was still Coast Road. Electricity was a hard thing to give up. But she couldn’t just return with a baby; she’d never have been allowed to keep it.
Maybe . . . maybe . . . Enid hadn’t been the only one to suddenly recognize similarities between Neeve and Ella, mother and daughter. Maybe someone had seen her, made the leap. Someone in the Estuary found out, and was furious. Even after all this time. Someone met Ella by chance and recognized the resemblance instantly.
“I have to go,” Enid said, slipping her notebook in her pouch, marching to the tree roots where she’d stashed her pack. “I need to get back.”
“You know who did it? What happened?”
“You were right, it’s nothing to do with your people here.”
“Ella was our people.”
Except she wasn’t. Or rather, was only half. But that other half meant Enid did have jurisdiction in this. The right—the duty—to make a judgment.
She hesitated, studying the man one last time. Wondering how much to tell. “You didn’t have to raise her. You could have . . . I don’t know. Taken her back. Demanded . . . some responsibility.” Enid suspected many folk would consider abandoning a baby a worse crime than cutting out one’s implant. But Neeve had left the child with its father. She must have trusted El Juez to raise her.
And then, years later . . . Neeve wanted her daughter back.
The man scowled. “Nobody just lets a baby die. Unless . . . do you people?”
“No. Never. At least, we try not to. But Ella . . .” Enid shook her head.
“What’s the punishment for this?”
“They’ll be dealt with.”
“We would kill them. Crime for crime.”
“They’ll be dealt with,” she repeated, though she couldn’t say exactly how. Murder didn’t happen enough for there to be a standard procedure in place. She’d have to figure it out as she went along. It would depend on how this played out. How her suspect reacted. How Neeve reacted.
Enid didn’t know what she was going to do about Neeve. She’d kept insisting the old case involving Neeve’s implant and the new one investigating Ella’s death weren’t related. Oh, but they were so tightly woven together.
“Why you? Why are you the one to judge?” El Juez asked. His name meant “judge”—she wondered if it was a title, like investigator, rather than a name. He was used to having the last word.
She considered her uniform. The brown fabric hid the grime and stress of the past few days pretty well, but it was rumpled and ripe. And here, it didn’t mean anything. All she could say was “Because my people trust me.”
He seemed to be debating whether he did. She’d come here, made demands. However useful her visit had been for her and the investigation, what had it done for El Juez and his people? She swooped in, rushed back out again—and then what? She didn’t know.
“Is there anything you’d like to tell Neeve?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said curtly. Didn’t even have to think about it. “But you can’t leave.”
“What?”
“You don’t know how to get back.”
She’d been blindfolded for half the trek. Still, she blithely pointed down the mostly visible roadway. “It’s that way.”
“You won’t make it without help.”
“Well then. Will one of you help me?”
A long silence. Some of El Juez’s enforcers had gathered to watch the exchange. Enid caught the gaze of a few folk, who quickly glanced away. She wondered if any of them would step forward to help. Maybe Hawk? Oddly, he was nowhere in sight.
El Juez let the silence draw on. Waiting to see if any of his people would act. Would disobey him. No one did.
“Looks like you’re on your own,” he said. He seemed pleased. They didn’t owe her any help.
Enid wasn’t sure what they expected. For her to show fear? Beg? Weep? If they thought this was some kind of revenge? In truth, she hadn’t expected help. She trusted herself to figure out the way.
“Right. Well. That’s that. Thanks for all your help, it’s been useful. And again, I’m very sorry for your loss.”
She gave a nod and marched off, back to the Coast Road and the end of this investigation.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////
The silence of the woods fell around Enid quickly. Noises of children, the underlying sounds of the camp at work, faded, then vanished. The smell of campfires lingered, then cleared, and she might as well have been in the middle of a vast forest wilderness.
She tried to pace herself: moved steadily, not quickly. But she wanted to run. She wanted to confront Neeve. She wanted to tell Teeg what she’d learned. This information would blow up a whole community, but they needed to know. An old wound had festered until it had killed. The Estuary folk may not have wanted to know why Ella had died like she did, but they needed to.
Suddenly, Enid pulled up short. Stopped, studied the quiet forest around her. She didn’t know why, just that the prickling on her skin had started up, and a sudden jump in her heart had her body tingling. She’d felt constantly watched all week—it wasn’t just paranoia, she was sure of it.
Scouts from the camp had tracked her coming up the hill. No reason they shouldn’t track her going back down. But it wasn’t a whole troop of them, like before. This time, it was just Hawk, charging straight at her with a club, screaming in rage. He must have been holding that primal scream in for days, the way it twisted his face and tore out of his throat.
In a way, his weapon confirmed her suspicions. A knife wasn’t his preferred weapon; if he’d been the one to kill Ella, he would have beaten, not stabbed her. Now he wanted to beat Enid to death. Just as well—Enid thought she could do a little better against a club than a knife. Even after leaving her makeshift staff behind so she could move faster.
Hawk was furious, uncontrolled, charging with the quickly hewn, arm-length branch cocked up behind his shoulder. Like he expected her to just stand there while he took her head off.
Enid dodged, ducking so that she ended up behind him while he ran on ahead. He spun around, faced her again, panted for breath.
“Hawk, stop,” she said. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Then tell me who did—I’ll kill ’em!” He rearranged his grip, squeezing the wood again and again, nervously.
“Not your job. I’ll take care of it.”
“You won’t! You bullies in brown just make everything worse.”
He might not be wrong there, though she tried her best. People might not feel good about her efforts, but at least they’d know the truth.
“Tell me!” he demanded again.
“No. I’m not going to open the door to another murder.” Carefully, slowly, she let her hand creep near her belt pouch, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
He shouted and charged, per
fectly willing to enact a new murder, it seemed.
She ducked out of the way again; he was ready for her this time, but his own rowdy movements made pivoting after her difficult. Once again she was able to get up behind him, grab the sleeve of his shirt, and yank, pulling him off balance. He stumbled, his knees hitting the forest floor. But he didn’t drop the club, and instead swung at her from the ground, aiming for her knees. Enid scuttled backward.
This gave her enough time to draw one of the tranquilizer patches from the pouch and tuck it into her hand.
To give Hawk credit, he didn’t repeat his mistakes. He didn’t charge her again. Now he kept his distance, lunging in to swing with the club, then holding back, then trying again. He wouldn’t let her get behind him this time, which narrowed her options.
She was going to have to tackle him head on.
Meeting his gaze, Enid stepped back, just a little. Inviting him closer. And closer. Making herself look like an easy target.
At last, he took the bait and jumped toward her, swinging hard.
She intended to step out of the way, to grab his arm and use his momentum to haul him to the ground. She made it as far as stepping out of the way, but she underestimated his ferocity, and he got in a blow. She blocked, arm raised to protect her face, and Hawk’s club came down on her shoulder. Wood against bone sent a shock down her arm, across her back. The limb went numb. She didn’t think about it, couldn’t, because Hawk stepped back and lowered the club. Expecting her to fall. Waiting for her to curl up, helpless and injured.
She didn’t.
Bending low, she leapt forward, tackled his legs. He had no choice but to fall, and this time he dropped the club, then scrabbled after it in the dirt. She pinned him with her knees, reached forward as far as she could, and slapped the patch onto his neck. Pressed hard, holding it there. The drug would work faster when applied to the neck than if she’d put it on his arm.
Screaming, he thrashed, shoved at her; Enid jumped away and waited.
Hawk sat up, reached for the club. Enid had a brief panic, thinking the patch had failed, that it was from an old batch or that she had applied it wrong. But though he reached for the club, he wasn’t able to get a hold of it. For a moment he wobbled. Looked back at her, his head tilted in confusion.
Then he collapsed.
She rushed to kneel by his side, to speak urgently before he fell entirely unconscious, “Don’t follow me, don’t come back to the Estuary, nothing good will come of it. I’ll see justice done for Ella, I promise. I promise.”
And then he was asleep, breathing steadily.
Enid sat back and sighed. Rubbed her shoulder, which hurt, a throbbing all the way to the bone. She finally could check the extent of the injury. That whole half of her body ached, but she could rotate the joint and move her arm, wiggle every finger. Nothing was broken. The bruise was going to be beautiful, she guessed. She really ought to get some ice on it, but there was no ice for fifty miles.
Hawk had a coil of rope on him, hanging off his belt. She used this to tie his wrists together, loosely. He’d be able to work his way out of it easily enough, once he came to. But it would slow him down, and maybe make him think twice about coming after her. Still, she’d be looking over her shoulder the whole rest of the walk back to the Estuary. She’d have to warn the settlement too. She hated making Erik right about that, at least. That the folk in the hills might be a danger.
Down to her bones, she wanted to lie here and sleep for a week. This had all been so exhausting.
But she had a lot of miles to go before she was done.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////
Keeping track of time, of landmarks, the ruins of this old road, Enid recognized the clearing with the slabs of broken concrete where she’d convinced her captors to take off the hood. Beyond this point, she was walking blind. She knew the general direction she should go—downhill, and south. But she didn’t know the way.
She didn’t pause to worry about it. She didn’t have time. Kept going in what she hoped was the right direction. Listening for the sound of the creek that would flow into the river that became the Estuary.
Enid thought she made better time coming down from the hills than she had going up, blindfolded and arguing with her captors. It had taken half a day to get to the camp. But she thought she could be back at the Estuary by midafternoon. Assuming she was going the right way.
At noon, with the sun high overhead, the trees were all wrong, the hill was too rocky, and she was a long way from the river, she sensed. She thought she was generally headed in the right direction, that she was a little off. Trying to encourage optimism to overcome the sinking feeling in her gut, she decided not to backtrack and try again—that would just send her in circles. She needed to go south . . . and keep going.
Finally, hours later, trees gave way to open country, out of the woods and down the hill. But there was no sign of settlement, of people.
She came out of the woods far north and west of the Estuary. She’d been traveling at the wrong angle, and this had carried her up the coast. Past a vast field of mud and wetlands, the edge of the ocean shone. It would take an hour of slogging through muck to get to the waves.
Southward, a ridge of land bulged up from the mud flats. From here, it was little more than a smudge of gray, indistinct in the boiling haze. She was pretty sure that was the hill the Estuary settlement was built on. She hadn’t realized she’d traveled so far from the river.
It would take a long, hot trek to get there, and she didn’t have much choice but to get started. Sooner she got back, sooner she could clean all this up. Seemed impossible and amazing, that she might actually get to leave this place.
Distance on these mud flats was deceptive. The ridge she aimed for somehow kept receding. Or her steps were getting slower. Distinct possibility there. She hadn’t brought water with her from the camp, hadn’t had a drink since leaving the stream’s track, and her mouth had become swollen and sticky.
The problem grew worse in the heat of the lowlands. Her shirt and tunic stuck to her, and mud had splashed her trousers up to her knees. Her head pounded from the sun’s glare. She wasn’t sure when the headache had started, but it was getting worse. She wanted her hat.
Would have been better to come down from the hills and find that nice path that led straight to Last House. Of course it would have. But she was probably lucky she’d left the hills in anywhere near the right place. Stubborn as she was, she’d have made it back one way or another. Some days, seemed like being stubborn was all she had.
Well then, she’d have to use it.
But she was tired and thirsty, and this was turning into a hard march. She never seemed to get any closer to that hazy ridge and the settlement. Or she was walking in circles. She was sure it couldn’t have been that, though; the ocean stayed to her right. That should have kept her going in a straight line. Suddenly she couldn’t be sure anything she did was right. The air kept growing hotter, her feet kept sticking to the ground.
She stopped a moment to catch her breath but had trouble pulling air into her lungs. Realized with a shock that if she didn’t keep moving, she might not survive. As long as she was walking, she’d be fine.
But a blackness, full of exhaustion, was collapsing around her vision.
She had trouble seeing the ridge at all anymore, and she definitely couldn’t make out the shape of the bridge over the river, the edges of those houses on the road.
Maybe if she squinted.
Then, she knew she was falling but couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Chapter Nineteen • the estuary
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Mother
Olive’s first pregnancy ended almost before it had begun. She’d been pregnant long enough to know that she was, to confirm the news, to begin planning, celebrating, settling into the new condition. And then it was over, in pain and mess. Enid’s mother, Peri, was the medic who treated her.
Her gray hair pushed back with a headband, Peri was vibrant, had a kind smile and gentle hands. Olive was fine, she determined. Or would be. She insisted this wasn’t unusual.
“I know it’s small comfort, but this is common. This is normal. You’re healthy, you’ll get pregnant again, you’ll have plenty of chances. Rest for now, think about the rest of it later.”
Peri kissed the top of Enid’s head, squeezed her shoulder, and left them at home. Enid heard her speak to Sam and Berol out in the front room, but didn’t hear exactly what they said. She focused on Olive, who’d cried herself out long ago, exhausted but still shuddering with grief.
Miscarriage might be common, but Olive said she could feel the loss inside her, that something had been there and was now gone. Through most of the night they sat in bed, Enid propped against the wall, Olive clinging to her. Enid held her, not really understanding but still aching for her. Aching for the missed chance, and from witnessing a process she couldn’t comprehend.
Enid looked up once to see Sam standing at the doorway, his expression drawn, concerned. Their gazes met—was there anything he could do? She shook her head. No, not at the moment. Sam went to the front room to sit with Berol, who must have been feeling wretched. Berol would take the next shift with Olive, but for now Olive wanted Enid to sit with her, so here she was.
Enid’s arms circled Olive, blanketing her. “You want something to drink? You should drink some water,” Enid said. “Want me to make some tea?”
Olive shook her head, tightened her grip.
“I must be broken,” she choked out. “Am I broken?”
“No, didn’t you hear Peri? She said you’re fine, everything’s going to be fine.”