Black Feathers (15 page)

Then he reached out and grabbed the stack of money that she had left resting on the table.

“Hey,” she said, standing up as he spun away, laughing. Coins sprayed onto the floor.

Frank and Joe laughed after him, and they were gone, out the door, before Cassie could say anything else.

She stood there, just watching, as the door swung shut behind them. Then she knelt on the ground and picked up as many of the coins as she could find.

This time, she opened the door only a crack, holding it tightly against the tug of the wind as she slipped through to the
Please Wait to Be Seated
sign.

Ali was at the back of the restaurant, at the counter. When she noticed Cassie, she smiled and gestured for her to wait.

Cassie focused on her breathing.

Taking care with the little details, focusing on her breath: that attention was all that was keeping her going.

She had almost collapsed on the floor of the McDonald’s that morning. All she had wanted to do was to curl up in a tiny ball on the floor of the restaurant and cry, just cry until everything else stopped. Cry until someone came and took her away again.

That was the thought that had cut through the boiling
flood of grief: not the possibility that they would come and take her away again, but that part of her wanted it so badly.

She did. She wanted to be rescued. She wanted to be taken in somewhere, wanted the cool comfort of the needle under her skin, the sweet weight of the pills on her tongue like candy, the dark, timeless, dreamless sleep.

Part of her wanted that so much.

But she would never let them take her again. She would never be that helpless again.

And it hadn’t really made any difference, had it? Daddy was still dead. Sarah was still dead.

Skylark …

Skylark was still alive. Cassie had to hold it together long enough to make sure she stayed safe. She had to hold it together long enough to get far, far away.

So she had very carefully picked up every coin, digging against the slick floor with her bitten-down nails for every sliver of silver, then she had sat back down at the table, painstakingly counting out everything she had left.

Once. Twice. Three times.

The small pile of change amounted to $9.71 every time.

She spent a long while just staring at the little pile, counting her way through each breath like they had taught her at the hospital: in two three four, hold two three four, out two three four.

When the manager came to tell her that she had to leave, she didn’t say anything. She cleaned up the garbage from her pockets and picked up the empty hot chocolate cup, depositing everything in the garbage can by the front door as she left.

She had spent the rest of the morning on a corner close to the Inner Harbour downtown, far from the courthouse steps where Skylark might find her.

By lunchtime there was a loose scattering of coins that she planned on counting at the restaurant.

Ali waved her over, and Cassie threaded her way through the restaurant. It was busier today, most of the tables full, chairs projecting into the already narrow walkway down the middle.

Ali directed her to the table for two closest to the bar and takeout counter. Cassie set her backpack onto one chair, then sat down in the other, tucked nicely into the corner, with a view of the entire restaurant.

The couple at the table next to her stared at her, their faces wrinkling in distaste before they looked away, shaking their heads as they resumed their conversation.

Cassie focused on her breathing.

“I saw you in the paper this morning,” Ali said as she set a hot chocolate on the table. “Here.” She reached over the counter and put a tattered front section of the
Sentinel
in front of Cassie. “Right here.” She pointed.

The man at the next table glanced between Ali and the newspaper, craning his neck slightly to try to see what the waitress was pointing at.

The photograph on the bottom half of the page had been taken from the corner of the breezeway, close to where the ambulance had been parked. Cassie could see the fountain through the pillars, the small crowd of police officers and technicians and paramedics, all looking toward the fountain itself, a stretcher waiting behind them.

Ali was pointing at the corner of the photo, though, to where, slightly out of focus, a police officer was talking to someone who had her back to the camera.

“That’s you, right?” Ali said. “I thought I recognized the backpack.”

The man’s glance flickered between the newspaper and the bag on the opposite chair.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Cassie said slowly, still looking at the paper. The article was called “Death at Squatter Camp.”

“I thought so.”

Ali stood there for a long moment, then said, “I’ll get you some food,” into the silence.

Cassie only fully realized that Ali had said anything once she was already gone.

As she looked from the door back down to the newspaper, Cassie caught the eye of the woman at the next table. She was staring at her, her lip curled. As she turned back to face the man, she made some comment that Cassie couldn’t quite hear.

Cassie unfolded the newspaper, carefully lining it up in front of her.

There was a headline all the way across the top of the page: “Black Day.” Below it, in smaller print, was the sentence “Fifth murder and death at squatter camp stretches police resources.”

“Are you all right?”

Cassie hadn’t heard Ali come back, and she started at the sound of her voice. “Yeah, of course.”

She leaned against the table. “No, seriously. You don’t seem like yourself today.”

The man glanced up at her, then looked back down at the table when Ali caught his eye. The moment she turned her attention back to Cassie, the man and woman began whispering to each other again.

“Can I help you with anything?” Ali asked, turning partway to the next table.

The man shifted. “No, no. We’re fine.”

“Your food should be right out,” she said, smiling broadly in a way that Cassie knew wasn’t real. “I’ll go check on it now.”

There were a couple of people at the counter paying their bills, and Cassie watched as Ali dodged around them on her way to the kitchen before looking back down at the newspaper.

She didn’t want to lie to Ali, but Cassie couldn’t let anyone get close. She just needed to make it through the next couple of days, then she’d get on a bus and disappear. She had to. And that meant she had to keep people away.

She glanced up reflexively at the sound of the kitchen door swinging, but it was only Hong, carrying a plate in each hand.

He stopped at the far side of the table next to Cassie. “Who’s got the beef and broccoli?”

The man lifted his hand slightly and Hong set the plate down in front of him, sliding the other in front of the woman.

“You’ve got chopsticks there. Do you need anything else?”

The man glanced sharply at the woman, shook his head slightly, and she looked down at her plate.

“Your food should be right out,” Ali said, leaning over to refill Cassie’s water glass.

Cassie didn’t say anything, her face burning under the attention from the couple, who kept glancing at her between mouthfuls.

Ali waited, then turned away.

Cassie watched her as she worked her way around the room, filling glasses, laughing with the customers.

“Here.”

Cassie turned. Hong was standing at the other side of the table, supporting a huge bowl with both hands. “I thought maybe some noodles for you today. Lots of vegetables. Some pork. Chicken. Well”—he smiled—“whatever was in the kitchen,
really. I just threw it all together.”

Cassie’s mouth had been watering since the first smell of the steam. “Oh. That sounds … Thank you.”

Hong slid the bowl in front of her. “You eat. And remember, it’s on the house.” He looked at the couple at the next table, who were trying to look like they weren’t watching. “For you, it’s always on the house.”

Unable to speak, Cassie watched him as he walked away, as the door to the kitchen swung behind him.

“He means it, you know,” Ali said, still holding the pitcher in one hand.

“I know,” Cassie said quietly.

Ali put her other hand on Cassie’s shoulder and squeezed it gently.

Cassie’s first impulse was to lean into the touch or put her hand over the waitress’s. But then she thought of Skylark, and of the sound she had made falling into the snow. The shudder of resistance as she had twisted the knife in Sarah’s throat.

“Thank you,” she said, knowing she would never see Ali, or Hong, again.

It was the warmth of the restaurant, Ali and the way Hong had welcomed her that made Cassie return to the camp that night.

She had planned on avoiding Skylark until she had enough money to leave town, but she knew it would be better if she could talk to her one last time and say goodbye. She took a deep breath, hitched her backpack up and walked into the light.

Skylark was at the far side of the breezeway. As Cassie manoeuvred around people, between groups, muttering, “Excuse
me. Sorry. Excuse me,” she was met mostly with nods of recognition. That made her feel a bit better.

The crowds seemed to part to usher her through to Skylark.

She had no idea how the other girl would greet her, how she would respond to Cassie’s running away that morning without explanation. And she didn’t know how she would respond to Skylark if things—

“Oh my God,” Skylark cried out, dropping her knapsack to the ground and running toward her.

The force of the girl’s hug almost knocked Cassie over, and she had to hold Skylark tightly to keep her balance.

“Are you okay?” she whispered in Cassie’s ear, still holding her tight. “God, where did you go? I was so worried about you. Why …?”

“I’m all right,” she lied. “I’m okay.”

“Where did you go?” Skylark asked, pulling back a little. “Was it something I did? Why did you run away like that? Did I—”

Cassie was stunned to see something she had never seen in Skylark’s face before, a wideness around her eyes, a tightness of her cheeks. It was only there for a moment, but Cassie recognized it instantly: Skylark was afraid. Not for Cassie, though: Skylark was afraid she had done something wrong, that Cassie’s running away had been somehow her fault.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It wasn’t anything you did, I swear. I just had to go.”

“Because you had a bad dream?”

The thought of the dream—of all her dreams—made Cassie feel like she was going to be sick.

“No, it’s got nothing to do with the dreams.”

Neither of them said much as they waited in line at the Outreach van.

Cassie had to deliberately keep her hands in her pockets to fight the desire to bite her fingernails.

She didn’t want to lie to her friend—she knew that if she could tell anyone, it would be Skylark.

But she couldn’t tell anyone. Not even Skylark.

But if she was never going to see her again …

“So,” she started slowly, once they were both finished eating. Cassie, still full from her lunch, had given Skylark her bowl of soup, munching on a dry dinner roll while her friend ate. “I’m sorry for running away this morning,” she said. “I should have said something. I’m sorry for worrying you.”