Return to the Shadows (24 page)

“But what if it does?”

“I can’t stay here,” I reminded him. “Ashley
and I will have to go back to our own world, eventually.”

“Then I’ll go with you and Ashley.”

“You don’t mean that.” I swallowed, not
daring to hope.

“I’ve meant every word I’ve ever said to you.
Every promise.”

“You’d go with us? What about your job here?
The whole ‘warrior of the ruins’ gig—it’s kind of important, you
know.” Honesty dictated I remind him of that, no matter how badly I
wanted to say, “yes, follow us wherever we go.”

“You’re more important.” His answer was
simple.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Just say you won’t disappear.”

“Okay.” I nodded, feeling emotions I’d
thought were only possibly to feel for my child and immediate
family. Protectiveness, pride…love.

After the steak and two glasses of wine, Mark
offered his hand to me for the second time that evening.

“Will you have a real dance with me,
Claire?”

“Of course.” I followed him to a big maple
tree that was lit by a thousand tiny golden lights and we danced
underneath its lush canopy.

“You were amazing tonight.”

“So were you.”

And with that, the night melted away.

***

I woke to the sound of birdsong and Marta
moaning and groaning about drunks. The first thing I noticed was
that sitting up took considerably more effort than I was used to;
the second revelation came in the form of grass wet with morning
dew plastered to my backside. We were outside. Mark lay next to me,
quiet and still and staring down at me with the hint of a smile
forming on his mouth.

“Hey you.”

“Good morning. I think,” I told him, wincing
and trying to sit up for several long, embarrassing moments.
Finally, I was forced to admit defeat and execute a most unladylike
turn and roll, climb to my knees, then lean back into a crouch
before finally standing up. Mark, damn him, didn’t suffer any such
issues with his own mobility. All he had to do was bend at the
waist and push off the ground and he was on his feet. Then again,
he was probably in better physical shape than I was, though I was
in better than average shape myself. Yesterday’s excursion must
have taken more out of me than I’d realized.

“Sore?” he asked, doing a slow perusal of my
hunched over form. Then to Marta, “We aren’t drunk, or suffering
the after-effects. Claire and I fell asleep out here, looking at
the stars and talking.”

“Who falls asleep in the backyard?” Marta
shook her head, bending to retrieve a forest-green cloth napkin
that had blown off the table sometime during the night before.

“People who gaze at the stars under a full
moon, people in love,” Mark told her, grinning like a fool.

“Uh-huh. I’m sure all that went on out here
last night was star gazing. No, no don’t tell me. Mark, don’t you
dare tell me,” the old woman warned as Mark opened his mouth to
reply.

“I could really use a cup of coffee,” I broke
in before the intimate details of my love life could be spilled all
over the backyard in front of the woman who was, for all intents
and purposes, Mark’s mother.

“Where’s Ashley?” I asked, feeling a little
guilty for falling asleep under the stars and, if the sun being
high in the clear blue sky was any indication, sleeping in while
other people took care of my little girl.

“She’s in the kitchen with Sienna. They’re
drawing pictures together.”

“Thanks,” I said a bit sheepishly.

“What are you thanking me for? I told you Bob
and I would take care of her.”

“The other child’s name is Sienna?” Mark
asked as we followed Marta through the back door and into the
brightly lit kitchen.

“So she tells us. What are we going to do
with her?” She lowered her voice, glancing pointedly at the pair of
dark-haired children seated at the butcher-block table, a small
array of colored charcoal pencils and two big sheets of paper
between them.

“Hi Mama, hi Mark!” Ashley chirped without
taking her eyes off the picture she was so diligently working
on.

“Claire and I need to talk to the child,”
Mark murmured, taking my hand and approaching the small table.
Marta seemed to fade into the background, and from the corner of my
eye I noticed her take out several mixing bowls and a large tin of
flour.

“Sienna?” Mark knelt down to address our
newest charge, sighing when she all but jumped from her seat in
response. “My name is Mark and this is Claire.”

“I’m Ashley’s mom.”

“We need to talk to you, Sienna. Will you
come into the study with us?”

Several tense, drawn out moments passed, and
just when I was sure the child would refuse to go down the hall
with us, let alone into the study, Ashley leaned close to her
newfound friend and threw one tiny arm around the girl.

“It’s okay, Seena. My mom’s really nice, and
Mark is going to be my daddy someday. They won’t hurt you.”

The heartfelt honesty in the reassurance,
especially coming from another child, seemed to break through the
last vestiges of resistance that Sienna was so obviously struggling
with. She scooted her chair back and stood awkwardly in front of
us. Mark and I shared a glance—she still refused to look directly
at either one of us. What had been done to this child before we had
found her? The possibilities were wrenching to consider.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone touch your
paper,” Ash promised, though who was even around to touch the
half-finished picture of a sharp-fanged stick figure was beyond me.
With a final glance at the crudely drawn but grisly portrait, I
turned to follow Sienna and Mark into the study.

Sienna broke into a full run the minute she
entered the room and the door closed behind the three of us, not
stopping until she reached the sofa that bordered one wall. It was
there that she plunked herself down, drew her knees up to her
chest, and finally dared to look at us. The wary expression in her
dark gray eyes nearly broke my heart, and a quick backward glance
at Mark told me that he was affected in much the same way. That we
would have to proceed cautiously with this one went without
saying.

“Mark?”

“Maybe it would be better if you start,” he
said with a nod.

“Sienna, dear, you’re safe here. I promise
that no one will hurt you. We only want to talk with you, so that
we can figure out where you came from and where you belong. Will
you talk with us?” I asked the girl, keeping my voice light and
easy and pulling one of the high-backed chairs over to the couch.
Behind me, Mark did the same, but positioned his a good couple of
feet further from the sofa than mine.

“Do you have any parents?” I questioned,
forging ahead when Sienna remained woefully silent.

“Yes.”

“Oh.” I sat back, surprised for some reason.
I guess I had expected the girl to have spoken up by now, to Ashley
if not to us, if she had a mother and a father waiting for
her...somewhere. If she had been stolen, as we had initially
suspected.

“Well...they must be missing you like crazy
right about now,” I said.

Mark frowned when Sienna merely shrugged and
continued to look miserable.

“Maybe they miss me.”

“Oh...” What was going on here?

“How did you end up at the auction?” I asked,
trying another approach, though I wasn’t sure if she was old enough
to know that she’d been bound for the auction last night or be able
to connect the dots and fully comprehend what that meant.

“My mom put me in it.”

Okay, so apparently she did know what I was
talking about. And what kind of mother volunteered her own child
for something like that? Somehow, I managed to suppress the rage
that swept through my entire being like a hot flash from hell. One
look at Mark’s stony expression told me we might not be so lucky to
get the same silent acceptance from him. I shot him a warning
glance, one which I could only hope said “don’t start ranting and
scare the kid—at least not while she’s still in the room” before
promptly turning my attention back to the little girl.

“Why would your mother put you in the
auction?”

“She said it was time to earn a living, like
her.”

Like her, I thought, stunned. So Sienna’s mom
had been one of Lydia’s girls, then. I took a moment to digest that
one.

“Do you know what your mother does for a
living?” Mark asked in a voice that was at direct odds with the
murderous rage in his eyes.

“Mark,” I muttered under my breath. “Too
far.” But Sienna answered anyway, eyes downcast.

“Yes.”

“I see,” Mark nodded, looking thoroughly
disgusted now.

“What about your father?” I had to ask, even
though I felt that we could safely assume the answer to that
particular question. It would be a miracle if the child knew who
her father was. Then again, maybe the true miracle would be if she
didn’t know her father. After hearing about the mother, it was
almost scary to contemplate who Sienna’s dad might have been,
assuming he was still alive, and that was if we could find him, or
the mother for that matter. What a mess.

“I don’t know.” She answered much as we
anticipated, and I nearly breathed a sigh of relief. One less
problem to worry about.

“Okay,” Mark sighed and scrubbed a hand over
his face. “That’s all we needed to know. You can go back to the
kitchen now, if you’d like.”

“Yeah,” I chimed in, trying for a positive
tone. “I think I smell cookies baking.”

“Okay...what’s going to happen to me?”

“We’re going to talk about that, I promise,”
Mark told her, kneeling once more so that he was at eye level with
the girl. “Claire and I need to discuss a few things first. But I
don’t want you to worry about anything. No matter what happens, we
will make sure that you’re very well taken care of. And safe.”

The answer seemed to satisfy her, and she
walked from the room, shoulders slumped but looking less terrified
than when she’d come in, and that was something, I figured. Right
then, we would take any improvement that we could get, no matter
how small.

The minute that we heard Sienna’s footsteps
moving down the hall, and the subsequent return of normal
conversation in the kitchen, both Mark and I allowed the our polite
masks to fall away and proceeded to curse like sailors.

“Do you believe this?”

“That a prostitute would allow her child to
be sold to the sex trade?” Mark slammed his palm against the wall.
“Yeah, a real surprise.”

“I don’t know what’s more disturbing, that
she sold the girl or that she was willing to work beside her, so to
speak. What the hell?”

“I wish I knew, Claire. The whole thing is
disgusting.”

“Yeah.” I couldn’t have agreed more. “But
what are we going to do now?”

“Find her mother. If we can.”

“You mean if she wants to be found,” I
muttered.

“Yes.” The word was clipped.

“Okay, so what are we going to do if we find
this woman?” Not that I particularly wanted to hear the answer to
that question. But since Sienna was our responsibility, even
temporarily, then it stood to reason we should have a plan.

“We try and get her to tell us who the girl’s
father is, assuming she knows.”

“And what if this...this woman wants Sienna?
What if she wants to take her away?”

“I highly doubt that’s likely to happen.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Think back to last night, Claire. When we
entered the kitchen.”

“No one tried to go to Sienna.” The light
dawned and my heart bled a little more for the girl.

“That’s right,” Mark said bitterly. “And from
the time I picked her up to the time we arrived back here, she
didn’t act as though she recognized anyone in particular.”

“And she would surely know most of the women
who worked for Lydia, but if she had seen her mother, she would
have tried to run to her, or call out...something.”

“Right. So it’s probably a pretty safe bet
that Sienna’s mother wasn’t in the building; it’s possible she
didn’t work for Lydia, then.”

“True.” I bit my lip.

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for that woman,
Claire. She made her choices, just like everybody else.”

“I know, but—” But it was hard not to feel
sad.

“She sold her own child,” Mark reminded me,
taking hold of my arm.

“I know.” I nodded, the remorse fading a
little.

“No regrets?”

“No.” I managed a smile. “I guess not.”

“You guess not?”

“None about you, anyway.” I swiftly changed
the subject. “How’s that?”

“I’ll take it. For now.”

“What happens next?”

“We could get married,” he suggested
casually, though his gaze was fastened on mine.

“Just like that, huh? You aren’t going to get
down on one knee? Recite a poem? Something?” I teased at his blank
look.

“Is that how it’s done in your world?”

“No, only in books,” I laughed, throwing both
arms around his neck.

“Is that a yes?” He buried his face in my
hair, inhaling long and slow and deep.

“Yes,” I confirmed.

“I can recite a poem, if you still want me
to,” he offered.

“Hmmm…tempting, but maybe later. What do you
say we just go tell the rest of the family instead?”

“I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t we elope
today?”

“Elope?” I croaked, pulling away from him.
“That’s a joke, right?”

“I’m dead serious, Claire,” he murmured,
tracing my bottom lip with one finger. “Let’s do it. Today. Right
now.”

“But…I don’t have a dress.” The words were
absurd, I knew, especially when weighed against everything else.
Little insignificant things like getting married without my
daughter—or my brother and sister and parents…I realized, shocked
and a little shamed that it must have sounded to Mark that my loved
ones had just been ousted in my personal ranking by a dress.