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a gold cross. She’d also grown weary, and inside her eyes, Lynnie was sure she could see Kate’s smaller self.
    “Do a careful intake,” Uncle Luke was saying. “We have no idea what he did to her.”
    Kate said, “Forty-two is such a gentleman. He wouldn’t do anything.”
    “If he was so trustworthy,” Uncle Luke responded, “he wouldn’t have pulled this stunt.”
    Kate said nothing as Uncle Luke then went on, instructing her on what to do with Lynnie. Lynnie turned and saw Clarence’s gaze on her. She closed her eyes and sucked in her lips.
    Then Lynnie felt a hand on her arm, and she and Kate were moving forward. From behind, she heard, “It seems worth time and a half to me, Doctor.” The door opened and she was outside.
    The clouds had cleared, and constellations gazed down uponthem. Lynnie looked up, and the names came back. Over there was Pony. Down near the horizon was Cup. And right above was the one she loved most, Feather.
    Lynnie reached for Kate’s hand, and they walked. Past the classrooms that never got used, the gym with rusty hoops and a moldy ceiling. They crossed to the next path. The boys’ colony was down the hill on the left, the girls’ on the right. Sometimes she heard high brow boys at night, beating one another, doing vulgar things. Tonight was as quiet as the moon.
    Finally Kate squeezed her hand extra hard. “I was so worried about you,” she said.
    Lynnie looked into Kate’s face. Lynnie longed to tell her,
The baby was coming, and we snuck away, and it hurt, but it felt so good.
She longed to tell about the love she felt for her baby, holding her aloft from the floor of the abandoned bomb shelter where she’d given birth. She longed to tell about the kiss with Buddy in the old lady’s bedroom, the kind of long kiss they’d shared only in the cornfield when the stalks were high enough to hide them. She longed to tell about the walk down the lady’s staircase, the police, Buddy running into the woods.
    But except for those times with Buddy in the cornfields, her mouth had fallen into such disuse, she’d mostly forgotten how to speak. She spoke with drawings—though she wasn’t near any pencils. If only she could speak as well with her hands as Buddy. But only she understood his hands, and even she wasn’t perfect at that.
    “Just tell me if you’re okay,” Kate said.
    Lynnie nodded.
    “Thank goodness. I was just sick with worry.”
    They reached the hospital cottage. Kate mounted the first step. “I asked if you could sleep here tonight, so you’d have one night where I could stay with you, and only you.”
    Lynnie pulled her back down the step.
    “What’s wrong?”
    She pointed to A-3.
    “You really want to go back tonight?”
    It’s where he’ll look for me,
she wanted to say, only she could not. Instead, she nodded.
    “All right,” Kate said. “I’ll get in trouble, but better me than you.”
    They continued on. Past the first cottage with the girls, A-1. Then A-2. Finally, A-3. All along, Lynnie thought of how much harder it would be a second time. They’d planned their escape for the busiest hour, when the staff was herding everyone into bed. She’d slipped out the door, knowing she wouldn’t be missed till later. They’d even packed pillows in her bed—Doreen had helped earlier in the day, saying,
Packed you in there like a mummy.
Now they’d be watching.
    Lynnie and Kate climbed the three steps to the door of the cottage. Of course Kate had to tug at the rusted knob. At last it gave way, and they stepped inside.
    The smell, the smell. The first time Lynnie took it in, she’d tried to run off, and the attendant had caught her, and she’d bit him. It was a smell that got inside your nose and under your eyes and beneath your teeth. A smell so hard to breathe through that some attendants smoked just to taste something else. It made Lynnie sleep with the blanket over her face.
    Kate, if only you knew how good the night smelled when I found the