The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [63]
This time the man who came out had a weapon in his hand, a mas-sive shotgun. I pressed my fingers more firmly into the warm face and saw him walk out into the yard, under the tree that had held us ten seconds earlier, and look up at the lighted window. He shouted into the house, “She’s not come out, Owen. The window’s tight shut.” I could not make out the answer from within, drowned out as it was by the angry shouts in the road, but the man walked towards us a few feet and peered up into the tree. The child and I breathed at each other and listened to each other’s heart beat wildly, but she made no noise, and I did not move a hair for fear of rattling the chain or causing my spectacles to flash in the light from the kitchen. The man walked around for two or three minutes until a voice called at him from the house (It was quieter, I realized.) and he went inside. Immediately the door closed I snatched up child and boots, swung Jessica around piggy-back, and trotted down the rough verge in my bare feet.
“You’re doing fine, Jessica, just stay quiet and we’ll have you out of here. Those men out in front are our friends, though they may not know it yet. We’ve got to hide very quietly for a little while until the police can get here, and then you’ll see your parents. All right?”
I could feel her nod against my neck. I could also feel the rag doll, squashed between us. I moved rapidly ahead of the noisy mob (which was indeed beginning to break up), holding the chain and bed leg se-curely so as not to rattle. I kept to the blackest shadows, but when I looked back, against the glow from the house I saw an arm wave in wild salute from the midst of the carolers. Holmes had seen us; the rest was up to him.
I stopped at the caravan just long enough to gather blankets and food, and took the child back along the road and up a dimly seen hill. My eyes had been in the dark long enough to distinguish vague shapes, and I stopped under a tree and let her slide to the ground. Keeping one hand in light contact with her shoulder I eased my spine, then turned to sit up against the trunk, pulling her, unresisting and unresponsive, onto my lap, blankets around us both.
The relief was overwhelming, and I could only sit, shivering with reaction and with the drying sweat that had soaked my clothes. I was struck by the sudden vision of the expressions on those men’s faces when they managed to open the door, and began to giggle. Jessica stiffened, and I forced the incipient hysteria down, took a deep breath, and another, and murmured into her ear.
“You’re safe now, Jessica, completely safe. Those men cannot find you now. We’re just going to wait here for a while until the police come for them, and then your parents will come to take you home. Let’s wrap this rug around you so you don’t get cold. Are you hungry?” I felt her head shake side to side. “Right. Now, we’ll have to stop talk-ing and be still, as still as baby deer in the woods, all right, Jessica? I’ll stay with you, and your doll is here now. By the way, my name is Mary.”
She greeted this with silence, and I pulled the rugs around us, put my back against the tree, and waited. The thin body in my arms slowly relaxed, gradually went loose, and eventually, to my amazement, dropped off to sleep. I listened to the last sounds of the beery men re-turning home, and after half an hour several cars came swiftly up the road. Distant yells, two shots (the child twitched in her sleep), and then silence. An hour later came the sound of solitary footsteps on the road, and the light of a lantern through the trees.
“Russell?”
“Here, Holmes.” I took the hand torch from the basket of food and flashed it. He climbed the hill and stood looking down at us. I could not read his expression.
“Holmes, I’m sorry if I—” I began, but the simple and immediate plea for understanding was not to be, for Jessica woke at my voice and cried out at the sight of Holmes in the lamplight, and I moved quickly