"Whoa there, Half-Pint!"
Nicole Haught couldn't say whether it was her sister-in-law's shout, or her niece crashing through the kitchen door that startled her. Either way, she'd put down the orange juice carton and began to mop up her spill by the time Alice's arm's encircled her waist. Wynonna came in within a second of her daughter, slamming her torso against the door, and then kicking it to give herself space to navigate inside carrying an armload of groceries.
"Not exactly what 'hold the door' means, kid," she chastised Alice, who kept her hold on Nicole and hopped along while she moved forward to take some of the groceries from Wynonna.
"'Whoa' is for horses," Alice said. "But the horses are Pet 'n' Patty. Half-Pint is Laura's nickname."
Both the child's matter-of-factness and the baffled expression on Wynonna's face made Nicole glad she hadn't managed to pour her juice, because she was free to give into laughter rather than worrying about snorting it out of her nose, which happened far more often than she expected with Alice around.
"Forgot Waverly actually started reading those to you," Wynonna said, yanking a tub of ice-cream hard enough to rip the paper-bag she'd put on the counter. "She talk mention how messed up the pioneer thing actually was?"
"Our un-ncestors were squatting," Alice responded, using a stool to climb up on the counter and start unloading the other bag straight out of Nicole's hold.
"Good enough." Wynonna picked up the orange-juice carton Nicole had abandoned and took a long drink from the spout. "To Wyatt, Ward, and all the un-cestors that came before, eh, Haught?"
Whenever Wynonna made a proclamation like this, Nicole felt torn between her gratitude for everything that'd brought her to this point in her life, and her hatred for every fiber of every being who'd caused the shadows she caught in both Wynonna and Waverly's eyes, All she could do was snatch the carton back, make a point of adding to the glass she'd gotten halfway through pouring, and toasting her.
She'd almost swallowed when a noise of triumph from next to her left ear made her start. Wynonna thwacked her on the back as she choked, and orange juice splashed on the front of her white t-shirt.
"Careful, Aunt Nicole," Alice chided, sliding to the floor with a package in her hands. "Don't drink too fast, it goes down the wrong hole."
In the two years since Alice returned to them, Wynonna had developed a whole new collection of expressions that managed to convey the words in her head without giving them to her daughter to repeat. The yeah, Aunt Nicole, was probably the one Nicole saw the most. Frankly, Nicole was surprised Alice hadn't picked up the look, because it absolutely belonged to a five-year-old, and it made her want to stick her tongue out in response, which defeated the whole purpose of a silence Wynonna couldn't have an easy time maintaining. Her go-to solution was focus on her niece.
"Whatcha got, Ali?"
"A horse." Alice held up the box to Wynonna, who automatically put down the box of coffee grounds she was shelving, and slipped her nail under the tape holding the flap closed.
Nicole did the books for the Homestead, insomuch as a household mostly funded by a covert cross-border government agency had books. She knew that Wynonna ate cereal for dinner about a third of the time, because she could forget to feed herself while still feeding someone else. That the addition they'd build to hold Alice, and Rachel when she wasn't off at Big City University hadn't affected their solvency—even when they'd had the foundation redone to allow Rosita to step onto the land. It still sometimes made her question the frequency with which "a trip to the grocery store" ended in going into Allenbach Toys 'n' Games two storefronts down.
It wasn't that Alice was spoiled. More that she lived under the care of a collection of adults who were afraid 'no' would be the last word she heard from them. Nicole had to admit that it wasn't Wynonna who fell victim to those blue eyes the most frequently. Doc did his bit, whenever his quest to break his own curse brought him this way, but he'd grown up privileged. Denying his kid probably didn't cross his mind.
Nicole had tried to suggest that a better option might be to stay and spend time with her, but Doc had simply said, "I am a wanderer by nature, Deputy. Wynonna understands this. In time, Alice will, too."
No, it wasn't Alice's wayward daddy who agreed to whatever she asked before she could ask the question. It was Waverly. The couple of times the subject came up, her wife admitted to it readily enough.
"I used to get so stressed out asking Gus and Curtis for stuff," she'd said, one night when Alice presented Nicole with a drawing of the newly-expanded house done with crayons from an art-kit she couldn't lift. "And they never minded. I used to think Curtis was a mind-reader, because I'd see something while we were out, and he'd come home with it the next day. Also…" She'd nestled closer to Nicole in bed, sliding her hands under Nicole's arm the way she did any time her fingers started to get cold. "I didn't have much, you know? When we left. Most things I called mine were hand-me-downs, and not worth packing up.
"Nonna had to leave so much. Her whole life. And until we came back…" She shrugged, the bonus blanket falling from her shoulder, and Nicole tugged it up again. "We're the second place Alice has been told is her home. I never want her to think she doesn't belong here, you know? That she's not ours, and…we're not hers."
"She knows, baby," Nicole said. "I get it, though."
Her own parents always provided for her materially, but she hadn't fit in with them. There were whispers, after the music festival, about how haunted she seemed. They went with the same don't-talk-about-it philosophy that the McReadys had gone with, but it wasn't her they silenced. It was themselves. They stopped responding to her cries at night. Didn't ever mention her aunt and uncle. Eventually, Nicole thought she made it all up. Then, she forgot.
She didn't know which was worse, but since the memory surfaced, she understood a lot more about what drew her to the Earps.
Even if they sometimes acted like a herd of wild horses.
Wynonna finished undoing all the twist-ties and tape holding Alice's new toy captive in its box, and Alice more or less flung herself off the counter and grabbed it in one movement, knocking Nicole's glass out of her hand. It landed in the sink, but a few more drops of orange juice flew out.
"Sorry!" Alice said, galloping in a circle around the room. Nicole could remember days when she'd walked on cat's feet, uncertain about her place, and used to living with an older woman who encouraged caution. Now, she moved first and dealt with consequences later.
It fit her personality much better.
"There's a box of those in the attic, sweets," Wynonna called. "Hold on, and we'll get together a whole stable."
Nicole didn't ask why they'd bought that one, if Wynonna knew where to find its thirty-year-old brethren. Sometimes, she found two copies of a picture book floating around, only one with ALICE written in crayon on the endpapers.
"Need to wash that shirt before you go back up there?" Wynonna asked.
Nicole dropped the sponge she'd been half-heartedly scrubbing down the front of her shirt. "Shit."
"She still getting sick?"
"Only from smells. S'why I came in here to have breakfast."
"And here I thought you just enjoyed our presence," Wynonna said, with a wink. Nicole rolled her eyes. In truth, she was more likely to find herself in the main kitchen, rather than eating in the kitchenette upstairs. "Those quiet mornings with your beloved are going to be a thing of your past for the next eighteen years or more. Better enjoy 'em while you can."
She had a point.
Having a baby had never been something Nicole cared much about, and while doing her degree she'd gathered more and more doubts about bringing a new person into this world. It seemed more ethical to take in kids who needed it. Protect and serve, right? She was in it to protect, but she wasn't naive. People in her field did a lot of damage. In a way, fighting the supernatural gave her a chance to avoid being a cog in the machine, but she had been. She'd been part of the means, whether she approved of the ends or not. The eighteen months she spent with Rachel only made her more sure that would be her path; she could never make up for the parenting the girl missed out on, but she hoped she'd kept her from having to go out in the world believing she could only rely on herself.
Waverly, though, had twenty-one years of heterosexual, heteronormative daydreams behind her coming into their relationship. She'd been all in favor of getting them registered as foster parents, making up a binder to prepare for the home-study, and stocking the closets with anything they might need if they got a call in the middle of the night.
But Nicole saw the way she looked as they passed by the newborn clothes in the store. It took a while to get her to admit anything, through their first placement, Hector, a seven-year-old boy who'd been reunited with his dad after a month of running around the Homestead with Alice. During one of the evenings where quiet still felt unnatural, Nicole had been building up the fire, more for something to do than anything else, and she'd noticed the pause in the sound of Hot Wheels landing in the bin Waverly had been filling to put back on the shelf in the extra room. It was anyone's guess whether they'd next be taken down by Alice or by a pair of hands they hadn't seen yet.
"You okay, babe?" she'd asked. When Waverly hadn't responded, Nicole had had to force herself to take care with the rest of the task. Her need to comfort her wife had a life of its own, but she also knew if she took too long, Waverly would put the lid on whatever it was, and sealed it as tightly as the plastic box in her hands.
When she'd finally been able to turn, she'd found Waverly sitting cross-legged on the center of the couch, turning a red car over and over in her hands. "I loved having Hec with us," she said, using Wynonna's nickname for the boy, which they'd all picked up when it was the first thing that made him smile. "I thought letting him go would break me. It is horrible. I'm going to miss him so much, but knowing we made sure he had love while his dad got things together…." Her smile made her face light up, in spite of the sadness in her eyes. "I want to keep doing that. I do.
"I also want to have a baby."
Waverly had perfect posture; especially in comparison with her sister's, and so when every disc in her spine seemed to sink, Nicole knew how long she'd been holding onto those words.
"I thought I was being selfish, for a good while." she added, probably knowing Nicole had come to that conclusion. "That I had inherent biases about what makes a family. I mean, I spent the first six years of my life thinking being an Earp made me somehow superior, then I found out I'm not. That my daddy's an angel, which I'm pretty sure means I don't have any half-siblings on his side running around."
She smirked, and Nicole remembered overhearing her and Wynonna talking about it once; if what their mom had with Julian was unique or not. Their conclusion had been that time moved so differently in other planes that it was unlikely for their to be other "angelic by-blows" whose lifetimes overlapped Waverly's.
"And it's not like I don't know that any kid comes with their own issues. I mean…." She waved her hands in a jazz-hand motions. "Angelic DNA, and I've got genetic disorders, right? So… Intellectually I always knew that was dumb, but maybe I didn't feel it, you know?"
Still crouched on the hearth, Nicole nodded.
"But Hec…. I knew he wouldn't stay for long, and I loved him from the start. Even though he came to us screaming, in the middle of a thunderstorm…. I felt it. Comforting him was my responsibility, because for however long he was with us, he was mine. Any kid we bring into our home is going to be ours." She held Nicole's gaze, her expression fierce, like Nicole had challenged her on the topic and she was laying out her argument. In another world, one none of them had encountered, her wife was an incredible social justice lawyer.
"Maybe it's the angel thing, in a way. Or being on my own with Gus and Curtis. Wynonna thinks we had totally different lives, after Ward. I think she sees it like she became the misunderstood orphan sent into foster-care, and I got the caring parents I'd never had. I let her think that.
"I love Gus," she added. "She and Curtis did everything for me, but…. They didn't plan on having kids. She must've talked about it with Mama while I was there, because I don't remember finding that out. I just knew. Then, they let Wynonna go into care…. I overheard that, too. They didn't…. They could've fought for her, you know? She was twelve; she was traumatized; and…. I didn't understand how they thought they were protecting me. I mean, how could that be helping either of us? I still don't…." Waverly ran the car along her arm. "Wynonna had her reasons for not telling me her plan for Alice. I would've had plenty of objections, yeah. But I don't think they would've been the ones she expected." She swallowed, and drew herself up again. "Compared to what she went through, I had things so much better. If she'd asked if I thought Alice would have a better life with Gus… I would've said 'no.'" Her eyes widened, like she'd surprised herself with her words. Nicole wondered if saying them aloud was the first time she'd let herself accept that she thought them.
"Daddy would take Willa out to train, and Wymona would sneak out to follow, and I'd rock my baby dolls to sleep and tell myself when I was a grown-up, I'd have a baby, and that baby would be wanted. So wanted. They'd never have to be alone. I'd never have to be alone."
"Waves," Nicole breathed.
"Being with Champ didn't make that feeling go away, which… God, Nicole, what if I'd stayed with him? If I'd have a kid who knew they were there because their mom didn't fit in the niche she'd made for herself? That's not true, now. I'm not Purgatory's favorite anymore. Not the way they all used to think. I've found my place. But I just…maybe it's genetic. I just…."
Nicole dropped from the crouch onto her knees and scooted across the carpet until she could reach Waverly and put her hands on her knees. "Okay," she said. "We can do it. We'll have a baby, and keep fostering, if that's what you want."
"I know." Waverly said, and the way her confidence underscored the assertions she'd made about coming into herself made Nicole burst into laughter. This made Waverly laugh, too, but it was a wet laugh. Tears were coursing down her face.
"Baby, it's okay. More than okay." Nicole took Waverly's hands and brought them closer to kiss her knuckles.
"I'm so scared, though. I think I'll be able to show that my wanting and loving are equal. But what if…. Wynonna…. A couple of her worst homes were the ones that already had other kids."
The segue, or rather the lack of one, threw Nicole for a moment. Then she realized why Waverly started the conversation the way she had. "Waves, that's not…." Not us. Not how it's going to be. Not, not, not. Nicole knew what it was to feel disconnected from parents who were one-hundred percent biologically hers, and she knew she wouldn't let anyone in her life believe they weren't wanted or accepted.
She didn't think Waverly was capable of it.
As Nicole assumed, Waverly had already done her research. She knew the best IVF clinic in the Big City, and although they chose a donor together, she definitely fine-tuned the system. Waverly had gotten pregnant on their first go, which Wynonna claimed was a sign of abnormal fertility in their generation.
"I mean, it's not like Doc's swimmers should've been good after centuries in a well," she'd pointed out. Her enthusiasm about the whole thing had surprised Waverly, but not Nicole. She'd seen it when Wynonna was pregnant with Alice, and even the way she looked after Waverly.
Sometimes Nicole felt like she gave Wynonna something similar to what she'd given Rachel, but her tendency to parent were nothing compared to Wynonna's instinct to mother.
As if to emphasize Nicole's thoughts, Alice neighed loudly as she made another pass with her horse, and Wynonna whinnied back.
"Which one of you was the horse girl?" Nicole asked, and Wynonna gave her a side glance that made Nicole sure that WYNONNA would be written across those horses' bellies with Sharpie.
"Our family had a ranch," she replied, nodding her head toward Alice. "What do you think caused this?"
"Gus got the horses?"
"Yup." Wynonna confirmed. "Lessons start in the spring."
"Auntie Gus is gonna teach me to ride!" Alice confirmed. "Right, Mama? Jus' like she taught you an' Aunt Waverly!"
"Yeah, sweets." Wynonna caught Alice up, mid-gallop, and the little girl squealed. "Just like that."
Nicole watched Wynonna take up Alice's path, tromping around the room. She knew Wynonna had been worried about bringing Alice back, but she hoped it wasn't something she questioned anymore.
The next time she tucked her niece in, she'd be sure to tell her another Wynonna the Heir story. It was her way of making sure Alice knew how much her mama fought for her.
"Whatcha reading?"
Wynonna sat up on her bed, pressing her hand against her heart while keeping a finger stuck in the spine to hold her place. "Fucking Jesus, Waverly."
Her baby sister crawled onto the end of the bed, dragging two blankets behind her. "Those are grown-up words."
"Jesus ain't," Wynonna argued, unable to stop staring at how long Waverly's limbs had gotten. Even her feet had stretched. Gus and Curtis must have taken her for sneakers, all by herself. It'd probably been way; better than having one bored sister toss flip-flops at you, and the other go back and forth between brands, and price, and shape, and rating. Waverly's new shoes were pink-sparkly slip-ons. Wynonna thought she needed to be practicing as much as possible, but Waverly's Occo—Octupa—OT said it was better to pick her battles. She practiced tying in OT with a laced block of wood.
"It's lots less stressful, Nonna," Waverly had explained while Wynonna watched her get ready for school. She'd gotten out of St. Vic's on a Thursday, and her "careteam" said she should wait until Monday, prepare herself. A.K.A. give us time to let folks know what happens if they provoke the crazy girl. That wouldn't feed their superiority complex, at all.
She showed Waverly the cover of the book, holding it out flat. Waverly took the letters one by one, and Wynonna desperately waited to read it to her. It was just a title. But that was exactly it. Big distances in small steps, or whatever.
"Lit-tle... House in the Duh...No, buh, Big Woods." She slid her finger under each letter as she read, sometimes covering the next one to avoid confusing the lines. Wynonna wished she'd been reading something with more distinct letters in the title. The Harry Potter titles had long words, but less letters that tricked her sister up.
Wynonna couldn't decide if it was better to know what would snare you in advance, or to get caught in less frequent, random, traps.
"Do I remember that book?"
Waverly'd come up with that strange way of asking Wynonna to confirm her memories. Forcing her to replace the demons with bad men in her mind probably made her doubt everything. Made Wynonna glad she'd just told her to keep her mouth, not her mind, shut. She'd tried, anyway. Pinching her any time the D-word came up had been about word choice. Turned out it was an operant conditioning technique; thanks for the Psych lessons Sister Gert. Waverly might not have realized she wasn't trying to correct her thoughts, too.
Or Waverly had spent six months surrounded by adults who were trying to correct her thoughts, and she trusted them to know the truths of the world better than the crazy sister, who was just as absent as Mama, Daddy, and Willa.
It was good for her to forget the Revenants. She'd never have to deal with them again. Wynonna would make sure of it. She'd pretend Daddy's warnings were stories that hadn't been appropriate for a little girl—they fucking hadn't—even if the denial played merry hell with her own mind; made her wonder if "bad men" really should replace "demon," and she'd invented those red eyes to convince herself Daddy wasn't insane.
No. Maybe their whole family had been caught in a web of Ward Earp's delusions; maybe Mama got all wrapped up like a trapped fly, and it cost them Willa, but Wynonna knew her memories of that night were real. She knew when her dreams morphed them into something else.
At St. Vic's she'd tried to accept the official version. They told it enough; replacing every detail she gave them with a more mundane option. Telling it to her, making her tell it back. (Didn't that make them guilty of the crime they pinned on Daddy?)
On days when she felt particularly detached, she could make their version overlap hers, Roger Rabbit-style. Human eyes haloed with red like a double exposed photo. On her saner days, she couldn't manage that. It was like when Daddy tried to record Cops onto Mama's VHS of a Grateful Dead concert; she'd broken off the tab that made it impossible to overwrite, no matter how many times you shoved it into the programmed VCR.
Whether it'd been Wynonna's pinching or the adult's prodding, something had worked on Waverly. She had always been better at cutting and pasting. Wynonna was envious of her skill, but not really jealous the way she should've been. Deep down, she wanted to hold onto every part of her family. She owed it to Daddy and Willa to remember what mattered to them. Whatever ended up being true, the legacy was hers now. Her sweet baby sister could live cleansed of the doubt and the demons.
In that light, it made sense that Waverly questioned her memories. A lot of their lives were wrapped up in the curse, and Wynonna knew she didn't "go color" or "run off and play" a quarter of the times she was told to do so. Wynonna would have to filter the stories she told, kinda like they did about Mama.
Mama, who was basically a concept to her youngest girl, crafted from a few memories that stood out. One day, Daddy would be, too. And Willa... Willa would think Wymonna was being too soft. Too wrapped up in Waverly. Let her remember what she remembers, she'd say. But didn't trauma happen because bad memories had staying power? Shouldn't she be doing what she could to protect her sister from that, the same way she'd tried to protect her from Ward? Watching Waverly examine the cover illustration of the Laura Ingalls Wilder book, Wynonna wondered how she'd respond when Waverly asked her to confirm a less innocent memory. Would she lie? Could she tell her the truth, demons and all, and let her believe what she wanted? Even if that meant believing Wynonna, or Daddy, or all of 'em were crazy?
"You might, kinda," Wynonna said, though until then she'd have said Waverly wouldn't have detailed memories from that long ago. "Mama read a different one of the series to Willa and me."
Maybe it'd been around the time of Willa's turn in seventh grade English. She hadn't had Mrs. Hanson, but that didn't mean much. Mercedes's mom was on the school board, and apparently a class-set for most schools outfitted a whole grade in Purgatory.
"We'd go consolidated, but no one likes the idea of putting kids on a bus going all over the Triangle," Mercedes told her once, in a tone that meant she was totally repeating Mrs. Gardner. "They got close in 'ninety-three. Had the land and everything, over about twenty kilometers closer to Big City. Then that thing happened, with those kids on the field trip? Anyway, it made Purgatory jumpy about sending their kids farther away, and no one else wanted to send theirs anywhere near here."
"Don't blame 'em," Wynonna said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. Daddy's account of the demon production of The Nutcracker had been particularly gruesome.
So, Purgatory Junior High all read the same books, and with bitches like Bunny Ludlow making herself a one-woman censorship committee, the teachers likely didn't have much to choose from. Or maybe assigned reading didn't have anything to do with it at all. Mama had always read to them at night. A lot of the time the books were Waverly's choice, because she was Waverly, but every few weeks Mama would bring home a chapter-book. She only ever read one per night, no matter how much Wynonna protested.
"If you don't finish the story the same day you start it, you always have something to look forward to," she'd said.
Wynonna had dealt with her impatience by flipping through the pages they'd already read, careful not to let the bookmark slip out.
Now, she thought she might have been the only one really listening, to Mama and to the book. One night in particular, she remembered Mama closing it, and staring at the cover for a long time. Waverly had climbed into a laundry basket and was insisting on playing covered wagon. Willa's enthusiastic offer to push her had Wynonna keeping one eye on them sliding across the floor, but she kept the other on Mama. With the fire behind her, she looked like a shadow sitting there in the rocking chair. It felt like a long time ago that her face had shone with determination as she sang along with the stereo, doing everything she could to block out the exhilarated howl of newly-risen demons.
She finally placed the book on the mantel, and jumped when she met Wynonna's gaze. "Something wrong?"
Wynonna shrugged. "You looked sad, is all."
"Oh, Nonna." Mama let out a long breath and cupped Wynonna's cheek, her thumb softly tracing her dimple. "I was just thinking how when I was your age, I wanted to have Laura's adventures, and the life I ended up with is Caroline's."
Wynonna bit her lip, and Mama tapped it before moving her hand. The cries of "yeehaw, horsey," and "whoa!" from Waverly had become a less intelligible mix of sounds, and when her volume increased suddenly, Mama's head jerked up to look over Wynonna's shoulder.
"Willa Earp, you be gentle!"
"I asked if she wanted an unbroken horse or not," Willa said.
It was hard for Wynonna not to go over and intercede, but Mama had picked up Waverly and was pointing Willa to the stairs for her shower. Wynonna climbed into the rocking chair and took down the book. The cover only showed Laura and Mary, and it wasn't the first time Wynonna had seen herself and Willa in their places.
Unlike most of the books Mama read them, Wynonna knew what happened in this one. They had a tape of TV movie they made combining the first couple books. She used to act out being Laura while it played, since the three Ingalls girls were about the same number of years apart as the Earps. That'd been around the time Willa started saying she was "too mature" for Let's Pretend, even if it was jus while watching a movie. Waverly hadn't been any bigger than the Baby Carrie on the show, so it hadn't been much fun. They already lived on a prairie after all.
Ma Ingalls had looked kind of like Mama, and she'd been the one to take care of the house and kids while Pa wasn't there. Wynonna knew the way they showed Native American people on the show was messed up, but the way Ma Ingalls stood them down was like she and Mama ran into that revhead dude in the park. Mama whacked him good with a bent-up old baseball bat.
When Wynonna told Daddy about it, he'd been mad, not proud like Laura's Pa.
The pipes creaked upstairs. It'd be her turn for a shower soon, and then she'd go to bed in Waverly's room, because Daddy had been waking Willa up to train earlier than Wynonna could stand. She used to go out with them sometimes, and the way Daddy taught Willa things was kind of like Pa did for Laura. If you asked Willa, she'd say Daddy was bold, and brave, and always did the right thing, like Pa, but Wynonna wasn't so sure that was true.
Willa wasn't the heir, and she wouldn't be for ages. Shouldn't he want her to get to grow up, first? It wasn't like she could be called at sixteen, like that Buffy girl on TV.
Mama made her stop following Willa out on weekdays, so they weren't both falling asleep in class. Daddy rolled his eyes at her. "They're not going to interfere with the sheriff's kids, Michelle."
Wynonna kicked the floor to make the chair rock, thinking how Pa Ingalls wouldn't talk to Ma like that. She'd gotten worried and tired a couple of times in the movie, but his excitement—his buoyancy, that would be the word she used for extra credit on her vocabulary test—kept her saying yes. Plus, you could tell he loved her even when she wasn't seeing things his way. That was more like her uncle Curtis than Daddy.
"Wynonna! Come get in the shower!"
Wynonna slid off the rocking chair, but hesitated before putting the book up. The two little girls staring at her from the wagon looked sad all of a sudden. Mama said this story was based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's real life, and she knew from what her teachers said about Wyatt Earp that stories made things all neat and tidy. Maybe these girls heard their Pa yelling that "this is the way it has to be!" and "I'm on my own here, Michelle. What do you think you can do?" but she wrote that he treated her Ma equally to make herself feel better.
Wynonna thought she'd do that, if she ever wrote her own book.
"Wynonna! You better have taken your hair down!"
Wynonna had dropped the book on the mantel and hurried upstairs, letting the elastics holding her braids slide onto the floor behind her.
The book she was showing Waverly took place before the one Mama had read them, and the cover showed the whole family in their cabin, smiling as Laura cradled a doll. It made Wynonna think of when she'd been littler than Waverly, and Daddy sat her on his knee while he bounced her and sang about horsies. He'd never done that for Waverly, even though she was a much better little kid than Wynonna had been. He'd been too busy being the heir by then.
"They look happy," Waverly said.
Looks can be lies, Wynonna thought. She'd seen reruns of the show that came after the movie in the rec-room TV at St. Vic's. There were bad things to come for this family. Dead kids, Mary going blind. Sure, the TV show exaggerated even more than books, but one of the farm girls had pointed out all the differences. There'd been a lot, but not enough to make anyone think they had it easy.
"Yeah. They do." Wynonna bit her lip, and winced as her front tooth bumped the sore that'd been there off-and-on for months. "Want me to read some to you?"
In reply, Waverly slithered up the bed to put her head on the pillow, and grinned. She'd lost a couple teeth while Wynonna was away.
Once they settled in, Wynonna brought her finger up to underline the word they were on, like she'd seen Gus do while reading the directions on Waverly's math worksheet.
"Don't." Waverly touched Wynonna's wrist. Her nails were smooth and polished pink; the black Sharpie Wynonna had filled hers in with was going gray in places, and she had hangnails where she'd started to bite them and left off. The differences didn't matter, though. The soft press of her fingertips was so familiar that Wynonna's breathe caught for a second. "I just want you to read like always," she said. The weariness in her voice was familiar, too.
"Of course, baby girl." Wynonna kissed Waverly's forehead and found her place on the page again.
It'd been a while since Wynonna last read anything aloud. Her rhythm was off, her mouth unused to speaking clearly, and her brain less quick to interpret the symbols. She'd been skimming while reading to herself, and it was only half because she didn't need the details of butter churning spelled out for her. She'd kept checking the time and the page number, frustrated that she couldn't keep up her old pace. Her ability to focus might've improved on the ADHD meds, but the environment at St. Victoria's didn't lend itself to Sustained Silent Reading. In the quiet of her aunt and uncle's—not quite hers yet, if ever—her ears strained in readiness for the next interruption. She'd just managed to relax a little when her ninja of a little sister Apperated into the doorway.
At least Wynonna wasn't behind on the reading. PJH had sent over her assignments when she started "preparing to transition into the community," which made her sound like the alien species she'd felt like in class over the past three days. School at the psychiatric facility had been more like a study hall, with a teacher who would answer questions, but had fifteen girls to supervise, in three grades on paper, with learning abilities all over the board. Add in the times they were pulled out for one-on-ones; the times when the thoughts in a girl's head got to loud for her to follow directions; and the medication tweaks that would make the same student dull-eyed and dragging the next day….Ms. Gilateto kept the lid on impressively, but it jumped and rattled a lot. They'd never reach the simmer necessary to go around the room reading lines from Shakespeare.
On the other hand, life had also been incredibly structured; when the bells rang between classes this week she'd been almost frozen with the knowledge that she was trusted to get herself to the next class. That she could go somewhere else. She hadn't, but the temptation had been a heady feeling, especially when she heard the whispers, saw the fingers swirling around people's ears or shaped into a gun. Hopefully Waverly would be up for more practice sessions. Imagining the reaction she'd get if she stumbled when asked to read a paragraph aloud made her feel preemptively sick, and she'd caught herself tapping her fingers anxiously against the spine of the book.
She'd stashed a pack of Kelsey's cigarettes in her bag, figuring they might be decent currency on the outside, too, and she'd already smoked a quarter of it, in spite of mostly avoiding them inside. The heir needed to be able to run, but in all those anti-smoking lectures they'd made a mistake—they'd show an image of a former smoker's healed lungs with the caption "one year after quitting!" Incentive to stop a habit you had, sure. But when you saw that, and then got offered your first cig, you thought, why not? If i don't die before I stop, the damage I do can be reversed. Most things weren't like that. Might as well take advantage of the ones that were.
At least, that's what Wynonna thought. She'd stop when she needed to. When running would actually get her somewhere. When she was twenty-five, give herself a year to spare.
She had been the spare.
Now it was Waverly. Except, the little girl whose hair smelled like no-tear shampoo could never inherit this curse. Wynonna wouldn't let it happen, whether that meant killing demons physically, or keeping them out of Waverly's mind.
When she got to the end of the chapter, the assignment sheet she'd been using as a bookmark fell onto her lap.
Option two: select a theme you believe to be important to the book, and using creative means (artwork, dramatic interpretation, diorama). illustrate it by interpreting a specific scene in a way that highlights your choice.
Laura's Pa wrapped their family up in his dreams—possible or not—and that brought demons into their lives. She told the story by making a quilt of the good parts, even with the wind howling at the door. Everyone in Purgatory had been through a night like that, even if they didn't have rev-heads playing the part of wolf. They probably tried to distract themselves with music, and made quilt forts, and probably some dads went out to yell at nature.
Mama had been scared for Daddy that first night, but proud, too. "You got one, Ward, I'm sure of it!"
He'd said, "That's your birthday present, baby. Maybe by the next one I'll have 'em all!"
She wished she could remember with Waverly, but Waverly hadn't been born yet. Only Wynonna remembered the warmth and safety of their house that night, when death waited around the perimeter, but the future felt triumphant. The bitter truth didn't ruin her memory of his invigoration. He wanted to save the world for them, but the demons crept in anyway.
"Waves?"
"Mmm l'm l's'enin'"
"I know, I'm going to keep going." Wynonna assured her. "Are your art supplies in your room?"
"Uh huh."
"Can I borrow some for a school project?"
"O'course." She was so sleepy that she didn't go into her usual admonishment about putting them up neatly. Daddy snapped whenever he found the older girls' crayons or markers on the floor, but with Waverly he never had to. She liked putting stuff in rainbow-rows.
Waverly's head got heavy against her shoulder, and when Wynonna paused again, she didn't protest. By the time Gus tapped on the doorframe, Wynonna had finished a chapter silently.
"Here ya go." Gus put a pill cup down on Wynonna's dresser. The mug of cocoa she put next to it was an attempt at sweetening it, at least.
"Thanks. Um. Can I wait to take the sleep one? I got a project to do."
"Lemme guess, due tomorrow?"
"No. Friday. Just wanna get started."
Gus's eyebrows arched. "That so?"
Wynonna held out the assignment sheet. "I'll be in Waverly's room; that puts me closer to your supervision."
"Think of everything, don't you?" Gus's mouth twitched, and Wynonna knew she had her. "Little House, huh? Your mama and I loved that one."
"Yeah? Did you get them when they came out?"
Gus tapped her on the head with the folded paper. "Not too late," she instructed. "You can't take that pill later than midnight and be good for school."
And you best be good for school was easy to infer. Any protection from being the sheriff's kid now belonged to Chrissy Nedley.
"Make sure she gets under those blankets," Gus added, nodding at Waverly.
A few minutes later, Wynonna was the one who shivered while she freed Granny Gibson's quilt out from under her sleeping sister.
She'd been holding seven-month-old Waverly the first time it happened. Willa kept looking up from her homework and rolling her eyes, but Wynonna ignored her. She'd done her addition worksheet, so she could do whatever she wanted before bed, and what she wanted was to watch the baby doze off after a bottle. Waverly fought sleep, her little eyelids flickering shut and then bursting open like a flower. Then, she'd start dreaming, making little sounds and moving her lips like she was practicing the babbling she did while she was awake.
Wynonna got kind of sleepy, too. The baby's weight was warm in contrast to the chill of a late freeze, and she'd slumped against the arm of the rocker. When Waverly started screaming, she shot up and the chair went wild. She flailed with her free arm, while Waverly waved both arms furiously.
Unable to stop the rocking, Wynonna screamed and wrapped her thumb and pointer around her sister's tiny wrist to get her hand still enough to look at clearly.
"Mama!" she hollered, even though Mama was already halfway through the living room. "Mama, her hands are blue!"
For just one second her mama froze and went pale. Then she continued marching forward, stopping the bucking rocker with one hand. The other rested on Wynonna's shoulder while she examined the squalling baby's hand.
"What the devil, angel?" she murmured, low enough that Wynonna didn't think she was supposed to hear, especially when her next words were firm and clear. "Get your coat." She scooped Waverly up. "I want you to hold her in the car on the way to the ER."
Wynonna hurried to obey. It wasn't until she heard Mama tell Willa what to say to Daddy when he got home that she realized her big sister hadn't gotten up from the table.
The doctors called it Reynaud's Symdrome, and said it wasn't anything putting her in danger.
"It hurts her," Wynonna objected. "It made her cry. Isn't that dangerous?"
The doctor wrinkled his centipede of a mustache, and Mama had put her arm around Wynonna. "Waverly is a quiet baby," she explained, her voice hoarse from singing her lullaby while the doctors examined the baby. "It takes a lot to make her scream like that."
"Ah. Well, next time get her warm and administer some baby Asprin as soon as she starts fussing."
"She didn't fuss," Wynonna grumbled.
Mama rubbed her arm. "It's gonna be okay, sweetheart. Everyone has their demons, huh? We'll just make sure she always has a bonus blanket."
Wynonna nodded, her focus already back on Waverly, who looked tinier than ever in the tall hospital crib.
Everyone had demons. That was what she needed to get her classmates to see. Demons that howled in the night. That Laura Ingalls couldn't edit out of her story, no matter what she tried.
Whether or not she could make people believe her demons existed, Wynonna knew they were real. That she'd been right to do all she could to keep them away from Waverly. And she bet Laura Ingalls would've done the same thing if her pa kept demons away with a gun instead of a fiddle.