"Honestly," I moaned, ripping yet another hole in my pants by being caught by the brushes. "Couldn't we take the road?"
Malachi, fleet as a mountain goat, made his way effortlessly through the seemingly endless forest of sharp thorns and bushes of the hillside we were currently, more or less, scaling down. "No. We can't let anyone see us."
"We're gonna be pretty obvious once I trip over a root and fly down the side of the hill," I hissed, trying to push the strange foreign plants out of my way.
"Then be careful," my brother warned in a tone that was to suggest that I was not annoy him. "We must remain undetected at any cos—"
"YAAAHHHHH!!!" I shrieked, losing my footing and beginning to cascade down the hillside. Mowing down bushes and small trees with my body proved to be more painful than one might think, and I landed, finally, in a heap at the bottom of the hill. Weeds tangled my hair, blood shone through my shirt, and I had lost a shoe. "Goddammit," I balked, sounding for all the world exactly like my mother. Malachi appeared by my side a half second later, extending a hand to help.
"I knew I could count on you to keep our presence concealed," he quipped sarcastically. "I always did admire your stealth."
"Shut up!" I snarled, my mood quickly turning sour. "And help me up. Christ, that's the second pair of Armani slacks that have been ruined today!"
"Even tumbling down the side of a hill, you did it in the best taste available."
I gritted my teeth, not trusting myself to say anything. Nothing ever seemed to be too difficult for Malachi, whether it was diagnosing a new kind of psychological disorder or scaling down a hill. I, on the other hand, had an incredible knack for tripping over anything, including my own two feet. It always amazed me that people think that I, Hannibal Lecter's daughter, should be a graceful, magnificently beautiful woman. I was the biggest klutz I knew.
It must have embarrassed Dad on occasion but he never said anything. I was a tomboy when I was a kid and I suppose I still am. I always wanted to go fishing and play baseball, and I think that was just a little too "normal" for Dad. He would just smile politely and tell me whatever I wanted to do was fine with him, but I knew in the back of his mind he always wondered how on earth I could be his offspring.
I also have an incredible knack for making messes, a talent I've had since I was a child. In fact, one of my first memories was sneaking into the kitchen, eating the last of the chocolate ice cream out of the container, and deciding the container would be a good helmet for playing space invaders. Of course, not wanting to take the time to wash out the ice cream, I just stuck it right on my head and went about my business. I still remember that look on Dad's face, one of absolute shock, when he found trails of chocolate ice cream running through the house and finding me on the antique couch, jumping up and down with chocolate all over my face, clothes, and furniture. He never did get those chocolate stains out of the couch.
I guess I felt like I never really fit with him, and that's a strange position to be in when you're a child. I suppose that's why although I was heartbroken when Dad was killed, I wasn't as destroyed as Malachi was, and I couldn't understand the depth of his grief. Maybe even then, looking up into Malachi's gaze on that hillside, I felt a twinge of jealousy.
"We're just wasting our time anyway," I said, standing up and trying to pick some of the thorns out of my hair. "And we would have been a lot less noticeable had we just taken the time to drive here," I said, pointing to the growing crowd of locals who had come to gawk at me.
"Yes…I really should have anticipated this…"
"What?"
He looked at me. "Rue, you could trip over a whisper of wind. Hiking down a hill is damn near impossible."
"Its not that," I cried indignantly, turning red. "I have big feet. They get in my way."
"I seem to have adjusted all right. After all, I've had 24 years to get used to them," he said, holding a foot up in the air and looking at it thoughtfully. Furiously, I flipped some hair out of my face.
"Well whoop-de-fucking-do for you, Malachi!" I screamed at him. My temper had a way of flaring up, and indeed I was getting strange looks from the people in the square. He shot me a warning look and grabbed my arm.
"Follow me," he instructed. "You are a pill, you know that?"
"I am not," I said, shoving him away. "I just fell down the side of a freakin' hill, man. What the hell do you expect?"
"Temper," he warned. "Insults and swearing will get us nowhere. Come, this is where I saw him, I was standing here." We came to an abrupt halt after a brisk walk. I looked around me at the bustling marketplace, searching the crowd for an eerily familiar face. After a few moments of silence, I said reluctantly,
"Malach, I don't think he's here. See, you just let your imagination run away with you, and you get all worked up, and then—"
"There!" he whispered ferociously, tightening his grip on my arm. I looked in the direction his eyes were riveted to and didn't see anyone I knew.
"Where?"
"There! In the white suit! By the mango stand!"
They all looked like mango stands to me, so I scanned the crowd for a white suit. My eyes fell upon the back of an older looking gentleman who seemed to be absorbed in the wonders of the fruit in front of him. Malachi and I waited patiently. Finally, the man turned in profile and I sighed.
"Malachi, that's not Dad. That's just some old—" The man completed his turn and I saw his face full on. My jaw dropped. "That's Dad."
The man caught our gaze, and held it for just a second, long enough for recognition to flash through his eyes, before turning and walking away hurriedly. Not wanting to let go after seeing him again, I cried out, "Dad!" to which Malachi swiftly clamped his hand over my mouth.
"What do you think you're doing?" he growled in a tone that mirrored our father's. "Anyone could be in this square, anyone. Including the FBI. We can't afford to be careless, Rue, even you know that."
I nodded and he let go. "We have to call Mom," I said. "She has to come down here, and—"
"Are you insane? All four Lecters in the same place at the same time? If anything were to go wrong, we'd all go to prison! Worse than prison! An asylum of some kind! You remember the stories Father used to tell!"
I nodded numbly, trying not to think of the nightmarish stories my father had told us once we were old enough to know exactly who—that is, what—he was.
Malachi took a deep breath. "Here is what we shall do. Firstly we will call Mother and inform her of what we've seen. Secondly, we must find Father again and follow him, perhaps discover his alias. Thirdly…"
For some reason, Malachi always functioned best in crises. I had learned to just leave everything up to him since he always seemed to be in control of the situation. Me? A small grease fire was enough to send me into hysterics. It was best to leave Malachi in control.
"Got it?" he said when he was done with his spiel. I nodded, having not listened to a word he said but never letting on. "Good. Let's go."