Author's Note: Thanks to all for continuing to read this story! I have to give a lot of credit to Annie Warbucks (which I adore) for the inspiration for this chapter. "Love" is one of my favorite songs from the show, and I wanted to put my own spin on the kind poor family from the musical who helped Annie find her way back home to the people she loves. Enjoy!

CHAPTER TWENTY

The gentle knock on the door of a dilapidated farmhouse echoed quietly through the night air. Shaking with fear and exhaustion, Annie stood waiting and praying that she would have a friendly face to look upon when the door opened.

It had taken her some time to be certain she had evaded the policeman. After he had busted the homeless folks out of the train station, he had jumped in his patrol car and chased after her. She was well on her way down one of the country roads surrounding the station by that point, but only by ducking into the treeline and throwing herself down behind a fallen log until she saw the headlights drive away had she felt certain he had moved on and left her for lost.

With only the thinnest sliver of a crescent moon visible in the night sky, the woods were cast in deep black shadows and full of sounds she had never heard before. She heard the hooting of owls, the deafening humming of crickets and cicadas, and—was that the bay of a local dog, or a wolf? Were there wolves in West Virginia? What about bears? She was desperate not to find out.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she began to run toward the only light she saw flickering in the distance. As she drew closer, clutching at a stitch in her side and breathing raggedly, she had realized it belonged to a candle in the window of a small farmhouse.

She had stared at the house for a long time before she decided to approach it. Her eyes took in dark shadows on the grassy lawn: a tractor, a pile of firewood, a pitchfork leaning ominously against a rusty pickup truck. But then her eyes fell on a small tricycle parked in front of the porch, and with a pounding heart she decided that this house might be her best option to find safe haven until morning. If these folks had a little kid to ride that tricycle, then they couldn't be too dangerous.

A response to her knock finally came, and the door opened just a crack. She saw a woman's eyes peering out at her from inside the house, gently illuminated by glow of her lantern.

"Yes?" she asked, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the darkness outside and took in Annie standing in front of her.

"Excuse me, ma'am," Annie said shakily. "I'm real sorry for bargin' in on you after dark, but I was wonderin' if you might have a place I could sleep for the night?"

The woman stared at her for a long moment, her brows raised in surprise, before she drew the door open farther to take a closer look at Annie. The woman was young, and she did have a kindly face. But there were deep lines etched by stress in her pretty features, and she looked at Annie hesitantly.

"Who are you?" she asked. Her voice had an interesting twang to it, like the policeman's back at the train station. It was very different than any accent Annie had ever heard in New York before.

"I'm not from around here," Annie admitted. "You can probably tell from my voice, huh? I must sound like a real out-of-towner."

"Are you all alone?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"But you're just a kid. What're you doin' out here at night? Where's your family? Your parents?"

Annie heard a man's voice call out from behind the half-shut door. "Macy? Who you talkin' to out there?"

"It's a little kid, Arthur," she called back, glancing behind her. A moment later, a man's face appeared over her shoulder and looked at Annie in surprise.

"Well, I'll be," he said. "What does she want, panhandlin' or somethin'?"

"No, sir," Annie said. "All I need's a place to sleep for the night. Do ya maybe have a barn or a shed or somethin'?"

She saw their eyes dart back and forth to each other, and she could guess exactly what they were thinking. Runaway.

"I promise I won't be any bother at all, and I'll move on as soon as the morning comes," Annie added. "You won't even know I was here, I promise!"

"Oh, good heavens," Macy said. "Please, hun, I'm not going to make a little kid like you sleep in the barn." She glanced at her husband. "It's all right, isn't it, Arthur?"

"Course it is," he said, stepping back as his wife pulled the door open and beckoned her inside. "Come on in, kid, you'll catch a cold out in the night air."

Annie stepped gingerly over the threshold of the front door, looking around her with wide eyes. The interior of the home was as shabby as the exterior. A small wooden table leaned unevenly against the kitchen wall, and patches of home-sewn fabric covered holes in the couch that sat in front of the fireplace. But there was something comforting about the home, too, in spite of its obvious poverty: it was warm, a small fire crackled merrily in the fireplace, and the smells of a dinner cooked hours ago still wafted deliciously through the room.

"What did you say your name was?" Arthur asked, looking at her closely and taking in her worn street clothes and satchel. Macy pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and motioned Annie to sit down.

"I didn't," Annie said. "The name's, uh, Molly."

"I'm Macy, and this here's Arthur. And I can tell from the sound of your voice you ain't from around here, just like you said," the woman said, her back to her husband and Annie as she went to the cupboard and pulled out a loaf of bread. "Are you hungry, Molly? There's a speck of corned beef left from our supper."

"No, thank you, ma'am," Annie said, even as she felt a pang of hunger in her stomach. It was plain to see that these folks didn't have a lot to go around, and she couldn't afford to wear out her welcome by eating what little they had. "I'm real grateful, but I'm not hungry."

Arthur was looking at her curiously as he eased himself into the chair across from her at the kitchen table. Annie watched him back as he sat. He winced as he twisted his back to slide onto the chair, and there was a grimace on his face as he settled down. He was clearly in some pain. But even so, Annie sensed a strong current of kindness between Macy and Arthur. They seemed like decent folks.

"Molly, huh?" He looked skeptical. "Is that your real name?"

Annie kept her face blank, or at least hoped she did. "Sure is. I've been called Molly, er, Mudge for as long as I can remember."

Macy chuckled as she too sat down, pushing a plate with a slice of buttered bread and some corned beef across the table to Annie. "Molly Mudge, huh? I hope to God that ain't your real name, sweetheart. But we'll call you Molly if you'd like us to."

"So where exactly did you come from?" Arthur asked. There was a hint of concern in his voice, and she saw him glance at Macy across the table. "You runnin' away from somethin'? Or someone?"

"I'm not running away," Annie said in what she hoped was a calm and convincing voice. "I came in on the train tonight from New York City and got off at the wrong stop, so I just need a place to sleep for the night 'til I get back on a train goin' the other way in the morning."

"Headin' where?"

"Washington."

Macy and Arthur both raised their eyebrows in unison.

"Washington's a mighty big city for a little kid like you," Macy said. "You got someone you're meetin' there?"

"Sorta," Annie said quietly. "It's my mom."

"Your momma's in Washington?"

Annie looked down at her plate and took a bite out of the buttered bread, not meeting Macy or Arthur's eyes. "Yeah. Only she doesn't know I'm coming. It's kinda a long story."

Arthur leaned back against his chair. "Well, we got all night and nowhere else to be, kid."

Annie hadn't anticipated needing to share her story with anyone along the way, but since she was here and wanting someone to talk to, she figured it couldn't hurt. It certainly didn't seem as if Macy and Arthur were itching to turn her in to the police.

"Well, the thing is," she said slowly, "my mom and dad got into a big fight, and my mom thought my dad didn't want to be with her anymore, so she left home and got a new job down in Washington. But I gotta find her and convince her to come back home to us, because our family ain't complete without her."

That was close enough to the truth, she thought.

"Hm," Arthur said quietly. Annie couldn't tell if he believed her or not. "Well, that's a mess of a situation, ain't it."

"Sure is."

"Tell us about your folks, Molly," Macy said. "Your daddy, is he a good man? Does he love his family? Does he treat you all kindly?"

Annie nodded vigorously.

"He sure does! He tries to act like he's all serious, but he's got a big heart." She smiled to herself as she thought back over the last few months. The Oliver Warbucks she had come to know and love was such a different man than the frightening figure she had first seen come storming into the mansion on that first hot summer day, raging about how much work he had to do and complaining about how that pretty painting was too ugly to hang anywhere except the bathroom! "He reads me and my little sister bedtime stories and does all the voices, and eats supper with us every night, and sometimes he lets us help him with his work." Her voice grew smaller, and she felt a lump rising in her throat. "He's the very best daddy a girl could ask for."

"And your momma?"

"She's the most lovely person I ever knew," Annie said in a quiet whisper. "She brushes my hair every day, and takes us to the park and the movies, and she gives the best hugs in the world."

"And your momma and daddy," Arthur asked, "do they love each other?"

"I know they do," Annie said with conviction. "I mean, things ain't always perfect between 'em. Sometimes she gets sad because my daddy works all the time, and I know they don't see eye-to-eye on everything. But I know they love each other so much. I can see it in how …" She thought for a moment. "In how she reties his tie when he did it in a hurry and it ain't on straight, and how he gets this big smile on his face whenever she walks in the room. That's why I gotta convince her to come home with me, because our family ain't complete without her." She felt tears sting the corners of her eyes. "To tell you the truth, I miss them an awful lot."

Macy reached over and squeezed her hand, and then she looked tenderly at Arthur.

"Well, honey," she said quietly, "you know, sometimes when grown-ups get into fights, we just need a bit of time to cool off and come to our senses."

"Ain't that the truth," Arthur said with a knowing smile at his wife.

Macy chuckled. "Molly, you know, some nights Arthur and I go to bed so mad at each other we're practically fit to be tied. But somehow, in the light of mornin' whatever had made us so mad the night before seems not to matter as much. The way I see it, long as folks love each other, they can get through just about anything together."

Before Annie could respond, a small voice spoke the corner of the room. "Momma? Daddy? Who you talkin' to?"

Annie turned around in time to see two small faces peering toward her from the staircase leading up to the loft above the living room. The boy was perhaps Jack's age or a little younger, and the girl looked about Molly's size.

"Hi there," Annie said, her heart leaping to see other children in the house.

"Hi there, you'self," the girl said immediately, looking intrigued.

"Who are you?" the boy asked.

"I was just tellin' your folks my name's Molly."

Macy motioned to the two children on the staircase. "That's our Tommy and Lucy. Tommy's eight, and Lucy's six."

Annie smiled. "My little sister is six. It's a real grand age, you're finally two hands old!"

"But where did you come from?" the boy asked, still looking at her in puzzlement. "And what're you doin' here in the middle o' the night?"

"Molly just came in on the train from New York City, and she needs a place to stay for the night," Arthur said, rising slowly to his feet with a grunt of pain. He fixed his children with a glare, but Annie saw warmth in his eyes. "And you two ain't supposed to be outta bed."

"Children," Macy said, standing as well, "we hope you don't mind much having a guest in your room for the night."

"'Course not, Momma," the children replied in unison.

"Come on, Molly," Lucy said eagerly, reaching for the older girl's hand and pulling her up the staircase. "You can sleep on the cot in our room, and I'll take one of the blankets off my bed for ya. New York City, wow! That's practically the whole world away! We never have folks from the big city come out here!"

Tommy and Lucy shared the loft space above the living room. Lucy pulled a cot out from under her bed and offered a scratchy but warm blanket, Tommy donated a spare pillow, and just like that the three children were cozily wrapped up for the night. Macy and Arthur had blown out the candles in the kitchen, and a drowsy quiet fell over the farmhouse.

After the children were settled in their beds, Annie told Tommy and Lucy a shorter version of the same story she had shared with Arthur and Macy.

"Your folks are real nice, puttin' me up for the night and all," Annie said, snuggling into the pillow as she felt a wave of exhaustion start to roll over her. "Don't mind me for asking, but I saw your daddy walkin' and sittin' kinda funny. Is he okay?"

"He got hurt a few months ago," Tommy said quietly. "He used to work in a coal mine."

Annie furrowed her brow. "What's a coal mine?"

Tommy looked at her in surprise. "Whadda ya mean, what's a coal mine? Golly, don't they got coal mines up in New York? It's like a big tunnel that goes way down into the earth. The coal miners take carts down to the bottom and dig coal outta the dirt and rock. Then we use the coal for electricity, for factories, for ships and trains and—well, just about everything."

Annie thought quietly for a moment. In all of the hours she had spent observing while her father and Grace worked, had her father ever mentioned owning coal mines? She couldn't remember for certain, but he seemed to own at least one of just about everything.

"And your daddy got hurt in the mine?"

Tommy nodded grimly. "Yeah. There was a cave-in a few months ago and part of the tunnel fell in. Daddy hurt his back and it's been givin' him real trouble ever since."

"But it coulda been worse," Lucy said. "There's a girl in my class whose daddy and big brother died when the mine caved in."

"That's awful," Annie breathed.

"So even if Daddy got hurt, we're glad he didn't die, ain't we Tommy?"

Tommy rolled his eyes. "'Course we are, Lucy. But now he can't go back to work, so we ain't exactly skippin' in a field of daisies, are we?"

"Why can't he go back to work?" Annie asked.

"The mining company doctor said he can't go back into the tunnels if he can't lift stuff," Tommy said. "His back still hurts somethin' awful, so he can't carry heavy loads of coal and all the machines and tools anymore. They already hired someone new to replace him. And he ain't able to get paid while he's outta work."

Annie frowned. "But if he can't go to work anymore, what does that mean for all of you? What're you gonna do?"

"Dunno," Lucy said quietly. "Momma says most folks 'round here ain't got two nickels to rub together. Guess we'll be like them pretty soon."

"Momma and Daddy been real uptight lately," Tommy said, almost more to himself. "Fightin' more and more. And there's some man from the bank who's been comin' by every couple weeks to talk to them. We dunno what they talk about, but they always look real serious and unhappy after he leaves." He was silent for a long while, then turned over onto his side away from Annie and Lucy. Annie heard his voice whisper much more quietly, "I hate bein' poor."

Annie sighed, wishing she could do something to help her new friends feel better. She didn't know enough about their situation to know exactly what they were facing, but she did remember what it was like to go to bed hungry, and to sleep through a cold winter without enough blankets, and to wish you had a safe and steady home to call your own. She reached up and squeezed Lucy's hand, and the young girl gave her a sleepy smile.

"I know it ain't easy, believe me," she said quietly. "But I'm glad ya got such a good family to help ya make it through your troubles."

Macy's voice floated up the loft toward them, quiet and warm. "My darlings, are you still awake up there? You're supposed to be asleep."

"Night, Momma," Tommy and Lucy whispered drowsily in unison.

In spite of how tired she felt, Annie lay awake for a long time after Tommy's breathing deepened and Lucy began to snore lightly. She wiped away a few tears as thoughts of her own family floated to the forefront of her mind.

Her father must have discovered her disappearance by now. Was he stewing in fury or worry, or both? Had he punished Molly and Jack for helping her escape? Would he fire Cecille for not keeping a close enough eye on the children? Had someone called Grace in Washington to tell her Annie was missing? Punjab and the Asp would be panicking about how their security measures at the mansion had failed to keep Annie safe. Mrs. Pugh would be crying, and Aunt Margaret would be wringing her hands furiously. Maybe even Drake would blink back a tear.

With a deep sigh, Annie closed her eyes and finally felt the pull of sleep draw her in. There was nothing more she could do tonight. When tomorrow came, she would need all her strength to keep going.