Page 150 of The Reformatory

Gloria could no longer ignore the urgency of the dogs drawing closer. Taunts and whistles skated across the creek water to accompany the barking. Half a dozen men might be on their way. Gloria gave Crutcher a last grateful look and ran back to Robbie.

Gloria tried to maneuver around the remnants of the man killed by the dog, but the water swirled bright pink in a ring around the body. Maybe that would keep the trackers busy, when they heard what the dog had done. They couldn’t possibly blame such a gruesome killing on a man. She wondered what kind of tale Crutcher would tell to explain it.

Still, Robbie had not looked away from where he stood standing over the bobbing corpse. “Come on,” she said, and tugged on his arm, trying to ease him from his thoughts as gently as she could, to wake him from this unspeakable dream. “Don’t keep looking.”

Robbie stared up at her with haunted eyes. “I just want to be sure he’s dead,” he said, his voice cracking—half man, half child. “If you’re dead… stay dead.” He whispered the last words to himself. Robbie was not the same. He would never again be the Robbie she had known. Gloria wanted to scream her rage and grief to the sky.

But he was alive, she reminded herself. She had found him. She would take him to Chicago, where they would find Papa. The future was waiting.

Robbie slipped his hand into hers, and she squeezed his. They ran in the shallows. A crow soared ahead of them, wings spread wide.

Blue was gone without a goodbye.

Robbie kept his eyes on the crow flying off as long as he could see it, but soon the black dot was out of sight, either too far or vanished into the air. Blue was headed somewhere Robert could not follow him—not yet, anyway. Robbie hoped wherever Blue was flying next would be a mystery for a long time. But he would write down the rules for haints so another kid who met another Blue would think twice before putting their life in a haint’s hands: Haints can look different ways. Haints usually come if you call their full names. Haints don’t like to be called haints. Haints can be fun as friends, but you have to look out for yourself or you might die like Redbone. Haints don’t say goodbye, except when they visit your dreams.

And haints can kill you.

Robert’s memory overflowed with red-foamed water and torn flesh. The entire creek seemed to fill with blood, splashing crimson against his calves and boots as he and Gloria ran. A nearly buried part of him almost screamed. But Gloria squeezed his hand when he tightened his grip, and the creek’s water turned normal.

“Thanks for coming for me,” Robert said.

Gloria rubbed his head. “You knew I wouldn’t leave you here.”

They had so much to say, but talking was hard while you tried to avoid tripping. The dogs were still coming, so they couldn’t catch their breath. Robert guessed the trackers hadn’t spent too much time with Crutcher, or maybe they hadn’t believed him when he told them he and Gloria had gone another way. The barking was never far behind.

“There’s only two trackers now,” Gloria said. “Others did what Mister Crutcher said.”

Robert glanced over his shoulder, scared the new trackers might be in sight already without Blue to help them, but the wild woods blocked his vision.

“How do you know?” Robert panted.

“Just do,” Gloria said.

If anyone had a sister better than Gloria, Robert didn’t know who it could be for all of time. She’d taken care of him after Papa left, she’d threatened to shoot Haddock down to save him, and she could see things other people couldn’t, almost like a haint.

“I saw Mama,” Robert told her. “When I first got to the creek. I think…” He almost—almost—told her he thought he’d been flying for a short time, but instead, he said, “I think she helped me get out of the woods.”

Usually Gloria shrugged her shoulders when he talked about Mama’s ghost, but this time she said, “I know she did.”

“Did you see her?”

Gloria didn’t answer for a moment, and Robert remembered how she’d pretended she didn’t believe him when he first told her Mama was visiting his room when he slept, but he’d seen her jealous pout. “Nope,” she said. “Just you.”

“But you can feel her?”

“Every day.”

“Me too.”

More dead and broken limbs clogged the creek, so they concentrated on not falling. The water was so shallow that it barely reached the tops of Robert’s boots. They would leave tracks. Robbie was about to ask Gloria if they should try to find places where the water was deeper when he saw a rusting metal column up high ahead, something unnatural in the woods. A bridge!

“There it is!” Gloria said.

“But where’s the truck?”

“Maybe we can’t see it yet. Come on!” Gloria tried not to sound as surprised as she looked that the truck wasn’t there. He followed her out of the creek to the steep slope, which was just as thick as the woods toward the cornfield but much harder to move through because of the climb. His legs, only sore before, felt like jelly on the uphill hike.

“I tied a rope from the top—see?” Gloria said as she trudged closer to the trestle. He did not see the rope, but he trusted her in a way he had never trusted Blue, clinging to jutting roots and stones so he would not slip back down.