The Runaway House

Six . The Basics

   I spend the rest of my morning with Travis. Once our pancakes are finished, we stick our dishes in the sink, and he whisks me off into the rest of the house. The place is practically empty because no one else bothers to get up this early in the summer.

Off of the kitchen is the living room, staged with three couches and a coffee table in the middle. On the far side are the stairs leading upstairs. There's a bathroom under them.

The room is the complete opposite of the kitchen. It's dark and unloved.

"Not too many people stay in here during the summer," Travis says. "I don't think anyone's even opened the blind in months." He climbs onto one of the couches and grabs the strings for the shades, pulling on them and revealing the sunlight.

The room is still dim because of the dark woodwork, but it no longer looks creepy. With a little bit of help, it could even look inviting.

"Come cold weather, you'll never be able to find a seat in here." Travis beams at me, a happy glint in his eye.

Smiling back, I catch a section of one of the walls covered in pictures. "What's that?"

"Oh—that's the picture wall." He pulls me closer to it.

Smiling faces are plastered everywhere—from kids leaping through sprinklers to teens playing card games. My eyes graze over kids I haven't seen here and ones who are familiar. My favorites are the ones inconspicuously taken during chore time. Kids are all over the property, hanging laundry, gardening, cleaning, and cooking. They're natural. Un-posed. Beautiful. A certain spirit bleeds from the photographs—one of family and love and community.

Maybe I'll get to be part of that.

Travis clears his throat. "Anyway. I'll take you upstairs some other time." He nods his head back into the kitchen, and we passed through to the back door. As we descend the steps outside, we run into two girls—one older, one Zoe's age.

"Hi, Travis." The older one smiles sweetly at him.

"Hey, Samantha." He runs a hand through his hair. "Uh, that's April." He gestures to the little girl with Samantha. "This is Lee. Jeff dropped her off last night."

Her jaw drops. "Your dad is back? Since when?"

Travis starts pushing me forward. "Don't know. Pancakes inside!"

He keeps a firm hand on my back, swiftly moving away from the house and to the pond. His face is grim.

Jeff is Travis's dad. So probably Amy's as well. And since Jeff called Penelope "mum . . ." Travis is just here because he's part of the family business. I turn to him, questions brimming, but he shakes his head.

"Do you know how far away you are from the nearest town?" He looks at me.

"No."

"Seventy-three miles. We have no neighbors, no friends except each other. When Jeff was our age, he and my grandpa made this place self-sufficient. Jeff has made a few recent changes." He gestures to the two windmills in sight and the solar panels on the roof.

"We don't have any electricity bills, thanks to them. We have a well for water. No phones. We're as off the grid as we possibly can be. In my whole entire life, only two people have stumbled upon this place."

He sits down on the wet grass. When I grimace at the thought of sitting, he laughs. He unbuttons his shirt, revealing a baby blue v-neck underneath. "Here. Sit on this."

I do, thanking him quietly. "So what did you tell the people who found this place?"

"Our cover story," he replies. "Which you need to memorize."

"Okay. What, you guys are Mormons?"

He chuckles. "No. We're basically a mental institution for rich kids. We have all these crazy papers and crap that make us look official. No one's asked for them, but we have to be prepared."

"And they one-hundred percent believed you?"

"Yup." He smiles. "I mean, that's what we are—minus the 'mental' and 'rich' parts."

I nod. "Fair."

"And now that Jeff is back, we have another adult to make it even more believable."

"Mmm." I pick at a piece of grass, rubbing off the dew. What really is the purpose of this place? They house runaways, feed them, clothe them. But for how long? And where do they get the money from?

"Caring for this many kids . . . It's got to be expensive."

Travis nods. "Absolutely. But we're okay. My grandpa had lots of money saved up when he died. I think he knew my grandma would need it. They only had a few people here when he passed, but they'd been trying to find ways to be more efficient.

"My grandpa got into gardening. Now we have a huge garden and a small orchard. We try to store as much as we can for the winter. There are a few cows out back, along with some chickens. We used to have more, but we have a few troublemakers who killed a few with our four-wheeler."

"Oh. Oops."

Travis grunts. "Something like that. No one's allowed to ride it anymore. Just me."

"Sounds fair." I look at him, trying to see Penelope in him, wondering what on earth had possessed her to make this place into a safe haven for runaways.

But maybe that was a story for another time. I'm already overwhelmed enough—my head and my heart.

I sigh. We sit in silence for a few minutes, both lost in our own worlds.

The water laps at our feet, and all I can think of is the puddle soaking my dress, the shouts of my pursuer, those wild green eyes. How do you survive watching one human murder another? How do you hide for the rest of your life?

I watch the water, choking on tears. What if I don't want to breathe anymore? What if I can't? I rock back and forth, craving my bedroom, my blankets, my family's smell. If I was home, I could cuddle my cat and fall asleep listening to my neighbors mow their lawns.

"Whoa. Lee. Are you okay?" Travis turns toward me, panic in his voice.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Just . . . my family. My cat. I really miss my cat. I want to be home. I feel so . . . lost."

He hesitantly puts his arm around me. "I know the feeling."

We sit there, two bewildered teenagers and a quiet pond. And I wonder if this is what life is: running from fears and hiding and crying about it. "I don't want to live my life hiding," I whisper.

"Give it time," he says.

But he doesn't know. How could he understand? All I want is to jump into that pond and not come back up. No hiding. No running. Just . . . nothing.

"I know that look," Travis says as his fist clench in the wet grass. "It does you no good. No matter what's happened, no matter why you're here, you will get through this."

"I'd have to walk through fire to get back to where I want to be." My toes dip into the cool water.

"Then we'll walk through fire." He lays a hand on my arm. "But no one drowns. Not today."

No. No one will drown.

But someone is going to get burned—

Me.

has anyone told you how amazing you are for reading this? probs not. well, you are. you're super fantastic, and i'm really glad you're reading my story. feel free to vote before you head off to more writings!

xoxo,

rebekah