Page 86

CHAPTER 85

I DIDN’T REALIZE how terrifying it would be to take the stand—to face a roomful of glaring strangers and try to say what I wanted to say. Mrs. Hardy’s shooting daggers at me with her eyes. The lady with the blond braids just stares, her mouth hanging open like she can’t wait for me to do something crazy. When I have to swear that I’m going to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, I can barely get my words out.

The judge says gently, “I think you’ve been through a lot lately, Kai, and I don’t see the need for you to be examined and cross-examined and put through that particular wringer.” She even gives me a little smile. “So I just want to talk to you for a minute.”

Her kindness brings a lump to my throat. Any minute now my eyes’ll start their waterworks.

I swear, once all this is over I’m not going to cry for another seventeen years.

“Holo and I just want to be with Wendy,” I say. “Lacey and the chief have been amazing to us, but Wendy is our mother. It doesn’t matter who gave birth to us. Whoever she is, she’s been gone for twelve years. If she’s alive—and I don’t think she is—she’s a stranger to us.”

“I understand your desire to stay with Wendy Marsden. But what about the fact that you have no home now?”

Yes, that’s definitely a problem. “We’ll build another one,” I say.

“Not on public land, I hope.”

“No.”

Not where you can find it, anyway.

“Has Wendy made any efforts to find new housing?”

“It’s only been ten days since that armed posse came to our house.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Judge Bevins says, looking down at me over the top of her glasses.

I feel like her sympathies are changing. She doesn’t like Howells any more than we do, but that doesn’t matter. In the eyes of the court, Wendy hasn’t behaved like a proper mother.

The tears I kept from falling in front of Waylon spill out of my eyes, down my cheeks, and onto my stupid, uncomfortable blouse.

“You have to understand,” I say, my voice breaking. “The three of us never had that much, and now we’ve lost it all. The house—the wolves—the life that we made. All we have left is each other.” I look out to the room and meet Waylon’s gaze, and then I look to Lacey and the chief. “And a few people who care about us. The rest of the world doesn’t want us. It doesn’t understand us.” Then I narrow my eyes at Howells. At the people from Kokanee Creek who’ve come to watch our fates be decided by strangers. “It thinks we belong in a cage.”

Holo’s face is buried in Wendy’s shoulder. She’s crying, and I know he is, too.

“We aren’t dangerous,” I say pleadingly. “We’re not troubled. And we’re not wild animals. We’re just people who live a different life than you do. People who care about different things, like trees and deer and wide-open spaces, and who don’t care about air conditioning or fast food restaurants or high school or any of the shit you all think is important!” Judge Bevins raises one silver eyebrow. “I’m sorry, Your Honor,” I say quickly. “I meant to say ‘stuff.’”

She nods. “Thank you, Kai,” she says. “You’re a well-spoken young lady. Most of the time.” And then she smiles at me as if she likes me.

And I tell myself that everything’s going to be all right.