Raven Publishing, Inc. Chapter 1
Kyleah wished with all her might, blocking out every thought and niggling doubt that could reduce the power of her wish. She had crept out of bed before sunrise, while everyone in the house slept, and climbed the tall oak tree in the corner of the back yard. She didn’t stop climbing until she was so high that there were no more branches to step on, and the trunk was so thin that it gently swayed with the weight of her small body.
That was the first rule for wish making. Just before the sun peeked over the horizon, she closed her eyes tightly and repeated her wish over and over in her mind. That was the second rule. The third and hardest part was to open her eyes at exactly the right time—no sooner, no later—for if the sun hadn’t risen just enough to sit exactly on top of the horizon, her wish would be undone.
As the rays from the rising sun warmed her face, the screen door slammed. Kyleah’s eyes popped open. Uncle Donald trudged toward the barn, milk buckets in hand.
Glancing at the sun, she sighed. The black line of the world’s edge cut off a fourth of the fiery globe. Her wish would not come true. She stared at the slowly rising red ball. When it seemed to rest for just a moment on top of the horizon before floating up toward the golden clouds, she stepped down to a lower branch.
What were you doing out of bed so early?” asked Aunt Jude.
Kyleah jerked her head up from her bowl of cornflakes to meet Aunt Jude’s eyes.
“Well? I asked what you were doing.” Aunt Jude repeated.
“Watching the sunrise.”
“You couldn’t sleep?”
“I wanted to see the sunrise,” Sun-risen, she corrected herself in her mind. I wanted to see the sun all-the-way risen. Tomorrow I will. I’ll keep trying until I get it exactly right.
“Becka, watch out! Now look what you’ve done.” Aunt Jude scolded her daughter.
Kyleah watched the river of milk ooze toward her from across the table. As Aunt Jude sopped it up, Kyleah slipped from the table and out the door. Seven-year-old Sammy yelled, “Hey, Ky, you weren’t excused. Mom, Kyleah left the table without being excused.”
If Aunt Jude didn’t forget, she’d have something to say to Kyleah later, but the odds were she’d get so busy with the new babies, she wouldn’t think of it again.
Aunt Jude wasn’t really her aunt. She and her husband, Donald Holcomb, asked their wards to call them Aunt and Uncle. Only their real kids, nine-year-old Becka and seven-year-old Sammy could call them Mom and Dad—and of course their almost grown-up daughter, Deb. She was at summer school getting a head start on her first year of college. She couldn’t wait to get away from all of us foster kids, Kyleah thought. And I don’t blame her. Holcombs’ small farm with the big house was far enough from Winfield, Kansas to be isolated, but too overrun with children of various ages for anyone to find peace and quiet. Except in my tree, Kyleah thought. Nobody ever looks up.
What’s it like, living in a foster home? As Kyleah knelt, pulling weeds from a row of pole beans, the words echoed in her mind as if they’d just been spoken. After Sunday school yesterday, Marnie Kennedy had spat the words as if they were an awful taste in her mouth. Maybe she’s mad I got put in the junior-high class. It wasn’t my fault the teachers decided to include sixth graders.
Kyleah had looked up foster home in the dictionary. “A home where children are raised by people other than their natural parents.” What’s so bad about that? But she knew. The bad thing was she had no parents to care about her—the bad thing was she didn’t belong; not even after six years. Becka and Sam and Deb would never know what it feels like not to have their own mom or dad tuck them in at night.
What’s it like to live in a foster home? It’s constantly sharing—sharing work, sharing time, attention, and space. It’s never being the favorite like Marnie, the mayor’s fancy daughter, or like Becka, who’s so pretty, she’s always the center of attention. It’s having too many kids come and go, so you never make friends, because if you do, they’ll just leave…and you’ll never see them again.
That wasn’t true of everyone. Some, like her, would probably be there forever—well, until they turned eighteen, anyway. Like thirteen-year-old Benjamin. No one wants to adopt a boy that age. No one wants eleven-year-old girls like me, either. Not even nine-year-old Sharon. Someone might take Maria. The five-year-old with her dark brown eyes and wavy black hair drew comments from perfect strangers: “What a pretty little girl!” So many kids had come and gone that Kyleah couldn’t remember all their names. Many were babies like the two new ones that came yesterday.
With Uncle Donald at his job at the tire shop all day, Aunt Jude had her hands full. Of course, the kids helped. They each had chores to do, beginning early with garden work so they’d be done before the heat of the day. When I’m here first, I get a minute of peace. Kyeah sighed when she heard the back door slam.
“Ain’t you in trouble, first sneaking out of the house before daylight, then leaving the table without permission,” Benjamin taunted. Crouching between two rows of carrots, he asked, “What were you doing up so early?”
“I was watching the sunrise.”
“Yeah, right. What else?”
“Nothing else, okay?”
“Aunt Jude might buy that. Tell me the truth, or I’ll tell Uncle Donald what you did last week.”
“What?”
“I saw you burying something out back of the calf shed. I dug it up. Wait until Donald hears you killed one of his baby chicks.”
Kyleah gasped. The vision of the warm, lifeless body lying limp in her hands brought back the sadness she’d felt. Horror at what she’d done and the fear of someone finding out came flooding back, making it hard to breathe. “I didn’t mean to. You know I wouldn’t hurt anything on purpose. It ran under my foot so fast, I couldn’t stop before I stepped on it. Please, don’t tell.”
“I won’t if you tell me what you were doing.”
“Look, Ben, …”
“Benjamin to you,” he growled.
“Fine, then. Don’t ever call me Ky.”
“I don’t. Now tell me. You’re gonna run away, aren’t you?”
“No. Why would I?”
“Why? Because this place stinks. You never cool off. Chiggers burrow into your skin and make you itch forever. All we do is work and eat and study. Jude and Donald don’t notice we’re alive unless we break one of their precious rules.”
“You run away, then!”
“I will. I’m going back to Saskatchewan, but if you get any ideas about how to do it, clue me in. We could help each other.”
“Tell me about Saskatchewan,” Kyleah said. What a magical sounding word.
“First promise you’ll tell me your ideas for running away.”
“Okay, I will, I just couldn’t come up with a good plan this morning,” she told Benjamin. Let him think what he wants. To tell him or anyone, would break the fourth and most important wishing rule: Don’t tell anyone your wish.
The screen door slammed. Becka and Sharon moseyed toward the garden, talking and giggling. Ever since Sharon arrived two years ago, she and Becka were inseparable. I don’t care. Who needs them anyway?
“I’ll tell you about Moose Jaw later,” Benjamin said.
“Moose Jaw?”
“Later, I said.”
It’s five o’clock,” Benjamin called, interrupting Kyleah in a rather exciting part of her latest library book. She lay on the living room floor in front of the rotating fan.
“Okay,” she muttered. “Let me finish this chapter. I’m almost done.” But the chapter ended in suspense, and she turned the page. Benjamin grabbed the book and put a milk pail in its place. Kyleah sighed and followed him out the door.
Kyleah skipped alongside Benjamin, hoping to hear more about the exotic places in faraway Canada while they did the evening milking. Jewel and Maude, the two Guernsey cows that kept the family in dairy products, waited at the barndoor.
“Kyleah, wait!” Aunt Jude called before they reached the barn. “Ben, you’ll have to milk both cows tonight, unless Donald gets home in time to help. I have another job for Kyleah.”
Kyleah groaned, and Benjamin muttered something that didn’t sound like a proper word, but they didn’t argue. They’d just get the morning milking added to their list of daily chores if they did. Most of the time, Uncle Donald milked before he went to work in the mornings.
“What do you want me to do?” Kyleah asked.
“It’s time you learned to take care of babies. With two of them at once, I can’t get anything else done. I’ll show you how to change their diapers, then you can give them their bottles and rock them to sleep.”
Kyleah followed each step, changing the baby girl as she watched Jude demonstrate on the scrawny boy. It’s about time, she thought. Some of the girls at school already had babysitting jobs, or so they claimed. Taking care of the babies had always been Deb’s job. But now Deb was gone, and Kyleah was happy to take over.
“What are their names?” Kyleah asked.
“I’m calling this one Josiah. His mother didn’t want to name him so his official name will have to wait for his adoptive parents. That one is Allyson. Her mother will be taking her home as soon as she recovers from surgery, so don’t get attached.”
Allyson’s smiles produced dimples in her tiny round face. Josiah was plain ugly. His slit-like eyes were too far apart. There seemed to be too much space between his tiny turned-up nose and his thin upper lip. He kept his hands in tiny, balled fists with no thumbs showing, as if he were going to punch someone.
Kyleah fed Allyson first, burped her, and gently placed her in one of the bassinets. Allyson didn’t protest, but went right to sleep. Josiah wouldn’t take the bottle. He cried and jerked and let milk run out of the corner of his mouth.“What’s wrong with him, Aunt Jude?” Kyleah asked, carrying him to the kitchen. “Is he human?”
“What kind of question is that? Do you think he’s a monkey or something?”
“Well, he looks weird, and he won’t suck. He keeps jerking and his eyes are…” She shrugged, at a loss of words to describe them.
“He has fetal alcohol syndrome,” Aunt Jude replied. “He’ll never be normal, and that’s too bad because it’s not his fault. His mother drank while she was pregnant and this is what alcohol does to a baby while it’s developing in the womb. There ought to be a punishment for a woman who’d do that to her child.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure about what?”
“That he won’t ever be normal. If he’s not, what will happen to him?”
“If he lives, he’ll always be a ward of the state; a burden to society. If only mothers could see what drinking does to their poor babies, maybe they wouldn’t do it.”
“How will he be a burden to society?”
“He’ll be on welfare because he’ll never be able to support himself.”
“But we’re on welfare. I mean the government pays you to take care of me and all the babies and other kids. Am I a burden to society?”
“You’re still a child. Someday, you’ll pay back by getting a good job and helping others. Josiah will be helpless and maybe worse for the rest of his life.”
“Worse?”
“He’ll never be smart. He’s retarded. Far too often, especially in cases as serious as Josiah’s, they don’t know right from wrong, so who knows what he’ll do.”
“How do you know I’ll be any different? There must be something wrong with me or my parents…”
“Kyleah, you know your mother died. She didn’t leave you by choice. And I know your grandparents. They’re fine people. They’d take care of you if they could. If you had anything wrong with you like Josiah has, I’d know it after six years.”
“But Dad didn’t want me.”
“You don’t know that, Kyleah,” Aunt Jude said, stroking her cheek. “There could be a lot of reasons he never found you after your mother died.”
Kyleah pulled away. Aunt Jude didn’t know everything. Looking down at the baby, she realized that Josiah was no longer jerking or crying. He was asleep.
“What made him jerk like that, Aunt Jude?”
“Withdrawal. He’s addicted to alcohol and his body jerks because of its need for more alcohol to satisfy his cravings.”
Becka stirred as Kyleah tiptoed past her bed. Slowly sinking to the floor, Kyleah crouched out of Becka’s field of vision. Becka coughed, sat up, and threw back the covers. Oh, shoot. She’s going to walk right over me! Kyleah shuffled sideways, but it was too late. Becka tripped—and screamed.
“It’s okay, Beck. Don’t wake up the whole house. It’s just me.”
“What are you doing? It’s the middle of the night! MOM!” Becka yelled.
A flashlight beam captured Kyleah. Becka ran to her mother.
“What on earth is going on in here? A scream like that will wake the whole household. Why are you dressed, Kyleah?” Aunt Jude’s voice, low, but sharp as a knife, sent a chill up Kyleah’s spine.
“I didn’t mean to scare Becka. I was trying not to wake anybody up.”
“Where were you going?”
“Uh, to the bathroom.”
“Don’t lie to me, or you’ll get a mouthful of soap. You don’t get dressed and put shoes on to go to the bathroom.”
“I wanted to go out in time to watch the sunrise,” Kyleah said, hanging her head.
“Get back in bed. It’s 5:00 in the morning. I don’t want to see your face again until 6:30, and then I want you in the kitchen helping with breakfast.”
Crying erupted from the nursery. “Oh, Great! You woke the babies, Kyleah. You can stay up and feed them.”
Josiah’s weak wail joined Allyson’s lusty yell. Kyleah headed for the nursery. As she passed the boy’s room, she saw Benjamin step back into the shadows with a smirk on his face.
Josiah jerked and stiffened when Kyleah picked him up. He would not snuggle into her arms. He seemed to fight any closeness. She put him back in his bassinet and checked on Allyson, who was making the most noise. She was soaked. Kyleah changed her diaper and one-piece sleeper after lifting her off the wet sheets. Aunt Jude brought a warm bottle. Allyson hushed instantly as she greedily sucked down the warm liquid. Aunt Jude changed the bassinet sheets and disappeared. In a moment she was back with another warm bottle. She took Allyson and gave Kyleah the bottle.
“Take Josiah to the kitchen, so he won’t wake Allyson or Maria.”
Allyson was soon asleep in her crib. Maria in her youth bed slept through it all. Aunt Jude went back to her bedroom and closed the door.
If I can get him to sleep, I might still catch the sunrise, Kyleah thought as she rocked the fussy baby and tried to force the nipple into his mouth. His tongue kept pushing it out as his head jerked from side to side. He cried louder and winced, as if his skin hurt, when she touched him. Holding him tightly didn’t ease his crying either. She let him lie on her lap without touching him, but he jerked so hard he almost fell off.
Kyleah rewrapped him in the blanket and laid him on the rug in front of the sink. She pushed a chair over to the cupboard, climbed up to stand on the counter top so she could reach the top shelf. If he’s hurting from withdrawal, just a little alcohol might stop the pain enough so he can sleep. From the back of the shelf she got a bottle of cooking wine and climbed down. As she poured some into Josiah’s bottle, she heard a noise. Turning, she saw Benjamin leaning on the door jamb, arms folded across his chest.
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