Chapter 129
By the time we climbed the porch steps, the pack house was beautifully ordinary. The screen door sang on its hinge, butter and cinnamon fogged the hallway, and someone had left a tiny sock on the stair like a white flag. Dad met us with a spatula and a look that said everyone’s fine, then ruined the tough part by ruffling my hair. “Pancakes going cold.”
“I’ll fix that,” Xavier said, and squeezed past him into the kitchen.
Elliot and Macey were on stools, elbows planted, faces striped with sunlight and icing sugar. Mum had braided Macey’s hair into something that could defeat gravity; Tommy had a dish towel over his shoulder and the doomed patience of a man being used as a napkin. Fergus had been issued a saucer.
“There you are,” Mum said, like we’d been to the letterbox and back. “Elliot, love, no more licking the spoon while you talk.”
Elliot froze, spoon midair. “But what if the spoon needs encouragement?”
Tommy lost the towel. “Then you give it a pep talk after it goes in the sink.
We traded glances across the island that said later and now and we do this together. Noah topped up water glasses. Levi pulled a chair, turned it backward, and straddled it like he was about to teach algebra, calm and plain.
“We met your messenger,” I told Elliot, no preamble. He sets better when you don’t try to slide the truth under his feet. “They came alone and did as we asked them to.”
Elliot’s shoulders did the small lift–and–set that means he’s bracing and ready anyway. “Okay.”
“They said there are… people,” I went on, finding the clean words, “who think you might be theirs by blood. Parents. A little brother.”
Macey leaned into his arm. He didn’t stop her.
Levi kept it simple. “We told them you’re safe, and that you’re not being handed to strangers who say the word family. We asked for details we can check, real things, not stories. If they bring those, we meet again in two mornings. Same place. One person. No surprises.”
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“What kind of details?” Elliot asked.
“Things that don’t travel in rumors,” Xavier said. “A line from a song your mother sang. A
small scar nobody would know to invent. A pet name you had before words got bigger.”
Elliot’s mouth went soft around a thought. He licked a sugar smudge off his knuckle, frowned at it, then wiped it on Tommy’s sleeve on purpose.
“Hey,” Tommy said without heat.
“It’s for luck,” Elliot said. Then, quieter: “I… remembered a little more last night. In dreams.”
Mum put a plate down as quiet as a hand on a back. “Would you share with us?”
Elliot’s eyes went to the window. “There was a field. Buttercups. A woman laughed like she meant it. A man said my name and it felt… steady. Like a fence when you’re walking on it. And a little boy with jam hands. He stopped crying when I told him it was okay.” He swallowed, brave and neat. “If there’s a brother, I think I held him.
Tommy’s jaw moved, then set. “That’s a good anchor,” he said softly.
I slid my hand into my pocket and brought out the red thread Irin had left on the sand, sun–faded in one spot, the ghost of an old knot in the middle. I set it on the island between the plates.
Elliot’s breath caught. “I know that,” he blurted, then flinched like he’d said the wrong thing. “I mean, it looks like… like something from the dream. The lady tied something on my wrist. She tied one on his too.”
“Find–you string,” Macey supplied, matter–of–fact. “Nana does blue ones at the markets.”
Elliot touched the thread with one finger, like it might be shy. “It had two knots,” he said, eyes far. “For two boys.”
Levi didn’t move like a hunter around a spook. He moved like a librarian around a book someone had brought back late and sorry. “Do you want to keep it?” he asked. “Or should I hold it until the next meeting?”
Elliot looked at me. He’s good at asking without asking. I nodded. “Your call.”
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He slid the thread to his side of the island, folded it once, and tucked it into the pocket of his shorts like he’d been born with that pocket. “I’ll hold it,” he said. “But if it makes my head feel weird, I’ll give it back.”
“Deal,” Levi said.
Noah set a glass of water near his elbow. “Is there anything else you remember?”
Elliot’s face did the listening thing, like he was turning a radio dial inside his chest. When he spoke, the words came slow and careful, like he was carrying eggs.
“Sleep, small star,” he said, barely above the clink of forks. “Boat on the barley, back to the bales. I’m here, I’m here.”
Mum’s hand went to her mouth. The kitchen changed shape for a second and then remembered itself.
“That,” Levi said, not quite under his breath. He made a note on his phone with three words: small star / barley/bales..
“We’ll ask for a song line,” he told Elliot. “If they bring anything different, we know the rumor mill did the cooking.”
Elliot nodded. He pushed the plate away, appetite yielding to thought. “What if they are my family?”
“Then we sit with you while you feel it,” Xavier said. “We’ll help you through whatever you decide.”
“And if they bring threats,” Tommy added, because his job is to say the thing everyone hopes we won’t need, “we end it at the path.”
“Speaking of paths,” Dad said from the stove, easing the room back onto its feet with a familiar clatter, “Haiden sent word. He and Aleisha are checking the south culvert.”
“He said anything?” Xavier asked, already reaching out along the net of minds that laces the property like good fencing.
“Not yet,” Dad said. “But I don’t like the south culvert. Never have.”
Macey poked at a strawberry like it owed her money. “Culverts are rude,” she announced.
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“They always splash mud at my socks.”
“Socks have asked you to stop jumping in them,” Tommy said.
She considered this and shrugged, unrepentant.
Elliot’s hand went back to his pocket, checked the thread like a talisman, then came back to rest on the island.
I kissed Elliot’s hair. “Finish two bites,” I told him. Then we’ll go home and put up the pirate ship. You promised Macey.”
“Stealth pirate ship,” Macey corrected, mouth full of strawberry
“Best kind,” Elliot said, and his smile had edges but it was real
Elliot slid off his stool and came around the island. He didn’t climb me; he just leaned
into my side until my hand found the back of his neck.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said into my shirt. “Even if they are my family. You’re family
too.”
“I know,” I said. “And if you ever wanted to see them…If it was safe…I’d take you to meet
them.”
He nodded and let go. Macey commandeered his free hand. “Come on,” she ordered.
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