Unforsaken by Sophie Littlefield Page B

here,” he added as hepushed me gently into the car. “We’re gonna get your auntie back. And then we’re gonna set out to restore the good family name.”
    I slammed the car door, trying to shut out the sound of his laughter.

I KNEW WHERE WE WERE GOING after just a few miles, when Derek took a right at the fork in the road past Sugar Creek. We were headed for his daddy’s land, mostly poor clay soil that had yielded stingy crops of alfalfa and soybeans until Mr. Pollitt died eight or nine years back. Everyone thought Derek, the Pollitts’ only son, would take over, but instead he leased off what he could and let the rest go fallow and moved in with his mama at the far edge of Trashtown. Derek’s mama hailed from the Banished; his daddy did not. Mrs. Pollitt was long divorced from her husband and was at first more than happy to house and feed her only child and wash his clothes. I guessed it had gotten old fast, as Derek never seemed to be able to hold on to a job more than a few weeks at a time.
    Next to me, Kaz gave me a reassuring smile and took myhand in his. Derek, who was leaning over the seat, keeping an eye on us, guffawed. “Aw, check it out, young love.”
    “Leave ’em alone,” Rattler snapped. “ ’At boy’s got pure blood in his veins, which is a damn sight more’n you can say.”
    I saw a look of hurt pass across Derek’s dull face, but he shut up.
    I hadn’t realized that Rattler knew Kaz was Banished, but it made sense. I was still getting used to the ability to sense other Banished, the curious magnetism that was like a stirring of the cells when they were near. Prairie had explained that it would become second nature before long; Kaz had said that for him it was like yet another layer of vision, on top of the reality that everyone else saw and the pictures that occasionally flashed through his mind.
    I closed my eyes and willed myself to be open to it, and sure enough I got a faint sense from Derek, but the connection with Rattler was almost overwhelming, like an invisible thread binding our destinies. It combined fear and familiarity with something else, something inevitable and dark but also part of me.
    For my first sixteen years, I had believed that my father was dead, as Gram had wanted me to believe. How many times had I wished for a father to rescue me from Gram’s run-down house, to protect me, to cherish me?
    And now, bizarrely, I had what I had wished for. “He won’t hurt us,” I whispered to Kaz.
    We turned onto a weed-choked gravel drive leading intoa hollow, where the old Pollitt farmhouse was tucked behind a stand of poplar trees.
    “Home, sweet home,” Rattler announced, but I was certain I saw Derek flinch as he looked at the old board-framed house, the sagging porch with its toppled flowerpots spilling dirt.
    The padlock on the front door was brand-new, gleaming in the beam of Rattler’s flashlight as Derek fumbled in his pocket for the key. Inside, there was a smell of decay overlaid with bleach. Rattler snapped on the lights and I saw that we were standing in a plain square parlor that contained only a couple of straight-backed chairs, a threadbare sofa and a dusty braided rug. Near the door were half a dozen trash bags overflowing with junk. Someone had been cleaning, preparing for our arrival, no doubt.
    This was meant to be our new home.
    “After you,” Rattler said grandly, but Kaz didn’t budge.
    “Come on, now, boy, don’t be like that. You’n me, we’re practically kin, you bein’ full-blood and all.”
    Kaz and I followed Derek through the parlor and up the stairs. He turned on the lights as he went. None of the bulbs were very bright, and the dim light added to the gloom of the place, illuminating torn wallpaper, worn carpets, stained and cracked ceilings.
    Upstairs was a narrow hallway with a bathroom and three closed doors. Two of them bore shiny padlocks just like the one on the front door.
    Rattler stepped in front of us and opened the first