Max Collins - Before the Dawn

Finally, still filling in gaps in the snowman, Lucy said, “Mom is the person who gave birth to me, and you, too.”

“Yours mom gave birth to me?”

Lucy laughed again, stopped herself, shook her head. “No, not my mom... Your mom, whoever she is, or maybe... was ... gave birth to you. You have a belly button, don’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“A navel?”

“Of course I have a navel.”

“Well, that’s where you used to be connected to your mom, when you were born. That proves it. Whether you know her or not, you had a mom, all right.” Lucy shrugged. “Everybody does.”

“So... moms are always girls?”

“Women,” Lucy said seriously, seeming to take this teacherly responsibility to heart. “When we’re older, we’ll be women, and moms, too.”

Max didn’t like the sound of that much. “Do we have to?”

“Well... why do you have to ask such hard questions, Max?”

That there were things Lucy didn’t know seemed oddly comforting to Max; made her feel less ignorant.

“Anyway,” Lucy was saying, as she appraised Frosty one last time, “my mom can help. She can give you food and maybe Aunt Vicki’s got some old clothes...”

More people — that was bad... wasn’t it? Suddenly, Max feared she never should have stopped, never should have spoken to this little girl.

“No,” Max said. “That’s okay. I fend for myself. I adapt and survive.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t tell anyone you saw me, okay?”

Lucy seemed perplexed.

“Lucy, please. Don’t make me...”

“Make you what?”

Kill you, Max thought.

Lucy’s eyes brightened with realization. “It’s ’cause you ran away, isn’t it? You’re afraid Mom would send you back!”

Slowly, Max nodded. She touched the girl’s arm; held it firmly. “Promise me, Lucy?”

Lucy’s bare hand touched Max’s mittened one. “Max — were they mean to you? I mean, where you ran away from... were they strict?”

In her mind’s eye, Max saw Eva fall dead from Lydecker’s bullet.

“They were strict,” Max said.

“They were mean to you there?”

“Very mean.”

Lucy forgot about her mom as she became captivated with the notion of Max’s dilemma. “Gee — what did they do?”

“They took me away from my mother,” Max said, stating her own sudden realization, “and then told me she never existed.”

“They really did that?”

A car, one block over, rolled by, Max looked up, saw the car, and ducked back behind the evergreen, Lucy hot on her heels.

“They really did that?” Lucy repeated.

“Oh yes,” Max said. “And they’re chasing me now. You could be in danger, too, just being with me... That’s why no one can know that I’m here.”

Lucy seemed to understand, yet the danger Max had mentioned only seemed to excite the child. “Listen, Max... I’ve got an idea. We can hide you. You can go with us. We live far away, really far away... Whoever’s looking for you would never think to look there.”

A warm feeling came into Max’s chest, something she’d never felt before: hope. “But if we do that, won’t you have to tell your mom?”

“Trust me — she’ll want to help you.”

Max shook her head vigorously; she had trusted Lydecker...

“Mom likes kids, she’ll help you and keep away the people chasing you. Look, she tried to adopt a sister for me and they turned her down.”

“Adopt?”

“Take in a kid whose mom was dead or something. But my dad... they said he wasn’t ‘suitable,’ or... anyway, she’d give anything for me to have a sister.”

Unconvinced, Max said, “Thank you, but I better get going.” She tugged off the mittens and handed them back to Lucy.

“You can’t leave — you’ll freeze in those jammies! You’re shivering.”

Max shrugged. “I would rather freeze to death than go back.” She turned and started to walk around toward the rear of the house.

Catching up with her, Lucy put a hand on Max’s arm. “How about if it’s just our secret, you and me?”

Skepticism etched Max’s face.

“Honest,” Lucy said. “You can hide in the car and when we get home, you’ll be miles and miles away.”

“Really?”

“Nobody will ever have run away better!.. We can do it, Max, if you can stay quiet.”

Max shrugged. “I’m always quiet.”

“You kind of are. Deal?”

Lucy stuck out her hand; this was a gesture Max knew, from Manticore: she shook the other child’s hand.

Sneaking another furtive glance at the house, Lucy led the way out front to where a tired old SUV sat in the street. When they got to the far side, Lucy said, “When I open the door, you get in quick. There’s a blanket in the back... crawl under it and stay on the floor by the backseat. Quiet as a mouse, now!”

“I can be quieter.” To Max’s ears, mice were terribly noisy.

“Mom always makes me sit in the back,” Lucy was saying, “with my seat belt on. If we’re quiet, we can whisper... and if I can get a snack from Aunt Vicki for the road, we can share it. I’ll sneak you some!”

“Snack?”

“Food, Max. You do eat, don’t you?”

A smile slipped out despite her fear. “Yes — and it’s been a long time since I did.”

Lucy nodded. “Okay, I’ll get ya something... This is exciting! This beats building a snowman all to shit!”

Max’s eyes widened, hearing the forbidden word from this kid.

“Now get inside the SUV,” Lucy ordered, “and get under the blanket.”

Lucy opened the door and Max, trained to follow her group leader, did as the other girl had instructed. The inside of the truck was technically cold, but so much warmer than the outdoors. At least she was finally out of the wind and, with the blanket, Max started to get warm almost immediately.

Less than an hour later, the back hatch door flipped up and Max nearly panicked... but Lucy’s mom didn’t look twice at the blanket when she shoved two suitcases into the storage area... one of them awfully close to Max’s nose... and slammed the door again.

Max listened as the mom said good-bye to Aunt Vicki, who also said a loud good-bye to Lucy.

“Get your seat belt on,” Mom said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Lucky answered, her weight dropping heavily onto the seat just behind Max.

Shoving the suitcase away a little, Max silently rolled over and took stock of her small world: the seat Lucy was in sat high, with an unused storage area beneath. Max crawled under the high seat, her head hugging the floor; she looked up to see Lucy looking down at her. The other girl had to cover her own mouth to keep from squealing in delight. What to Max was an exercise in survival was to Lucy a great adventure.

“You okay, Luce?” Mom asked.

“Fine. Just fine.”

The engine turned over and the SUV coughed to life. “It’ll warm up in here soon, dear.”

“Good. I am kinda cold.”

“Catch your death making that silly snowman.”

“Didn’t you like Frosty, Mom?”

“He was very handsome, dear.”

After a while, the heater was putting out admirably, and Lucy looked at Max, who gave her a little nod. “We’re warm enough now, Mom.”

“We?”

“My new friend... uh... Max... uh... can’t you see her? She’s sitting right next to me.”

Mom let out a little laugh. “Another invisible friend?”

Lucy shrugged.

“Honey, aren’t you getting a little old for that?”

Another shrug. “Max’ll be the last one.”

The banter went on like that for a few more minutes, Lucy slipping Max cookies when Mom was watching the road, Max chewing as quietly as possible. As Max listened to the conversation between mother and daughter — a conversation nothing like the talk between adults and the X5 kids at Manticore... the Mom seemed... nice — the young stowaway realized just how alien a universe she was entering.