Free The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope by Rhonda Riley Page A

and came back to help me. She was strong and well-coordinated, taking his whole weight from the bottom as we pushed him up the steps. I fought to keep my concentration, to not stare at her.
    We set Cole up by the stove, on the spot where I had slept beside her a few days before. He shivered and then opened his eyes. He inspected her as she wiped mud off his face. “Evelyn?”
    “Yes?” I replied.
    He peered down at me as I cut his pants away from his swelling leg. His eyes went from me to her and then back and forth between us. “Addie Nell, right?” It seemed to please him that he remembered the name.
    She turned to me. I shrugged.
    “Yes,” I told him.
    Cole opened his mouth as if to say more, but a wave of pain hit him as I pulled the boot off of his bad leg. He closed his eyes and trembled silently. The bone had not come through, but it was a bad break. Except for a few moans, he lay quietly while we finished covering and cleaning him the best we could without moving him anymore.
    We stood, dripping on the floor. My momma’s eyes—my eyes—staring back at me. She left, came back with another towel, and began to dry my hair.
    “No.” I pushed the towel away. “I have to go get help. He needs help now. I’ll just get wet again. We have to keep him warm or he’ll go into shock. You get some dry clothes on.”
    She nodded and disappeared down the hall. I went for more blankets. I moved mechanically and did not allow myself to think.
    She returned quickly and began wrapping warming bricks in towels. I froze, unable to take my eyes off her face. She laid the bricks at his feet then stretched on the floor next to him. She motioned for me to tuck the blankets around them. “Like you did for me.”
    I touched her arm as I pulled more blankets over them. She held my gaze a moment, then smiled. One thought came to me, overriding everything: I don’t know who she is, but I trust her.
    Then I had to go.
    I shut the door behind me and stepped into the familiarity of the cold, stinging rain. In the barn, Cole’s horse startled and backed away, head high, and rolled her eyes while I saddled Becky. I fumbled the bridle. Cold and shock numbed me.
    The ride to Cole’s house seemed endless. Twice I had to get off and walk for fear that my own horse would slip. My mind was as blurred by her, by Addie Nell, as my sight was by the veil of driving rain. I worried about Cole, but I knew what a broken leg was. Broken legs could be set and healed. Addie Nell—who had been neither woman nor man and now seemed to be my twin—I did not know.
    What I had seen in the mirror just before I ran out to Cole rang like a deep blow to my chest. I had to catch my breath, to let my internal organs slip back where they should be. There was no logical, no reasonable explanation for her to look like me, no natural explanation for her transformation. My mind kept going back and forth from the seemingly faceless person I’d found in the mud to the face I’d seen next to mine in the mirror. My panic rose again. I dismounted, fell to my knees, and retched. I stayed there kneeling on the ground until long after I had stopped gagging. I was dumb, senseless as the water that streamed down my shoulders and back.
    I wanted to go on past Cole’s and into town and tell Momma. I wanted the dry comfort of my mother’s kitchen. But she—Addie Nell—appeared so normal now. Would anyone, even Momma, believe me? It was unbelievable. But I had seen it with my own eyes.
    I thought of her bright gaze and smile, of the sorrow on her face as she handed the photograph of the Japanese woman back to me. Another kind of panic filled me. I knew then, instinctively and with certainty, that I would not be able to tell anyone the truth. I sensed, just beyond my attempts to imagine telling anyone, a darkness and confusion, an amalgam of all the people around me—those smiling GIs in Frank’s pictures, the Thompson family sneering when the Catholic family moved in next