Free Epitaph Road by David Patneaude Page B

said. Her distinctive, demanding voice moved into the room. “Alone?”
    â€œPaige knows,” Mom said. “She’s been playing detective.”
    â€œI’m hardly a detective,” Aunt Paige said. “I don’t know what Heather has told you about me — if anything — but I’m a doctor. Public health. The Council sends me advisories on potential mass fatalities and bulletins on quarantine activity, even when the deaths and quarantines are virtual, just part of supposedly mock exercises. I’m sworn to secrecy, of course, but between the notices, the scurrying around I’ve witnessed lately, and a small amount of investigation on my own, it wasn’t that difficult to put together a fuzzy picture of something on the horizon.”
    â€œYou’ll tell no one ,” Rebecca Mack said.
    â€œI have a brother in harm’s way,” Aunt Paige said.
    â€œOf course,” Rebecca Mack said. “Kellen’s father.”
    â€œI lost my father,” Aunt Paige said. “Uncles, cousins, a grandfather. I can figure out a way to lure him away without raising his suspicions.”
    â€œYou — we — can’t take the risk,” Rebecca Mack said. “And your losses were hardly unique.”
    â€œThere will be no risk,” Aunt Paige said.
    â€œPaige,” Mom said.
    â€œIf you persist in this idea,” Rebecca Mack said, “we will need to place you in custody until the event’s… conclusion. ”
    â€œCustody?” Aunt Paige said.
    â€œYes,” Rebecca Mack said. “Lock and key and no way to communicate.”
    The room was silent for a moment. Then footsteps sounded. The door slammed.
    â€œWell, you’ve got me alone,” Mom said.
    â€œCan she be trusted?” Rebecca Mack said.
    I waited for Mom’s answer. My head spun. What was going on? For some reason, I wished Tia were up here with me, listening to this. I had a feeling she’d figure it out. “I don’t know,” Mom said finally.
    â€œCome downstairs with me,” Rebecca Mack said. “I need to show you something. And we have to make a call.”
    I waited for the door to close, then belly-slid back toward my room. I was sweating more now, breathing harder. Even all the way up here, I could smell dinner cooking. But my stomach felt knotted. I was no longer hungry.

Even though Dad always tried his hardest not to give away his feelings, I’m pretty sure he loved Charlie best. But that didn’t make me super sad, really, because Charlie is the firstborn and a boy and he looks a lot like Mom and he’s the best brother in the whole world, even during those tearful times when he’s being colossally stubborn and bossy and rude (I especially don’t care about any of that stuff now, because Elisha’s Bear makes him nervous and not himself most of the time). The sad part, actually, is that I’ll never get another chance to make Dad see that I might have been second to come around, and I might be a girl, but I’m okay, too.
    I really am.
    â€” ENTRY IN THE DIARY OF P AIGE W INTERS ,
    D ECEMBER 17, 2067
C HAPTER S IX
    I found Aunt Paige in the backyard by herself, pacing barefoot back and forth near a bed of sweet peas and rosebushes. A fragrant sugary scent saturated the air, at odds with the foul thoughts filling my head. She didn’t seem to notice that one of the thorns on the yellow rose she was holding had pricked her first finger. A trickle of half-dried blood wound around it like a thin red ribbon.
    Not certain what exactly to say, I stood there a minute, silent, before she noticed me. She forced a smile. “How are you, sunshine?” she said.
    â€œI heard you,” I confessed.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI heard you and Mom and Rebecca Mack talking. I was in the attic.”
    She smiled again. This one was small but authentic. “Up to your old tricks.”
    â€œWhat’s going