Chapter 13: Birdie

Demi knew the voice before she knew she was running.

She was across the gravel and halfway up the meadow before Drake caught her sleeve.

"Wait," he said. "Let the cameras come to her."

"She doesn't know where she is."

"That is the point," Drake said quietly. "Let her say it where everyone can hear."

Demi stopped.

Her hands were cold, and her mouth tasted of woodsmoke.

At the gate, the old woman shoved against the guards and held the dented kettle over her head.

"I am not a thief! I came on the bus! I want my daughter!"

Quinton was already striding across the grass with two of his crew.

"Remove her," he said. "She's a trespasser and a lunatic."

"She's on my raw feed," Drake said, without raising his voice. "Leave her where she stands."

Quinton turned.

"Drake, this is a private family matter."

"Sixty-one million people are watching your family. Let her in."

The guards looked at Drake, and Drake nodded.

They opened the gate.

The old woman stumbled through and straightened her patched coat.

She was smaller than Demi remembered, and grayer.

Her hands were the same, knotted and scarred from lye soap.

Those hands had pulled Demi out of bed by the hair at five every morning for twenty years.

In the cabin there had been a small wooden bird on the high shelf.

Demi had never been allowed to touch it.

Her father stood at the rail of the lodge porch with her mother beside him.

"Who is this woman?" her father said.

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