Finding Pedro by Cora Foerstner

Author:Cora Foerstner [Foerstner, Cora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sorrel Leaf Press
Published: 2020-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24: ZELLA

Hope

July 20, 1890

5:00 a.m.

Zella tried for several minutes to wake her brother. Usually, she felt their connection. Sometimes they didn’t have to talk because they knew what the other was thinking. Right now, she needed him, and he clung to sleep like someone in a coma.

“Alroy. Alroy.” She shook his shoulder, gently at first, then harder, shaking his body.

“Wake up,” she said into his ear.

He opened his eyes. Her nose almost touched his face.

“I’ve been trying to wake you up for ages,” she said.

“Go away,” he mumbled.

“Don’t be a goose. Wake up.”

He groaned.

“It’s still dark.”

“It’s almost five. I heard Wyatt come home, and then he left again.”

He rubbed his eyes.

“You’re mad,” he said, turning to look at her.

He bolted up.

“What’s happened? Pedro?”

“No. Nothing happened.”

“You’ve been crying. What’s wrong?” Alroy asked.

“It’s just I’ve been thinking about Pedro. And—”

“Don’t say it. It might come true.”

“I know. I don’t want to say it either, but I can’t help thinking.” She blew her nose into her handkerchief.

Alroy sat up, put an arm around her, pulling her close. He stroked her hair, and she began to relax.

“Listen,” he said. “If he’s been taken to one of the boats, he’s okay. They aren’t going to hurt someone they want to sell. That wouldn’t make any sense. And the boats are still in the harbor.”

“If he’s not on a boat?” she whispered.

“Then we’ll keep looking until we find him.”

She knew what he was thinking because she was thinking the same thing. If Pedro wasn’t on one of the boats, the likelihood of his being hurt increased. The longer he was gone, the more likely their worst fears might be true.

All that was true, but she couldn’t help thinking this was her fault. At first, she thought those feelings were guilt, but when she took a long hard look at herself, she realized something different.

Her feeling wasn’t guilt. It was a realization. She wanted so much to be an investigative reporter that she pushed everyone to help her. She’d used Pedro’s good nature and sense of justice to get what she wanted, a story about smugglers, a story to make a name for herself.

It was the same smugness that made her bully Liza into making that hideous dress for her. As awful as those things were, her callousness was worse. She wanted her way, and she hadn’t considered how her manipulation affected others.

The person she’d become wasn’t someone she admired. She’d even shut her mother out of her life. In a way, her anger toward her mother was justified. But her cruelty and lack of compassion were unforgivable.

Glancing at her brother, she realized that she couldn’t tell him all that. This was her burden. What she wanted was to be a better person, to learn to forgive and understand others. Her father taught her those things, and she’d discarded them.

Being a good person was hard.

“It’s going to be all right,” Alroy said.

“I know. It has to be.” She sat up straighter. “I’m worried about you. About those tattoos.

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