ESCAPE
Chapter Ten
Together they ran into the clearing.
"What if someone sees us?" Rose
asked.
"There’s nothing we can do about that
now."
Fortunately, they soon got to the forest,
where the trees would hide them from view.
"Where’s your brother parked?"
"Two miles from here. I did my homework,
and Mr. Hockley has his men check any cars that come near the asylum."
"How could he manage that?"
"There’s a bridge just a mile and a half
from here. It’s the only road leading into here, so unless someone climbs over
all the mountains on all the other sides, they have to go over the bridge.
Well, Mr. Hockley got his men in charge of the toll booth coming out from here,
so they check everyone going out in cars. That’s why my brother is waiting for
us so far away."
"How are we going to get over the
bridge?"
"We’ll have to go underneath it."
Sure enough, the ground soon curved downwards
and Rose found herself on the muddy shores of a small lake. She tramped through
it in the white oxfords Alice had stashed for her in the forest the day before.
*****
It wasn’t until half an hour later that they
made their way to a small, rundown housing community. It wasn’t until they had
gone closer that Rose spotted the car.
"Wow. That looks really nice."
"Mmm-hmm," Alice said
distastefully. "He’s my stepbrother and his precious daddy buys him
anything his heart desires. Meanwhile, I have to raise my own money for college
at an asylum where the workers are in more need of confinement than the
patients." Irritably, she rapped on the window of the car.
The door opened, and a tall, clean-cut man
stepped out. He looked to be about five years older than Rose, with light blond
hair and clear blue eyes. "You must be Rose."
"Yes. Thank you so much for doing this
for me. I don’t know where I’d be if it wasn’t for the kindness of
strangers."
"No problem. I’m Rich Calvert, Alice’s
brother." He opened the car door for Rose.
She turned to Alice. "Oh, Alice, you
can’t even begin to imagine how indebted I am to you."
The young girl smiled cheerfully. "If
you spread a little kindness, it’s sure to come back to you. And if it doesn’t,
then you can make your own with the knowledge that you did good."
"No. Someone like you only comes along
once in eternity. You have a pure soul, a pure heart, and more brains than the
inventor of the wheel. Until the day I die, and maybe even after, I will do all
that is in my power to ensure that your kindness is rewarded. And you can be
modest and say that you aren’t kind just because you expect something in
return, but you deserve it more than anyone I have ever before met, and will
probably ever meet again."
Alice embraced Rose. "Rose, you are
driven. That is all I can say about you. You are on your own personal mission
to do good, and there’s no doubt in my mind that you will achieve it. You will
change the world for the better. I can feel it."
"Oh, Alice! Where will you go from
here?"
"Rich has promised to take care of me.
In a week I will take a train to northern Canada, where I might actually do
some good in the hospitals there. But I’ll be back in the states for college.
Oh, don’t look so heartbroken. As sure as I am that the sun shines, we will
meet again."
The train ticket was handed to Rose from the
layering of Alice’s dress, along with a total of one thousand dollars.
"I’ll pay you back. And not just for the
money," Rose told her, and with one last hug, Rose was in the car, the
door shut, and Alice was becoming a speck in the distance.