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The young woman sat in the footwell, her knees drawn up beneath her chin, shivering with a violent, spastic palsy that shook her entire frame.
She looked at her daughter, sleeping peacefully on the heated leather, a faint, contented sigh escaping Chloe’s lips as the warmth penetrated the purple sleeping bag.
Then she looked up at the back of Arthur’s head.
“My name is **Eleanor**,” she whispered, her voice cracked and raw, tears finally spilling freely down her hollow cheeks, leaving clean, glistening tracks through the grime. “Eleanor Miller. And that’s Chloe.”
***Arthur nodded slowly, his eyes meeting hers in the glass.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Eleanor,” Arthur replied, his voice deep, gentle, and carrying the weight of a stone foundation. “My name is Arthur. You are safe now. Both of you.”
He shifted the transmission into drive.
The heavy all-wheel-drive sedan pulled smoothly out of the gravel lot, its tires biting through the snow, turning east onto Route 30 toward the quiet, fieldstone valleys of northern Lancaster County.
