Chapter 6
“Eight... nine... ten!” She heard Betty shout. “Ready or not, here I come!”
The kids were just playing in the yard. FP was out there along with Toni’s father, Henry and Fred Andrews. She was meant to be getting refreshers on lemonades and diet cokes but still, her gaze moved to the window, where she saw her daughter, a blonde blur of a seven year old with two ponytails sticking out on either side of her head, rush past the house, finding Toni as she hid behind the old oak tree in the backyard.
She was safe.
Toni complained loudly about always being the first one found, though there was a smile on her face and a spring in her step when she took Betty by the hand and dragged her further into the front yard to find the others.
She was home.
Sometimes she still couldn’t quite believe it, that nearly two years had passed since the day Sheriff Keller showed up at the Wyrm with the news that her daughter had been found. Betty was seven now, nearing the end of second grade. She loved reading Nancy Drew books, and had announced to Penny on more than one occasion that she was going to be a detective when she grew up. Or a journalist.
Whatever she wanted to do, Penny would support her.
Well-meaning Serpents liked to remark on the strength of her little girl, and they were right. No child she had ever met was more resilient than her daughter.
But Betty never wanted to talk about it.
Her kidnapping.
The two years she’d spent away from Riverdale.
Penny didn’t like to be pushy. She didn’t want to b the kind of parent that forced her kid to talk about the things she would have rather kept buried, but though her nightmares had subsided within six months, she never said anything about them. Even at five years old, her response had been: I don’t want to talk about it, mommy.
But she kind of wished she would have.
Penny heard a screech and returned her gaze to the window just in time to see Betty running away from Jughead. He divebombed her legs, sending both of them crashing to the ground in a fit of laughter.
She couldn’t help the smile that made its way onto her face.
“Hey Pen!” FP shouted. “Hurry up, would ya? You’re missing it!”
***
“Nine... ten!”
She heard Archie’s footsteps as they grew closer, smacking a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing. There was something about playing hide and seek tag that just made her feel happy.
“Shh,” Jughead warned, crouched down beside her against the side of the garage. When Archie came into view, ready to catch then, he sprang up, tackling him to the ground with a fistful of grass blades being thrown in his face. “Run Betts!”
Betty took off in the direction of their imaginary finish line, Toni’s laughter filling her ears as she dove at her, sending both of them toppling over.
She smiled so hard, her cheeks hurt.
God, Betty loved her friends.
***
Betty was halfway on her lap, the two of them sharing a single chair, when a black car pulled up their dirt driveway.
“FP…”
But he ignored her, standing up and sliding into his jacket despite the early summer heat.
“Yeah?” He grunted.
The college aged kid looked taken aback. “Uhh… Elizabeth Peabody… does she live here?”
“FP,” Penny repeated.
“What the fuck do you want with a seven year old girl?” FP hissed
“I h…have a subpoena for her to appear in c-court…”
“What?” Penny cried, snatching the paper out of his hands.
God damnit.
The State of New York wanted her seven year old to testify against Hal.
***
Sometimes she remembered how ruthless Alice could be with a comb or a brush.
But mommy wasn’t like that.
It had only been a few weeks since Betty had made the transition from baths to showers and now she sat cross legged on her bed in her favorite purple pajamas while her mom sat behind her, gently working the tangles out of her sopping hair while a brush covered in glitter.
“Honey, I need to talk to you about something.”
She sounded serious, like last summer when she and Toni accidentally broke one of the windows in Toni’s bedroom playing soccer.
Her grip tightened on her doll, Angela. “What is it, mommy?”
“Do you remember what happened when you lived with Hal and Alice?”
“I didn’t live with them, mom,” Betty shot her a hard look. “They stole me. From you.”
***
Well…
Maybe she was old enough to understand.
***
“Baby, do you know what a judge is?”
“Yeah,” she answered. “We learned about them in school. They wore powdery white wigs, right? They were kind of curly? I bet they smelled bad.”
Penny was at a loss for words. “Well... yes, honey, but that... was a long time ago...”
She took a deep breath, putting the brush down on the bed.
“Elizabeth, a judge wants to ask you a few questions about when Hal took you,” Penny said firmly. “But if you don’t want to, or if this is something you aren’t comfortable with...”
Betty was silent for a moment.
“If I talk to the judge, will he go to jail?”
“I... I don’t know, baby, but I hope so.”
She turned her head, giving Penny a full view of her daughter’s features. There were no traces of Hal in her description. Even her eyes, a striking green, had come from her grandmother, the first Elizabeth Peabody.
Her little girl was a Peabody, through and through.
“Well,” Betty echoed. “I’ll have to tell the truth then. I’ll make them believe me, mommy. Don’t worry.”
***
“State your name for the record, please.”
Her hands were shaking.
She smoothed her palms on the soft fabric of her dress. Unlike Alice, her mom didn’t force her to wear frilly dresses, but rather ones she could breathe in. A dress she was allowed to play outside in. She’d torn a sleeve falling out of a tree a few weeks ago, and her mom barely batted an eye, telling her that it was no big deal.
Alice had smacked her for spilling juice and staining the white silk of her church dress when she was four.
“Sweetheart,” the Judge said. “State your name for the record please.”
“Elizabeth Peabody,” she said. “But I would like to be called Betty.”
The man nodded. “Thank you, Betty.”
Betty felt eyes on her, her gaze accidently shifting to meet Hal’s angry stare. She knew it all too well.
But she wasn’t afraid of him anymore. Not when her mommy was just feet away, ready to whisk her back to the safety of Riverdale once this was all over.
She could do this.
Some woman that had been sitting between Hal and Alice, both of them wearing an ugly orange, stood up and crossed the room to speak to her.
“Now Lizzie-”
“My name,” she replied. “is Betty.”
***
“Lizzie-”
“Objection,” the man seated at the other table shouted. “Your Honor, she is purposely trying to intimidate the child-”
“Sustained,” the Judge replied. “Ms. Keys, you will refer to this child by her preferred name, or I will no longer allow you to speak to her.”
“Understood, your Honor,” Ms. Keys gave Betty an evil eye and continued. “So Betty, do you remember the time you spent living with your father?”
“Yes,” Betty answered. “But he isn’t my father.”
“But you share his DNA, yes?”
“I only need my mommy,” she insisted. “Hal stopped being my dad a long time ago. A judge said that-”
“Yes, dear,” Ms. Keys interjected. “But that didn’t erase just how much your father loves you, now did it?”
Betty shook her head. “He doesn’t love me. He never did.”
***
“Betty, is it true that your mom is part of a gang?”
Penny winced. Never had she imagined she would be dragged into this, but of course they would use her association with the Serpents to try and trip Betty up.
Her daughter’s eyes met hers, wide and frantic.
Just tell the truth, baby, Penny pleaded in her head.
“Mommy has a lot of great friends,” Betty said, after a moment. “They’re family. Why do you want to talk about them?”
***
The man was a lot nicer than Ms. Keys.
“Betty, what was it like when you lived with Hal and Alice?” He asked gently, and she was so relieved not to hear Hal being referred to as her father.
“They hit me,” Betty whispered. “They told me that my mommy was dead and that I would never get to see her again. They lied to me.”
***
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Ms. Keys has done her best to prove to you that Hal Blossom and Alice Smith took Elizabeth Peabody from her front yard four years ago to save her from an unsafe living situation. The fact of the matter is, Betty was only safe when she was with her mother, Penny Peabody. Hal took Betty that day to get back at Penny, to hurt her in the worst way possible. He never cared about saving Betty. What he did was an act of revenge.”
***
Penny’s arms tightened around Betty as the jury handed the verdict off to Judge Sharpe. The court room fell silent.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, how do you find?”
One woman stood up.
“We find the defendants Harold T. Blossom, and Alice M. Smith guilty of kidnapping in the first degree.”
***
Guilty.
On an offense that was punishable by life in prison.
She couldn’t quite believe it.
Arms tightened around her.
“Is it over mommy?” Betty whispered.
“Yes, baby,” Penny blinked back tears. “It’s all over. You did it, Elizabeth. You did it, baby, and I am so proud of you.”