The Companion

by Katie Alender

  We walked on in an uncomfortable silence.

  “Agatha tried to talk,” I said, before I had a chance to stop and think. “Last night. She said I. I think she’s tried to say it before, but I’m not sure. But last night, I’m sure.”

  I waited for him to find some way to twist this around and make me look bad, make me doubt myself.

  But finally, he said, “When I came home for Christmas, I spent so much time with her, trying to get her to communicate. I just couldn’t believe she was . . . gone.”

  The walk got nicer as we went on. Trees provided a shady canopy, and mushrooms grew lushly on a few of the tree trunks, like little gnome houses. Wildflowers dotted the sides of the path, and the breeze returned.

  It was lovely. But it was ruined. The mood between us was tense, and I felt hot, indignant embarrassment at the thought that he’d accused me of taking Agatha into an unsafe situation.

  CHAPTER

  21

  WE PASSED A gazebo in quaint disrepair and a still, dappled glade where a fat mallard snoozed on a bed of dried grasses. We passed a pair of benches that had phrases carved into their sides in Greek that neither Barrett nor I could remotely understand.

  I took over pushing the wheelchair for a while, to give him a break.

  “I’m sorry,” he said finally.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  “But I like you. A lot. And I hurt your feelings.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Didn’t I?” he asked.

  “Does it matter? When you think about it, we don’t even know each other.”

  He sputtered out a laugh. “We don’t?”

  “What’s my favorite book?” I asked. “What’s my favorite color?”

  His forehead creased in concern. “There’s time to figure that stuff out.”

  “No, actually, there’s not,” I said. “You’re leaving.”

  Aren’t I just a genius at killing the mood? Barrett seemed to pull his whole being, body and spirit, away from me—without even moving.

  “I’m just being realistic,” I said. “What are we going to do, try to keep some kind of relationship going while you’re back at school and I’m here?”

  “It might be complicated,” he said. “But I don’t see why we couldn’t try, at least.”

  “I can’t even get the Wi-Fi password, Barrett. My phone gets no signal.”

  His mouth turned down at the corners. “You should have a working phone.”

  I shrugged. “What does it matter? Who would I even text?”

  “Me!” he said. “Your old friends. Santa Claus. It doesn’t matter—you should have a way to communicate with people.”

  “But not having internet doesn’t seem to bother you.”

  “I’m only here for a week or two at a time. And I usually spend part of that in the city with Dad. I mean, I’m used to it, and it’s starting to drive me crazy. It’s not okay to expect you to live like this forever.”

  “I don’t want to cause any trouble,” I said.

  “Trouble doesn’t bother me. I’m going to ask my mom about it. Today.” His expression was serious, and there was a darkness in his eyes I’d never seen before.

  “Please don’t,” I said. “It might upset her.”

  “Why should it upset her?” he asked.

  Talk about a landmine of a question. I wasn’t even going to attempt an answer.

  We reached a shady spot with another Greek-themed bench, and I steered Agatha’s wheelchair so she could see the view. Then Barrett and I sat down. He scooted closer—not quite touching me, but almost. The leaves above us shuddered in the wind and made tiny, ever-changing patterns of light and shadows on our faces. I turned to Barrett and touched the little shag of hair hanging down over his forehead.

  Forgiveness was creeping up on me. What was the point of staying mad?

  “I know my mother,” he said, more quietly. “If someone doesn’t force her to make a change, she may never do it.”

  “I know her, too,” I said softly. “We’ve spent a lot of time together. And she’s been really nice to me when she didn’t have to be.”

  He looked at me incredulously. “Of course she has to be nice to you. They brought you here.”

  “Because she had to. But that’s okay.”

  “You’re so good for Agatha,” he said softly. “And Mom. And me. But . . .”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You shouldn’t live like this. Out in the country, alone. When you’re in school, are you even going to be able to meet up with friends?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe that doesn’t matter. It’s only for a couple of years.”

  “A couple of years is a long time,” he said. “You need friends.”

  I thought about that. If you’d asked me a week or two earlier, I would have said that Laura was my friend. Now I wasn’t so sure. Barrett was my friend, but he’d be gone soon.

  “Agatha’s my friend,” I said.

  He sniffed skeptically.

  “No, really,” I said. “She can’t say it, but she likes me.”

  He reached a tentative hand up to my face. “I like you,” he said softly.

  “I like you, too,” I said.

  He pulled me closer. We’d kissed enough by now that there was a warmth, a familiarity between us. It didn’t lessen the happy little vibrations that ran through me, head to toe, when we touched, but it added a dimension that made this feel deeper than just a random hookup. It made the kisses more urgent, more important.

  I’d told him we didn’t know each other, but we did know some things.

  I knew he was a good brother, a dutiful son. I knew how much it pained him to be torn between what Laura wanted for him and what he wanted for himself.

  I wanted to know more. I pulled back, slightly breathless. “Tell me a secret about yourself,” I said.

  He looked a little bewildered. “A secret?” he repeated. “Okay, uh . . . I used to think my mom was a witch. I was afraid of her. She thinks I was a really well-behaved kid, but I just didn’t want to end up in a soup.”

  I laughed. “Why would you think that?”

  “She has this lab—she makes things there—”

  “Oh, her perfume?” I said. “Body wash?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But I didn’t know that. I thought she was making witches’ brew.”

  “A witches’ brew that smells like roses?” I teased. “When did you discover the truth?”

  “I walked in on her once, and she let me help her make soap.” He shrugged.

  “That’s hilarious,” I said. “But it’s more of a secret about your mom.”

  He tried to smile, but his expression changed, and his smile was strained. “I didn’t make the varsity lacrosse team,” he said. “They posted the list and most of my friends were on it, and they were all joking around, and I laughed about it—I don’t even like lacrosse, seriously—but after that . . . I went back to my room and I cried.”

  I didn’t make a sound.

  “I think I was just worried about upsetting my mom,” he said. “When she’s already dealing with so much. She really cares about lacrosse.”

  “Was she upset?” I asked. To be honest, I couldn’t imagine Laura caring about sports.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Oh,” I said. He hadn’t told her.

  He shook his head. “Never came up.”

  Never came up? Laura mentioned lacrosse on a weekly basis. Unless I was imagining things, she’d just ordered him an expensive pair of cleats.

  “When will you tell her?” I asked.

  His expression darkened. “I don’t know.”

  “You might as well get it over with.”

  Barrett sighed. “So what’s your secret?”

  “I don’
t think I . . .” I swallowed hard.

  There was something, one thing, that nobody knew. That I could hardly even admit to myself.

  “I think my mom was alive,” I said, my heart banging in my chest. “In the car. And I think I left anyway.”

  Barrett stared at me.

  “I don’t remember, exactly,” I said. “It’s just a feeling.”

  He didn’t speak.

  “I mean, I could have stayed and saved her.”

  He placed his hand on the side of my face. “You don’t even know what happened,” he said. “Don’t make that kind of assumption.”

  Then he softly kissed me. We parted and stared at each other, about to lean back in for another kiss.

  Agatha was facing away, looking back down the hill, which is why she didn’t warn us.

  “Barrett!” Laura’s voice cut like a knife through the perfect tranquility of the moment. “What are you doing?”

  We jumped apart and stared at her, stunned and guilty. This was nightmare territory.

  “It’s much too hot for your sister to be outside today!” Laura snapped.

  Oh. So she hadn’t seen us kissing? The path leading to this spot curved briefly behind a small patch of trees. If the timing had been perfect, she might have been behind the foliage at the perfect moment.

  “Mom, it’s okay—” he began.

  She held up her hand, and he fell silent.

  I waited for her to say something to me, but she was glaring at Barrett and didn’t seem to know or care that I existed.

  Finally, without even glancing at me, she said, “Margot. Please take Agatha back into the house. Get her a glass of water and make sure she’s not overly warm.”

  “Okay,” I said, and it came out thin and scared and I kind of hated myself for being such a scaredy-cat. On the other hand, I’d possibly just been caught kissing the son and heir of the mighty Sutton family, so for all I knew, I was about to get dropped down a trapdoor into the dungeon.

  I glanced back at Barrett and found both him and Laura looking at me, so I whipped my head around and focused on pushing the wheelchair toward the house. There was a slight uphill climb that got steeper as I approached the driveway. I started to sweat, and my breath came in tired puffs.

  As soon as we were out of Laura’s line of sight, Agatha held up her hand.

  I stopped. “Are you okay?”

  She got out of the wheelchair.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Your mom said it’s too hot—”

  She was only staring into my eyes, but I got the distinct impression of an eye roll.

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

  We walked together up the hill.

  “What do you think?” I asked. “Do you think she’s going to send me away?”

  It was hard to read her expression—maybe I was assuming too much, but it seemed somewhere on the spectrum of pity and Well, what did you expect?

  * * *

  “DO YOU HAVE a minute, Margot?” Laura asked.

  I looked up, stunned, from where I lay on my bed, trying (and failing) to focus on a book. “Does Agatha need—”

  She cut me off, a note of impatience slipping into her voice. “Agatha’s fine.”

  After we came in, I’d set her up with her schoolwork and brought her a tall glass of cold water. Then I’d retreated to my room to lick my wounds and feel sorry for myself. I’d kind of expected (hoped?) that Laura would ignore me. But here she was.

  “Oh,” I said. “Okay, yeah. Yes. Of course.”

  She led the way to the morning room, then sat on one of the mauve sofas and patted the spot next to her. I hesitated, because this was new—usually when we spoke in here, she sat behind her desk and I sat in one of the chairs like we were conducting business. Finally, a split second before it got awkward, I sat down.

  She leaned toward me. “How are you, Margot?”

  Um. Bad? “I’m great,” I said weakly.

  “How do you find life at Copeland Hall? Are you happy here? Have you been lonely? Bored?”

  I’d prepared for cold, snobbish anger. I had not prepared for a painstaking examination of my emotional state.

  “No,” I said. “Yeah. I mean, I’m happy. Yeah.”

  She sat up and looked at me, a trace of regret in her expression. “I’ve noticed something, and I hope this doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”

  Oh, sure, no chance of that. I sat frozen in place.

  “It’s Barrett,” she said. “You seem to be spending a lot of time together lately.”

  But not the kissing, I thought. She didn’t complain about the kissing.

  “I know he’s . . . charming. But I don’t want you to feel you have to entertain him.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t feel that way.”

  “It’s sweet of you to ‘hang out’ with him.” She said the phrase hang out as if it was alien slang she’d just read about on the internet. “But if he’s always lurking around and bothering you, please feel free to tell him you’re occupied with other things.”

  The thought of Barrett lurking, like some mad scientist’s assistant, almost made me laugh. But that was a blip, because most of me was highly aware that there was nothing, not one thing, that was actually funny about this.

  Sitting there, so close to Laura, with her studying my face, I realized what it was that I was detecting under her outwardly warm and caring manner—and it was the same thing that some little part of me was always aware of but never wanted to acknowledge. It was a shadow of something.

  Something scary.

  I wanted to think that I was mistaken, but I couldn’t talk myself out of it. I was too attuned to Laura’s moods, her whims, her looks. I’d spent so much time trying to please her that I knew when she was happy and when she wasn’t. And what was happening now was that she was pretending. Pretending at something big. And underneath that something, she was . . .

  She was . . . sharp. Like the tip of a knife.

  “It’s fine,” I said, trying to make it sound like I didn’t really care. “He’s nice.”

  “He really is,” Laura said, sounding pleased. And I almost thought that was going to be it. But then she went on. “And you’re so sweet and easy to talk to . . . It must be quite a change from the sophisticated girls he dates when he’s at school. It is a shame that he gets so bored here. Any little amusement that catches his attention will do—for the short term. One summer, he took up bird-watching. Do you know how much proper bird-watching binoculars cost? A lot.”

  She was rambling cheerfully on, but we both knew she’d already said the important part.

  He gets so bored here.

  Any little amusement.

  “And one year, it was baseball cards. That was quite sweet, because John got his old collection out of storage. Barrett loved it. He loves little, useless curiosities. You know—one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

  I nodded.

  “Margot,” she said simply, “what I’m trying to tell you is . . . don’t get too attached.”

  Danger. Danger. Danger.

  “If you get too attached, you might let him try to kiss you.” She took my hand. She stared into my eyes. “And I think we can both agree that would be inappropriate.”

  Her concerned expression gave way to a warm, wide smile. “But why am I saying these things to you? You’re part of the family now. You get it.”

  Her breath smelled like roses.

  Whose breath smells like roses?

  “You do get it,” she said. “Don’t you?”

  My throat felt so dry I wondered if I could even speak.

  “Yes,” I said. “Perfectly.”

  * * *

  AFTER I ESCAPED upstairs, Barrett tried to talk to me in the hallway, but I shook my head, and he stared at me. “What
did she say?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Margot.” His voice was dark. He knew. “Please. What did she say?”

  I shook my head. It wasn’t so much this idea of him using me for amusement—a convenient way to relieve his boredom. It was being hyperaware that Laura saw things that way. And yes, maybe she’d been exaggerating, used crueler terms than necessary, but she never did anything accidentally: She was sending me a message. One I couldn’t possibly fail to understand.

  I felt ill.

  He came closer. Now he looked terribly worried. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Nothing.” I managed a smile that I knew came out looking sickly. “I’ll see you later.”

  * * *

  WHEN I ENTERED the nursery, Agatha was still at her desk, but her position was slightly different from her usual one—she wasn’t sitting straight up in her chair, facing directly toward the desk. Instead, she was slightly turned toward the center of the room, as if something had caught her attention.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She didn’t respond.

  “It’s almost time for dinner,” I said. “Why don’t you go wash your hands? I’ll put your stuff back.”

  She got up and walked away without looking at me.

  I straightened her chair and reached for her notebook to rip out today’s page and prepare tomorrow’s.

  I stopped. The blood turned hot in my veins as I stared down at the page.

  The whole thing was filled with one word, written over and over in an impossibly shaky, childlike hand:

  GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO

  GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO

  GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO

  I tore the sheet out and froze.

  The next page was full, too.

  And the next one. And the next one.

  All in all, seven pages were completely filled with the word—

  Why had she done this?

  “Kah,” said a voice behind me, and Agatha stood there, her expression almost blank . . . but not quite.

  “What?” I asked. “What is it? Please tell me, Agatha.”