“Sure,” Charlee told him. “If they started digging, they’d dig right past your daytime disguise and they’d find out you’re a superhero underneath.”
Asher had stopped protesting over the superhero classification a long time ago. Now, she saw his eyes roll a little bit, but he was smiling, too. “Okay,” he agreed heavily. “They’d find out I’m a superhero. Let’s go with that, then. My…what did you call it? The disguise?”
“Your daytime disguise. Like Superman. You’re a mild-mannered businessman during the day. But at other times, you save people and no one recognizes you as the businessman.” She considered. “But you’re not mild-mannered, even in the daytime.”
“Are you calling me rude?” he asked curiously.
“I mean, your daytime disguise is kinda square. I guess that’s another way of saying mild-mannered. Except Clark Kent was scared of his own shadow and you’re not that way even in your suit.”
“Square?” he repeated disbelievingly.
“Sure. You work. You sleep. You work again. I’ve never seen you get into any of the trouble that single guys are supposed to.”
“What sort of trouble?”
She shrugged. “You name it. Booze. Ladies. Drugs. Staying out all night. My dad says that Lucas is going to go to hell in a handcart because he got my mo—” She stopped and pressed her lips together, realizing what she had been about to say.
Asher kept on walking, as if she hadn’t shut up mid-sentence.
Charlee could feel the heat rising, making her throat and cheeks warm.
“That’s your secret, isn’t it?” Asher asked gently.
She drew in a breath. “Yeah.”
Asher stopped and turned to face her, right there in the middle of the sidewalk. His expression was a kind one. “You know that I’ve probably guessed a lot of it, don’t you?”
That was worse than telling him. If Asher had guessed, how many other people knew? Charlee could feel a tight knot sitting in the middle of her chest, making it hard to breathe. “Did you tell anyone else?” she asked.
Asher looked at her for a good long while. She could hear her heart thudding in her ears. Why wouldn’t he just say “no” and put her out of her misery? Instead, he drew in a long breath. Was he feeling upset, too? But he spoke simply enough, with no heat or anger. “I’ve been keeping secrets for a very long time. When you do that for long enough, it becomes a part of you. You automatically don’t tell people everything, even if you could. I know you know what I mean by that.”
She nodded. Not talking about herself and her family was just the way it was. Always and forever. Just like not talking about Asher.
“Because I’m like that, I knew that you were like that,” Asher added. “It worked that way for you, too. You knew, when we first met, that I had secrets because you were keeping your own. You probably didn’t think about it that way. You just knew I was like you. That’s why we could make a deal.”
Charlee had spent a lot of time thinking about Asher and what he had done that night. She had long ago decided that they were kindred spirits, like Anne in the Anne of Green Gables book used to describe old friends who had just met each other.
“What your actual secret was…well, I figured that out because of our deal. The first deal.”
“We don’t lie to each other,” Charlee supplied.
“And we don’t,” Asher agreed. “But neither of us tells each other everything. You have secrets. I have secrets. But I guessed what yours were because what you do tell me is the truth and you told me enough of it for me to fill in the blanks.”
“Oh.” She breathed in, her chest loosening. “I don’t mind you knowing,” she added. “You won’t tell anyone else.”
His eyes seemed very blue as he looked at her, and his hair almost white in the dazzling light of the day. “I haven’t told anyone else and I won’t,” he said, “only if you promise me something.”
Her heart caught again. “Another deal?”
“No, not a deal. Because there’s nothing I can promise for my side of…” He stopped. “You know what? There is. Very well, a deal. You promise me that if anything ever happens at home, if you’re scared or just uncertain about what’s happening, if anything happens to your parents…if anything happens at all that you know isn’t right or is dangerous—and I know you’re more than smart enough to figure out when something wrong is happening—then I want you to promise that you’ll come to me for help.”
“And what do you promise?” she asked, almost breathlessly.
He wouldn’t stop looking at her in that direct way of his. “I promise that if you ever ask for my help, I’ll help. No matter what it is, Charlee, I’ll help you.”
Charlee felt a little sick because she also felt giddy. Dizzy with…something. It was relief, she realized. A lifting of a weight she hadn’t known she was carrying. All the little fears she wouldn’t even let herself think about, all the things she and Lucas didn’t discuss that sat between them like mute, glowing neon—the way Dad constantly coughed, the medicine bottles lined up like soldiers on the table next to his easy chair, the empty beer bottles ranked along the kitchen window, and the cartons of empties next to the garbage can outside. The fact that Lucas was starting to cook dinner for the family more and more often, sometimes giving up football practice and basketball training to do it. All the little things they didn’t talk about that added up to scary, big grown-up problems that, if they kept going as they were, would put her and Lucas in a position where they wouldn’t be able to hide things anymore. They wouldn’t be smart enough or old enough to fix things.
But now, Asher was there. If the worst came, whatever that might be (and she wouldn’t think about what that might be, not now), then it wouldn’t be the end of their world because Asher would help, and he was a superhero. He could fix it.
Charlee blinked rapidly as her eyes stung. She hated crying. Hated it.
Asher turned and started walking again. “You don’t have to say anything,” he said.
She couldn’t have said anything right then, not even to save her life, because her throat was so tight with tears it hurt. She stumbled along the sidewalk next to him, the concrete a blur in front of her feet.
“So, tell me about your day,” Asher prompted her. “Did that Irish Setter knock you off your feet again?”
When she thought she could speak without blubbering like a baby, she told him about her day, her wonderful job and the beautiful creatures she got to play with and love each day.
And that was the last time they ever spoke about that particular deal. But Charlee remembered it, always, for it made her feel warm and oddly safe, even though she knew there were authorities and agencies and even the police who could step into her life at any time and tear it apart, separating her from Lucas. But Asher could fix anything and he had promised.
That was one of the best summers of Charlee’s life. The minimizing of her chronic, low-level fear let her enjoy the simple pleasures of her life in a way she had never experienced before. Now, the dawning of each day brought her a peaceful contentedness. She could spring out of bed and dash to catch the train to work, looking forward to mastering the complex world of animal care.
She borrowed books from the community library, upgrading to the adult non-fiction section, putting herself through a crash course in basic zoology that focused on domestic animals and birds.
On the weekends, she had more lessons with Darwin, and he lent her even more complex books on everything from animal husbandry to veterinary science, to biographies of Charles Darwin and treatises on his theory of evolution. It was heady stuff and she rolled around in the fount of knowledge like a puppy in a puddle.
Then she got to apply some of what she had learned, on the job. It was pure bliss, with nary a shadow to spoil it.
Until Lucas walked her home one night late in August. The anniversary of the day she and Asher had met had come and gone. They walked home in companionable silence, and Charlee reflecte
d that while Lucas was clearly getting taller, she had done some of her own growing somewhere over the last few weeks, for he didn’t tower over her as much as he used to. She’d never catch up with him because their parents were both tall—Dad was well over six feet and her mother was five eleven—and Lucas had got the best of their genes in that respect. He was going to be very tall, possibly close to Asher’s height. But perhaps she was going to be tall, too. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Not yet. Ylva was tall, and she made it seem like a good thing. But the girls at school called taller ones like Evvy Paetro, who had shot up two feet in almost as many months, lots of nasty names like “stork” and “freak.”
“So…school starts in a week,” Lucas said, interrupting her thoughts. “Junior high. Excited?”
She shrugged. “I suppose. School’s okay. I’d rather keep working at the SPCA, but Carole says I should get a science degree. Then I can work for some private company and get a ton of money.”
“That sounds like a smart idea to me.”
“Money sounds good,” Charlee agreed. “But I want to work with animals.”
“You can’t do both?”
“Do you know any millionaire veterinarians?”
He didn’t reply. That meant she’d won that round.
They’d covered another half block before he spoke again. “You still doin’ lunch at that place across the road from the SPCA?”
“You mean Asher’s place?” She’d figured out a while ago that Asher owned the restaurant. He was too relaxed and casual when he was there to be an employee. Besides, his suits were too expensive. She was able to tell the difference now. The Wall Street area was filled with suits to study. “I go there most days.” It was a mild understatement. She went there every single weekday to check up on him. That was the deal. Deal number three. But she made it sound more casual and hit-or-miss than it was because she knew that the truth would provoke more questions from Lucas that she couldn’t—wouldn’t—answer.
Lucas walked on for a bit before he replied. “Do you think you should trust him so much, Einie?”
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t,” she demanded, anger roiling up inside her like a geyser, ready to spew scalding heat all over Lucas.
He lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “I’m just asking. I’m not saying you shouldn’t. I’m asking why you do.”
“None of your business,” she shot back.
“Yeah, it is,” he snapped. “I coulda asked Darwin or Dad about it, but I didn’t. I’m asking you. He phones Darwin and next thing I know, Darwin and I have marching orders about walking you home. He gets you a job right across the road from him. It’s…it’s not natural, Charlee.”
She was still angry. She could feel the ugly tension inside her. But the heat had turned to a cold block, letting her think properly. “You were there when he went after the gang a second time,” she said. Her voice came out heavier than she had ever heard herself speak. Heavier and more grown up. “The gang hasn’t been back. You really have to ask if he can be trusted?”
Lucas was looking at her like she had grown two heads, his expression one of amazement. Then he shook his head. “That’s not what I meant, exactly.”
The coldness in her allowed her to speak the words without flinching, without embarrassment. “You want to know if he is a pervert. If he interferes with children.”
Lucas blushed right up to his hairline. He looked at her sideways, his gaze skittering.
Bingo, Charlee thought. She struggled to find a way to phrase her answer so that Lucas would really understand. He did deserve an answer, even though the question was offensive to both her and Asher. But how could she phrase it so that Lucas would really get it? Then she had it.
“Remember when you started with the high school basketball team last April?” she asked him. He wasn’t even a senior, yet, but he had been placed on the starting lineup of his high school’s team. Charlee hadn’t been nearly as surprised as Dad had been; she knew exactly how hard Lucas had worked at perfecting his shots and handling the ball, night after night, out in the back yard, which had been covered in concrete by some previous owner of the house. “Remember when you told me about passing blind?”
“What about it?”
“You said that when someone called for the ball, you didn’t look up at them because it would slow down your pass. If they called, you threw the ball to where their voice was. You had to trust that they were clear and could catch it. You had to trust them. And, you said that it was really hard at first, because you didn’t know anyone on the team. But after the first tryout, even though you didn’t know any of them any better, you could trust them to know what they were doing. You trusted them enough to pass blind.”
“I remember,” Lucas said, a little impatiently.
“I trust Asher enough to pass blind to him,” she said. “I trust him enough that if he said ‘jump from the third floor, now,’ I would do it instantly and I wouldn’t look, because I know he would be there to catch me. I trust him because he knows what he’s doing. We’re alike, Asher and I. Just like you trust your teammates because you know you’re the same, even though you didn’t know everything about them.”
Lucas blew out his breath doubtfully. “How can you know that?” he demanded. “He’s so much older than you, Charlee. It’s a little creepy that he’s even a friend.”
“He’s not a friend.”
“Then what is he?”
“He’s just a part of my life. Because we’re alike. And we are alike. How old he is doesn’t matter.”
“You mean, you’re both super brainy?”
Charlee didn’t know if Asher was super-smart. She didn’t care. But she lied with a straight face. “Yes, that’s how we’re alike.”
“Darwin did say he was lending you books,” Lucas muttered, staring ahead. He shrugged. “Okay, Einie. If you say you trust him, then I’ll take your word for it. But I don’t have to like him.”
“I’m not asking you to like him,” she said flatly. She had the shakes. She had never flat out lied to Lucas before and because she hadn’t, he had accepted her lie without a quiver. It made her tremble, because she knew that something had shifted between them. Things would never be exactly the same as they once were. Lucas may not realize that, because he didn’t know she had lied to him. But she would know.
It was only later that night, when she was lying in bed waiting for sleep to take her, that she realized what she had done. She had lied to protect Asher. She had put Asher ahead of her brother.
Chapter Nine
There were very few mourners at Jerry Mallery’s funeral. Asher looked around the parlor at the handful of people sitting on the odd collection of chairs and stools that Ylva had found. Most of the mourners were very old. Undoubtedly human, he catalogued. It meant that he was the only one of the Kine in attendance, which made sense under the circumstances.
He watched Ylva move around the room, speaking to each of the attendees. She wore a black silk dress that made the most of her figure in a subtly sexy way. Ylva had always had incredibly good taste.
After a while, she made her way to him and he held out his arm. Ylva stepped into the hug and held him tightly. When she stepped back and looked up at him, her eyes were sparkling with tears. But she spoke evenly and softly. “He was ninety-seven.”
“You made him happy for most of those ninety-seven years. It wasn’t the wrong decision,” Asher reminded her.
“But I must go on alone…and for how much longer?” Now her sadness was visible.
“No one knows,” Asher replied. No one did know. The last Eldre had died long ago, at the advanced age of one hundred and forty-nine human years. But there had been others who had died very shortly after their human spouses had passed on. Just like humans, the Eldre found life without their life-mate intolerable.
Ylva might live for only another few years…or she might find pleasure or purpose in life in some way. It would all depend on her. Asher looked
for a way to tell her that, a way that wouldn’t sound bleak and indifferent. “You have to assume you’ve got a long life ahead of you,” he told her. “You have to decide what you want to do with it.”
Ylva tilted her head. “You’re a very sweet man.”
“Don’t tell anyone that.”
“You’ve stood by me despite everything. I won’t forget that. Ever.”
Asher shifted uneasily on his feet.
Ylva gave him a glimmer of a smile. “You also got me into the worst sort of trouble. Remember when we got drunk and raided that Rus encampment on the borders of Finland? You could barely stay on your horse.”
Asher laughed softly. “You couldn’t stay on your horse.” She had fallen off her horse’s back when the mare had taken a small jump. Then she had lain on ground that was mushy with melted snow, laughing fit to bust.
When the Rus had fallen upon them, though, she had fought as well as a man, a smile still on her lips. They had sobered up quickly, standing back to back, until Asher had been able to call his horse to them. They had clambered upon Fiskr’s back, still fighting off the horde, and galloped across two valleys in the moonlight until they figured they were safe enough to wait out the rest of the night.
That had been part of the time when Ylva had been young and supple, and Asher had been called Askr, his birthname. It was a part of time long before Ylva had chosen to give up her life as one of the Kine. “A long time ago,” Asher murmured, studying the fine lines at her eyes and her carefully colored hair. She hadn’t aged as fast as her husband. That was the dilemma of those who chose the way of the Eldre.
Ylva tucked her hand under Asher’s elbow. “I’ll walk you to the door,” she said.
Asher nodded and let her lead him through the fanciful parlor where they had gathered after the funeral. He needed to get back to the store. Charlee worked at the SPCA three days a week after school, and she often stopped at the restaurant on her way to the shelter or on her way home. It was a very cold winter and it helped ease his mind if he saw her at least once a day to ensure her life was as untroubled as he could make it, and maybe walk her to the subway entrance.
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