As he suspected, no one else seemed to have noticed any difference. Bruno had reordered Suburban, and Suburban had reordered itself in everyone’s minds. Just as on every morning since the beginning of the school year, distracted students rushed up and down the halls, in and out of doorways, taking for granted that their destinations awaited them in their expected place, never realizing their expectations had changed.
He looked at Celia and could tell immediately she was as oblivious as the citizens. So he went up to the library to find Lois.
“You did this?” she asked him. “I’m impressed!”
“Thanks! Celia can’t see it.”
“I’m not surprised. I do think in a lot of ways, Ambassadors are closer to citizens than they are to Kind,” Lois said. “Are you disappointed she doesn’t know what you’ve done?”
“I guess not.” Bruno looked over at the stacks. “That’s weird.”
“What?”
“My plan closed off the Ebentwine. But it’s still dark back there. I still can’t see the back wall.”
“I have a hunch the Ebentwine isn’t that easily manipulated,” Lois said. “That’s okay. It must be here for a reason. We probably should see if we can figure that out.”
“I guess so,” Bruno said. “I have to go to homeroom.”
“See you later!”
All day he marveled at the new Suburban he had created. He took detours to each class to explore all the new corners of the school. He saw things on which he could improve even more. Suburban was his now—his to configure and his to protect.
He was passing through the new technology hall when his books went flying out of his arms and into an empty classroom. Bruno almost said Mariette! out loud, shaking his head in amusement as he went in to retrieve them. Is this how it’s going to be now?
But she didn’t appear in the classroom while he gathered up his things. Bruno turned to head back out to the hall, when a shower of loose papers fell down around him. He jumped out of the way and looked up.
Tina Moreletii stood upside down on the ceiling, her wavy hair hanging toward the floor. The legs of her pantsuit bunched down toward her knees, revealing her stockings and her high heels planted against the acoustic tiles. She held the empty trashcan, still upended over the place where he had stood. Her wild eyes roamed around the room. “You dropped those!”
“What are you doing here? What are you doing?” Bruno wondered if he should run, but she looked as unfocused as a drunk.
“I’m emptying the trash!” She laughed sadly, dropping the plastic bin down to the floor, where it clattered around among the desks. “You’re welcome!”
“You have to be kidding me.” Bruno turned at the sound of Mariette’s voice, and there she was, looking up at Ms. Moreletii with an annoyed expression. “She’s driving me crazy.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Bruno asked.
“When people arrive on this side, they’re never quite the same as they were when they were alive,” Mariette said. “And the urge to make mischief seems to be a common quality we pick up along the way.” She smiled at Bruno, who smiled back.
Meanwhile, Ms. Moreletii had begun to dance lightly across the ceiling, and the papers she had scattered down on Bruno began to fly up in the air, whirling around her and then peeling away to flutter back down. “You’re welcome! You’re welcome! You’re welcome!” she sang, hands waving back and forth.
“You’d better go. I’ll take care of this,” Mariette said.
“Thank you.” Out in the hall, Bruno laughed and shook his head.
GWENDOLYN WAS CLEANING OUT her locker when Bruno came up to her. She wore a black and white dress and a black ribbon in her blond hair, which now fell halfway down her back, making her look like a shorter, blond version of Celia. She turned to him, and for a moment she looked lost again.
“I wish this had turned out differently,” he said.
“In what way?”
“I kind of hoped we’d be friends, way back, before I meddled in your life.”
“You wanted to be my hero,” she said quietly. “And you got what you wanted.”
“That’s not why I did it—to be a hero.”
“Why, then?”
He was desperate not to say the wrong thing. “I would have wanted someone to do it for me, if I had been in that position. I wasn’t expecting anything. I kind of hoped we’d just put it behind us and move on.”
“Don’t you hear how that sounds? You wanted to swoop into my life and fix things, and then pretend we were somehow just friends at school?”
“If you want me to apologize for doing what I thought was right—what you know was the right thing to do, I will, but I don’t think I should have to. I knew it was none of my business, which is why I’ve never brought it up again.”
She closed her locker. “You know what, forget it. You did a very nice thing, and I fell in love with you, and you didn’t love me back, and I’m a fool. Can we just not talk about it?”
“Gwendolyn, I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to wish for things that aren’t going to happen. Can we . . . I don’t know . . . can we come back in the fall and maybe start over? Maybe do things differently?”
Gwendolyn lifted her bag onto her shoulder. “Well, I guess we’ll find out when the fall comes. No promises.” He watched her walk away.
BRUNO SAT IN CHURCH ON Sunday, the day after Marco and Regine’s graduation, marveling that his first year at Suburban was over. It was nothing like he had expected, in too many ways to count. He hoped his summer away from Suburban would be as uneventful as possible. He would have a few months with Marco, and now Sophia, too, before Bruno and Celia had to wade back into the tangle of unanswered questions at the high school.
His father’s words brought Bruno back to the chapel. “Recently someone shared with me that he was struggling with his faith.” Bruno flushed, sure his father would not betray this confidence, but nervous it would be obvious anyway. He waited to hear what his father would say.
“I’ve been thinking about it ever since, and I wanted to talk about it here because it scares me. And that made me think it’s likely that it scares some of you, too—the idea of losing my faith, of coming unmoored from the beliefs that help me understand why I’m here and what my purpose is. I’ll tell you what I told this man when we talked about it: Faith is a gift, and it is one of the ultimate gifts, because there is no way to ask for it, and no way to be sure it will remain with us if we have received it.
“I don’t think there is any point in skirting the scary parts of religion. We are asked to believe things that defy logic. We experience moments of pain, of suffering, and even death, knowing they are the things that truly enable us to live, and give our lives meaning. We choose harder roads, longer paths that force us to confront things about ourselves we might prefer to ignore. And we do that because our faith closes the gap between our heads and our hearts, between our bodies and our souls, between our solitary lives and the world around us.
“I told this man I believe it is possible to live an upright life without faith. The great secular humanists have done almost as much to shape the modern church as the great theologians, and we would be foolish to deny it. For each of us, the way we make sense of the world is as unique as our fingerprint. Maybe this is the most important thing I want to say to you today—the same thing I want that man to know: When you close your eyes at night, trusting you will open them again after you have slept, that is basic faith. And at times we might have to retreat to an experience of our faith that is as simple, as pure as that. It’s an excellent reminder that every day we are given the opportunity to believe amazing, impossible things, and we do. We believe, and because we believe, we live.”
Mr. Perilunas sat down, and the pianist began the meditation. Next to him, Bruno noticed a woman cupping her hands together in the same way his father did. He looked around and saw congregants on all sides, their hands curled into nests.
“DID YOU EVER THINK YO
UR first year of high school would turn out the way it did?” Celia glanced up at Bruno as she drew him in her sketchbook.
“No, I never would have guessed,” he said, trying to look natural but feeling self-conscious.
“Same here. Nobody would believe us if we told them. Any regrets?”
“Maybe. I learned a lot. Maybe I won’t make some mistakes again.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You did some amazing things.”
Bruno shrugged and then wondered if he had shifted too much, but Celia didn’t seem to notice. She worked in silence for a little, and he was content to sit quietly. He felt the delicious hum of his attraction to her. Knowing they were like magnets—rare elements that combine to form an even rarer compound—didn’t really change anything for him. Celia was still the most beautiful girl he’d ever met, and his devotion to her was unchanged.
“Next year, it’ll just be Silver and me and you.”
“I think Gwendolyn would hang out with us, if we asked her.”
“Whatever happened with her?”
“Nothing. She’s very nice, and she likes our style. I bet she’d love Diaboliques.”
“Well, we should ask her, then, if you think so. That’s how it happens: Regine asked me. She asked your brother, too. Marco and I didn’t really give you a choice, did we?” Celia smiled at him. “If you think Gwendolyn is a good fit, ask her. This group is yours as much as any of ours.”
“I will.” Bruno thought back to the first day of school and how graced he had felt by Celia’s presence. “There is something I’ve always wanted to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“There’s a song you like, by This Mortal Coil. I wonder why you like it so much.”
She stopped drawing. “Which song?”
“‘Song to the Siren.’”
“I’m not a huge This Mortal Coil fan, though Brenden would kill me for saying that. I like them, but I can’t remember which song that is. Which album is it on?”
“It’ll End in Tears. It’s the one where the woman sings, ‘I dreamed that you dreamed about me?’”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll have to go listen to it again. What made you think I like it?”
“Well, way back before school started, when I had just found the Ebentwine clearing—I didn’t even know how it worked—I wound up in your backyard, and I actually thought you lived next door to me, because I didn’t understand where it was taking me.”
“Is that why you asked me where I lived on the first day of school?”
“Yes. So, I was in your backyard and your window was open, and I heard the song playing—‘Song to the Siren’—but I didn’t know it then. It took me months to figure out what it was. I couldn’t ask you because I didn’t want you to think I was some creep lurking around in your backyard, spying on you.”
“What makes you sure I’m not thinking that now?” Celia smiled.
“I went back the next night because I couldn’t figure it out. You had told me where you lived, so I thought I must have seen someone else. But I was sure it was you, so I went back through the clearing, into your backyard, and you were in your room again. And the same song was playing.”
“You know, I think Brenden had just given me that album that week,” Celia said. “A couple nights I put it on and listened to it the whole way through. You must have gotten there when that song came on, each time. What a coincidence.” She went back to her drawing.
“Wow.”
“And the odd thing is, I don’t think I’ve listened to it since. Wait—that’s not true. I listened to it one other time, right around New Year’s.”
Bruno kept quiet about having been listening from the back of her closet that time. The strange bridge that had connected him to her all year through the simple plea—Do you dream about me?—crumbled away. Sitting alone with her, as he had wanted since they had met—it was lovely, and hollow, and it felt like the brightness had drained out of the day.
“If it made such an impression on you, then I really want to hear it again. It must be good.”
“Oh, you don’t need to . . .” He was mortified now. She would hear the lyrics, and even though they had talked about it, had moved past it, all his pathetic little feelings would be laid bare for her.
“I’ll never know how you feel,” Celia said. “But if you feel it, it’s true. And the truth is beautiful, right? Even if it hurts.”
“I guess so.” He felt his stale crush—his fumbling love—shifting deep inside him, like the foundations of Suburban, to devotion. Some of the sting had gone. This privileged but platonic relationship was the most he would have with her, ever. Still, the hum was there, like power lines or underground trains.
“I’m finished.” Celia handed her sketchbook to Bruno. There he was, lifelike on the page. Just as when she had drawn him before, it was a small shock to see, looking back at himself as though from a mirror. “Is that how I look? I mean, my expression?”
“Not all the time. But it’s my favorite expression of yours. You look that way when you’ve told someone you don’t know something, but you really do.”
Bruno grinned. Something in the background of the drawing caught his eye: a figure standing a distance behind him. “Who is this?”
“It’s you.”
“No, the girl.” Bruno handed the sketchbook back to Celia and pointed out the smaller figure in the background. Her face wasn’t clear, but her hair blew dramatically around her head.
“Did I draw that?” Celia squinted at the page. “I didn’t even notice. I have no idea who that is. She doesn’t look familiar?”
“Not at all,” Bruno said.
“That’s very strange. I swear to you, I don’t remember drawing her at all.” Celia looked concerned. “What could that mean?”
“Maybe someone is coming,” Bruno suggested.
“Wouldn’t that be interesting.”
acknowledgments
My unending gratitude to Zoe Shacham, who ushered me into publishing in such a spectacular way. This book doesn’t have your fingerprints on it quite as markedly as The Suburban Strange, but it exists because of you nonetheless, and I send you my fondest wishes.
To everyone at Nancy Yost Literary Agency, especially Adrienne Rosado, who was kind/crazy enough to take me on, feed me macaroons, and help me land the plane not once, but twice. I can’t wait to find out what story we’ll tell next.
To Margaret Raymo, who keeps the bar high and gets me over it every time. I am a stronger writer because of you, and I don’t know a better definition of editor than that. I am so fortunate to have found my way into your care.
When I wrote the acknowledgments for The Suburban Strange, I hadn’t yet met some of the other amazing people on the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt team who provided rock star support for that project. I am fortunate to be working with them again this time around, so these thanks are for both books: Christine Krones for keeping an eye on the business details, Roshan Nozari for wrangling the Internet publicity, and the fantastic Rachel Wasdyke for being the best publicity contact an author could ever hope to find. I also salute the Design department for their stellar work on the jackets and layouts—I don’t know you by name, but I think of you gratefully every time someone gushes about these covers.
Thanks to all the musicians, authors, artists, and designers to whom I pay tribute in this book. In the same way you enrich my life, you enrich my story, and I hope someday to join your ranks.
Over this past year I have met so many amazing independent booksellers, librarians, and teachers who have gotten behind The Suburban Strange. The chance to talk about books, reading, writing, and learning with you and your clients, patrons, and students has been the unexpected blessing of this journey. I have to mention by name LueAnn Brenson, Staci Bumgarner, Rebecca Carr, Suzanne de Gaetano, Megan Graves, Siobhan Loendorf, Marie Murphy, Jennifer Newcome, Kate Schlademan, Jackie Shaw, Josie Whysall, and Autumn Winters. And to Sarah Carr and all at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hil
l—I am blown away by your support.
Hats off to some amazing authors I’ve met this year, whose work inspires me and whose camaraderie has been a joy: Jodi Lynn Anderson and Kristen-Paige Madonia, I’ve enjoyed our chats immensely. Dennis Mahoney, it’s been a blast trading manuscripts with you, and then watching them get up on their legs and out the door.
Some dear friends have been amazing cheerleaders during this crazy adventure, going to incredible lengths on my behalf: Dana Aritonovich and Melanie Russ Rinzel, thank you so much for giving me some brilliant chapters this past year. Kimberly Hirsh, you started by opening doors for me, but I quickly realized the room was much more fun if you came in, too. And Emily Jack, your countless hours and talents are bested only by the number of times we have laughed until we couldn’t breathe. Many thanks!
To Amy Carreira, Chris Fellows, and Debbie Meyers: Troika Forever!
And now, my Rosary. Alli Cooke, Lisa Schieler Blackman, and Andrea Gangloff Klores—eternal thanks to you for coming along on these adventures; I wouldn’t have it any other way. Your insight and love mean the world to me. And Mr. Gates, I am so lucky to be allowed to visit the world inside your photographs.
Finally, to my family. Everything is better when shared with you. Much love.
author’s note
When Bruno finally identified the song he’d heard from Celia’s window as This Mortal Coil’s cover of “Song to the Siren” by Tim Buckley, did you track down the song and listen to it? If you haven’t yet, I hope you will. Just as “Second Skin” by the Chameleons was such a beautiful reinforcement of Celia’s journey in The Suburban Strange, “Song to the Siren” is the perfect underscore for Bruno’s experience in Pull Down the Night.
Pull Down the Night (The Suburban Strange) Page 29