Deception

by Lee Nichols

  Did Bennett ever stay here? Had he simply not noticed there was no hot water? I vowed to look for the furnace when I came back from school.

  Downstairs, I found the kitchen sink empty, the dishes put away and a meal waiting in the breakfast nook. After wasting ten minutes looking for Martha … or Bennett … or anyone, I sat down to eat. Freshly roasted coffee, with white toast and a soft-boiled egg in a hand-painted eggcup. Actually, I didn’t know it was soft-boiled until I tried to roll the peel off like a hard-boiled and the innards oozed all over my plate.

  “Yuck.” I dumped my plate into the sink. “I only like scrambled.” I wrinkled my nose at the coffee. “And tea.”

  Not that there was anyone there to hear me. All alone, as usual.

  I buttered the toast and tried to jump-start a romantic daydream about Bennett cooking for me and starting the fire and setting the table with candles and roses. But it was undoubtedly the elusive Martha who was doing all the work.

  I finished my toast, opened the fridge to make lunch, and found a small wicker basket on the top shelf. Packed tidily inside were a little tomato tart, slices of cheese, grapes, and a wedge of pound cake.

  “Well, hello!” I said. “Much better.”

  I left the house in my ridiculously snug uniform, black leggings, and my requisite boots. I’d fiddled in front of my wardrobe mirror for twenty minutes with accessories, trying to emulate the chic looks of the other girls, but it was useless. My mother had been right about my hair being too short. And I’d never been good with makeup, so I’d just run product through my hair and glossed my lips.

  My only jewelry was my mother’s jade pendant tucked into my blouse, a sort of touchstone for home and family and everything I’d lost. My mood soured as I thought about that and I trudged the three blocks to school, resenting the sunny, crisp day for not reflecting my dark temper.

  I found Coby and Sara sitting on the steps of the dean’s office with a dark mop-haired guy who somehow looked both completely well-groomed and utterly sloppy at the same time. They stood as if they’d been waiting for me.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hi, Emma,” Coby said, as we all headed to the school gates. “You look—”

  “Pissed,” Sara finished. “Or is that how you always look in the morning?”

  If possible, her voice was even rougher today, like it hadn’t quite woken up yet. Her hair and makeup, though? Flawless. Along with her red wool coat, black suede boots, and bag suited for an LA starlet.

  “I was going to say spunky,” Coby said.

  “Even better,” I said.

  Sara giggled. “That came out worse than I meant it to.”

  “It’s okay.” Actually, I was sort of pleased that someone noticed my mood. “I’m still settling in.”

  “You’re living at the Sterns’?” the new guy asked.

  “This is Harry,” Coby said.

  “Harrison,” he corrected, and unlike everyone else at Thatcher, he didn’t offer to shake. Instead, he thrust his hands into his pants pockets, looking like a brooding upper-class poet with a hangover.

  “Harry Harrison?” I asked.

  “Harrison Devereaux Armitage the seventeenth,” Sara told me.

  “The fourth,” Harry said.

  “Just call him Harry,” Coby said. “Everyone does.”

  “He’s such a Harry.” Sara pressed a finger to Harry’s chest, like she was sticking something to him. “Face it, you’re stuck with it.”

  Harry arched an eyebrow and brooded silently. Were the three of them just friends? Sara was too hot for Coby and Harry not to be interested.

  “I hope you’re not bruised,” she told me. “From fencing yesterday.”

  “Oh, how’d that go?” Coby asked.

  “I was a pincushion,” I said.

  “Sorry about that,” Sara said with a crooked smile. “We’ve all been taking since freshman year.”

  “Can’t have been worse than Trig,” Coby said. “Did you do the homework?”

  “Yeah.” I frowned. “How long did it take you?”

  “An hour.” He groaned. “Sakolsky always assigns too much. It’s not like we don’t have other classes.”

  I’d only spent forty-five minutes. We’d see if I got any of the answers right.

  We passed through the apple orchard and I noticed Coby eyeing me, probably wondering if I’d start unbuttoning my shirt again. But nothing happened: no whooshing, no memories, no nothing. And walking with the three of them into the grand foyer, my mood began to lighten. Bring on the sunshine.

  Turned out Harry had Latin with me, so I followed him to class. He showed his first bit of politeness by gesturing me into the classroom before him, but I couldn’t help feeling he was mocking me. Then he partnered with me for dialogues and immediately started a conversation that had nothing to do with the verb tenses we were meant to be practicing.

  “Vestri velitatio est brevis.”*

  “Ego non animadverto.”**

  And it went on from there. My blouse was too tight, I might pop a button—I had nice legs, but I should learn how to knot a tie. I’m not even going to repeat what he said about my lips. I should’ve been offended, but I was a tiny bit pleased instead. Back home, I wasn’t the girl a guy flirted with like that, and I definitely wouldn’t have flirted back. But now I toyed with my hair and just barely stopped myself from nibbling seductively on the cap of my pen. With my luck, the ink would’ve spilled all over my face.

  Through all of this, Harry maintained his attitude of ennui, absently taking notes on a sheet of lined paper. The teacher, known as Mr. Z, wove between desks, checking in on conversations, offering suggestions and corrections. Then he stopped and peered over Harry’s shoulder. “And what have you two been discussing?”

  I panicked, but Harry simply shrugged and showed Mr. Z his paper. “Just getting to know each other.”

  Oh my God. He hadn’t written all that down, had he?

  Mr. Z frowned at the page, and I leaned forward to read Harry’s notes. In perfect grammatical Latin he’d detailed a conversation about my life in San Francisco and his in Massachusetts. Apparently, I liked long walks on the beach while he was into sailing. It was all perfectly banal and innocent.

  I smiled at him, stifling a laugh. Forward, rude, and sort of brilliant. As good as I was at Latin, I couldn’t have had one conversation and written down another. I found him impossible not to like.

  After class, he escorted me to the second floor, murmuring a steady stream of arch comments about the passing students. A freshman boy helplessly in love with his best friend’s older sister, despite that she only dated college guys. A student who ran away from home when her parents divorced. Some faceless kid who’d gone to rehab last year.

  “A blackout drunk,” Harry said with uncharacteristic venom. “A real waste of space.”

  “Did he stay clean?” I asked. “That’s all that matters.”

  “You didn’t know him.”

  “True. And as someone without a single fault, I’m happy to judge him.”

  Harry inclined his head, like he was granting the point, and left me outside my Trigonometry classroom. I watched him for a moment, then went inside—and stopped short. The man in the brown suit stood at the window, gazing toward the apple orchard. The morning sun cast stripes across him, through the blinds.

  I looked to the floor for his shadow. No shadow; the stripes of light were uninterrupted. Then back to him. Then back to the floor again.

  “You look like a bobblehead,” Britta the brittle blonde said from her desk.

  “What? No, I’m just—thinking.”

  “Me, too. I’m thinking you need a neck brace.”

  The man in the brown suit noticed me looking, and gave me a little formal bow. I settled into my desk, pulled out my homework, and ignored him. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was a ghost. But I did know better. At least, I thought I did. I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

  Coby sat do
wn next to me. “How’s Latin?”

  “Ego sum rabidus.”*

  “I have no idea what you just said.”

  “Good.” I glanced toward the man in the brown suit. “Um, there’s only one teacher in this class, right?”

  “Right,” Coby said. “Unless you’ve got another stashed in a gazebo somewhere.”

  “That’s funny,” I said, not laughing.

  I kept my eyes averted from the window. If the man in the brown suit didn’t stop showing up, I’d fail this class. I couldn’t concentrate with him hovering there. So I ignored him as Mr. Sakolsky started going over the homework. Halfway through, I glanced toward the window, and the man in the brown suit was gone. I exhaled in relief, and when we finished giving our answers, only one student had scored 100%.

  “Emma Vaile,” Mr. Sakolsky said. “A fine addition to our class.”

  I didn’t know what to say. That never happened to me before.

  “Oh, so you’re that girl,” Coby said with a quick grin.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I get that a lot.”

  In fencing class, the teacher—a middle-aged woman with incredibly muscular calves—partnered me with Kylee, a nearsighted girl with twig arms who weighed maybe ninety pounds and only came to my chin.

  She thrashed me soundly. She really seemed to enjoy herself. In fact, her triumphant laughter was so infectious, soon the whole class was giggling along.

  When it was over, Sara peeled me from my vest and dragged me to the dining room for lunch, promising to show me some moves.

  “At least a little defense,” she said. “So you can keep a toddler from stabbing you with a lollipop.”

  The cafeteria was a large room with lofty ceilings and a wall of windows overlooking the playing fields. Round tables with white cloths dotted the floor, and instead of the scrape of plastic trays I heard the tinkle of silverware against china. There wasn’t even a vending machine. Everyone brought their own gourmet lunches in techno lunch pails and charming little bento boxes—at least I had my picnic basket.

  Sara and I sat with Coby and Harry, and the three of them were witty and smart and warm. I liked them far too much, but didn’t feel I could trust them. Not after what happened with Natalie. I wanted to be part of the ease they shared with each other, but the friendship was too new and I was afraid of getting burned again.

  Besides, how could I trust them, when I couldn’t even trust myself?

  *Your skirt is short.

  ** I hadn’t noticed.

  * I am crazy.

  11

  I couldn’t face the empty museum, so after school I just opened the front gate to drop my backpack inside. Then I stopped short. The little boy with the marbles and slingshot was loitering inside, whittling a stick.

  He saw me and froze, like I’d caught him playing hooky, then shot me a cheeky grin.

  I laughed. “You hang out here a lot?”

  This apparently struck him as the height of humor, and he erupted in silent laughter.

  “Toss my backpack at the front door, would you?”

  He nodded, so I handed over my backpack and watched him trot toward the house. I don’t know why I trusted him, but I did.

  I closed the gate behind me and walked into town. The village was tightly packed with Colonial houses and reminded me of neighborhoods in San Francisco with Victorians snug up against each other like they were huddled for warmth.

  The houses in Echo Point were less ornate, but still cozy and colorful, in yellows and blues and greens. Piles of leaves stood beside swing sets and kitchen gardens, and half the houses had plaques dating them to the 1700s, built by men with names like Elbridge and Jeremiah and Abner. Antiques were everywhere. Maybe that’s why I felt so at home, winding through cobblestone lanes toward the harbor.

  Or maybe it was more than that.

  I passed an upscale toy store, an Italian restaurant, and a corner grocery before my feet stopped outside the Black Sheep Bakery. I don’t know why I paused; maybe I identified with the name.

  The door swung open with a jingle, and a wave of nostalgia hit me as I stepped inside. Before I could stop it, my body began to tingle, my vision blurred, and I felt the whooshing.

  Then the bakery spun around me, and I found myself standing in the center of the store, but not in the present time. I didn’t panic—maybe because I was still in my school-slut uniform instead of a corset—but I did examine the room carefully. A wooden counter had replaced the glass case, the floor was covered in sawdust, and the walls were white instead of the lavender they’d been when I walked in. And there was a different woman behind the counter than the girl I’d seen before. She had rosy cheeks and a flour-covered apron, and smiled brightly before offering her help.

  But I was too panicked to answer her. I backpedaled, overwhelmed by sensations. I shut my eyes, willing away the memories, willing myself back to the present. When I opened them again, the girl frowned at me from behind the glass case of pastries.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  I glanced around the shop. The walls were again lavender, the floor polished pumpkin pine. “Was this always a bakery?”

  She pointed to a plaque on the wall. “Two hundred and fifty years. We’ve still got the brick oven in back. What can I get you?”

  “Nothing,” I croaked. “I don’t want any of this.”

  I shoved through the front door and stumbled down the steps, racing blindly along the crooked narrow streets. I didn’t stop until I reached a pretty little pond not far from the harbor, with ducks paddling near a spindly sculpture. I flopped onto a bench and stared at the rippling water. This had to stop. I couldn’t keep running. Something was seriously wrong inside of me, something deeply broken. Whatever I’d survived as a child, whatever I’d overcome, had returned with a vengeance.

  And this time, I didn’t have anyone to protect me. Not my father. Not my mother. Nobody.

  After a while, I wandered over to inspect the sculpture. It wasn’t a sculpture at all, but a heavy wooden chair latched to a beam that pivoted over the water, to rise and fall into the pond. A plaque underneath read:

  Welcome to Redd’s Pond, named for Echo Point resident Elizabeth Redd, accused in 1682 of “detestable acts of Witchcraft and Sorceries wickedly, mallitiously and felloniously used, practiced & exercised.” Redd and four other women were executed on this spot, 1682–1697.

  The whole thing was chained shut for safety—but just looking, I felt a charge in the air. Had they used this chair to torture those women? Drown them? I shivered and walked on, trying to shake the feeling of death. I walked for hours through the old winding streets of Echo Point, until the sun dipped toward the rooftops, and the shadows turned to an inky black.

  And in the growing darkness, the world suddenly changed. My body tingled with fear as black shadows crept toward me from every corner.

  I pushed on, pretending the shadows didn’t remind me of the smoke creeping toward me from my father’s urns in the hallway back home. The wind rose from the harbor and tossed a mass of leaves against a garage door. The rustling sounded like a strange hiss. Eossss.

  A squeaking weather vane spun on a rooftop: Eossss.

  The shadows followed me from street to street with disembodied moans: not Eos, but Neos, Neos, Neos.

  I shoved the shadows away with my mind as I began to run. I sprinted for half a mile, up a hill through the village, looking for signs, until I realized that the darkness was just darkness, the shadows, only shadows.

  I slowed to a walk and caught my breath. I realized I was only a block from the museum, so I sped up again until I stepped through the front gates and felt an encompassing sense of safety. I exhaled, then breathed in the scent of maple leaves and fresh-cut grass. The windows of the museum glowed with welcoming light.

  My backpack lay on the table in the museum’s foyer, and the sight of it made me feel like a high-school kid again. Books and homework assignments and all the boring, stable, comforting routines of no
rmal life.

  Grabbing the pack, I called, “Bennett?”

  No answer.

  “Bennett? Martha? Anyone?”

  Still nothing, as I crossed into the kitchen. A pot of stew bubbled on the Wolf range. A plate of shortbread cookies sat on the counter.

  “I don’t want food,” I said under my breath. “I want company.” I raised my voice: “Bennett! Bennett, are you here?”

  Silence as I crossed into the dining room. The table was set beautifully, with fancy china, candles, and polished silver.

  Set for one again. For me. Alone.

  I screamed in frustration. “How can he not be here?!”

  I stomped upstairs and found my bed made and my pajamas laid neatly on top, like some maid had snuck in while I was gone. Could that be it? But wouldn’t the mysterious Martha at least leave a note?

  I peeled off my wretched uniform and picked up my flannels, an unbecoming but completely comfortable red plaid. I wouldn’t be caught dead in them in front of Bennett, but since that seemed completely out of the question, I cozied into them.

  Still cold. “Wish I could have a hot bath,” I muttered.

  Back downstairs, I served myself the stew and sat at the head of the long formal table, pretending I was normal. Just your average girl, eating stew from Limoges china and monogrammed silver.

  After dinner, I grabbed a couple of cookies and went into the ballroom to do my homework. The walls were a warm shade of yellow, the parquetry floor was polished to a high gleam, and the tall windows were perfectly proportioned. I pulled the pale blue silk curtains shut against the night shadows that I worried still hovered outside the gates. The museum wasn’t quite so comforting now that it had grown completely dark outside.

  I crossed the floor to the grand piano and played a few notes. The sound tumbled around the room, rich and resonant. It was the perfect place for a wedding—a string quartet playing, the French doors open to the rose garden …

  I shook myself, worried I’d feel a sudden whoosh and find myself in some dead person’s wedding. So I grabbed a silk feather pillow from a settee and tossed it to the floor. Then I emptied my backpack and lounged on the pillow as I finished my assignments.