The Professor

by Alexandria Clarke

  “Is a real looker,” finished Henry from the doorway. He ambled casually into the living room. “About ready?”

  Despite his discoloration, I could read the panic and confusion on Wes’s face. “You couldn’t have let me fill him in first?” I scolded Henry, my palms flat against Wes’s chest. If he hadn’t been such bad shape, he would probably be on his feet and in Henry’s face already. As it was, he pulsed against my hand, straining in a feeble attempt to appear less fragile compared to Henry’s lumberjack aesthetic.

  Henry retrieved his denim jacket from the hook near the door and swung it across his broad shoulders. “We’ve got an hour and a half on the road to get more acquainted. Get him up. I’ll be outside.”

  Henry left, the front door squeaking shut behind him, and Wes turned toward me. “What the hell, Nicole? Who was that?”

  “That’s him,” I said. “Henry Danvers. He’s my stepfather. You heard him. Let’s go. We’ll explain in the car.”

  Ten minutes later, after thanking Eileen for her help and promising to let her know when we were safe, Wes and I climbed into Henry’s massive red pickup truck and hit the road. I claimed the passenger seat, not entirely trusting Wes to keep his hands or his thoughts to himself. Sure enough, as soon as we pulled out onto the highway, Wes cleared his throat from the back seat.

  “So Henry,” he began. I knew that voice. It was his Officer McAllen voice, the one he used when he was dealing with a tender situation on duty. I grimaced, hoping that Wes wasn’t about to make the trip out to the countryside even more uncomfortable. “How did you meet Nicole’s mother?”

  “Met her in a liquor store,” answered Henry gruffly, one hand resting lazily on the steering wheel. “There was only one bottle of vodka left on the top shelf. We both reached for it at the same time, and the rest was history.”

  I fixed Henry with a penetrating stare. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  He chuckled. “Too right. I met Natasha at a group therapy session actually.”

  “Group therapy?” said Wes. “For what?”

  “I can’t speak for my wife.” Henry’s eyes remained on the road as he flicked on his turn signal to pass a slow-moving sedan. “It’s not my business to share.”

  “What about you?” pressed Wes. “Why were you in group therapy?”

  Henry glanced into his rearview mirror to look at Wes. “I was lonely. I like being alone, but not lonely.”

  “Is there a difference?” I asked.

  Henry nodded. “Sure is. I didn’t like the group at first. Thought it was pointless. Not much good in talking out your problems when talking was never one of your favorite things to begin with. There were about ten or twelve of us there. They all loved to talk. I just sat and listened. And then one day, I noticed that Natasha listened too. Never said a word. Just listened.”

  “The two of you must have mightily intriguing conversations,” I said offhand. I gazed out the window. We had officially made it out of the city. Miles of land stretched out from the highway, beckoning us farther away from the strife at Waverly University. The grass was brown, the trees gray and barren, but the sky was—for the first time in a while—a stark, clear blue. I cracked the window an inch or so, closing my eyes as the frigid air caressed my forehead.

  “I daresay we do,” answered Henry. “But more importantly, we prioritized something that most other people don’t: the peace that accompanies the absence of conversation. It wasn’t long before we started dating.”

  “And how long ago was that?”

  “We’ll be married twenty-one years next month.”

  I let that stew for a while. My mother had been happily married for roughly two-thirds of my life. Every new detail I learned about her seemed to sink into the pit of my stomach, weighing me down. It made her real. It made her not dead. It made me wonder how many times in the past twenty-one years, with Henry as her distraction, that my mother actually bothered to think about me.

  “Do you have kids?” I asked Henry, fearing the answer.

  “I have a boy from a previous marriage,” he said. “He’s nineteen. Goes to school in Toronto.”

  “You and my mother, though,” I ventured. “You never thought about it?”

  Henry rubbed the shadowy scuff on his chin before he answered. “We had a few discussions about it, but your mother never wanted any more kids. Said it’d be too hard after everything that had happened.”

  “I bet,” offered Wes from the backseat. “She might’ve abandoned the second one too.”

  “Wes!” I said, stunned by the pettiness of this statement.

  At the same time, Henry yanked the wheel to the right, and with a jolt, the truck shuddered to a halt on the side of the rode. Henry whirled around to face Wes. “Listen here, son. I don’t care how broken your nose is. I will not hesitate to come back there and kick your righteous ass from here to Sunday. Keep your mouth shut about things you don’t know. Understand?”

  Wes, still braced against the black fabric of the backseat, glared at Henry but gave him a curt nod. I raised an eyebrow at Henry as he swiveled back around to face the road. He noticed my gaze.

  “What?” he barked.

  “Nothing,” I replied hastily as Henry glanced over his shoulder to check his blind spot before pulling out onto the highway again. “You’re just really winning me over with your attitude right now.”

  “I understand the pair of you being a little disgruntled over this entire situation,” said Henry, his voice settling back into its natural register. “I can’t tell you how to feel, but don’t you disrespect my wife. She’s done the best she can.”

  To my surprise, Wes spoke up. “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching up to clasp Henry on the shoulder. “I guess I’d be pissed off too if someone spoke about Nicole that way.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’d better be. But enough honor defending. Henry, fill me in. What was my mother like when she was younger?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “I thought she was dead for nearly thirty years,” I reminded him. “In my mind, she still doesn’t exist. Humanize her. Please.”

  And so for the next half hour of the drive, Henry talked at length about my mother, their marriage, and the farmhouse that he had inherited from his family as I tried to imagine what life might have been like if Henry Danvers had been my real father.

  At some point, Henry finally took an exit to get off the interstate. The red truck ambled past cow pastures, stables, farmhouses, and a quaint town center that consisted of a corner store, a small restaurant called Tony P’s, and a gas station. A little further out, Henry steered the truck off the main road, pulling into a long, dirt driveway bordered by a weathered wooden fence. At the far end of the drive, nearly half a mile down, sat the white farmhouse from the picture Henry had shown me. I shrank in my seat as we drew closer to it, trying to ignore the tightening feeling in my throat.

  Loud booming barks suddenly filled the air. A tan coonhound and a black and white border collie raced down the dirt driveway toward us. Henry chuckled, slowing down as the dogs ran alongside the truck, jumping up and down to get a look in the window. They accompanied us all the way up the drive, and when Henry finally parked outside the farmhouse and opened the driver’s side door, the dogs were so excited to see him that he could barely step out of the truck.

  “All right, all right,” he said, playfully capturing the coonhound’s nose between his palms. He called over his shoulder to us. “Come on out, you two. They don’t bite.”

  It wasn’t uncertainty of the dogs that kept me rooted to the passenger seat. It was the willowy figure that had emerged from the white farmhouse and onto the wraparound porch, wiping her hands on a dish towel and smiling at the interaction between Henry and the animals. I heard Wes hop down from the truck—my periphery registered his boots kicking up the dry dust from the ground—but I couldn’t move. I stared through the front windshield, trying to catch my breath.

  In a moment, her eyes m
et mine. And there was no recognition within them.

  Lauren blew an annoyed sigh through her lips, kicking her boots against the nearest leg of the bunk beds. It had been hours since Brooks had attacked her on the drive back to the Waverly campus, and she was getting tired of waiting for one of the Raptors to deign to update her. She massaged the back of her neck. Brooks was an idiot. As soon as he’d made his move, she shoved a stun gun up into his armpit, but despite the acuity of her self-defense, it wasn’t enough to convince the other Raptors in the car that she was innocent.

  As Brooks convulsed, Wickes had reached into the front seat to grab the cell phone, unlocking it to look at the text message. “Brooks was right,” said Wickes, showing the message to Olivia and Hastings. “It’s from the Morrigan.”

  The three alert Raptors stared at Lauren. She stared back. The SUV was silent save for Brooks’s labored breathing. Olivia offered the phone to Lauren. She took it, glancing at the text: Salander is no longer with us. Bring her in.

  The air in the car felt heavy and thick as Lauren tried to draw in a breath. Her mind whirled through the possibilities. She could lie, but the Raptors surely wouldn’t believe her. She could concede and face whatever consequence awaited her. Or she could run.

  Lauren jettisoned the phone at Wickes, at the same time using her other hand to open the passenger door at her back. She tumbled out of the SUV, but Brooks had recovered enough to seize the back of her jacket. She jerked against the fabric, unzipped the jacket to escape from its sleeves, and slipped out into the night.

  As she sprinted away, she heard the SUV’s doors opening and closing. The Raptors pounded after her. The wind tore into Lauren, making her eyes water and chilling her through the thin sweater that she wore. She wished suddenly that she had joined the other girls from her rowing team on their morning jogs. She detested running, and the benefits of cross-training never persuaded her to suck it up. Olivia Dashwood, on the other hand, was on the crew team and the track team.

  Lauren watched the ground rise up to meet her before she even registered Olivia’s arms around her waist. They tumbled down into the dirt, rolling a few times before coming to a stop. Olivia was thinner than Lauren, so Lauren bucked her hips and used her weight to heave her teammate off of her. Wickes and Hastings were only feet away, but when Lauren tried to run again, her ankle buckled beneath her. She’d sprained it on the way down. Olivia grabbed a belt loop of Lauren’s jeans, holding her fast.

  “Ollie, don’t,” begged Lauren, trying to scramble away from the other girl.

  Olivia’s lower lip shook, but her fingers remained hooked through Lauren’s belt loop. “I’m so sorry, Lauren.”

  A moment later, Wickes and Hastings hoisted Lauren from the ground and escorted her back to the SUV. Brooks had moved into the passenger seat, so Olivia climbed in on the driver’s side. Lauren took Olivia’s place, imprisoned between two boys that she had once thought of as brothers.

  Outside the door of Lauren’s makeshift prison cell, the sound of footsteps echoed along the corridor. Lauren jumped down from where she had been trying to rest on the top bunk, standing on her tiptoes and craning her neck in order to get a look out of the window set high in the door of the room. Olivia’s long, red ponytail bounced into view.

  “What is it, Olivia?” asked Lauren. She spoke sharply in a tone that suggested she still reigned superior over the other girl.

  Olivia’s whiskey-brown eyes peered through the window. “You never call me that.”

  “Well, I thought we were friends before,” Lauren replied curtly. “Excuse me if our casual camaraderie has been interrupted by the fact that you willingly took me down at the command of Logan Wickes.”

  “It was the Morrigan who made the call,” countered Olivia, but she was unable to hold Lauren’s hostile gaze.

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Raptors that put too much of their faith in the Morrigan usually end up dead.”

  “I—”

  Lauren turned away from the window and rested her back against the door, her patience with Olivia already wearing thin. “Forget it. You can report to the Morrigan that I’m still trapped in her little jail cell, patiently awaiting her verdict. That is what you came down here for, right? To make sure I didn’t cleverly worm my way out of here?”

  “I’m sure if you just explain what you were doing with that Costello girl—”

  Lauren blew her long hair out of her eyes, sliding down the door until she came to rest on the floor. “‘That Costello girl’ is one of the smartest and most deserving people I’ve ever met,” she called out to Olivia. “And my family ruined her life. I owe her. But this is about more than just Nicole Costello. It’s about the lack of humanity amongst our members. The Raptors have become self-serving and bloodthirsty, which really isn’t new information, but the fact remains that most of the society finds it perfectly acceptable to commit murder in order to get their way.”

  Olivia’s voice floated back to Lauren from the gap between the door and the floor. “I never thought it was okay to kill anyone.”

  “And yet, by kidnapping me and delivering me to my aunt, you endorsed her methods anyway,” said Lauren.

  A soft thud echoed from the opposite side of the door, as if Olivia had rested her forehead against it. “I’m sorry.”

  There were a few moments of silence, and Lauren wondered if Olivia had already left her again. Then she heard the other girl take a deep breath from the opposite side of the door.

  Lauren sighed, chipping dark red nail polish off of her index finger. “Olivia, do you remember that night last semester ago when we snuck into my aunt’s office after dark and stole a bottle of whiskey? We drank two-thirds of it out by the lake. It was right after finals week.”

  “I remember.”

  “I don’t know if it was the alcohol or the darkness, but that night was the first time you’d ever really shared anything deeply personal with me,” Lauren went on. “You thanked me, and when I asked why, you told me it was because it was the first night in a long time that you hadn’t felt alone. And I promised you that if you ever felt lonely, you could always come get me.”

  There was a muted sniffle from the corridor, but Olivia didn’t say anything.

  “I thought our relationship extended beyond the Raptors,” admitted Lauren, the hitch in her breath surprising her. “We were teammates. Friends. How could you do this to me? Is your place in the society so crucial to your existence that you would betray the only person you ever confided in?”

  “That’s not why—Lauren, if I could get you out, I would.”

  Lauren stood up again, glaring out the window once more. “Do it then,” she challenged Olivia. “Get me out.”

  Lauren’s pulse sped up as she watched Olivia’s hand drift almost involuntarily toward the chair wedged beneath the doorknob, but just as quickly, Olivia withdrew.

  “I can’t,” she said. “Not yet.”

  Somewhere down the corridor, a door slammed shut. Olivia flinched, looking away from Lauren.

  “Don’t tell anyone I came to see you,” she ordered and then rushed off.

  “Wait—Ollie!”

  But it was too late. Olivia had already disappeared from view.

  27

  I lingered in the cab of Henry’s truck. My mother stood expectantly on the porch, still smiling as Wes presented his hands for the border collie to inspect. My hands shook as I finally pushed open the door, and Wes, realizing my anxiety, sidestepped the collie to meet me.

  “You okay?” he murmured, taking me around the waist to help me hop down from the lifted truck.

  I gripped his fingers in mine. “That remains to be seen. Shall we?”

  Together, we approached the porch. Henry had already reached my mother, greeting her with a tight hug and several sweet kisses, but she ducked around him to address us.

  “Who do we have here?” she asked kindly.

  As I squinted up at her, the sun shining directly into my face, her
mouth dropped open. She took a hasty step backward, toward the front door of the farmhouse, and clasped one hand over her heart.

  For the longest moment of my life, we only stared at each other, me on the dry, dusty ground and her on the elevated platform of the porch. Wes and Henry glanced back and forth between us as if we were playing the world’s most boring ping-pong game. When it became clear that neither of us was capable of introducing oneself to the other, Henry stepped forward and cleared his throat.

  “Natasha, this is—”

  “You look just like him,” she said suddenly, her eyes now combing every inch of my face. “God, it’s uncanny.”

  I ducked my head, avoiding the scrutiny of her gaze, but Wes nudged me forward. Hesitantly, I climbed the porch steps to join Henry and Natasha. Natasha reached out for me, and for a second, I just stared at her.

  “Nicole.”

  It was like someone had hit the rewind button on my life. When did memories begin to record everything? I had only been two years old when Natasha had handed me over to my aunt, and yet the vision of my mother reading Goodnight Moon to me in the spare bedroom of my aunt’s house before she disappeared forever was emblazoned in my mind like a high-definition photograph. I fell into my mother’s embrace and began to cry quietly into her shoulder. Though the crisp air was enough to make the Abominable Snowman shiver, Natasha patiently held me, her grip warm and tight, until I was ready to release her again.

  Finally, I pulled away, wiping my nose with the back of my sleeve. Henry and Wes gazed politely in opposite directions, waiting out our reunion.

  “Seriously, though,” said Natasha in a light tone. “You couldn’t have at least inherited my nose or something? It’s all Anthony. Every bit of you.”

  I laughed, the sound getting caught at the back of my throat.

  “Who’s this?” asked Natasha, smiling at Wes.

  Wes shook Natasha’s hand. “Weston McAllen, ma’am.”

  “My boyfriend,” I clarified.