Aftersight (13 page)

Cali

Northwest England

January 27

Our black limousine sped along the rolling green hills in the wet winter twilight. Nicole and I sat in the back, dozing on the black leather upholstery, lulled by the
thump, thump, thump
of windshield wipers pushing water off the windshield and the
thud
of rain on the tall cab roof. Nicole's head rested on my shoulder, her long, wavy hair draped over me like a silk, auburn curtain. It gave off a faintly perfumey smell, like scented samples from a fashion magazine.

We'd been driving northwest from London all afternoon, pushing farther into a countryside of green pastures, narrow canals, and tightly grouped clusters of trees. At the moment we were winding up into the hills, through a slushy rain that flecked the distant green mounds with snow. The fading light made it too dark to see the limousine's fancy interior — lacquered paneling, a small bar with amber-filled bottles and heavy crystal tumblers, and an elegant, etched glass barrier separating us from our beefy, shaved-headed chauffeur.

We'd been on the road almost twenty-eight hours now, but it seemed like a flipping week had passed since we'd been picked up in Sacramento, driven two hours to San Francisco International Airport, and put on a plane bound for London. After the seemingly never-ending eleven-hour flight and a hard-eyed inspection by a cagy British customs officer, we'd met our driver, Sean, a silent, rough-looking character holding up a hand-made sign with our names scrawled on it. Sean looked like something freshly spit out of a rugby scrum — squat and scar-faced with a crooked nose and missing front tooth. I felt uneasy just looking at him, but Nicole only waved it off in that easygoing southern way of hers. "Don't worry, Charlie says he's kind. He'll take care of us."

Yeah, "Take care of us." That's what I'm afraid of.

On the drive north I finally allowed myself a little shuteye, after forcing myself to stay awake through the entire flight from California. Sometime after takeoff, once the dinner service had wrapped up and the horizon had grown dark, I was just drifting off to sleep when it started: heavy vibrations that seemed to rise up out of the cabin floor, climbing through my body in waves of electric pinpricks. At first I thought my legs had fallen asleep and that the sensation was somehow spreading upward, but the feeling of falling in my gut told me different, falling and that familiar sense of liquid twirling — the usual warning signs that I was about to have an out-of-body experience.

I used everything I had to lurch out of it, grasping my armrests like a nervous rollercoaster rider. The idea of hurtling out of my body in the dark at thirty-six thousand feet filled me with terror, and from then on I drank cup after cup of strong black coffee until my hands trembled and head ached, like a heavy lump of iron was pressing into the center of my forehead. Even now I felt shaky and disconnected, not totally in my body, but not quite out of it, either.

I was glad we were almost there after the past crazy six weeks of planning and preparation. Derrick had been furious, first at my reluctance to leave only hours before our planned departure to Canada, and then at the news that I wouldn't be going at all. Derrick had let me live at his place for the last weeks of school, giving me a chance to finish my finals and pick up my diploma, but I didn't see him much. He wanted nothing more to do with me, so was staying at a friend's house. I learned on my last day of school — my eighteenth birthday — that he'd moved to Vancouver without even saying goodbye.

My decision to attend Waltham Academy for Spiritual Sensitives had been surprisingly easy to make. Sir Alex insisted on paying for all of my and Nicole's expenses; we were to consider it a scholarship. That's how it worked for all the students handpicked to attend the school. Sir Alex would arrange for the visas and file all the necessary paperwork. For now, all I needed was a passport, which I coincidentally happened to have. It was crazy how it had all worked out. If it hadn't been for Derrick and my planned move to Canada, I never would have undergone the huge, pain-in-the-butt struggle necessary to get all my documents in order. Even though the whole Derrick thing had ended badly, I guess there'd been a reason for it.

I know it seemed crazy to trust an old man I'd just met and follow him halfway around the world to a school I'd never even heard of. Even if documentation on Waltham Academy hadn't all been there on the Internet — including a list of prominent graduates who'd done everything from assisting relatives in contacting their deceased loved ones to helping the police find missing persons — everything inside me said this was what I was supposed to do. All the out-of-body experiences seemed to make sense now. Somehow I'd known Sir Alex all my life, maybe even longer. Going to Waltham Academy felt like my destiny.

Nicole seemed to think so, too. She told me that even before she had moved to Sacramento, she knew she wouldn't be staying long. Her spirit guide, Charlie, had told her. He referred to her stay in California as a brief but necessary layover, but wouldn't explain why she needed to go there or where the next leg of her journey would take her. But when Sir Alex started telling us about Waltham Academy for Spiritual Sensitives, what they taught there, how he had helped his students and how they had gone on to help others, everything started to make sense.

Nicole's Aunt Alice hadn't been so quick to agree, though. Alice had familiarized herself with Waltham and Sir Alexander Bray the moment he had made that first appointment for a reading with Nicole. Alice seemed pleased that such an influential person was seeking advice from her niece and probably thought the notoriety might lend Nicole more credibility and attract clients for readings. If Alice had known the real purpose for his visit — to recruit Nicole for the Academy — she would have done everything in her power to keep him away.

As it was, she tried all she could to prevent Nicole from leaving. She even consulted with attorneys and law enforcement officials for a way to legally prevent her from following Sir Alex out of the country. But, trustee or not, Aunt Alice had no legitimate reason to keep Nicole in Sacramento. Nicole was legally an adult and free to go where she wanted.

That didn't change the fact that Alice was still the trustee of Nicole's parents' estate, which included the responsibility of doling out a modest stipend payable to Nicole at such time when she moved out on her own; a little clause Nicole knew nothing about until Alice's legal posturing uncovered it. After that, Alice stopped trying to find a legal way to force Nicole to stay, maybe to stop Nicole from digging any further into the details of the trust.

I'd expected all this to end with Nicole getting kicked out of the house. That's what would have happened to me if Mom and I'd crossed swords like this. It only occurred to me later that the house on 39th Street was, in a lot of ways, more Nicole's house than Alice's. Evicting Nicole might only unearth some obscure bit of contract law that would allow
Nicole
to evict
Alice
.

So her aunt let her stay, though she did everything she could to get Nicole to change her mind during the time she had left, using logic, bribery, and even pouting in a whiny baby voice that was disturbing to hear coming out of Alice's grown-up head. Alice even approached me for help. Suddenly, I was in Alice's good graces. I was often invited over for meals and sleepovers and nights on the town, but I saw through what Alice was trying to do. So did Nicole, I think.

"I cannot convince Nicole to stay, Cali, but you can," Alice pleaded with me one afternoon when we were alone together. She was using a melodramatic southern drawl that made me think of
Gone with the Wind.
"I had hoped for so much for her: college, a career, finishing high school, at least." That was a lie. Nicole told me months before how much her aunt was discouraging her from getting a degree, more than likely to prevent Nicole from going away to school, something she was now attempting to do.

When I refused to get involved, Alice finally resorted to a tantrum, which she threw a few days before we'd left, while Nicole was packing for the trip. I'm glad I wasn't there to see it, but Nicole spared no detail of what she referred to as her aunt's conniption fit: screaming, breath-holding, mutual tears.

Only then did Alice seem to give Nicole her blessing and for our last days together she seemed meek and apologetic. Alice had even thrown us a little bon voyage party, just the three of us, the night before we left. On the surface, everything seemed agreeable as we sat in the dim light of the Italian restaurant, sampling garlic bread and antipasto, but I knew different. This wasn't the end of it. I was quite sure we'd hear from Aunt Alice again.

As our departure date approached, I felt the gnawing urge to let someone in my family know where I was going. Calling Mom in Idaho was unthinkable. Not much of our relationship was left when she flipping pulled up stakes and left me and Dad. Just the thought of hearing her voice made me cringe. I had nightmares of her happily remarried, taking care of small stepchildren the way she'd once taken care of me and Chris. That picture was bad enough in my head, never mind learning that it was for real.

No, I wouldn't try to contact Mom, but Dad — loser that he was — still eked out some bit of loyalty and in the end I'd gone to say goodbye and tell him my plans. What I found when I stopped by was a vacant and padlocked house, a final eviction notice freshly pasted to the front door. When I'd peeked into my old bedroom window, I saw all my stuff exactly as I'd left it — Dad seemed to have just walked away from it all — and it was the sight of my sheets and blankets pulled down as if I'd just gotten up, my computer sleeping as if waiting for its next journal entry, that made me think of a ship at the bottom of the ocean, frozen in its last moments of life. Even if I had wanted to turn back, there was nowhere else to go.

I thought of it all — Mom, Dad, Chris, my old life — like it was this terrible dream that I'd finally woken up from. I didn't know where I was headed exactly, but it had to be better than where I'd come from. The only thing that I'd cared about in Sacramento, my friendship with Nicole, I was taking with me.

The limousine turned off the main road. Gravel gritted and scattered beneath the limo's tires. As we crested the hill, the rain began to slacken. Enough thin grey light was left for me to spot a high brick wall towering ahead, capped with black wrought-iron spikes and crowned with tall laurel hedges and elm branches peeking over the top. The wall, cut in half by the road, continued for a hundred and fifty feet in either direction before ending abruptly. It seemed to be there more for decoration than protection, something to suggest where the property line began. In fact, there was no gate or guard house, just an old copper plaque, patinaed green, that read
Waltham Manor.

The grounds beyond consisted of rolling lawns threaded with paths and dotted by giant trees, stripped of leaves by winter. Their shapes loomed black against the deep grey sky. The road stretched directly ahead between two long rows of giant elms, their thick boughs mingling overhead. As the limousine passed through it, I couldn't help but think of the long, tube-like structures I often flew through during my out-of-body experiences. The sense of expectation that I always felt then came back to me now. I never remembered what was at the end of those long tunnels. Maybe now I would find out.

The gravel path gave way to a brick drive circling in front of a sprawling mansion. I'd never seen a house so big. It rose three and sometimes four stories tall. Made mostly of brick, it was both Gothic and Victorian with a bit of Tudor thrown in. Studded with towers and turrets and accented with balconies and wrought iron, its rooftop sprouted dormers and chimneys like mushrooms. Ivy climbed from the sculpted hedges that surrounded it, scaling the faded brickwork as if trained by gardeners. From the east and west corners, the building spread out to surround the circular brick drive, like arms reaching to welcome us.

Nicole stirred drowsily when the limousine came to a stop in front of the manor's main entrance. "Are we there yet?"

Sean left his place in the driver's seat and opened the car door for us. Every lamp in the great house seemed to be lit. Light spilled out from every hexagonal-paned leaded-glass window, reflecting on the rain-slickened driveway. The house itself had a presence. It seemed to throw off its own living energy that I could feel cutting through the damp darkness.

While the storm had died down, the sound of falling water continued. A three-tiered fountain squatted at the driveway's center, guarded by stone lions with water pouring from their open jaws. The air was clean and cold and scented with woodsmoke and damp earth.

I took a deep breath, feeling my head clear for the first time since we'd arrived in England. Whatever anxiety I'd had about our immediate future was gone now. There was something familiar about Waltham Manor, not just the look of it — which I'd already seen in pictures — but the
feel
of it. It was as if I'd been here before or, if not here exactly, then some place very much like it.

"It's even prettier than I imagined," Nicole said. "Can you feel it?"

"I think I can."

Nicole inhaled, as if tasting the air. "It's so still. So peaceful." Her breath misted in the cold.

While Sean unpacked our luggage from the trunk, the front doors parted and a rectangle of light unfolded onto the front steps. Sir Alexander Bray appeared, flanked by two uniformed manservants —
real
butlers — and advanced onto the front porch, the sound of his silver-tipped cane tapping out the tempo of his stride on the wet ground. How had he known we'd arrived? Had he been waiting for us? Did Sean call him from the car? Or did he have some sixth sense that told him we were here?

Three small dogs shot through the door in his wake, their tails wagging. They were beagles or some kind of English hunting hound that you see in paintings of hunting scenes, running in packs alongside red-coated riders. "Baron, Mosely, Hitchcock," Sir Alex called after them. "Settle down. You don't want to overwhelm our guests."