Amber House: Neverwas (9 page)

Gramma’s property. Spending time with him had been one of

the best things about visiting my grandmother. Until her funeral.

When I finally realized that Jackson wasn’t really like a big

brother at all.

That had been such a weird day. I’d wandered around the

reception after the service, with this feeling that there wasn’t

enough air to breathe. Like the space between this world and the

o21

next had grown thin somehow and the oxygen was leaking out.

I’d had a constant feeling of déjà vu, too. And then I’d bumped

into Jackson and —

It was like the first time I’d ever really seen him. He wasn’t

just this nice older boy I could always count on. He was . . .

well, he was almost a man. All the long, thin angles of his

frame — the lankiness most boys go through, but which had

been worse for Jackson because he grew so tall — had rounded

out with muscle. His face had changed too; his features had got-

ten stronger somehow. Firmer. He was — attractive. Handsome.

It left me feeling really off balance.

When I’d found him that day, while I was talking to him, he’d

touched a tear on my cheek. And I’d wondered for a moment,

with this uncomfortable feeling in my chest, what it would be

like if he slid his hand along my chin, and tilted my head, and

stepped in close —

Like I said. I’d felt really off balance.

I realized he was watching my face as we sat there by the pool,

as though he had some idea of what I was remembering. So I

made that thought go away, just like I did with the creepies.

I widened my eyes to innocence:
No thinking going on here.

“You don’t like it much at Amber House,” he said. A question

posed as a statement. Yet another thing he did without fail.

“Definitely liked the place better as a visitor. But I won’t be

here that long. I’ll probably go back to Seattle for college.”

He shook his head and looked down, as if I’d just disappointed

him again.
Honestly
, I thought irritably, he was only fourteen months older. He didn’t have to treat me like I was such a child.

I’d grown up too.

“You don’t feel you owe something to this place?” he said.

“Not many people have a home like Amber House.”

“It’s not my home,” I said, matching his tone. “I’m Astorian,

remember?”

22 O

He shrugged a little with just his face. I felt judged. Again. It

was frustrating. Why couldn’t I connect with him the way I

used to?

“Truth is, I don’t want to stay here either,” he said. “I don’t
fit
here. I don’t belong. But I don’t know how to get to where I do

belong.”

He’d said the same words I’d used in my head to describe

myself.
Odd.
Impulsively, I reached out. “If I can help you somehow —”

But it was the wrong move. I’d touched his scarred hand. He

pulled it back, shoving it into his pocket. Then he noticed what

he’d done and lifted his eyes to mine, smiling a little, sadly.

“I don’t really think it’s possible to get to there from here.”

A voice inside my head said:
It
is
possible.
A line I’d heard in a movie, maybe. Or something from a dream.

“I gotta go,” Jackson said. “I want to have some supper ready

for Gran when she gets home.”

I pinked up and was glad he couldn’t see it in the darkness of

the conservatory. His gran would get home after she got off

work — making dinner for
my
family, a dinner she didn’t eat any part of. He started to slide the little blanket off his shoulders. I shook my head severely. “You’d better just wear that

home and bring it back tomorrow, mister,” I said.

He smiled and pulled it closed around him. “Thanks, Sare.”

And it almost sounded the way it used to, when we were best

friends.

“See you, J,” I said.

N

The ground floor of the west wing stood between me and the

rest of my family, a tunnel of night. I fumbled for the light

o23

switch. I wasn’t going to walk through the dark. Bad enough I’d

still have to walk past all the gaping mouths of unlit doorways.

At its end, the hall bent right and joined up with a gallery that

ran the width of the main house. The library’s rear door opened

into the gallery, as well as the passage that led past the kitchen’s swinging door and on into the entry. I ducked right into the

kitchen, softly lit and fireplace-warm. Rose was dishing up din-

ner plates.

I felt another twinge of embarrassment. It had never bothered

me much that Rose had worked for Gramma — Gramma had

hired Rose as a cook and housekeeper after Jackson’s grandfather

died, and I had the impression there was some story there I’d

never been told. But when Gramma passed, Mom had suggested

Rose might want to retire on full pay — we simply weren’t the

kind of people who were used to help in our own home. Rose

had refused. Said she wasn’t taking charity.

“Can I carry something in, Mrs. Valois?” I said.

I could almost see her mentally shaking her head. She was

impatient with our Astorian compulsion to help “the help.” But

she said, “Sure, Sarah. Just give me a second.” She picked up a

spoon and started ladling green beans onto each plate. “You go

into town again today?”

“Yeah,” I said, instantly anxious to avoid saying what Jackson

had asked me not to say. Which was a mistake. Rose had a grand-

mother’s near-psychic ability to pick up on anxiety.

“You didn’t go anywhere near the cinema, did you?”

“
No-ope
,” I said, accidentally adding an extra
o
to the word. “I took Sam to the hardware store.”

“You see Jackson?”

“Nup.” That one was too abrupt. “What I mean is, I didn’t see

him in
town
, but I did just see him a few — a little
while
ago, when he stopped into the conservatory to say hi.”

24 O

She was looking at me squirm, her skepticism plain on her

face. But she let the subject drop. “Can you carry in yours and

Sammy’s plates?”

“Sure. These two?” I asked, happy to get out of there.

She picked up another three. “Thank you, child. You’re a

good girl.” She turned for the other swinging door that led to

the dining room. “Sometimes a little distantly connected to the

truth, but a good girl.”

She backed through the door, and I made myself follow.

Mom was going around the table with a pitcher, filling water

glasses. She smiled at me as I entered. I loved my mother’s smile.

It was a part of her gracefulness — the way she moved, the tone

of her voice, the shape of her words, the ever-present hint of

smile. I almost smiled back. But then I reminded myself how

angry I was about being in this house and this country.

The fifth place set at the head of the table was empty. Sammy

said, “She’ll be here in a little moment.”

“She” meant Maggie. “I thought she was already here,” I said.

“Nope,” Sam said.

I wondered who’d been humming in the room below mine.

Rose, probably, or maybe Mom, or even Sammy.

I seated myself and started picking at my food. Mom sat down

opposite Sammy. “I am enjoying Maeve’s photographs so much,”

she said in my direction. “She really captured what it was like to

be alive and breathing in the late 1800s. You should help me,

honey. It’s fascinating.”

Maeve McCallister was my great-grandmother’s grand-

mother, who’d achieved a certain post-mortem fame for the

thousands of tintypes she’d taken of everyday life — women,

children, servants, and slaves. Subjects most other photographic

pioneers didn’t deem worthy of capturing for posterity on

expensive metal plates. Mom was searching through Maeve’s life

work to cull the best pieces for the Metropolitan exhibit.

o25

“Not interested in the twisted history of the ACS, Mom,” I

said with a tight smile. “I’m Astorian.”

She blinked, a little surprised by my brittle tone. Dad, ever

perceptive, asked, “Something happen today, Sare?”

“There was a big crowd on the main street of Severna. Sam

dashed over to see what was happening, and by the time I caught

up with him, the police were lobbing gas canisters and hosing

down a line of protestors in front of the movie theatre.”

“Oh, my God,” my mother said, her face going pale.

“We got out of there as fast as we could,” I said, adding, “and

Sam wasn’t hurt.”

“The boy who likes hardware stores lifted me way up above

the gas,” Sammy contributed cheerfully.

“Who?” Dad asked.

“Richard Hathaway,” I explained.

“Well, thank God for Richard,” he said. “You shouldn’t have

been there.”

“No,” I said, “
We
shouldn’t be
here
.”

I didn’t know how my father could stand living in the ACS.

Mom at least had grown up here. But Dad was from New

England, born in Nova Scotia. He’d met Mom while he was

at Johns Hopkins — she was attending the all-girls college of

Notre Dame in Baltimore at the time. After Dad finished his

residency, they’d both wanted out of the South. But Mom

refused to go north, because she didn’t want to live in a country

that still recognized royalty. The two of them had instead headed

west, to the nation built on the bones of John Jacob Astor’s trad-

ing posts. A country of free thinkers who’d emigrated from all

over the Pacific Basin and North America. My real home.

Astoria.

My father started to reply, but then Maggie finally appeared,

smiling, removing her coat and gloves. Mom jumped up, real

happiness lighting her face. She hugged her sister so hard she

26 O

squeezed an “oomph” from Maggie. “Magpie,” Mom said, “so

happy you’re here.”

Maggie made the circuit, returning Sam’s enthusiastic hug,

reaching up to kiss Dad’s cheek, then coming round to hug me.

“Sarah, too,” she said.

After Gramma’s funeral, Maggie had gone north into

Louisiana, to the area just below the New English province of

Ohio, to oversee the use of the family foundation’s resources to

help fight an outbreak of meningitis. We were all happy and

relieved to have her back again.

There was something about Maggie, something fragile, that

made you want to keep her safe. She was a lot like Sammy: sweet

and generous and gentle. She fell in the autism spectrum too,

only she fell a little deeper in than he did. She was beautiful and

fine-featured, like my mother, but where Mom was all drive

and channeled perfectionism, Maggie had this hint of tenuous-

ness that was almost like sorrow. Perhaps because she’d nearly

died when she was young — she’d fallen from the tree house in

the old oak on the front lawn and hovered in a coma for several

weeks. Maybe that accounted for the slightly dreamy and far

away quality she had.

The dinner ran more smoothly after that, since my lack of

participation became less noticeably obvious. As Mom cut up

the huge chocolate cake Rose had left on the sideboard, Sam

went to fetch the Advent calendar he’d been diligently opening

every day.

“Look, Maggie,” he said, “the special day is almost here.” He

graciously let her break the seal on the day’s window, revealing

a tiny plastic compass. “Great!” he said with enthusiasm. “I

needed that.”

Maggie looked into my eyes over the top of his head and

smiled. It was hard to stay angry around her and Sammy, but I

kept working at it. After I polished off my cake, I cleared my

o27

plate and disappeared upstairs. I thought I’d force myself to

crack open one of Mom’s old books.

By nine, the house was mostly quiet. I could hear the ticking

of the clock in the entry and the faint, faraway sound of voices

rising — the television still babbling in the sunroom. It was

only six-ish my time — Pacific time — but I got into my PJs

anyhow. I wanted to put an end to my misery for the day.

And I was evidently pretty tired. My eyes were playing tricks

on me — making shadows in the corners, giving me double

vision as I walked down the hall to the bathroom. I had the

strangest notion that the girl in the mirror, brushing her teeth,

was moving just a fraction of a second slower than I was.

Maybe I needed glasses.

Back in my room, I slid in under the heavy Tree of Life quilt

that covered my bed and shut off the little table lamp. Outside

the window, caught in moonlight, fat snowflakes were still fall-

ing, making me feel cozy and warm. I wished I could like this

place. But it just didn’t feel right.

N

Amber ran ahead of me, down the green corridors of the conservatory. I
caught glimpses of her pale dress flashing behind the leaves. She slowed
to let me catch up. “Let’s play a game,” she said.

“Hide-and-seek?” I asked.

“Nope,” she answered, pushing farther through the branches. “Let’s
hunt for treasure.”

She disappeared into a hedge hall lined with doors. It went on and on,
and I gathered up my gold skirt and ran faster. I knew I had to choose.

But which door was the right door?