Dark Companion (42 page)

et possessa ferus pectora versat Amor.

Cedimus, an subitum luctando accendimus ignem?

cedamus! leve fit, quod bene fertur, onus.”

I translated the poem in my head as he spoke: “Thus it will be; slender arrows are lodged in my heart, and Love vexes the chest that it has seized. Shall I surrender or stir up the sudden flame by fighting it? I will surrender—a burden becomes light when it is carried willingly.”

“Whew!” He wiped a hand across his forehead. “I mean,
vhev
. Hov vas my pronunciation?”

“You’re supposed to pronounce the
v
’s like
w
’s, not
w
’s like
v
’s. Except for that, it was really the most genius Latin I’ve ever heard,” I said, smiling. “
Te amo
. I love you, Jack.”

*   *   *

Jack helped me pack my sports bag with clothes and books. When he was in the bathroom, I snuck into the laundry room and pulled out the manila envelope holding my stash. All my money was still there.

“Jane, you ready?” Jack called.

“In a minute.” I shoved the money in the envelope and hid it. Because old habits die hard.

I went out to the living room. “Ready.”

Jack carried my sports bag and helped me hobble to the drive, where Mary Violet was waiting in her car.

*   *   *

Mrs. Holiday was in the kitchen, arranging fruit in a basket, when MV and I came in. “Hi, girls! I’m so glad you’re back, sweetie.”

She had called me sweetie, the sort of ordinary nickname that mothers use, and I burst into tears. The tears became sobs, and the sobs racked my body. MV and her mother sat me in a chair.

“Jane, what is it? What is it?” MV asked, and handed me tissues.

Mrs. Holiday said, “She was in shock before. Everything’s coming at her now.”

I nodded and choked out, “It feels like she died yesterday.”

“She
did
die yesterday,” MV said.

“Not Claire, my mother. I remember…” The loss hurt so badly that I pulled up my knees and rocked.

The entirety of my memories came to me now.

But the memories came too fast, like the view from a roller coaster, and I could barely recognize one before I saw another, making me feel sick.

My mother’s hand reaching out for mine at a street corner.

My stepfather’s bloodshot eyes and ominous silence before he exploded.

Coming in from a cold day and smelling the rich aroma of chicken soup.

My mother’s fingernail, painted deep rose, pointing out the words on a page of a picture book.

A striped cat that perched on the fence.

Playing by the trees at the back of the yard, where I couldn’t hear the angry voices.

MV and her mother hugged me, murmuring, “Shush, shush, shush, shush,” soothing me like the trees.

I stayed with the Holidays and grieved while my injuries healed and Jack dealt with his parents. I moved to a cot on the balcony, where I could look up at the night sky and think about everything that had happened.

MV and I studied and watched movies and talked constantly. I liked to visit Mrs. Holiday in her sunroom, letting the heat sink into my bones and watching her paint.

Mary Violet waited for me to tell her about my recovered memories. One night while she was sitting at the foot of my cot and we were both staring at the foggy night, I said, “You asked if I’d been camping. I hadn’t, but I used to run away from foster homes. Sometimes I slept in homeless encampments in city parks. I liked being in places with trees.”

“You can come camping with us this summer and help me meet boys who aren’t from Greenwood.”

“You’re asking
me
to be your wingman?”

“Okay, maybe that idea needs some work.” She grabbed my foot under the blanket. “Are you part Laplander?”

“No, but I know why my mother named me Jane.” I remembered a daisy in a clear glass bottle on the windowsill. “She said Jane was simple and plain, and that all of her favorite things were simple.”

“That’s what I think, too! Like the best solution to a problem is an elegant solution—simple and true.”

After five days, I felt well enough to return to my cottage.

Jack walked me from the Holidays’. I moved slowly because I felt tender all over, as if I’d been protected by a shell and it had cracked open, leaving me exposed. A large basket of orchids was set beside the door on the porch.

Jack picked up the basket and I plucked off the small white envelope attached to the cellophane. I took out the card and read aloud, “Get well soon, 2S.”

Jack frowned. “Do you have another boyfriend?”

“He’s more like a, well, a godfather.”

“Sometimes I worry that I’m only an infatuation for you, like the way you felt about Lucky.”

I opened the front door. “With all due respect, your brother’s kind of a tool. I’ve seen pretty boys—we even have them in Hellsdale—and I thought Lucky was the one who made me feel alive again. But it was you, Jack, it was you.”

*   *   *

The next day, Mary Violet and Constance visited. “Where’s your boyfriend?” Mary Violet sang as she waltzed in with a plate of cupcakes.

“He’s at practice. We haven’t even gone on a first date yet.” I tried to sound blasé, even though I’d been wondering when Jack would ask me out.

Constance took a cupcake and nibbled at the purple frosting. “Do you know that you’ve become a Birch Grove legend? We’ll need an iconic nickname for you. I thought of Firestarter, but MV thinks it’s too Stephen King.”

Mary Violet gave me an encouraging smile, so I let out a long sigh before saying, “Con, I actually have a nickname you can use. It’s Mousie or Mousie Girl.”

“That’s cool,” Constance said. “It fits because you’re as neat and petite as a mouse.”

“What’s your iconic nickname, Constance?”

Mary Violet raised her hand and waved it. “I know! I know! Ooh, call on me, teacher!”

I nodded, and Mary Violet said, “Constant Comment, like the tea, because she’s sweet and spicy.”

“That is
not
my nickname! Constance is fine, thank you.”

“Okay, not
so
sweet.” Mary Violet sighed and sighed again. “Hattie’s so busy with Lucky that we haven’t seen her in years.”

“She stopped by after you left yesterday.” Constance winked an almond eye at me.

“Only for a nanosecond.”

Constance mouthed “no” and said, “It was at least two hours.”

MV held up a t-shirt that Jack had left on the floor and then she dropped it. “Everyone’s doing the dance-with-no-pants except for me. Even Constance is seeing Joe, who’s a junior at Evergreen. When we were in seventh grade, Joe laughed aloud when I got beaned in the head with a soccer ball at the Fourth of July picnic, which I thought was horrifically ungentlemanly. My self-esteem was in shambles.”

“
We all
laughed when you got beaned, because you were wearing a ginormous pink hat with feathers.”

“It was a captivating
chapeau
!”

Constance rolled her eyes. “
Chapeau
is French for ginormous pink hat with feathers. Three guys already asked MV to the Winter Ball.”

“They don’t count,” MV said with a pout. “I’ve known them since we were all embryos and our mothers were in the same birthing classes. I think I’ll dress my sister Agnes in a tux and take her as my date.”

“You wouldn’t!” Constance and I shouted.

“I
would
! Con, do you still have your Abe Lincoln costume?”

*   *   *

A few days later, the sun broke through the fog, and the sky cleared to a deep blue. Jack had gone off to do something, and I soaked languorously in the tub with lemon verbena bath salts. I suddenly remembered my mother rolling up her pants and sitting on the edge of the tub so she could soak her feet while I splashed in the water.

On impulse, I got out and tried on the pretty white dress that the Radcliffes had given me. The shoulder straps were so thin that my scar showed, but I didn’t need to hide it anymore. The long skirt floated around my legs when I twirled. I heard Jack return and skipped out into the living room. Maybe this would remind him that I wanted to go on a date. “Hey, you!”

He grinned when he saw the dress and then he kissed me. “Come on. We’re going for a walk.”

“Let me change.”

“No, you’re dressed just right for a walk.”

I tried not to be disappointed as I slipped on delicate silver sandals that I’d never worn before. “It’s a beautiful day.”

“A beautiful day with my beautiful pixie in her beautiful fairy dress.”

We held hands, our fingers intertwined, as we walked up the path. Autumn had set in and leaves carpeted the ground. I kicked at them, watching them fly up. “Jack, you like me because I’m puny.”

“I like you because you’re fierce and brilliant. If I get a basket for my bike, you’d probably fit in it.”

“That’s hysterical.”

“I
am
going to get you on a bike eventually.” He veered off the path through the shrubs.

I slowed. “Lucky showed me this place.”

“He probably took you to the boulder. He always liked to be up high, ruling the world. Come on.” We veered around the boulder and deeper into the grove.

Rocks were set as stepping stones across the creek. Jack held on to my arm to steady me on the mossy surfaces. The air smelled incredibly fresh and the foliage was thick here with a mix of bushes and trees.

“Halfling?”

“Yes, Jack?”

“Do you remember saying you wanted to go on a date with me?”

“I recall that.”

“Does the night at the pizza place count?”

“You mean the night you made me cry?” I snapped.

“Oh, you’re a
cranky
pixie.” He put his hand over my eyes and guided me forward. I felt branches and ferns brushing against me. “Where are you taking me?”

“You
axed
me that question when we went on our non-date. Are you absolutely
sure
that doesn’t count?”

“I’m absolutely sure.”

“What about this, then?”

When Jack removed his hand, I saw that we were standing in a tiny dell, only about eight feet wide, surrounded on all sides by greenery. A picnic lunch and pillows were set out on a blanket, and a green bottle and glasses chilled in a silver ice bucket. Small pink wild roses rambled up an old stump, their delicate blossoms honeying the air.

“It’s a secret room!”

Jack plucked roses and fern fronds and laced the stems into my hair. “I’ve never brought anyone here before. The Family had their ceremonies in the amphitheater, and this was my private place. It always felt a little lonely before.”

“It’s so pretty!”

We sat on the blanket and he opened the bottle. “Sparkling cider, which I’ve heard is popular with pixies.” He poured glasses of cider and lifted one to me and we clinked glasses and drank.

Then he put down his glass, bent his head toward me, and sniffed. “You smell better than lunch, and lunch can wait because I need to kiss you.” Jack took my glass and set it aside. He pressed me back onto the blanket. I blinked at the sun that made an aura around his face. He kissed me, his mouth tasting of cider and autumn. He spread my hair out on the blanket. “Now you look like my fairy queen.”

After lunch, Jack showed me a blackberry bramble and we plucked off the last sweet fruit of the season. The purple juices stained our fingers and we fed the berries to each other and then kissed and caressed and dozed in the sun.

A balmy breeze blew and leaves wafted down onto our bodies, as soft as sighs. I thought Jack looked like a wild creature, and perhaps I looked like one, too. I knew I would remember this afternoon forever.

*   *   *

Diamonds form deep beneath the earth’s surface and are carried up by rare and peculiar eruptions of molten lava. Jack’s touch had brought forth all my suppressed emotions and feelings. I had seen the world through only one facet of a crystal and believed that I was seeing reality. Yet by turning the crystal, I had added a new dimension to my comprehension of my life and my experiences.

Every day brought more memories of my life
before:
my mother pushing me on swings at the park, making cookies together, blowing bubbles on a summer day, and going to the library for reading hour. She had loved me.

Now, too, I realized that some foster parents had attempted to draw me out and care for me, but I’d been too fearful and angry to accept their affection.

I’d fixated on Wilde’s horrible misfortune instead of her indomitable cheer.

I had reduced Hosea’s life to the injustice of his death, when I should have celebrated the wonder of his existence. I came to understand that I had never needed the tattoo to remind me of him, because he lived in my heart.

I saw the marvel of my new friends, too, and I no longer wondered why I liked Mary Violet so much: she had given me laughter, and I loved her for that.

I could say
love
now and I knew what it meant. I thought it was the most important and complicated word in the world. When Jack was with me, I felt such love for him. He might be rambling about his band, or filthy from a ride, or ranting about his family, or walking silently beside me on one of our night walks, and I felt such happiness.

And always in the back of my mind were 2Slim and Claire Mason, both damaged and deadly. Their childhood suffering in no way excused their murderous behavior, and I prayed that my own damaged soul was not incorrigible—that I would be healed.

All the parts of me were coming together, and I could even imagine the woman I would become: quiet, thorough Jane Williams, who loved solving problems in a laboratory and was happiest when she came home in the evening to her husband and their crazy-haired children.