Authors: Abby Wilder
Forever Blue (11 page)
Lennon
The next stop on Ruben's tour was too far to walk, so we went back to the house and took Elmo.
"Where to?" I asked, waiting to start the car.
"It's a secret."
"You might want to tell me if you expect me to drive."
"Stone's Throw Road," he instructed.
Surprisingly, Elmo started first try and I headed through town, down by the lake and towards Stone's Throw Road. Ruben's eyes avoided the cross on the railing sheltering the road from the cliff that plummeted steeply to the water below.
"Incandescence," I said. "That's a beautiful word."
"Still not as beautiful as blue," Ruben said as we turned onto Stone's Throw Road. He nodded for me to pull over to the side where we would get out and walk. We crossed two paddocks, startled a flock of sheep, and walked into a copse of trees planted so perfectly straight that the setting sun filtering through them cut lines of light and dark across the ground. We came to a clearing on the edge of the lake with the ruin of a dilapidated house standing forlornly in the centre.
"I used to come here when I needed to be alone," Ruben said, leaning against the moss covered fence.
"There's no driveway," I said, looking around the clearing.
"What do you mean?"
"The house is in the middle of the forest, on the edge of the lake, and there's not even an old dirt trail leading to it. How did people get here?"
Ruben laughed. "In all the times I've been here, that's never occurred to me. Come on, I want to show you something inside." He nudged the door with his shoulder and it groaned against the floorboards before giving way. Gingerly, he stepped over a gaping hole in the floor, dirt exposed under the rotten boards.
We walked through the old house slowly, taking in the beauty of each room haunted with memories. "I wonder who used to live here," I said, as the first drop of rain sounded on the roof.
Ruben stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked around what was left of the room. "I'd like to imagine it was a family. A mother and father, two children; one boy, one girl. The mother liked to bake and used to sit pies on this windowsill here to cool, just like they did in nursery rhymes. And the father was a farmer, and the kids walked to school each day. At nights, the whole family would gather in the lounge by the fireplace and listen while the mother played songs on the piano."
"So you haven't put much thought into it," I teased. "Is there a piano?"
Ruben shook his head. "No, but I'd like to think there was."
The rain started to fall in earnest and Ruben led me down the hallway and into another room, one with more roof cover than the others, and somewhere we could shelter from the rain. There was a broken, glassless frame of a window facing out of the porch, looking over the lake, and an overstuffed and old chair sitting in front of the fireplace. Someone had left twigs and pinecones in the hearth. Every inch of wall was covered in scraps of paper, bold pencil sketches covering each of them.
I walked over and traced the outline of an owl with my finger. "Did you do these?"
He nodded. "Before."
I didn't need to ask what he meant.
"It was my hideaway. I came here when I needed to think."
I paced the floorboards, following the walls of pictures. Trees, birds, people. I stopped when a familiar face peered back at me. "Is this Cara?"
Ruben smiled sadly and nodded.
"Sienna said you two dated." I was surprised how much it affected me to even say the words. It was hard to think about his life before, a life which I was never part of.
"We didn't," he said quickly. "Not really. I guess we hooked up a few times."
I didn't look at him when I said what I said next. "Like you did with Sienna?"
He laughed nervously. "Perhaps we should leave the past in the past."
The pictures changed on the second wall. They were all the same; a hand lying limply on the grass, nails chipped and broken, and a thin line of blood trailing down the arm. The image was repeated over and over, the lines darker and bolder with each replication.
Ruben stepped in front of me. "That's why I need to help them. Judah and Cara, I mean. Judah loved her, he still loves her, but I kind of got in the way."
"Sienna mentioned something about that too," I said quietly.
"We need to convince her that Judah is innocent."
I sat down in the chair and the sharp straw-like stuffing dug into me. "And how are we supposed to do that? Find the real driver? If the police couldn't do it, I can't see how we can."
Ruben sat on the ground, crossing his legs and chewing on a dry blade of grass. "We do it together."
"You can't even talk to them."
"But they can see you. I can talk through you."
"You want me to tell them about you?" I asked. "They'll think I'm crazy."
"It's worth a try, don't you think? If we get Judah alone, we'll be able to convince him. I can tell you things that only I would know."
"That's all very well for you to say, you're not going to be the one they laugh at."
Ruben scooted across the floor and sat at my feet, pleading with his sweetest of smiles. "Please?"
"I'll think about it." But I had already melted to his request.
"That's all I can ask." He turned and leaned with his back on my legs, tipping his head against my knees. "I can't tell you what it means having you with me. I was beginning to wonder, with no one to witness my life, with no one aware of my existence, if I was even real. With you here, there is less doubt."
"Less?" I asked.
He twisted his head around to look at me and grinned. "There's always the possibility that you are simply imagining me."
I reached down and pinched his arm.
"Ouch," he said, and rubbed his hand over the red welt, feigning a pout.
"You seem pretty real to me." I grinned. Looking over to the wall, I studied his drawings. His style was bold and rushed. Always in black. "Do you still draw?"
He followed my gaze to the sketches and sighed. "I've tried, but they never last." He tilted his head back so he was looking at me upside down, the back of his head still resting on my knees. I ran my fingers through his hair and he closed his eyes.
"What would you draw?" I asked. "If someone could see what you drew again?"
He moved away and reached across to grab the sketch pad and pencil lying on the ground. "I've drawn lots of things," he said, as he started moving the thick pencil across the page. "My headstone. The rusty old Ferris wheel down by the lake." His tongue slipped through his lips and slid back and forth in concentration. "But every time I leave, when I come back they are all gone. It's like as soon as I take my awareness away, things return to how they really are. A world I'm not a part of." He scribbled furiously, hunched over the page, hands moving quickly, and occasionally brushing away stray filings of lead. When he finished, he asked, "Do you think you'll be able to see it?"
I leaned forward in the chair. "Show me."
He turned over the page and held it up. The lines of my face stared back at me in bold black.
"All I see is you," he said.
Lennon
I didn't know how to feel about Ruben. He was like two pieces of a puzzle that looked as though they wouldn't match up, but when you put them together, somehow, they fit. In my head, I knew the facts. I knew he wasn't there, not really. When we stood side by side in my mirror, only my reflection stared back, but if I reached out and touched him, he was as real as anyone I had ever known. He was as real as me.
But my mind kept playing tricks, flipping from fear to confusion, tossing me in and out of infatuation with him. Each time I found myself alone, Ruben appeared, begging for me to follow him somewhere, showing me places I hadn't seen before. But there was one thing he wanted me to do, one thing I could help him with, and I wanted to try.
"Wait up!" I yelled across the carpark to Judah, who leaned against his car, arms crossed and scowling.
"Sorry about the other day," I said.
Judah smiled, or rather, grimaced, and I noticed one of his teeth, the incisor, was crooked and bent, so it stuck out a little more than the rest of them, something different from Ruben.
"Is there something you want?" he asked gruffly.
"Do you mind if I hang out?"
"With me?" His tone dripped with sarcasm.
"Would that be a problem?" I asked. "I'm new here and I don't have many friends." It wasn't the best approach but if Ruben wanted me to tell the truth to Judah, I needed to strike up some sort of friendship and I didn't know how else to do it. I couldn't very well march up to him and declare I could see his dead brother.
"Suit yourself."
He held open the door and I slid across the seat. It was one of those old cars that had bench seats and seat belts that didn't retract. "Nice car," I said, once he twisted the key and the engine rumbled to life. The vibrations rattled through the seat. I wished I knew something more about cars. "It's a nice colour," I offered.
Judah grunted. "It's had work done."
He didn't say much as we headed towards his place. He looked over at me occasionally, as though I might jump from the car at any moment, and I began to think my idea of getting to know him might not be the best I had come up with. He passed his driveway and carried on down the road.
"Just got to pick up something from the workshop," he said, as I twisted my head to watch the entrance to his house go by.
Cara was there and her face hardened when she saw Judah.
"Won't be a minute," Judah said and shut the door behind him.
"Cara." He stood in front of her, hands stuffed into his pockets and staring at her cautiously.
"I didn't think you were working today," she said, crossing her arms.
"Just picking up some stuff."
Cara looked through the window and bent down.
"Cara, you know Lennon, don't you?" Judah said, waving over at me as he walked away.
"What are you doing with Judah?" she asked and squinted at me accusingly. When I didn't answer, she raised her eyebrows and jutted her chin out expectantly. I shrugged and looked away.
"You shouldn't be with him," she warned.
"No one asked you," I replied.
Cara's eyes narrowed. "You're being foolish."
I twisted in the seat to face her. "Tell me something," I said. Cara straightened and looked at me expectantly, if not a little suspiciously. "If you're so convinced Judah killed your sister, why did your dad hire him?"
"Because Dad is too blind to see that Judah did it."
"Is it possible that you're wrong about him?"
Cara bit her bottom lip until it turned white, and released it slowly. "Dad doesn't know Judah like I do." She turned on her heel and strode away.
Judah wasn't long, and soon trees whizzed past and gravel crunched under the tyres as we came to an abrupt stop outside the mini-mansion.
Mr Mitchell, who was sitting outside sipping on a glass of wine and reading the newspaper, glared at his son and shook his head. He was a tall man, an imposing man. I saw where Judah and Ruben got their looks.
I waved a little but Mr Mitchell just scowled and turned away.
"What's up with your dad?" I asked as I followed Judah into the garage.
"Nothing. He doesn't like me driving too fast down the driveway, but of course, I keep doing it just to piss him off."
He walked across to his tool chest, took his blazer off and threw it on the floor, before starting to pull things from the shelves. "If you want to 'hang out,' as you put it, this is what I do." He untucked his shirt and loosened his tie before lifting it over his head and throwing it on top of the blazer. "Do you know your way around a tool kit?"
I looked at him blankly.
He sighed and held something up. "Do you know what this is?"
"A spanner?" I guessed.
"No, it's a crescent. See? It adjusts." He twisted the dial until the mouth of the tool grew wider. "Anyway, if you're going to 'hang out,' you may as well pass me some tools."
He turned a bucket upside-down for me to sit on and wheeled himself under the car on some sort of skateboard. I sat and stared at his feet poking out.
"Pass me a rag would you?" His voice was muffled.
At least I knew what that was. I found one and pressed it into his extended hand. I mulled over different conversation topics in my head, but in the end, decided just to plunge straight in.
"Do you miss your brother?"
The tinkering under the car stopped. He wheeled himself out and stared at me. "Is that why you're here? To find out the sordid details? Did Judah Mitchell kill his own brother?"
"No," I said, mortified. "That's not what I meant at all. I lost my brother too and I just thought—"
"What? That we would bond? That we shared something in common and just wanted to help me through the process? Any other stupid questions you want answered? Don't bother." He wheeled himself back under the car.
I let out my breath slowly. This was going to be harder than I thought. "Sorry." I sat for a moment trying to think of something a little less sensitive, but my mind was blank so I just sat in silence.
"Six mill spanner." He stuck his hand out, then waved impatiently when I didn't immediately place the tool in it. I grabbed something out of the kit and placed it in his outstretched hand. He wheeled himself out and pointedly put down the tool I had given him, waving another in front of me. "Six mill spanner," he muttered, before disappearing under the car again. Already his shirt was stained with grease.
It was not working out as I planned. I had assumed that Judah, the real Judah, would be just like Ruben, easy to be around, easy to talk to. But he was nothing of the sort. He was rude and extremely hard to have a conversation with. He answered any questions I had with the briefest and bluntest of answers. It made me think back to the conversations my father had to endure with me, and I promised myself to go a little easier on him.
After much clanging and grunting, Judah wheeled himself out. His forehead was smeared with grease, matching the stain on his shirt. "Look, Lennon, that's your name, isn't it? Lennon, like the
Beatles
? As much as I appreciate this sudden interest, is there a point? I mean, you don't talk to me, don't acknowledge me in any way for the few months you have lived here, and now you want to hang out? I don't get it."
"I just thought we could be friends."
"Why?"
"I don't know." What could I say? Your dead brother wants to speak to you through me and I thought I'd just get to know you a little first? "I haven't made many friends yet, and—I don't know. Never mind, just forget it."
I got off the bucket and started to walk down the driveway. I attempted another half-hearted wave and smile in Mr Mitchell's direction, but again, he just scowled. I made it half way down the drive before I heard the low rumble of Judah's car behind me.
"Look, I'm sorry," he said leaning out the open window, one arm slung over the side of the car. "Not many people want to be friends since Ruben died, they usually avoid me."
"Whatever." I kept striding down the drive, eyes set straight ahead.
"Lennon, wait up. Let me at least give you a ride back to your car."
"Don't bother."
"Don't be an idiot. Hop in," he said, driving the car at the slow pace I was walking.
I stopped and crossed my arms. "I'm an idiot, now? First, I'm here to find out the—how did you put it—sordid details, then I ask stupid questions, and now I'm an idiot?"
Judah sighed loudly and drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. "Okay, you've got me. I'm a jerk. But would you at least hop in so I can just give you a ride?"
I walked around to the other side of the car, climbed in and slammed the door, crossing my arms and turning away from him.
"I didn't, by the way," he said.
"Didn't what?"
"I didn't kill my brother."
"I know."
"And how do you know?" he asked sharply.
"I've got my sources."
He looked at me curiously, and I noticed that his freckles formed the same pattern as Ruben's. "And they would be?" he questioned.
"You'd never believe me if I told you."
"Try me."
"Maybe another time."
There was no way I was bringing Ruben up. I just wanted to get out of the car. We pulled up to where Elmo was left in the school carpark. Ruben was leaning against the car. He broke out into a smile when he saw me and I had to stop myself from waving.
"What are you smiling at?" Judah asked.
I dropped the smile I wasn't even aware that I had. "Can't a girl be happy to see her car?"
"If that's your car, then no."
"Leave Elmo alone."
"Elmo? You named your car Elmo?" He didn't laugh, but I could see the amusement in his eyes and in the way he twisted his mouth.
"Thanks for the ride," I muttered and opened the door.
"I'll wait until you've got that hunk of junk started," he said, nodding to my car as I passed the driver's window.
Ruben grinned. "A treasure, isn't he?"
I unlocked the door and sure enough, Elmo coughed and sputtered when I turned the key. With an annoying smile on his face, but without a word, Judah hooked my car's battery up to his with the jumper leads he had in the back.
"You need a new battery."
"No kidding."
"Swing by the shop sometime and I'll hook you up."
I waited for the sharp barb or smart comment but there was none. "Thanks," I muttered.
"So, things didn't go so well?" Ruben said when we were alone in the car.
I gripped the steering wheel then slammed the car into reverse. "You could say that."
"Don't be too hard on him. He's—"
"Yeah, he's been through a lot, I get that, but you have too and you're not a jerk."
Ruben chuckled. "He's not that bad, he just spends a lot of time by himself."
"There could be a reason for that."