The Companion

by Katie Alender

  Barrett cleared his throat. “If you need help with anything, let me know.”

  “Why would I need help?”

  “I mean, if there’s anything you don’t feel like doing.”

  “I don’t mind doing stuff,” I said. “The whole reason I’m here is to help.”

  He looked mildly disgusted, which hurt my feelings. “That’s not true,” he said. “Or it shouldn’t be. You don’t take in an orphan to have free labor.”

  Oh, so he wasn’t disgusted with me. That soothed my feelings a little.

  “I should talk to Dad about it,” he said.

  “Please don’t,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” I said. “I literally have nowhere else to go. That may sound like I’m being dramatic, but I’m not. It’s here, or the state institution.”

  Now he was alarmed. “Why the institution?”

  “Because there aren’t a lot of places for people who wake up screaming every night.”

  “I haven’t heard any screaming.”

  “Well, it doesn’t happen here,” I said. “Which is another reason I want to stay, okay? Just please do me a favor and don’t try to help. I’m fine. I don’t need to be rescued.”

  He sighed. “I guess it’s temporary, anyway. Things will change when school starts.”

  “I don’t even know when that is.”

  “Five weeks,” he said. “It’s the same day my school starts. I saw the sign in town.”

  “Oh,” I said, and a waterfall of feelings and thoughts crashed down over me. “Okay.”

  Five weeks? That didn’t seem like enough time. I didn’t know anything about the school. I needed to prepare for meeting people. How would I get there? Would I have to ride a bus? Would the bus pass by dark canals? What if it slid off the road? The image of a giant tin can full of drowning kids filled my head, and my stomach turned. What if I didn’t want to go to school? What would I wear? I couldn’t show up dressed in Agatha’s clothes. People would assume I was in a cult or something.

  We made it to the back door of the house, and Barrett moved aside for me to pass.

  “Hey,” I said. “Who’s Lily?”

  “Lily?” he repeated. “Lily who?”

  “Copeland,” I said. Duh.

  He frowned. “There’s a Lily Copeland?”

  I was frozen. I didn’t want to give away the fact that I’d been sneaking around the house at night. “Yeah,” I said simply.

  “Well, I don’t know,” he said. “Sorry.”

  “Okay,” I said, eager to drop the subject.

  “Where’d you hear about her?”

  “I’m not sure,” I lied. “I just saw the name somewhere.”

  Then, before he could ask any more questions, I hurried upstairs and into the nursery, closing the door behind me.

  * * *

  AT DINNER, IT was clear that something had changed between Barrett and me. It was harder to actively dislike someone I’d just had a conversation with—someone who’d let me scold him without protest. And even though I hadn’t particularly wanted his help, the fact that he’d helped me without being asked forced me to award him some okay-maybe-I-don’t-hate-you-hate-you points.

  Plus, I was intrigued. The way he talked about his parents wasn’t the way I would have guessed a person would talk about John and Laura. He wasn’t the obedient robot I had expected. Which made me wonder about Agatha. What was her true personality? All along I’d assumed she was just a clone of Laura—but what if she was more like Barrett? After all, she’d been a normal teenage girl. Her bedroom was evidence of that, even if there was none of it left in her behavior.

  We only exchanged a sentence or two, but I didn’t find myself automatically irritated by what he said; I felt neutral, like it was fine if he chose to say things in my presence, which was decidedly not how I’d felt at previous meals.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT, LAURA brought my tea but hardly drank hers; I knew she saved most of it for her visit to Barrett’s room, and it bothered me a little, but not as much as usual. Barrett was her son, after all.

  A deep rumble came from outside, and Laura gave a happy little shiver. “Big storm coming in tonight,” she said. “I love storms. I love feeling safe inside the house while it’s so wild outside.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about the elements—to be honest, my sense of adventure in general had been pretty suppressed since the accident. But I could see the appeal of being sheltered in this fortresslike place while the wind thrashed and the rain fell in buckets.

  I wasn’t very thirsty, so after she left, I set down the teacup and closed my eyes. My head was full of thoughts of Barrett and the garden and my sisters and Laura’s strange mood change. Then I remembered the elaborately decorated lock and the key that seemed to match it. And once I started thinking about that, I couldn’t think of anything else.

  The first fat drops of rain hit the window, and I took the key out of my bottom drawer, where I’d stashed the small bag, and stared at it as I finished my lukewarm tea. I was trying to calm myself with my evening ritual, despite knowing that I wasn’t going to properly relax until I’d had a chance to put the key in the lock and see if it turned.

  The only thing was . . . when? If Agatha had hidden the key, and hadn’t wanted Laura aware of our mission to recover it, then maybe Laura wouldn’t approve of my having the key at all. I would have felt worse about possessing it if Agatha hadn’t been the one to give it to me. That wasn’t my fault, was it? It wasn’t anything I’d done wrong. I was her companion; I’d accompanied her somewhere in the middle of the night, that was all.

  So when, then? Certainly not when Laura and I were working in the garden. And there were no other times of the day when there would be the freedom to roam around unnoticed. Laura didn’t micromanage my every movement, but she did seem to have a sixth sense about where I was at any given time. If I went to the garden outside of our typical time, she’d want to know why. And I was a pretty bad liar. Besides, I didn’t want to lie. Lies pile up until they bury you, Dad used to say. Better to avoid having to tell the truth than to come up with a lie, no matter how believable it seemed.

  I held the key in my hand. I would just have to wait until the right opportunity presented itself.

  CHAPTER

  14

  WATER STREAMED DOWN my face. A sudden arc of blue-white light cut the world in half and then disappeared, leaving its imprint on my vision. I blinked hard, and the air around me filled with the roar of thunder.

  What on earth?

  I turned in a slow circle, looking for anything that might give me a clue about where I was or what was happening.

  I was outside, in a place I’d never seen before—there were trees stretching overhead, but they did nothing to stop the rain from beating down on me. There were walls—walls?—dark boundaries of some sort, maybe stone or shrubs. It was too dark to see, until another shock of lightning turned everything briefly to daylight.

  Shrubbery, the walls were shrubbery.

  Under my tender, bare feet, a gravel path. To each side, a long swath of dirt.

  Up ahead, there was something in the path. A small structure.

  I should look for the exit, I should get back inside—I was thoroughly freaked out by the fact that I had no idea where I was or how I’d gotten here. But I also felt drawn to the structure. I wanted to know what it was. And it wasn’t very far away—

  As I approached, my emotions grew heavier. Nothing good was tucked away in a walled-off dirt patch. Nothing good was outlined by a low iron gate, the size of a bed.

  No, it wasn’t anything good—it was a grave.

  This was a cemetery. Beyond this grave, there were more—the path wandered under the trees in an ambling circle, and I could see more low, tomblike structures.


  I was close enough to see the white stone statue of an angel at the end of the gated enclosure, and I leaned in to see the text:

  BEVERLY TURNER COPELAND

  CHERISHED WIFE AND MOTHER

  1946–1975

  Was this Laura’s mother’s grave?

  Thunder rolled and lightning flashed, and I realized that even though I didn’t know how I’d gotten here, I wanted very badly to leave, so I turned and followed the path toward what I hoped was the way out.

  Oh God, I couldn’t spend the night in a cemetery. Not a night like this, with rain pounding the ground so hard that you couldn’t hear—so loud you’d never know if someone was coming up behind you and preparing to grab your shoulder—

  Someone grabbed my shoulder.

  I screamed, a bloodcurdling scream, and swung my arm, knocking the hand off my shoulder and managing to smack Barrett pretty sturdily up the side of the head. Which, I decided, as I panted madly, he deserved.

  “What are you doing?” we both shouted at the exact same time.

  His eyes were wide, his face and clothes soaked all the way through.

  “Seriously, why did you do that?” I demanded.

  “Why are you out here?” he shot back.

  I wanted to continue yelling at him, but I had to draw in a breath of air. “I don’t know,” I said. “Why are you out here?”

  “I followed you,” he said. “And before you accuse me of thinking you’re trying to steal something, I was worried about you.”

  “Why?” I asked, although I had to admit that the situation could easily seem a little worrying. “I mean . . . what happened? I don’t remember . . . anything.”

  “You don’t remember coming out here?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  A massive web of blue lightning spread over the sky, and the thunder that followed sounded like it was on top of us.

  “Come on,” Barrett said. “Let’s go back to the house.”

  I kept pace with him, although the gravel hurt my feet, and I tried not to notice how many graves there were. I especially tried not to notice the very small ones.

  “This place is so creepy,” I said.

  “Yeah, it is,” he said. “I had no idea it was even here. How did you know?”

  “I didn’t,” I insisted. “Honestly, I was in bed one minute, and then . . .”

  And then what? A memory flashed into my mind. The key. I’d been holding the key, thinking about using it.

  “Did we come through the Adam and Eve gate?” I asked.

  “You honestly don’t remember?”

  “No,” I said. “Honestly.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I followed you down and you went straight to the gate, unlocked it, and came inside. It was like you were looking for something.”

  I gazed around, perplexed. “How did you even know I was awake?”

  “You were making a ton of noise,” he said. “Probably putting together that outfit. My closet wall backs up to your bedroom, and I heard you thumping around.”

  I suddenly remembered to worry that I was wearing thin cotton pajamas in the dumping rain, but when I took a second to notice my outfit, I was relieved—sort of—to find that I had apparently dressed myself before embarking on this little adventure. Over my pajama top, I wore the I LEFT MY HEAPT IN FLORID shirt, and over that I had put on a tan blazer that Laura had given me.

  Okay, I may have looked like I dressed myself in the dark, but at least I was covered up. Which was more than could be said for Barrett, whose wet shirt clung to the muscles of his chest—very nicely, I thought, and then gave myself a mental pinch.

  “I must have been sleepwalking,” I said. “I don’t remember any of that.”

  “Weird,” he said. “Has it happened before?”

  The path rounded a corner, and under a weeping willow tree whose branches reached almost to the ground, I saw a small, flat grave marker. Its placement was so out of the way, its presentation so humble compared to the soaring, carved stones and walled-off spaces of the other graves that I felt drawn to it.

  Barrett fidgeted as I walked closer. “Don’t you think we should go back?”

  “Yes,” I said. “This will only take a second.”

  The raised letters on the marker, which was hardly more than a square of metal, were hard to make out in the shadow cast by the tree. Luckily, a flash of lightning brightened the words just long enough for me to make out some of the writing:

  LILY COPELAND

  BELOVED DAUGHTER AND SISTER

  But that wasn’t the part that shocked me. What shocked me were the years printed below her name:

  1971–1988

  “What is it?” Barrett asked.

  “It’s Lily,” I said, turning to look up at him. “I think she was your mom’s sister.”

  * * *

  WE WALKED TO the gate in silence, passing a few more scattered graves. Barrett seemed like he was turning something over in his head, and I didn’t want to disturb him. When Adam and Eve came into view, I felt a strange little flip-flop in my stomach. Why couldn’t I remember coming out here?

  I silently shut the gate and removed the key. The raised pattern felt familiar under my fingertips.

  “I had no idea this was here,” Barrett said, and he sounded almost hurt. “I had no idea Mom had a sister . . . Why would she keep that from us?”

  “I kind of get it,” I said. “When you were little, it probably seemed too heavy. And then when you got older, she probably didn’t know how to bring it up.”

  Lily’s grave site was so small and unassuming.

  “She died really young,” I said. “Our age. I wonder what she died from?”

  Barrett stared up at the gray expanse of the house’s walls looming over us. The rain had slowed to a light drizzle, which hardly felt like anything on my already-wet face.

  “I’m going to ask my mom about it tomorrow,” he said.

  “No—” I said. “Please don’t.”

  “There’s a graveyard on the property,” he said. “And she never even told me about it.”

  “Sure, yes,” I said. “But—I don’t think we were supposed to find it.”

  And then I explained—without mentioning the part about sneaking around at night—that the key had come from a secret bag of Agatha’s.

  I half expected him to start demanding answers, but as soon as I mentioned his sister, he softened.

  “Agatha gave it to you?” he asked. “I didn’t think she could do things like that.”

  “I didn’t, either,” I said. “I mean, I know she’s not totally catatonic, but this was kind of next-level.”

  “But you didn’t mention it to my parents?”

  I thought of Agatha dragging me through the house, forcing herself to throw up to deflect Laura’s suspicion.

  I shrugged. “I just . . . kind of got the idea that she wanted it to be our secret.”

  “I didn’t know she had secrets,” he mused. “I didn’t know she was awake enough.”

  We made it to the reflecting ball, which was dotted with water droplets. I wiped them off and stared into it. At my side, I could see Barrett staring at his own reflection.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, looking down. “I’m sorry for making you feel unwelcome.”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “My parents aren’t perfect—God knows—but I’ve always had a place to go. I never even stopped to think what it would be like not to have that.”

  “I never did, either,” I said. “It would have been weird to spend much time thinking about it, actually.”

  We were having this conversation with each other’s distorted reflections.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he said, with a firmness behind the words that was almost emotional. “Agatha likes you.
She trusts you.”

  I turned to the real Barrett in surprise. “You think so?”

  “Definitely.” His eyes darted away. For the first time, I got the idea that Barrett may have been shy. Maybe at school he wasn’t the princely snob I’d assumed. He probably still had a line of girls waiting for him, but maybe they all liked him because he was quiet and thoughtful. And cute.

  “I like her, too,” I said. “It was a little rocky at the beginning, but we get along now. What was she like before she got sick?”

  “She was kind of wild,” he said. “I mean, by Mom’s standards.”

  “I feel like everybody’s wild by your mother’s standards.”

  He laughed, but it was short and there wasn’t much humor behind it. “Yeah, she’s pretty strict. When she and Agatha got into it . . . you could hear them yelling all over the house.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “You’re surprised?” he asked. “Well . . . I guess you would be. You didn’t know Agatha.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s kind of weird to think that she and I would never have met if both our lives hadn’t gotten totally messed up.”

  “She would have liked you,” he said. Then, quieter, with a hint of guilty embarrassment behind it: “I mean, she does. But—”

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “But I don’t believe you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because look at me,” I said. “And look at her.”

  He literally looked me up and down. “Well, your fashion choices are kind of eccentric, but other than that . . . I don’t get what you mean.”

  He was teasing me, which was fair. My outfit was absurd.

  “Forget it,” I said. “It’s late. We should get inside.”

  As if to underscore my words, the sky lit up overhead, and the flash of light was followed instantly by a deafening crack of thunder. It was so close and so loud that I felt my skin tingle. Barrett and I both ducked, and then we stared at each other.