The Companion

by Katie Alender

  In the distance, I could hear the rumble of pouring rain coming toward us like a stampeding herd of antelope.

  “Let’s go!” he cried. Grabbing my hand, he began to run. We made it about ten feet before the water came down on us in sheets. We had fifty yards of ground to cover before making it to the house, and it felt like running through a dream world—everything was shiny, gleaming, flashing with light and punctuated by menacing rumbles of thunder. As we rushed into the back hall, and Barrett pulled the door shut, the sudden quiet seemed like something from another world.

  We stared at each other, panting and out of breath, and then we both began to laugh—relieved laughter, triumphant laughter, we-made-it laughter.

  “Wow,” he said, glancing at the small window on the back door. “I can’t believe we didn’t get struck.”

  I nodded, feeling exhilarated by the thrill of sharing an exciting experience with another human being. I couldn’t think of anything to say, and I felt my mouth take the shape of a huge, goofy grin. Barrett grinned back.

  As the seconds ticked by, the somberness of the house fell over us like a veil, and we peered out toward the main hall. Neither of us spoke, but we were both questioning whether Laura was out there, wandering the house. Had she checked our bedrooms and found us missing?

  Then I wondered for the first time what she would think if she found us both gone, in the middle of the night. And what she would think if she found us together.

  Before tonight, in my mind, Barrett had only existed in the context of his place in the Sutton family, so he had felt more like a brother than a boy. I’d never stopped to consider him for what he actually was, outside of picturing the girlfriends I’d imagined he’d left weeping in his past.

  Now, suddenly, he was standing before me in three dimensions, more real to me than Laura and John, and a separate person from Agatha altogether.

  And in that moment, it became crystal clear to me. He was a boy. And I was a girl.

  Possibly to him, too, because when we had grabbed a few towels from the kitchen pantry—trying to mop up the puddles we’d made on the floor, and dry ourselves off as well as we could—he bumped lightly into me and then jumped back like he’d been burned, with a mumbled apology and a flush flooding his neck and cheeks.

  I felt myself blush, too. something—maybe everything—had changed between us.

  Maybe the storm had masked any sounds we’d made, or maybe the raindrops provided the perfect white noise Laura needed to sleep through the night, but whatever the reason, she didn’t wake up. Barrett and I purposefully minimized our goodbyes—no meaningful looks or thoughtful discussions, thanks, just a quick wave and turning our separate ways—and then I found myself safely back in the nursery.

  I glanced at Agatha’s bed, confident that I’d find her sleeping soundly. To my horror, the bed was empty, the sheets and blankets hanging off the side.

  “Agatha?” I called, and as my eyes swept over the room, I saw her motionless figure sitting at the window.

  She didn’t turn when I said her name, but when I walked over to her, her eyes made a quick motion to acknowledge my presence before returning to the view.

  Out this window, you could see the walk that led to the garden.

  Had she seen us outside? She must have.

  Did she know I’d used her key? Did she know what lay behind that gate? “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Go back to bed now, okay?” Then I went into the bathroom to dry off and change.

  When I emerged from the bathroom, she was in her bed, with the covers neatly pulled over herself—just the way Laura would have arranged them. Her eyes were closed, but I whispered, “Good night,” and went into my own room.

  Once I was in there, I looked around blankly. It was a disaster. There were clothes everywhere, the bedsheets were tangled, the teacup was on the floor in pieces. On the far wall, the small window was wide open and rain and wind were blowing inside, filling the air with the smell of wet stone and moss. The dresser drawers were open, all of them—it was a miracle the dresser hadn’t face-planted onto the foot of the bed.

  But the worst thing was the wall next to the dresser.

  In streaky black letters two feet tall was written:

  GO

  CHAPTER

  15

  “YOU’RE SLEEPY TODAY,” Laura said as I tried in vain to stifle a yawn.

  Yep. I was. It had taken me an hour to get the room cleaned up, the floor dried, the wall wiped down. And then I’d lain in bed staring at the ceiling, too wired to sleep, too curious, too freaked out, too everything. I knew I’d managed to drift in and out of a light, fuzzily dreamless state, but I basically felt like I’d been awake all night.

  Now Laura studied me. “You look pale, too,” she said, worry creeping into her voice. “Maybe you’ve been working too hard this week.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s not that. I just didn’t sleep well last night, for some reason.”

  “Oh, I see,” she said, unconvinced.

  “Maybe I’ll take a nap or something, while Agatha does her homework.”

  She smiled. “That’s a good idea.”

  She proceeded to watch me so closely that I lost my appetite and couldn’t finish my food. I excused myself and went upstairs, made my bed, and inspected the wall where the writing had been.

  The obvious explanation was that Agatha had done it. She had the time, she had access to my room . . . Did she have a motive? It hurt to think that, after all the time we’d spent, after developing what seemed almost like an easy familiarity, she still wanted me to leave. Then again, who knew what simmered beneath her silent surface? Just because she’d given me a little break didn’t mean she had accepted me. Maybe all this time she’d been formulating a plan to chase me away.

  I’d cast a couple of searching glances her way during breakfast, which she’d returned with blank neutrality.

  And then there was the part of my thoughts that kept returning to Barrett. So slowly that I hardly even noticed it, his face and voice and the whole boyness of him would crowd everything else out.

  It hardly seemed like the previous night had even happened, except that there were still wet clothes hanging behind the closed curtain of my shower. The whole thing was dreamlike—the rain, the graves, the sky lighting up around us. And especially the sudden, shocking feeling of being close to another human again—close like a friend, close in the sense of wanting to know what he was doing and what he was thinking about. I wanted to see him and be near him, and talk about life, and family, and whatever. I wanted to be near enough to speak in a low voice and say things only he could hear.

  It was like my loneliness was an empty jar I’d been carrying around, and all at once the promise of Barrett’s friendship had rushed in and filled it.

  Of course, there was still the mortifying question of whether he felt the same way. Maybe last night had been too weird. Or he found me annoying, or dull.

  But I didn’t think so. A slideshow of images flicked by in my mind: his eyes, rimmed by dark lashes with drops of water balanced on them like tiny jewels. Water streaming down his face. And then, as if I’d seen it on a movie screen, him taking my hand as we ran for cover.

  No, he didn’t think I was dull. I didn’t know what he thought.

  * * *

  I LAY IN my bed, eyes closed, and tried to make myself fall asleep. But I felt as if I’d chugged two cups of coffee; my heart was pounding and my thoughts raced. I knew Laura would send me back to bed if she found me wandering around, so I decided to be proactive and hope I would eventually fall asleep in spite of myself.

  It didn’t happen. But I did use the time to think carefully over the previous night’s events. Every time I looked at Laura now, I would think: You had a sister and she died. It’s what I would have thought about anyone at all who might have shared an understanding of what I’d been thr
ough.

  I had to proceed carefully. Clearly, Laura didn’t feel comfortable talking about Lily, but it seemed like she was the kind of person who carried around her secrets like a heavy burden on her shoulders. The obvious cause would be Agatha’s illness, but what if it went deeper than that? Barrett made it sound like she’d never been a particularly happy person. What if she’d been mourning her sister in silence all these years?

  Well, it wasn’t like she was going to want to talk to me about it, although I thought I might make a pretty good confidante on the topic. It was something I knew a little bit about, anyway. But maybe I could just help her feel more comfortable with the memories, so she could think of Lily with a sense of peace.

  Maybe I was wrong, and she had processed the grief in a perfectly healthy manner. But I seriously doubted it. Otherwise, why wouldn’t she have told her own kids about Lily? Why would she keep the graveyard locked and hidden?

  Just to unlock that gate would be such a huge step for her. Just to open up those memories—or just provide a place for all those memories to rest. Because obviously you could never really let this kind of burden go.

  What if I could give her a safe place to go when the past caught up with her?

  * * *

  BARRETT AND JOHN had gone to John’s law office for the day, and they reappeared in time for dinner. At first, Barrett had come to the table in his shorts and a dark blue CAMDEN LACROSSE T-shirt, but Laura sent him back upstairs to dress properly. He glanced at me with an almost-smile as he left the room, and I felt a delirious rush of connection.

  When he came back, we proceeded with our meal in the usual way, with polite conversation. I tried not to speak directly to Barrett, for reasons I couldn’t quite name, but our eyes kept meeting and I couldn’t stop myself from feeling happy just to be around him.

  I felt Laura watching me, but that was nothing new, and she asked enough questions about my nap and my level of sleepiness that I thought it was just her normal interest in my health, amplified a bit because of my tiredness that morning.

  Afterward, I carried the stack of plates over to the sink and handed them to Barrett one at a time, to rinse under the firm spray of the faucet.

  “Hey,” he said. “Any midnight adventures planned?”

  “Actually,” I said, and the plate he was holding nearly slipped out of his grip.

  “What? Really?”

  “It’s not supposed to storm tonight,” I said. “Want to meet me out there?”

  He hesitated, and I suddenly felt my cheeks redden furiously as I realized how that had sounded.

  “There’s a project,” I said. “Something for your mom—”

  “Oh,” he said. “What kind of project?”

  It was like there was heat radiating off his arm, inches from my own. I took a sidestep away from him. “A gardening project.”

  “In the middle of the night,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “Does Mom know about it?”

  “Of course not.”

  He paused, the plate under the stream of water, and looked down at me. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Yeah, I’ll meet you,” he said. “What time?”

  “Um . . . I don’t know. I could just knock on your door. It’ll have to be after everyone’s asleep.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Yeah?” As much as I wanted to spend time with him, the truth was that I really needed his help if this was going to work. I couldn’t do it alone.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. “What’s the worst that could happen? Mom gets mad and punishes us?”

  I almost laughed, then said, “What are her punishments like?”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he said breezily, slipping the plate into the dishwasher and taking the next one from my hand. “She won’t hit you. She’s more into psychological warfare.”

  I stared at him, trying to read his expression. “I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

  He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know if I am.”

  * * *

  IT WENT PERFECTLY according to plan. I sipped my tea when Laura came in, but as soon as she left, I set it aside. It was too strong an association by now—I couldn’t afford to let myself relax if I was going to stay awake for a few more hours. Instead, I read carefully through the gardening book I’d pulled from the library that afternoon. When that got boring, I started reading what seemed to be the tawdriest romance novel I’d been able to find in the house, a slim red-bound book from the 1930s called The Girl Least Likely, which ended up not being tawdry at all, just the story of some “bad” girls who eventually reform and throw out their cigarettes and slang talk and marry their bosses. Then I reorganized my closet by color. Then I changed out of my pajamas into a set of gardening clothes, minus the apron and grandma hat. When that was done, I pulled out my phone and played a game for a while.

  Finally, it was time. I slipped the key into one of my pants pockets and went to Barrett’s room. I knocked lightly, and a few seconds later, he opened the door.

  Looking me up and down, he smiled like I’d just told the world’s most hilarious joke.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t say a word.”

  “Couldn’t you wear normal clothes?” He, for instance, was still wearing his khaki pants and collared shirt from dinner.

  “I don’t have normal clothes,” I said. “This is what I wear in the garden. Don’t laugh at me.”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re still laughing,” I hissed.

  “I’m not,” he said. “I swear.”

  “If I get my everyday clothes dirty, your mom will want to know what happened,” I said.

  He was suddenly serious. “Really? She pays that much attention to what you wear?”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “She pays that much attention to what you wear, too. She just figures you’re a lost cause, is all.”

  * * *

  IT WAS EASY to find what I was looking for in the greenhouse, since we’d just reorganized the whole place. The wooden crates of bulbs were on the back shelves, each labeled with the type of bulb it contained. Some were done neatly, with stencils, and some were scribbled on with black marker.

  Lilies was scrawled, almost as an afterthought, in small print in the upper corner of one of the crates. I pulled it out, and Barrett carried it outside while I gathered the gardening tools from the shed. Then he unlocked the Adam and Eve gate and we followed the winding path through the graveyard to Lily’s isolated corner.

  It looked different tonight, and the sight gave me a chill. In the rain, it had seemed . . . I don’t know, connected somehow to the rest of the garden. Now, though, her grave seemed isolated, even desolate. I hadn’t realized how far it was from the others, which were arranged in a neat pattern closer to the entrance.

  Barrett felt the unease, too. He peered back toward the entrance. “Do you think . . . do you think Mom wants us all to be buried here?”

  “Not me,” I said. Nope. I had a grave already, in a cemetery four hours away. The company that owned the cemetery where my family was buried had thrown mine in as a freebie, and I hadn’t been able to find the words to refuse and tell them how horrible that was. But now that I’d gotten used to the idea, I didn’t mind so much.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I meant her, and Dad, and Agatha and me.”

  “Maybe you’ll want to be buried somewhere else,” I said. “I’m sure that’s a decision you can make for yourself someday.”

  “I guess,” he said.

  “Put some gloves on,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”

  For the next two hours, we dug into the soil, churning it with water and fertilizer, and arranged the bulbs in a horseshoe shape around Lily’s grave. We were both
careful never to kneel on the grave itself, instead working from the outside. But it was still extremely creepy—and quiet. Our conversation was about planting, and nothing else. If we weren’t talking about logistics, we weren’t talking. It didn’t seem respectful to carry on small talk here, in this dark, sad little place.

  After we finished, we cleaned the tools and put them back, then slid the empty crate onto the shelf. We’d planted something like two hundred bulbs, and it would be weeks before we knew if anything had come of it. But even if nothing happened, it felt good to have a project like this—something meaningful.

  I just hoped Laura would find it equally meaningful.

  I pictured us working in the garden together some morning, Laura sitting back and looking at me and then deciding to trust me enough to start talking about Lily. About how it felt to lose your sister. All because these lilies had reminded her that your memories could be beautiful in spite of the pain they stirred inside you.

  She doesn’t have to like me, I thought as we walked in silence back to the house and upstairs to our rooms. But if I can help her, she might respect me a little.

  This time, when I went back into the nursery, Agatha was in her bed, sound asleep. And my room was just as I’d left it.

  I washed the dirt from under my fingernails, changed into my pajamas, and got into bed, expecting to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. But I found myself lying on my side, eyes closed, listening to my own breath and feeling my heartbeat gently pulse through my body. I sat up and tried a sip of my tea, but it was cold.

  After another long stretch of helpless wakefulness, I took my teacup and went down to the kitchen.

  I considered brewing myself a fresh cup, but ended up sticking the cold tea in the microwave instead. Afterward, I wandered out of the kitchen, taking small sips. I had intended to go right back to bed, but as I came out of the kitchen, I glanced across the hall into the drawing room. Through the open doorway, I could see the far side of the room, where there was a line of paintings—family portraits.