The Tomb--A Novel
Page 20
One hand covered her mouth for a moment. She started to shake her head, and then stopped. “No, take it.”
“Are you sure?”
Mom nodded. “I kept it charged, I think.” She never touched any computers. Maybe because it was Dad’s thing. Maybe because she didn’t like technology. She just didn’t think they could add to her quality of life.
I said, “Yeah, it’s charged.”
“Just—”
“What?”
“Don’t show it to your father, okay? He knows I come in here. That … it helps, somewhat. But I told him I’d leave everything as it was.”
I picked up the laptop again. “I won’t show anyone.”
“Promise me you won’t.”
I promised. “Thanks, Mom.”
My mother smiled. “And if there’s anything else you want, go ahead. I don’t think Eddy would mind.” She straightened up. “Only keep it to yourself. Don’t tell—”
“Who?”
“Never mind.” She glanced around and left.
My eyes went to the closet door. Inside, I pawed through the hangers. Eddy’s orange rugby was tucked between two sweaters. I pulled the shirt from the hanger and wrapped the laptop in it, then dropped the bundle off in my room. One day late, but hey. Happy Birthday to me.
I found myself grinning. What a great find. And in the first place I looked. Eddy would have been proud. I imagine he would have kept looking, to see what else he could uncover. Thinking about it spurred me on.
As I neared the family room, Dad’s high-pitched cackle filled the air, which meant only one thing. He was watching a Woody Allen movie. I thought they were so stupid, but he would sit there for hours, laughing out loud. Maybe it was the combination of the two, Woody Allen’s humor that I didn’t get, along with my dad’s bizarre laugh, but I just could not deal. I turned back the other way.
Down the hall, I came to Terese’s room. I opened the door. It was still done up like the Hundred Acre Woods from Winnie the Pooh; her bed was still a giant honey pot. I suppose at the time he was building the Compound, my dad thought it was perfect. But she wasn’t six anymore. Dad had offered to paint it and put in a canopy bed from the storeroom. Terese refused, though, still climbing the little ladder into the honey pot every night.
I stepped closer to the bed and ran my hand over a ladder step. Dust came away on my fingers. I wiped it off on my shirt and walked over to the closet. Inside were dozens of empty hangers. A few clothes hung here and there, but it looked like she had moved out. I wondered what was up.
A ways down the hall was my parents’ room. We weren’t allowed in, although I’d caught a glance one time, and it looked to be an exact replica of the one in our mansion on Puget Sound. That one I had been in, plenty. When we were little, Mom had let us jump into bed with her after Dad went to work. He probably would have had a fit if he knew rowdy kids were eating their Cap’n Crunch on his expensive Egyptian linens.
The bedroom was decorated in wine and cream, with an oak king-size bed and matching armoires, dressers, and bureaus. Mom’s favorite Monet hung on the wall over the headboard. It was the original, of course. I wondered if a replica hung on the wall of this bedroom.
Well, I wasn’t going to snoop in there. Not yet, anyway.
I walked quickly past the next door, as I always did. I didn’t want to acknowledge, let alone set eyes inside, that room. Knowing what was inside was bad enough. The door was painted a cheery yellow. Ironic.
The rooms went on and on, like berries on a bush. I stopped at the library, which held thousands of books in every possible genre: mystery, biography, historical, classics, legal thrillers, science fiction, and children’s literature. Anything we might ever, or never, want to read.
Terese read every piece of British children’s literature she could find. When she was younger, it had been Paddington Bear and Winnie the Pooh. Later it was The Chronicles of Narnia and everything by Roald Dahl. Peter Pan was her favorite.
Maybe that’s why she still had her stuffed Winnie the Pooh and watched Mary Poppins. She saw the Compound as never-never land, a place where she would never have to grow up. Last time I’d seen her with a book, it had been The Hobbit, so maybe she finally decided to move on. For her sake, I hoped we had a lot of British stuff. I had even recommended some American authors to her, but she seemed stuck in her English fantasy.
A two-sided fireplace sat in the middle of the library, burnished leather armchairs facing it on either side. Cherry shelves stretched up to the top of the ceiling. Sliding ladders on each wall allowed us to reach everything.
Lexie read a lot of lengthy epic stories. She read Cold Mountain at least a dozen times. I finally got it away from her long enough to see what was so great about it. For a novel of the Civil War it was okay, but the ending was so depressing. I pegged Lexie as more of a fan of happy endings. But she still read it again and again. Maybe she was deluded enough to think the ending might change eventually. I gave up trying to figure it out.
My routine was to pick authors and read every book they’d written. The entire previous spring I had spent many dreary hours with Dostoyevsky. I should have quit, but once I started something, I liked to finish. Stephen King was my current read. Living with anxiety and uncertainty (anxiety and uncertainty unrelated to my own circumstances) was invigorating. It was generous of Dad, I suppose, to furnish the place with so much stuff he would never read himself. He only read nonfiction, usually about wars or generals or politics.
I thought about stopping to read for a while, but I was too restless. I was ready to make another discovery, if there were any more to be made. And my gut said there were.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A book is never the work of one person, and there are so many others responsible for this one. As always, my editor Liz Szabla tops the list. I am grateful every day for the opportunity to work with her, and this marks our eleventh book together. Macmillan is stocked with so many amazing people, and my thanks go out to Jean Feiwel, Kelsey Marrujo, Anna Poon, and Rich Deas, to name but a few who help get my books out into the world.
My older brother, Steven Stuve, served as technical and science advisor as I aimed to make the science in this book plausible. Any failed efforts in that area are completely the result of my creative mind not grasping his physics dissertation-level emails.
Moral support came from so many places, including regular monthly meetings of my Bagel Bunch crew: Dr. Michael Norman, Shelley Tougas, Michelle Hansen, and Scott Shoemaker.
Huge shout-out to Pamela Klinger Horn, book goddess extraordinaire. Books have never had a truer friend.
Many thanks to my local indie, Chapter 2 Books, for always being a champion of my books.
And of course there are Tim, Bailey, and Tanzie, my reasons for everything.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
S. A. Bodeen is the author of The Garden and The Compound, which earned her an ALA Quick Pick for Young Adults, a Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year, and a Publishers Weekly ”Flying Start.” She is also the author of several picture books, including Elizabeti’s Doll, winner of the Ezra Jack Keats Award. Bodeen grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. Her first friends were cows, which she named after characters in books. From there she went on to be a Peace Corps volunteer in East Africa, and has lived in seven states, as well as a remote Pacific island. She adores books and is a big fan of cheese. She lives in Oregon. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2<
br />
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Excerpt: The Compound
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by S. A. Bodeen
A Feiwel and Friends Book
An imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC
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All rights reserved.
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First hardcover edition 2018
eBook edition 2018
eISBN 9781250296511