“Cool.” He flashed me a quick smile, then looked straight ahead again.
I stared at the cell phone screen without seeing Simon’s words. This was good news. Whatever was going on with Parker, his feelings for me were still platonic at best.
But that meant I knew even less about my condition than I thought I did.
CHAPTER 8
THE ONLY THING I wanted to do when I got home from school later that day was soak in a cold bath. I’d visited the water fountain and refilled my bottle between each period, and though my thirst and headache had abated, my skin still felt tight, like it was too small for my body.
But as soon as we opened the front door of our house, I knew a bath would have to wait a few minutes more.
“Did I unpack too soon?” Paige asked.
“Don’t worry.” I closed the door and stepped over a large cardboard box. “We’re not moving. We’re having a meltdown.”
“Oh, good—you’re home!” Mom called up the basement stairwell. “Vanessa, sweetie, do you remember what I did with the talking witch?” The question faded as she walked away from the stairs without waiting for an answer.
“She turns to stuff when stressed,” I explained as a loud crash sounded downstairs.
“I think I’ll give Grandma B a buzz,” Paige said. “Unless you want me to… ?”
“No,” I said, eyeing the basement door. “But thanks.”
As she headed for the kitchen, I took another look around the living room. Dozens of cardboard boxes were scattered across the floor and furniture. Long plastic storage bins sat in stacks taller than me. Black trash bags filled doorways. Dust floated through the air.
Mom liked her house one way—pristine—so whatever had set her off this time must have been serious.
“A talking witch?” I asked when I reached the stairwell landing.
She stopped pulling my old stuffed animals from a shelf and spun around. “What are you doing down here?”
“I thought you needed help.”
“And I thought you’d just yell down the stairs.” She stepped toward me, holding the ratty stuffed crab Dad had bought me at the New England Aquarium years ago. “You hate the basement.”
She had a point: I used to hate the basement. But things were different now. Mostly because I’d learned that the scariest monsters didn’t hide in shadows, waiting for you to find them. If they wanted you, they came and got you.
“Halloween’s in three weeks.” She turned back to the shelf and started replacing the stuffed animals. Her hands shook so hard, each toy she added knocked another down.
“And?” I asked, scooping up the fallen toys.
“And that doesn’t leave us much time to decorate.” She made a beeline toward a mountain of boxes.
I followed slowly, unsure what to say. “Mom… you haven’t decorated the house for Halloween since I was in junior high.”
She stood up, hugging a glittery Christmas tree star to her chest. “That’s because I was busy with work. Now I’m not. And don’t worry—the talking witch is as scary as it gets. Everything else will be happy jack-o’-lanterns, scarecrows, and black cats.” She pointed to a wide filing cabinet on the other side of the room. “Will you please peek in there? That should just hold your father’s old papers, but you never know with him.”
My pulse quickened. Because I’d never spent any length of time in the basement, I’d never investigated what was stored there. But Mom and Dad had moved into this brownstone right after they were married, which meant there could be belongings that went back twenty years—well before Justine and I had entered the picture. And since they both knew how terrified I was of the dark and of small, cramped spaces, maybe they hadn’t been so careful to hide whatever they didn’t want found.
The first drawer squealed as I pulled it open. I held my breath and waited, but Mom continued to rummage, unfazed.
I removed the first folder, unsure of what I hoped to find. Old pictures? Love letters? Motel receipts? According to Raina’s scrapbook, Charlotte had died during childbirth, which was why Dad had had no choice but to take care of me. There couldn’t be much to discover besides details of their time together, clues as to how they’d first met… but maybe whatever I found would help me understand how it had happened.
Because Dad was crazy about Mom—or the woman whom, up until last summer, I’d thought was Mom. It was obvious in the way he gazed at her when she wasn’t looking, the way he made her laugh when she was in the middle of a stressed-out tirade, the way he absently reached for her hand when they read the Sunday Times together. And if Justine’s death had taught me anything, it was that there was one force sirens couldn’t mess with, one obstacle they couldn’t overcome, no matter how hard they tried.
Love.
It was how Caleb had resisted Zara. It was how Dad should have resisted Charlotte—but didn’t. And I wanted to know why.
Unfortunately, clues weren’t in the first folder I opened, or in any other folder in the top drawer. The other drawers were also dead ends, offering only yellowing English notes and course syllabi. By the time I closed the last drawer, Mom had moved on to another stack of boxes; I waited for her to turn her back to me, then ducked behind a steel utility shelf.
She obviously hadn’t made it to this corner of the basement yet because the shelves were still filled, their contents gray with dust. My eyes traveled over old books and vinyl records, searching for anything that might suggest a secret life outside this brownstone.
The light dimmed as I walked down the aisle and away from the overhead lamp. It was so dark when I reached the concrete wall I almost walked right into it. The sudden nearness surprised me and ignited familiar feelings I normally experienced as soon as I passed through the basement door. Heart thudding and limbs tingling, I spun around and hurried back down the aisle.
I was halfway down when the toe of my left foot caught on a roller skate. I grabbed the shelf to keep from falling, and the force sent a cardboard box tumbling to the floor.
My eyes locked on the handwritten label.
JUSTINE, 0–2 YEARS
The top had opened in the fall, and as I turned the box right side up, tiny pink dresses and purple layettes spilled out. I immediately recognized some of the baby outfits from old pictures displayed throughout the house and pictured Justine smiling in her stroller and giggling in her high chair.
I picked up the fallen clothes, running my fingers along ivory lace edges and pearl buttons. Blinking back tears, I refolded them and placed them gently in the box. As I stood up and put the box back on its shelf, I noticed several more like it: JUSTINE, 3–5 YEARS; JUSTINE, 5–7 YEARS; JUSTINE, 8–10 YEARS.
I stepped back and looked up. Because Mom wasn’t one to reuse what you could easily buy new, I’d never inherited Justine’s hand-me-downs. That meant I should have my own collection of boxes.
I found them on the highest shelf, their labels barely visible in the dim light. But while Justine’s clothes were divided into two-year batches starting at 0 years old, or when she was a newborn, my clothes were divided into two-year batches starting at
1 year old.
I reached up and inched out VANESSA, 1–3 YEARS.
I recognized these clothes, too; I’d seen them all in countless pictures and photo albums over the years. But the smallest size was 12–18 months.
I suddenly recalled what my parents had always told me about the missing photos from my first year of life. While Justine’s first smiles and steps were chronicled in a thick embroidered album, my recorded memories didn’t start until I was a year old. Mom claimed that was because Dad had chosen those twelve months, of all the months ever, to play professional photographer, and that my first smiles and steps had been lost in a series of unfortunate darkroom experiments. They even had a box of blurred images to prove it.
But anything could be blurry if developed incorrectly, couldn’t it?
My palms sweat and my throat dried as I started down the aisle ag
ain, but the physical discomfort was nothing compared to what was going on inside my head.
“Look what I found.”
Mom glanced up from a plastic bin of ornaments.
“Baby clothes,” I said brightly.
She stood and brought both hands to her face. “Is your favorite yellow jumper in there? The one with the butterflies?”
I pulled out the jumper and held it up so she could see, then placed the box on a metal folding chair between us.
“Paige came home from the hospital in the middle of a blizzard,” I said as she rummaged. “Except it was May, so her mom, thinking the weather would be warm, only packed a sundress and light sweater for her.”
“That far north, it can flurry through July.”
“Right.” I watched her pick up a denim skirt and turquoise tights. “Anyway, the pictures are really cute. Paige wearing her sundress and wrapped in a blanket the hospital gave them, surrounded by swirling snowflakes.”
“I’m sure she was adorable.”
So far, so good. I’d never seen pictures of Paige coming home from the hospital; I didn’t even know if she had any. But Mom believed me, and that was what mattered.
“I forget what I wore home from the hospital.”
Her hand froze.
“I know you must’ve told me a million times… but I just can’t remember.” I stepped toward the box. “Is the outfit in here?”
Her mouth opened. “I gave it away,” she said several seconds later. “To a woman in my office. She had a baby a few months after you were born, and when we had a shower for her, she insisted on hand-me-downs only.”
I had to give her credit: she was good. A year ago, I might have believed her.
“What did it look like?” I asked.
“What did what look like?” she asked, already moved on.
“The outfit I wore from the hospital.”
She dropped the clothes she held into the box and faced me. Her lips were even, her forehead smooth. I thought she might actually come clean and braced myself for the truth… but then she smiled.
“Pink gingham. Ralph Lauren.” She held out one hand. “The nurses said they’d never seen a prettier baby.”
I put my hand in hers. She lifted and kissed it. Then she returned to the Christmas decorations.
“Will you grab a few garbage bags from upstairs? I might as well tidy up while I’m down here.” She opened a new box and pulled out a strand of glittery garland.
Pretty silver…magical silver…the silver of Christmas tinsel…
Which was how the waitress had described Zara’s eyes when Simon and I went to the Bad Moose Café to look for Caleb. The memory made me bolt across the room and upstairs.
In the living room, I hurdled boxes and darted between bags. My mouth and throat stung like I’d just downed a bottle of sand, but instead of sprinting to the kitchen to replenish, I headed in the opposite direction.
To Dad’s office.
It was three o’clock. He wouldn’t be home from his afternoon lecture for two hours.
Reaching the room, I threw open the door and charged inside—or at least I tried to charge. My body weakened more with each passing second, like I ran on a dying battery. As I crossed the small space, my legs quivered and my feet stumbled. Instead of stepping over the moat of papers surrounding the desk, I summoned any remaining energy and lunged for the chair. My legs hit the stacks and stayed there.
I grabbed the mouse and woke the computer. I watched the keyboard as I typed, not trusting my trembling fingers to find the right letters unsupervised. Once finished, I hit Enter and looked up at the screen.
I held my breath as the tiny hourglass turned once. Twice. Three times.
Invalid password.
I retyped the thirteen letters. When they were rejected, I tried again. And again. Until my fingertips numbed and I could no longer see the keys.
My body wasn’t totally out of water after all. When I finally sat back, exhausted and defeated, there was enough to fill my eyes and slide down my cheeks.
CHAPTER 9
RAINA’S SCRAPBOOK was wrong. Charlotte Bleu didn’t die during childbirth. She had me, and for the first year of my life, she took care of me. I was as sure of this as I was of the fact that Dad had changed his computer password to keep me from finding things he didn’t want me to see.
What I didn’t know was why. Why did she give me up? Why after a year and not sooner—or later? What happened? Did she die around my first birthday? Did Raina just have the timing confused?
These were the questions I’d been silently asking since finding the boxes of baby clothes. And as Paige and I pulled up to the Winter Harbor Marina for Caleb’s birthday party almost a week later, I still didn’t have any answers.
“I don’t think I can do this.”
Instantly jolted out of my own thoughts, I glanced at Paige, who reached into the shopping bag at her feet and held up a CD.
“You can’t listen to old grunge rock?” I asked, parking the car.
“I can’t give it to Caleb.” She rolled down the window and tilted her head toward the party.
“Sounds like Pearl Jam.”
“It is Pearl Jam.” She waved the CD. “So is this.”
“And?”
“And they’re Caleb’s favorite band—I learned that in school last year, when you could hear the music coming from his earbuds a mile away. He must own every song they’ve ever recorded.”
“Which is why you bought the limited-edition live CD from when they played a tiny club in Boston ten years ago. The CD you can only get at the tiny club in Boston.”
I followed her gaze as she looked out the windshield. The party was already in full swing. Dozens of people filled the marina parking lot and docks—talking, laughing, and dancing. Beyond them, boats bobbed on the harbor.
“The water surrounding the marina is fairly shallow,” I said quietly, guessing that the real problem had nothing to do with Caleb’s gift. “That’s why the ice is beginning to thaw here. But Simon said the deeper parts are still frozen solid.”
She lifted her eyes to mine. “Like at the base of Chione Cliffs?”
My head throbbed once, then stopped. “Yes. Like at the base of Chione Cliffs.”
“Ahoy there, pretty ladies.”
We both jumped as Riley spoke near Paige’s open window.
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle. But I’ve been ordered to walk the plank and wanted to make sure I said hello before taking the plunge.”
“Right,” Simon said, coming up next to him. “Ordered, offered. Same difference.”
“You offered to walk the plank?” Paige asked.
“And challenged other guests to do the same. It’s kind of like musical chairs or pin the tail on the donkey, seaside-style.” He opened Paige’s door. “You look exquisite, by the way.”
I smiled as she blushed. Regardless of whether she wanted to like Riley, he clearly had a positive effect on her. She dropped the CD in its bag and climbed out of the car.
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