The Edge of the Light

by Elizabeth George

  “I’m talking to Dad.”

  “Jennie, I’m responsible for you. I’m responsible for molding you into a woman of upright character. My telling you that you can’t work at that place is no different from my telling you that you can’t walk into a forest fire. Safeguarding a child’s virtue until that child becomes an adult is what being a parent is all about.”

  Jenn took this in. She knew where it all was coming from. If the Bible didn’t mention that working with lesbians was dandy, then it meant that working with lesbians was akin to Dorothy and Toto skipping along a yellow brick road to hell.

  She said, “No way am I quitting that job. You’ll have to tie me up and throw me into the back of the taxi to stop me, Mom.”

  “I’m sorry to hear you say that,” was her mother’s reply. “It seems we’ll have to speak with Reverend Sawyer, then.”

  They had reached Cultus Bay Road, no great distance from Maxwelton. Had it not been so far from there to Possession Point, had it not been pitch-dark, Jenn would have insisted that her mom stop the car. She would have flung herself out and run off, although she had no clue where she could have gone. All of that being impossible, what she said was, “Reverend Sawyer? Is he hiring? Does he need someone to clean up the church after people spew on the floor in the middle of speaking in tongues, Mom? You think it’s a bad idea to work around lesbians? I think it’s a rotten idea to have anything to do with Reverend Sawyer!”

  Kate pulled to the side of the road. Jenn thought she meant to throw her from the car. But it turned out that all she wanted to do was make sure Jenn heard her and heard her clearly. “We’ll see about that,” her mother said.

  22

  Seth kept trying to tell himself that he wasn’t the person in the wrong. True, he’d followed Prynne without her knowledge. True, he’d skulked around like some incompetent private eye. But she’d stolen his mom’s OxyContin, and that gave him a reason to wonder about her. And the way things turned out, he was damn right to wonder, because she was into something that she sure as hell had been hiding from him.

  The only problem was how much he missed her. He’d got home from Port Townsend, looked at his bedroom door, knew he’d be spending his nights alone in there, and just wanted to disappear. The fact that Gus had been loyally waiting for him on the front porch of his parents’ house didn’t cheer him. Nor did the dog’s immediate recognition that something had gone very wrong. Gus had risen as Seth came onto the porch, with a dog whine that asked Seth what had happened. He then followed Seth into the house and into the bedroom, where he lay at the foot of the bed with his eyes fixed mournfully on his master.

  Although Seth didn’t lie to his parents about where Prynne was, he did lie about the reason. “Couple of days in Port Townsend,” was what he said. “She needs to clean out her room in the house so the guys can rent it out to someone else.”

  That voiced his hope: that Prynne would cool off and would know that what he did, he did out of love and concern for her. Of course, it was more than that. He’d also done what he’d done because he didn’t trust her. She’d taken six of his mother’s pills, and he was scared about what this said about her. At the same time, he loved her so much that he spent the entire night staring at the ceiling, tears pooling in his eyes and dripping onto his pillow.

  He went to Grand’s the next day while Becca and Derric went to Derric’s church. He could see that Becca knew something was wrong. He explained as briefly as he could that Prynne was taking care of business with her Port Townsend roommates, but he could tell from her expression that Becca didn’t buy this.

  Once he was alone with his grandfather, he called Prynne on her cell phone. She didn’t pick up. He tried three more times during that long and terrible day, each time with his grandfather’s knowing eyes upon him. He’d begun on his fourth try when he heard the sound of a heavy vehicle coming down the new driveway. Ralph apparently heard it, too, because he said, “Who . . . big, Seh.” Seth knew he meant that it sounded like something large. He said to Grand, “I’ll check it out. Don’t load the shotgun yet.”

  He went out onto the porch, completing the call to Prynne as he did so. He left the same message he’d been leaving all day, “I’m sorry. Prynne, I love you totally. Come on. Let’s talk.”

  He went down the ramp and along the brick path to the new driveway. There, he saw a big truck with SOUTH WHIDBEY LAWN CARE AND GARDENING on it. Two hefty guys and a woman were climbing out. Seth only had time to say, “Hi, what’s happening?” before he heard his name called from the trail that descended from the upper parking area. He turned and saw that Aunt Brenda had arrived, a three-ring binder clutched to her chest.

  “Here to do the winter cleanup,” the lawn care woman said to him. She stuck out her hand and introduced herself as Daphne. The men were Bruce and Harry. They nodded and began to unload their tools.

  Seth said, “On a Sunday? You guys work on Sundays?”

  “Only day we had,” Daphne told him. She was pulling on a pair of heavy gardening gloves as she looked around. She said to the other men, “No way can we do this in one, you guys.”

  They grunted. Bruce—or it could’ve been Harry—was un-loading a wheelbarrow as Harry—or it could’ve been Bruce—shouldered a rake, a hoe, and a shovel. What Seth said was, “Who the heck called you?”

  By that time, Brenda had reached them. She said to Seth, “The place needs to be made presentable. Daphne and her crew will be handling it. Dad’s estate can absorb the cost later.” To the others she said, “This is my nephew, Seth.”

  Seth said, “Wait a minute. Grand takes care of the garden. No way does he want a bunch of strangers touching anything. He’s got specimen trees, special rhodies and—”

  “And,” his aunt finished, “the last thing he can do is take care of it.”

  “So what?” Seth said. “He’ll tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

  “I see,” Brenda said. “And how do you expect him to ‘tell’ you, Seth. He can’t even say a sentence.”

  “I’m calling Dad right now,” was the only thing that Seth could come up with.

  “You do that,” Brenda said, and to the others, “You can begin. We want this place looking its best. The azaleas seemed close to blooming last time I was here. Check them out first, please. If they need fertilizing or whatever, do that.”

  Those directions given, she went up the ramp. As she did so, Seth saw her fish in her large purse for something. When he saw what it was, he punched his phone for his dad.

  “Aunt Brenda’s here,” he said tersely when Rich Darrow answered. “She’s got a crew working on the garden and she just took out a serious tape measure to use inside the house.”

  Rich said, “Five minutes,” and ended the call. If Seth knew his dad, he’d make it there in three.

  Seth followed his aunt. He found her kneeling in front of Grand’s chair. She was speaking to him in a low, soothing voice. She was there to take a few pictures and make a few measurements, she told him. She wanted to make the house a bit more comfortable for him.

  “You’ll like it when I’m finished,” she told him.

  The last thing Seth wanted was to get into it with his aunt in front of Grand, but he knew Brenda wasn’t telling the entire story. She was there to start staging the house so that Mike could put it on the market.

  She got to her feet, rested her hand on Grand’s shoulder, and said to Seth meaningfully, “Why don’t you take Dad to his room for a while?”

  “Why don’t I leave him where he is,” was Seth’s response. “I bet he’s gonna be very interested in all the big ‘improvements’ you have in mind.”

  Brenda shrugged. Seth could tell she thought she had the upper hand and the rest was just going to be a formality. Well, they would see about that. Seth’s dad would be able to handle her.

  Only . . . it turned out that Rich Darrow couldn’t do a damn
thing. He stormed into the house while Brenda was taking her measurements in the kitchen. He demanded to know who the hell those people were tramping around his dad’s garden. And when Ralph cried out, hearing this, Brenda snapped, “Oh that’s just great, Richard.”

  “You’re upsetting the hell out of him,” Rich snapped in turn. He walked to Ralph’s chair.

  “He wasn’t upset till you got here.” She made a notation in the three-ring binder. She came out of the kitchen and started to measure the living room.

  Rich said, “What the hell are you doing?”

  Seth put in, “Like I said. She’s getting ready to stage the house, Dad.”

  Ralph made a garbled noise. It wasn’t language. It sounded like suffocation. He waved his good arm and managed, “Not . . . bahng.”

  Seth said to his aunt, “He doesn’t want you doing anything to his house.”

  Brenda shot him a look. “Really? And that’s what you got from the noise he just made?”

  Things went directly south from there. Brenda announced that, as good as her word, she’d petitioned the court. Their father, she told Rich, was going to be examined and evaluated by individuals fully capable of making an objective decision about his welfare and where he ought to spend the rest of his days.

  “What’s wrong with you?” was how Rich countered. “He doesn’t want to go to a rest home.”

  Brenda tossed her tape measure onto the sofa. “I’ve told you it’s not a rest home. I’ve told you it’s assisted living. I’ve tried to be reasonable about this whole situation. You’re the one who’s wearing blinders all the time. I’m sorry you don’t see he can’t live here any longer. You’re just prolonging what has to be done.”

  “Which is what?” Rich demanded.

  “Which is selling this house and this property so that Dad’s future can be financed.”

  Ralph roared at this. Then he began to thrash in his chair. Rich and Brenda began to yell at each other. Threats were made. Promises were given. Things, Seth knew, were only getting worse.

  23

  Becca knew that, in the cause of getting control of both the visions and the whispers, she needed to practice. The trouble was how difficult she found this. It wasn’t because she didn’t want her skills to increase. She wanted that exactly. Increased skills meant it would be easier for her to figure out what the visions and the whispers meant and how they operated together. The trouble was the doing of it. It was tough to practice when she wasn’t with Mrs. Kinsale because when she wasn’t with Mrs. Kinsale, no one knew what she was practicing so they could offer no help. This meant that she either had to find time with just one person in order to practice without their knowledge or she had to practice when she was in a group.

  She was feeling the frustration of this a week later when she went into the school library to check on her e-mail. Since it was near the end of the lunch hour, she was in a good practice area, so she spent the first few minutes with the mantra, putting her focus on the only other kid in the library with her. She allowed him in and heard so stupid not to use a condom dumb shit before she swept the mantra into her mind and blocked him. She released the mantra after thirty seconds, heard nothing, felt triumphant, and then parents are going to kill me and if she wants invaded her head. She grabbed on to the mantra another time. She blocked his thoughts. She slowly released and again there was nothing, only this time it lasted nearly forty-five seconds until a girl came into the library and made for the table where the boy was sitting and then it was he doesn’t get it and that’s what she said it would be like along with big trouble over there which appeared to be coming from the parent volunteer.

  At this point, Becca returned the earbud to her ear and checked her e-mail. Parker Natalia had gotten in touch again. The subject line was Immigration. She clicked hastily on the message to see what it held. Her hope tanked.

  Parker’s friend with the police had checked into Canadian immigration. No one called Laurel Armstrong had crossed the border into Canada. This sort of thing was easy to check. Everything was in computer records. Once his friend had gotten access to them, it didn’t take him long to go back through time and see that a Laurel Armstrong hadn’t legally driven through or walked through any of the border crossings in Washington State. So she’d either ditched whatever car she was driving and somehow sneaked across the border on foot by creeping around the barriers in the dead of night when some of them were closed to traffic, or she wasn’t in Canada at all. Or she had a new identity. But in any case, Parker said, he wasn’t going to be able to find her.

  Becca’s body drooped. She got off the Internet and not a moment too soon. Derric walked into the library and came across toward her. At first when he said, “Not done yet?” she had no clue what he was talking about. Then he added, “Graphic design, I mean,” and she recalled her previous lie to him. She said, “Almost,” and added, “It’s tougher than I thought.”

  She’d noticed earlier that something seemed to be on his mind. There had been a heaviness clinging to him for several days. He’d been to La Conner to have dinner with Rejoice and her family three nights ago. He’d been preoccupied ever since.

  When he said, “Talk to you?” Becca felt relieved. When he also said, “Over there,” and indicated a study carrel, she knew it was probably serious. She grabbed up her things and followed him. He pulled a second chair up to the carrel. They sat facing each other, and he reached for her hand. There it was, then: a vision of an alley and cardboard shelters and being inside one with a little girl. Kampala, she thought, where he and his sister had been found.

  He said, “Okay, you were right. You’re always right. Is this a girl thing, or is it just you?”

  Becca frowned. “What’s going on?”

  “Rejoice made a play for me. I didn’t expect it. Not the way it happened.” He blew out a breath and ran his hand back over his smoothly shaven skull. “She did it at dinner with all of her family there.”

  “Did she say something, you mean?”

  “No. It’s what she did. They sat me next to her and she . . . under the table . . . Whew. This is hard to say, Becca. She sort of . . . She touched me. I mean like where she shouldn’t have touched me. Do you get what I’m saying?”

  “Yikes,” Becca said. “What did you do?”

  “Practically jumped out of my skin,” he said. “I got away from her.”

  “In the middle of dinner? How’d you manage that?”

  “Went to the bathroom. Splashed some water on my face. Decided I pretty much had to tell her.”

  Becca could see from his expression that telling Rejoice that she was his sister had not turned out the way Derric had hoped. She said, “You look like things didn’t go so good.”

  “You think?” He gave a mirthless laugh. “She didn’t believe me.”

  He’d told Rejoice that she was his sister just before he left La Conner that evening, he explained. Her parents always allowed her to walk out to the Forester with him because her mom could keep an eye on the action from the kitchen window. So he used that time alone with her to tell her everything: that she was his sister; that they’d been found in an alley in Kampala along with a group of other orphaned street children; that since the girls went one way and the boys another once they got to the orphanage, he hadn’t said that one of the girls was his sister.

  “I told her I was just freaked with the whole situation: being picked up on the street, getting carted away, starting a life at the orphanage. I told her I didn’t know up from down or anything else. And when the Mathiesons came, I just went along with their belief that I was alone there.”

  “And she still didn’t believe you?”

  “She thinks I made it up.”

  “Why?”

  “She thinks I’m trying to get away from her so that she and I can’t be . . . well, you know. I told her to look in the mirror. We’re like twins, I told h
er. I told her she knows I’m telling her the truth. I said I was sorry that I hadn’t told her earlier but I just didn’t know how. But all that didn’t make one difference. She started to cry, she ran back to the house, and I ended up with a call from her dad later that night asking what the hell was going on.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “Hell no. Why tell the truth when I can mess up my life and everyone else’s by making something up? I said I’d told her we needed to back off hanging around together because she was having . . . well, expectations. I said I told her that you and me . . . that we’re together. I told her dad that she freaked when I said that to her. I told him I was sorry but she’d gotten the wrong idea about her and me and I needed to fix it.”

  Becca quirked her mouth. She wanted to say something that she didn’t say: How’s lying been working out for you, Der? But instead she went with, “So what’s next?”

  “Man, I’m clueless. Pretty standard for me, I know.”

  Becca considered the state of affairs from every angle and there was only one suggestion that she could come up with. “Der, the letters. You started writing them when you were . . . what? Eight years old? She needs to see them. Every one of them is signed ‘your loving brother,’ and the handwriting changes as you get older. She’ll get it then. She won’t exactly be delirious over it. She’s been seeing you as boyfriend material, and all of a sudden that idea has been totally wrecked. But the letters . . . ? They show her that you always thought of her, you were always connected to her, you always loved her and you love her now. Just not the way she wants you to love her.”

  He considered this. “I could take them . . .” and he shot her a look. “I guess you wouldn’t give them to her for me? I mean, I drive you up there, I drop you off, I wait somewhere, then I come back and pick you up once you’ve given them to her?”

  “Uh . . . no,” Becca told him. “This is your mess, Der. Believe me, I’ve got my own.”