The Edge of the Light

by Elizabeth George

  Omigod was what she wanted to say and she also wanted to drop the tin onto the bed, as if it were contagious. But instead she felt a moment of confusion and said, “But isn’t . . . I thought heroin was white. And powdery. Isn’t it a powder?”

  Jake said, “This is black tar heroin.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Oh yeah. The foil and the lighter? That’s how you use it.”

  “But there’s no spoon and needle and . . . I don’t get how . . . ?”

  “You put some in the larger piece of foil, you use the lighter to heat it from beneath. That makes smoke and you use the tube to inhale the smoke. Bingo, you’re high.”

  Becca frowned. She admitted she didn’t even know this stuff existed. Jake said it was the most common kind of heroin in the state. It was, he told her, practically everywhere.

  When she heard this, Becca said, “You can’t be thinking that Grand . . .”

  “Not Mr. Darrow,” Jake said. The gravity of his voice and his expression was enough to tell her the rest. Still, he said, “You and I know it’s not Mr. Darrow. Seth’s got to be told but I sure as hell don’t want to be the person to tell him.”

  • • •

  IT WAS ONE more terrible thing to face. Becca was getting tired of terrible things. It was only later when she was getting ready for bed and reaching up to remove the earbud of the AUD box that she realized she’d never replaced the earbud once she’d taken it off earlier in the day. It was still in her backpack along with the AUD box, where she’d placed it when she’d begun her ride to Betty Banks’s office.

  Yet she’d heard nothing of anyone’s whispers once she’d arrived back home. She’d managed to block them without knowing she was blocking them. She’d made another step in gaining power over the strange talent that fate had given her.

  35

  Prynne had done what she could to make things right after the debacle at the music agent’s office. She’d called Steamer Constant the next day, explaining that she had been ill but that none of them had wanted to cancel their appointment because they were so excited that a music agent wanted to hear them play. As a result of this call, Steamer Constant agreed to let them try again. But, she told Prynne, Freda Windsarm was now in Los Angeles working on a deal for a recording contract and from there she was going to festivals in South Carolina and Georgia, followed by a stay in New York. She would return in eight weeks. Triple Threat could come into the city and play for her then.

  “So we have eight weeks to get ready,” Prynne told Seth. “And . . . I didn’t want to tell you this before, but I’ve been working on a new piece. I can’t play it for you yet because it’s not quite ready, but in maybe another week . . . ? I think you’ll like it.”

  Seth forgave her. She’d made a mistake in taking too much of the marijuana oil, but she’d only done it to settle her nerves and who could blame her? There had been a lot on the line: potential representation by a real music agent, possibly a recording contract, a chance to cut a CD in an actual studio. They’d all been nervous that day, and Prynne had only tried to do something to make herself less so.

  Things went back to normal, or at least as normal as they could get, considering the risk of Aunt Brenda’s forcing her will on everyone. So far Grand’s attorney had managed to throw up a few roadblocks to stall Aunt Brenda, but he wasn’t going to be able to do that forever. It would come down to a battle in court unless another path was found or forged that would make it impossible for her to intrude on her father’s life. So when Becca came to him and told him about what the word banks had actually meant and about what Betty Banks had told her about attorney-client privilege, his first conclusion was that Grand thought this Betty Banks would be a better lawyer to handle things in the conflict with Brenda. He checked this out with Grand, saying to him, “D’you want me to talk to this Betty Banks, Grand? D’you want me to get her to help us?”

  Grand’s nod was accompanied by, “Houch.”

  Seth took off work an hour early, and he stopped at Grand’s, where Becca was waiting for him fresh from her school day. Celia hadn’t yet arrived to take Jake’s place, so Prynne told them all that she would wait at the house for Celia’s arrival. Jake could go, Becca and Seth could go, Prynne would happily hold the fort. Seth was cool with this, but Jake intervened with a casual, “I’ve got no problem hanging till Celia gets here,” and he and Becca exchanged a look that could have meant something, but Seth didn’t know what. He was just happy that Prynne was free to go with them down to Clinton. Only, Prynne said she’d go home instead. She had her scooter with her, after all, and she could help Amy with the dinner.

  Off they went. Jake remained on the porch until Prynne’s Vespa coughed, started, and could be heard puttering up the hill on the new driveway. Meantime, Seth and Becca climbed to the upper parking lot, where Gus was snuffling in the bushes on the trail of a rabbit.

  Becca explained that she’d called in advance to make an appointment with Betty Banks. She’d told her secretary that she would be bringing a member of the Darrow family with her. She said to Seth that they were on rocky ground because of the problems attached to attorney-client privilege, but since Grand had indicated that he wanted Seth to see the attorney, it couldn’t hurt to talk to her and reveal what was going on with Aunt Brenda. They had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

  Seth agreed with this. So off they went. Becca was pretty silent on the route there, and Seth could tell something was on her mind. He said to her, “Everything okay? Nothing going on with Derric, is there?”

  She replied with a brief chuckle and, “Something’s always going on with Derric.”

  “Uh-oh. Some new babe trying to get his attention?”

  “Sort of. But it’s nothing bad.”

  She settled more determinedly into her seat as they drove. Seth had the feeling she wasn’t telling him what was really going on.

  It was about twenty minutes from Grand’s house to the attorney’s office. When they arrived and jounced up the unpaved driveway, Gus made his usual time-for-play noises. Out of the car, the Lab began galumphing around the wooded property. Seth called out, “You stay close, dog,” and Gus looked up as if he actually meant to obey.

  Shelley admitted them to Mrs. Banks’s office. That was a good sign, Seth figured, but the good sign faded when he saw the expression on the lawyer’s face. Before either he or Becca could say a word, Mrs. Banks said, “I’m sorry you came all this way. The situation is, I’m afraid, what it was before. Unless Mr. Darrow can put it writing that—”

  “We know,” Becca interrupted. “But I was thinking . . . See, Rich Darrow hired a lawyer for Grand to change the guardianship situation. And Seth here thinks what Grand maybe wants is for Seth’s dad to hire you instead.”

  “Are you Seth?” Mrs. Banks asked, not unreasonably. “You’re Mr. Darrow’s grandson?” And when Seth nodded, the lawyer went on to say surprisingly, “What a pleasure to meet you! Your grandfather obviously thinks the world of you. I hope he’s explained everything about the property: how the taxes will be paid, what kind of fund he’s going to set up for maintenance . . . ?”

  All Seth could say to this was “Huh?” He had no clue what she was talking about.

  Mrs. Banks looked concerned, and maybe a little confused herself. She said, “You signed the paperwork, didn’t you? You must have, because when he brought it back, it was notarized. I offered your grandfather Shelley’s services—she’s a notary—but he said he wanted to go over everything with you first and when he returned the paperwork to me, it was done officially, so you had to have signed.”

  Seth felt like the idiot of the century. “Paperwork? I dunno. I don’t even remember . . .”

  Mrs. Banks got up. She went to a file cabinet, pulled open a drawer. She began to riffle through the files within it, and she finally brought out the one she was apparently seeking. This, she brought back to h
er desk. Removing the paperwork within, she flipped through its pages to the very last one and showed this to Seth, saying, “This is only a copy, but you can see . . .”

  He was looking at his own signature, no doubt about it. There was Grand’s signature as well. And there was a stamp with someone’s name scrawled beneath and the State of Washington in some sort of seal, too. He’d definitely signed this thing, but he couldn’t remember having done so, and he didn’t have the first clue what he was looking at anyway.

  “Is this your signature?” Mrs. Banks was asking him.

  He nodded, said, “Sure is, but I don’t remember . . .” Then he spied the date. It was right in the middle of his agonizing break-up with Hayley Cartwright that he’d signed this paperwork. He hadn’t known up from down in those days. It was no surprise to him that he hadn’t remembered having gone some place to sign some papers with his granddad. He said, “Oh. This was when I broke up with my girlfriend. What is it? Grand’s will?”

  “It’s a property conveyance.” Mrs. Banks pointed to the date that Seth had already taken note of and added, “On this date your grandfather signed all his property over to you. You didn’t read this before you signed it?”

  Seth just stared, first at the paperwork, then at her, then at the paperwork. Next to him, he heard Becca murmur, “Omigod.”

  He said, “I got learning problems,” to Mrs. Banks. “I mean, reading is . . . and legal language . . . and whatever . . . ? Uh, no. I didn’t read it. And Grand didn’t tell me what it was. Why, though? Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “Perhaps he didn’t want you to know yet.”

  “I don’t get what it means, to tell you the truth.”

  Mrs. Banks smiled. She looked, Seth thought, like someone who knew what it meant when a person has troubles learning. She said, “It means your grandfather’s property is yours, to do with as you wish. He assumed that you and he were of one mind and that what you would wish to do is what he wished to do: to keep it as it is. The house, the gardens, and the forest.”

  “But what if someone wants to sell it? Like, another relative. In order to . . . I don’t know . . . to get the money?”

  Mrs. Banks shrugged. “Unless that person is you, that can’t happen.”

  Seth turned to Becca. Her eyes were like teacup saucers in her face. She said, “Grand was so smart, Seth. He must’ve known what would happen if he got sick.”

  “Damn.” Seth shook his head in wonder. Grand had always been a step ahead of everyone.

  • • •

  WHEN HE AND Becca got back to Grand’s, they found him playing Monopoly with Celia. Grand appeared to be cleaning Celia’s clock. Seth grinned when he saw this, not only because his grandfather was winning but also because of the fine motor skills involved in playing at all. “Now that’s looking grim,” he told Celia.

  “Oh, he just better wait” was her reply. “I got more tricks up my sleeve ’n he’s got hairs on his head.”

  Grand, Seth saw, seemed delighted that he was beating the pants off his home health care aide. Seth said to him, “So we talked to Mrs. Banks, Grand.”

  Ralph looked at him with that old sparkle in his eyes. “Gud,” he said.

  Seth replied with, “Thanks, Grand. Like . . . I don’t even know what to say except you got no worries, okay? About anything.”

  Ralph said, “Fahv-it may granchill.”

  “Only male grandchild,” Seth reminded him. He bent, kissed his grandfather on the forehead, and felt the old man’s grip on the back of his head. Then he left the two of them to their Monopoly battle.

  From all of this, Becca had hung back. As Seth turned to leave, he saw her standing on the stairs. She had an expression on her face that wasn’t about celebrating Seth’s change in circumstances, and at first Seth thought she was figuring she’d have to leave now, since he could move into Grand’s house with Prynne and there was only one bedroom which they could use to effect this.

  She said, unsurprisingly, “C’n I talk to you?”

  He said, “Sure. But hey, no worries, Beck. We’ll work out where—”

  “It’s not that,” she replied as if she’d read his thoughts about moving into the house with Prynne. “C’n you come upstairs?”

  “Sure.”

  She led him to her bedroom where she closed the door. From the chest of drawers, she brought out an old tobacco tin. She handed it to him. She said, “Jake found this in Grand’s shop.”

  Seth opened it. He knew at once what he was looking at: the number one drug problem on Whidbey Island, the replacement drug for those for whom Oxy had become either too costly or too hard to get. It was cheaper than everything except contraband weed grown in someone’s back yard. It was also easy to come by if you knew who to ask. Seth heard again the voice of that guy Steve in Port Townsend: “I can’t even get it anymore, Prynne. It’s way too risky.”

  What he thought was no no no in an ever growing wail of silence in his head. What he said from the dryness of his mouth was “Geez, he found this in Grand’s shop? I better check to see if someone’s living out in the tree house.”

  “Seth.” Becca sounded way too sympathetic. “You know it’s not some doper who might be living in the tree house. Why would someone be living in the tree house but keeping his heroin in Grand’s shop?”

  “Well, it sure as hell isn’t Grand’s. Do you think Jake is trying to make us think . . .” He couldn’t finish the question because he couldn’t come up with anything Jake might have in mind.

  Becca said, “Think what? Are you saying Jake’s been doing heroin here and he wants us to think it’s someone else? Come on, Seth. We both know who’s using.”

  “I don’t think Celia’s a druggie.”

  He saw that Becca’s gaze was sympathetic but it was also driving holes into his head. He felt as if she was invading his mind with that look of hers, and what came over him was a tsunami of fury. It was followed by one of pure despair. Still, he said, “Beck, I don’t think . . . And this stuff . . . It hasn’t even been used!”

  “Look at the foil, the folded-up square. Look at everything. Jake told me it’s all for inhaling the smoke.”

  Seth sought words to fight off what was fast approaching. “So Jake knows all about how to take it, huh? What d’you think that means? Man, when I tell Dad . . . when I tell the place Jake works for . . . when they find out and he gets his ass kicked . . .” But he couldn’t finish the rest. He knew not a word of it was true. He said hopelessly, “D’you think Aunt Brenda might’ve put it there to make things look bad for Prynne?”

  Becca watched him for a very long time and the question hung between them, unanswered. Finally she said, “I’m so totally sorry.”

  He said, “I don’t want to believe it, Beck.”

  She said, “I don’t blame you.”

  36

  From the upper bunk bed in Brian Richardson’s bedroom, Jenn stared at the constellations on the ceiling. She figured Brian had put them there himself. She discovered at dinner that what Cynthia’s younger brother liked best was to talk about the universe. He was very big into astrophysics. He went on about black holes and alternative universes and the expansion of the universe and the potential travel to other galaxies, and Jenn was about to ask him if he was into the whole Star Wars thing and which of the films did he like best?—she had to say something to the kid, after all—when his mom said, “Jenn’s had enough for now, Brian,” and Cynthia said, “Cease and desist, Bri,” and Brian himself grinned and said to Jenn, “Oh. You got to tell me when I’m s’posed to stop. I’ve got Asperger’s. I can’t read social signals so if you sigh or roll your eyes or say something like ‘Thanks, that’s interesting,’ I won’t know what you mean. You won’t offend me because I’m used to being told. Sometimes Mom says I’m having an Asperger’s moment. It’s what I do. Hey are you a lesbian like Cynthia? I think close to sixteen percent
of the girls at the high school are lesbians, by the way.”

  To her surprise, Jenn laughed along with everyone else. Mrs. Richardson laughed the most until she could only weakly say, “Apsperger’s moment! Asperger’s moment!”

  They were an amazing family, Jenn thought, nothing like hers. After dinner, Cynthia and her brother used the dining room table to do their homework, both of them excused from washing dishes because of the heavy class loads they carried. Cynthia helped Brian with his French. Brian helped Cynthia with her advanced math. Their parents talked quietly in the kitchen while their children worked. There was no music, no television, or anything else that might disturb them.

  Particularly there was no brawl on the living room floor engaged in by Petey and Andy. There was no dad lining up his brews for tasting on the same table where Jenn had to work. There was no Mom reading the Bible aloud or setting off to a church meeting or returning from delivering a passenger somewhere in the island taxi. Best of all, there was no reason for Jenn to rustle up a dinner in advance of all this with whatever had been available and picked up yesterday by her mom at Good Cheer Food Bank.

  It was so heavenly an environment that Jenn whispered into the darkness, “You still awake, Cynthia?”

  “Hmmm. Barely. You doing okay?”

  “I guess.” She really wasn’t sure. At Cynthia and Mrs. Richardson’s insistence, she’d called her mom to say where she would be spending the night. To her mom’s reply of a recitation of the fifth commandment, Jenn had tried to explain that she did honor and love her parents. To this Kate had quietly answered, “Come home, then, and demonstrate that.” But Jenn knew what such a demonstration would entail, and she couldn’t do it. So, was she doing okay? Maybe. But again, maybe not.

  “Good.” Cynthia turned on her mattress. Jenn felt the quivering of the bunk beds as she did so. As Cynthia had said they would, they’d traded rooms with Brian because she had only a single bed in hers.