Jane’s practical and positive manner was infectious. I did as I was told. I plucked out a brownie and ate it in three bites, crumbs falling from my mouth onto the counter. She nodded in satisfaction and went about filling the kettle and setting it to boil.
“Now,” she said, “Charlotte told me the basics. What were you told, exactly?”
I recounted the conversation with Claudia, and Jane listened soberly.
“You could take the exams,” she said.
“I could. But I have more or less no chance of passing.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” I said.
The kettle clicked off, and she filled the teapot and set out the mugs and milk and sugar.
“Let me ask you something,” she said. “And I want you to really think about this question. Tell me truly. Why did you come back? ”
“They sent me back,” I said.
“Who did?”
“My…doctor.”
Jane cocked her head at this answer.
“But you could have said no. Surely, you could have returned to America. But you came back here.”
“I had to,” I said.
“Had to?”
“It’s complicated.” The understatement of the year. “My shrink…sorry…thought it was a good idea. It was an experiment in making me normal again. And it failed.”
“Now, now,” Jane said sternly. “None of that. None of that. You’ve failed nothing.”
“Besides school.”
“You can hardly call what you’ve accomplished a failure, Rory. Think about it. How many people could come to a foreign country to do a year of school to begin with? And then continue with school after a brutal attack?”
“I kind of don’t care,” I said. “I’m tired of being different because something happened to me. I just want things to be regular. And nothing is ever regular now.”
A cloud passed over whatever sun there was, and the kitchen dropped into shadow. She got up and turned on the overhead light, then filled our cups with tea. She put sugar in hers, and I was mesmerized by the gentle tink tink tink of the stirring spoon against the side of the cup.
“I told you what happened to me when I was your age,” she said. “I told you about the man who chased me, how he hit me on the head and I ended up in that pond. I almost drowned that night. I touched death, and the experience left me a bit changed. And I have a feeling you know what I mean. It changed you too.”
She couldn’t be saying what I thought she was saying.
“It began with the Ripper,” she said. “Those of us with the ability recognized the signs. A killer who never showed up on CCTV. Pops up all over the place. No physical evidence. This same person gets into the BBC and delivers a package with a human kidney in it, and again, no one sees a thing. And just as mysteriously, he goes away. He turns out to be a person without a past? Without relations? No trace in the world? Not very likely, now, is it?”
She smiled, her mouth broad. She wore dark lipstick, a shade between red and orange. The color made my eyes throb. There was an unreality to all of this—the big kitchen, the high counter stools we sat on, the swirling oil painting by the window that I’d never noticed before. It was a painting of the sun, or maybe some snakes…how was I mistaking the sun for some snakes?
“Charlotte told me about the night you and she were attacked,” she went on. Her voice was so low, so calming. “She saw and heard nothing until the lamp came down on her head. And you were found in the toilets down the hall, all the mirrors shattered, the window broken. The door had to be broken down. What was the story? That the killer escaped through that broken window and ran? But Charlotte told me the protective bars on that window had just been repaired, because they had been loose. No. No living person escaped from that room. What you saw and what was reported, those were very different things, weren’t they?”
I could only nod. Jane let out a tiny, contented sigh.
“When did it happen?” she asked. “When did you get the sight?”
Ever realize you’ve been holding your breath? You think you’re breathing normally and then you just become aware that you’ve clenched your abdomen and the space around your heart is full and your lungs are filled to bursting and you let go…
I let go. Of all of it. Well, mostly all of it. I began with the night of the double event, when Jazza and I snuck through the bathroom window and went to Aldshot. How we ran back across the green in the middle of the night, and as we climbed back into Hawthorne, I saw a man that Jazza couldn’t see. And the next morning, they found a girl’s body on the green. When I got to the part where Stephen and Callum and Boo entered the picture, three words popped into my mind: Official Secrets Act. The terrible document I had to sign in the hospital, the one that made me promise that I would not talk about the squad under any circumstances. And while the Official Secrets Act might not have been written with people who saw ghosts in mind, it was still scary, and my signature was still on it. And I was pretty sure they were not joking when they said I really wasn’t supposed to say anything.
“Right after I got to England,” I said. “I choked at dinner. Stupid.”
“Not stupid. It happens how it happens. But I suspected you were one of us. That’s why I reached out to you. I wasn’t certain, but I felt it was very likely.”
“The trouble now,” I said, “is that I lie all the time.”
Jane nodded. “So tell me what really happened to you. Because I imagine this is what complicated your therapy before. You can tell me the whole story.”
“I don’t know how to talk about this,” I said. “I broke up with my boyfriend yesterday because of this.”
“I know the feeling. At first, I thought I was mad, so I lied to cover that up. But then, through some sheer effort of will, I convinced myself I was not mad. What I was seeing was real. Now, luckily for me, this was the late sixties—pretty much the best time to run away to London that there ever was. People were open then. There were squats to live in. The rock-and-roll world was vibrant, and yet strangely down to earth. If you hung out on the street long enough, you could meet pretty much anyone you wanted. And there were many mystics, and a lot of people on a lot of strange drugs. If you said you could see ghosts, well…people didn’t look at you quite so strangely. They either believed you or thought you were as high as they were. I knew, if I looked long enough and asked around, I would find more people like me. And I did. I found friends. And that changed everything for me. Everything. Rory, the things you’ve been through, with no one to talk to. Unless you know people like us? Surely, you must have met someone?”
“No,” I lied, again. “No one.”
“No wonder you feel so alone,” she said.
I started laughing—I mean, really laughing. I have no idea why, but I laughed until tears ran down my face.
“Why am I laughing?” I asked when I could catch my breath.
“Relief,” Jane said, patting my hand. “It’s relief. You’re not alone anymore. You’re one of us.”
Relief. Such a nice word. Such a sweet word.
“Who is us?” I said. “There are others?”
“Oh, yes,” Jane said. “Many others. And some live in this very house.”
She held up a finger, indicating that I should wait, and slid off the chair. She opened the kitchen door and called into the dark.
“Devina! Are you here? Mags?”
There was a high-pitched reply from somewhere in the house.
“Come down for a moment, won’t you?” She left the door cracked open and returned to her seat. I could hear a quick patter of footfall on the steps, and then a girl appeared in the door. She was very tall and very slender, with short silvery white-blond hair. Despite the chill, she wore a shift dress that exposed much of her very long legs. Her bony knees had scratches on them, like a little child’s knees. As a concession to the weather, she wore a cropped denim jacket and a pair of short boots.
“This is Devina,” Jane said.
>
“Hello.” Devina’s voice was high and light. Pixie-like.
“Is Mags in, darling? Or Jack?”
“Just me right now.”
“Devina also lives here,” Jane explained. “In fact, several people live here. The house has seven bedrooms and I find I can only sleep in one at a time. So I had the idea to share the house with people like us. Call it a home for the exceptionally sighted. Devina, be a dear and put that casserole in the oven? Rory needs a proper meal.”
Devina went to the fridge and pulled out a big blue casserole dish. I was staying for lunch, apparently.
“You cannot go back to Bristol,” Jane said, putting her hand on the table to mark her pronouncement. “You cannot go back to America. You need to be with people who understand, and people who can teach you. No one’s even taught you about your ability, have they? No. You must stay here. There’s another empty room upstairs. That one will be yours.”
“I can’t,” I said. “My parents…”
“Don’t know and won’t understand. They certainly won’t give permission for you to stay in a stranger’s house after you’ve been asked to leave school. You need to do something a bit bold and brave. You need to take things into your own hands. You need to leave.”
“You mean, like, run away?”
“I mean precisely that. It’s the only way. These are exceptional circumstances, and this is the answer to your problem. Thank goodness you came here in time.”
“It really is,” Devina said, nodding in agreement.
When you hear about people running away, I always imagined it just like that…like, they take off physically running into the night. I hate running, and I never really wanted to leave home, so the concept was entirely foreign to me.
“I know this is quite a lot to take on board, Rory, but if you’re brave and do this tonight, tomorrow will be the start of a wonderful new life. A life without lies. A life that makes sense.”
“Tonight?”
“It has to be tonight,” Jane said. “It sounds like they’ve already set the wheels in motion for you to be returned to your parents. It will be much harder after that. They’ve given you a night of freedom to think. You need to take advantage of it. And you’ll have us helping you. You’re not the first person I’ve helped.”
“She helped me,” Devina said. “Saved my life, coming here.”
“It doesn’t have to be permanent,” Jane said. “But, Rory, believe me, it’s easier when you’re part of a group. When you’re with people who understand. And we understand. It’s up to you, of course, but I speak from experience. So does Devina.”
It’s possible that I have a higher tolerance for crazy talk than most people because of my background. I’ve channeled multi-colored angels with my cousin and gone for discount waxes with my grandmother. I know two people who have started their own religions. One of my neighbors was arrested for sitting on top of the town equestrian statue dressed as Spider-Man. He just climbed up there with a few loaves of bread and tore them up and threw bread at anyone who got near him. Another neighbor puts up her Christmas decorations in August and goes caroling on Halloween to “fight the devil with song.” That’s just what things are like back home. While there were certain to be people back home who would fully accept my tales of seeing ghosts, they were also the same people who tended to see Jesus in their pancakes.
I could see this version of my future all too well. I would be fully absorbed into the crazy wavelength of Bénouville. Left to my native kind, I would get strange. But Jane was well-adjusted. She clearly had a happy and successful life. I didn’t know much about Devina, but she looked happy too. They looked normal. And nothing, nothing was sweeter than that. Jane was right—there was no other solution. This was the juncture, and I had to make a decision. Home, where my brain would go soft and I would forever wonder about what I was…or here, where I could at least learn something. And I could stay around Stephen and Callum and Boo.
I could even join them, on their own terms.
The light seemed to grow warm around us at the table.
“How?” I said. “I don’t know how to run away here, I mean, I know that sounds stupid, but…do I just not go back?”
“You don’t go back,” she said, “but we muddy your tracks. Who knew you came here?”
“Just Charlotte.”
“Good. Now, did you use your Oyster card to get here?”
“Yes.”
“Did you buy it with a credit card or cash?”
“My debit card…”
The Oyster card was the Tube pass. You put money on the card and then you just had to tap it on the reader when you got on and off at your stations so it knew how much to deduct. I saw what she was saying. It tracked your journey, and if you bought it on a credit card, there would be a record.
“I’ve done this before,” Jane said. “Just a few commonsense steps we need to take. Here’s what we will do…”
The plan crafted over the table was simple, and thorough. I would walk to the South Kensington Tube station and use the nearest ATM to withdraw all of the money in my account. It had to look like I needed it all. I would also be seen on the camera at the machine. Then I was to drop the Oyster card in front of the station. Someone would pick it up and use it, leaving a confusing trail on the Tube.
“Give your mobile to Devina,” Jane said. “She’ll take it and use it in a few locations around the city. Just drive around with it, D, then dispose of it.”
Out of all of this, not having the phone made me the most uncomfortable. I didn’t actually know anyone’s phone number—not my parents in Bristol, not Jazza, not Stephen. They were on the phone.
“I won’t be able to reach anyone,” I said.
“You can’t talk to anyone,” Jane replied. “Not at first. You’ll want to, but that puts the whole thing in jeopardy. We need the mobile.”
I’d left my coat in the vestibule. The phone was in the pocket.
“I’ll get it,” I said, getting up from the table. I made my way through the dark hallway, my eyes struggling in the change in the light, my heart slamming in my chest. I had to do this. Jane was right. She was the one person with an actual plan. And doing this—terrifying as it was—was the right decision. It was the only thing that would make my life make sense again.
The room spun gently, and I realized I was smiling. I didn’t feel happy, did I?
I knocked into the silver leopard as I fumbled for my coat and retrieved the phone. Boo’s number was still on the display. Boo’s was a good number to keep. I stared at it, committing it to memory. At least, trying to…seven, seven, three, four…
“Here.”
Devina was behind me, and her hand was already on the phone.
“I’ll take care of this now,” she said. She grabbed a set of keys from a bowl on a little shelf by the door. And then my phone was gone.
I continued chanting the number in my head and reached into my coat pocket again. I’d shoved a colored lip gloss in there the other day. I rolled up my sleeve and used the sticky gloss to write the number on my arm. It was messy, but I had it. I had one link.
It felt like cheating, but Jane didn’t know about Stephen. I still had secrets to keep, even now, as my life collapsed around me and re-formed into something new and very unfamiliar.
And strangely, for the first time in what seemed like a very long time, I felt like I knew what the hell was going on.
NEW DAWN PSYCHIC PARLOR,
EAST LONDON
DECEMBER 9
11:47 P.M.
PAUL WAS A CHEATING BASTARD. HE WAS THE KING OF cheating bastards. He should wear a crown.
Oh, everyone had warned her. Her sister. Her friends. Her horoscope. Everyone said Paul was trouble, but Lydia had believed him. She had believed the stories of his weekends away with his mates, his overtime at Boots doing stock inventory. She believed him when his car didn’t start and when he had a toothache. She was a trusting person, and everyone had warned her,
and now it had come to this. The voice mail. The voice mail from some random slag that she heard when she accidentally but kind of on purpose got into his voice mail.
Okay, mostly on purpose. Paul was such an idiot. Only one password for everything. She’d seen him key it in dozens of times. All she had to do was ring the voice mail externally and put in the numbers, and there it was, the message from someone who just sounded orange. She was giggling away on his voice mail like a Big Brother reject.
Lydia wobbled on her heels as she hurried. It was hard to speed walk and cry. Bastard! Dawn would fix it. Dawn would tell her what to do. Dawn always knew what to do.
Dawn operated out of a third-story flat, which served as both home and office. She was there day and night. All you had to do was buzz up. It didn’t matter what time. Dawn dozed between clients. And even at this hour, there could sometimes be a wait—people would sit on the floor of the hallway by the door. Everyone who went to Dawn knew she was good. But there was no one else there tonight, and Lydia was able to go right in. Dawn was sitting in her easy chair, dressed in a pair of jogging bottoms, a red jumper, slippers, and a dressing gown. Lydia carefully made her way over, her heels catching in the thick salmon-colored carpet.
“Hello, my love,” Dawn said, setting down her magazine. “Come to see Dawn? Problems? I see all kinds of problems. Your aura is very dark, not like normal.”
Lydia took a seat at the small card table Dawn used for business. Dawn got up from her easy chair and took a seat on the folding chair on the opposite side.
“I think my boyfriend is cheating,” Lydia said tearfully. “What do I do?”
“Cheating? Well, we’ll ask the cards, love. They never lie. We’ll ask the cards and see what they say.”
Dawn reached over and took a small blue velvet drawstring sack from the windowsill and pulled it open, exposing the tarot deck. She held the deck for a moment in both hands and closed her eyes. This part always calmed Lydia—you could almost feel Dawn reaching out, pulling energy closer. Dawn opened her eyes very slowly and, without another word, began laying the initial spread. When the spread was complete, she leaned back and examined it like a surgeon evaluating a complex injury.
The Madness Underneath Page 17
