World Tree Girl

by Kerry Schafer

  “Looky-loos,” Ginny answers. “And clearly not the sort we’re looking for at the Manor.”

  God help me, I’d forgotten all about Ed and Glenda. They stand in the doorway, holding hands, looking like Disneyland tourists who’ve accidentally wandered into a Park Avenue gala. They’re wearing matching sweatshirts, cherry red, with a picture of a cartoon sheep and the words “I survived the Valley of the Shadow” emblazoned across the chest. Glenda even has a camera dangling from a strap around her neck.

  Once again, all talk in the dining room dies away. The residents are enjoying the interruptions in their routine, and the weight of their collective curiosity is palpable. As owner of the Manor, it’s my job to find the newcomers somewhere to sit, but I’m too busy wallowing in mean-spirited enjoyment of their dilemma. Glenda, however, is not about to let a little social awkwardness get in her way.

  She sweeps toward me with her arms outstretched. “Maureen! There you are!”

  Hemmed in by chairs, limited by my damaged mobility, there’s no way short of shooting the woman to avoid being enveloped in a perfume-scented hug. Fortunately, she’s one of those people who needs both hands to talk and she releases me before I’m forced to elbow my way free.

  “Such a lovely facility. Thank you for letting us stay. What do we do about breakfast? Is there a charge? Aren’t you hungry, Eddy?”

  Ed, who was never called Eddy even as a child, remains in the doorway. His face is set in the grim lines of a man watching his beloved play roulette with a fully loaded six-shooter. He tries to signal her with hands and eyes, but she’s oblivious.

  All around us, hands adjust hearing aids. Infrequently used glasses appear out of pockets and purses. Nobody wants to miss a single moment of the show.

  Matt appears with two extra chairs, his timing so perfect he could have been waiting in the wings for his cue. “I’ll have your food right out. Coffee?”

  Glenda sits, waving semaphore code at Ed with such vehemence he has no choice but to come and join us.

  Jill bats her eyelashes and thickens her French accent. “Oh, enchanté! You are Maureen’s husband? I am Jillian. Phil Evers’ daughter.”

  She reaches her hand up to him as if she expects him to kiss it. Ed, visibly confused, is a polite man, but he’s not given to romantic gestures. He accepts the hand, shakes it once, and then carefully lowers it to the table, as if it’s a fragile object she’s offered up for his inspection. He cuts a glance at me, his eyes a question I don’t even try to answer.

  Instead, I push back my chair and abandon a perfectly good breakfast. I take my coffee with me.

  “Leaving?” Jill asks, all innocent concern. “You’ve barely eaten a thing.”

  “I have work to do. And a hotel room to find for you. Enjoy your breakfast.”

  My attempt at a smooth exit is marred by Ed, who follows me to the door. Despite the fact that I ignore him, he stays with me all the way down the hall. Unintentionally my steps synchronize with his, a familiar cadence that my body remembers despite all my efforts to forget.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something, Eddy?” I shorten my steps, deliberately breaking the rhythm.

  Matching sweatshirt and diminutive nickname aside, Ed is not a zebra. He’s spent too many years with me, absorbed too much of what I do, to ever be complacent about the lions. He’s also direct when he wants to know something, one of the qualities I’ve always appreciated.

  “How much danger are we in?” he asks, now.

  I plant my feet and stop, waiting until he turns to face me. “Is that why you brought her here? Afraid to leave her home alone?”

  “You called last month and told me to take her out of the country.”

  “Well wishes for the new couple. Did you enjoy it?”

  “It was lovely,” he says. “Glenda is easy to travel with. Who is this Phil Evers? Am I supposed to know him?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I have time.”

  Time is not the issue here. Trust is an issue. Betrayal, abandonment. Those are issues.

  “Phil’s dead, for starters.”

  “I’m sorry.” He means it, and that throws me off balance.

  “And I haven’t seen him in thirty years.” We both let that sink in. I didn’t have an affair that will let Ed off the hook for his. I can tell he was hoping and was also prepared to be outraged.

  Now he deflates. “Can we get breakfast somewhere else? Just the two of us. We should talk, at least once.”

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t bring Glenda?”

  “Maureen. Please.”

  • • •

  I take him to House of Joe, where the coffee is excellent and the food is well salted and full of bacon. We find seats in a back corner, where our conversation will be covered by the country music blaring overhead and the voices of other patrons.

  Ed doesn’t waste time. The minute our food is on the table and the waitress off to other customers, he asks, “Well?”

  “I find it difficult to talk about the Unit while I’m looking at that shirt.”

  “Don’t.” His voice is a warning.

  I bat my eyelashes and clasp my hands like a lovestruck schoolgirl. “I didn’t know Shadow Valley had tourist paraphernalia. It’s adorable. The two of you make the cutest couple.”

  “Maureen—”

  “What did you expect, Ed? You moved her into our house—my house—while I was in the hospital. And then the two of you waltz in here looking like the Bobbsey Twins on vacation and you expect me to be civil. You’re slipping.”

  His fork hovers over a plate of eggs and bacon, never landing. “Five minutes. You get five minutes to tell me what a bastard I am. Then you can tell me what sort of mess you’ve gotten yourself involved in and how it’s likely to affect me—us—and then I’ll load up and get Glenda out of your hair.”

  I anchor both hands around my coffee mug and keep them there, where they can’t betray me.

  “This whole thing would be easier if I were a man.”

  Ed blinks, twice. “Seems like this whole thing wouldn’t be happening, were that the case.”

  “I don’t suppose I could interest you in a fistfight or a duel?”

  “Fight it out like gentlemen, you mean? You’d win, Maureen. You’d kick my ass to kingdom come. We both know it.”

  “It would be damn satisfying.” I take a sip of my already cooling coffee. Even thinking about kicking Ed’s ass eases my anger enough to answer the question that brought us here.

  “I am no longer working for the Unit.”

  “Excuse me if I’m skeptical. Running a retirement home is not exactly in your skill set.”

  “Phil left the Manor to me in his will.”

  “And Phil is who again? Besides dead?”

  I hide my face in my coffee mug for a good long swallow, thinking about how much to share. “Phil Evers was my partner, and yes, my lover, when I first joined the Unit. I hadn’t heard anything from him for years, but he brought me to the Manor on a rogue assignment, something the Unit wasn’t exactly in favor of. They eliminated him.”

  “Jesus, Maureen.”

  “That’s when I called and told you to get out of the country. Phil willed the Manor to me and it makes sense for me to live here, home not being an option.”

  I expect this rough summary to elicit more questions, but not the one Ed asks.

  “Do you realize you were never home? In all the years of our marriage, you spent more time hunting monsters than you spent with me. Even when you were home, your mind was somewhere else.”

  “Hunting monsters, Ed. Not men. Never Phil.”

  “Thank you for that.” He smiles, but his eyes are sad. “I always wondered.”

  “You never asked.” I take a bite of country fried steak. It’s perfect. Greasy, crunchy, salty, and as unhealthy as it comes. “I thought they might come after you to get to me. You’re safe for now, I think.”

  “That’s comforting. What on earth did you do?�
�

  “It’s what I didn’t do. The less you know the better.”

  “I’d like to be the judge of that. And I don’t believe for a minute you’re not still working.”

  It’s hard to lie to Ed, but not impossible. I level my gaze, focus all of my will and attention, and look directly into his eyes. “Why on earth would I work for a Unit that wanted to kill me?”

  “You wouldn’t. You’d try to get back at them for what they did to this Phil guy. And you don’t think that puts me and Glenda in danger? Jesus, Maureen, tell me the truth for once. Our entire marriage has been built around secrets.”

  “And its dissolution should yield sudden truth?”

  “Why not? Fresh start. Clean slate.”

  He’s right about the secrets. I never let myself wonder about his, as I wasn’t about to tell him mine. His choice of a new woman is certainly not something I had predicted. Looking at him now, sitting across from me in that tourist shirt, a bowl of oatmeal in front of him instead of bacon and eggs, he looks like a stranger. How can you be married to somebody for twenty-five years and not know them at all?

  “Maureen?”

  I realize that I’ve been staring, trying to reconstruct the foreign lines of his face into familiar territory. I’d like to tell him the truth now, one last gift, the closest thing to an apology he’ll ever get from me.

  I can’t. It might get him killed.

  The truth has been an invisible guillotine hovering over my head for thirty years, since the day Phil and I walked away from a paranormal research program we judged to be unethical and evil. The price of our freedom—and our lives—was our silence.

  I kept mine.

  Phil didn’t. He went underground and staged a resistance that finally, after thirty years, got him killed. His death drives me now, along with the deaths of innocent civilians killed by monsters the Unit created in a project they are still trying to hush up. I’m motivated by guilt. Revenge. Reparation.

  In light of all this, Ed’s questions, the fate of our marriage, are small considerations. He’s going to have to make friends with his questions.

  “That’s it, Ed. There’s nothing else to tell. Rather sad and boring, really. I’m not working for the Unit. I’m running the Manor to stay busy.”

  “So that’s it, then?”

  “That’s it.”

  I watch acceptance settle over him. Not belief—he knows full well I’m not telling him the truth—but acknowledgment that nothing is about to change between us. He pushes back his plate, wipes his lips with his napkin, carefully folds it, and lines it up beside his bowl.

  “I should be getting back to Glenda.”

  We drive back to the Manor in silence.

  “Goodbye, Maureen. Try not to get yourself killed.” Ed leans over and kisses my cheek, and then he’s gone, walking away from me toward the Manor, toward his new woman and his new life.

  I open my window and call him back.

  “Ed!”

  He turns his head back over his shoulder, slows his steps, but keeps walking.

  “If I die suddenly, you might want to consider an ex-pat community. Belize, maybe. Or France.”

  “Jesus, Maureen,” he says. He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t come back. Doesn’t even tell me to make an effort to stay safe.

  When the front door of the Manor closes behind him, loss hits me hard enough to steal my breath away, but it only lasts a minute. I would suffocate in the domesticated air of the life he deserves, has deserved all these years. I have work to do. First on the list is the task of thwarting the Middle School Invasion.

  Chapter Eleven

  Joanna Schrader, sixth-grade teacher at Shadow Valley Middle School, is teaching a class and unavailable to come to the phone. The young woman who takes my call is either challenged in the department of brains, or hoping I’ll change my message. Or both.

  “Are you sure?” she asks me, after I’ve repeated myself for the third time.

  “I’m sure. Maybe next year.”

  “Mrs. Schrader was planning on today.”

  “Yes. Which is why I am calling. The dinner at the Manor is off. There has been a complication.”

  Silence on the other end, marked by panicked breathing.

  “Hello? Can you give her the message?”

  “I can’t tell her that.”

  I’m out of patience. “It’s pretty straightforward.”

  “You don’t understand,” the girl says.

  “Tell Mrs. Schrader not to shoot the messenger and—”

  “Oh, God. Do you think she would? Shoot me, I mean? I know she’ll be mad, but. Oh, God. I can’t—”

  “Look. She’s not going to shoot you. Write it down on a piece of paper. Leave it on her desk. Don’t sign your name. Just make sure she gets it, okay?”

  “But—”

  I hang up. Putting Joanna Schrader and the Middle School Invasion out of my mind, I get to work on letting the rest of the team know the plan.

  Their enthusiasm is lacking.

  “You told Mrs. Schrader what?” Jake sounds incredulous over the phone. “I don’t think anybody has ever told her no before. To anything.”

  “Who is this woman that she has everybody cowering in terror? An ogress? Does she boil kids and eat them for dinner?”

  “You haven’t met her,” is Jake’s response. “It’s your funeral, Maureen. I can meet you in the lab at three.”

  “What am I going to do with all the food?” Matt asks, when I tell him. He doesn’t know Mrs. Schrader, so at least it’s not another fear reaction.

  “Freeze it. Make it into multiple meals. I don’t know, Matt, you’re the cook.”

  I’m rewarded with a glare at first, but then his eyes light up and he grins. “A good ghost hunt should be fun. Do you have equipment? What’s the plan?”

  “Jake will be here at three. Meet us in the lab.”

  Matt’s face clouds over. “I still have to make dinner for the residents.”

  “Pizza,” I tell him. “Order it now. Talk them into delivery.”

  “What’s this about pizza?”

  Jill stands in the kitchen doorway. She’s made a dramatic recovery. Gone are the dark glasses. Her hair’s been washed and twisted into a sleek knob at the back of her head. She’s wearing black spandex, an outfit that might be meant as exercise gear, but to my eyes all she needs is a mask to fit the role of a B-movie cat burglar. She smiles at Matt—Phil’s smile, the one designed to charm and disarm—and insinuates herself between us, directly in his line of vision.

  “I haven’t had pizza in so many years. They don’t make it right in France. Can I help?”

  “We’re ordering it in, Jillian. Matt’s busy.”

  “I could still help,” she says, ignoring me. “With ordering pizza. Or food preparation. I’m good with a knife.”

  “I was thinking we’d get you up to your dad’s place today,” I tell her.

  “I’m not ready.” Two perfectly matched crystal tears well up and spill onto her cheeks. She turns her head so the light catches them and sniffs pathetically. “I need distraction. Let me do some work in the kitchen.”

  I haven’t had a chance to warn Matt about Jill, and I hesitate. I have things to do and if she’s with him, at least she’s not under my feet. He has skills; he should be able to handle her.

  My gut doesn’t sit right with this, but she who hesitates is lost.

  “What I’m going to do,” Matt says, with a caustic glance in my direction, “is chop up all of this turkey breast I was going to cook for the middle school dinner and put it in the freezer.”

  “Let me help you,” Jill pleads.

  “Awesome.” Matt pulls a knife out of his stash and hands it to her. My eyes gravitate to the sight of a sharp blade in those hands, and I can’t suppress a quick flashback. Pain, blood, a whole lot of drama. Another memory, another body, this time Matt’s handiwork, comes into my mind. I shrug. Matt’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. Maybe the two of t
hem even deserve each other.

  “Play nice, kids,” is all I say.

  I’ve got a lot to do before we go ghost hunting, but, as usual, the universe has plans of its own that get in the way. When I get back to my suite, the door is unlocked. Considering that it takes five different keys to get in, this is more disturbing than if it had been broken or breached.

  I spin the chamber in my revolver so the silver bullet will be up first. I loosen the knife in my ankle sheath and the one I carry at my hip. Then I ease the doorknob around and kick the door open with my foot, staying sheltered in the hallway with my back flat against the wall.

  No sound. No movement.

  All I can see is a whole lot of chaos, just like I left it: packing boxes and random furniture strewn about without rhyme or reason. My own breath held, I can hear panting. Not human, then, whatever it is. I launch myself around the corner, finger on the trigger. Something four-legged and hairy hits me in the kneecaps and nearly knocks me off my feet.

  “Don’t shoot!” Sophie’s voice calls out from the chair at the obscured corner of the room.

  The furry creature, which is nothing more than Morpheus, dances around my feet, whining and wagging his tail. Sophie sits in the chair, Anubis curled in her lap. Both sets of green eyes fix me with a glare.

  “Put that thing away before somebody gets hurt.” She sounds like my mother, which does nothing to settle all the fight-fueled adrenaline coursing around in my body.

  “If you’re going to make a habit of barging in like this, I’ll get you a set of keys.”

  “Obviously I’ve already made one.”

  Obviously. I open my mouth to unleash a torrent of sarcasm, but then she sniffles, and I look at her more closely. Her eyelids are swollen and red, all of the usual kohl liner washed away. A sodden wad of used tissues sits on the end table beside her.

  Hellfire and damnation. Preserve me from teenage girls and their emotions.

  I holster the gun. Slam the door. Slide the deadbolts into place.

  “What’s happened?”

  Her only answer is more sniffling. Morpheus trots over to lie down at her feet, licking her hand. Anubis swears and swats at him.