Dark Companion

by Marta Acosta

  Claire opened a drawer of the desk and brought out a hunting knife. “I’d like to know that, too. I left her body in the grove after I saw her with my man. Give me your phone.”

  I took it out of my pocket and she snatched it from me. “BB and Mr. Mason?”

  “Oh, please. I could barely tolerate Albert! The Family chose him for me because he’d put up with any amount of abuse,” Claire said. “BB decided that being Toby’s Companion was a better gig than dealing with his moody brat. Toby’s rich and not too demanding. He’d have kept me, old as I am, but Hyacinth decided to replace me.”

  “But Companions are for life.”

  “Our lives, not theirs. They live longer and if they want to upgrade us, there’s always another orphan girl.” She ran her finger along the knife’s blade. “Hyacinth was petrified that I might do the impossible and carry one of Toby’s babies to full-term. Then he’d be mine forever.”

  Don’t show fear. “I wasn’t brought here to replace you, Claire.”

  “I saw the way Toby was looking at you the night he walked you home. He likes young blood, smooth new skin.” She set the knife on the desk and lifted her sweater so I could see her torso. At first I thought she was wearing a sheer embroidered top. Then I realized that the pale raised lines were an intricate network of scars. She stroked her skin, letting her fingers run along the ridges. “I remember each one, each time, Jane.”

  Talk respectfully. “They’re a map of your love for him, love that is like poison.” Claire stared at me, and I saw the pain and surprise in her eyes. I needed her to like me. “I found your letter to Mr. Mason. Your words haunted me because … because we’re alike. We know things. We’ve lived things, horrible things that no child should ever have to endure. They talk about ‘deserving.’ They say, ‘You deserve to be here.’ Does that mean we deserved our suffering, too?”

  “They say, ‘You’re special, we’ll take care of you,’” Claire sneered. “Where the hell were they when my parents locked me in a closet for days?”

  “Where were they when my mother was being beaten by a vicious drunk? I couldn’t do anything.” Memories I had repressed for a decade came rushing at me. I remembered my stepfather’s fists, his shouting, my mother’s screams, and the way she drew him away to protect me from his blows.

  I remembered packed bags by the front door. We were going to run away and she’d whispered, “Shush, shush, be quiet! It will be all right.” But he’d caught us.

  I said, “No one stopped him and I couldn’t do anything. I was too small to stop him from beating her. I was too afraid of him, and no one would help us.”

  “He deserved to die, Jane. Even a child can kill a man. You go to the library and find a book about human anatomy. You wait until the bastards are passed out. The throat is good and under the ribs, too. The eye requires precision. You use the anger you have from the times they beat you and left you cold and hungry, and those times were better than when they traded you for meth or to pay for a lost bet.”

  “Oh, Claire.”

  “We do what we have to do to survive.” She picked up the knife again.

  “BB was only doing what was necessary, the same as us, Claire.”

  “She should have settled for Lucky. He was gone the weekend I came back. I watched BB in the grove with Toby. I watched him drinking from her and listened to her telling him she wanted to be his. Afterward, I tried to talk her into leaving. But she wouldn’t and things got … out of hand.”

  “The Radcliffes don’t know you’re alive, do they? Then you’re in the clear. You can leave and start over.”

  “That was my plan. I have one thing to do first: take from Hyacinth the thing she loves best, the thing I never had, Toby’s child.”

  “Jack,” I whispered, horrified.

  “Jack? No, he’s not even one of them. Who knows what he is.” Claire stabbed the desk with the knife. “Lucky. He and Albert are knocked out and tied up in the auditorium. I was going to set it up to look like Lucky killed Albert by draining him of blood, and then killed himself in self-loathing. It would destroy Hyacinth.” Claire gloated. “But I didn’t expect you to show up tonight.”

  “You don’t want to kill me, Claire.”

  “Oh, yes, I do. I would have done it before, but Jack spent nights sleeping near your cottage. Toby must have sent him there to guard you.”

  In my terror, I felt a sense of elation—Jack had watched out for me! Colors and sounds became sharper and adrenaline shivered through me. My mind raced as I tried to figure out how to save Lucky and Mr. Mason—and get back to Jack. “I can be helpful to you, Claire—unless you’ve lived with the rich people so long you’re used to throwing valuable things away, the way they do.”

  She tilted her head and deliberated for a few seconds. “If you can think of a way that we can both benefit from this situation, I’ll consider letting you live. It will be a pop quiz and you must present an equation that solves for X, which is the sum of A, dead Albert, plus B, dead Lucky. Bonus points for constructing a scenario implicating Lucky in BB’s murder. However, selling Lucky to the hunters is not an option. Death is better than that.”

  “Who are the hunters?”

  “Different groups at different times, but there are always hunters.”

  “May I use a paper and pencil?”

  “Be my guest.” Claire waved the knife toward one of the lab tables, where there was a stack of papers and a box of pencils. “You have fifteen minutes starting now!”

  I limped toward the table, leaning heavily on the branch. I remembered sitting here for the first time and Mary Violet’s cheery lilting voice telling me, “Knowledge is power.”

  I faltered clumsily and clutched at the wooden stand with the old cloth periodic table, knocking it over so that it fell between me and Claire. “Sorry!”

  “Tick tock, Jane, tick tock.”

  A beaker of water had been left on a table. I took a pencil and several sheets of paper and sat down. I feigned that I was figuring out an answer, scribbling on pages before crumpling them. I tossed the pages on the chart until there was a small pile.

  “You’ve got five minutes left, Jane.”

  “Almost done. There are so many variables.” I stood and pretended that I was going over my calculations.

  Then, while Claire was examining BB’s mementos, I lunged toward the shelf of chemicals. I grabbed the jar with mineral oil encasing a lump of potassium with its red oxidized edge. I hurled the jar at the fallen cloth chart and crumpled papers. As it shattered, I threw the beaker of water on it, praying that my aim would be good enough. The instant the water splashed away the oil, the reactive metal combusted in a dazzling burst of violet flames.

  “Damn you!” Claire shouted, and came toward me with the knife. I pushed chairs down to block her and threw more bottles of chemicals toward the burning cloth.

  By the time Claire got to me, the entire chart was aflame. I gripped my stick in both hands and struck her knees with all my strength. The blow made her scream in anger and lurch to the side, but she kept hold of the knife.

  I smashed a bottle of alcohol at her feet. The alcohol splattered across her shoes and pants and spilled across the floor to the fire. In less than a second, the flames crawled back to Claire and swarmed up her legs. She shrieked and fell, trying to roll and suffocate the blaze.

  I used the stick to knock over the bottles of acids, sulfates, alcohols, chlorides … For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and everything that was flammable ignited, and everything that was combustible exploded.

  Claire’s screaming was an unholy sound. The sprinkler system went off and water fell, but not enough to douse the flames. The fire devoured the oxygen and light, and the noise was thunderous—crashing, creaking, rumbling. I scuttled toward the windows holding my breath against the scorching, poisonous air, dragging the branch with me.

  I hauled myself up and opened a window. The air rushed in, feeding the voracious fire, and the flam
es blazed fiercer than before. I climbed onto the window ledge and surveyed the dark trees below me.

  The sprinklers rained down, the screaming, the explosions, my terror, and the trees below … the incredible trees …

  And I finally remembered everything.

  Come away, O human child!

  To the waters and the wild

  With a faery, hand in hand,

  For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

  William Butler Yeats, “The Stolen Child” (1886)

  Chapter 34

  On the night that I die, the storm raging outside is not as fierce as my stepfather raging inside.

  His hand is so sweaty that I am able to pull out of his grip. I run through the kitchen, past my mother’s body. My foot slides in the pool of scarlet blood on the cracked yellow linoleum floor. I wrench open the back door and run outside.

  The darkness is unfathomable and rain beats down and I am small and terrified.

  “Come back here!” my stepfather bellows, and his heavy steps splash through the mud as he comes after me.

  The neglected yard is fenced, and he is closer to the gate leading to the street than I am. I slosh toward my secret place among three enormous trees at the far end of the yard. It is too dark to see, yet I know when I have reached the largest, and I creep around it, hiding behind the wide trunk.

  “Jane!”

  Though I can’t hear his movements, I know he’s somewhere near. I peer around the tree trunk as lightning flashes, briefly illuminating the monster that he’s become.

  His face is contorted by madness, and his sweatshirt is soaked with my mother’s blood and rain. The dull metal of a gun glints in his hand.

  I shake uncontrollably with fear. I move behind another tree and grip the rough bark, struggling to climb, but the smooth soles of my sneakers slide and even the lowest branches are beyond my grasp.

  An earsplitting blast stuns me and throws me back against the third tree. I think it’s lightning. A second later, pain radiates from below my shoulder to every part of my body. My knees buckle with the agony. I know that if I fall to the ground, I will die.

  I twist my body toward the tree and blood seeps from my shoulder to the trunk, and the rain washes it down to the soil, the tree’s roots. Help me, I think, help me.

  As I begin to black out, I feel arms—no, not arms. I feel something take me and lift me high into the wet green branches.

  Lightning explodes, deafening me and cleansing the air with pure ozone. In that burst of brilliant white light, I gaze far down to the yard and see my stepfather’s body jerk violently as electricity rips through him.

  Later, I hear the sirens approaching and then the voices amplified by bullhorns. The storm has passed and the rain falls through the branches in a soft drizzle. I want to sleep.

  “The girl, the neighbors say there’s a kid here,” someone says.

  They call my name and I hear them rushing through the house and into the yard. “Jane! Jane!”

  I don’t answer because I am safe.

  “Here,” a man says. “A shoe.”

  They are close now and they move below me. A woman says, “On the tree. Blood. Oh, God, a lot of blood.”

  “Where does it lead?”

  “Up. Is there something up there? Turn the light this way.”

  “Where?”

  “In the tree! Way up there.”

  I nestle closer to the trunk, so they won’t find me. I feel as if I’m drifting somewhere.

  Then the pain in my body vanishes. I can’t hear the noise or the voices any longer.

  I open my eyes and I’m in a glorious shady wood. I inhale air that smells of green things—pine, cedar, newly cut grass, sage and mint, the aromatic anise scent of wild fennel. I want to stay here forever.

  I see someone coming toward me. I know she’s a woman by her gentle movements, but she’s not human. Her dress falls down to the brown earth and tendrils of the hem burrow into the soil. I can feel her kindness and she begins leading me out of the lush world.

  “I don’t want to leave,” I tell her.

  “You’ve found the way here. You can find the way back whenever you need us,” she tells me in a language like wind. “Breathe, Jane.”

  I gasp and open my eyes. Pain suffuses my body. I’m lying on a hard surface and a cloth is covering me. Through it, I see flashing lights. I hear the crackle of voices on police radios, and someone is crying nearby.

  I push the cloth away with my right arm and a man shouts, “She’s alive! Oh, my God, she’s alive!”

  The sirens blare on the ride to the hospital, and I lose consciousness. When I wake next, I’m in a room, hooked up to IVs. Doctors talk nearby. One says, “Poor little thing. It would be best if she forgets what happened.”

  And so I had forgotten that night and everything before … until now.

  Just as I’d heard the sirens then, I heard them in the distance now. But they wouldn’t get to Birch Grove in time. Flames flicked out of the room to steal the air. I tried to breathe but my lungs hurt, my throat burned, the ledge was scorching. The thick dark branches of the trees seemed to be reaching up to me.

  I wasn’t afraid anymore because I believed the universe was beautiful and amazing.

  So I leaped off the ledge.

  There was a moment when I was suspended in air, like a feather on a breeze, and then I felt myself gently lowered and all around me I saw shades of green and brown. I was lying on the mossy bank of a shimmering stream. I inhaled deeply and the air had a delicious scent, verdant and earthy and sun-warmed like Jack, and I was in a lush forest. I stood and stretched, and then went to the stream, kneeling by it to drink the cold, pure water.

  Something, someone moved toward me, and despite all the years that had passed, I recognized her immediately. I smiled at her and she smiled at me.

  “You’re the Lady of the Wood.”

  “That is one of my names, Daughter.” Her voice was a silvery susurration.

  “I forgot about you. I thought I forgot about you, but you were in the birch that night.”

  Her arms swung gracefully. “I’ve been here since you arrived, waiting for you to open your eyes.”

  I looked at her dancing arms, her leafy dress, and her fine, smooth skin, and I sighed with deep contentment. “Why me—that first time, why me?”

  Her dress fluttered in a soft breeze. “You asked with a child’s pure heart. You opened a door, Daughter.”

  Someone far off called out, “Jane! Jane!” The Lady of the Wood swayed toward his voice, as if asking me a question.

  “Jack! I’m here, Jack!” I shouted, and then smiled at the Lady of the Wood. “I need to go back now. Will I ever see you again?”

  “The doors are everywhere, Daughter. You only have to look and believe. Until next time.”

  * * *

  I was suddenly lying on the ground and Jack was lifting his mouth from mine. His hand was on my chest and when I placed mine over it, his face lit up. “Halfling!”

  My throat felt like I’d swallowed burning coals as I rasped, “Lucky and Mr. Mason, auditorium, save them!” and then I let myself sink into sweet darkness.

  Sometime later I became aware of a wonderful coolness on my back. I was lying on the marble bench that faced the main building. Fire trucks and police cars crowded the drive and firefighters were being elevated on cranes toward the third floor.

  Everything glowed orange, reflecting the flames coming from the third floor of the school. The stone angels on the façade seemed to be rising from the apocalypse.

  Paramedics rushed toward me with medical equipment while they shouted instructions to each other. Jack was gripping my hand and watching them nervously.

  “Lucky and Mr. Mason?” I began, and then coughed painfully.

  “Jane!” Jack looked down at me with an amazed smile. “Lucky’s still groggy, and Uncle Albert is being treated now.” Then he shouted to the medical team, “She’s conscious again
!”

  Paramedics hurried to give me oxygen, but I pushed them away. “No, I’m fine, I’m okay.”

  A crack, sharp as a gunshot, pierced the night as a hunk of burning wall tumbled from the building.

  “You’re lucky your boyfriend got you away from the building and knew CPR,” a woman in a paramedic’s uniform said.

  “Not Lucky. Jack.” I took Jack’s hand. The paramedic wrapped a blanket around me as I began to shudder in my wet clothes.

  A firefighter who had been hovering behind the medics came forward and asked, “Miss, was there anyone else inside?”

  “Claire Mason was in the lab.”

  The firefighter shook his head and hurried back to talk to his crew.

  “We’re going to take you to the ER,” the paramedic said.

  “No.” When I tried to sit up, Jack put his arm around my back and supported me. I leaned against him.

  The paramedic told Jack, “We can treat her properly at the clinic and run diagnostics. Do you have her parents’ number?”

  “She’s an emancipated minor. She makes her own decisions.”

  “I can get the authorization to force her to go to the clinic.” The paramedic quickly checked my eyes, lungs, and pulse. Her experienced fingers discovered my telltale scabs. She turned to Jack. “Is she a Companion to the Radcliffe family?”

  “She’s our very special friend.”

  “That changes the situation.” The paramedic came close to my face and spoke in a quiet but clear voice. “You suffered smoke inhalation, which could be serious because of the noxious fumes. You might have pulmonary irritation as well. We can take you to our private clinic.”

  “I’ve spent enough time in hospitals and I don’t want to leave Jack.”

  “He can come with us. That fire ran hot and fast. It’s a miracle you got out. How did you get out?”

  “I jumped.”

  “You’d be dead if you jumped.” She looked at Jack. “Her thinking is confused and she needs to be seen by a specialist.”

  “Jane’s not confused. She’s magic. She’s a magical creature. If she doesn’t want to go, I’ll take care of her.”