He doesn’t stop walking toward the register. “Girlfriend. Sister. Cousin. Whatever.”
“Girlfriend,” I clarify, even though I don’t know why I’m clarifying. He obviously doesn’t care. “Did she come back in here last night? After we left?”
He makes his way behind the register. “We closed right after the two of you left.” He plants his gaze on mine and arches an eyebrow. “You gonna buy anything, or are you just gonna follow me around with stupid questions the rest of the night?”
I swallow. He makes me feel younger. Immature. He’s the epitome of man, and the bone in his eyebrow makes me feel like a frightened child.
Suck it up, Silas. You’re not a pussy.
“I just have one more stupid question.”
He begins ringing up a customer. He doesn’t respond, so I continue.
“What does Jamais Jamais mean?
He doesn’t even look at me.
“It means Never Never,” someone says from behind me.
I immediately turn, but my feet feel heavy, like I’ve sunken into my shoes. Never Never?
This can’t be a coincidence. Charlie and I repeat this phrase over and over in our letters.
I look at the woman the voice belongs to, and she’s staring at me, chin lifted, face straight. Her hair is pulled back. It’s dark, sporadically streaked with gray strands. She’s wearing a long, flowing piece of material that pools around her feet at the floor. I’m not even sure it’s a dress. It looks as if she just fashioned something out of a sheet and a sewing machine.
She has to be the tarot reader. She’s playing the part well.
“Where is that house located? The one in the photo on the wall?” I point to the photograph. She turns and stares at it for several long seconds. Without facing me again, she crooks her finger for me to follow her, and she begins to head toward the back of the store.
I reluctantly follow her. Before we pass through a doorway of beaded curtains, my phone begins to vibrate in my pants pocket. It rattles against my keys, and the woman turns and looks at me over her shoulder. “Turn it off.”
I look down at the screen and see that it’s my father again. I silence the phone. “I’m not here for a reading,” I clarify. “I’m just looking for someone.”
“The girl?” she says, taking a seat on the other side of a small table in the center of the room. She motions for me to sit, but I refuse the offer.
“Yes. We were here last night.”
She nods and begins to shuffle a deck of cards. “I remember,” she says. A small smirk plays at the corner of her mouth. I watch as she separates the cards into stacks. She lifts her head and her face is expressionless. “But that only makes one of us, doesn’t it.”
The statement sends chills over my arms. I take two quick steps forward and grab the back of the empty chair. “How do you know that?” I blurt out.
She motions to the chair again. This time I sit. I wait for her to speak again, to tell me what she knows. She’s the first one to be clued in to what’s happening to me.
My hands begin to shake. My pulse is throbbing behind my eyes. I squeeze them shut and pull my hands through my hair to hide my nerves. “Please,” I tell her. “If you know something, please tell me.”
She begins to shake her head slowly. Back and forth, back and forth. “It’s not that easy, Silas,” she says.
She knows my name. I want to scream Victory, but I still don’t have any answers.
“Last night, your card was blank. I’ve never seen that before.” She runs her hand across a stack of cards, smoothing them out in a line. “I’ve heard of it. We’ve all heard of it happening. But I don’t know anyone who has actually seen it.”
Blank card? I feel like I remember reading that in our notes, but it doesn’t help when I no longer have the notes in my possession. And who is she referring to when she says we’ve all heard of it.
“What does it mean? What can you tell me? How do I find Charlie?” My questions tumble out of my mouth and trip over each other.
“That picture,” she says. “Why are you so curious about that house?”
I open my mouth to tell her about the picture in Charlie’s room, but I clamp it shut. I don’t know if I can trust her. I don’t know her. She’s the first one to know what’s going on with me. That could be an answer, or it could be an indication of guilt. If Charlie and I are under some sort of spell, she’s probably one of the few who would know how to do something of that magnitude.
God, this is ridiculous. A spell? Why am I even allowing myself these thoughts?
“I was just curious about the name,” I say, lying to her about my inquiry of the house in the picture. “What else can you tell me?”
She continues realigning stacks of cards, never flipping them over. “What I can tell you…the only thing I will tell you…is that you need to remember what it is that someone so desperately wanted you to forget.” Her eyes meet mine, and she lifts her chin again. “You may go now. I am of no further help to you.”
She scoots away from the table and stands. Her frock bellows out with the swift movement, and the shoes she has on underneath make me question her authenticity. I would assume a gypsy would be barefoot. Or is she a witch? A wizard? Whatever she is, I want desperately to believe that she can help me more than she has. I can tell based on my hesitation that I’m not the type of person to buy into this shit. But my desperation is heavier than my skepticism. If it takes believing in dragons to find Charlie, then I’ll be the first to wield a sword in the face of its fire.
“There has to be something,” I tell her. “I can’t find Charlie. I can’t remember anything. I don’t even know where to start looking. You have to give me more information than this.” I stand, my voice desperate and my eyes even more so.
She simply tilts her head and smiles.
“Silas, the answers to your questions lie with someone who is very close to you.” She points to the doorway. “You may go now. You have a lot of searching to do.”
Very close to me?
My father? Landon? Who else am I close with besides Charlie? I glance at the beaded curtains and then back at her. She’s already walking away, toward a door in the back of the building. I watch her as she leaves.
I run my hands up my face. I want to scream.
When I wake up, everything is clean. No rice, no sausage, no shards of porcelain to cut a bitch.
Whoa! Where did that come from? I feel loopy. She’s got this timed down to a T.
Knock Sammy out, bring her crappy food, knock Sammy out, bring her crappy food.
But this time when she returns, she doesn’t have crappy food. She’s carrying a towel and a small bar of soap.
Finally! A restroom.
“Shower time,” she says. She’s not as friendly this time. Her mouth is a tight line across her face. I stand up, expecting to sway a little. The needle to the neck was stronger than the other stuff they’ve been giving me, but I don’t feel as foggy. My mind is sharp; my body is ready to react.
“Why are you the only one who comes?” I say. “If you’re a nurse, you must work in shifts.”
She turns away, walks to the door.
“Hello…?”
“Behave,” she says. “Next time things won’t go as well for you.”
I shut my mouth because she’s taking me out of this box, and I really, really want to see what’s behind that door.
She opens the door and lets me walk out first. There’s another door in front of me. I’m confused. She turns right and I see there’s a hallway. Just to my right is a bathroom. I haven’t used the toilet in hours, and the minute I see it my bladder starts to ache. She hands me the towel. “Shower only has cold water. Don’t take long.”
I close the door. It’s like a bunker. No windows, raw concrete. The toilet doesn’t have a lid or a seat, just a rimless hole with a sink next to it. I use it anyway.
On top of the sink is a new hospital gown and underwear. I study everything as
I pee, looking for something. Anything. There’s a rusted pipe near the floor, jutting out of the wall. I flush the toilet and move toward it. Sticking my hand inside, I feel around. Gross. A piece of the pipe has corroded away.
I go to turn the water on in the shower in case she’s listening. It’s a tiny little bit of metal, but with some effort I’m able to detach it from the wall. It’s something, at least.
I carry it in the shower with me, holding it in one hand while I wash. The water is so cold; I can’t stop my teeth from chattering. I try to clench my jaw tighter, but my teeth still rattle inside my head despite how much I try to still them.
How pathetic am I? I have no control over my own teeth. No control over my own memories. No control over when I eat, sleep, shower or pee.
The only thing I feel I can control is my eventual escape from wherever it is that I am. I clutch the pipe in my hands with all my strength, knowing it could be the only thing that gets me back some form of control.
When I walk out of the bathroom, it’s wrapped in toilet paper and stuffed in my underwear, a simple pair of white panties she left for me. I don’t have a plan yet; I’ll just wait for the right moment.
It’s dark now. I’ve been driving for over two hours without a clue as to where to go next. I can’t go back home. I can’t go to Charlie’s house. I don’t know anyone else, so the only thing I can do is drive.
I have eight missed calls. Two are from Landon. One from Janette.
The rest are from my father.
I also have eight voicemails, none of which I’ve listened to yet. I don’t want to worry about any of them right now. None of them have any clue what’s really going on, and no one would believe me if I told them. I don’t blame them. I keep repeating the entire day in my head, and it seems too ridiculous for me to even believe—and I’m the one living it.
It’s all too ridiculous, but way too real.
I pull over at a gas station to fill up my car. I’m not even sure if I’ve eaten anything today, but I feel light-headed, so I grab a bag of chips and a bottle of water while inside the store.
The entire time I fill my tank with gas, I wonder about Charlie.
When I’m back on the road, I’m still wondering about Charlie.
I wonder if Charlie’s eaten anything.
I wonder if she’s alone.
I wonder if she’s being taken care of.
I wonder how I’m possibly supposed to find her when she could be anywhere in the entire world right now. All I’m doing is driving in circles, slowing every time I pass a girl walking on a sidewalk. I don’t know where to look. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know how to be the guy who saves her.
I wonder what people do when they have no place to go and no place to be.
I wonder if this is what it’s like to be crazy. Certifiably insane. I feel as though I have absolutely zero control over my own mind.
And if I’m not the one in control…who is?
My phone rings again. I look at the caller ID and see that it’s Landon. I don’t know why I pick it up to answer it. Maybe I’m just tired of being inside my own head and not getting any answers. I pull over to the side of the road to talk to him.
“Hello?”
“Please tell me what the hell is going on.”
“Can anyone hear you?”
“No,” he says. “The game just ended. Dad is talking to the police. Everyone’s worried about you, Silas.”
I don’t respond. I feel bad that they’re worried, but even worse that no one seems to be worried about Charlie.
“Have they found Charlie yet?”
I can hear people shouting in the background. It sounds like he called me the second the game ended. “They’re looking,” he says.
But there’s something else in his voice. Something unspoken.
“What is it, Landon?”
He sighs again. “Silas…they’re looking for you too. They think…” His voice is heavy with worry. “They think you know where she is.”
I close my eyes. I knew this would happen. I wipe my palms down my jeans. “I don’t know where she is.”
Several seconds pass before Landon speaks again. “Janette went to the police. She said she thought you were acting strange, so when she found Charlie’s things in a backpack inside your gym locker, she turned them in to the police. You had her wallet, Silas. And her phone.”
“Finding Charlie’s things in my possession is hardly proof that I’m responsible for her disappearance. It’s proof that I’m her boyfriend.”
“Come home,” he says. “Tell them you have nothing to hide. Answer their questions. If you cooperate, they’ll have no reason to accuse you.”
Ha. If only answering their questions was that easy.
“Do you think I have something to do with her disappearance?”
“Do you?” he asks immediately.
“No.”
“Then no,” he says. “I don’t think you have anything to do with it. Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
I hear a muffled noise, like he’s covering the phone with his hand. I can hear voices in the background.
“Did you get hold of him?” a man asks.
“Still trying, Dad,” Landon says.
More muttering.
“You there, Silas?” he asks.
“Yeah. I have a question,” I say. “Have you ever heard of a place called Jamais Jamais?”
Silence. I wait for him to respond, but he doesn’t.
“Landon? Have you heard of it?”
Another heavy sigh. “It’s Charlie’s old house, Silas. What the hell is wrong with you? You’re on drugs, aren’t you? Jesus Christ, Silas. What the hell did you take? Is that what happened to Charlie? Is that why…”
I hang up the phone while he’s still in the middle of spouting off questions. I search Brett Wynwood’s home address on the Internet. It takes me a while, but two addresses pop up in the results. One I remember, because I was just there earlier today. It’s where Charlie lives now.
The other is one I don’t recognize.
It’s the address to Jamais Jamais.
THE HOUSE SITS ON SIX ACRES, OVERLOOKING LAKE BORGNE. IT WAS BUILT IN 1860, EXACTLY ONE YEAR BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR BEGAN. THE HOUSE WAS ORIGINALLY NAMED “LA TERRE RENCONTRE L'EAU,” WHICH MEANS “LAND MEETS WATER.”
IT WAS USED AS A HOSPITAL DURING THE WAR, HOUSING WOUNDED CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS. YEARS AFTER THE WAR, THE HOUSE WAS PURCHASED BY A BANKER, FRANK WYNWOOD, IN 1880. THE HOME REMAINED IN THE FAMILY, PASSED DOWN THREE GENERATIONS, ULTIMATELY LANDING IN THE HANDS OF THEN THIRTY-YEAR-OLD BRETT WYNWOOD IN 1998.
BRETT WYNWOOD AND HIS FAMILY OCCUPIED THE HOME UNTIL 2005, WHEN HURRICANE KATRINA CAUSED EXTENSIVE DAMAGE TO THE PROPERTY. THE FAMILY WAS FORCED TO ABANDON THE HOME, AND IT SAT UNTOUCHED FOR SEVERAL YEARS BEFORE RENOVATIONS BEGAN. THE ENTIRE HOUSE WAS GUTTED AND REBUILT, WITH ONLY PORTIONS OF THE ORIGINAL OUTER WALLS AND ROOF SALVAGED.
IN 2011, THE WYNWOOD FAMILY MOVED BACK INTO THEIR HOME. DURING THE UNVEILING, BRETT WYNWOOD ANNOUNCED THE HOME HAD BEEN GIVEN A NEW NAME: “JAMAIS JAMAIS.”
WHEN ASKED WHY HE CHOSE THE FRENCH TRANSLATION OF NEVER NEVER, HE SAYS HIS DAUGHTER, FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD CHARLIZE WYNWOOD, ACTUALLY DECIDED ON THE NAME. “SHE SAYS IT’S AN HOMAGE TO FAMILY HISTORY. NEVER FORGET THOSE WHO PAVED THE WAY BEFORE YOU. NEVER STOP TRYING TO BETTER THE WORLD FOR THOSE WHO WILL INHABIT IT AFTER YOU.”
THE WYNWOOD FAMILY OCCUPIED THE HOME UNTIL 2013, WHEN IT WENT INTO FORECLOSURE FOLLOWING AN INVESTIGATION INTO WYNWOOD-NASH FINANCIAL GROUP. THE HOME WAS SOLD IN AUCTION IN LATE 2013 TO AN ANONYMOUS BIDDER.
I add the page to my favorites in my phone and make a note of the article. I found it after I pulled up to the property—right up to the locked gate.
The height of the gate is impressive, as if it’s letting visitors know that the people beyond this gate are mightier than the people who are not.
I wonder if that’s how Charlie’s father felt livi
ng here. I wonder how mighty he felt when someone else took ownership of the property that’s been in his family for generations.
The property is located at the end of an isolated road, as if the road belongs to the gate, too. After attempting to find a way around or through the gate, I conclude that there isn’t one. It’s dark now, so I could be missing a path or an alternate entrance. I’m not even sure why I want past the gate, but I can’t help but feel like the pictures of this property are clues.
Considering I’m wanted for questioning, it’s probably best if I don’t drive around any more than I have to tonight, so I decide to stay here until morning. I turn off my car. If I’m going to be worth anything tomorrow, I need to try and get at least a few hours of sleep.
I lean my seat back, close my eyes and wonder if I’m going to dream tonight. I don’t even know what I would dream about. I can’t dream if I don’t sleep, and I have a feeling falling asleep tonight is going to be impossible.
My eyes flick back open with that thought.
The video.
In one of my letters, I mentioned falling asleep to a video of Charlie sleeping. I search my phone until I find it. I press play and wait to hear Charlie’s voice for the first time.
More sleeping.
Not because of pills this time. I pretended to swallow them and kept them in my cheek. She stayed so long they were starting to dissolve. As soon as the door closed behind her, I spit them into my hand.
No more drowsiness. I need to be clear of mind.
I slept of my own accord and had more dreams earlier. Dreams of the same guy as in the first dream. Or should I say the first memory? In my dream, the guy was leading me through a dirty street. He wasn’t looking at me, he was looking ahead, his whole body pulling forward like some invisible force had hold of him. In his left hand was a camera. He stopped suddenly and looked across the street. I followed his gaze.
“There,” he said. “Look.”
But I didn’t want to look. I turned my back on what he was seeing, looked at a wall instead. Then all of a sudden, his hand was no longer in mine. I turned and watched him cross the street and approach a woman sitting cross-legged against a wall. In her arms she cradled a tiny baby wrapped in a woolen blanket. The guy crouched down in front of her. They spoke for a long time. He handed her something and she smiled. When he stood up, the baby started to cry. That’s when he snapped the picture.
Never Never: The Complete Series Page 19
