Ned didn’t feel like looking at fountains. He knew what he did need to do. Greg was going back up to the villa to upload the digitals from this morning and check them on the monitor. He was also going to confirm by phone the arrangements for shooting in Arles, about an hour away, the day after tomorrow.
Melanie handed Greg detailed instructions about that, printed in her usual green ink. Ned saw a smiley face at the bottom of the card. He was pleased to see he wasn’t the only one she did that to.
He rode back with Greg in the van, changed into a faded-out grey T-shirt, and shorts, clipped on his water bottle and pedometer, put the iPod in its armband, and went for a run. He had essays to write here, and a training log to complete for his track coach. Both were homework, really.
The running was better.
Melanie had told him the night before that if he went down their laneway and turned right at the road instead of left towards town, then kept going as it curved back uphill, he’d end up eventually where the road ended at some area where people biked and jogged in the countryside. She said there was supposed to be an old tower up there to look at.
It irritated him, as usual, that she was organized to the point of planning his training routes, but he had no better idea where to go, and there wasn’t a good reason not to try that path.
It was a steep downhill on their little road past the other villas, and then steadily back up for a long, winding way along the ridge above. Up-and-down was good, of course. Ned ran on the cross-country team, this was what he needed.
He’d begun to think he’d gone wrong before he finally came to the car barrier. On the other side of it he found the trail. There were arrows on a wooden pole pointing one way towards a village called Vauvenargues and in the other direction to that tower Melanie had mentioned. Someone went by on a mountain bike towards Vauvenargues. Ned went the other way.
The tower wasn’t far. The trail continued down and around it towards the northern edges of Aix, it looked like. Ned didn’t like to stop during a run, no one did, but the view from up here was pretty cool and so was the round, ruined lookout tower. He wondered how old it was.
This whole place was just saturated in the past, he thought. Layers and layers of it. It could get to you, one way or another. He took off the earbuds and drank some water.
There was a low, really lame fence around the tower. A sign said it was dangerous to cross and a bigger fence had been authorized and was coming, but there was no one in sight now so Ned went over the railing and then he bent and stepped into the tower through a crumbled opening in the honey-coloured stones.
It was dark inside after the sunlight. There was no door anywhere, just the one broken opening. He looked up in a high, empty space. He could see the sky a long way above, a small circle of blue-black. It was as if he were at the bottom of a well. There were probably bats, he thought. There must have been a stairway once, winding up, but there was nothing now. He wondered what this had guarded against, what they’d been watching for up here.
He felt himself cooling down too much in the shade, not good. You pulled muscles that way. He stepped back into the sunshine, blinking, and gazed down at the city. There was an aqueduct in the distance, on the far side of Aix, vividly clear. After a moment, Ned spotted the bell tower of the cathedral in the middle of town, and that brought him back to this morning. He was nowhere close to wanting that.
He turned and started running again, back the way he’d come, but with the stop and cooling down and jet lag, he had lost his rhythm. He found it harder going than he should have, past the car barrier and downhill now along the road. It was a good jogging route, though, had to give Melanie credit. Next time he could go the other way at the signpost, keep going, log his proper distance.
He was halfway back up their own steep road, leading to Villa Sans Souci at the top, when he realized something.
He stopped running, having actually shocked himself.
Why now? he had said, and the man in the grey leather jacket hadn’t replied. Maybe Ned had an answer, after all. Maybe it even mattered, for the first time, that when she was alive his grandmother had told him some of her old stories.
Ned walked thoughtfully up the last part of the hill and punched the gate code to get onto the property. He paced up and down the terrace for a bit, stretching. He thought about jumping in the pool, but it wasn’t that warm, and he went upstairs and showered instead, dropping his clothes in the hamper for the cleaning help. The villa had been rented with two women to work for them. Both were named Vera, which made for challenges. Greg had named them Veracook and Veraclean.
Pulling on his jeans, Ned went down and into the kitchen. He got a Coke from the fridge. Veracook, clad in black, grey hair pulled tightly in a bun, was there. She had baked some kind of hard biscuits. He took one. From by the stove, she smiled approval.
Greg was on his cellphone in front of the computer in the dining room, so the house line was free. Ned went back upstairs and into his father’s bedroom and dialed the mobile number Kate Wenger had given him.
“Bonjour?”
“Um, hi, I’m looking for Marie-Chantal.”
“Screw you, Ned.” But she laughed. “Miss me already? How sweet.”
He felt himself flush, was glad she couldn’t see it. “I just came in from a run. Um, I realized something.”
“That you did miss me? I’m flattered.” She was sassy on the phone, he thought. He wondered how she was on IM or texting. Everyone got looser online.
“No, listen. Um, it’s April thirtieth on Thursday. Then May Day.”
Kate was silent. He was wondering if he’d have to explain, then heard her say, “Jeez, Ned. Beltaine? That’s a major deal. Ghosts and souls, like Hallowe’en. How do you know this? You a closet nerd?”
“My mom’s family’s from Wales. My grandmother told me some of this stuff. We used to go on a picnic sometimes, on the first of May.”
“Want to go on a picnic?”
“If you bring Marie-Chantal.” He hesitated. “Kate, where were the Celts around here? Were they here?”
“Yeah, they were. I can find out where.”
“I can, too, I guess.”
“No, you leave the heavy lifting to me, Grasshopper. You just keep running and hopping. See you tomorrow after school?”
“See you.” He hung up, grinning in spite of himself. It was nice, he thought, to meet a girl in a situation where he didn’t have to explain her, or what was going down, to the other guys. Privacy, that was the thing. You didn’t get a lot of it back home.
THEY HAD DINNER at the villa, French time: after eight o’clock. The clear understanding, Melanie explained seriously, was that they had to eat here every so often or Veracook would get insulted and depressed (“Veradepressed!” Greg said) and start burning their food and stuff like that.
Before they ate, Ned’s father took a vodka and tonic out on the terrace while the others went into the pool. Melanie, tiny as she was, looked pretty good in a bathing suit, Ned decided. She made a big deal about the water being freezing cold (it was) but got herself in. Steve was a swimmer, had the long arms and legs. He was methodically doing laps, or trying to—the pool wasn’t really big enough.
As Ned and his father sat watching them, Greg suddenly burst through the terrace doors, sprang down the wide stone steps, across the grass, and cannonballed into the water, wearing the baggiest, most worn-out bathing suit Ned had ever seen.
Edward Marriner, laughing, offered an immediate pay bonus if Greg promised to use their next coffee break to buy a new swimsuit in town and spare them the sight of this one again. Melanie shouted a suggestion that Greg could skinny-dip if he wanted to save the money. Greg, splashing and whooping in the frigid water, threatened to take her up on it.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she said.
“And why not?”
Melanie laughed. “Shrinkage in cold water. Male pride. End of story.”
“You have,” Greg said after a moment, “a
point.” Steve, who had stopped his laps, laughed aloud.
Up on the terrace, Ned looked at his father and they exchanged a smile.
“You okay so far?” his dad asked.
“I’m good.”
A small hesitation. “Mom’ll call tomorrow.”
“I know.”
They looked at the others in the water. “Veracook will have decided they are insane,” Edward Marriner said.
“She’d have figured it out eventually,” said Ned.
They left it at that. They didn’t talk a whole lot these days. Ned had overheard a couple of his parents’ conversations at night about “fifteen years old” and “mood swings.” It had made him think about being totally affectionate for a couple of weeks, just to mess with their heads, but it felt like too much work.
Ned didn’t mind his father, though. It got old after a while watching people go drop-jawed, the way Kate Wenger had, when they learned who he was, but that wasn’t anyone’s fault, really. Mountains and Gods was one of the best-selling photography books of the past ten years, and Passageways, though less flashy (it didn’t have the Himalayas, his dad used to say), had won awards all over the place. His father was one of the few people who took pictures for both Vanity Fair and National Geographic. You had to admit that was cool, if only to yourself.
When the others came shivering out of the pool to dry off, Melanie said, “Hold it a sec. Forgot something.”
“What? You? Forget?” Steve said. His yellow hair was standing up in all directions. “No possible way!”
She stuck out her tongue at him, and disappeared inside. Her room was the only bedroom on the main floor. She came dripping back out, still wrapped in her towel, with another one around her hair now. She was holding a bag that said “France Telecom.” She dropped it on the table in front of Ned.
“In case Ground Control needs to reach Major Tom,” she said.
She’d gotten him a cellphone. It was, Ned decided, easy to be irritated with tiny Melanie and her hyperefficiency, but it was kind of hard not to appreciate her.
“Thanks,” he said. “Really.”
Melanie handed him another of her index cards, with his new phone number written out in green on it, above another smiley face. “It has a camera, too. The package is open,” she added, as he pulled out the box and the fliptop phone. “I programmed all our numbers for you.”
Ned sighed. It was too easy to be irritated with her, he amended, inwardly. “I could have done that,” he said mildly. “I actually passed cellphone programming last year.”
“I did it in the cab coming back up here,” she said. “I have fast fingers.” She winked.
“Oh, ho!” said Greg, chortling.
“Be silent, baggy suit,” Melanie said to him. “Unless you are going to tell me that Arles is up and running.”
“Up and run your fast fingers over my baggy suit and I’ll tell you.”
Ned’s father shook his head and sipped his drink. “You’re making me feel old,” he said. “Stop it.”
“The house line is 1, your dad’s 2, I’m 3, Steven’s 4. Greg is star-pound key-star-865-star-pound-7,” Melanie said sweetly.
Ned had to laugh. Even Greg did. Melanie grinned triumphantly, and went back in to shower and change. Greg and Steve stayed out for a beer, drying off in the mild evening light. Greg said it was warmer on the terrace than in the pool.
It wasn’t even May yet, Ned’s father pointed out. The French didn’t start swimming until June, usually. There was water in the villa’s pool only as a courtesy to their idiocy. The sun was west, over the city. There was a shining to the air; the trees were brilliant.
A moment later, the serenity of that Provençal sunset was shattered by a startling sound. Then it came again. After a brain-cramp moment, Ned recognized it: the tune from Disneyland’s kiddie ride, “It’s a Small World.”
The four of them looked around. Their gazes fell, collectively, upon Ned’s new phone on the table. Warily, he picked it up, flipped it open, held it to his ear.
“Forgot to mention,” Melanie said from her own mobile in the house. He heard her trying not to laugh. “I programmed a ringtone for you, too. Tried to find something suitable.”
“This,” Ned said grimly into the phone, “means war. You do know that, don’t you?”
“Oh, Ned!” she giggled, “I thought you’d like it!” She hung up.
Ned put the phone down on the glass tabletop. He looked out for a second at the lavender bushes planted beyond the cypresses and the pool, and then at the three men around the table. They were each, including his father, struggling to keep a straight face. When he looked at them, they gave up, toppling into laughter.
HE COULDN’T SLEEP.
How unsurprising, Ned thought, punching his pillow for the twentieth time and flipping it over again. Jet lag would be part of it, on this second night overseas. They were six hours ahead of Montreal. It was supposed to take a day for each hour before you adjusted. Unless you were an airline pilot or something.
But it wasn’t really the time difference and he knew it. He checked the clock by the bed again: almost three in the morning. The dead of night. On April 30 that might have another meaning, Ned thought.
He’d have to remember to tell that one to Kate Wenger later today. She’d get the joke. If he could keep his eyes open by then, the way tonight was going.
He got up and went to the window, which was open to the night air. He had the middle bedroom of the three upstairs. His dad was in the master, Greg and Steve shared the last one.
He pulled back the curtain. His window was over the terrace, looking out at the pool and the lavender bushes and a clump of trees on the slope by the roadway. If he leaned out and looked to his right, he could see Aix’s lights glowing in the distance. The moon was orangered, hanging over the city, close to full. He saw the summer triangle above him. Even with moonlight, the stars were a lot brighter than they were in Westmount, in the middle of Montreal.
He wondered how they looked above Darfur right now. His mom would phone this evening—or tomorrow evening—whatever you said when it was 3:00 a.m.
The world will end before I ever find him in time.
He hadn’t wanted to think about that, but how did you control what you thought about, anyhow? Especially at this hour, half awake. The mind just . . . went places. Don’t think about pink elephants, or girls’ breasts, or when they wore skirts and uncrossed their legs. Sometimes in math class he’d wander off in his thoughts for a run, or think about music, or a movie he’d seen, or what some girl he’d never met had typed privately to him in a chatroom the night before. If it was a girl: there was always that to worry about online. His friend Doug was totally paranoid about it.
You thought about a lot of different things, minute by minute, through a day. Sometimes late at night you thought about a skull and a sculpted head in a corridor underground.
And that was going to be so helpful in getting to sleep, Ned knew. So would brooding about what had happened inside him this morning.
After another minute, irresolute, he made an attempt to access, locate—whatever word would suit—that place within himself again. The place where he’d somehow sensed the presence of the lean, nameless man on the roof above them. And where he had grasped another thing he had no proper way of knowing: that the person up there, today—right here, right now—had made the eight-hundred-year-old carving they’d been looking at.
Kate had been right, of course: the man’s response, hurtling down to confront them, white with rage, had told them what they needed to know.
But Ned couldn’t feel anything inside now, couldn’t find whatever he was looking for. He didn’t know if that was because it was over—a totally weird flicker of strangeness in the cloister—or if it was because there was nothing to find at this moment, looking out over dark grass and water and cypress trees in the night.
There wasn’t a whole lot of point standing here in sleep shorts thinking about it. He
decided to go down for a glass of juice. On the way downstairs, barefoot in a sleeping house, he had an idea. A good one, actually. When you couldn’t do anything about the strange, hard things, you did what you could in other ways.
He had warned Melanie, after all.
She, the ever-efficient one, had rigged up a multicharger station for all the mobile phones on the sideboard in the dining room. She had even been helpful enough to label everyone’s slot. In green ink.
It was almost too easy.
Working quickly through the options on each phone, Ned cheerfully changed Greg’s ring to the theme from “SpongeBob SquarePants,” and showed no mercy for Steve, innocent bystander though he might have been, rejigging his cell to play “The Teletubbies Song.” He left his father’s alone.
Then he took his time, scrolling thoughtfully through the choices on Melanie’s phone a couple of times before deciding.
Afterwards, pleased with himself and his contribution to justice in the world, he went and got his juice from the kitchen. He took it out on the terrace, standing shirtless in the night. It was cold now. His mother would have made him get a shirt or a robe if she’d been up. If she’d been here.
He tried, one more time, to see if he could find something within himself, feel attuned to anything. Nothing there. He looked out across the landscape and saw only night: pool and woods and grass to the south under stars. A low moon west. He heard an owl behind him. There were trees all around the villa, plenty of room for nests, and hunting.
As it happens, he is being watched.
In the small stand of trees beside the lavender bushes, the figure observing him has long ago learned how to keep from being sensed in any of the ways Ned Marriner might know or discover by searching inside himself.
Certain skills and knowledge are part of his heritage. Others have taken time and considerable effort. He has had time, and has never been fazed by difficulty.
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