Deception (5 page)

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Looks moody and irritable,” I said, giving him a meaningful look as he tossed my bags in the back.

“Not at all,” he said. “Totally trustworthy.”

I started for the passenger seat, then stopped. “How come the wheel’s in the wrong place?”

He got into the right side and me the left. “It came over from England,” he said, pulling out of the spot. “It’s my lucky car.”

“Why? Because it’s where you got lucky?” I glanced at the back seat, trying not to picture the kind of girls he liked. Abercrombie & Fitch models. With their tops off.

“Well …” There was a spark in his eye before he remembered himself and frowned at me. “How old are you again?”

“I’m seventeen.”

“Just a kid.”

“You’re only twenty, right?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘only.’ ”

I would, because that meant he wasn’t too old for me.

“I signed you up for junior year,” he said. “If you’re seventeen, shouldn’t you be a senior?”

“I started school late.” Actually, I repeated a year, but that required more explanation involving the Incident.

Instead, I laid my head against the seat and watched the scenery. I counted five Dunkin’ Donuts
—
which I’d never seen in San Francisco
—
before giving in to exhaustion and letting my eyes flutter shut.

When I woke, we were pulling into a long drive lined with maple trees.

“We’re here,” Bennett said.

He stopped the car in front of a museum. A four-story house with columns, a solarium, multiple chimneys, and extensive grounds.

A sign in front read:

Welcome to Stern House Museum

A Federal period home

Designed by Adam McIntyre

“Here where?” I asked. “I thought you were taking me to your house.”

“This is it.”

“You live in a museum?”

He snorted. “Like you can talk. I’ve seen your house.”

He stepped out and I followed him to the back of the Land Rover, where he was retrieving my suitcases.

“But
—
this really is a museum,” I said.

“Only in the summer. You’ll be gone by then.”

Gone where? Everything hit me at once. What was I doing in Massachusetts, staying at Bennett’s museum? I didn’t really know Bennett, or why Max hated him now. And where were my parents? Why hadn’t they called?

I’d been ignoring my feelings of abandonment, the panic and the rejection, just refusing to think about it
—
like I refused to think about so many things. Yet now it all hit me, and I slumped into the house behind Bennett, feeling more alone than ever.

My only consolation was that I no longer had to avoid the funeral urns at home. That and, well
—
the place was spectacular. There was a sweeping staircase with a gleaming mahogany banister, two adorable parlors, a cozy library, and more bedrooms than I could count. The decor was mostly sea greens, yellows, and blues, invoking a classic sense of sun and ocean wherever I went.

“And you’ll like this,” Bennett said, throwing open a set of double doors in the middle of a wide hallway.

I stepped through. “A ballroom?” I twirled across the floor. “This is gorgeous. You know, it turns out I throw a
great
party.”

“No,” he said. “No, no, no.”

“I’m kidding!”

He eyed me suspiciously. “I can never tell with you.”

We wandered into the north parlor and after admiring the white bas-relief mantel and mosaic tile floor, I caught Bennett’s eye in the gold mirror over the fireplace. “Do you think they’re dead?” I asked. It was getting harder to come up with any other excuse for my parents’ lack of communication.

“Of course,” he said.

“That’s not funny.”

“What else would they be?”

When I saw he was serious, I fell back onto an embroidered silk couch. “How
—
how do you know?”

“What?”

“My parents are
—
”

He looked stricken. “No, no! Your
parents
? No.” He sat beside me. “Emma, I have no idea where they are, but I know they’re not dead.”

“How? How do you know?”

After a brief pause, he said, “I just know.”

His tone was so confident that the tightness in my chest loosened. “Then who did you mean? Who’s dead?”

He shrugged. “The people who lived here, back in the day. My ancestors, their servants.”

I glanced around the room, looking for photos, portraits, some evidence of anyone who’d once resided here. There was nothing but paintings of seascapes and schooners. “Why would you think I was talking about them?”

He stood. “You’re tired.”

“But
—
”

“I’ll show you your room.”

My new bedroom waited at the end of a wide hallway on the second floor. Behind the thick cherry wooden door I found a surprisingly bright room, even at this time of night, with long paned windows and pale yellow curtains. A teal blue Shaker dresser lined one wall and a matching wardrobe fit snugly in the opposite corner. There was an adorably minuscule fireplace and a raised four-poster bed frame with pineapple carvings and white linens.

I flopped onto the bed and the room seemed suddenly crowded by the presence of … I don’t know. Of history, I guess. The antique furniture, the nickel doorknob polished by hundreds of hands over hundreds of years. The generations of Bennett’s family who’d slept in the bed.

But mostly, I was conscious of the proximity of Bennett. He looked as unyielding as his last name
—
Stern
—
and unhappy to be here or maybe just unhappy with me.

“Why pineapples?” I asked, looking at the bed frame.

“They’re a symbol of hospitality in New England.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “They don’t grow in Massachusetts. They don’t belong here.”

But I wasn’t really talking about the pineapples.

Bennett dropped my suitcases inside the door. “They’re expecting you at school tomorrow. There’s a uniform in the wardrobe, I guessed on the size. You’re not due until ten.”

I nodded, too exhausted to think about starting a new school while wearing some horrible uniform. I did have one question, though. “Bennett, why? Why did you come for me?”

He leaned in the doorway, his khakis wrinkled and eyes weary. “I don’t know … yet.”

. . .

I fell asleep the minute my head hit the pillow. The room was completely dark when I woke to a scraping noise from the corner.

“Bennett?” I murmured.

C’est moi
.
Stoking the fire. Rest easy
.

I sighed back into slumber.

When I stirred again, hours later, dying embers glowed in the little bedroom fireplace. And I remembered the voice in the middle of the night. It wasn’t Bennett.

It was a woman.

7

Sunlight streaming through the window woke me. I climbed from bed, disoriented. The ormolu clock on the mantel said 9:25 and I couldn’t remember when Bennett said I needed to be at school. Ten o’clock?

I stumbled down the hall. “Hello? Bennett?”

No answer. He was probably downstairs, whipping together a breakfast of blueberry pancakes with warm maple syrup, and couldn’t hear me over the sizzling of the pan.

I found the bathroom and took a
freeeezing
shower.

“There’s no hot water!” I yelled downstairs, as I stomped back to my room.

I put on underwear and raced to the wardrobe. Grabbed the uniform and shivered in front of what was left of the fire. I slipped on the navy plaid skirt
—
minuscule
—
and the white button-down and navy wool blazer
—
snug. My God, Bennett thought I was a preteen. There was a striped tie, but I had no idea how to tie it, so I knotted it around my neck like a scarf. Even with the heat of the banked fire, my legs were goose pimpled. I glanced out the window at the cold, cloudy day, wondering if I’d ever be warm again.

I found gray thigh-high tights in my suitcase and pulled them on. They stopped an inch below the skirt. I slipped into my boots and examined myself in the wardrobe mirror. I looked like a Catholic school slut. But there was no time to worry about it. My pancakes would be getting cold.

When I arrived downstairs I found no pancakes. No Bennett. No strange woman attending the kitchen fire.

Nothing but a note on the table:

Called away. Didn’t want to wake you. Go to school. Make friends.

Bennett

No “love” before the Bennett?

“Called away.” Everyone in my life got called away, and nobody ever told me why
—
and then they didn’t return. Just once, I wanted to be the reason someone got called away instead of the person they got called away from.

I shredded the letter and scattered the pieces over the kitchen table, which made me feel a little better.

I found a strawberry yogurt in the fridge and snagged a spoon and my wool coat on the way out the door. Last night, Bennett told me the school was only three blocks up the hill. I dug into my yogurt and started walking.

The neighborhood was sweet. The houses were shuttered Colonials shoved too closely together with wrought-iron fences surrounding little gardens filled with late-blooming pansies and mums. Maple trees shed russet leaves and Indian corn was tacked to front doors. Everything looked picture-perfect New Englandy.

I stopped to pet a black Lab and asked his owner for directions to the school. The dog slobbered on my spoon and the man told me to keep going. “You’ll know it when you see it.”

The man moved on, oblivious that his dog now had my yogurt container in his mouth, and I was left alone in the cold with a dog-licked spoon. What was I doing here? My parents gone, my friends gone
—
losing my mind and stuck three thousand miles from home.

I wanted to curl into a ball and never unwind myself. But I remembered Bennett saying “I don’t know … yet.”

That little
yet
pushed me forward. I’d give him a reason for rescuing me, for keeping me out of a halfway house. I’d go to school. I’d make friends. And I’d live in Bennett’s museum until he knew I was worth saving.

My newfound resolution didn’t falter until I found myself in front of a tidy blue house at the top of the hill. I reached for the doorbell beside the black lacquer door and stopped.

What was I doing here? This wasn’t the school. My feet just led me to the door, the way you don’t have to think when you’re walking home. Except I’d never been here before. I’d never even been to Massachusetts. Yet there was something so familiar about it.

A chill touched me. Maybe there was something really wrong with me. I mean more than nightmares and a too-lively imagination. My parents abandoned me, then Natalie betrayed me, and Bennett took me away. That was enough to throw a sane person, let alone one who was digging into ashes of the dead.

Maybe I had a brain tumor. That would explain a lot.

As I debated my sanity, the door opened and a tall woman with short dark hair and a slight smile said, “Emma Vaile?”

“Oh! Yes. Um … hello.”

“I’m Dean Grant. Bennett Stern told me to expect you.” She frowned slightly. “Is the doorbell broken?”

“No, I just
—
is this the school?” Because it looked more like a cottage than a school. If I was going to be homeschooled, what was I doing in this jailbait uniform?

“Dean’s office,” she said. “That’s the school.”

She gestured next door toward a stone wall with a gated entrance. I couldn’t see anything but the tops of trees behind the massive wall, which implied that the school was at least school-sized. From the outside, it looked like the sort of place that required a uniform. And a chauffeured car.

“My intern will walk you up,” the dean said.

She disappeared into the cottage and returned a moment later with a tall dark-haired guy wearing the boy version of my uniform
—
only his fit
—
and his wiry frame and deep green eyes made it look good. Bennett used to go here. I wondered if he’d looked as cute.

“This is Coby Anders,” Dean Grant said. “He’s got your schedule and will make sure you get to class. If you have any questions, you know where to find me.”

Coby held out his hand to me. “Nice to meet you, Emma. Welcome to Thatcher.”

“Uh,” I replied, dumbfounded. Guys at home mostly gave me a halfhearted “Hey,” and never a handshake. And Coby wasn’t even performing for the dean’s benefit, since after introducing us, she’d closed the door behind her.

I took his hand and said, “Pleased to meet you,” feeling like a complete impostor. I followed him to the front gate, wondering if all the kids were going to be like this. If so, I was going to have a hard time with Bennett’s “make friends” request. I’d left my copy of Emily Post back in San Francisco.

“This is your schedule.” Coby gave me a sheet of paper from a folder he carried. “Thatcher doesn’t offer all the courses you were taking and we have some different requirements, so it may seem a little weird at first.”

I didn’t respond. Because if we were talking weirdness, I wanted to know why I felt like I’d been here before.

We walked down the cobblestone drive, past sprawling lawns and crooked apple trees, and I recalled the crisp taste of the low-hanging fruit, the soft patch of grass perfect for a picnic, and a stolen kiss in the shadowed gazebo.

“Are you all right?” Coby asked. “You look a little flushed.”

“It’s the gazebo,” I said.

He turned toward the corner of the lawn. “What gazebo?”

“Right th
—
” I looked again, and the gazebo was gone. “There. That looks like a good place for one. Don’t you think?”

“For a gazebo.” His tone was teasing.

“Yeah. I think it’d really … um … tie the lawn together.” I giggled, slightly hysterically. “Maybe I’m a little jet-lagged. And hungry. A dog stole my yogurt on the way here.”

Coby pulled an apple from a branch overhanging the path. “You want an apple? One a day keeps the … Well, my dad’s a doctor. He says it keeps you regular.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know why I said that.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I took a bite as we rounded a curve and saw the school: pale stone and paneled windows, with marbled steps leading to a grand entrance. Not a cottage, not a house
—
a mansion.

We mounted the steps and the crunch of the apple sounded in my ears; the sweet juice flowing in my mouth tasted so familiar. And my feet on the steps were even more so, as though I’d climbed them hundreds of times before. Then there was that great whooshing sound
—

The world spun around me, like a merry-go-round, when everything speeds up and twirls and you can’t see anything except a blur of color and motion. Then everything stopped. I pressed a hand to my cheek and found myself wearing a blue dress with puffy sleeves and a long full skirt. I felt wrong
—
constricted and short of breath. I couldn’t breathe.

Panic rising, I began to pant. I fingered my rib cage and discovered a corset. The day was suddenly night, with torches illuminating the path and families in fancy dress stepping from carriages, through a gauntlet of uniformed footmen into the mansion. I’d been transported to the past again, just like I had with the death mask.

I yanked at the dress, fighting to breathe, desperate to return to myself. I couldn’t tear the thing off. I started at the top button and
—

Whooosh!

I lay on the ground, with Coby kneeling over me.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m back.”

He nodded. “You fainted. Well, after you started unbuttoning.”

“Oh God.”

The blouse I wore under the slutty uniform was undone to my navel. I felt myself blush and clasped the shirt together over my bra, then quickly buttoned up.

“We should go to the nurse,” Coby said. “Or if you want, I’ll call my dad.”

I shook my head. “No, I just …” What was I going to tell him? That I was transported back in time? “It’s only jet lag. And I’m a little nervous about starting a new school.”

“You do look a little …”

Scared? I was terrified. What was happening to me? Who was I supposed to tell? The dean? Bennett? A psychiatrist?

“ … pale,” he finished.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Just majorly embarrassed.”

“Yeah,” he said, pulling me to my feet. “Nobody wants to spend their first day passed out on the front steps. That’s for prom night.”

“Oh God,” I said. “You think I’m a drug addict.”

“No, no. Just a drunk.”

“I’m not!”

He laughed. “I’m kidding.” He laid a hand over his heart and flashed a boyish grin. “I promise not to tell anyone.”

For some reason, I trusted him.

“C’mon,” he said. “I’ll show you to your first class.”

We stepped into a foyer that rose two stories high, a chandelier illuminating the pale glow of white marble. Two medieval French tapestries hung from the walls, depicting scenes of pastoral countryside with manors in the distance. A grandfather clock stood at the foot of the stairs, grander than I’d ever seen. Off to the left was a reading nook with chairs and settees arranged around a large hearth.

I was a long way from public school.

Coby noticed my expression. “Kind of cool, huh?”

“You could roast a pig in that thing,” I told him, eyeing the hearth.

“My friend Harry and I tried once.”

“What? Really?”

“Didn’t go well.” He sighed. “The pig escaped.”

My laughter echoed off the walls. “It was
alive
?”

“We didn’t have the heart to kill it.”

“So it was more of a theoretical exercise,” I said.

“Exactly.” Coby led me toward a hallway. “You know, I think you’ll like it here.”