Deception (6 page)

“I think you’re right,” I said.

Because as I trailed Coby through the historic halls of Thatcher, I felt as though I’d come home.

8

The feeling didn’t last. Roaming the halls of my new school, I felt as if I’d wandered into a play and was distinctly unprepared for the lead role.

The setting: Thatcher Academy. Once a grand mansion, the institution still maintained its charming Georgian decor, open rooms, distinguished portraits, and marble floors. The classrooms and corridors were elegant and refined, the student body even more so.

Enter Emma Vaile, the new kid.

My mom took me to a play a few years ago, a period piece involving class issues. The lead character, a young maid, always dressed differently from the rest of the cast. If they were done up for dinner, she was in her nightclothes. When she was gowned for a ball, they were in riding costumes.

That’s how I felt walking into my first Trigonometry class. I was unprepared for the lack of … well, students. There were only ten, in addition to me and Coby, who led me to a quaint wooden desk before finding one himself. Was he going to shadow me all day? I wasn’t exactly an invalid who needed to be wheeled from class to class
—
although given my fainting spell, I could see why he thought maybe he should stick close.

“You don’t need to stay,” I whispered to him. “I’ll be fine.”

“Homework, please,” the teacher, Mr. Sakolsky, said.

Coby grinned and pulled a notebook from his backpack. He handed his homework to the student in front of him who passed it on.

“Oh,” I said. He was in the class.

“And let’s all welcome Emma Vaile,” said Mr. Sakolsky.

“Oh,” I said, louder, as everyone turned to stare at me.

Yes, we all wore the same uniform, but somehow I looked ready for a costume party, dressed as the slutty schoolgirl, while the other girls appeared ready for their close-ups in
Elle
. And it wasn’t just my minuscule uniform. They were the epitome of chic, with carelessly blown-out hairstyles, artfully knotted ties, eclectic jewelry, and oversized leather bags in place of backpacks. And the guys weren’t all that different
—
well, less jewelry maybe.

“Hi!” I said with an idiotic wave. “I’m Emma.”

“Yeah, we got that,” a petite blonde said with a well-mannered sneer.

“Britta,” Coby warned. “Don’t bite.”

“I never bite,” she purred at him. “I only nibble.”

So I hated her already.

I inwardly sighed. How come when you started at a new school you couldn’t suddenly become someone else? Smarter or prettier or more popular? Maybe a magnet to cute guys instead of the idiotic waver. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It took me all of twenty minutes to become the same girl I’d always been.

I actually liked math, so I tried to concentrate, but everything conspired to distract me. How different the kids looked and how few of them there were. It’d be impossible to disappear into a crowd here, which made me nervous. And the classroom itself looked like some fancy English club: walls of dark paneled wood, the ceiling ornately carved, and an Oriental carpet under the teacher’s antique desk.

As Mr. Sakolsky blabbed on about inverse functions, I tried to take notes, but none of it was making sense. I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened outside. How I had felt like I’d been here before. The gazebo and the vision of a previous time. What was happening to me? I’d rather be boring old me than the new girl who went insane her first week at school.

I glanced at the equations on the board, and noticed another teacher standing at the front of the room, a tall man in an old-fashioned brown suit, watching me intently. He was thin, a little stooped, and had a dramatically receding hairline. A frown creased his brow when he saw that I’d noticed him, and he greeted me with a little wave.

I lifted my hand in return.

“Yes, Emma?” Mr. Sakolsky asked. “You have a question?”

“No, I just
—
” I stopped when the man in the brown suit shook his head sharply. And I realized that nobody else in the room saw him.

Perfect. This time, I hadn’t even felt that whooshing feeling, or been transported into a vision. I was just sitting here in the classroom with Coby and Britta and the other kids turning to look at me.

I wanted to scream,
Don’t you see him? He’s standing right there. He waved to me!
Instead, I gritted my teeth. Must not completely freak out my first day at school. “I, um, no, I
—
”

“Do you need the little girl’s room?” Britta asked, fake sweetly.

The man in the brown suit pointed to a word on the blackboard:
Homework.

“I kinda missed the homework assignment,” I said, and the man in the brown suit nodded in satisfaction.

“Yeah, ‘do the problems on pages forty-five and forty-six’ is pretty complex,” Britta said.

“Emma’s been working from another text,” Mr. Sakolsky said, a little sharply. “Perhaps you might help her, Britta.”

Britta rolled her eyes, and Coby said, “I’ll show her.”

The girls in the class exchanged significant glances, but Sakolsky seemed oblivious. “Fine, fine,” he said.

It was only my first class and I was already making all the wrong moves. I might have been more concerned if I wasn’t worried my sanity was slowly crumbling apart.

In the hallway outside the classroom, Coby took me aside and said, “This is the tricky part.” He flipped to page forty-five in my book. “There you go! And I’m pretty sure page forty-six is somewhere nearby.”

“Very funny.”

“Do you want me to dog-ear them for you?” he asked innocently.

I glared at him.

He grinned. “Seemed more like you were spacing than you didn’t understand. You probably wouldn’t be taking Trig if you couldn’t find page numbers in the book.”

Yeah, if I spaced any more
—
seeing imaginary brown-suited men
—
I’d launch into orbit. I was saved from answering when a striking chestnut-haired girl turned the corner.

“Hey, Sara,” Coby called to her. “You’ve got Fencing now?”

She glided over, her skirt flipping slinkily around her thighs. “Yes,” she said, her voice deep and raspy, like one of those sexy old movie sirens. “Why?”

“This is Emma. Emma, Sara.”

“Um. Pleased to meet you,” I said.

Her laugh, while also deep and raspy, was maybe a little too polished. “Likewise, I’m sure,” she said.

I couldn’t tell if she was mocking my attempt at manners or being truly polite, so I gave an uncertain smile.

“Can you take Emma with you?” Coby turned to me. “Then you’ve got lunch. Just follow everyone. There’s only one cafeteria.”

“Wait, did you say
fencing
? Like …” I waved an imaginary épée in the air, a word I only knew because my father was obsessed with crosswords. “Swords and stuff?”

“We call them foils,” Sara said dryly.

Coby glanced at his watch. “Coach will kill me if I’m late for practice. See you later.” And he jogged down the hall, leaving me hanging with the gorgeous, sexy-voiced Sara.

“How’d that get on my schedule? I don’t fence.”

“It’s tradition,” she said, sauntering down the hall.

She didn’t bother to wait for me, so I galumphed after her in my big boots, trying to keep my skirt from riding higher and my thigh-highs from dropping to my shins.

“Everyone learns to fence at Thatcher,” she said, leading me around a corner.

“I guess I should be grateful it’s not horseback riding,” I said.

She looked at me. “You don’t ride?”

“Not if I want to walk the next day.”

She laughed, this time without the edge of supercilious politeness. “You’re funny.”

“Thanks?” I wasn’t quite sure if that was a compliment, so I changed the subject. “What does Coby play?”

“Football.”

“They practice in the middle of the day? And isn’t he kind of regular sized for that?”

“Not if you’re the quarterback. And they get PE credit for it. When they get closer to games they practice after school, too.”

“Let me get this straight.” I made ticks with my fingers. “The dean’s intern, a perfect gentleman, a doctor’s son, a quarterback. So basically, Coby’s the all-American boy?”

Sara smiled, though she didn’t look happy. “Yes.”

She led me down another hallway and introduced me to a crowd of kids lounging in a room that looked like you needed a membership to enter. There were leather club chairs and built-in bookshelves and potted palms. Along one wall was a row of mahogany wooden lockers. Everyone greeted me with the same effortless ease that Coby had, and I smiled, nodded, and immediately forgot everyone’s name. Fidgeting in my uniform and glancing around warily for people who weren’t really there, I felt completely out of my element.

At the end of a corridor with an arched roof, we went down a flight of narrow stairs into the locker room which
—
amazingly
—
looked like a regular locker room. Sara found me a fencing costume and a locker and left me to my own devices.

I slipped into the canvas jacket, knickers, and knee socks and once I’d connected the protective vest around my chest and propped the mask on my head, I felt good. Formidable. I was ready to slay the errant dragon or two, when Sara came around the lockers and giggled at me.

“Close,” she said.

She removed my vest and put it on frontways and Velcro-ed it in the back. Apparently, I had the mask upside down, too. She, of course, looked completely stylish in her uniform, like she’d had it tailored.

“C’mon,” she said, dragging me through the doors to the gym. “This is going to be fun.”

If your idea of fun is being stabbed repeatedly by a pointy sword that even though it has a little protective ball at the end
still hurts
, then I had a blast.

9

I nursed my bruises through the lunch hour, whiled away by myself in an empty classroom. I couldn’t handle the lunch crowd
—
not while trying to suppress my panic about all the terrifying strangeness in my life. Plus I had forgotten to bring lunch.

After my last class
—
World Literature, in which half the kids read the books in their original languages
—
I slunk out the side door and, instead of going straight home, wandered through the pretty little coastal village. I didn’t get back to the museum until after four.

As I pushed through the gates, I caught a flash of motion among the maples. Behind an ancient tree, I found a patch of bare ground. There was a circle drawn in the dirt, cleaned of fallen leaves but scattered with acorns. No, not acorns. I leaned down and grabbed one. Marbles, little clay marbles. I didn’t even know marbles
came
in clay.

Next to the circle was an old-fashioned slingshot, left behind by some kid. I gathered it, along with the marbles, figuring the museum had a lost and found. I got halfway to the door when I saw him. A little boy, maybe ten years old, lurking in the bushes, watching with sad eyes. I couldn’t see much more than his thin, pale face, but that was enough; he was afraid I’d confiscated his toys and he’d never see them again.

“Are these yours?” I called.

The bush rustled, but he didn’t say anything.

“Don’t worry,” I said, smiling to reassure him. “I know what it’s like, losing your marbles.”

He still didn’t answer. Shy kid. So I left the marbles and the slingshot on the ground, and headed for the entrance. I turned at the door in time to see him grab his toys. He shot me a huge smile from his grimy little face.

Now if only I could charm an errant guardian.

I let myself inside and instead of yelling, “I’m home! Did you miss me?” I quietly combed the house for Bennett.

He wasn’t there, but I found further evidence that he thought of me as a child on the kitchen table
—
he’d left a snack of cheese and crackers and a sliced apple. He’d even peeled the apple, just like my mom.

I inhaled the snack and drank a huge glass of milk.

“Thanks,” I told the empty kitchen. “Though you could’ve packed me a lunch.”

I stumbled upstairs for a much-needed nap. Trig and Fencing had been just the beginning. I didn’t start Latin until tomorrow
—
which I was actually looking forward to
—
but I’d taken a beating in Advanced Biology and Western Civilization, in which I suspected I was the only student who identified with the plebeians.

In my room, I discovered the bed neatly made, with the pillows fluffed and the coverlet turned down. Strange, because Bennett didn’t seem like the bed-making type. And despite wanting to cuddle with him under the covers, it felt odd to have him make it first.

I tossed my school uniform over the easy chair in the corner, slipped into black leggings and my favorite wool sweater, then flopped onto the cream bedspread. I closed my eyes and waited for the oblivion of sleep
—
so of course my mind raced.

The nightmare of ashes in San Francisco. The death mask. The vision today when I’d worn the old dress and corset, and the man in the brown suit. I finally admitted to myself what I’d known all along: this was all related to the Incident.

But that ended ten years go. Why was it happening again now?

The Incident.

Three weeks after turning seven, my parents committed me to the poof. That’s the sweet, powder-puffy way of saying “children’s mental hospital.” I didn’t remember much about that time, just a few scattered and unsettling images, but I did know why I’d spent three formative months there.

Because I’d had too many imaginary friends.

How many is too many? I saw them everywhere.

I couldn’t wander the grocery store without make-believe clerks offering me Chips Ahoy. A Chinese grandmother ran my bath at night and clucked her tongue at my scrawny frame. At least twice a week I had a sleepover with a twelve-year-old redhead named Katie. And I always stood on the trolley, avoiding the “empty” seats occupied by people nobody else saw.

Then one day my imagination went too far.

I’d been drawing chalk rainbows on the sidewalk in front of the store when a pair of black shoes stepped onto my purple and blue. I peered up at the man
—
tall and rawboned, with wet lips and bright black eyes like a crow. I remembered his long hands, spiderwebbed with veins, stroking a brown leather dog leash. They looked so much older than his face.

“Have you seen my little dog?” he asked. “My little white dog?”

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

“My poor lost Snowball, all alone.” His voice sounded mournful. “She’s very frightened. Will you help me find her?”

I said, “Sure.”

I brushed the chalk off my palms, leaving pastel streaks on my jeans, and followed him down the street … and into an abandoned storefront. I’d felt a sick sense of wrongness in my stomach. The moment we were inside, surrounded by bare shelves and ominous stains on the floor, I’d known there was no little white dog.

The man stood between me and the door. “You have something I need,” he said.

I whimpered and shook my head.

“You must take your clothes off,” he said.

“I don’t want to.”

He raised his hand and spread his spindly fingers. “Then I’ll help you.”

He stepped closer, blotting out the daylight. A stench rose, of rotting food and mildewed mud. His bone white teeth glinted as he pulled a gleaming blade from his pocket and swiped at me.

I raised my arms to protect myself, and his knife struck my forearm, leaving a frozen ache behind. A splatter of my blood arced through the air. He caught my blood in the cup of his left hand, a glossy red-black that dissolved into his flesh as he moaned with animal hunger and
—

“Emma!” My mother burst inside, somehow looking both hesitant and fierce. “Tell me, what do you see?”

“The
—
the man!” I trembled with fear. “The man!”

She scanned the wreckage. “Where? Where is he, Emma?”

“He has my blood.” I’d sobbed and pointed at the man, knowing she couldn’t see him, knowing she couldn’t help me. How do you protect someone from a nightmare?

The man smiled at my mother with a terrifying, hungry pleasure. Then he said, “Your blood tastes like power.”

“He can’t hurt you anymore,” my mother said, pulling me close. “He’s gone now.”

“No!” I hid my face against her. “He’s right there. He’s laughing.”

“God help me,” my mother said, with real fear in her voice. I’ll never forget that.

She dragged me at a run back to the apartment, through the security system, into Dad’s office. “Nathan! Nathan, we can’t go on like this.” I remember the streaks of tears on her face.

By the next evening, I’d been committed. I remember the stuffed elephant they sent with me to the hospital, the taste of lime Popsicles, and the scent of the man in the shop. The doctor told my parents I needed stability
—
and that I needed drugs to keep me from hurting myself.

And they’d fixed me.

But now, ten years later, I felt myself falling into the same nightmare. I lay on the bed in Bennett’s museum, staring through the window at the cold blue sky. My mind brimmed with too many questions: Where were my parents and Max? Why did they all leave me? How did Bennett know I was in trouble, and why did he bring me here?

And most important … why was I seeing things again?

I felt a bleak certainty that I didn’t want to know the answer. You start seeing things, then you start hearing things
—
and then they send you back to the poof. It had been bad enough as a child
—
I didn’t want to think about a mental hospital for teens. For one thing, they probably didn’t give you lime Popsicles.

So, I’d pull myself together. Forget the craziness. Go to school. Make friends. Just like Bennett said.

I woke in the dark, groggy and confused. It took a moment to realize I was in my bedroom in the museum
—
and there was someone in the room with me. I sat up abruptly and clicked on the light, but I was alone. Then I heard noises from downstairs. Finally, Bennett had returned
—
hopefully with pizza.

I went into the bathroom to fix myself. I splashed cold water
—
the only kind available
—
over my face and tried to cover the shadows under my eyes with concealer. It only seemed to highlight them, so I washed my face again, then brushed my bangs toward my eyes, hoping Bennett wouldn’t notice the raccoon rings underneath.

In the kitchen, I didn’t find Bennett or pizza
—
though I could smell some kind of roast that made my stomach rumble. The light flashed on the old-fashioned answering machine on the counter and I pressed Play.

“Emma,” Bennett’s voice said. “Sorry I’m not there. Things are taking longer than I’d hoped, so I asked Martha to look after you ’til I get back
—
you’ll like her. Please don’t break the house.” He paused a moment. “Please don’t break Martha, either.”

Beeeep
.

“I miss you, too,” I told the answering machine.

What things? Wasn’t he supposed to be in school? I got the distinct impression Bennett was trying to avoid me, exactly when I wanted nothing more than to drag a few answers out of him. At least he hadn’t completely forgotten me. On the other hand,
Martha
?

Who was she? Some old lady to babysit me? She’d probably want to make me warm milk, read me bedtime stories, and tuck me in at night. Actually, that didn’t sound so bad.

Then I realized that’s who must’ve made dinner. I called out, “Martha?”

No answer. I followed the scent of comfort food into the dining room and found dinner waiting. My meal was laid out on gold and white china with a swirly pattern. The utensils were real silver with the soft patina of constant use and an etched crystal glass was filled with ice water. A fire danced in the massive brick fireplace, gently illuminating the soft green walls and creamy woodwork. The table was mahogany and looked as though it would seat thirty.

And I was completely alone. “Martha?”

I checked the entire downstairs, then looked in the driveway. No car. No nothing.

So I sat down at one end of the long table, feeling like a ridiculous movie cliché
—
the solitary billionaire dining alone in his castle. Though given my life lately, it was more like I’d wandered into Wonderland. I couldn’t decide whether I was Alice or the Mad Hatter.

Dinner was oddly old-fashioned: pot roast, peas, and boiled potatoes. I’d pegged Bennett as more of a takeout sushi kind of guy; no way he chose the menu. I hardly knew where to start
—
this wasn’t exactly California fare.

I devoured it.

When I finished, I took my dirty dishes to the kitchen and ran a sink of sudsy water. I left everything soaking and did my homework in the sitting room by the front door, so I’d hear Bennett when he came home. My Trig homework was the most difficult. You’d think two pages wouldn’t take forty-five minutes and it was after ten before I got through the Sophocles assignment for World Lit.