New Olympus Trilogy: Teenage Goddess Teenage Star Hell on Earth (11 page)

3

The therapist my parents had sent was an elderly guy who’d introduced himself the day before as Matthew Mundy. Within the first few sentences he let drop that he had his own TV programme, and had written several books on his specialty of healing grief. Only as a favour to my parents, whom he knew socially, had he dropped his other commitments and come to check on me.

Treating a famous actor in the media spotlight had nothing to do with it – yeah, right.

After the interview with the police he tracked me down before I could retire to my room to catch my breath, for a second counselling session. Since there was no help for it, I took him out into the school gardens and we sat on one of the wooden benches, looking at rosebushes and a small fountain. The roses would soon be killed by the first frost, but seemed determined to enjoy these last mild days of fall, and the weakening sunshine.

Mundy took out a notebook and started to write in it. Notes about my general appearance and body language, I supposed, as I wasn’t talking.

“So, how did you manage to sleep last night?” His voice was deep, the kind of voice you’d require to hypnotize your patients. It sounded trustworthy, authoritative. As an actor I knew all about the effective use of such a voice. It did not mean a thing, though even I felt an urge to confide in this man I’d met for the first time the previous day.

“Fine. The school doctor gave me some pills.” I was not going to tell this stranger about my dream. “I felt a lot better in the morning.”

“You must be conflicted right now.”

“What do you mean, conflicted?
I’m worried about Myra, angry at Christabel, and frustrated at the lack of news. All pretty normal reactions, I’d have thought.”

“What about guilt?”

There was a short silence. “Why would you suggest that I feel guilty?”

“You tell me. For instance, did you taunt or provoke this other girl in any way?”

“I was angry at her for interrupting my time with Myra, and then she started to insult my girlfriend.”

“And now you are here, sound and healthy, while your girlfriend is missing.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“What do you think happened to Myra? It must be very confusing not to know for sure.”

“You got that right. I have no explanation at all.”

“But you must be speculating, I suppose? Take a guess.”

“Sorry, I’m all out of guesses.”

“The way you said that sounds pretty hostile, Jason.”

“Aren’t you here to try and help me cope with the uncertainty and sadness? So far I’m not seeing much effect.”

“Hostile, all right.” He made another note in his notebook. “Jason, guilt is a normal reaction in such a situation, whether justified or not. You are alive, Myra probably isn’t.”

“I refuse to accept that. Not unless they find a body.”

“OK, fair enough.” He wrote again in his notebook. Probably
subject delusional, refuses to deal with fact of loss
. 

I watched a couple of sparrows hopping around on the path, close to the rosebushes, having a good time with each other. 

“Why did you feel attracted to this girl in the first place? Given your celebrity status, a great many girls must be interested in you. What was – or is – different about her?”

I had to think about that for a while before I found the right words. “Myra’s not like other girls, though it’s hard to explain how. She liked me, I think, but didn’t seem terribly impressed by my fame, or my career. She is smart, and her own person, more so than the typical teenager. There is something mysterious about her. She didn’t say much about her background, but I got a feeling that there was something very special and different about it.” I shook my head, frustrated. “Nothing makes sense.”

“And how far did your relationship proceed in the relatively short time you knew each other?”

“We did nothing inappropriate to our age.” I was not going to tell this stranger about kissing Myra, or holding hands with her, or nuzzling her neck. Even less about the locket I’d given her and its inscription. That was between Myra and me.

“But you wanted more?”

“Of course I did – I do. When the time is right.”

“Hmm.” His pen was still, he stared into the distance, thoughtful. I watched the sparrows fly off towards the kitchen garden.

“Given the circumstances,” Mundy finally said, “you seem to have things pretty well together. Is that a fair assessment?”

“Today, yes. Yesterday I felt a lot more desperate.”

“Is it normal for you to recover so quickly?”

“I’ve never been in such a situation before. But does it really matter? I assure you I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

“You don’t feel the least bit tempted –“

“You can assure my parents that I’m not suicidal in the least. I want, no, I
need
to get to the bottom of this mystery. I want to see Myra again, or if that’s not possible, at least to arrive at some kind of definite ending.”

“Closure.”

“Yeah. One way or the other. Until I get that I’ll just carry on as best I can.”

We talked a bit more. In the end I managed to convince him I was enough in control that he could safely go back to his other patients, and his TV programme.

4

In the afternoon I sought out Myra’s brother, Hell (short for Hellmuth), in his room. Although only fourteen, he attended the same class as Myra and I, and more than held his own. From what I’d observed, he ought to be already in college. Hell effortlessly aced every subject, without doing a lick of actual work.

I’d always thought the two siblings were close, but to my surprise he didn’t act all that broken up over his sister’s disappearance.

“Have you told your parents what happened? Are they coming soon?” I asked him. In fact, it was strange that Myra’s parents were not already here, demanding that the search for her be continued as long as possible.

“They know all about it, and they’re not coming.” Hell shrugged. “My parents are – unconventional, let’s leave it at that.”

I took a big breath, steeled myself for his reproaches. “I’m so sorry about what happened –“

“Not your fault,” Hell interrupted me. “You tried to save her, did save her, for all we know. I’m in your debt.”

That was unexpected.

I felt bad about the next part. “Christabel was jealous. I had no idea how much. I never expected her to attack Myra.”

“Myra might have expected it, if she’d paid attention. There was bad blood between them for a while. Again, not your fault.” He looked me over attentively. “How are you feeling, yourself?”

“A lot better today. I refuse to believe Myra is dead, since I never saw her body.”

“Same here. I’m not going to mourn her just yet.” Hell hesitated. “Have your feelings for her changed over the last twenty-four hours?”

I blinked. “How do you mean?”

“Would you want her back?”

“Of course I would! Just how shallow do you think I am? She’s my first real girlfriend, and I had no lack of opportunities. She was – is – special.”

Since my first major movie role when I’d been only twelve, girls of all descriptions, and some adult women too, had thrown themselves at me. None had a fraction of the impact Myra had made on me, a few days after I first met her.

“Glad to hear it,” Hell commented with a smile. “If there’s anything I can do for you, let me know.”

“Are you going to stay at this school, after what happened to your sister?”

“For a while, at least, until my parents make other arrangements. What about you?”

“My agent keeps urging me to move to L.A. for good. Maybe I will now.”

I left him, wondering at his self-possession, especially given his young age. Brains and emotional control rarely went together like that. Well, Myra was also unlike other girls her age.

Maybe Hell just didn’t feel very strongly. If his parents were so cold they didn’t even join in the search for their daughter, maybe he’d inherited their attitude. Myra had not been like that, though. Myra was sweet and loving.

I missed her.

Powering up my laptop when I got back to my room, I typed in Myra’s name, to check on the publicity Alice had mentioned. For some reason I could not find anything with her name on the net, nor her photo; and I knew for a fact that the media had been busy shooting pictures of Myra only last week. Several news vans were still parked outside the school.

Searching my own name brought up the usual fan sites, and I scanned a few for recent news. The internet must have had some problems, for most of them were down just now.  On the others, any mention of Myra’s disappearance was in indirect, about “the Swiss girlfriend” or “the mysterious student” – no names or pictures at all.

At least I’d taken some pictures of Myra on my cell phone, and uploaded them to a picture site the previous week. I searched, but that site was down, as well.

Frantically, I checked my phone. There. I breathed a sigh of relief. Myra’s lovely smile was still captured on the small screen.

I sent a copy to a mailbox I used for private messages, but it never arrived. Weird. It was as though the whole internet refused to carry any picture or mention of my beloved.

I heard Myra’s voice in my head, from last night’s dream. “
I’m not exactly human.”
Was this a clue? Nonsense. I was letting my imagination run away with me. 

If she was not human, the same had to be true for her brother, to whom I’d just spoken. Despite the strange nickname and hyper-intelligence, the idea of Hell being anything but a normal boy appeared just silly. My subconscious was playing tricks on me. Wishful thinking. I`d better not mention any of these thoughts to Mundy, the therapist. He’d think I was a flake.

Idly, I clicked from fan site to fan site. Most were utterly predictable. Then I hit pay dirt in a single throwaway paragraph.

Jason’s lost girlfriend was also talented. We hear that she and her brother sang a remarkable duet when they visited the Atlanta studios with Jason last week, and made a deep impression on two jaded sound technicians. Who knows, maybe the world has lost another potential star.

I immediately called the studio, requesting a copy of the song, if it still existed. It quickly arrived via Email, a simple MP3 file. I played it.

It blew my mind. I couldn’t understand a word, but the melody and the voices – and something else I couldn’t pin down – were unforgettable and haunting. I’d had no idea Myra and Hell could sing like that. Why hadn’t she mentioned it to me? They could have had their own recording session while we were at the studios. It would not have been difficult to arrange. I’d love to sing together with her …

The song went round and round in my head. Words, feelings, started to rise from my subconscious like mist over the ocean shore. I grabbed a pen and my notebook and wrote as fast as I could – my own lyrics. A song for Myra, to celebrate and remember her. To tell her of my love. It could have been corny, in fact skirted the edges. Yet when I sang it, strumming my guitar, it sounded genuine. With my camera I made a recording of the new version. I called it
Not the End
.

Though it was getting late, I called Hell.

“Listen, I got a copy of the song you and Myra sang in Atlanta, and did an English version in her honour. I’d like to share it with the world, but I don’t know who has the rights to the song. I’ll pay them for it, of course. Do you know?”

“Can I hear your version?” Hell demanded. I played the recording close to the phone. He was silent for a while.

“It’s okay, you can use it.”

“Really? But if you’re not the composer, how can you know?”

“He’s a good friend, and has given me the rights. Go ahead, I guarantee you won’t be sued.”

I wasn’t sure how much faith I should put into the assurance of a fourteen-year-old. But I could always appease the composer with money, if and when he turned up.

I uploaded the new song on YouTube, with a dedication to “my absent beloved”, and went to sleep.

Not all that long afterwards, I was woken by an angry call from my agent.

“Have you lost your mind, Jason?” Jerry asked me as I sleepily groped for the light switch. “What have you done!”

“What?” I pretended ignorance.

“
That song
! You whistled a fortune down the wind by simply putting it on YouTube. Not to mention that doing this breached your contract with your label.”

I yawned. “Get the lawyers to sort it out.”

He was breathing heavily over the line.

“It’s the best thing you’ve ever done, even if it has only that guitar. We need to schedule a recording with proper instrumentation right away.”

“Okay.”

“Take it down from YouTube this instant.”

“Sorry. It stays up.” I rang off.  Jerry Murdock had a nerve, I thought, ordering me about at six o’clock in the morning. He worked for me, not the other way round.

Still, as I was already awake, I checked the song on my laptop. It had several million hits and half a million likes. Not bad for a short night’s exposure.

I called up Myra’s picture on my cell phone and looked at it for a minute. Words flooded my brain, things I wanted to tell her, if only she were here. I reached for the notebook and a pencil.

By the time I finished, I’d written the lyrics to four new songs, and it was nearly eight. Would I be able to find the right music to do them justice? Would she appreciate them?

One day we’d meet again. I felt increasingly sure of that.