Blue Willow (10 page)

It was the longest letter he’d ever written. Lily looked at the small stuffed bear Mama took from its wrapping. She reached for it with a burst of welcome and hugged it to her chest. “See how good things show up just when you’re feeling awful?” Mama said softly.

Lily wrote back to him that night, the bear cuddled in
her lap.
I wish you would come back
. I
still miss you
. She tore that up, thinking.
Do what’s right, not what’s easiest
, and wrote instead,
I am grown up now. I am learning how to fight. You do that too. Nobody can hurt you and me then, okay? Thank you for the bear. Lily. P.S. It told me to say it loves you a lot
.

Five

The fist landed between James’s shoulder blades as he left Evertide’s gym through a rear door of the locker rooms. It drove the breath from him in a painful burst. He staggered and fell to his knees on the sidewalk. A second blow struck his temple. He sprawled to his side, dazed, dimly aware of puddled rainwater seeping into his khaki trousers and the cold, rough concrete stinging the palms of his hands.

“You’re not tough enough to start on the varsity squad,” a voice taunted. A different one added, “You screwed me out of my place in the lineup, you shithead.”

James’s thoughts swam in dizzy confusion, but he recognized the voices. They belonged to junior classmen, a year older than James. But not better on the basketball court. Not taller, or faster. Not more determined. No one was more determined.

He tried to get up, but a sneakered foot lashed his side, sending shock waves of pain through his rib cage. He gasped for breath. Through half-shut eyes he saw their feet in front of him. His pulse roared in his ears. But then dark, brilliant fury began to clear his mind.
Wait
, it said.
Think
.

They began a round of taunts.

“You don’t belong here, Colebrook. You and the rest of
your family aren’t good enough to be at Evertide. Why don’t you go to public school, with the niggers and the wops?”

“Your father got kicked out of the country club. They couldn’t get him to pay his bills. My father said he’s a cheat. You’re a fucking cheat too.”

“We heard you’re screwing one of the senior girls, Colebrook. You’re out of your league.”

“Takes after his old man.”

“Your mother’s a whore. Can’t keep her legs together. Everybody knows that.”

Adrenaline ran through James’s muscles like an electric charge. He vaulted upward, catching one of the boys in the stomach with his head. He reveled in the boy’s yell of pain and the way his body tumbled backward.

Instantly James swung toward the other one and rammed a knee into his groin. The boy doubled over. James slammed his fist upward and felt the victorious crunch against his knuckles. Blood cascaded from the older boy’s nose, and his legs collapsed.

The other one had gotten to his feet again. He rushed James, who sidestepped him. James caught him by the hair and smashed a fist into his temple. He fell face-forward, groaning.

James stood over them, feet braced apart, fists raised. Waiting calmly. He knew why Grandmother had sent Artemas away to military school and why Uncle Charles wanted to keep him there. Artemas was a threat—the eldest son of the eldest son, the wise and strong exiled prince, already a better man than either Uncle Charles and Father would ever be. James loved his brother and paid homage to him like a medieval baron in the history books that James consumed with fervent interest.

Artemas would be this family’s king. But James was preparing to be its minister of war.

“They said you started it,” the headmaster told James. James stood rigidly among the office’s rich antiques and brocaded walls. “They’re lying,” he replied calmly.

The headmaster, a small, effete man, flipped through James’s records. “You’re a good student, an excellent athlete—but you have your family’s predisposition toward irresponsible behavior. There have been fights and confrontations between other students and every one of your siblings.”

“We’re only defending ourselves.”

The headmaster threw the file on his desk. His eyes narrowed. “You left one of those boys with a broken nose and the other with a concussion. Yet your only injuries are a few bruises.”

“I’m smarter than they are.”

“Or just inherently vicious.” The man pounded his desktop. “I want to know every word that was exchanged. And I want you to admit that you started it.”

“No.”

“I could suspend you. I could have you and your whole defensive little tribe of brothers and sisters suspended.”

“You won’t. My grandmother has connections. Senator DeWitt arranged for us to enroll here. You won’t do anything to upset the senator.”

The man’s face turned pink with helpless fury. James smiled.

The others showed up in the entrance hall that afternoon. The buildings for the younger grades were across campus. The four of them were out of breath from the long, illicit trek. James stood in the center of the lobby, where he’d been ordered to stay. They surrounded him: Cass, a roly-poly sentry with food stains on the blazer of her uniform; Michael, pale, thin, but rigid with dignity; Elizabeth, a dainty, terrified-looking accomplice; and seven-year-old Julia staring up at him with solemn love while she chewed the end of her braided hair. “Go back to class,” James commanded, staring straight ahead.

“It’s not fair,” Michael said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Do you have to stand here forever?” Elizabeth asked, her lower lip trembling.

Cass snorted. “No, stupid, just until he tells them what they want to hear.”

“Forever,” Julia concluded, nodding.

Michael squared his shoulders and aligned himself beside James, looking up at him firmly. “Then we’re staying with you.”

“I said
get out of here
.”

“It’s what Artemas would want us to do,” Elizabeth said. “He’s always telling us to stick together.”

That was true. James didn’t have an argument for it. They took up their defiant places.

The headmistress of the lower grades, her body quivering with frustration, shook a stiff finger at them. Dislodging the younger ones from James’s side would take physical force, and she knew it. “I don’t have any more patience for any of you
or
your parents, and I’m calling them immediately.”

James gave her a scalding look, while he died inside. “My parents are visiting friends in Hawaii. They won’t be back for a month.”

“As usual,” the headmistress said, disgust blossoming on her face. “All right, then all of you can stand right here and be humiliated together.”

She marched away, leaving them in a forbidding, echoing hall of paneled wood and somber marble floors. Michael wobbled and coughed. “I hate them all,” Cassandra noted, chewing her fingernails.

“Shut up and act like you don’t care.” James looked at his huddled army. He wished he had the gentle brand of authority that Artemas used, but he didn’t. He could only stand there in stony silence, while other students and teachers walked by, staring. He felt angry from the top of his clipped brown hair to the soles of his polished loafers. His navy blazer was skewed aside by Julia, who had wrapped her arms around his waist.

Elizabeth leaned wearily against him on the other side. Michael stood at attention, his hands clasped behind his back, coughing but looking dedicated. Cass shifted from
side to side and occasionally gave the finger to the older students walking by.

James loved his strange little aides-de-camp with a pride that made his chest ache.

Hours passed. Michael was eleven years old, but his face had the pasty color of an old man’s. James began to feel weary and defeated. He couldn’t let Michael and the others suffer. “I’ll say the fight was my fault,” he told them.

Michael shook his head violently. “If you tell stuff that isn’t true, I’ll knock your head off. I’ll tell Artemas, and he’ll knock your head off too.”

“I’ll hang you up by your scrawny thumbs, you little asshole. You look like you’re going to faint.”

“Nobody’s moving,” Cass announced. She pulled a half-eaten candy bar from her blazer’s pocket and shoved it at Michael. “There. That’ll make you feel better.”

“Cassie gave away a
candy bar
,” Julia said in shock.

At lunchtime the front door opened, and a lanky little girl came running in, her dark hair flying back from a serious, wide-eyed face. “I came to see you,” she said, stopping in front of them all and staring up at James as if his predicament made her want to die.

He gazed at her grimly. Alise Wyndham was in Michael and Elizabeth’s grade. The fact that she was their most devoted—and probably only—friend made her special. The fact that she had a crush on James made her an embarrassment.

“It’s okay,” Michael told her with dignity. “We’re Colebrooks. We’re used to being in trouble.”

Alise sidled up to James, looking up at him with sad adoration. It made him uncomfortable, because it was so bewildering—and besides, he didn’t want anyone to find him adorable, he wanted them to be frightened and impressed. “I believe you. It wasn’t your fault,” she said softly.

“Go back before the teachers notice you’re missing and you get in trouble.”

“I don’t care what the others say, I’m going to talk to you.”

“Go away.”

When she looked terribly wounded, he grew confused and remorseful. Her parents were dead, and she lived with an aging great-aunt. Grandmother said the old lady was missing more than a few marbles and gave more attention to a horde of pet cats than to Alise. James bent down to her and whispered, “I don’t want you to get in trouble because of us. Okay?”

“
Alise
,” the headmistress called, striding into the hall. She took Alise by one arm. “I’m shocked at you, Alise. Now, you’ve let these children get you in trouble too. What would your great-aunt think if you had to stay here with them?”

“Leave her alone,” James said slowly, gritting his teeth.

“I’m staying here,” Alise said.

“All right, you do that. If you’re going to let them shame you, you stay here and pay the price.”

“Yes, ma’am.” As the headmistress walked away, Cassandra looked over her shoulder at Alise. “You idiot.”

“Shut up,” James told her. He put a hand on Alise’s small, bowed head. She lifted it and gazed at him with plaintive appreciation. “I’d rather stay with you anyway,” she said, so bravely that he wished he could tear the whole damned school and all its elite, hateful people down for her sake as well as for himself and his family’s. But he couldn’t. He wished he were Artemas.

The afternoon passed with agonizing slowness. They hadn’t sat down all day They hadn’t eaten.

The entrance hall’s large doors swung open with a crash. Artemas strode down the hall, his cadet’s cap tucked formally under one arm, his bearing as straight and dignified as a general’s in the academy’s gray uniform. He was so tall and his expression so solemn that James felt threatened and worried, but at the same time his chest swelled with love.

The younger ones ran to Artemas desperately, throwing their arms around his waist as he came to a halt. His face
softened, and he put one long arm around them. He nodded at James approvingly. “You did the right thing.”

“Grandmother called you?”

“Yes. Come on.” He picked up Julia. Michael tugged at his sleeve. “We can’t just
leave
, can we?”

“Grandmother and I will deal with the school,” Artemas said.

Alise murmured from behind the others, “I can’t go.”

James took her hand. “Yes, you can. I’ll explain to your aunt for you.” She smiled up at him.

Artemas steered them out the front doors and into a lumbering old sedan that belonged to Uncle Charles’s gardener. Artemas did everything with the calmness of a grown man, not a seventeen-year-old boy. He drove them to a restaurant and bought hamburgers. “What will Uncle Charles say?” Elizabeth whispered.

“I’m in charge of this family, not Uncle Charles,” Artemas replied.

James nodded to himself and smiled. Artemas would never let them down.

Lily had a new letter from Artemas in one back pocket of her dungarees, a hardbound library copy of
Charlotte’s Web
in the other, and a mind to sit in the palm court at Blue Willow while she looked at them.

She climbed along a stone ledge at the base of the looming old mansion, brushing against the plywood that covered the palm court’s glass sides at the bottom level. Above her the hulking mint-green structure rose to a peaked roof. There were jagged holes in the upper panes of glass, where uncaring trespassers had heaved bricks. She reached the spot where the plywood had rotted and fallen away. Someone had knocked out the whole window.

She climbed in and stood on the dirty tile floor, letting her eyes adjust. Autumn sun filled the huge room with soft green light, spotted with white where the sun came through the holes. At the right end the giant glass doors into the mansion were covered with sheets of steel.

The palms’ fallen, decayed trunks lay jumbled across
the tile pathways. Sunk into the ground, like ships settling in a sea of clay, were big ceramic pots with chunks broken out of their sides. Spiderwebs big enough to catch a horse hung from the corners of the ceiling.

In the court’s center stood a fountain, with a pretty little stone girl pouring empty air from a vase. A decade of rain had drawn dark rivulets down her and her pedestal. Even the fountain seemed to be melting into the ground.

The first time Lily had discovered the open window and explored here, she’d shaken with dread. It was a forgotten fairyland, and who knew what might be hiding in the shadows at the walls’ bottoms, where the plywood hid her view of blue sky and mountains? But there was nothing, only the whisper of the wind through the broken panes overhead.

She sat down with her back against the fountain’s base and her legs crossed on the dusty tiles. They were white with blue willows on them. She rubbed one with the sleeve of her flannel shirt, cleaning up her special place a bit, paying the mansion back for letting her come here. Taking care of it, for Artemas.