Perennial (16 page)

“Oh,” Brooke says, rolling her eyes. “Are you in the Group, Stephanie? I hope not, because Vagabond promised Roman he was on vacation for a while.”

“She’s not in the Group,” Roman says. “Not yet.”

“How do you know all of this?” I say.

“Think about it.”

“London.” I nod at the obvious answer. “You know my real name then?”

“Yes.” Roman hoists his backpack over his shoulder. “Good luck with Vagabond’s test, Alix. From what I’ve heard, you’re doing great.”

“I have a feeling the hardest part is still to come.”

“It is,” Roman says. “See you at lunch, Brooke.” He gives her hand a squeeze and rushes off to class, leaving Brooke and me alone.

“I have to go too,” Brooke says. “It was nice meeting you, Alix. I don’t have any special abilities, but I have a feeling we’ll see each other again soon.”

“One question, Brooke. If you don’t have powers, how do you know about us? How do you know about Vagabond and the Group?”

“It’s complicated, but it has everything to do with the power of love.” She leans in close and whispers, “Demons fear love, Alix. Remember that.”

She smiles and hustles down the emptying hallway.

The tardy bell rings as I push open the door to the attendance office. It’s a small, windowless room connected to a much larger main office. The attendance secretary doesn’t bother looking up from her cluttered desk, her face glued to the computer monitor. The office smells like stale coffee, cigarette smoke, and cheap air freshener. The frumpy, overweight woman in front of me is a prime candidate for one of those professional style-makeover shows. She could be pretty if she tried, but she strikes me as a woman over fifty who has given up on ever meeting somebody special. The absence of a wedding ring reinforces my theory.

“Um … excuse me,” I say. “I was wondering if you could—”

“Shouldn’t you be in class right now?” she interrupts, eyes still pasted to her computer.

“I suppose.”

“Do you have a pass to be here?”

“No, but—”

“Then you need to leave,” she says. “You’re late for class.”

Her lack of eye contact and awful attitude is pissing me off. I only have a few minutes before I need to leave. My mind is a wreck right now, and the guy I’m in love with is lying about where he’s from, so maybe it’s no surprise that I feel like I’m about to snap at this woman.

I force myself to take a breath and stay calm, knowing that anger won’t get me anywhere with somebody like this. Her desk looks like a tornado roared through it, but I do spot three framed photos of an adorable chocolate Labrador retriever.

“Your dog is beautiful,” I say. “Is it male or female?”

That gets her attention. She looks at me. A smile crosses her face. She shifts her gaze between the pictures and me. I have a feeling I’m the first person who has spoken with her this morning.

“That’s my Oscar,” she says, beaming. “He turns seven next week.”

“That’s great. I love dogs, but my dad says we’re too busy to care for one. My mom used to say the same thing. I guess they’re right. Our house is empty most of the time. But I hear Labs are great with kids. Do you have children?”

“Me?” she says, laughing. “Oh no. I guess you could say Oscar’s my only child. He does love kids, though. That’s why I take him to the park so much. Oscar worships people.” She gives me a blank stare. “I’m sorry, honey, but why are you here again?”

“Oh right,” I say. “I was just talking with Roman King and Brooke Sparks—”

“Roman and Brooke? I just love those two. Aren’t they wonderful together?”

“Um, yes,” I say, happy the name-dropping paid off. “They’re an amazing couple. So, I know this guy who went to school here until the end of last year. He’s a senior this year, but he never told me he was moving. We’ve lost touch. I don’t even have a working phone number or e-mail address for him. It’s like he just vanished. Brooke said you were awesome and suggested I ask you where he might be going to school this year.”

“Brooke Sparks said I was awesome?”

“Yes. She also said you had the cutest dog on the planet.”

“Oh, bless her.” She rests her fingers on the keyboard and looks at the monitor. “Okay. What’s his name?”

“Lewis Wilde.”

I spell his entire name out for her. She types and waits. A concerned look eventually crosses her face.

“Are you sure you spelled his name right?”

“Yes.” Again, I spell out his complete first and last names. “I’m positive that’s correct.”

She types again. My hearts hammers away with every keystroke.

“Honey, I’m sorry.” She shakes her head. “There’s no record of a Lewis Wilde attending school here or anywhere else in Eastland, and these records go back twenty years. You must have the spelling wrong.”

She stares at me. I feel my jaw dropping. Lewis Wilde is turning out to be one big lie.

“What’s wrong?” she says. “You look like you’re about to cry. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Thank you. You’ve been a great help.” I’m barely able to get the words out as I turn and push through the door.

“Wait,” she says. “I’ll write you a late pass.”

The door closes with a dull thud. The hallway is deserted, and that’s exactly how I feel right now. Deserted. I also feel cheated and used. A whirlwind of emotions rolls through me as my rapid footsteps echo through the halls. I want William and Lewis to switch places. I want William to be real and Lewis to be the ghost. William wouldn’t lie to me like this. Part of me wants to break down and cry. Another part of me wants to find Lewis and beat his ass.

Why is Lewis lying? I still can’t figure it out. And this isn’t just some little lie. If he’s not from Eastland, where is he from? Are his parents really working in China? Does he even have grandparents in Beaconsfield? Perhaps most troubling of all, where exactly has he been staying the past few days?

My sadness and hurt turn to anger as I approach the back of the school. I can’t imagine sitting next to Lewis in history class today. I’m afraid I’ll punch him if I see him. What does he want from me? What is he using me for? Is Lewis Wilde a demon? Is he Fire?

So many questions, but I do know one thing: I’m not one of those weak and passive females who allow guys to walk all over them. How dare that bastard lie to me and actually think he can get away with it. I don’t care how beautiful Lewis is; lying just made him ugly.

I push open the double doors of the school and step into the blinding morning sunlight. My walk turns into a jog, which quickly becomes a full sprint to my Explorer, where I again think of London and Vagabond’s words of wisdom.

London:
Trust your abilities, but don’t trust anything or anybody else.

Vagabond:
My advice is to not trust anything or anybody except your abilities.

I slam the door and pull out of the student parking lot so fast that I squawk the tires. I should go directly to school, but there’s no way I’m going to Beaconsfield High today, not until I know who Lewis Wilde really is.

The word cloud hits as I cross the border from Eastland into Beaconsfield. The name Marc Watkins flashes through my mind in brilliant black letters against a crisp white background. The word clouds are getting clearer with each occurrence. My first one with London Steel yesterday was a fuzzy mess compared to this one. It’s like my mind’s-eye vision is improving. My abilities are getting stronger. I’m understanding them better and not fighting them.

“Okay,” I say, focusing on the road and traffic in front of me. “What about him? What about Mr. Watkins?”

Nothing happens for about a minute, but when I glance at my phone in the cup holder, I somehow know exactly what to do.

I pull into the Trader Joe’s parking lot, where I manage to fight off a wicked craving for more vegetarian kimchi topped with a fried egg. Using my Google app, I search the words “Marc Watkins Michigan address.”
WhitePages.com
has four matches, but only two of them have the correct “Marc” spelling. The other two spell the name the traditional way with a
k.
Of the two Marcs, I see the one I’m looking for right away. Marc Watkins. Age 35–40. 2120 Cranbrook. Beaconsfield. Oakland County.

I honestly don’t know how people accomplished anything before the Internet, especially detectives.

What surprises me is the Beaconsfield address. I’m not sure how much public school teachers get paid around here, but there’s no way it’s enough to maintain a Beaconsfield lifestyle. Then again, my dad’s a cop and we live here, so there must be plenty of cash somewhere in the Watkins family tree.

Unlike Bloomfield Street, you’re allowed to park on Cranbrook, so I pull curbside in front of the generous white colonial at 2120 and sit there, wondering what to do next. It’s 7:45 a.m. The driveway is empty, the doors and windows all closed, blinds and curtains drawn, and the garage is shut. There aren’t even any media or law-enforcement types around, so I figure the grieving widow Mrs. Watkins has taken the kids and gone to stay with somebody. I know the feeling. Dad and I never felt comfortable in the Wayne house after Mom died.

The Watkins house has a long, tall privacy hedge on both sides, screening the residence from neighbors. I look around. Still not seeing a soul, I silence my phone and get out of the Explorer. Seconds later I’m halfway up the Watkins’s driveway, fully aware that I’m trespassing on a dead man’s property and that Dad will probably kick me out of the house if he finds out I’m ditching school and nosing around here.

An immaculate Asian-style wooden fence rests between the house and the detached garage, concealing the backyard from view. I’m sure the ornate gate will be locked, so I’m surprised when I turn the metal handle and it opens slowly toward me.

I see her the moment I step into the beautifully landscaped backyard. She’s about thirty feet away, sitting on a stone bench beside a pond that looks as if it’s straight out of some Zen garden in Japan. Her back is facing me. She’s looking at the pond. If she heard me open the gate, she doesn’t seem to care.

I’m not sure what to do. The woman is dressed in black, so I’m fairly certain it’s Mrs. Watkins. I take a moment and debate whether to continue forward or retreat and leave this poor woman alone.

The backyard. Wait. It
is
a Zen garden. That’s the intention, and somebody pulled it off with stunning success. Japanese maple trees and other Asian-looking trees and shrubs fill the space, all of them placed perfectly and displaying a lovely combination of green, red, and purple foliage. It’s incredible. I see some stone paths and hear a gentle waterfall near the pond. There’s even one of those large, reddish-orange Japanese-shrine gates in the back of the garden.

I take a deep breath and continue forward along a pea gravel path, desperately wondering what I should say to her. This feels right, though. The Marc Watkins word cloud led me here for a reason.

She hears my feet crunching the gravel and turns, revealing one of the saddest faces I’ve ever seen. She’s a pretty woman, but thin and pale, her eyes red and swollen from crying. I remember my eyes looking that way when Mom died.

Mrs. Watkins’s stylish long-sleeved black shirt and pants are in stark contrast to her long blond hair and pearly skin, giving her an almost ghostlike appearance. I stop on the path ten feet away from her.

“Who are you?” she says, standing and sliding on a pair of black sunglasses. “And what are you doing here? You need to leave, or I’ll call the police.” She shows me her phone. “Do you understand?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Watkins. My name is Alix Keener. I’m a new senior at Beaconsfield. I picked the school because of your husband’s reputation as a teacher. I just wanted to say in person how sorry I am for your loss.”

“Keener,” she says. “Are you the policeman’s daughter? The one who lives on Maple Grove?”

“Yes, that’s me,” I say, wondering if I just got myself into big-time trouble. “My dad’s doing everything he can to find out who’s responsible for your husband’s death.”

“What you just did. It takes a lot of nerve to walk into somebody’s backyard like that, especially under these circumstances.”

I shrug. “I guess I have my father’s law-enforcement instincts.”

“Nobody knows I’m here,” she says. “Please keep it that way. A neighbor helped me get back here undetected. I can’t stay long. I have to get back to my boys, but I just had to spend some time alone in the garden. It’s probably the last time I’ll see it.”

“I understand. It’s an amazing space.”

“It was a mess when we moved in two years ago,” she says, smiling at a pleasant memory. “Marc revived the whole thing.” She shakes her head and looks around. “He was an incredible gardener. He used his chemistry background to create all sorts of organic pesticides and fertilizers. They all worked too. He planned on opening an organic gardening center after he retired from teaching.”

“I’m sorry I never met him. The whole school is devastated. Students. Staff. They loved him, Mrs. Watkins. I’m not sure if that helps, but I wanted you to know.”

“Thank you. My name is Mary, by the way.” She wipes tears away. “I’m sorry about your mother. From what I’ve read and heard, she was very well loved too.”

“Yes,” I say. “Thank you. She was.”

Mrs. Mary Watkins stays silent for several moments, surely staring at me behind those big black lenses. A cool but light breeze blows through her straight blond hair and rustles the Japanese maples, sending several dead leaves to the ground. Watching her, I sense she’s a kind but lonely and shy woman, a wonderful mother who doesn’t have many close friends. There are things she wants to talk about but for some reason can’t. I need to shake her hand or hug her. I need physical contact to get a better reading.

“It’s still difficult for you, isn’t it?” she says. “Dealing with the loss.”

“I struggle every day.”

“Has it gotten any easier? I can’t imagine feeling this hollow and empty for the rest of my life.”

“You learn to function,” I say. “That’s about all I can say.”

She gestures toward the bench. “Would you like to sit down?”

“Sure.” I walk toward her. “I’d like that.”

We sit beside each other and stare at the pond, which is stocked with the most beautifully colored Japanese koi fish I’ve ever seen. Dozens of them swim near the surface, their large, brightly colored bodies showing a variety of orange, yellow, black, and white patterns. It’s hard to believe there can be such sadness amidst such a peaceful and gorgeous setting.

Mary opens up quickly. I suppose it’s our shared bond of loss that makes her feel comfortable with me. I listen to every word. She talks about her six- and eight-year-old sons, Joshua and Ethan, who keep asking when Daddy will be home. She talks about the lack of respect the media has had around her. I tell her I can relate to that one. She understands that the police are simply doing their jobs, but she doesn’t see why they have to ask her so many questions. I like her more with every passing second, and it occurs to me that I haven’t had such a meaningful conversation with an adult woman since Mom died.

“Alix?” she says. “Why are you crying?”

Her question surprises me. I’m staring at the fish, unaware of the tears rolling down my cheeks. I wipe my face and take a deep breath.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “Maybe it’s because I don’t know why good people have to experience so many horrible things. Maybe these experiences make us stronger in the long run, but it sure seems like a high price to pay.”

“That’s a wise statement for a girl your age. Then again, you’ve been through a lot.”

“You have no idea. No idea at all.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Let’s just say this goes way beyond my mom,” I say. “My life changed forever two days ago. Sometimes I feel like I know what I’m doing. Other times I feel like a lost child.”

“Welcome to adulthood,” she says.

She takes my hand and squeezes it. I’m surprised with how easily we both break down. My tears return like a waterfall. Mrs. Watkins hugs me. I soon feel her shaking and crying, so I hug her. We’re both a total mess for a minute or two, but I could care less. I feel the emotional weight of the past few days melting away with every tear. I don’t have a mother. Mrs. Watkins doesn’t have a daughter. We’re simply two women in the right place at the right time, but for all the wrong reasons.

The vision comes near the end of the hug. White light floods my mind. I see them arguing in their kitchen, Marc and Mary Watkins fighting about money. They’re trying to keep their voices down so the boys can’t hear them. She wants to know how much money he has, but he won’t tell her. He’s afraid of something or someone. There’s something else related to cash, but I can’t figure it out. All I know is that they were not getting along well in the weeks before he died, and it had something to do with money and fear.

The vision ends without any hint of fire, just another flare of white. I’m back in the moment, still in Mary’s arms. This is good. The lack of fire must mean Mary Watkins is innocent of any involvement in her husband’s death and that she has no clue about the worlds of Fire and Light. She’s a normal human. Despite her current circumstances, I envy her for that.

“Mrs. Watkins, what happened?” I ask, finally getting myself together. “What do you think really happened?”

She looks at the pond and places her palms on her thighs, thinking. “My husband was a brilliant man and a master teacher,” she says. “His brain was a sponge for knowledge. Chemistry and history. He couldn’t get enough of it. Marc read more books than anybody I know. Money wasn’t important to him. All he cared about was educating young people. You don’t become a teacher with the idea of getting rich from it. For years we lived in a small but nice bungalow in Royal Oak.” She pauses. “But something happened to him about six years ago, right around the time Joshua was born. There was a shift in his thinking. Marc suddenly wanted to do more than just teach in Beaconsfield. He wanted to be Beaconsfield. He wanted …” She gestures toward the house and garden. “He wanted all of
this
.”

“Which is impossible on a teacher’s salary.”

“Exactly,” she says. “Neither of us comes from a wealthy background either. He talked about switching careers. I even volunteered to work outside of the home, but he said that was out of the question. Marc was a firm believer that being a stay-at-home mom is the hardest but most important job on the planet.” She smiles at that. “Anyway, a few years went by, but nothing really changed. He felt stuck and was becoming increasingly unhappy. I thought he wanted a divorce, but he insisted his frustrations had nothing to do with our marriage.” She shrugs and looks at me. “I don’t know what to say other than Marc was angry at not being rich. He wasn’t arrogant. He just believed he had the intelligence to make a lot of money.”

“And he eventually did,” I say. “So what was the problem?”

Mary Watkins looks away and doesn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling like an idiot for getting so personal. “It was the wrong question. I apologize, Mrs. Watkins. I should probably get going.”

I’m getting ready to stand when she grabs my shoulder.

“Wait, Alix.” I nod and sit. “It’s okay,” she says. “You don’t need to apologize. I’ve already told your father and other law-enforcement people all of this, so it’s not like I’m revealing anything new to you.”

She removes her hand from my shoulder. I feel my pulse quicken. Regardless of what she just said, she’s about to reveal things she hadn’t planned on revealing to a seventeen-year-old stranger.

“About three years ago,” she continues, “Marc got mixed up with the wrong people. He kept it hidden from me for about a year, but I knew something was going on. He was coming home from school later than usual, and during the summer he was gone for hours at a time during the day. He always said he was at the gym, but I knew he was lying. I thought he was having an affair, but then one day two years ago he came home happier than I’d seen him in years. He told me he’d invested well and had saved enough money to move us to Beaconsfield.” She shakes her head. “Marc always took care of the finances. I didn’t know anything about money we did or didn’t have.” She pauses. “But I knew his so-called saved money was dirty, Alix, and I knew it came as a direct result of whatever he was up to on the side.” She removes her sunglasses, rubs her swollen eyelids, and slides the glasses back on. “What I regret more than anything is not confronting him about it that very first day. I never asked about the money, because I was so happy to finally see
him
happy.” She starts crying again. “Does that make me a bad person?”

“Not at all,” I say, thinking back to the vision of their kitchen argument. “Because you finally did ask about the money, right?”

“Not until it was too late.”

“What do you mean?”

She wipes tears from her face. “Alix, do you know what Perennial is?”

A wave of nausea overcomes me. It’s as if I can feel my blood draining from my body.

There’s no way. There’s just no way Mr. Watkins was involved.

“Alix, are you okay?” she says. “You don’t look so good.”