When Autumn Leaves: A Novel (27 page)

“Yes,” Autumn said levelly.

“So that’s it, then?” Mave stared evilly at Autumn.” My daughter doesn’t lead a normal life. She doesn’t go to college. She just crosses back and forth into fairyland until she gets sick and tired of us and decides to stay there permanently?” Her words stuck in her throat.

“You never know what’s coming.” Autumn put her hand on top of Mave’s. “I’ve been wondering for a long time why Piper went through what she did. And I think I understand that her journey was about giving us all faith. Changing our perception of impossible.” Maggie looked at her mother, her mother looked at Autumn. “You have been shown something extraordinary. You are blessed, so don’t push against it.”

Autumn had spoken with such conviction that Mave got caught up in her hopefulness. “Just faith, then? That will be enough to get me through?”

“Yes,” Autumn answered. “It will be enough, and then some.”

That next morning in the Shigeru house, the family left behind sat around the table. They all knew that Piper was gone for good. The tears would come eventually, but in that moment they were too absorbed in the changing rhythm of the house, the silence of absence and the current of missing things.

Will cleared his throat finally. “I promised your mother that . . . She told you she had an ability to go . . . somewhere else. And maybe that happened.” As much as Will tried to sound objective, his words fell flat and unconvincing. “But I feel I also must tell you that your mother did say to me, not too long ago, that she wanted to spare you the pain of seeing her in the end. The doctors did give us a glimpse of just how bad it would be. She didn’t want that for you, and she told me . . . well, her exact words were that she would find a way to get to the water and let it take her.”

“You think she killed herself, Dad?” Sylvie said angrily. “Is that what you think?”

“I think it might be a possibility, that’s all. She felt so helpless, Sylvie.” Will leaned over to take Sylvie’s hand, but she moved it away. “She felt like she had no control over her own body. And maybe, well, maybe she wanted to take that power back and end things on her terms. If she did, I think it would have been a very brave thing to do.”

Sylvie sat taller, looking so much older and wiser than she had done just the day before. She was different now, and her calm, level tone proved it. “Mom was not crazy. She never, ever lied to us, not even to make things better. If she said she could go from this place to another, even though that seems like bullshit, then I believe that’s what happened. She never, ever lied to us,” she repeated. “I also believe we can reach her, and I know she won’t be the same, but I’m going to try.”

“How, Sylvie?” Will asked with a mix of exasperation and sympathy. “How are you going to do that?”

“We could ask Autumn. She’d know,” Siobhan said quietly. Will and Sylvie looked at her. They had both momentarily forgotten she was even there. Sylvie looked surprised at her sister’s reaction.

Will, on the other hand, knew in that instant that on some level he had lost both his wife and his little girl in the same day. He had thought maybe, after Piper had died, they could all move somewhere else, start again fresh in a new place without memories. Now he understood that would never happen. They could never leave Avening.

Three people sat on hard wooden chairs, bound by blood and history. The thread that had connected them lay unraveled at their feet. New ties, made of things both harder and more solid, would have to be rewound. A new compass was needed, for they all knew in that moment they were lost without her. Each had their own ideas, their own theories about where Piper had gone, but they held them close, pushing them into the places inside that had begun to open and bleed in their grieving. Together, they were fundamentally alone. And Siobhan, unable to contain the great magnitude of her sorrow within the limits of her small frame, put her head against the battered wood of the old table and wept.

S
YLVIE SHIGERU FELT AUTUMN COMING IN THE cool westerly breezes and the clear, russet-colored sun-sets. It was still warm, but the humidity had released it heavy grip, and the days were lovely and still somewhat long.

As always, she thought of Piper when she stepped into the garden. This had been her mother’s place, as much as her office had been. The stamp of Piper was everywhere—in the perfectly overgrown perennials, in the accommodating path, in the small but practical vegetable garden. Sylvie often came here, to swing in the hammock, to sit on the weather beaten Adirondack chairs and feel close to Piper. She spoke out loud, if she could be sure that no one would hear. She knew that technically her mother could not hear her, but pretending helped sort her head out. The house was still quiet with Will and Shiv both sleeping in their rooms. Unlike Sylvie, neither one of them were early risers or morning people.

With a steaming mug of peppermint tea in her hand, Sylvie sat down in her mother’s chair. She tilted her head back and let the first soft rays of sun fall on her open face. The air was still permeated with the sweet smell of night blooming jasmine and she felt the excitement rolled up into a tight ball in the pit of her stomach.

“Well, Mom, today’s the day,” she whispered. “But let’s face it, the chances of me actually getting to meet Callum West are slim to none, unless maybe you are hearing me somehow and can work some kind of mojo thing. But at least I’ll be able to see him, I’ll be close to him. And besides, I’m not so sure I would want to meet him. What if he’s a complete asshole?”

“Who’s an asshole?” said a voice from the open kitchen door. It was Siobhan. Sylvie found herself flushing; but at least it wasn’t her father. “Who are you talking to?”

“Mom,” Sylvie said, trying to sound casual.

“And Mom’s an asshole?” Shiv smiled as she sat in the chair next to her sister.

“No, no one’s an asshole. Well, this one guy might be; that’s what I was saying.”

“Oh, Callum West, right? Were you talking to Mom about the concert tonight?”

Sylvie shrugged and said nothing. There was no way her little sister would understand.

“You think Mom can hear you? I mean, when you talk out loud to her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. She might be able to sense that I’m thinking about her.” She reached over to squeeze Siobhan’s hand. She knew that Shiv was probably feeling a little left out. “Hey, listen. I’ve got a ton of things to get ready. I have to get all my clothes for the concert and for camping tonight, and I have to buy food and pack the cooler and stuff. I could really use your help today. Are you up for it?”

“I don’t know.” Siobhan picked a dandelion from the ground and began to peel off the small petals.

“If you help me, I’ll take you to the video store before I leave and you can get any movie you want.”

“Really?” Shiv’s face lit up. “Even a rated-R one?”

“Only if it’s rated R because of gratuitous sex and nudity . . . deal?” Sylvie winked and they both laughed now. “Why don’t you call Lexy, see if she wants to spend the night, keep you company while I’m gone.”

“Yeah, okay, but should I call her before or after I help you?”

“Before, I think. Give her some notice.”

“Cool.” She got up and started back towards the house, but stopped and turned back around. Her brow furrowed and she brought her finger to her mouth to bite the broken cuticle around her nail. “Thanks,” she said after a moment.

Sylvie smiled. “No prob.” She knew what Siobhan meant.

Piper had been gone almost two months. No body had been found, no signs or clues had been given as to her whereabouts. Like her sister had suggested, Sylvie had talked to Autumn Avening about the possibility of this “other world” her mother had described. Autumn told her that, yes, she had gone, but as of that moment, Autumn had no further information to give her. She promised to keep her posted. This thoroughly pissed Sylvie off; she knew Autumn knew more than she was letting on. But she wouldn’t push. She couldn’t have said she understood how Autumn operated, but she did understand well enough that there had to be a more than valid reason for the woman’s reluctance to share. And so from somewhere she found patience, knowing nothing could be done until the time was right.

Sylvie knew she, too, would get through this. She looked in the mirror and saw herself, saw a separate future as an independent person, and still carried around all the hopes she had before she’d known she’d have to live that future without her mother. Sylvie was slight but curvy, a naturally beautiful woman. Sylvie knew this, knew that she took the best parts of her combined heritage, and was grateful for it, understanding that her good looks made her life that much easier. She was also pragmatic enough to know that a beautiful woman possessed that attribute only for a short amount of time. One day she would be old and gray and soft, and she wanted to be able to say that she accomplished more in her life than merely looking good. What exactly that was, she had no idea. She did not have her mother’s gift for storytelling, but she had inherited her ability for illustration. She was thinking of going to art college and majoring in design. She had a few ideas, but nothing absolute. She found it impossible to think of the future without first getting past this one night.

Sylvie remembered the day when Piper plunked down all those tickets. She had bought them off the Internet, and had printed the tickets off the website. Dissatisfied with the flimsiness of the paper, with how ordinary it seemed, her mother, ever an artist, had painted and pasted two handmade tickets. Sylvie kept the real ones tacked above her desk, but she framed the ones her mother had made and even now she stared at the purple and gold of the design, smiling as she always did at the color photos Piper had decoupaged on—Sylvie and Callum West, staring into each other’s eyes. How her mother had managed to make it look so real, she had no idea.

Sylvie was fourteen the first time she heard the Callum West Band. She had been listening to the local college radio station as she always did, with a certain smugness. When Callum’s voice traveled the frequency and slipped out of her stereo, Sylvie’s stomach dropped and her heart raced. She was not silly enough to think he was singing directly to her, but it felt like that. His words sung their way deep into her brain and subconscious, where all her burgeoning adolescent fantasies resided.

Callum was Sylvie’s first crush. Now, almost four years later, Sylvie had been involved with boys, flirted, dated, and even slept with a couple, but none of them came close to the way Callum made her feel when she heard his voice or saw him on TV. No one could deny that his face matched the sexy timbre of his voice; he was strikingly beautiful, with shaggy black hair and piercing eyes. A little bit of his mouth always remained open, even when his lips were closed in a tiny, perfect diamond shape.

He was two men: there was the one she saw in interviews—goofy, self-effacing, and gifted with the ability to make fun of himself and his profession, which put everyone at ease—and then there was the other Callum, the one on stage. Magnetic, dark, guarded, as if he was holding something back, as if it would simply be too much to give his purest and most authentic self to the audience.

She had never seen him in concert. There was no way she was going to go with her parents, and they had claimed she was too young to go on her own the last time he came close to Avening (and the closest he’d come to Avening was still a couple hours’ drive away). So Sylvie waited patiently, all the while knowing that when it was right for her to see him in person, she would. And then last winter, her mother had given her those two precious tickets, for herself and a friend. Now, just mere hours before show time, Sylvie wished more than anything else it was her mother going with her.

Sylvie had planned everything down to the last detail. She had braided her wet hair the night before in dozens of plaits. When it was time to go, she would undo them and let her long, dark locks fall wildly down the sides of her face and past her shoulders. She was going to wear faded but tight-fitting jeans that rode low on her hips and a simple white tank. Her best friend, Molly Moralejo, would be there around three o’clock to pick her up. They would take the ferry to the mainland and then drive the sixty miles to the venue in her beat-up Volvo, and they would spend that night at the campground right off of the amphitheater. The day before, conscientious Sylvie had written out a checklist of everything they would need, and now she would have to get it all together.

All morning, Shiv held the list and read off items one by one till everything was collected and assembled on the front porch. Sylvie had set up the tent, hosed it down, and let it dry in the sun before repacking it in the small nylon bag. Sylvie taught her sister how to roll each piece of clothing to maximize space. The two sisters headed to Brigid’s Way Market, Avening’s local grocery store, and then Zeus’ Movie Depot so Shiv could pick out a movie. Siobhan browsed as her sister watched, stopping at foreign films, picking up boxes and pretending to look intrigued. Sylvie bit her upper lip to keep from breaking into hysterics. Finally she chose, as Sylvie had predicted, a silly high school film.