CHAPTER FOUR

THE ORANGE GLOW surrounding the professor’s house had subsided, dimmed by the billowing smoke, which was the natural response of fire to water being poured on it. Most of the excitement and neighbors had evaporated, and I could hear the firemen as they shouted out progress to one another. They seemed to be down to hot spots now, dousing them liberally whenever they found one as they raked through the debris.

I thought the evening had me covered and hidden, but a hand fell on my shoulder as I ventured closer.

I jumped.

Carter Phillips said, about four inches above my ear, “We don’t believe he got out.”

“No?”

“I’m sorry.”

I twisted around to meet his expression. “We were too late. We were all too late! All these nosy neighbors,” I waved a hand, “and which one of them dialed 911 before they came running out to see?” I clenched my teeth a moment. He’d called me first. Why hadn’t I called emergency myself? I’d run instead. And arrived just as late. Even if he’d reincarnated as Brian, he wasn’t the same. Not at all.

“It’s not your fault.”

I crossed my arms over my chest.

Detective Phillips persisted. “You can’t blame yourself.”

“Well, I’m not. I mean, I am because I couldn’t get to him— but I’m angry too. Nobody deserves to die like this and yet he had to. It’s selfish of me, but I didn’t want to lose him. He was kind of a friend. More than that, really, but . . . and I had to know him. The town already thinks we’re ax murderers and now this.”

“No one thinks you had anything to do with this. Or your mother.”

“Checked your Twitter feed lately?” Thanks to Evelyn, I was fairly certain the news and rumors were flying about. Richmond, Virginia was the hotbed of free speech after all, where the church where Patrick Henry gave his famous Revolutionary War spiel still stood, and tweets were nothing if not free speech. Frequent, irresponsible, ignorant, and often inflammatory, but free. I might not agree with anything that was being said, but I’d been raised to fight for the right to say it.

Carter looked as if there were something more he wanted to add, but his jaw tightened and that off-center cleft twitched. I wondered again if he’d been born with it or if it had been carved by his duty in Afghanistan. He was just old enough that we hadn’t shared time in middle or high school together. I had no memory of him before he’d come back home a hero of sorts, becoming a policeman and then a detective in record time. Not that he wasn’t qualified, but Richmond had found a way to thank him for his service. He was good at what he did, too. Everyone said so. Even when he was haunting our footsteps when Dad disappeared. He’d been both persistent and kind. Not to mention devastatingly good-looking. I turned my head away, not wanting to stare at him, but wanting to memorize his face at the same time.

Before either of us could say anything else, I spotted Steptoe and his sidekick lurking on the other side of the street. Again? I needed to catch a break. No one seemed to notice or block their way as they wove around the workers and hoses and policemen. They paced the pavement like hounds searching for a scent, Steptoe particularly with his head up. I could almost see his nostrils flaring as he waved a hand, talking to the two on his heels. I sidled sideways a step to keep Carter between us. It worked so successfully in the direction I wanted to go that I repeated it. Carter followed.

Another hundred sidles and I’d make it to the arbor. Maybe by the Fourth of July.

“You really shouldn’t be here. They’re trying to mop up, and then the investigators will move in when it’s cool enough.”

“Is that how it works?” I tried the wide-eyed and interested look. I tried another step. Ninety-nine more to go.

“If it’s property damage only, they’d fence it off and wait a day or two for the site to be stone cold. Since they’re looking for remains, they want to get in as soon as possible.” He hesitated and then continued, “To verify things.”

Things. Meaning the crispy critter that had once been Professor Brandard. That’s what they called thoroughly burned corpses. If they found one. The shudder that ran through me wasn’t faked. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that Brian might have hatched out of the fiery egg of the professor. Or had his body warped and twisted and heaved like a werewolf undergoing transformation until he morphed into nature boy? The image sent chills all over my body, and a late night breeze grew stronger, sending the smoke away from us, clearing the scene and making me all the more visible. Worse, Steptoe seemed intrigued by something in our direction. His head turned slowly but inexorably our way. Did he sense distress? Evil? Me?

I took another step, backward and into the shadows. “I brought him meals all the time. Mom knew him at the university. Can I just . . . just sit . . . and watch for a while?” And maybe hide under a table.

Carter shook his head. “Tessa, you don’t want to see him if they find him and bring him out. There won’t be anything recognizable. It’s not something I—” He cleared his throat. “Or your mother—would want you seeing.”

“Please. I’ll just sit in the arbor and wait for a while.” Not to mention hide from Steptoe and his thugs. He’d either recruited another one from somewhere, or the original had reformed. I rubbed the bridge of my nose. My head began to hurt from all the impossibilities.

“I didn’t realize the two of you were so close.”

Oh, but he had some idea. He’d tailed my bicycle runs at least once. He knew I spent more time here than necessary for simply dropping off the food and leaving. He didn’t know about tonight’s phone call, but he might if they decided to look through the phone records. Unless the call hadn’t exactly gone through by telephone. Brian had seemed a little vague about that. I looked up at him through my eyelashes. “We talked a lot. They all do, sometimes. I think they get lonely, you know? Mrs. Sherman even knitted me a sweater.”

“Wow.”

I leaned in a little. “It’s a little freaky looking but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I figure I’ve got the next Christmas ugly sweater contest nailed.”

He laughed.

“He used to like to eat at the patio table out there. He’d tell me things. You know, once a teacher, always a teacher.” I sighed. “I saw the smoke and panicked. I ran over, to find all this. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

Another sidestep to the arbor.

Carter looked down at me, an expression I didn’t recognize fleeting across his face. “Five minutes to say good-bye, then I’m taking you home. It’s nearly dawn.”

Hallelujah. I forced a quiet, “I know.”

He escorted me to the arbor, tall enough that he had to duck slightly as he stepped underneath the redwood arch and greenery. I threw a backward glance and saw that Steptoe seemed not to have caught sight of me as I disappeared into the greenery depths. Now that I was in, all I had to do was figure out how to get rid of my sentry, but it looked like he was glued in place. I wished there was a way to get him to leave without making him suspicious. I sat down in the third chair, which showed little wear, and stared first at the professor’s preferred seat, and then at the massive, worn-out chair which must have held Morty’s density. I reached out and traced a finger over the arm of that chair. Carter watched thoughtfully. Was he wondering how this would affect me, after having lost my dad? Had the professor been a substitute father figure? More a grumpy old uncle figure, but I know I was wondering. Why me? Why did he reach out to me for help? I didn’t have an answer. That was part of what made me angry. I felt inadequate. Even helping nature boy wouldn’t make up for that, entirely.

A faint query came from outside and Carter stepped through to answer. He looked back at me. “I’ll be back in a few; we’re setting up a final perimeter now.” And he was gone.

I wondered if I got two more wishes or if I’d already met my limit.

I threw myself on my knees to examine the chairs and table. Nothing met my eye. If the professor had put anything here, it was well and truly hidden. The underside of the table yielded nothing but a butterfly chrysalis, waiting to open.

I stood back up and eyed the trellis. Thin and spindly plaited redwood strips, where nothing secreted along their woven ribbons met my eyes. Where then? And what just what had Brian remembered? What could possibly be hidden here?

Morty’s distressed wood chair stared blankly and unhelpfully back at me. Gouges and notches danced before my tired eyes, marching in and out of a jagged pattern in the wood grain. A pattern. I threw myself into Morty’s throne and ran my tender fingers over the wood.

Definitely a pattern. And the left arm was thicker intentionally.

I leaned close to stare at it, the arbor’s long shadows thinning as the night faded a little.

A Chinese box. The professor had inlaid a Chinese puzzle box into the arm of the chair. It wrapped around underneath the sturdy arm, but I could trace its outline, revealing it to me. Press here. There and. . . . so!

A panel slid open. If it contained a treasure, it wasn’t much bigger than a stick of gum. I explored with my fingertips and a key fell into my hand.

“Tessa?”

I slammed the panel shut and jumped to my feet. Carter leaned into the arbor. “We’re fencing the property off. I have to clear you out of here. They haven’t found anything, but they intend to keep looking.”

He kept his body protectively between me and the smoking wreckage of the professor’s former life as he walked me home. I didn’t see Steptoe and prayed he hadn’t seen me as I grasped the key tightly in my fist.

Whatever the professor intended to do with his new life, he was going to have to unlock his old one first.

At the far corner from the house, Carter’s shoulder worn radio buzzed. He tapped it and listened to a burst or two of static. He said, “Be right there,” and looked down at me. “Are you all right the rest of the way?”

“Sure.”

He patted my shoulder and did an about-face to jog back the way we’d come. I wondered if someone had finally noticed Steptoe lurking or complained about his house-to-house late-night ramblings. A feeling like someone had put their cold hand to the back of my neck touched me, and I kicked into a jog-trot myself, eager to cover that last block to home and relative safety. I yawned and covered my mouth with the back of my hand, glad I hadn’t done that in Carter’s face. Nothing says “you bore me” like a good, stiff yawn. I made it to the corner house on our block.

The raggedy hedge bushes by Mr. and Mrs. Palmero’s lawn rattled in the breeze. They were nearly man-high. The year or so we’d lived in Great-Aunt April’s house, he’d spent every weekend on a ladder trimming them neatly with his clippers, but the hedges grew like weeds and never looked manicured or short and tidy. I don’t know what kind of hedge plant they were, but I guessed they came from a botanical family that could overtake ancient ruins in a fortnight, never to let them see the light of day again. The Palmeros had a prodigal son who came back from time to time to live with them for a few weeks before taking off again. One weekend I’d had the pleasure of seeing them both up on spindly ladders, clipping their little hearts away in futility. Mr. Palmero had looked tremendously pleased, though. That and sunburnt. Young Palmero had worn a hat, the kind with beer can holders and a straw on either side. I think he might have been using them because the holders were loaded.

The hedges rattled furiously again and growled.

I came to a halt. Growled?

The hedges snarled again and added panting.

I leaped into a headlong sprint for my house. Why wait?

They sprang out of the bushes at my heels and gave chase with happy yelps. Not being able to run while looking back over my shoulder, a talent I’d never developed nor been bullied into learning, I had no idea how many of what. They sounded like dogs, big dogs. Maybe even wolves.

I played striker, usually, on the field hockey team. I knew how to cover ground. How to evade. How to hit for the goal. Now I simply ran until I realized I was leading them straight to my front door. What would I do there? Slam the door in their jaws and call the city dog catcher? I swerved across the street abruptly, running between two parked vehicles, catching my pursuers by surprise. Unable to corner so quickly, one of them fetched up against a car fender and gave a sharp yelp of pain and dismay, followed by snaps and snarls as it was evidently disciplined or driven back into the chase.

I angled to my left, and that gave me a chance to see what ran after me. It wasn’t dogs or wolves. But it wasn’t NOT dogs or wolves either. They couldn’t have been real, even though I saw the spittle fly from their open jaws as their tongues lolled out. They yowled joyously for the hunt, their hound heads low as their four legs drove them across the street and pavement. I could almost see through them as though I peered into a mirror. One accidently overran his pack mate and sent him rolling, which he did, doglike, if dogs melted into shadow and then reformed after their legs and paws tangled up momentarily. Solid, melted, solid again.

I let out an oooff and ran even faster. I had no intention of letting them catch me to find out if those glistening ivory fangs were real or if I would melt when they bit into me. I didn’t know what they were, but I knew I didn’t dare find out. Across the street to the Palmeros’ again, where I threw myself over the hedges. Well, partly over and somewhat through, with a great crash that drew the attention of someone inside the house . . .

Prodigal son Palmero staggered outside, letting the door bang into place behind him, with muttered curses. He’d left his beer-can drinking hat behind. He flung a squinted-up look at me, his face still rumpled in sleep and unhappiness at being woken up. He punched his hand into my shoulder with a growl of his own.

“Help!”

“What th’ hell?”

I tried to dodge past him. He caught at my hoodie and hauled me around, his mouth twisted. “I ought to beat the stuffing out of you.” I could smell stale beer on his breath as I shoved his hand aside.

“Mr. Palmero, it’s Tessa from down the street.”

“Like I care. It ain’t even dawn yet!” He rocked back on his heels, thick and heavy hands ready to slap at me. I ducked away as the hounds burst through the shrubbery. He gave a twist and stood in open-mouthed amazement.

“Run!” I flew past him, down the side of the house.

“Come back here!”

And then the pack of shadow hounds hit him. I heard a shriek and then a smothered cry of pain and then nothing but the growls and snarls and—what kind of noise do wild dogs make when they’re tearing their prey apart? Wet, tearing noises. Awful sounds. Sounds that told me I couldn’t do anything to save him. I hurdled the leaning, wooden fence at the back of their yard and fell into the Langshures’ Olympic-sized pool, which took up nearly the entire lot across the way, minus the house. Ice-cold water shocked me to my eyebrows and I flailed about, disoriented, telling myself I had to swim. Swim!

Hounds boiled over the fence after me. Five. No, six. There was a deck. They swarmed it and stared at me, eyes reflecting a dark, deep red. I could see them better as I tread water, for the Langshures had pool lights on, making the water a clear, beautiful aquamarine. I wondered if they would have to drain the pool and repaint the plaster after my bloody remains were pulled out of the water. The hounds jostled each other aside, loping back and forth and around the pool, hesitating.

They were afraid of the water.

Suddenly happy I hadn’t gotten it together and made it out of the pool as quickly as I’d fallen in, I floated in place and watched the pack. As I did, the gray light of dawn began to lighten the night sky. And then I heard one of the Hap family’s crazy chickens next door—the kind that lay colored eggs and have feathers that stick out everywhere, even on their feet—start to crow. The Haps weren’t great favorites in the neighborhood because their chickens could be noisy, but on the other hand, they liked to give away free eggs. I listened hopefully. Another crow.

The official end of night.

The hounds began to melt into the pool decking. With soft yelps of frustration and unhappiness, they disappeared before my eyes, all but their reddened stares, and then those too vanished. I sculled another few minutes just in case it was a clever trap. My mind whirled on a thought or two, caught, stalled, and then spun away. Improbabilities of the night melted into downright impossibilities as it did.

I pulled myself out of the pool and slogged it back to my house.

Brian met me at the door.

Liars and impossibilities.

“We need to talk,” I told him as I went inside.