Sixteen
THEY DID MANAGE to locate what seemed to be a doorway that once linked up to the room she’d first fallen into, but it had been walled up, and there was no way of determining the reason. They found nothing else in the basement. By the time they got upstairs, it was dark. Jackson started a fire, and they pooled their food supplies—what he had in his bag and what she’d bought in town. They ate in silence.
“Is it all right if I sleep indoors?” she asked finally. “I’ll find my own room.”
“What?” He started, as if from a reverie. “Of course. Last night…I wasn’t kicking you out to be a jerk. I thought you had someplace to go. If I’d known you didn’t…” He shrugged and passed Tess another apple.
After a few minutes of silent eating, he said, “Downstairs, when you said I was treating you like a dumb kid, I didn’t mean it like that. Sometimes I…well, I figure if I know things and others don’t, then I should tell them.”
“You’re smart, and you like explaining things. I like learning things. It’s just…the way you do it sometimes.”
He nodded, flushing, as if he might have heard a similar sentiment before.
“You’d make a good teacher,” she said. “Is that what you’re planning to be?”
He looked startled, then shook his head. “No.”
She waited in the vain hope he’d tell her what he did plan to become. Of course, he didn’t. After another minute of silence, she decided to take another poke.
“Are you backpacking?” she asked.
“Hmm?”
She pointed to his pack. “I asked if you’re backpacking.”
A pause, as if reluctant to answer, then a simple “Yes.”
Silence ticked by so loudly that Tess swore she could hear a clock somewhere in the bowels of the dark house. The firelight flickered through the room, casting dancing shadows over the walls.
“You’re right,” he said finally. “About this place. It could have been a private mental hospital that didn’t operate by the rules. When you mentioned that place in Ontario, it reminded me of something I heard at one of my parents’ dinners.”
He shifted, getting comfortable on the old chair he’d pulled over to the fireplace. “My parents are activists. Mostly for Métis rights, but issues bleed over, and they have friends who are fighting for French rights, Native rights, provincial rights. There’s a lot going on in Quebec right now. Some people even talk about breaking away from Canada. It’s an interesting time.”
He rubbed his chin. “I think so. The causes are good. I’m not as involved in them as my parents are.” A short laugh. “Which is the complete opposite of my classmates. They’re into the social issues, and their parents think a sit-in is something you do with sick relatives. I mostly stick to my studies, but I do care about all those things—Métis, Native, French, Quebec. I help my parents out when I can. Anyway, they have dinners and people talk about social issues and politics and all that, and I remember a few months ago, they were discussing this rumor about our premier. Well, it’s more than a rumor, actually, or I wouldn’t be spreading it.
“In Quebec, the provincial government supports orphanages, and the federal government supports hospitals, including psychiatric ones. Apparently, the premier is relabeling orphanages as hospitals and, in some cases, shipping orphans to mental hospitals, saying they’re mentally deficient.”
“Wh-what?” Tess shot upright. “They can’t do that.”
“The government gets away with some crazy stuff, Tess. If it’s true—and I have no reason to believe it isn’t—then I guess I can’t say something shady—or even criminal—couldn’t have happened in this house.”
Tess sat in stunned silence, thinking about what he’d said. “How can they do that? With the orphans?”
“I didn’t mean to upset you.” He went quiet. “I should have realized I would. It sounds bad, but orphanages aren’t exactly the best places to live under any circumstances. Or so I’ve heard. Yours…” He looked at her. “You seem normal.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, obviously you’re normal. I mean physically all right—and well educated, if they’re teaching you French. That’s not common in Ontario, is it?”
“No.”
“Was it all right? The Home? I’m sure it wouldn’t be great, obviously. And it looks like maybe you didn’t get a lot to eat.”
She gave him a look. “That’s just me. I’m small.”
“Oh.” Another throat clearing. “Not abnormally small. Just tiny. I thought maybe…well, I guess I was jumping to conclusions. I’m not exactly a big guy myself, and I eat lots, so…” He looked at her. “I’m not making this any better, am I?”
“No.” A brief smile. “But it’s kind of fun to watch you try.” She took a bite of her apple. “The Home was fine. Orphanages are like mental hospitals, I think—people get ideas of them based on books and movies, and most aren’t anything like that. It wasn’t perfect, of course. Lots of rules. Sharing everything. But there wasn’t anything wrong with it. We got a good education. Better than most kids in town. It could be disjointed though. Most of the teachers were temporary, and they had their areas of expertise and we just learned whatever they wanted to teach.”
“Like Métis history.”
She smiled. “Like that. I have the basics though. Solid basics, with some bonuses, like French. Did…?” She was going to ask if he’d studied English in school but switched to less personal phrasing. “Do they teach English here? Is it mandatory?”
“Education here is a mess,” he said, easing into lecture mode. “Did I mention lots of changes? That’s part of it. Right now, each board sets its own program, issues its own diplomas based on its own criteria—fifteen hundred boards. That’s nuts. There’s a commission doing a report, trying to change that. Part of the problem is that French isn’t an official language in Canada, so if you want to go past high school, you’d better speak English. In the smaller towns, like this one, everyone speaks French. They don’t learn English.”
“So they should teach it.”
“No,” he said carefully. “I would say Quebec children should learn the basics of English, because knowing extra languages is always beneficial. Like you learning French. But the solution isn’t to teach more English. It’s to accept more French. To let us be French. It’s like being Métis. It’s more than just biology or language. It’s a culture.”
She nodded. “Is that why your parents made sure you learned English? Because until things change, you’ll need it for university?”
“Partly. I went to a private school, and they taught it there, but I didn’t really need that. My mom’s from Ontario. English is her first language. French is Dad’s. We speak both at home.”
“And you know a third one. Cree?”
“Right,” he said. “That’s more like you and French. I know enough to carry on a halting conversation. Mamé, my dad’s mother, speaks it, and she lives with us. She speaks French, but she’ll switch to Cree to teach me.”
“You and your sisters? You mentioned you have some.”
“Two. They’re a lot older than me. Married with kids.”
She grinned. “So you’re the baby?”
He made a face. “I guess. It doesn’t feel like that. My parents are pretty liberal. Once we’re old enough to act like adults, we’re treated like adults. All the freedom and independence we want, as long as we’re responsible about it. Like me being here. They’re fine with it. They trust me.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost eleven. We should find you something to sleep on. I don’t suppose you brought a blanket?”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t planning to rough it. But I can spread out my clothes and sleep on those.”
“No, there’s a drawer of blankets in one of the bedrooms. We’ll get you one that isn’t too moth-eaten.”
Tess took an old blanket and settled into the large pantry. An odd place to pick as a bedroom, but Jackson insisted.
“There aren’t any windows here,” he said.
“Which means it’ll be too dark.”
“The moon will shine in through the doorway, and I’ll give you the flashlight.”
She looked around the pantry. “Why here?”
“Because there aren’t any windows.” Impatience edged into his voice, clearly frustrated by her inability to see what seemed obvious to him. After a moment of silence, he said, “No one can see you’re in here alone.”
“Who would see me?”
He didn’t answer, as if again waiting for her to jump to the right conclusion. This time she did.
“Steve? The man who chased me? You don’t think he’d find me up here—”
“Are you going to take that chance?”
He was right, and she conceded it with a nod. “I’ll stay in here.”
“I would give you my switchblade, but you don’t know how to use one, and that makes it more dangerous. It can be taken and turned against you.”
“All right.”
“If you’re going to be out in the world on your own, you should have a weapon though. You just need to learn how to use it first.”
“All right.”
He started to leave then, but stopped and turned. “We have to do something about Etienne. At the very least, inform the police.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You’d rather let him go after another girl? Give it some thought. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Tess knew she should give it thought—but as soon as he left and she lay down, other thoughts consumed her. Ones of the house. Of the small rooms. Of the boxes.
She listened to Jackson in the other room as he settled into his blankets. He tossed and turned for a few minutes, but the day’s work had taken its toll, and soon the swish and thump of his movements stopped and deep breathing took their place.
Tess glanced toward the basement door. The answers were down there, and now that he’d drifted off, she was free to get them in her own way.
Her own way.
She rubbed the goose bumps rising on her arms. Her own way did not mean searching for a clue they’d missed. It meant searching for the clues Jackson couldn’t see. Ghosts. Visions.
Is that what she thought they were now? Ghosts and visions? Not madness?
Tess didn’t know. She’d heard someone last night, speaking French, crying for help. Then they’d discovered that the house seemed to have been used for mental patients. That there were rooms like the ones in her nightmares. Boxes like the ones in her nightmares.
Nightmares? Or memories?
Or hallucinations? Signs that she belonged in a place like this. That she was crazy.
There was a way to answer that, wasn’t there? Go downstairs. See what happened. If she saw something, she could investigate and get two kinds of answers from it—one that told her what had happened in this house and one that told her she wasn’t crazy. Or she could investigate, find nothing and get the answer she dreaded—that she was crazy. It was still an answer, though, and she wanted that, whichever way it went.
So all she had to do was go downstairs. Into the pitch-dark basement, with no stairs, with walled-in rooms and empty closets and boxes that looked like caskets. Go down there and purposely try to call forth terrifying visions.
She shivered convulsively, pulling the blankets tighter, wrapping herself in them. The chill still seeped into her bones.
Finally, she threw off the blanket, got up and walked into the library, where Jackson slept. If he wasn’t really sleeping as soundly as it seemed, that would give her the excuse she needed to stay upstairs, because if he heard her sneak into the basement, he’d be angry, and she couldn’t afford to upset him. She needed his help.
Did she still have his help? They hadn’t discussed what would happen after his day of work was over. She could offer him another five, but she realized now that the money hadn’t made any difference. He had only pretended it did to fend off questions.
She wished he did need the money. That would be a clear-cut way to gain his assistance. She didn’t want him to go. His French was a help, and having someone at her side meant she wasn’t easy prey for men like Steve. All excellent reasons to keep him. Yet none were the real one.
Tess imagined the other girls from the orphanage here with her, watching him sleep. Some of them would giggle about how cute he was. Yes, he was cute. Still, that wasn’t the reason she wanted him to stay. Seeing him asleep, all she thought about was waking him up. About going over, bending down and…kissing him? Definitely not. The very thought sent a flash of unease through her gut, confusion mingled with exhilaration and a dozen other emotions she couldn’t name, most of them uncomfortable.
What Tess wanted to do was wake him up and say, Talk to me. Just talk. I don’t care what you say.
Part of that was fear—the overwhelming feeling that she should go down to that basement and she was a coward if she didn’t, that she’d miss the best opportunity for answers. She wanted to wake him and get him talking to chase the shadows away. Postpone the decision.
But there was more to it than mere distraction. She simply wanted to hear him talk, the sound of his voice, the look on his face, animated as he launched into whatever topic occupied his busy mind.
Talk to me. Tell me something new. About the world. About your world. About you.
That was why she wanted to wake him. Because he was a fascinating boy. Brilliant and loquacious one minute, guarded and wary the next. Rude, impatient, easily irritated. Then kind and concerned and conscientious, worried about a man who might go after girls he’d never met. A private-school boy who carried a switchblade and knew how to pick a lock, who came from a good, solid family. A loving and close family too—she could tell that by the way he talked about them.
She wanted to know more about him. And she might never get the chance. Come morning, he could be gone, and she’d never even gotten his last name.
That was life, she supposed. Real life, outside the orphanage. Outside Hope. You meet people in passing. Kind people like the old couple who’d bought her tea and the man who’d helped her buy the scarf. Or people like Steve, who she never wanted to see again but who would leave an impression forever. Or people like Jackson, who she wanted to get to know better, even though she knew that might not be her decision to make.
Tess rubbed her hands over her face and looked through the dark house toward the basement door.
This was her decision to make. Jackson would go down there in a heartbeat. Not because he was a boy, or because he was stronger or tougher, but because he wouldn’t let anything stop him from getting answers.
Tess clenched the flashlight in her hand and walked to the basement door.