Dark Companion (3 page)

“There.” She placed the vase on her desk.

The arrangement was unexpectedly pretty. “Those are so graceful.”

“I think so, too. They’re from the European White Birch tree. Our school’s founder planted a grove of them here because they’d grown in his village in Romania. Now let me show you the school.”

I walked beside her to the end of the hall. “I was quite pleased with your end-of-term grades, Jane, and with your excellent health exam. I hope you didn’t mind the blood test.”

“No, I’m not scared of needles, ma’am. Does everyone go through medical testing?”

“We keep health records for all our students, primarily to take precautions if someone has a condition. We want the best for our girls.”

Mrs. Radcliffe showed me homerooms, the teachers’ lounge, and the nurse’s office, which had one wall covered with degrees and certificates. We doubled back to the middle of the building and she stopped at a series of tall carved doors. “Here’s the auditorium, where we hold assemblies and student performances.”

The auditorium at Helmsdale City Central had looked and stunk like a prison dining hall. This one had pale wood paneling on the lowest section and murals of white-barked trees that stretched all the way to the curved balcony. Midnight-blue velvet curtains on the stage matched the leather seating.

“The paneling here is birch, and when we meet here, it’s as if we’re gathering in our grove.” Then the headmistress took me to see the classrooms, which had older-style oak desks and chalkboards, and the gym. I’d never seen anything like the locker room, which had individual shower cubicles and private dressing rooms.

Mrs. Radcliffe noticed my baffled expression. “Young ladies were quite modest in the days when this school was built, and we’ve been discussing a renovation since
I
was a student.”

“It’s like stepping back in time here, isn’t it?”

“You might find us a little anachronistic, but we believe that quality is timeless.”

We visited a small plain chapel with windows of yellow glass that let in golden light. “Services used to be held here when most of our faculty lived on campus. Although Birch Grove is not a religious school, we encourage spiritual development. Do you follow any faith, Jane?”

“No, but I once had a friend named Hosea and he was … well, someone described him as having
grace
. He would have liked the peacefulness of this chapel. He could have read his Bible without being disturbed.”

“Hosea. Was he the boy who died of meningitis?”

“Yes, he was in my group home. How do you know that?”

“Your social worker told us that it was a difficult time for you.”

Each foster kid was assigned a social worker, and I’d given permission for mine to talk to Mrs. Radcliffe. The same social worker had previously refused to take any more of my daily phone calls demanding that Mrs. Prichard be investigated for malicious negligence.

“Hosea sounds very special, Jane.”

“He was amazing.” I swallowed hard. When I next spoke, my voice was calm. “Your students probably don’t die of infections.”

Something—maybe disapproval—flickered in her eyes, and I knew I should have kept my mouth shut. Then she said, “Bacterial meningitis can progress so rapidly that nothing can be done to save a victim. We are grateful for our many privileges here, Jane, but no one escapes death.”

Mrs. Radcliffe led me out of the main building to the more modern building, which held classrooms and art studios that were set up with long working tables and easels. After touring the building, we went outside and I took a deep breath. Even the air here was better—damp and fresh and clean.

“Let’s go to your cottage. It used to be for the groundskeeper.” Mrs. Radcliffe took me on a path around the art building and toward the back of campus. I was so excited about living on my own that I didn’t care if the cottage was a cardboard box with a sleeping bag.

“Here’s the grove I told you about,” the headmistress said, and I saw the birch trees for the first time.

The three-acre grove seemed as large as a forest to me, as it stretched up the hill and became lost in the mist. Ferns as tall as my shoulder lined a path and shrubs grew all around, making me feel enclosed by the greenery. The towering birches had ghostly white trunks with black markings, and their branches swayed gracefully and rustled in the mild breeze. The trees’ outermost layer of bark, as delicate as parchment, peeled away from the trunks.

I shivered in the cool darkness.

“Jane, are you all right?” Mrs. Radcliffe’s brows knit together.

“It’s all so different than Helmsdale.” I smiled. Adults liked it when you smiled.

As we walked along a shady path, Mrs. Radcliffe told me that registration would take place on Monday and classes would begin Tuesday, but I couldn’t stop listening to the
shush, shush, shush
of the branches.

“My house is right up the hill there.” Mrs. Radcliffe pointed to a trail that continued into the deep shadows of the grove. “Please come by if you need anything or want company. Here we are.”

The little white house had a porch with two wooden chairs and a clay pot of purple and white pansies. Mrs. Radcliffe opened the door and I followed her inside to a living room with robin’s egg blue walls and white trim.

“It’s so pretty!”

A loveseat and chairs with floral cushions faced a fireplace and built-in bookcases. A wooden desk with a vase filled with pink daisies was placed by a window with a view of the grove. A small television was tucked into the corner of the room.

“We’ve tried to make it cozy. Here’s the bedroom.”

Through the doorway was a pale yellow room that was barely big enough to hold a full-size bed with a white headboard and a white dresser. Next to it was a blue-and-white-tiled bathroom with a deep white tub.

On the other side of the cottage was a tidy kitchen with a narrow stove, a refrigerator, a microwave, and a square table and two chairs.

Mrs. Radcliffe opened a cupboard. “You’re stocked up with the basics. Cereal, milk, juice, eggs. Do you know how to cook, Jane?”

“I helped make meals at the group home.”

“What do you think?” she asked. “Will it do?”

“It’s perfect and wonderful. Thank you, ma’am.”

“It’s no more than you deserve, Jane.” She placed her pale hand on my arm and gave a gentle squeeze. “Please come to dinner at my house tomorrow, six o’clock. Follow the path up the hill and you’ll see it. Will you be all right by yourself tonight?”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

“I thought you could use a few days to adjust and prepare before registration day. My home number is programmed in the phone and you’re welcome to call for anything. I’m really happy you’re here.”

“Me, too.”

When she left, the first thing I did was count the money in my pocket. Wilde had given me $70, and I hoped that Junior wouldn’t miss it and punish her. I put the money back in my pocket and then went from room to room, astonished that this was mine.

I discovered lavender-scented sachets in the closet, brand-name shampoo and tampons in the bathroom, and cupboards filled with good food. The desk drawers were stocked with paper, notebooks, pencils, pens, and a calculator. A navy canvas book tote with the school emblem hung from the back of the desk chair.

There was a tiny room behind the kitchen with a stacked washer and dryer and a rack to dry small items.

I unpacked my clothes, which barely filled a dresser drawer, and placed Hosea’s worn Bible on a bookshelf where I could see it and think of him. Even though there was no snooping housemother or klepto roomies here, I put my money in a manila envelope and slid it in the narrow space behind the washing machine. I covered the envelope with lint from the dryer; only someone with a hand as small as mine would be able to reach it.

The simple meal I ate—a grilled cheese sandwich, grapes, and chocolate chip cookies—seemed fantastic because
I
was the one who decided what and when to eat. I turned on the television and surfed the channels, watching junk celebrity shows that my classmates at Helmsdale City Central had talked about, but I’d never seen. I stayed up until two, when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.

After washing up, I slipped between the crisp sheets, moving my legs to feel the smoothness of the fabric. I pulled the comforter up to my chin, closed my eyes, and listened to the trees outside. The branches shifted and brushed against the roof as if they were whispering.

A weird sensation ran through me, and I remembered sleeping by a campfire long, long ago, but the memory was so faint that it felt as if it belonged to someone else.

A tree gave a loud creak that sounded exactly like a door opening, so I got up and crept to the living room. The front door was closed and locked. When I peered out the window, there was only darkness and the darkness seemed impenetrable. I checked the locks on all the windows and the doors. Then I went back to bed and covered my head with the comforter so I wouldn’t hear the trees.

Before I drifted off to sleep, I thought of all that I had done to get here. Mindless with fury at Hosea’s death, I’d started sitting in his seat in the cafeteria with the smart kids. They had ignored me at first, then jeered at me, trying to get me to leave, but I’d stayed there, seething, hating them and the world.

One day I’d heard someone say “full scholarship with living expenses.” I’d looked at the kids at the table: they were from the same lousy neighborhood as I was. If they could escape Hellsdale by getting good grades, why couldn’t I?

I’d started doing my homework and paying attention in class. It had been a struggle to grasp simple lessons and then harder ones. My school had kept me tracked with the bad students, though, and my guidance counselor had said, “Be realistic about your abilities.” I’d sat in the hallway outside her office day after day until she transferred me into better classes.

I’d spent hours after school attending free tutoring sessions at the library. I’d studied videos so I could learn how to speak properly. When a teacher offered extra credit for more work, I’d done it. The hardest—the most humiliating—thing I’d learned was to say, “I don’t get it. Will you explain it?” because I hated the smart-ass smirks from the other kids.

Mrs. Prichard hadn’t believed I was at the library most nights. She’d follow me through the house, screeching that I was a slut, a drunk, a junkie, trash. I couldn’t have dinner until I’d finished my chores and sometimes it was midnight before I finally microwaved leftovers. I’d eat in five minutes, wash up, fall into bed, and start the whole thing all over again when the alarm clock buzzed at six the next morning.

By the time I’d left Helmsdale City Central High, I’d transformed myself from an inarticulate loser foster kid to a college-track student who aced every test. I still sat in Hosea’s old place in the cafeteria, but the others didn’t ignore me anymore.

Now when people met me, they saw an unassuming, hardworking, well-spoken girl. But inside I was still shrieking with rage for everything that I’d had to do merely to have the crumbs that others carelessly dropped.

I’d pressed down my fury until it metamorphosed, as soft messy carbonate does, into a diamond so hard it can cut through steel and with such clarity that I could use it as a lens to see the world as it truly was, cruel and capricious.

It was rage that got me to Birch Grove Academy for Girls and out of Hellsdale. I nestled into my bed, knowing that rage would help me survive here, too.

The strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie’s evening stories represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers.

Charlotte Brontë,
Jane Eyre
(1847)

Chapter 3

I’d never been allowed to sleep in before, so I lingered in bed thinking about what the week would bring. Tonight I was invited to dinner with Mrs. Radcliffe’s family, but other than that, I was free until Monday, which seemed an eternity of time by myself. Something seemed off and, after a moment, I realized that it was the silence. I was used to slammed doors, rumbling buses, shouting, snarling pitties, police sirens, and Mrs. Prichard’s and my roommates’ furious arguments.

I didn’t have to mop floors, do the laundry, or scour the bathroom. When I remembered that I had my very
own
bathroom, I got up.

At the group home, we were allowed five-minute showers every other day. The boys always cut ahead in line, leaving only tepid water and a spray too weak to wash the cheap shampoo out of my hair. Now I filled the bathtub with steaming water and eased in, savoring the almost painful heat. I soaked until my fingers and toes puckered and the water cooled.

I dried off with a thick, soft towel, and then examined myself in the steamy full-length mirror on the bathroom door. I could never keep myself from rubbing hard at the scar below my left shoulder, wishing I could rub it away. It was oval-shaped with a higher ridge running lengthwise, crossed horizontally with narrow pale marks caused by hasty stitching. I had had it as long as I could remember.

I touched the tattoo of the
H
below my left breast. Hosea would have been eighteen now. I remembered him sitting on his bunk bed and scrunching his face while puzzling over the Old Testament, eventually saying, “Why did Leviticus hate pigs so much? I love me some ribs.”

“Who cares about Levit … whatever his name is? I never even ated ribs. Mrs. Bitchard wouldn’t give me no money for the goddamn Fourth of July barbecue.”

“Don’t be disrespectful, Little Sis, and talk proper. Say ‘Mrs. Prichard couldn’t afford to give me money for the Fourth of July barbecue.’”