“So what are the right questions?” I asked, feeling my anger rise again. Standing next to Tristan, the smell of citrus was almost overwhelming, but it was a scent I found irritatingly comforting. “Fine. I’m listening. Tell me what you do know.”
Tristan turned and sat on the corner of the desk, pulling up the tails of his jacket and swinging his black boots forward and back.
“This house,” he said, waving his long hands around, “This house…”
Tristan’s voice dropped off as we realized that we were both staring at the edge of the hill of the family cemetery. My grandparents were buried there. And my great-grandparents. And generation before generation of Hamptons. But only two headstones could be seen from my room, and those belonged to my parents.
Tristan’s voice was soft when he said, “This is the place I’ve felt the safest. It’s my home as much as it is yours. It doesn’t feel safe now, Daniel. Don’t you sense it? The unease. Something is happening.”
I looked at him and tried to feel for vibrations like Russ did. It didn’t work, but there was something. A strange prickling on the back of my neck, a whisper in my ear.
“I don’t,” I said, and then, “Well, maybe,” before deciding on, “I’m not being a jerk. I just don’t get what you think Annie has to do with anything. And seriously, are you telling me the house is unhappy?”
Tristan nodded gravely. He looked ancient in the bright sunlight.
I shook my head to clear it. “You realize that a house is a thing, right? I mean, it can’t really feel.”
Instead of answering right away, Tristan lowered himself to the floor, crossed his legs, and started picking rhythmically at tufts of carpet.
“How do you know?” Tristan asked eventually, looking up. His eyes were a hundred unnatural shades of green. “How do you know that a thing can’t feel? Everything is alive in its own way. Everything has a collected history and a reason for being. Everything has a way of fighting back when its balance is forced out of kilter.”
His words made me shiver and think of the piano. “Why can’t we ever stick to the topic?” I asked uncomfortably. “Why does everything always come back to you?”
“You’re projecting,” Tristan said almost playfully.
“You’re a figment of my imagination,” I replied. When Tristan’s hands froze, hovering over the now fluffy carpeting, and he dimmed the same way he had the previous night, I felt a jolt of fear that he might disappear for another two years without explanation. “But, I’m glad you’re here,” I added, trying to salvage things. It wasn’t entirely untrue. It just wasn’t a statement I felt comfortable saying out loud.
Tristan looked up with an eager, trusting expression. “What are you going to do, Daniel?”
“I’m not going to do anything,” I said, unable to keep the exasperation out of my voice. “I’m just going to—”
Suddenly there was a knock on the door.
Then the door opened.
Then Annie Krylova walked in, looked right at Tristan, who no one else had ever been able to see, and said, “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”
Chapter 13
Annie
Dec stuttered something I was unable to make out. Then he closed his mouth tight. When he opened it again, he said simply, “Tristan. Anastasia.”
I looked from one boy to the other. In contrast to Dec, who was dark and energized, Tristan was fair and ethereal. He reminded me of the drawings of Peter Pan in the ornately illustrated hardcover book Dmitry had given me when I was eight and still learning to read.
I waited for Dec to explain, but instead, the boy said, “She can see me, Daniel.”
“Yeah,” Dec said. “I get that.”
The silence in the room grew oppressive, and I had a sudden feeling that I was intruding, so I began to back out. Dec began to walk toward the door too, but Tristan said, “Please don’t go.”
I was not sure which of us he was addressing.
Dec narrowed his eyes. “You can see him, right?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yes. I should not be able to?”
Dec said, “No” and Tristan said, “Yes.” Only they sounded like the same thing.
Dec spun around. “Tristan was just leaving. Isn’t that right?”
Tristan leaned back against the window as if he could be absorbed into the sunlight and crossed his arms. “Actually,” he said to Dec, “I thought you wanted to talk to me.”
“I did. I mean, I do. But maybe now isn’t the time,” Dec said. “Why don’t you hang out and I’ll be back in a bit?”
Tristan nodded and bit his lip. “Well, maybe if you put the TV on. There’s a football match…”
Dec put his cup down on the far end of the desk, clicked on the remote, and said, “Do you want me to tuck you in too?”
Tristan looked like he was going to reply, but Dec pushed me out the door before he had a chance to say anything at all.
Chapter 14
Dec
If I didn’t have the words to tell Annie how I’d been listening to her play online for years, I definitely had no way to explain Tristan. I didn’t understand him myself.
We walked out back to the swing in the garden, and I wondered if seeing Tristan had frightened her. But as we settled in next to each other, Annie put a hand on my arm and said, “I will not say that I am not curious. But I understand if you prefer not to talk about it.”
My brain was empty of lies and easy answers, so I went for the truth. “It isn’t that I don’t want to talk about it. I mean, I’ve never been in this situation before. All my life, no one could see him. I know you don’t know a lot about St. Hilaire, but everyone here claims to have all of these strange visions, yet when something weird actually happened, it was only to me. I assumed there was something wrong with me for the longest time. Then I figured Tristan was some type of poltergeist. They aren’t ghosts; you know that, right? Poltergeists are just emotional energy made physical. Stress. Anger. Love. I figured I just felt things too deeply or something.”
I struggled to take a deep breath. Why had I just told her…well, everything? Bad enough that I was some freak who could see ghosts. Now, she probably figured I was some emo boy who couldn’t control his emotions.
But when she answered, she simply said, “I am looking for something.” Her expression was complicated. “Well, my teacher was, and now he is dead, so I guess that means I am looking for it.”