“How awful.” I tried to picture the scene. Dec with his hair dark against the tree’s dry brown bark. Him waking up and not knowing where he was or how he’d gotten there. It was a hard picture to bring to life, just as it had been hard for me to imagine Dmitry dead with a bottle of pills in his hand.
“Dec was in the hospital for a while, and he’s been angry at everyone since,” Laura said. “He used to be different.”
Different. People used to say that about Dmitry too. That he had been “different” when he was still playing, still touring, still everyone’s darling. Where everyone else saw anger, I just saw sadness. I guess it was much the same with Dec.
Laura continued. “All Dec ever talks about is how soon he can leave St. Hilaire. I don’t want him to go, but I can’t imagine what would happen if he stayed.”
I asked, “What are you afraid would happen?” but all I could imagine was some parallel version of Dmitry’s descent.
Laura looked away. “I don’t know,” she said.
“What about you?” I asked. “Are you happy here?”
She flushed. “I like St. Hilaire. It feels right. I’ve never thought of being somewhere else.”
I envied her contentment. I had not stayed anywhere long enough to know what that would feel like. Laura made being a part of a place sound so simple.
I stood and wandered over to the wooden dresser. Hanging above it was a sign titled ST. HILAIRE RULES OF CONDUCT. The first item read, Never change the course of the future through the sharing of information. This includes scenarios of life and death.
I stopped reading there. Life and death. If I had an “off” show, the customers might grumble or even ask for their money back, but no one would die. Could die. But Dec… I understood now why he would want to leave. The weight of that responsibility must be crushing.
Below the sign was a photo of Dec and Laura as kids, holding hands. Laura had not changed much, but it was Dec who caught my eye. His hair was blowing in a breeze, and it covered his eyes, but his grin was so large, it almost dominated the photo. It was hard to imagine the Dec I met looking so happy.
My parents would have no similar photos of my little brother and me. Andrei would grow up without knowing me at all. If I were lucky, my parents would play one of my albums, point, and say, “This is your big sister.”
“Why does that photo make you sad?” Laura asked.
I turned away from it. “It should not. I have everything in the world anyone could want, right?” I plastered on my stage smile. “I am just feeling sorry for myself. Nothing more.”
I did not know why I was holding back. Maybe it was that I had never had a female friend. There were the other musicians I toured with and the one time in London where the first-chair violinist had asked me to go shopping at Harrods so she could get a performance gown. We had lost track of time trying all the free samples in the food court and almost missed our rehearsal. After, I left for the airport, and we had exchanged one or two emails before one of us forgot to answer, and that was the end of it.
I considered telling Laura about Dmitry and his search for the Prelude, but then there was a knock on the door, and Dec walked into the room, wet-haired and obviously recently out of the shower. His gray sweatshirt stretched over his arms as if it had once belonged to someone larger; he had the cuffs folded up to his wrists. He looked a lot like the little boy in the photo.
My thoughts tangled. Or perhaps it was not my thoughts. Nothing so tangible. But something inside me twisted with desire for something I was not sure I was allowed to have.
We held each other’s gaze.
I was the first to look away.
Chapter 18
Dec
I woke up to the sound of Annie playing the Prelude. It seemed I’d been listening to it all night, chasing the notes throughout the house in my head.
As I came to, I felt for the letter on my nightstand. The envelope was the color of dead leaves, and the sealing wax (sealing wax!) was marked with the Guild’s complicated logo made up of vines and the letters SHG. I switched on the light and reread the words, hoping they might have morphed during the night.
The letter should have contained information about my required year in the Youth Corps, which involved following Guild members around, sitting in on community-wide séances, typing up reports, and generally doing the Guild’s grunt work after school for credit.
I knew the standard format of the Guild’s “invitation” letters; I could see the text swimming on my eyelids. As part of your graduation requirement, you will join the Youth Corps for the duration of your senior year and be assigned to a Guild member in order to complete your training so that you may be evaluated and considered for both legal status as a medium and a permanent role in the ranks of our esteemed organization. At that time, if you are deemed worthy, you will be officially welcomed into the historic ranks of St. Hilaire’s ancestors.
But when I’d opened the letter, there were other words at the top of the page. Leadership. Legacy. Responsibility.
I knew these words too, and if I was willing to risk the wrath of the Guild to leave town to avoid joining the Youth Corps, I was damned if I was going to stick around to audition for a position as Student Leader.
They had to know I wasn’t good enough. My parents might have been talented, but ever since they died, I’d just taken up space at the séance table. Harriet thought I wasn’t trying. Laura thought I was too distracted. Russ was probably closest when he said I was more than likely just too sad to open myself up to the spirit world.
It was Russ they wanted. Russ who had the talent and the interest. Russ who was going to be here.
And I’d remind them of that, except the Guild was historically “disappointed” in kids who grew up in St. Hilaire and then moved away. Although I doubted they could do anything to me if I left, there had been issues in the past. Some young mediums found their families’ land unexpectedly taxed an outrageous amount, or their parents’ licenses revoked. And there were rumors of worse. Much worse back in the town’s early days.
That was all history, though. It had been a while since anyone had left permanently. It was difficult, I heard, to try to live a “normal” life, when you were aware of the ghosts surrounding you.
Even Ian Mackenzie had hung around enough to keep the Guild on his good side.
Still, it was one thing for me to hope they’d overlook some has-been medium ditching town to avoid the Youth Corps. It was far more unlikely for them to turn a blind eye when one of the students they offered a rare audition letter to skipped out.
I got up, tossed the letter on my desk, showered, dressed, checked my phone for messages, and checked the corners of my room in case Tristan had come back. Through it all, I could hear Annie playing the Prelude downstairs.