The Storyteller (22 page)

Sophia sighed. And smiled. “Me too,” she said.

“Is that so?” Ian said.

“It is,” Sophia said. “When I was a young woman, I met the Devil. I was in the hospital and very sick. He sold my parents a wish, a wish that made me better. When I found out how well the wish worked, I wanted another. I sought out the Devil and he sold me a second wish. But this one cost me my soul.”

“What was the wish?” Ian asked.

“That I'd fall in love with a man who was honest and listened and always believed in me,” she said as she petted her dear husband's head.

“
Always
believed in you?” Ian asked.

“In this life and the next,” Sophia whispered as she embraced her husband.

He whispered back, “I believe you.”

And that's when Ian passed away.

 

M
ONDAY
, 12/25/1989 (C
HRISTMAS
)

AFTERNOON

I got my best night's sleep in months last night. Which is funny. I never used to sleep on the night before Christmas. Yes, yes, you guessed it. Too many reindeer hooves on the rooftop causing a racket.

Did you know that
Satan
is an anagram for
Santa
? Of course you did, because you're smart, Stella. Did you know that an anagram is when two words or phrases share the same letters? Like
ART
,
RAT
, and
TAR
? Or
SATAN
and
SANTA
?

Of course you did. How could you not?

We started opening presents around nine this morning, which is insanely late for us, and it took Mom, already munching on cookies, to get things going. “Well, I've never seen such a bunch of lazybones in my entire life,” she said. “There are presents, people. Presents!”

Mom isn't one of those people who wears Christmas sweaters all year and has stacks of Christmas records, but the holiday gives her a different kind of joy than it gives the rest of us. For me and Alistair, it's always been about presents. For Dad, it's been about watching us get all excited. For Mom, it's about forgetting. She doesn't seem to remember any problems on Christmas. At least she pretends not to. Her bedroom could be on fire and she'd close the door and shrug it off with “Let's have some eggnog.”

In case you were wondering, Stella, my haul for the year consists of: two sweaters, five books, four tapes, eye shadow (what!), a pocketbook, Rollerblades, a jacket, four Sega games (to share with Alistair), socks, and at least a pound of Sour Patch Kids.

Alistair got books, tapes, games, and candy too, along with those clothes Mom and I picked out. He seemed to like the clothes just fine. “Snazzy duds,” he said, which is something Dad would say.

As we were getting to the end of the pile, there was a badly wrapped present sitting near the back of the tree. The box was small and the paper was orange and black, more Halloweeny than Christmasy.

“Who's that one for?” Mom asked.

Dad practically leapt from his chair and snatched it up. “This,” he said as he handed it to me, “is for Keri.”

I looked at the tag, which was another piece of wrapping paper, cut small and crooked, folded, and taped on. Written on it was:
FOR KERRIGAN, LOVE GLEN
.

“How'd this get here?” I asked.

“He stopped by a few days ago,” Dad said. “Asked if I could slip this under the tree. He's a thoughtful guy, that Glen.”

He was. Most of the time. And I wasn't. Most of the time. I hadn't gotten him anything. I'd like to say I forgot to get him something, but that isn't true. I considered buying him a videotape of old cartoons—Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and that big rooster, whatever his name is. He'd like something like that, but I didn't follow through. Because I'm lazy. Because I'm mean. Because I hold grudges. Why was I holding a grudge? So he wanted to know about my stories. What's so wrong with that?

I felt even worse when I opened the present. It was one of those necklaces with fake diamonds and a heart pendant. There was a little heart-shaped card inside as well. It read:
YOU HAVE MY HEART, YOU HAVE MY SOUL
.

Now, I'm well aware that those pendants are tacky and I know that notes like that are usually a bunch of bull. But I'm going to be honest, Stella. I got choked up.

“Put it on, put it on,” Mom urged, which totally caught me off guard. Not that she hates Glen, but she was never
this
enthusiastic about him.

I slipped it around my neck. Mom's mouth twisted up, but not in a bad way. In a
gimme a moment because I'm feeling a lot of things right now
sorta way, and she put a hand on Dad's shoulder. Dad raised his mug of coffee in a toast, though no one else had a drink so he was toasting alone.

Alistair stared at the pendant for a moment, then he started collecting his presents in a big box. “I have to go to my room,” he said. “I have more work to do.”

“No,” Mom said, in a tone that was probably harsher than I think she intended. “It's Christmas. We spend Christmas together.”

There were dark splotches under Alistair's eyes, almost like bruises, but I knew they weren't the result of a night in bed speculating about presents. Something bigger was taking a toll on him. You could see it in the way he moved, like his limbs weighed tons.

“You're right,” he told Mom. “I'm sorry. Being home is about being with all of you.”

“Don't apologize,” Dad said.

“No,” Mom said. “He should apologize. I know it's been tough for him, but it's been tough for all of us.
Being home?
Where else has he been?”

It had to be the pendant that set him off, and I suddenly remembered there was something about a guy named Chip wearing a pendant. Something Jenny Colvin was supposed to ask about. Something in Aquavania.

“You're right, Mom,” Alistair said. “I get so preoccupied with stuff that is … Well, family is the most important thing. Being home means not being trapped in my own mind for a bit. I know it's been difficult talking to me and that's my fault.”

“It's not a matter of whose fault it is,” Dad said.

“It is,” Alistair said. “I feel a bit like a stranger here, but not because of anything you guys have done. I really should be honest with you about what's going on.”

Holy crap,
I thought.
Is he going to spill the beans on Aquavania and Jenny Colvin and the whole thing? How much do our parents already know? How much will they be able to handle?

“Honesty is all we need,” Mom said.

“Fiona is not dead,” Alistair said, enunciating every word like English was our second language. “Neither is Charlie.”

“Oh, Alistair,” Dad said. “Speculating like that may feel like the right thing to do, but we have to be realistic.”

Alistair's voice remained firm and clear as he said, “I'm being more realistic than you could ever realize. Everyone is hanging their heads and acting like there's no hope anymore. We all pretend like they're gone for good, and when the subject comes up, we change the subject. But there aren't any bodies. Milo Drake didn't do a thing, and the reason I spend so much time alone, the reason I don't seem to be interested in things around here, is that I'm spending all my time trying to get them back.”

“You don't even know what happened to them!” Dad shouted. The outburst was so sudden that I flinched. I've never heard Dad that loud before, but it wasn't an angry loud. It was a befuddled loud.

It didn't spook Alistair at all, and still cool, still calm, he said, “I know what happened, and I know they will be back. Turn on the TV.”

Mom crumpled up a piece of wrapping paper and tossed it in the fireplace, where some glowing embers sparked it up and set it aflame. All eyes turned to the fire. “It's Christmas,” she said. “No TV.”

“Something should be on the news,” Alistair said. “Or I should hope it is.”

“What news is worth interrupting Christmas?” Mom asked, and she pointed at the fire. “This is your TV today. Your news today involves what time the ham will be served and how many pieces of pie your dad can eat.”

“I'm talking about proof,” Alistair said. “Another one is back. Like the Littlest Knight. Only alive.”

EVENING

They're calling it a Christmas miracle. Sunita Agrawal was an exceptional young woman who, at the age of thirteen, was already studying engineering and psychology at college in her native Nepal. Until one night in 1983, she vanished. Early yesterday, on Christmas Eve, she returned home. She has no memory of where she spent the last six years, but she was wearing the same clothes as the day she disappeared. Many questions remain, but her family and the entire community are very thankful to have her home.

That was the gist of the news report. It was one of those heartwarming little stories they play at the end of newscasts. A Christmas miracle, though? I'm only fourteen and even I know they don't celebrate Christmas in Nepal. Do they? I'm pretty sure they're Buddhists. Or maybe Hindu. In either case, not into decking the halls.

Aside from that obvious blunder, the news report was actually quite creepy. It featured video of the girl, Sunita, hugging her joyous family, paired with a picture of her taken in 1983, shortly before she disappeared.

She looked the same in both images.
Exactly the same.
Not only the same clothes, but the same hair, same face. Like she hadn't aged at all. Maybe it was something with the lighting. Maybe she was actually taller but the camera didn't show it. Maybe in person she looked different, but on TV she resembled a time-traveler from six years before.

Our mouths weren't agape as we watched it, but they might as well have been. “How … Did you see something about this last night? Were you up late watching TV?” Mom asked Alistair.

“Sunita Agrawal is a brilliant girl known as the Astronomer,” Alistair said. “She was where Charlie and Fiona are now. I brought her back. And I'm working to bring them back.”

Dad turned off the TV. “Buddy,” he said, “we can't do this anymore. We can't play games like this. You need to talk this through with Dr. Hollister. You need to address what's making you tell these stories.”

“You're talking about your friends,” Mom added. “These are
real
lives here.”

Alistair nodded solemnly and whispered, “Fiona appreciated what you said to her, Mom. When you saw her riding her bike that day a couple months ago and asked her if everything was okay at home. I'm sorry if I doubted you. You were listening. It's not your fault what happened.”

Mom pulled back, stunned.

“Wait,” Dad said. “What are you talking about?”

“And Charlie,” Alistair said, turning to him. “He appreciates that you said you'd buy him a new rabbit after the one he got for his birthday disappeared and his parents decided not to replace her. That was your secret, between you and him, and I know it might not seem like he kept that secret, but he did.”

Now it was Dad who recoiled.

I finally decided to say something because it couldn't get any weirder than it already was. “How exactly did she get home? This Sunita girl?”

Alistair pointed to my pendant. “I put her back together.”

“Like the candy cane girl?” I asked, forgetting that no one else has actually read my stories.

“I don't know about that,” Alistair said. “But I extracted her from her creations. Her figments.”

“Keri,” Dad said in a tone as serious as I'd ever heard him use. “Can you please go to your room? We need to talk to your brother alone.”

And so that's where I am. In my room, wondering what comes next.

NIGHT

I was lying in bed a few minutes ago, with the heart pendant in one hand and the phone in the other. Mom, Dad, and Alistair were still in the family room talking, so I used the opportunity to call Glen.

If I were a character in one of my stories, I'd be the most annoying character in the world. Characters are supposed to have understandable motivations. The reader is supposed to be able to relate to them. But then there's me, the master of questionable decisions.

For instance, I decide to make Glen my boyfriend out of the blue. Why? For attention, I guess. For distraction. Then what happens? He's very nice to me. Isn't that awful? Of course it isn't, but I act like it is. Because I'm not very nice to him. If I'm not a villain, then I'm something pretty damn close.

I can change, though, can't I? Redeem myself? If Glen is a romantic lead in my story, then I can be one too. This thing I set into motion—this weird relationship—I can make it work. That's why I had to call him, even if it meant facing an awkward conversation. I needed to set things straight between us, because my life is twisted enough already.

On the second ring, his mom picked up. “Merry Christmas,” she said.

“Merry Christmas,” I responded, because that's what you say, even if you're not particularly merry. “Is Glen home?”

“My goodness,” she said. “Is this Keri?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Oh, Keri,” she said. “So wonderful to hear your voice. Are your ears burning? Because we were all just talking about you.”

“You were?” I said. God. What a terrifying notion. A bunch of strangers sitting around on Christmas discussing
me
.

“We were hoping we'd all get to see more of you this holiday break,” she said.

“Oh, I…”

“I'm sorry, honey, you didn't call to talk to me,” she said. “You want to talk to Glenny, don't you? I'll fetch him.”

Out of the frying pan, into the fire. As uncomfortable as I was talking to Glen's mom, talking to him was going to be much, much worse.