I Am Her Revenge (9 page)

“And I can see why you hate it,” he continues.

“I don’t hate it,” I say quickly. “I mean, I
do
, but I always value paintings that produce such strong reactions. The paintings that I love or hate. Have you ever heard of the play
Art
by Yasmina Reza?”

He shakes his head, that half smile still on his face.

“It’s about this guy who buys an expensive painting. To his friend who doesn’t like modern art, the painting is just white paint on a white canvas. But the guy who bought it sees so much in the painting, and it changes their friendship. So the painting’s powerful, even if it’s just white on white, because the people react to it so strongly. That’s the point, I think, of art. The reaction. So even though I hate it, I don’t really hate Waterhouse’s painting. If that makes sense.”

He shakes his head slowly, his smile in full bloom now. “Not really,” he says, “but you know who you should talk to? Ms. Elling.”

“Who’s she?”

“Art teacher. She gives private lessons to anyone who wants them. She’s kind of mad, but she’s all right. And you seem so, uh, so passionate about art.” He pauses. “I see you all the time with that sketchbook.”

I stand so that I face him, so that we’re on an even playing field. “I’ll think about it. Thanks.”

He glances down at the red writing on my ballet flats. “What does that say?” he asks.

“It’s a poem. By Catullus.” I trap his gaze. “It means ‘I hate and I love. You ask me why, perhaps, I do it. I don’t know, but I feel it done, and it burns me.’”

There is a breathless pause between us. “You know Latin?” he asks.

“No. Someone translated it for me.”

He steps forward, drawn in, and there is so little space between us now. Nothing but a thin sheet of air. I peer up through my eyelashes into his hazel eyes. Then, as if nervous, I step back, nearly tripping over the chair in my haste, and I can breathe again.

“I still like the story of Elaine and Lancelot.” He’s trying to joke, but his uneven voice gives his nervousness away. “Do you want to study together sometime?”

“I study better alone,” I say quickly.

He raises his eyebrows. He’s not used to rejection. “Maybe we can get together for something else, then.”

I bite my lip, as if his words have affected me. “I don’t think so,” I say, letting my voice become breathless, uncertain.

He steps forward again, just as I wanted him to. I look at the floor. Before he can say anything, I sidestep him so that he no longer blocks my exit. “I have to go,” I say over my shoulder as I leave him there.

Why do I always feel so strange leaving him? As if I have lost something, as if he has beaten me somehow? I’m playing a game, I tell myself. It’s all just a game, and I’m in complete control.

The Sunday morning
I wake up to the next day is dark, the wind and rain banging against the window. Claire stays burrowed under her covers, hiding from the dreary world. She clattered in at three in the morning, smelling of sweat and alcohol and earth. And something else, too, that I can’t quite name. I buried my head in my pillow as she stumbled onto her bed. She smelled dangerous.

I get dressed and tiptoe out of the room, as much as one can tiptoe in heavy combat boots.

The rain pelts my skin as I head outside, and the wind whistles harshly around me. I duck my head and run to Arthur’s cabin, pounding on the door until he opens it.

He stares at me a second, taking in my soaked hair and clothes. I jerk my chin up, trying my best not to look pathetic. “Let me in,” I demand. I’m tired of dancing around the truth with him. It’s time for answers.

He narrows his eyes at my tone but nods. “Come inside,” he says with a deep sigh. “I’ll make you some tea. We need to talk.”

I should ignore him. I should keep him out of my life completely. But I have too many questions.

His shed is small, and he stoops to fit in the space, but he’s made it his home. Sheets of paper marked with the long, easy scrawl of his handwriting clutter the table, and a cot rests in the corner. A healthy fire roars in the grate, keeping out the cold and the rain and the bleakness of the world outside. I reach my hands toward the flames.

“I forgot you wrote poetry,” I lie. I haven’t forgotten. I haven’t forgotten anything about him.

“There’s a lot of inspiration here. On the moors. My verses have gone wilder.” I feel him look at me, but I keep my eyes on the fire. “Do you still draw? Or has your mother twisted that out of you yet?”

I ignore the barb in his words. “I draw all the time. I want to capture this world.”

“It’s impossible to capture,” he says, but he’s not mocking me.

“It’s impossible not to try.”

The crackling flickers of the fire fill the heavy silence of the room.

“I have questions,” he says before I can say the same thing.

I wait.

“My father . . .” He stops. But I know the rest of his question.

“He’s still with Mother. Still her spy. He goes away for longer periods of time, though.” I glance at him, but his face gives nothing away, his jaw set in a firm line.

He just nods. “There’s more going on now. He needs to make sure Collingsworth doesn’t know what your mother is planning.”

“And that takes weeks to find out?” I ask.

He shrugs. “He has other jobs, too. He works as a private investigator for wealthy clients from the city. Only the shady guys with shady connections know how to contact him.”

I didn’t know that, though I had always assumed it. I keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to reveal how ignorant I am, how terrified I was of asking Mother any questions about the man who lived in the guesthouse.

He hands me a mug of tea, which I cradle in my hands. The mug is white and cracked and smells of cinnamon and what must be the scent of comfort. I take a sip, letting it warm me from the inside out.

I feel the heavy weight of his gaze, and I make sure my face is blank before I turn it to him.

He looks down at the sheets of paper on the table and shuffles through them, looking for something to do with his hands.

“Why didn’t your father ever give you a name?” It’s a question I’ve never had the courage to ask. No, that’s not quite true. It was only that I used to care about not hurting him. Now—I shouldn’t care. I know that much.

“I was never a son to him,” Arthur says, his eyes still examining the paper under his hands in order to avoid meeting my gaze. He learned years ago that his mother was an addict, which was why she abandoned four-year-old Arthur and his father. If she had named him, he never remembered it. Or he had blocked it from his memory. He never talked about her, and he hardly ever talked about his father. It was all too painful.

I always thought that, despite her faults, Arthur’s mother loved him. How else could he have turned into the boy who always knew how to show me light in the darkness?

“Why weren’t you a son to him?” I ask.

Arthur snorts, still not looking at me. “Because he’s incapable of love. You know him. Okay, so he didn’t let me die. Maybe I should give him credit for that.” His hands are forming into fists. I watch them, fascinated, as the knuckles turn white with the effort.

I drop all hope of not appearing ignorant. There are too many things I want to know. “Why does he help her? What kind of hold does she have on him?” Curiosity overcomes the guilt I feel about questioning Mother.

“It’s not a hold. It’s a partnership.” He stops, and then a ghost of a smile appears on his lips, but it’s a bitter smile. A smile that puts me on guard. “Sometimes you act so innocent. It makes me forget who you really are.”

“Who am I?”

“A person designed to deceive. Don’t you see what she’s turned you into?”

I lower my head. “You don’t trust me.”

“I’ll never trust you. I’d be a fool.”

I nod. And then, without warning, tears spring into my eyes. Real tears. Tears from some unknown source buried deep inside me. I blink them away, try to hide them.

“Do you remember when I told you I loved you?” he asks softly.

I feel like I’m about to shatter. I shove my fists into my eyes, desperate to dry them. “Stop it,” I growl. “Stop torturing me.”

I hear him step forward. His hand tugs gently at my arm. He wants me to look at him. I can’t look at him.

I break free from his grasp and rush to the door, out into the rain. The cool drops mingle with the tears on my cheeks as I sprint for the girls’ house.

Why does he have to keep bringing up the time he broke my heart? Why has he turned so cruel?

Back in our room, Claire is still hiding from daylight under the covers. I reach down for the box under my bed, where I’ve hidden the pills I bought for Ben. It’s where I keep everything secret, even though Mother isn’t here to find it.

I take out the scrap of paper that I’ve guarded for years. It’s a poem in Arthur’s boyish handwriting, one of his responses to my sketch of my attic room. It’s the only one I’ve kept, and it’s been enough to sustain me all these years. It holds the memory of hushed laughter and friendship, all distilled into a few lines. I let my eyes drink in the familiar words one more time.

Secreted up in the eaves of the

World, away

Freedom of breath and thought

The walls widen

Open themselves to the power of her

Imagination

Fearless

I shove the box back under the bed and grab my textbooks.

I can’t stop
spinning through my conversation with Arthur all day as I hide myself in the library and try to focus on homework. After a few hours of staring blankly at the book in front of me, I take out my sketchbook and let my fingers draw what they want. It’s Arthur, the Arthur who wrote me that poem, the boy who was my friend and then so much more. His eyes are bright and warm as they look out at me, and he wears that half smile he used to show me when we were alone.

As it begins to grow dark outside, I shut my sketchbook and head to the student lounge. Dusk and its accompanying fog settle stealthily and silently around me as I walk through the courtyard to the main building. I breathe in the scent of wood fire, that smell of barely tamed wildness, which always seems to creep over campus as soon as the sun sets.

I peek my head into the student lounge, but see no sign of Ben, only Arabella and her court of sycophants on their phones, hanging out with their Avas. The tinny sound of digital laughter fills the room as the girls tell their programmed friends all the latest gossip. I turn on my heel and head back down the dim hallway to the staircase, but before I reach it, a plaque above one of the classroom doors catches my eye. “Ms. Elling, Fine Arts.”

The light is on inside, and I see a woman standing over one of the tables. The classroom is filled with paintings and sculptures and faded posters of famous works of art.

I knock on Ms. Elling’s open door to get her attention. She’s bending over a lump of clay, patting it with her hands. There are smears of clay on her cheek and floral dress, even though she has a smock on. Her gray hair sits in a bun on top of her head, and wisps of it float around her face.

Ms. Elling looks up quickly, catches sight of me. She blinks.

I shift my weight from one foot to the other, not sure what to say. “Hi” is all I can come up with.

“Oh, hi, hi,” she says hurriedly, waving me in. “Come in, please. Sorry. You just look . . .” She stares at me a few more seconds, not finishing her thought. “Sorry.”

“Um, I’m Vivian Foster.” I step in past the doorway but don’t come much closer.

She raises her eyebrows. “Right, of course. Does this look like anything to you?” she asks, looking back at the piece of clay before her.

It’s about the size of a human torso, and there are crevices and bumps scattered along its surface. It doesn’t look like anything but clay to me, but I don’t think it’s socially acceptable to say so. “Is it supposed to look like something?”

She sighs. “It’s a piece by one of my Introduction to Sculpture students. I know I shouldn’t be touching it, but it just doesn’t
look
like anything, and I’m trying to see if I can make it better somehow.”

That doesn’t sound like the most appropriate action for a teacher, but I don’t let the judgment show in my eyes. “Maybe it’s abstract.”

She wrinkles her nose at it. “If it is, it’s not a very
good
kind of abstract.”

She turns to me, wiping her hands together in a vain attempt to get the clay off her fingers. “What can I help you with?”

“Someone told me you offer art tutorials,” I say, my voice rising at the end to make it more of a question. I must have picked this habit up from Claire.

“Hmm? Oh, yes, of course! Are you an artist?”

I shake my head. “I do sketches sometimes.”

“Have you brought any of them?” she asks. I clutch my sketchbook more closely to my chest, and the movement catches her eye. “May I see?” she says.

I try not to bite my lip as I hand it over to her.

“If you don’t want me to look, I won’t,” she says, peering into my eyes.

I shake my head the tiniest bit. “No, it’s okay. You can look.”

She smiles and opens to the first page. I’ve ripped out the drawings of Ben and Arthur, leaving only my landscapes and scenes of Madigan life. She examines a sketch of the dining hall filled with shouting faces. “Interesting,” she murmurs.

The next one is a study of the school under a cracked moon. The walls rise to terrifying heights, crowding the viewer. “Lots of emotion in this one,” Ms. Elling says, glancing briefly at me.

The third one she turns to is a sketch of one of the trees out by the cottage. It’s a recent one, in which I’ve been trying, not very successfully, to show the tree not as a barely there survivor but as a strong force to be reckoned with. She stares at it for a moment, her eyes widening, then looks up at me. It’s as if she’s searching my face for something familiar.

“Is it . . . not any good?” I ask, taking a step back.

“No, it’s wonderful. Remarkable, actually. There’s something about you—about your drawings—that reminds me so much of a former student of mine. Rose.” She finally looks away from my face and back down at the drawing. “Here. You’ve drawn the tree as if it’s almost . . . hopeful. It’s not as dark as the others.”

“I wanted to show its strength, not hope,” I say, staring at that curved tree between us.

“There is a lot of strength in hope,” she says softly, and I can still feel her eyes on my face. I can’t look up.

“You should enter these sketches in the Yorkshire Young Artist Festival, the year-end contest,” she says. “The judges are local artists and art teachers, and they accept submissions from students all over Yorkshire. They look for the most engaging portfolio, and if you round these pieces out with a few portraits, I know you could be a strong contender. I’d certainly be happy to tutor you.”

“You would?” I ask, looking back up at her in surprise.

She nods with a quick smile. “Of course. You’ve got rare talent, Vivian.”

I blink, and only then do I realize that I’m holding back tears. I look down at the floor and clear my throat, horrified. “Thank you.”

“I hold open hours after dinner most nights. Come whenever you feel like it, and we’ll see what we can accomplish together.”

I thank her quietly and leave her to the unsatisfying sculpture, which has already claimed her attention again.

I wake in the morning after a restless night, determined to make Arthur answer my questions. But when I sneak over to his shed and knock, he doesn’t answer. I stand in front of the rough wooden door, the wind whipping past me like a live animal. The air is growing colder, and I hug my arms around myself as I peer into the dark windows. I should have worn a coat, one of the slim, fashionable ones Mother sent with me. My thin leggings and long-sleeve cotton tee do nothing to hold off the damp chill, but still, I search the grounds of the school, wandering down the hilltop through the back gate into the mist-covered soccer fields below, the dew of the grass seeping into my sneakers. He’s nowhere.

When I climb back up the hill and search behind the gray stones of Canton Library, I feel a prickle on the back of my neck. Like someone is watching me. I turn on my heel quickly, but there’s no one there. Maybe someone simply caught sight of me from a window. I examine the building, but there are no faces peering out from behind the glass panes. I must be imagining things.

I sigh and head back to Faraday Hall to get ready for class.

I spot Ben walking among a group of friends as I pass through the courtyard. I run a hand over my hair as he spots me. I should’ve taken more care of my appearance before stepping out where he might find me. But he smiles at me, a small smile, a secret smile, and turns back to his pack.

Claire is up when I reach my room. Her eyes are bloodshot, and for a moment she looks at me like she doesn’t recognize me. “I had such a crazy night last night. My head’s killing me.” She pauses, as if she’s waiting for me to ask a question. I stay silent. “Is a shower free?” she asks finally, rubbing a hand over her forehead.

“I don’t know,” I say, grabbing my towel. “I’m going to take one now.”

She says nothing as I slip out of the room again.

She’s been spending more and more time out on the moors at night, waking up with deep bruised circles under her eyes and moaning about headaches. It keeps her out of my way, anyway. She hasn’t been studying me as closely as she used to.

I’m still mulling over Claire’s new behavior on the way to history class later that morning, though I don’t know why I’m so interested.

As I enter the classroom, it takes me a moment to realize how
wrong
it feels. How cold.
He
is there. Like a spider, waiting in his silken web to capture me. It rattles me to encounter him in this context. I’m used to him in the corner of Mother’s den, whispering secrets into her ear. I stand staring at him, half-sure I’m hallucinating.

“Vivian,” Helper says, with a deep nod. All of my classmates watch me carefully. He’s truly here. He’s not a tall man, but he stands with his feet planted apart and his head held high, and somehow he looks massive. His shaggy gray hair hangs to his shoulders, but his carefully trimmed mustache and beard give him a more dignified appearance. He wears a dark suit with a black shirt and no tie, and he carries the same cane as always. That cane with its round black stone at the top that used to make deep purple bruises in almost perfect circles on Arthur’s back.

I say nothing. I don’t know what to do. I’ve never spoken to this man, not without Mother there.

“Mr. Smith is here with a message from your mother,” Dr. Thompson tells me, looking at me curiously. It’s clear that I know him, but I’m sure Helper didn’t explain our relationship. “You’re excused from class today.”

I give a bare nod and follow the man—whose name is surely not Smith—out into the hallway.

“We need to go someplace private,” he says, his voice low.

I could offer my room, but I don’t want to. I don’t want him to see the broken teacup filled with wildflowers or my sketchbook or anything to do with the life I’ve secretly allowed myself to make here. So I search through the halls until I find an empty classroom. I close the door behind us and face him, subtly wiping my sweating palms on my plaid skirt.

He looks older in the fluorescent light. As I’ve done so many times before, I search for Arthur in his face, but I find nothing similar. In that moment, I realize I’m glad Arthur looks nothing like him.

“I’m here to check on your progress with the Collingsworth boy.” He rests against the teacher’s desk, his black eyes staring out at me from his cavernous face.

I swallow. I feel like a mouse staring into the yawning mouth of a snake. My heart skitters in my chest, and the air has grown thin around me. I breathe in short, stuttering gasps. “I have told Mother about my progress.”

“And she has told me it’s not enough.” His voice is flat, as always. Unvarying, unemotional. “You’ve had a month and a half now, and nothing much has happened. You’ve attracted him, but it needs to go deeper than that.”

“You’ve been spying on me.” I remember that strange prickling feeling from earlier, as if someone was watching me. Of course Helper was hiding in the shadows. I’m suddenly thankful that I didn’t find Arthur. If Helper had discovered us together, we would both be in danger.

“I saw you in the courtyard this morning,” he says, confirming my suspicions. “You did not look your best, and he barely acknowledged you.”

“But he looked at me and smiled. He is clearly interested in me.”

“You’re failing.”

“I’m not,” I say, my voice trembling. “I just need a bit more time.”

“You don’t have much time left. You have to get him addicted to the drugs you bought so that he’ll become addicted to you. You must get him to the point where he will settle for nothing less than running away from Madigan with you. And you have to do it right after he turns eighteen, on March seventh, so he’ll be free of his father’s custody. You have four months.”

I jerk my head up at him, trying to read his expression. For a moment, I think I’ve heard him wrong. Mother never mentioned making Ben run away from school. I thought I was just supposed to break his heart, make him feel what Mother felt all those years ago. I didn’t think I would have to destroy his entire life.

I know better than to ask questions, though. I learned that lesson a long time ago. Because whenever I asked Mother an unwanted question or said anything that could be construed as backtalk, she would have Helper hold me down while she drew a shallow cut down my tongue with a kitchen knife, something that made eating or drinking or even just being conscious painful for days.

“I’m sorry,” Mother would say when she was done, when the salty tang of my own blood hit the back of my throat. “But you need to learn.”

I would do my best to hold back my tears until I could escape to my room with the bottle of mouthwash she gave me so that the cuts wouldn’t become infected.

I close my eyes against that memory now, swaying slightly on my feet. Helper turns for the door, then stops with his hand on the knob. He doesn’t look back at me as he says, “I’ll be keeping an eye on you. If you don’t start turning him, I’ll tell your mother. And you’ll have to answer to her.”

I shiver as I watch him leave the room. I wonder what torture she’ll devise for me if I fail. I try to press from my mind the images of a dark locked closet, of marks on Arthur’s back, of the slick blood pouring from a kitten’s throat.