Chapter 14
14
JONATHAN
R ay and I secretly planned an Easter egg hunt for the children. We ordered in chocolate eggs and even mapped out where we’d hide them around the grounds.
But late on Saturday night, I jerk awake as a crash tears through the house, rattling the windows and the walls. My heart jumps behind my ribs. I’m tangled in blankets, the room completely dark and the only clue to what woke me is the thunder still echoing across the sky above.
Bright white flashes through the room and, instantaneously, another clap of thunder so loud that my ears ring.
A scream sounds beyond my door, followed by my name being shrieked in a panicked little voice. I stumble out of bed. In the passage, I slam my palm onto the light switch, but nothing happens. I blink in sleep-addled confusion.
“Jonathan!”
“I’m here!” I call into the darkness.
I feel my way towards Ben’s room (second door on the right). But before I can get very far, he slams into my legs and wraps himself tightly around me, with his face buried against my stomach.
“Shhh.” I run my fingers through his hair. “It’s okay, it’s just a storm.”
Somewhere up ahead, Enrique is wailing.
“This is not just a storm!” Alisha shouts over the combined noise of the rain and his distress. Another rumble of thunder underscores her words. “It’s right here. We’re gonna get hit.”
“Where’s Mal?”
“I’m here, I’m not afraid,” he says from somewhere nearby, voice high pitched. When a clap sounds even closer and even louder than the one before, he screams along with the others. I hold Ben tightly, at a loss for how to comfort any of them when my own terror is nearly overwhelming.
The house is on high ground. What happens if it is hit? I’m a teacher. I should know. But my mind is foggy with sleep and terror.
A light sweeps across the passage and I hold one hand up to shield my eyes from its sudden onslaught. It illuminates Alisha, crouched with her back to her door, cradling a terrified Enrique to her chest.
“You all okay?” Adam’s voice asks behind the light. “Power’s out.”
I’m flooded with relief at his steady voice and presence in a way I can’t begin to understand right now.
“Did the house get hit?” Alisha asks.
“More likely the power line.”
Another clap and she jolts. Enrique’s fingers dig into her shoulders as he presses his head against her neck.
“All the same,” Adam says, “I’d feel more comfortable if everyone moved downstairs.”
“Of course. Lightning is more dangerous at elevation,” I say. The tremble in my voice betrays my fear, which is humiliating.
“More to the point,” Adam says, “there’s a fireplace.”
Right. The house isn’t connected to the gas grid. It’s warmed with electric radiators. With the power out, there’s no heat and, even this far into spring, the temperature still regularly dips below freezing overnight.
“Come on children,” I manage to detach Ben and take his hand instead. “Gather as many blankets and cushions as you can. This will be an adventure. Like camping.”
“I’m going upstairs to check the foundation equipment,” Adam says, turning away. “We’ll meet you down there. Get a fire started in the meantime.”
“Will you be safe?” I ask.
He pauses mid stride. The light from the torch only catches the edges of his face and beard, not enough for me to make out an expression. “Safe as houses.”
Given the current situation, that’s not as comforting as he might intend.
The air downstairs is already frigid, the entrance hall and landing lit bright by the electric sky.
In the kitchen, I stoke the fire to life and help the children settle on the rug in front of it, in a nest of blankets and cushions. By the time Meredith and Ray join us, it’s all quite cozy. Meredith pulls over a chair from the table. Ray settles next to me, with Ben and Mal on one side of us and Alisha and Enrique on the other. Although Ben isn’t so much at my side as trying to fuse himself to me.
Ray’s nighttime ensemble consists of red satin pajamas and a matching velvet banyan. Meredith, on the other hand, is in a practical pink bathrobe. They swap theories about what might have been hit to cause the loud thunderclap that woke us all.
“Will Lily-Iris and Angus be okay in their cottage?” I ask.
“Should be,” Ray says. “It’s at lower elevation than the manor and they have their own fireplace. Probably safer for them to stay there than go out in the storm.”
Adam arrives with Geoff in tow. Their arms are laden with candles.
“I unplugged all our equipment,” Adam says, “but we’ll have to wait until morning to see the damage.”
“Fucking haunted piece of shit house,” Geoff says.
“Please not in front of the children,” I scold. Mal has enough trouble with swearing and ghost stories without Geoff’s influence.
Geoff glares at me. He’s in a tight T-shirt that shows off his abs and a pair of tracksuit bottoms that hang low on his narrow hips. He’s not dressed for this weather at all. I hand him a blanket. He accepts it begrudgingly and throws it around his shoulders.
Ben presses even tighter against my side.
“There isn’t a ghost,” I say.
“Although this is exactly the sort of shit he’d pull,” Geoff says. “Drama queen.” At Adam’s sharp look, he adds, “I said what I said.”
I brace for Adam’s retort, but he shrugs it off and lights a candle. As he shakes out the match, he says, “I’m pretty sure thunderstorms are beyond the power of ghosts.”
“They make a thunderstorm in Ghostbusters,” Ben says. He looks up at me with those big blue eyes.
“Ghostbusters is a work of fiction,” I assure him. “And are you even old enough to watch that?”
“Oh please,” Geoff says. “It’s made for kids .”
Adam thrusts a candlestick into his hand and a box of matches. “Make yourself useful?”
Geoff rolls his eyes but assists. Soon we’re sitting in a circle of warm, flickering light. Geoff settles at Meredith’s feet and Adam starts towards a spot at the edge of our semi-circle, but then Ray says, “You know what’s missing? Marshmallows.” They get to their feet and gesture for Adam to take their spot.
Adam hesitates a moment. Then, much to my surprise, he sinks down between me and Alisha. Her eyes stretch in alarm and Enrique hides his face against her again.
Adam’s wearing a gray tracksuit and black hoodie. Pretty much exactly what I’d expect him to sleep in. “That wasn’t a storm anyway, in Ghostbusters,” he says. “It was a possession. A whole occult thing.”
I try to ignore the heat I can feel radiating off his massive bicep that is now oh-so-close to my own skinny one.
“What does occult mean?” Ben asks.
“Never you mind,” I say.
Mal peers curiously at Adam. “Are you scared of the storm?”
“The Beast isn’t scared of anything,” Geoff says, before he can answer. He stretches out like a feline, absorbing the heat from the fire. Adam clenches his jaw and looks away from the display. I find myself wondering if Geoff ever apologized for the article. Or if he maybe made it up to Adam some other way…
“Neither am I,” Mal says. He folds his arms and juts his chin out.
As if to underscore the statement, thunder claps in the distance. Either the storm’s moved on, or it’s much softer down here. Still, Mal flinches, Ben’s fingers dig into my side, Alisha tenses up and Enrique whimpers.
“It’s okay to be frightened,” I say to the children. “Sometimes it’s good. It helps to keep you safe.”
“Sometimes.” The way Adam’s looking at me… are we talking about more than just the storm? No, I’m probably just reading into it. You do enough literature analysis and you start to see subtext everywhere.
Ray returns and instead of marshmallows they’re bearing the Easter eggs. Whatever fear the children may have been feeling melts away instantly in their excitement.
Ray catches my eye. “I’m going to go ahead and call the hunt off on account of the weather.”
It’s a pity, but even if the weather clears up, no one wants muddy chocolate. I feel an odd stab in my chest though. It’s not like they’ll have the opportunity again next year.
Ray also produces a bottle of wine, “for the grownups”, and starts pouring generous helpings into ceramic mugs.
I catch Adam looking at me. “You were going to do Easter?” he murmurs.
I tense, my mind running through all the arguments he could possibly have against it. That it’s technically a religious holiday, that it wastes their valuable learning time, that it’s a waste of resources, that he doesn’t want them eating sugar. “Just something small,” I say, weakly.
Although the amount of chocolate currently being consumed gives lie to that immediately. Ray may have gone overboard with the shopping.
Adam doesn’t seem angry though. If anything, the tilt of his mouth is regretful. “I… I didn’t think of that. I should have.”
Oh.
Ray hands us our mugs and pulls up a chair beside Meredith, where they recline like royalty. “Now, who has a good ghost story? It’s not a campfire unless there are ghost stories, is it?”
“I saw a ghost,” Ben volunteers. “He was standing at the end of my bed.”
I glance back at Adam. He’s so still it’s as if he’s stopped breathing. Fear or… hope?
Mal speaks around a mouthful of chocolate. “Lily-Iris said she’s seen him too. He’s probably here with us right now.”
I know he’s trying to frighten Ben, but it’s Adam who looks around our little circle of light.
“Okay, okay,” Ray raises their hands, “I’ve changed my mind. No ghost stories.”
There’s a beat of silence that no one knows how to fill. Then Mal pipes up, “I wanna hear wrestling stories.”
“Yeah!” Ben agrees.
Instead of boldly grabbing the spotlight, like the celebrity he is, Adam drops his gaze to his lap and seems to draw into himself.
I’m opening my mouth to dissuade the children, when Ray says, “What kind of a story do you want?” They mimic flicking hair over their shoulder. “Because I have a lot .”
“You were a wrestler?” I ask.
Geoff laughs and rolls his eyes. “For about ten minutes.”
Ray kicks him. Clearly not hard enough, because Geoff laughs harder.
“Oh yes,” Ray says. “That’s where we met.” His gesture includes Geoff and Adam. “Geoff did promotions for the promotion. PR, you know? The Beast was my nemesis.”
“For about ten minutes,” Geoff repeats, with a shit-eating grin.
Ray ignores him. “We put together this one match where I got choked with my own silk cape.”
“Then you covered me in glitter ,” Adam says, as if this was a crime the likes of which the world has not seen since.
“Fairy dust! You have to admit it looked great all mixed up in your blood.”
I feel my eyes stretch. This doesn’t seem like an appropriate topic for children but Mal laughs in delight.
Geoff cuts in with, “It was lame. You should have gone with crushed glass. Or flames.”
“I told you at the time, flames were gimmick infringement,” Adam says. “That’s The Sheik’s thing.”
“What’s a gimmick?” Ben asks.
Ray is all too happy to explain that it’s the role that you play. “I was this sorcerer. I was brought in to try to vanquish The Beast. But it never took off on pay-per-view and so the promotion pitted him against Tombstone instead.”
“Because Tombstone is legit scary,” Geoff says. “He’d never use lame ass glitter . ”
Ray kicks him again. Geoff pulls a rude sign at him.
Ray then proceeds to talk through The Beast’s apparently infamous feud with a wrestler named Tombstone who had been a heel but turned babyface when his “brother” was murdered by a wrestler named Demon.
The children are enthralled and the jargon doesn’t seem to bother them in the slightest. Maybe the trouble with getting them to understand Shakespeare was always that it wasn’t violent enough. I definitely shouldn’t have started with Midsummer Night’s Dream. Titus Andronicus is clearly more their speed.
“The Beast and Demon teamed up for a few tag matches before it was revealed I was behind the whole thing,” Ray finishes.
Adam laughs and it’s such an unexpected sound that it startles me. “You were only brought in because?—”
Ray makes a dramatic hushing noise, “Don’t break kayfabe. It was I, the Sorcerer, who’d cursed you and made you kill Tombstone’s brother.”
Adam turns to me to explain. “Demon was injured. Broke his clavicle in a misdirected frog splash.”
I pretend I understand what all of that means. “I see.”
“He was supposed to have this big face off with Tombstone, where Tomb would avenge his brother. They’d been building up to it for weeks. But Demon couldn’t do it. So, it was revealed, that instead of vanquishing me, The Sorcerer had cursed me to look like Demon and it was I who had killed Tomb’s brother.”
“Your lucky day,” Geoff says.
Adam looks a little abashed, gaze dropping to his knees again. “Yeah.”
“Beast versus Tombstone,” Ray says. “You must have heard of it?”
Before I have to admit I haven’t, Meredith tuts. “Not all of us are au fait with your particular craft.”
“That match made The Beast.” Geoff protests. “Everyone knows about it.”
Fortunately, the children’s keen looks show I’m not alone in being unfamiliar with it. Ray proceeds to fill us in on all the gory details, which include The Beast being dropped off the top of a cage and thrown against barbed wire. Eventually, Adam starts correcting them and then filling in some of the details.
“You knew the ropes were on fire and you let him push you into them?” I ask as he nears the climax of the tale.
“Let him? It was my idea.”
“Woah!” Mal says, clearly impressed.
“How?” Ben asks, which I’m also wondering.
Ray explains how they’d put together the matches beforehand, mapping out every ‘spot’, with the assistance of the producers. “This was a main event so it had to be especially epic.”
“Pyrotechnics were The Demon’s thing,” Adam provides, “So flaming ropes were a way to pay homage to him and bring the whole story back to the theme of me being him.”
It really is a craft.
“How injured were you after?” Mal asks.
Adam chuckles again. “Quite.”
“Did you know you would be?” Alisha asks.
“Oh yeah, of course. But I knew it would be worth it if we pulled it off. Lloyd wasn’t very happy with me, as you can imagine.”
Ray counts off on their fingers, “Three broken ribs, a burnt chest, lacerated shoulder and possibly a concussion.”
“You should have seen the other guy,” Adam says, with a small smile.
“I did,” Ray says. “Sorry, boo, you came off worst.”
“Wouldn’t be a very good heel if I hadn’t.”
“And The Beast was back out fighting the next night,” Geoff says.
“‘Course I was. It was my big break.”
“In more ways than one,” Meredith says bleakly.
They continue to talk about the business, the topic moving onto people they knew and where they are now. Geoff is the first to drop off to sleep, with his mouth hanging open. At first I think that he’s acting, but the snoring and drool in the corner of his mouth confirm otherwise.
Mal and Ben drop off next. Meredith walks around the edge of our circle, quietly blowing out the candles, then settles beside Alisha, with her arms wrapped around her knees, listening. Alisha nods off too. Her head drops onto Meredith’s shoulder. Meredith and Adam exchange a look, before Meredith eases Alisha down to rest her head on her lap, Enrique still in her arms. Here like this, she looks her age. Sixteen isn’t really that old at all.
Eventually Ray stretches and yawns. They place another log on the fire, then declare they’re going to try to get some Zs too, and they stretch out under a blanket, as if this really was a camping trip.
“We should all rest,” Meredith says softly. “I hate to think what time it is.”
Adam nods, but he makes no move to lie down as she stretches out and makes herself comfortable.
I don’t move either. Everything is warm and quiet, but I’ve never felt more awake. I cradle my mug and focus on the fire, trying not to think about how close Adam is. For a time, there’s no sound but soft sleep noises and the gentle crackling of the logs.
“So—” I start.
Just as he says, “I wanted to?—”
He smiles and gestures for me to continue. I shake my head. I have no idea what I was going to say.
He looks down into his mug. It’s that same shy look that came over him when Mal asked about the wrestling. “I owe you an apology.”
My stomach leaps. He sounds so sincere. “For what?”
“For the way I’ve acted. I haven’t exactly made you feel welcome.”
“Oh, I… thank you but it’s not necessary.”
He sighs and drains his mug, then reaches across Meredith and Alisha for the bottle and tops himself up. He offers me a refill but I shake my head. After another deep drink, he whispers. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. That’s the truth, Belle. I’m not the person who should be doing this. It’s like I’m on this…” He waves a hand absently. “...this road trip. And the person who planned it all out, who has the map and everything, they couldn’t make it. I figured, how hard can it be? Turns out, pretty fucking hard.”
His voice is soft, but he glances at the children to make sure they’re still asleep and haven’t heard his language. It’s oddly endearing.
“You’re so good with them,” he says.
“I have a lot of nieces and nephews. And, uh, you know, qualifications.” I take a deep drink from my mug. He’s being so earnest, and here I am lying to him about my identity. Maybe I should just come clean. This would be a good time, wouldn’t it?
But how do I even start? So, while we’re being honest actually I should apologize because I’m not the person you hired, I committed fraud to be here. That’s certainly going to go down well.
Adam stares into the flames and the firelight softens his features. “I grew up with certain ideas about what was expected from children, how to raise them right, make them good members of a community. But now… I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
“I don’t think most parents do.”
He looks at me sharply.
“Tell me, what did you intend when you started this project to reform the foster system. What does that mean to you? Just funding?”
He shakes his head. At first I think he’s going to deny any part in it, say it was all Lloyd’s roadmap, but he says, “Don’t get me started. You’ll never get me to shut up.”
Another surprise. “So you must have some idea of what you would imagine the perfect foster home to be?”
“The perfect foster home is one that doesn’t exist,” he says. “It’s support for parents, children kept within families.”
“But that’s not always possible, is it?” I cock my head at our sleeping charges.
He hums agreement and closes his eyes, as if picturing the home in question. “It’s a home that empowers them, sets them up for a bright future.”
“And?”
“And it’s warm. Safe. A place where they never have to go without, where they feel secure.”
“You see.” I smile at him. “You have your own map. You don’t need Lloyd’s.”
His eyes are so bright in the firelight. Large with long reddish eyelashes. It strikes me how beautiful he is. Not just tough and rugged but pretty. I itch to touch him, to run my fingers through his beard. Oh god, this wine has gone straight to my head.
He drops his gaze, staring into his wine again. “You don’t understand, Belle. I’m a tool of destruction. I was raised that way, trained that way. Prior to wrestling I was a street fighter. Punching and kicking and causing grievous bodily harm for a living. Give me something to hit, I’m your man. No one will dispute that. I don’t know how to do this.”
“So we do it together,” I say and bloody hell I wish I could take it back immediately because he looks at me with such a strange expression, intent and confused. What in the world made me say that? I save myself by nodding at the sleeping forms of Ray, Meredith and, yes, Geoff, in turn to make it absolutely clear I didn’t mean him and me. Even though I think I did. What is wrong with me?