Chapter 24
It was a dream on the edge of waking, which meant some of it already had that foggy, slipping away feeling that came with dreams. The mall was hot and smelled like Auntie Anne’s pretzels, and there were so many people.
Donnie and Evan were being bad, playing speed hands after Mrs. Carreno had told them to stop, and Rose kept pulling at her tights and telling everyone she was going to wet her pants.
Jem kept trying to get a glimpse of the man in the chair.
If he stood on tiptoes, he could see one of the elves—a pretty girl with blond hair and a green hat.
He could see the sign, even though he didn’t know what it said.
He could see the toy workshop. And if he stretched a little more, maybe he could see—
Sunlight.
The light dazzled Jem, and he had to blink a few times before he could make out the room. He was alone in bed. His face felt hot, and the ache in his hands and feet, although less than the night before, was still there.
And then he realized: sunlight.
The storm had stopped.
A little ping ran up his legs when he put weight on his feet, but he made it to the window without any problems. He pulled back the curtains.
The sky was clear. The snow had that high-halogen glow that left an afterimage when he turned his head. Every tree looked like it had been painted by hand, green-black against that bright whiteness, and he could see for miles. What felt like miles.
“Holy fuck,” he said. “We’re actually going to get the fuck out of here.”
He made his way to the bathroom. It didn’t hurt, not exactly, but he moved gingerly, afraid—a little—to trust his full weight to each step.
His body ached too, now that he was up and moving.
When he stopped in front of the mirror, he had a better idea why.
His forehead, nose, and cheeks were red and shiny, like he’d gotten sunburned.
And even where his skin hadn’t turned that bright red, pinpricks showed where snow and ice had stung hard enough to leave welts.
Not sure if a shower would be smart, Jem settled for a whore’s bath. Somehow, his toiletries were here, on the counter, so he put lotion on his face. He combed his hair. He felt better—like maybe, someday, he might be himself again—and he pulled on the robe again and padded out to the front room.
Tean was sitting on the couch, knees drawn up to his chest. He was holding his pocket-sized notebook against his legs. With one thumb, he had trapped something smaller against the page.
“Hey,” Jem said. He cleared his throat. “Storm’s over.”
“Hey.” Tean closed the notebook and got to his feet. “Are you feeling okay? Are you sure you should be up?”
“I’m okay,” Jem said. Then a grin slid across his face. “This isn’t our room, right? Like, I’m not going crazy?”
Tean laughed softly. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry. I should have told you. After last night, we needed to get you into a room. Vaughan offered this one because it’s on the ground floor and it was close, easy to bring you in here. I asked him if we could stay because, well—”
“Someone tried to kill me, someone broke into our room, someone followed us up here from the valley.” Jem ticked the reasons off on his fingers.
Tean shrugged. “He said changing rooms was a good idea.”
Dropping onto the couch next to Tean, Jem said, “What’re you doing?”
Tean made a face. “Besides ignoring calls from my mom, my dad, and my siblings?” He didn’t wait for an answer, though, and he raised the notebook as though it were an answer.
“Oh,” Jem said. “Homework.”
“Therapy homework,” Tean corrected sourly.
“What do you have to do?” In a rush, Jem added, “You don’t have to tell me if it’s private.”
Tean gave another, smaller shrug. “I’ll tell you if you want to know.”
He paused like that had been a question, but when Jem didn’t say anything, he opened the notebook again.
Tucked between blank pages was a photo of a small dark-haired boy in glasses.
He wore a T-shirt and shorts and tennis shoes.
Thin arms. Thin legs. Maybe at the start of middle school, Jem guessed. Maybe younger.
“Is that you?” Jem asked.
“That’s me.”
“Oh my God, you’re adorable.”
Tean made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh but wasn’t quite a scoff either.
Jem scooped up the wallet-sized photo. It fit in his palm, and he brought it closer to study it.
Tean’s hair was straight and combed neatly to one side—none of the wild bushiness Jem was familiar with.
The features of his face were a little softer.
More boyish, which was probably an obvious thing to think, but it was true.
The nose was a little finer. The cheeks were rounder.
The eyebrows definitely weren’t the ones Jem knew.
“God,” Jem breathed. “You’re so young.”
“Fifth grade,” Tean said. “Ten.”
“You look so serious.”
Tean didn’t say anything, but when Jem glanced over, a smile razored across the doc’s mouth.
“I wish I could have gone to school with you,” Jem said. “I would have gotten you in trouble all the time.”
Tean’s smile softened. “Uh, thank you?”
“I would have made you break all the rules.”
“Well, maybe not all of them, because some rules are important.”
“Oh, all of them. We would have snuck out of class without a pass. We would have smoked on the playground—”
“No, definitely not.”
“—we would have touched the pencil machine.”
“I know I’m going to regret asking this,” Tean said. “But does that have another meaning I’m not aware of?”
For a moment, it was like the last few awful days had never happened. Jem fought to keep down the laughter, but he couldn’t help smiling. He raised the photo again and said, “I love him. When you’re done with your homework, I want to keep him. He’s mine.”
“Well, he’s me. And he’s a photo. And I have another thirty at home because I’m the oldest child, and for a while, my mom insisted on buying all those ridiculous school photo packages.”
“Nope. I want this one. No take-backs.”
“But I didn’t—” Tean managed to reel himself in. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, and something relaxed in his face. “How do you do this every time?”
“Do what?” Jem asked. But he tipped the photo onto the notebook.
Tean lined up the photo with the corner of the notebook and stared at it for a moment. “My assignment is to look at this picture and then write a letter to myself. At that age. Telling him—me—what I wish someone had told me when I was that age.”
Jem didn’t say anything at first. Tean had turned down the gas fire, and now it was only the blue-green flicker of the pilot. Finally, he asked, “What are you going to tell him?”
“Join the circus,” Tean said dryly. And he closed the notebook. “How are you feeling today? Can I check your hands and feet?”
Jem almost said something so that the doorway, open so briefly, wouldn’t slam shut again.
He could say, Open the notebook. Or What are you really going to say?
Or maybe something easier, something that would be like rattling the handle on that invisible door.
Maybe he could say, Can we talk about that a little more?
But by then, Tean was already taking his hand, spreading his fingers, running his own lightly over the still-sensitive skin. The touch was gentle—of course; this was Tean they were talking about—but everything still felt raw, and Jem was glad when it was over.
“I want you to take it easy today,” Tean said when he’d finished his inspection.
“No more soup.”
“No more soup,” Tean agreed.
“Tean,” Jem said. And then he stopped because he didn’t know what else to say.
Maybe Tean sensed it—he could be surprisingly perceptive when it came to the sorts of things he didn’t want to talk about—because he got to his feet and started toward the kitchenette.
Jem’s phone buzzed.
After a full day without service, it took Jem a moment to place the sound. And a moment longer to be surprised—pleasantly—that the battery hadn’t died. He found his phone—along with his wallet, the telescoping antenna, and the paracord with the hex nut—on the counter.
Brigitte’s name flashed on the screen.
She cut in as soon as he answered, and her voice was thready. “Maeve and Milo are gone.”