They went over the wooden bridge over the Sorrier River, stands of bright red wolfberries waving at them from the bank.
“The Sorrier River?” Jared asked when he saw the sign by the bridge.
“It’s haunted,” Kami said, with some pride.
“The river is haunted?”
“During the Wars of the Roses—a big fight over who should be the king of England, Richard of York or Henry of Lancaster,” Kami supplied, “Sorry-in-the-Vale stood for Richard. Henry won through vile treachery. Anyway, since Henry was a cruel tyrant, he decided everyone who had fought for Richard—who was king of England at the time!—was a traitor, and started seizing lands and squeezing people for cash.”
“Classic tyranny,” Jared observed. “Not very imaginative.”
“So the people of Sorry-in-the-Vale hid their valuables when the king’s men were going by. You know the tower attached to Aurimere? It used to be a bell tower, but the bell was carved and made of gold. Well, gold leaf, probably, but at this stage everyone says gold. Elinor Lynburn ordered that the bell be sunk in the river. What with one king and another, they didn’t bring the bell up from the river until Elizabeth I was on the throne, and then nobody was able to find it. The legend goes that when Sorry-in-the-Vale is in danger, the bells in the river ring out a warning.” Kami beamed with satisfaction.
Jared glanced over the side of the bridge. It hadn’t rained lately, and it had been a long summer. The Sorrier was a silver trickle. “So the river is haunted by … bells?”
“You do not deserve an ancestral legend,” Kami informed him.
They stepped into the woods under a green arch like a church doorway made of boughs. The woods had the hush of a church too. This was the real woods, and even the quality of the light was different, shadow and sunshine caught together in a net of leaves. Kami had loved the woods all her life, but without loving them any less, she could not forget seeing horror under these trees. She did not let her steps slow. Kami had found it was important not to give people time to say “Wait, is this really a good idea?”
It occurred to Kami an instant later that she was not guarding her thoughts, and with the new blurring of the boundaries between them Jared could see every fear and doubt she pretended not to have. She sent a glance that flashed resentment at Jared, standing on the gnarled roots of an oak tree.
He met her eyes, face calm. The oak leaves above him were already gilded, autumn coming to the woods like a king in a legend, touching all the trees with brightness. The rays coming through those leaves were gold on gold, firing the cold lights in his gray eyes. “I’m not going to ask if this is a good idea. I said I could keep up with you,” Jared said. “I won’t do that by slowing you down.”
Kami’s smile spread, thoughts curling around his. He didn’t feel uncertain. Actually, he felt happy, the restlessness that had been thrumming through him at school stilled.
“So hurry up, city boy.”
They went over fallen leaves and undergrowth that tried to tug Kami’s shoes off, past a hollow tree stump covered with dead vines that looked like an elephant made of twigs, and reached the hut. It looked ordinary by the light of day, the rough brown walls leaning at an angle, the door slightly ajar.
Kami had envisioned crime scene tape garlanding the trees, but of course the police weren’t going to do that for a murdered fox. They had not even taken the tablecloth off the table. It fluttered in the breeze as Kami cautiously pushed the door open. She stared for a moment at the rusty brown stains on it. She felt Jared’s shoulder behind her own, warm and solid, having her back, and for the first time since the well, his physical presence was a comfort. She leaned against him and he stepped away, maybe an instant before he realized she was leaning, maybe an instant afterward.
Kami stepped forward on her own and walked around the perimeter of the hut. It was tiny, and she had studied the pictures from her camera phone obsessively. There didn’t seem to be anything new here. So whoever it was had not come back, she thought. That was good to know.
She went and stood at the door with Jared, trying to find some pattern of broken twigs or crushed undergrowth to indicate which way whoever had killed that fox had fled. But the police had been here, and she and Jared hadn’t been careful on their way in. There were signs of people everywhere. When Kami saw a gleam, she stooped down to the glint of white plastic automatically and without much interest. It was plastic: she assumed it was rubbish. Then she looked at what was lying in the palm of her hand.
“It’s a room key,” Jared said slowly. “For somewhere called the Surer Guest.”
“That’s a fancy guesthouse a few miles out of town,” Kami said, just as slowly. Relief seeped through the shock. It could be a visitor who was responsible, then. Not anyone she knew: not someone from her town.
“Our first clue,” Jared remarked. “High five.”
They both hesitated, checking themselves at the last moment, and deliberately missed touching hands. The gesture was a bit like waving at each other over a distance that was only in their minds.
Kami bit her lip, then tucked the card into her pocket and headed for home, with Jared walking a careful distance away from her.
Chapter Twelve
The Crying Pools
“Something I don’t understand about this place,” Jared said, after a long awkward pause, “is why the stone around here, including the stone in the big stupid mausoleum I have to live in, is the color of pee.”
“It’s Cotswold stone!” Kami exclaimed. “And it is the color of honey. It’s very famous. Most of the houses in Cotswolds towns are built from it. It’s why they are such beauteous tourist attractions.”
“Cotswolds?” Jared asked. “I thought this place was in Oxfordshire. Or Gloucestershire. Someplace ending in ‘shire.’ ”
“The Cotswolds stretches over both,” Kami said. “It’s a range of hills and towns famous for their beauty. Also their sheep, but that’s not the issue here. There’s a quarry on the other side of the woods where the stone used to be mined, and it’s been exhausted for fifty years because everyone likes Cotswold stone.”
“Still looks like pee.”
“Honey!”
“You can sweet-talk me all you want, baby, but I know what it looks like to me.” Jared smirked at her. Kami matched up his expression to his emotions: she wanted to memorize them so she could get used to him having a face as well as feelings.
So this is the “smug idiot thinks he’s funny” face, Kami observed. Not to be confused with other “smug idiot” variants.
And everyone told me English girls were so sweet, Jared said, and then: Oh, hey.
Kami glowed with pride at the success of her surprise. “I took another detour on my way home. Since you’re new and everything.”
The hush of the woods was changed now into the different calm of still waters, the quiet somehow enveloping rather than disturbed by humming insects or the rustle of trees.
The two lakes were laid out side by side in the clearing, two shimmering glass circles as if the ground was wearing spectacles. Kami had seen the lakes showing different colors, pearl gray under cloudy skies or blue in sunshine, but right now they were green, the green of glass bottles turned liquid and poured over pale sand. A weeping willow dipped a branch into the waters of the farthest pool, some leaves trailing on the surface and the other leaves drowned and dark.
“These are the Crying Pools.”
Kami was dismayed to see a few raindrops hit the pool, breaking the silver surface, but before she could suggest taking shelter she looked up and saw the rain cloud above them melting into wisps against the sky. She looked back down to shimmering-calm water and Jared’s small smile. It wasn’t much, that smile, not compared to Ash’s, but Kami could see the feeling behind it; she could share his pleasure and blend it with hers. It made the smile warm as a touch.
“Sorry-in-the-Vale, Sorriest River, Crying Pools,” said Jared. “Is the quarry called Really Depressed Quarry?”
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“Yes,” Kami answered. “Also, I live on the Street of Certain Doom.”
Jared drew closer to the pools. He stood looking down into one, then glanced over his shoulder at Kami.
It struck Kami that he should have looked out of place, the city boy in his battered leather jacket, but he did not. He fit here. The shadow of the trees hung over his hair, and for a moment she thought his eyes caught a green spark. It occurred to her that the Lynburns had lived in Sorry-in-the-Vale a very long time.
“I think I see something in the water,” said Jared.
Curiosity made Kami forget the moment of strangeness and hurry over to peer into the lake by Jared’s side. “I don’t see anything.”
“I thought it was a glint of metal,” Jared said. “Possibly I was hoping for more rich ancestors’ bells.”
“Or it was the sun on the water.”
“Or that,” Jared conceded. “So, am I ever going to see your house on the Street of Certain Doom?”
As they wound their way back toward her house after taking the world’s two longest shortcuts, Kami had to admit that she was nervous. Her house was ridiculous. Only her parents would ignore the new roof technology that had been available for, oh, six hundred years, and live in a thatched cottage. When they reached it, she swung open the gate from the woods into her garden with some misgiving.
“No jokes about Glass houses,” she told Jared. “Because we have heard them all.”
“What about—”
“That one too,” Kami said firmly.
The gate swung open.
The Glass house was Cotswold stone too, but was a little house, resting snug on the dip of land below the woods, dark thatch over yellow stone, honeysuckle dripping down in front of the low windows. Above the door was carved G, and then a scar in the stone, followed by the word House. Kami made her way through the garden. The grass could have used trimming and she had to jump over Tomo’s bicycle. A watering can was hanging on the wall.
Kami turned her house key in the door, gave it a heave to open it because it always stuck, and glanced back at Jared. He stood looking at her, then looking at the house, and in that moment he seemed strangely helpless to Kami. Which was ridiculous, because Jared was one of the least vulnerable-looking people she had ever seen. Yet something about the way he stood made her think of a kid peering in a shop window, knowing he could not have anything inside.
Jared’s eyes met Kami’s. His wariness flooded through her, trying to set up barriers between them too late. It was almost horrible, having what a stranger thought mean so terribly much.
Kami waved her hand. “Welcome to my humble abode!” she said grandly, and when he still stood staring she reached out her hand to him. “Jared,” she said, quieter. “Come in.”
He did not take her hand, and after a moment, a chill going through her, she dropped it. Jared followed her inside once she had turned away. Kami hesitated at her own threshold, about to kick off her shoes, because Sobo always wanted shoes off and slippers on as soon as you went in the door, and it always took her a beat to remember Sobo was gone and stop herself calling out “Obaa-chan!,” that name she had lost when Sobo was gone, because it was a name only for family and she always referred to her grandmother as Sobo otherwise, even in her own head, because Jared was always there. She took the beat now, looked up to explain to Jared, and saw that he already understood.
She flashed him a quick smile. They walked down the hall and into the living room.
Kami had to check on the boys first thing: she shouldn’t actually have taken those detours. The kids could be left alone for a couple of hours, because Ten was the most pathologically responsible child in the universe, but it wasn’t like Tomo ever listened to him. The living room was a mess, as usual, and Kami almost broke her neck on one of Tomo’s toy trucks.
Best if you think of this room as a minefield. Tread carefully or get exploded, she advised Jared, and then said aloud, “Hideous brats! We have a guest. Conceal evidence of your crimes.”
Tomo, watching TV at ear-splitting volume, outdid the television with a shriek and turned around on the sofa. Ten, in the window seat with a book in his lap, curled in against the glass and tried to be very quiet while he assessed the situation. Kami sent him a reassuring smile and he blinked at her owlishly behind his glasses.
“Who are you?” Tomo asked Jared.
“This is Tomo,” Kami said, even though Jared knew this, just so she could add, “It’s been seven years since the evil fairies sent him to us as a curse. We’re still not sure what we did to offend them. And this is Ten. He is ten, and yes, we know how horrible that is. We are going to throw the biggest birthday party for him the Vale has ever seen when he turns eleven.”
“How many months to go?” Jared asked.
Shy Ten gathered his courage in both hands and replied in a tiny voice: “Nine months.”
“That’s rough, buddy,” said Jared.
Ten went limp with relief. He shrugged his shoulders and bent his head back over his book.
“What are you doing here?” Tomo wanted to know. “I’ve never seen you before! Do you know any Snoopy songs?”
“Uh, no,” said Jared. “Sorry.”
“Stop bothering my guest,” Kami ordered.
“If I do …,” Tomo began his bargain. “If I do. Can I have four glasses of lemonade?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you drank four glasses of lemonade, you would explode,” Kami said. “Dad would come downstairs and ask, ‘Where is my youngest born?’ and I could only point to the floor, where all that remained of you would be a pool of lemonade and a heap of sweetened entrails. You can have one glass of lemonade.”
Tomo gave a cheer and leaped from the sofa, heading for the kitchen at top speed.
Kami sighed. “The current theory is that he is a lemonade vampire. C’mon.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jared said awkwardly to Ten, who went red and muttered something into the pages of his book.
“He likes you,” Kami commented.
“Oh yeah,” said Jared. “I could tell.”
“He once hid under the sofa from a cocker spaniel,” Kami said. “You’re doing fine.” She opened the door to the kitchen, and once more it was like seeing familiar things for the first time, wondering what Jared thought of them: the red stone tiles that were worn orange in places, the swags of dried herbs swinging over the wide wooden counter, the round table and the fat green sofa strategically placed in the square of sunlight that came through the window. And, of course, her brother doing what appeared to be a mystical lemonade dance.
Strangers said Tomo looked like Dad, although Dad’s black hair stood up straight as a brush and he had cheekbones that could cut glass, while Tomo had a black silky cap of hair with a face as round as a dish. They looked nothing alike, except that they both looked Japanese. Ten did not look even slightly Japanese, and Kami was the only one who looked like a mix of both, like she wouldn’t quite fit in on either side of her family.
Kami stood on her tiptoes to get the high cupboard open. The lemonade was kept in the highest place they had. Keeping it in the fridge had resulted in finding Tomo curled on the floor in sugar delirium, clutching an empty bottle, one too many times.
“Here,” Jared murmured. He reached up and took down the lemonade.
Kami glanced around and saw the way he’d leaned, angled so his body would not brush hers. “Thanks,” she murmured back, and went to grab glasses.
“You are a tall person!” Tomo announced approvingly, pausing mid-dance. “How did you get that scar on your face?”
“Tomo!” Kami said.
“Broken bottle,” Jared told him curtly.
“I’m sorry,” Kami said, once Tomo had pranced off with his glass of lemonade.
Kami, it’s fine, said Jared. He looked especially tall in her kitchen, big and edgy and out of place here as he had not been in the woods. “I thought I made all of this u
p,” said Jared, very quietly.
Kami heard what he left unspoken, the things people had said to him: Creating a fantasy life to compensate for the situation at home, not able to deal with reality, some faraway ideal of what he imagines a home is like. Not real. Not real.
“I thought I made you up,” Jared continued, still so quietly.
“Well,” Kami said. “You didn’t. Want some lemonade?”
“Yeah, okay,” said Jared.
He kept hovering uneasily as Kami went and sat on the sofa with her lemonade. It had been a long day. Not just because of the longest detour through the woods ever made, but because of the talk with the others in the office, having to drag into the light the thing she had been trying not to say. The thing she had not wanted to even think of: Someone had pushed her into that well. Someone was trying to kill her.
Kami was determined to solve the mystery and tell the story. She was going to be fine. But for now she was tired, and all she could do was sit, stare out the window, and feel cold and scared.
“You don’t have to be scared,” Jared said, leaning against the sofa behind her. His breath stirred her hair. “I believed you.”
“Yes,” Kami said. “Because you know I’m telling the truth.” She had not even looked at Jared while she was absorbing the reactions of everyone else at headquarters. She had not had to: your own heart did not betray you. Jared could be counted on, always. But he hadn’t been real before. It was different now.
Yes, said Jared.
“It’s not one-sided,” he added abruptly.
Kami kept her eyes locked on the window. “What do you mean?” she asked, and her voice trembled.
He said, “I’m always on your side too.”
Kami leaned back, just a little, and let the back of her head rest against his collarbone. He did not flinch away, though she heard his breath catch and thought that he maybe wanted to. He was solid, real, in her home and in the sunlight. She felt the warm curve of his neck, the catch of his breath a whisper against her hair.
“Yes,” Kami murmured. “I know.”
He pulled away as soon as she spoke. Kami twisted around on the sofa and looked at him. She was reminded of the way he had fit in with the woods, and thought again how out of place he seemed in her home.