Alyzon Whitestarr

  “One more,” I muttered.

  The next article was about a poet called Zarbra. There was a picture of her with Aaron and Dita Rayc, a small, plain woman with short graying hair and drab gray clothes. The article said that she was one of a number of writers to receive a coveted humanitarian award for her cycle of poems on the theme of inhumanity. The award, the article said, was the initiative of Dita Rayc, and the caption under the picture mentioned that Zarbra had won several other awards, but that this was the first with a lot of prize money. The journalist added that Zarbra had received her prize at a ceremony at the Castledean Estate in Remington.

  Castledean Estate again, I thought.

  “Oh, hi,” Gilly said with such false enthusiasm that I knew at once who was behind me. I closed the browser and turned to see Harlen Sanderson leaning in the doorway in a way that suggested he’d been there for some time. My heart pounded as I tried to remember if we had said anything important out loud.

  “Sorry to hear about your house, Gilly,” Harlen said. He sounded sincere, but he smelled ghastly.

  “At least no one was hurt,” Gilly said.

  “Your grandmother is lucky she had insurance and money.” Harlen’s voice was pleasant, but Gilly bridled.

  “Money can’t replace photographs and mementos from a lifetime.”

  “I guess not,” Harlen said. He switched his gaze to me, and his smile widened to show his teeth. Like a shark, I thought, and wondered if it was my imagination that I could now see a cold wariness behind the warmth in his eyes. It was all I could do not to shudder, thinking of something alien, hungering to infect me. I forced a smile, but it felt thin and brittle.

  “I’ve been looking for you all day, baby,” Harlen said.

  I tried hard to look pleased and coy. “I’ve been around,” I said.

  “So let’s arrange that date finally,” he said, then he flashed a mocking look at Gilly. “If Gilly can spare you.”

  Before I could answer, the computer teacher came in and shooed us all away, saying there had been enough problems for him without having students hanging around. He seemed unusually flustered, and even Harlen’s gleaming smile didn’t soften him. Then the bell rang.

  “Catch you later,” Harlen promised, winking at me and vanishing into the stream of students.

  “Not if we can help it, baby,” Gilly muttered.

  We didn’t talk about Harlen as we made our way to science. Instead, I said, “Did you notice that all of the people in those articles had stopped working? Patricia Harmigan married, Dawed Rafael suicided, and have you ever heard of Zarbra or Angel Blue?”

  “So what?” Gilly asked.

  “It’s just …” I stopped, realizing I could say nothing clear without breaking my promise to Gary Soloman.

  Gilly looked puzzled. “You think Aaron Rayc is responsible for those people not working?”

  “He might have had something to do with it.”

  “I don’t see how. I mean, Patricia Harmigan probably stopped because she married a rich old man, and Dawed Rafael’s suicide happened at a gig when there were thousands of people watching. That poet could still be working, for all we know. And what about that Oliver Spike guy? He’s still working. I saw his name in the paper just the other day.”

  I frowned, realizing she was right. Then I shrugged. “I just have this feeling.”

  Gilly gave me a long, measuring look. “I bet I’m going to hear that phrase from you a lot. But I guess I have to get used to the fact that you have more resources than the average bunny.”

  * * *

  At home that night it was quiet because Da was away, Serenity had gone upstairs early with a headache, and Mirandah was out with Ricki. Jesse and I had beans on toast for dinner. We had just finished when Luke wailed, and Jesse went up to fetch him.

  “I think he might have a bit of a temperature,” he said, nuzzling one bright red cheek. “I’ll give him some baby aspirin, and we’ll see how he is a bit later. He’s hungry, though.”

  I volunteered to feed Luke, and I was still spooning mushed vegetable into him when Jesse got a preoccupied look and said he had to go up and write something down.

  “Sure,” I said, but he had already gone out. “That is one possessed brother we have,” I told Luke, who fixed me with an adoring look and spat a great gob of mush onto my hand. “Erk,” I said, laughing. I felt so safe and peaceful feeding him. It felt as if I was in another world from the one with Aaron Rayc and Harlen and Dr. Austin.

  After Luke finished eating, I played with him on a mat in the living room and saw little sparks and flickers in the air around him. We were building a tower of blocks when Neil came in, saying he had knocked but no one had heard.

  “Everyone’s out or in their bedrooms. And Da’s not here, but you knew that?”

  He smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I just came to borrow a mike. Mine’s on the blink.”

  “Have you got a gig?”

  “Losing the Rope has a gig tomorrow. It’s only a little thing, and we’ve got someone to fill in for your da.” He ambled out to the shed and then came back fifteen minutes later with the mike and leads.

  “Have a coffee?” I urged, pointing to a plate of his favorite cookies that I had put out. Luke was in his chair hammering on the wall with his battered rabbit.

  Neil sat and made faces at him while I made coffee. “So what’s on your mind?” Neil asked when I slid a mug to him and sat down opposite.

  “Did you ever meet that big rock star Dawed Rafael?”

  “The Welsh guy that took a high dive? Yeah, I met him a couple of times when he was an up-and-comer, but then he moved into the stratosphere.”

  “Do you know why he killed himself?”

  “Common knowledge. A girl was crippled because of some crazy stunt he pulled during a show, and he couldn’t handle it. He was an idealist, see, and idealists take it pretty hard when they fall short of their own ideals.”

  I frowned. “He doesn’t sound as if he was much of an idealist. Wasn’t he shooting blood at his audience and smearing it on his face in performances?”

  “Shock tactics. He was political, and somewhere along the way he lost faith in the power of music and lyrics to make an impact. He said people had to be made to see the truth of the pain other people felt, no matter what it took.”

  “I wonder what made him change?”

  Neil shrugged. “The thing about idealists who want to change the world is that they can get pretty messed up when the world doesn’t show the slightest interest in changing. I prefer your da’s brand of idealism. He never tries to force anyone to do anything. He just quietly does the best he can and never seems to get angry when things don’t work out. He gets sad sometimes, I think. But he doesn’t savage himself and turn bitter. I’ve never thought it out before, but being around him is … well, you find yourself wanting to live up to him. Be like him.” He chuckled richly. “I tell you, you feel a right git if you lose your temper around him.”

  “I know,” I laughed. “What about a singer called Angel Blue? Have you ever heard of her?”

  “Angel Blue.” Neil ate another cookie absentmindedly “She’s a pop star, isn’t she?

  “What about a writer called Oliver Spike?”

  At that moment Mum came in, ravishing in blue draperies. “Oliver Spike. I knew him once. Hello, Neil.” She kissed him and then scooped Luke out of his chair.

  We both stared at her.

  “You knew Oliver Spike?” I asked.

  “His real name is Oliver Spinek,” Mum said, going to the bench and setting out a bowl with Luke on one hip. “He was studying literature at the same time as I was doing art. He wanted everyone to call him Spike. He felt it was more serious than Oliver.” She laughed gently and tipped muesli into the bowl. “Poor Oliver. He was just beginning to win prizes when there was that scandal with an underage girl. It was silly, of course. Oliver was not interested in sex. His writing changed afterward and he made a lot of money, but I doubt it would
have made him happy.” She went to the fridge for soy milk, poured some into the bowl, then drifted out, leaving Neil and me gazing after her in wonder.

  I looked back at him. “What about a poet called Zarbra?”

  Neil began to shake his head. Then he stopped. “Lesbian poet who retired to a squalid mansion in England with a bunch of stray cats. Hey, what’s with the twenty questions? Am I being milked for an assignment?”

  I decided to tell him the truth. “All of those people were connected to Aaron Rayc, and none of them are the same as when they started out.”

  “You think Rayc had something to do with changing these people’s lives?” Neil asked skeptically.

  “Not just people—artists.”

  Neil shrugged. “OK, so the guy is into artists. A lot of rich cats are. But the same question applies. Why would he want to change their lives?”

  It was a good question. “I don’t know, but I just don’t like him. I wish he would leave Da alone.” I sounded sullen and childish to my own ears. “How do you and the guys feel about this stuff Da is doing for Aaron Rayc? I mean, doesn’t it bother you even a little?”

  Neil drank some coffee before answering. “I’m OK with your da doing other gigs, solo and with other bands. The truth is, if he wanted to go solo or get together a better band, I wouldn’t feel anything but sad for myself. Because your da is something special. You know that, of course, but I mean he’s musically special. Mel and Tich and me are just damn competent, and we’re lucky to play with him. Now, Aaron Rayc is playing his cards close to his chest but it’s clear he has his sights on your da. Mac knows it. He also knows that he has a vision when he makes music, and that Rayc has a very different vision, and that some differences can’t be made right.”

  I began to feel less wound up.

  Neil went on. “Mac’s taken these gigs strictly as one-offs, to make ends meet. In my opinion the association with Aaron Rayc is strictly temporary. I know your da can take care of himself.” He threw down the last of his coffee and heaved his bulk up, patting me on the shoulder as he lumbered out.

  * * *

  Gilly called before school the next morning to tell me that Sarry was being moved to Bellavie in Remington later that day. I felt a surge of relief because a bit of me had feared that Dr. Austin would come back from his holiday and stop the whole thing.

  “I don’t know if I’ll get to school today,” she said. “The policemen are coming back to see Gran. Apparently there was an eyewitness to the fire.”

  “Wow. OK.”

  We decided we would meet at Gilly’s hotel the next day and go to Raoul’s together. I went to school, consoling myself that it was Friday, and the next day I would see the others and we would come up with a strategy about Harlen. To my intense relief, there was a quiz in English so Harlen had no chance to speak to me. I completed my paper as fast as I could and then spent recess in the front office pretending I had lost something. When the bell rang again, I headed for the computer room, figuring I could spend my study period there. But the computer room was locked and there was a sign up saying no students were to use the computers until further notice as there was a virus in the school system.

  I scowled at the door, knowing that if there was a bug in the system, it would probably be in the library terminals as well. Then I had an idea. The editor of the school magazine was Jezabel Aster’s older sister, Rianna, whom I knew a bit. I was pretty sure Jezabel had once told me her sister had her own server for the magazine, so if there was something amiss with the school system it ought not to have affected her computer. I knocked at the door of the magazine office and Rianna frowned at my request over her glasses, but agreed that I could use her computer for twenty minutes while she went to make photocopies.

  Once alone, I closed the door and did a search for “Angel Blue.” Three items appeared, detailing the career of the singer, who turned out to be a soloist with a reputation for changing her band members more often than she changed her underwear. There was nothing to suggest to me that her career had taken a dive or had become suddenly successful. But I came across a paragraph in the last article that said her real name had been Mallory Hart. This made me think of Serenity wanting to change her name and, on impulse, I typed her real name into the search engine. I was startled to find another whole set of entries, and even a fan site that claimed she was one of the greatest songwriter-activists of her generation. None of the articles mentioned her transformation into Angel Blue, and they were all dated before the Angel Blue articles. There was a photo graph of her that contrasted strongly with those on the more recent sites.

  As Mallory Hart, she was younger, plumper, her hair messier, her teeth crooked, but there was something striking and vivid in her expression that was absent from the perfect and bland beauty of Angel Blue, who had smiled out from the other photo with her hand hooked through Aaron Rayc’s elbow.

  I studied the photograph and decided it was her eyes that had changed most of all. Here they were warm with laughter and intelligence, and kindness sparkled in them, but in the more recent photo there was indifference. I read the bio and was startled to find that she had been born in Shale-town. The date of birth told me that she would be about forty now.

  I decided to use the time remaining to listen to one of Mallory Hart’s songs, some of which were on the fan site. It was a ballad about people who lived ordinary lives with heroic courage that would win them no awards or recognition. The song was basically saying that this was the best kind of courage because “it did not admire its reflection in other people’s eyes.” I liked it very much, but I cut it off to listen to the next song. This was a ballad about an old man mourning his wife, and again there was a sweetness and gentleness to the lyrics that touched me. I wondered suddenly how her music had changed when she became Angel Blue, and made up my mind to visit the big music store in the mall on the weekend.

  Twenty minutes had gone and it was almost lunchtime, but there was no sign of Rianna. I typed in “Oliver Spike.” There were about sixty hits. I clicked on the first and did a quick scan. The article was about several contemporary writers and implied that, of them all, Oliver was the most highly regarded. I clicked on the next entry and skimmed a review of a recent book, which said that his “merciless eye and savage pen cut through the facades of his culture to reveal the bones and innards of humanity.” I grimaced, thinking it made him sound more like a butcher than a writer.

  The next item was an article about writers who had longish careers and who had suddenly been lifted to fame. I was struck by one quote in which Oliver Spike said his life had been “simpler and perhaps happier before I became very successful because I was blind to the faults of humanity. I actually believed in all sorts of extraordinarily naive things such as that people are intrinsically good and will do good in most cases, or that one must be honorable, or that friendship is worth dying for. Having my eyes opened to what people are really like has been a painful business, but I can’t wish to be blind to the truth.”

  I studied the unflattering photograph that accompanied the article: Oliver Spike with a cigarette drooping from his lips, his eyes like dull brown river stones in pouches of sagging flesh. He looked like a picture of decadence, sitting back in his purple dressing gown and squinting dispiritedly through a gray haze of smoke.

  Had it been the scandal about the underage girl Mum had mentioned that had “opened his eyes”? I had no doubt of his innocence, because while Mum seemed hardly to exist in the real world most of the time, what she did see of it always scoured through pretense or lies. Maybe Aaron Rayc had set up the scandal. But as Neil had asked, why? Unless Rayc had thought that changing Oliver Spike would make him more successful. And hadn’t it? One article all but said his cynical worldview was the reason for his success.

  I heard a step in the hallway and my heart started to hammer, but it was only Rianna. She put down a pile of papers and went out, saying casually that I could have ten more minutes. Elated, I hit on the next item and
up came another article in a prestigious magazine. It said Oliver Spike’s writing had begun as a miraculous celebration of the real and was raw in its message that humans ought to clean up their act and start realizing they were part of the world instead of above it. His later work, while more technically accomplished, had become both more obscure and darker in its message. “I am not sure I can say my work contains a message these days,” Oliver Spike had said, “because a message implies meaning and I don’t seem to find much meaning in the world or in life.”

  I shuddered. Deciding that I had had enough of Oliver Spike, I typed in “Patricia Harmigan” and came up with the article I had already seen. I typed in “Dawed Rafael,” and again there was a long list. I clicked one at random and skimmed, searching for a mention of Aaron Rayc. There was nothing, and I went on following links until I came upon an interview in which Dawed Rafael spoke of being asked to perform for a charity benefit at the Castledean Estate, saying this had been his entry into the big time. Then I found a Web site for “Castledean Estate.” It had the same picture as I’d seen on Aaron Rayc’s Web site. The blurb under the picture said that the Castledean Estate was an unparalleled venue for corporate and private functions as well as being a retreat for artists of all kinds. Then there were some details about the number of bedrooms and bathrooms and ballrooms and function rooms and tennis courts and pools. I was still reading when Rianna came in again.

  “Time,” she said. I closed the window, thanked her, and left.

  * * *

  I spent lunchtime skulking in an empty classroom, determined Harlen would not corner me again until I had spoken with the others. The next-to-last period of the day was history, but when I got to the room, I found Mrs. Barker collecting test papers from another English class. As I helped her collect them, it occurred to me to ask if she knew anything about Oliver Spike. I was startled at the revulsion that flashed into her eyes, but she only said mildly that he had recently won an important literary prize, but that she did not much like his work.