R. Anderson - Wayfarer

Quickly Timothy scrolled down to the photograph. There she stood in front of the familiar white bungalow on Luthuli Avenue, one long arm draped over his sister’s shoulders. Her hair was a mass of tight braids, with a colorful scarf tied around it, and her smile seemed to blaze out of the screen. Miriam Sewanaku, his neighbor and best friend.

He missed her, now more than ever. She’d introduced him to the music of Bernard Kabanda, who’d become one of his musical heroes; and when he bought his first guitar she hadn’t laughed at the muzungu boy wanting to play Ugandan music, the way Timothy’s schoolmates did. Instead she’d gone to a family friend, one of the finest guitarists in Kampala, and persuaded him to teach Timothy how to play.

Without Miriam’s encouragement, he might have given up. But now the guitar had become his passion, and he couldn’t imagine a life without it. He would always be grateful to her for that-and lately, he’d come to realize that he might be a little more than just grateful. But she was a year older than he was, and he was a muzungu , and besides they were both too young to do anything about it. So he hadn’t worked up the courage to say anything…at least, not yet.

Reluctantly Timothy closed his mother’s letter and started a new message of his own. A few lines to his old email account in Uganda (which his parents never checked), a copy to Greenhill to make sure the dean was satisfied…done. He shut down the computer and…

There it was again, that feeling of being watched. As though there were some presence in the room with him, invisible but uncomfortably real. Timothy sat very still a moment, then abruptly spun around-

No one was there. But on the opposite wall hung a painting he’d never seen before. It was a portrait of Peri, her narrowed eyes staring directly out of the canvas. Her feet were bare, and she gripped a long knife in her hand.

Timothy got up from his chair and walked to examine the picture more closely. It was beautifully done, but something about it bothered him. It wasn’t that Peri looked murderous, not exactly: If her expression was fierce it was only in a protective way, like the face of a guardian angel. In fact, the way the light filtered through the leaves behind her looked almost like a pair of translucent wings….

No, that was stupid; he was reading too much into it. But something about the portrait still made him feel uneasy, like it was sending him a message-or a warning-he didn’t understand.

Timothy glanced around at the rest of the art displayed-mostly Paul’s, interspersed with a few pen-and-ink sketches in a different style that had to be Peri’s-then turned off the lights and left. But as he climbed the stairs, the image of that strange portrait still haunted him, like a voice whispering at the back of his mind:

Beware.

The guest bedroom had a four-poster and a window overlooking the front garden, and it was as big as the room he’d shared with three other boys at Greenhill. Timothy kicked off his running shoes and jeans, flopped back onto the mattress, and put his hands behind his head, thinking.

Maybe there wasn’t anything wrong at Oakhaven. Maybe it was just him. He’d been confused and unhappy for so long, he just needed time to relax and get his head clear-that was why he’d come here in the first place, wasn’t it? Maybe all he needed was a good night’s sleep, and this feeling of constant tension, of being spied on wherever he went, would go away.

And yet out there in the garden, beneath the oak tree…he knew what he’d seen, what his hands had touched. That hole in the trunk had been real. So how could it just have disappeared like that?

Part of him wanted to go back outside at once and investigate. But the sky was dark now, and there’d be plenty of time for that tomorrow. Timothy got up, picked a novel off the shelf at random, and read until his eyes felt heavy. At last he turned off the light and settled down to sleep.

He was just drifting off when he heard a voice floating up through the grate beside his bed, muffled and tinny-sounding but still distinct:

“-difficult with him here, but we’ll have to manage somehow.”

It was Peri, talking about him. And now that Timothy knew it, there was no way he could close his eyes and pretend he hadn’t heard. He squirmed closer and dangled over the edge of the mattress, straining to hear Paul’s deeper voice reply:

“Of course. But we’ll still need to warn the others. Make sure they know it’s not safe to visit until we give the word.”

Not safe? Timothy frowned. All right, so he’d hit somebody and got himself suspended, but Paul was making him sound like some kind of dangerous criminal. Or the mad cousin shut up in the attic.

“I don’t think they’d try it in any case,” said Peri. “Not with so many crows about.”

Had she really said crows ?

“You’re forgetting Linden,” Paul remarked. “Or was that wishful thinking?”

Peri must have made a face instead of answering, because Paul went on in an amused tone: “Not my fault, love. She’s her mother’s daughter. Or” -his voice sobered- “as near to it as we’re ever going to see.”

“Don’t say that! I’m not ready to give up yet. And don’t tell me you are, either.”

“What else can we do? We’re only human. No offense.”

Peri was silent.

“And as for the rest,” Paul continued more gently, “remember what Amaryllis said. They’ve got to find their own solution. It’s not your battle anymore.”

“Whose is it, then? Hers?” She was bitter now. “If it is, it won’t be for much longer. And how long will the oak survive once she’s gone?”

Timothy had done a lot of eavesdropping in his time, but this had to be one of the oddest conversations he’d ever overheard. He was still wondering who Linden and Amaryllis might be and what the oak tree had to do with anything, when he heard Paul say in a husky voice, “Love. Don’t look like that. Come here.”

There was a long silence, and then Peri said, “I just want this to be over. I want to be able to leave the house without worrying that something’s going to happen while I’m away. I want-”

“I know. If anyone was meant to see the world, it was you.” Now it was Paul’s turn to sound bitter. “And I can’t give you that. Especially not right now.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Paul Graydon McCormick.” Her voice was stern, but there was a shake in it that might have been laughter, or tears. “You start wallowing in self-pity and I’ll wheel you down the road and dump you in the pond myself.”

“I’d like to see you try,” said Paul in a tone that was half-growl, and for a moment Timothy thought he was angry. But then their words slurred to murmurs, broken by pauses that were not entirely silent, and Timothy decided it was time to stop listening. He dropped a pillow onto the grate and wormed back into the middle of the bed, resolutely shutting his eyes.

But his dreams were full of dark wings and great trees falling, and he did not sleep well.

When Timothy awoke, it took him a minute of staring stupidly at the ceiling to remember where he was. Pale light fingered the edges of the curtains, and the silence seemed expectant somehow, as though the house were waiting for its inhabitants to hatch.

The bedside clock glowed 7:05-too early for Timothy’s liking, but it was pointless trying to sleep longer. He stumbled out of bed, scrounged some clean clothes from the tangled mess inside his suitcase, and headed off to the bathroom.