R. Anderson - Wayfarer

So…what exactly was she doing?

Timothy squinted out the window until Peri rose, brushed the mud from her knees, and began walking back toward the house. But she’d left something behind: a little parcel, sticking out from the base of the tree.

He had to know what was in it.

Timothy stood still a moment, eyes fixed on Peri’s retreating figure. Then he spun around and ran back down the corridor to his bedroom. Pulling on his jacket, teeth gritted in anticipation of the cold, he slipped downstairs and eased out the front door, closing it quietly behind him.

Outside, the air felt heavy, the smell of rain-soaked earth overpowering. A damp chill seeped through the soles of Timothy’s shoes as he edged around the corner of the house and through the garden gate, keeping low so as not to be seen.

The garden looked empty: Peri must have gone back inside. Timothy waited a few more seconds, just to be sure. Then, moving so stealthily that even the sparrow hopping across the lawn didn’t turn its head, he crept toward the oak.

“Timothy!”

Peri’s voice rang out from behind him. He’d been caught, but there was no way Timothy was going to give up now. He lowered his head and started to run.

She came after him, but Timothy was faster. He sprinted across the wet lawn, then caught his foot on a root and fell sprawling. Dazed though he was, his eyes darted at once to where Peri had knelt and left her offering just a minute before….

But the little package was gone.

“Timothy, what is wrong with you?” demanded Peri as she strode up to him. “I told you to-”

“I saw something fly past me,” said Timothy, getting up and wiping his mud-smeared hands on his jeans. “Upstairs, in the house. I thought it might be your bird, so I tried to chase it down, but then it flew out here and…I tripped before I could catch it.”

Peri’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t see any bird.”

There was nothing Timothy could say to that. He stood there looking at her, trying not to shiver as the icy wind bit through his jacket and raised a fresh layer of gooseflesh on his skin.

“Look,” Peri went on after a moment, “I don’t know why you came out here, or what you thought you were going to find. So I’ll just say this.” Her face hardened. “Stay away from the Oak.”

Not the oak tree but the Oak , as clear as if she’d written the capital letter in the air between them. She wore the same ferocious expression Paul had painted in her portrait, and Timothy stepped back, wary. “What do you mean?”

“I saw you poking at it yesterday, when you first got here,” she said. “It’s very old, and fragile, and you’re big enough to know better. So you can just keep to the house from now on, and leave the Oak alone.”

Heat rushed into Timothy’s face. Was that what she really thought-that he’d been trying to damage the old tree? Pick off the bark and carve his name into its skin like some ignorant lout with no respect for nature or other people’s property?

“I’d never do anything to hurt it,” he protested, trying not to think of the fact that only yesterday he had-albeit by accident. “This is because of the suspension, isn’t it? Just because I got into one fight at school, you think I’m some kind of troublemaker?”

Peri folded her arms and looked at him, her mouth a straight line. She didn’t speak, but all at once Timothy understood.

“No, I get it,” he said with sudden bitterness. “You don’t want me here. That’s why you never even asked me, isn’t it? Five months at Greenhill, and I never heard from you or Paul once. And now that you’re stuck with me you’ve been trying to make the best of a bad lot, but what you really wish is that I’d never come here in the first place.”

“Timothy, it’s not-”

“Yes, it is. I can tell.” He was shaking now, though with cold or anger he couldn’t tell. He felt hollow inside, like an empty cage: His last hope of security had flown and there was nobody he could count on now, not even himself. “Fine. I’ll go. I’ll stay out of your way. And I won’t touch your precious Oak again.”

“Timothy!”

She sounded distressed, but Timothy was in no mood to listen. He turned his back on her and stalked off toward the house.

He didn’t come down to supper when Peri called him, or answer her tentative knock at his door. But when he heard the drone of the stair lift, Timothy realized that he’d taken his rebellion too far. He opened the bedroom door to find Paul sitting in the corridor just outside, hands gripping the wheels of his chair as though preparing to ram the door down.

“Sorry,” said Timothy, before his cousin could speak.

“It’s not me you should be sorry for,” said Paul curtly.

“I know. I’ll apologize.”

“That you will.” Paul wheeled into the room, his cool gaze sweeping over the clothes scattered across the floor, the unmade bed. “Peri’s willing to make excuses for you, but she doesn’t know your parents. They’re good people-and I know they raised you better than this.”

Somehow Timothy could tell that when Paul said this , he didn’t just mean what had happened between him and Peri. He looked down at his feet.

“It can’t have been easy for them,” Paul went on, “sending you away. Obviously, they thought you’d get a better education here, but it can’t have been cheap, either. I’m guessing Uncle Neil doesn’t make a lot of money, church support or not.”

There was a dead bluebottle on the windowsill. Timothy brushed it off and leaned his forehead against the cold glass, suddenly weary. “It wasn’t just them. I wanted to come.”

It had seemed like an adventure, back then. But nothing had turned out the way he’d hoped. Academically, Greenhill was an excellent school, but the so-called Christian atmosphere didn’t seem to have done much for Timothy’s schoolmates. At best they’d kept an uncomfortable distance, not knowing how to talk to a boy who looked English but didn’t care about any of the things the rest of them considered important, like the plots of Hollywood action movies or how to play the latest video games. At worst they’d mocked Timothy openly, finding fault with his clothes, his accent, and most of all, his love of Uganda.

Timothy’s confidence in the transforming power of Christianity had begun to weaken, his doubts growing as he encountered scientific books and articles that argued against his faith. Then the Gospel Hall he’d been attending-the closest thing he could find to the Brethren chapel he’d been part of in Kampala-closed down after one of the elders was caught stealing from the missionary fund. When Timothy’s isolation became unbearable, he’d prayed fervently that Paul and Peri would invite him to Oakhaven, but they hadn’t called or written once. By the time he’d seen a bus advertisement telling him that God probably didn’t exist, Timothy was ready to believe it.

“So is it really that terrible for you, being here?” Paul persisted. “Or is it just the school you hate?”

“Greenhill’s all right,” said Timothy, his eyes following a pair of crows as they flapped past. “I mean, the teachers are decent, and I’ve been getting good marks and that sort of thing. I just…don’t fit in.”

“The battle cry of the McCormicks,” said Paul dryly. “I see your genes have done you no favors there. But was it really necessary to get yourself suspended to prove the point?”

“What makes you think I-”

“Oh, come on, Tim. Even as a kid you were a calculating little beggar. Don’t think I hadn’t noticed you timed that stunt perfectly so you’d end up being sent here, instead of moping about in Tunbridge Wells with my mum and dad. What are you figuring, then? That if you make yourself odious enough at Greenhill, your parents will have to pull you out and send you to a different school instead?”