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  “You mean once our teachers find out, they’ll assume the worst about me, too? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” Alison said, but not with any conviction.

  She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know. Gossip was gossip. Once it was spilled, it ran in all sorts of directions and stained everyone it touched. How could I go to the prom and to the party with Paul Gabriel and not be involved with the drug he took? I just got away with it, that was all.

  It occurred to me that if, as Dr. Davenport had said, the police started their investigation seriously, I’d logically be the first one they questioned. What would Bea Davenport do next once her friends got wind of it all and her phone started to ring? Her precious reputation might be damaged.

  “If you happen to see Ryder, tell him I said he should calm down,” Alison said. “He’ll only make more trouble for us all, especially me.”

  “I guess we should all calm down,” I added.

  “Yeah, right. I’m not looking forward to going to school on Monday. The chatter will be so loud I’ll get a headache.”

  “I have one now.”

  “Don’t worry. You have a doctor nearby. Anyway, hopefully this won’t cause the school to cancel next year’s prom or something, not that I’ll care that much, but I imagine you might.”

  “Why wouldn’t I? Why should so many innocent kids suffer?” I said.

  “Right. But are you going to tell me you never used any X or drank booze at some party?” she said.

  “I am going to tell you that, yes.”

  “Miss Perfect. I guess you really are a prom queen. See you at Headache Central.”

  After I hung up, I thought about Ryder sulking in his room. Alison was right, of course, even though she was thinking more about herself. He should calm down. What good did sitting around in a rage do now? On the other hand, who was I to talk? I had been sulking myself.

  I had a little to eat. My appetite was subdued, but I thought I should have something and try to get my mind on other things. My mother was in the main house following up on some chores. It was like this every Sunday because most of the servants had the day off. So I sat alone at the table, hearing only my own thoughts.

  Everything had happened so fast. One moment you’re happier than you have ever been, and the next you’re sadder than you’ve ever been, and all of it within the space of a few hours. I was still quite confused about Paul Gabriel. If anything, my impression of him had been that he was harmless and simple, hardly a threat. How easily he had been influenced. What made him want to take me, anyway? Did the other boys in school encourage him to ask me to the prom, assuring him he would have an easy sexual conquest? Now I was confident that all the wry smiles and whispers behind my back were not figments of my imagination.

  A knock on the side entrance pulled me out of my troubled reverie. I hoped it was Ryder doing what he often did and coming around to our side from outside the house instead of having to go through it. But when I opened the door, it was Mr. Stark. From the smile on his face, I realized he knew nothing about the events that had occurred.

  “How was the prom?” he asked.

  It all seemed beside the point now. I felt silly telling him what a dance was like, but I did.

  “And I was chosen prom queen.”

  “Wow. Someone has good taste,” he said.

  “They chose Ryder for prom king, too.”

  “Wyndemere wins it all, huh?”

  “That’s what I thought, until my mother and I were called to see Dr. Davenport earlier today.”

  “Oh?” He stepped in. “Why?”

  I offered him something to drink or some of the egg salad my mother had made for me.

  “No, I’m fine, thanks. So tell me what’s up,” he said, and sat at the table.

  I described it all, leaving out some of the nasty details involving Paul and me at the after-party. I did say he was out of control because he had drunk some alcohol, vodka, I thought, and took a party drug, which was why Ryder had called Parker to come get us. I imagined Parker would tell Mr. Stark anyway. I knew they were close friends.

  “Only takes a few rotten apples to spoil the barrel,” he said, his face darkening with anger. “You’re all right, though? You weren’t . . . hurt?”

  I knew it was his way of asking if I had been sexually assaulted. “I’m okay. Just sad for everyone, especially Ryder, who only tried to do the right things.”

  “Your mother’s in the main house?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s a little shaken up, too, although she will pretend she’s not. Mrs. Davenport wasn’t very nice to either of us. She wasn’t even nice to Ryder.”

  “That right?” He thought a moment. “She doesn’t know how lucky she is to have someone like your mother looking after her and this house. Okay,” he said, slapping his knees and standing. “I’ll see you later.”

  He started out, then stopped and came back to give me a kiss on the cheek.

  “Prom queen. Mighty proud of you,” he said, and left.

  I went to the door and watched him march around the house to check on my mother for sure. Who cared more about us than he did? I thought. If he was my father, why wouldn’t my mother just tell me? What promises did she make? So much time had gone by. How could it matter now? It all got me thinking about what she had told me about her coming to Wyndemere, so instead of going to do homework, I returned to my room to read about surrogate mothers on the Internet.

  One comment interested me more than the scientific facts. It was a discussion of whether in gestational surrogacy any DNA of the surrogate mother passed to the baby. The conclusion was no significant amount, because the placenta was like a screen separating the fetus from the mother. The embryo already had its DNA, half from the father and half from the biological mother.

  Nevertheless, as I lay there thinking about my mother being pregnant with Ryder, breastfeeding him, and caring for him, it was impossible not to feel a closer bond with him. The same woman delivered us. However, thinking of him as first formed in a laboratory was off-putting. I was sure he wouldn’t want to know that. Who would? My mother was right. I simply could never tell him what I knew.

  However, I felt guilty knowing this secret about him without his knowing it. It seemed terribly unfair. Every time I looked at him, spoke to him, I would think about everything she had told me. Would Dr. Davenport ever tell him? I was sure Bea Davenport would make him feel bad, feel strange, if she ever knew. She’d have a grand day with that. She’d even turn Sam against him, getting her to see Ryder as something strange and certainly not her half brother.

  Of course, now I understood why Ryder had such affection for my mother. Surely he felt the secret bond between them without really understanding why. Her body had nourished him. She had stayed on as his nanny. She had held him and cared for him until he was more than an infant. When he got hurt and cried, she had been the one who comforted him. When he had done something funny or achieved something as a child, she had complimented him just as his real mother would have. She covered his face in kisses, washed and bathed him, dressed him, brushed his hair, looked after his health, until he was basically on his own, as she had done with me. Bea Davenport was here by then and slammed doors on my mother, even though my mother was something of a nanny for Sam, too. In her case, she was more of a glorified babysitter. And when that became unnecessary, the iron curtain fell.

  Another thing that came to my mind when I was reading about surrogate motherhood was how the woman really felt about the baby she was delivering. How did my mother feel about Ryder? Could any woman really treat the entire thing as a simple business venture? Could she consider carrying a child to his or her birth as nothing more than carrying someone else’s package? Was it possible to do this and not feel strange and empty when the child was taken? Was my mother okay with all that because she remained with Ryder, caring for him just the way his biological mother wou
ld and should? Now, of course, I understood why she had such love and concern for Ryder.

  But no matter how into herself and distracted with her own life Samantha Avery Davenport had been, surely she had felt some jealousy about the way Ryder clung to my mother and not her when he was an infant. In the end, would she have been as cruel to us as Bea Davenport was? Would she have wanted my mother finally out of her and Dr. Davenport’s lives? It seemed a natural way for a mother to act. What mother would want her child to be more devoted to his nanny than to her?

  Despite how close and how tied my mother had felt to Ryder, she was, after all, expecting to be able to return to New York and pursue her career. She surely would have hated to say good-bye to him, but she had her money; she was still young. Now she could devote one hundred percent of her time and energy to developing her dream. The day Samantha died in the car accident must have been doubly terrible for my mother. She certainly couldn’t have left Ryder abruptly after that. Perhaps Dr. Davenport had promised to find a replacement for her, or maybe he offered her more money than she revealed. Whatever the reason, the temporary position became permanent, and when it did, it determined who and what I would be as well.

  I was beginning to understand how deep the darkness in Wyndemere really was. In ways neither of us fully understood, both Ryder and I were trapped in it, tied up in the mysteries and secrets woven by everyone who lived in this mansion. He would escape first by going to college in the fall. He would find new friends, a new girlfriend, maybe, and probably do all he could to stay away. I doubted he would even call me or send me email after a while. It would become much lonelier and much darker for me when that happened. There would be new ghosts. Bea would be sure to drive Sam further and further away from me. She’d have her own new friends, too, anyway.

  I closed my eyes and imagined myself coming home from somewhere in the evening after Ryder had gone. The house loomed above me as it always did, only now it seemed darker, the shadow it cast in the moonlight spreading wider and farther. The eyes of the gargoyles glistened. The stone facing looked colder, and from a window Bea Davenport gazed down at me with a hateful smile, enjoying the way I trembled.

  The images drifted, and I dozed off, not only because of the lateness of the evening before but also because of all the tension and turmoil twisting and turning in my body and mind. Later, my mother woke me to tell me she had invited Mr. Stark to dinner. She had prepared one of his favorites and mine, shepherd’s pie. I knew Mrs. Marlene hadn’t prepared it. Sunday was usually her day off. But I expected it would be delicious, and my appetite had returned, probably because I had eaten like a rabbit, only some salad. She even made my favorite vanilla cupcakes with chocolate icing, something Mr. Stark loved, too.

  She had done all this to help cheer me up, cheer both of us up. At dinner, no one talked about the earlier events. Mr. Stark asked more about my being prom queen and wanted more details of the dance. I knew he was asking all these questions to keep me from thinking about the bad things, but while I was describing everything, I recalled that both Ryder’s and my crowns were in Paul Gabriel’s car, as were our pictures. When I mentioned it, Mr. Stark offered to look into it.

  “Let’s wait on that,” my mother told him. “Everything will find its way here in proper time, I’m sure. It’s best to let the hornets return to their nest for a while.”

  It was clear now that she was on Dr. Davenport’s side when it came to how we should all react to what had happened. Take a pause. Let the sparks drift to earth and lose their fire. We were practically to behave as if there hadn’t been a prom, and my being crowned queen was some dream that had popped like a cork from a bottle.

  I helped clean up. Mr. Stark remained talking to my mother after I went to my room. I knew that despite how tired I felt, I would have trouble falling asleep. I couldn’t get Ryder out of my mind and decided to call him. His phone rang and then went right to voice mail.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about you all day. I hope you’re all right. I know you’re disappointed in your father, but maybe he’s right. We should let things calm down. At least, my mother thinks he might be. I just want you to know I’m not sorry I went to the prom. You surely wouldn’t have had me go with Paul if you knew he would behave the way he did. I’ll see you in school. Night.”

  I hung up and prepared for bed. My mother and Mr. Stark were still talking, their voices a low murmur. I was sure they were talking about me, but I didn’t want to spy on them. I slipped under my light blanket and turned off the lights. It was a warm night, so I left my one bedroom window open. It was just to the left of the bed, the curtains not completely drawn.

  There was an owl close by. Its mournful hoot was like a lullaby. As I lay there, I tried to resurrect the wonderful memories of dancing with Ryder, being crowned queen, and enjoying the compliments from girls and boys who never gave me a second glance at school, some surely thinking I was not good enough. For a few hours, at least, I had felt accepted and envied.

  Now that the boy who had taken me was in big trouble, what would it be like at school? As Alison had suggested, would everyone assume I had been on Ecstasy as well but had gotten away with it? Would someone even spread the rumor that I had convinced Paul Gabriel to take it? Would I be blamed for his being thrown off the baseball team, a boy who had a possible professional career ahead of him?

  The big thing, of course, was what to do if and when the police called me in and asked who had offered me a pill. Dr. Davenport wanted me to tell the truth. But he didn’t have to live with these kids in school. What would Ryder do? Maybe he wasn’t offered any. He wouldn’t have to snitch on anyone. But me, I would look like someone who cared only for herself. Every nasty thing said about me or thought about me because I had no father would grow branches. She’s everything we’d expect her to be, mothers would tell their daughters. Stay away from her.

  I woke in the morning and felt the terror ahead of me instantly. I was actually trembling a little when I showered and dressed. When I came out to have some breakfast, my mother looked at me with concern.

  “Maybe I should stay home today,” I said, before she could ask how I was feeling.

  She shook her head. “Staying home today will only make it more difficult to go tomorrow, Fern. You did nothing wrong. Just carry on as usual, and ignore any nasty comments.”

  I plopped into a chair. She put my glass of juice in front of me.

  “What did you do with all the money you earned as a surrogate mother?” I asked.

  She smiled and brought her coffee to the table. “Why?”

  “If you have enough left, maybe we could go somewhere else. I’m old enough now to get a good summer job, too. Maybe I could even work somewhere on weekends.”

  To my surprise, she didn’t protest or tell me I was being ridiculous. She nodded softly and stirred her coffee. “I thought about doing just that many times. Once the children no longer needed a nanny, I even considered taking you back to England with me. It would really have been a new start.”

  “Why didn’t you do it?”

  She kept that soft, Mona Lisa smile and then looked up at me. “As silly as it might sound to you right now, Wyndemere became my home. For the past almost eighteen years, these people have been the only family I’ve had. I don’t mean solely the Davenports. Mrs. Marlene, Mr. Stark, some of the maids, many of the local merchants—this small and independent world replaced a lot of unhappiness. Living and working here, caring for the grand old house, replaced a dream—or a fantasy, which might be a more realistic description—but I began to enjoy the responsibilities and feel something for the venerated mansion.

  “I know every crack and crevice in the house. It reeks of history, which, yes, has much unpleasantness attached to it, but in the early years, even the earlier years of Dr. Davenport’s first marriage, there were grand dinner parties. A man as highly respected and as important as he is attracts the most distinguished and powerful people. After I arrived, I met a se
nator and a governor here.

  “I felt a growing importance. I was in charge of so much and still am. Dr. Davenport grew dependent on me, not only because of his children but also because of how orderly I could keep his domestic life. I like to think I’ve had something to do with his being the great success he is.

  “Yes, Bea Davenport is a pain in the arse most of the time, but with all her bluster, she is nothing more than a minor annoyance to me most of the time. She gets what she wants, or at least she thinks she does, by ordering the help about like Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty, changing things in the house to suit her, but—I don’t know if you’ll understand—she hasn’t altered the essence of Wyndemere. It’s too big and powerful for her to overcome. Oh, she might change the color of this or that, a piece of furniture here and there, some curtains, whatever, but she’ll never alter its soul.”

  “You talk about it like it’s a living thing.”

  “Oh, it is. To me, it is.” She smiled, obviously at a memory. “When I was younger and everyone was asleep, I’d sit in the grand room and listen to the tinkle of a chandelier or the creak in a floorboard and think, Wyndemere likes me, wants me, needs me. A house absorbs so much, you see. All the laughter, yes, but also all the crying, the moans and groans, slammed doors, tiny feet scurrying over carpets and up and down stairs, doorbells, dishes and glasses rattling, a toast to this, a toast to that, vows and promises, the aromas of the food, the fresh flowers, perfumes and colognes, all of it.

  “Previous owners and both of Dr. Davenport’s parents uttered their final words and took their final breaths here. Ryder, as I told you, had his first cry here, and so did you.

  “Yes, it might sound funny to you, but I do think of it as a living thing. It had something magical about it. It held me. It held me more firmly than my own family had held me.”

  She paused, thought a moment, and then looked at me as if she had just realized she had been talking to me.