Secret Brother Read online

  Would it be like that for someone who loved the poisoned boy when he finally opened his eyes and said his or her name, clearing the way for his return to them? I had to admit to myself, however, how odd it was that no one was advertising that he was gone and pleading for information that would lead to his return. As Myra would say sometimes, it’s a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

  I walked my bike the remainder of the way to the gate and then up the driveway, thinking about all of it. I had to admit that by this time, Willie would have been very interested in the poisoned boy. He was always curious about other boys his age and eager to make friends with them. On his own, he would have shared all that he had with him. He would have wanted me to help. He would have expected it and even believed that I would have made a difference. I could almost hear him say it as I approached the house. You could help him, Clara Sue. You could make him well again. Don’t let him be sick.

  Doctors and psychiatrists, nurses and nannies, all were adults. No matter what my grandfather gave him and no matter how much tender loving care he received from Myra and My Faith, the boy would always be distrusting. I was sure of that even though I had no proof of why. I probably really could make a difference. I was just being a selfish, stubborn little fool because I wasn’t helping. No one could help him get back to his family faster than I could if I put my mind to it. Deep down, that had to be something he wanted, didn’t it? Should I really help, I mean, for good reasons? I wondered. Aaron was probably right. Grandpa would be nicer to me. If I thought this way about my reason for cooperating, I might not hate myself for being such a conniver trying to get what I wanted. That would just be a bonus.

  But could I be sincere about it? Could I really care?

  No matter what I end up doing, I won’t call him William, I vowed. From the start, I’ll let him know that for sure.

  I put my bike away and entered the house. As soon as I did, I knew something was up. I could feel the excitement in the air and saw the way the maids were scurrying along. Myra was cranking out orders and criticism. She was standing in the hallway with her back to me, whipping out commands like a lion tamer. When she turned and saw me, she came hurrying my way.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Oh, those maids we hired recently get my goat. They dillydally like we’re paying them hourly. They’re way behind on the upstairs, but we had to move them down here.”

  “Why?”

  “Your granddad didn’t get too far with their ride,” she continued, obviously excited. “You know the old Farmingham estate on the way to Richmond?”

  “Yes. That’s the famous haunted house, where Clarence Farmingham supposedly killed his own parents when he was fourteen nearly eighty years ago.” My eyes widened as I remembered. “He poisoned them, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, yes, that’s the story, love. No one wanted to live in it afterward, none of the relatives who inherited, and no one wanted to buy it, either. It’s lain fallow for years and years, but the Farmingham family has kept it and the grounds around it in fairly good condition. Your grandfather said there was talk once of turning it into some sort of museum, a house of horror where they’d run tours, but the chamber of commerce shot that idea down quickly. It’s quite a Gothic mansion with its arches and chimneys. All it needs is a moat. Reminds me of a house near where I grew up in Surrey. It was quite a popular place the night before All Hallows.”

  “Yes, yes, Halloween. So what’s this have to do with the ride Grandpa and Mrs. Camden took the boy on?”

  “Oh, everything was going well, Mrs. Camden says. Until your granddad made the turn in the road where the Farmingham house looms almost directly in front of you, looks like you’re going straight at it. It has such a way of suddenly appearing. I remember the first time I saw it . . .”

  “I know. So?” I asked, now very impatient with Myra’s slow explanation.

  “I’m getting to it, dear. As soon as that happened and William saw the house, he began to scream. He became quite hysterical.”

  “Why?”

  “They don’t know, dear, but Mrs. Camden thinks he thought they were taking him to the house.”

  “The Farmingham house? He might be from the Farmingham house? Is that it?” I asked, now really excited, too.

  “I don’t know. As I said, supposedly no one lives there, but I can imagine squatters finding out about it and maybe camping out there.”

  “What did Mrs. Camden and my grandfather do?”

  “Your granddad turned the car around quickly, and Mrs. Camden held the boy and comforted him best she could. She said he felt like he had turned into ice, and his eyes were going back in his head. It sounded just horrible. They hurried back and called Dr. Patrick. She’s upstairs with him and Mrs. Camden now. As I said, we hadn’t really gotten the upstairs done and—”

  “Where’s my grandfather?”

  “He went to see about the Farmingham house, to be sure no one’s been camping out in it. The police are with him.”

  I shook my head, astonished, and looked up the stairway. This could be over in hours if the boy’s family was in that house. It made sense to me. Maybe the Farmingham family had put rat poison everywhere. Maybe the boy had been kidnapped and kept in that house. When it looked like he would die, they dropped him at the hospital and fled. Maybe they had brought him in from another state, somewhere far enough away that it wouldn’t make local news. It all made sense to me.

  “Your granddad carried him up the stairs. He looked like he was unconscious, his arms dangling like a puppet off its strings,” Myra said, shaking her head and biting down on her lower lip.

  “Did he say anything important when he was screaming?”

  “Mrs. Camden said he was incoherent, babbling gibberish. Nothing made any sense. And then he went into a deep sleep. Poor thing.”

  I nodded. She began barking at one of the maids, so I started up the stairs. The door to Willie’s room was closed. I stood a moment listening, but I didn’t hear anything, so I went to my room. I wasn’t sure why, but Myra’s relating of the events made me tremble, especially the description of Grandpa Arnold carrying the boy’s limp body up the stairs. It had never occurred to me until just this moment that the boy could actually die here. Little kids could have heart attacks, couldn’t they? How terrible would that be? What if he died and we still didn’t know who his family was? Or his real name?

  Would Grandpa have him buried in the Prescott cemetery with a tombstone that said “William Arnold,” too? Would he bury him close to Willie? Would everyone hate me for having been so mean to him? Even if he didn’t die, maybe Grandpa finally would realize that he was too fragile to be in this house. Maybe Dr. Patrick would order him back to the hospital or a clinic or something. Should I be happy that all this had happened? Why couldn’t I stop shaking?

  I heard conversation and rose quickly to look out in the hallway. Mrs. Camden was talking to Dr. Patrick as they walked toward the stairway. I started after them and paused just before Willie’s room. When they had both descended, I stepped up to the doorway and looked in. The boy was asleep in Willie’s bed. I watched him for a while. He looked dead already. He was so still, and in the subdued light, his face was ashen. How serious was this? Why wasn’t he in the hospital now?

  After a moment, I walked down the stairs. Mrs. Camden and Dr. Patrick were at the front door. They paused and looked toward me.

  “Are you sending him back to the hospital?” I demanded as I hurried toward them. “He can’t stay here if he’s dying.”

  “No. He’s not dying, Clara Sue. All his vitals are good,” Dr. Patrick replied. “He’s resting comfortably now. I’ve given him something that will help him sleep for a while. I’m sure he’ll be fine when he awakes.”

  “But he went kind of nuts, didn’t he? He should be in a psycho ward or something, right?”

  Neither of
them smiled.

  “No,” Dr. Patrick said softly, “he didn’t go kind of nuts. That’s not the way to put it at all. He had what we call a traumatic flashback, a memory of a traumatic event, experienced as if the event were being relived with all the same intense feeling he had the first time it happened. The patient is forced to process the memory.”

  “Well, what was the memory? What did it have to do with the Farmingham mansion?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Mrs. Camden said.

  “Won’t it happen again?” I asked.

  “Maybe not this exact one, but yes, it’s very possible that some other event, some other memory, might trigger a similar emotional response,” Dr. Patrick replied, as if it wasn’t really a big deal.

  “Isn’t that terrible?” I asked, looking from Mrs. Camden to her.

  “No. Actually, this is something of a breakthrough,” Dr. Patrick said, again in that very controlled, quiet way that made me want to reach out and slap her. She was making me feel foolish for asking anything. “I’ll explore this with him as time goes by and make sure that he understands that whatever it is, it’s not his fault. Often, that’s why the patient sees it as so traumatic.”

  “What if it is his fault?”

  “We’ll find that out and deal with it.” She paused, a tiny smile at the corners of her lips. “Are you interested in all this now?”

  I stepped back. I was, but I wasn’t eager to say so. I think she saw it in my face.

  She widened her smile. “You could be of great help, and you’ll learn a lot, too.” When I didn’t respond, she turned to Mrs. Camden. “I’ll stop by late tomorrow morning. Get him up and about as soon as you can. The most important thing,” she added, now turning back to me, “is that we don’t make him feel bad about his behavior.”

  Mrs. Camden opened the door for her. Dr. Patrick smiled again at me and walked out. I turned away quickly, my arms folded, my head down, as if my thoughts were too heavy now.

  “I don’t think your coming along with us would have changed anything,” Mrs. Camden said. “You shouldn’t feel bad about it.”

  “I wasn’t blaming myself, Mrs. Camden,” I snapped back at her.

  “Call me Dorian,” she said. She walked past me and up the stairs. I watched her until she disappeared, and then I went into the living room and flopped onto the large settee. I was fuming, but mostly at myself. I wanted so to dislike her. I wanted to despise Dr. Patrick. I even wanted to dislike Myra and My Faith. Most of all, I wanted to hate my grandfather now, but suddenly, none of that was really happening, and I was blaming myself for having wanted to dislike everyone in the first place.

  Who was more alone in this house at the moment, the poisoned boy or me?

  Minutes later, I heard the front door open and close and looked up as my grandfather appeared. He looked upset, flustered. I had the feeling that he was blaming himself for what had happened. He stood in the hallway, pulling off his leather driving gloves and mumbling. Then he saw me sitting in the living room. He walked in.

  “What did you find out about the Farmingham house?” I quickly demanded, before he could utter a complaint about my behavior.

  “You heard about it?”

  “Yes. So? What did you find out? Did you find his real family, or was he kept there by kidnappers?”

  He considered whether he should talk to me and then sat in his favorite chair and unbuttoned his black leather jacket. His hair was a little wild, looking like he had been running his fingers through it madly. He pushed some strands back.

  “There was no sign of anyone squatting in the old place now or ever. In fact, it’s in remarkably good shape. Someone’s looking after it regularly. Prime property, actually.”

  “So he wasn’t there? He didn’t come from there?” I asked, disappointment practically dripping from my lips.

  Grandpa shook his head. “No, but that house would probably frighten any child the first time he saw it. I remember it frightened you because we came upon it at twilight, and it looked like . . . you said a home for ghosts.”

  “Apparently, it didn’t frighten me like it frightened him. I didn’t start screaming. Dr. Patrick called it a traumatic flashback.”

  “Oh? Dr. Patrick is still here?”

  “No, she left a little while ago.”

  “How is he doing now?”

  “She gave him something for sleep.”

  “Good. I guess I’ll go see Dorian and see what’s what. It’s terrible to see anyone that small that frightened.” He started to rise.

  “I’m sorry about him,” I said quickly. “I don’t want to see him suffer or anything.”

  He nodded and remained frozen in place, expecting me to say more, maybe apologize for my behavior, but I wasn’t ready to do that and maybe never would be.

  “I miss my brother,” I said instead. “A lot. I’m sure he was very frightened after that truck ran into him and Myra.”

  His face softened. “I know, Clara Sue. Believe me, not a day passes when I don’t think about him or what I could have done to prevent it.”

  I pressed my lips tightly together. I didn’t try to swallow or breathe, and I didn’t want to start crying again.

  He sat back down. “I don’t want to spend whatever I have left of my life in constant mourning, Clara Sue. I’ve had more than my fair share, but I’m not whining about myself. That gets you nowhere, and even friends, people who like you, get turned off by all the damn self-pity. It sounds cruel to think like that, but that’s the way it is. I’ve got you, I’ve got your uncle Bobby, I’ve got my business, and now I’ve got that boy upstairs to look after. Whoever did this to him should be burned at the stake. I think about that, and it gets me angry, and I want to do something about it. I believe I was meant to.”

  He looked as enraged as ever. Then he paused and took a deep breath.

  “You’ve heard me say some of this before. But that’s all there is to it. I don’t love you or Willie any less. I hope you can live with that,” he said, and stood up.

  I watched him leave, his shoulders a bit more slumped than usual. Then I took a deep breath, wiped some tears away before they could reach the middle of my cheeks, and got up and went to see what My Faith was making for dinner.

  I could tell she was very nervous in my presence, probably because of all the nasty things I had said, especially now when everyone was on edge about the boy.

  “I’m sorry if I said anything mean to you, My Faith.”

  She paused and looked at me. “You’re not a mean and sassy girl, Clara Sue. I know that. Everyone has their times. And nothin’ you could say or do would change my opinion of you, child. Don’t you know that?”

  I smiled and nodded at the stove. “That’s your famous corn pone you’re making, right?”

  “It’s not really anything special.”

  “Yes, it is. You have a secret ingredient. Grandma Lucy told me so.”

  She laughed. “Well, if it’s a secret, I can’t tell you, now, can I?”

  I nodded. She held her arms out, and we hugged.

  “I know you’re hurting,” she said. “And you know we are, too.”

  I nodded and looked at the stove again. I could smell what was being prepared for dinner. “Orange baked ham?”

  “Your granddad asked for it yesterday,” she said. “It’s his favorite.”

  “Mine, too. I’ll be hungry tonight,” I told her, and I hurried back upstairs. I was eager to call Aaron and fill him in on all that had happened.

  “The Farmingham mansion,” he said as soon as I’d finished babbling at Superman speed. “That has to be a big clue.”

  “I know, but they didn’t get anything sensible out of him. I guess it was really terrible. My grandfather looked like he did when Willie died. Everyone did.”

  “Except you. You’re like the odd man ou
t now.”

  “We’ll see,” I said. “Maybe I’ll just bend that branch and not break it.”

  He laughed. “You know you’re in trouble if you start taking my advice.”

  “I trust you,” I said. How close to “I love you” was that? Wasn’t it a better thing to tell someone you were very fond of, anyway? There couldn’t be love without trust, could there? That would be just sexual attraction.

  Myra talked about putting guineas of affection into a bank account with the name of someone you cared for on it. “Real friendships don’t just happen, love,” she told me once when I was complaining about some of the girls in my class being snobby and unfriendly. “You can invest in people like you invest in stocks and bonds.”

  “So you’ll believe me when I tell you I’ll respect you in the morning?” Aaron joked now. Or was he joking?

  “Depends on how much you respect me at night,” I countered.

  He laughed and was silent a moment, so long a moment that I thought we had been disconnected.

  “Hello?”

  “You know, I started to watch you when you were in ninth grade. There was something I saw that told me you were going to be special, and then you just bloomed like a rose overnight.”

  “Are you reading from some book called How to Win the Heart of a Girl?”

  “Honest. You can ask Skip or Brad or even Paulie.”

  “If you were caught robbing a bank, they would testify that you were in their houses at the time.”

  He laughed again. “Okay. I’ll just have to find a way to prove it.”

  “Do that. I gotta go. I want to help set the table tonight. See you tomorrow.”

  “Ah, the coming out of the Lady of Shalott,” he said. “I’d better get prepared.”

  I felt so excited and happy. It was like I was intoxicated on hope again. I practically bounced out of my room and then paused at Willie’s door to look in. The boy was awake. He was sitting up and slowly turning the pages of one of Willie’s picture books of fables. The one he was reading was “How the Beggar Boy Turned into Count Piro.” I knew it well, having read it aloud to Willie from time to time. It was one of his favorites. It told the story of a clever fox that helped a poor boy marry a princess and become rich.