Shadows Read online

  It was Mr. Conners, and Josh was sure he knew why he was there: to give him a lecture on being a good sport. He hunched further into himself, wrapping his arms around his legs.

  “Want to tell me what went wrong?” Steve Conners asked, hunkering down next to Josh.

  Josh shook his head, not even looking up.

  For a moment Conners didn’t say anything, but finally reached out and ran his hand through Josh’s hair. “Hey, come on, everybody misses serves. Happens all the time.”

  “But it always happens to me, and everybody was laughing at me!” Josh’s voice trembled, and he tried to duck away from the teacher’s hand.

  “Well, I’m not sure they were actually laughing at you,” Conners told him. “I think it was more what happened to you. You just looked funny when you missed the ball, that’s all. You should have seen the look on your face. You’d have been laughing, too. It was as if the last thing you expected to happen was that you’d miss it completely.”

  “How come that guy told me to hit it overhand?” Josh demanded. “He knew what was gonna happen, and he just wanted to make me look like a jerk.”

  “Now, how was Philip Meredith going to know that?” Conners asked. “He never saw you play volleyball before, did he? Maybe he was just trying to help.”

  “No, he wasn’t. Everybody always laughs at me when I try to play some stupid game. And if they don’t laugh at me, they yell at me. Just because I’m no good at it.”

  “Who said you were no good?” Corners countered.

  “Besides, being good at things like volleyball doesn’t count for much around here. As you said, it’s only a game.”

  Josh scowled deeply. “I said it was a stupid game, and it is!”

  “Well, it is if you get upset about it,” Steve Conners agreed. “In fact, if you get upset about it, it sort of stops being a game at all, doesn’t it? I mean, games are supposed to be fun. It doesn’t really matter who wins.”

  “But everybody cares who wins,” Josh replied.

  “Do you?”

  Josh cocked his head, looking up at the teacher. “I—I don’t know.”

  Steve Conners’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “What? There’s something you don’t know? Maybe they made a mistake after all. You sure you’re in the right place? All you kids are supposed to know practically everything.” The bantering tone left Conners’s voice. “Look, Josh, I know things haven’t been going too well for you lately. And I’m really sorry everyone laughed at you. Maybe they shouldn’t have. But give them a chance, okay? Don’t forget, they’ve all had exactly the same kinds of problems you’ve had. And believe me, they don’t care any more about volleyball than you do.”

  Josh stared up at the teacher. “But at home—” he began, doggedly refusing to understand Conners’s point.

  “At home things are different. Which is why you’re here, not there. Now what do you say you just come and watch the game? If you want to play some more, fine. If you don’t, that’s fine, too.”

  Without waiting for Josh to answer, Steve gently drew the boy to his feet and started back down the beach, his hand draped over Josh’s shoulder.

  As they drew closer to the game, Josh saw that what Steve had told him was true—though the kids were playing hard, doing their best to get the ball over the net, only two or three of them were any good at it. Most of them, like him, missed at least half their shots entirely, and most of the shots that connected went wild.

  Catching sight of him, Amy waved wildly. “You should have seen it, Josh!” she yelled. “I did it! I got the ball over the net! And it was only my third try!”

  Before he realized what had happened, Josh found himself back in the game. The next time his turn to serve came up, he, too, managed to get the ball over the net.

  Of course, it didn’t go over until the fourth try, which wasn’t as good as Amy had done, but on the third try, when he’d fallen over backward trying to hit the ball after a bad toss, he’d laughed as hard as everyone else.

  Maybe, he decided, volleyball wasn’t such a bad game after all.

  At least not the way they played it at the Academy.

  By ten o’clock, when the picnic was breaking up, and Josh was helping the other kids throw sand on the dying fire, Brenda was sure he’d made up his mind. She watched him all evening, as he’d sat next to Amy, munching on hot dogs, then joined the circle of kids around the fire to listen to Jeff Aldrich tell the Academy’s favorite ghost story—a terrifying tale about old Mr. Barrington, whose specter still roamed the darkened house at night, seeking vengeance for the death of a child who may or may not have ever actually existed.

  “No one knows how old Mr. Barrington’s son was when he died,” Jeff told the circle of entranced children. “But they say something was wrong with the boy, and Mr. Barrington kept him hidden somewhere in the house. But no one knows where, and no one knows what was wrong with the boy. But when Mr. Barrington got really old, he got really strange, too.” Jeff’s voice dropped slightly, taking on a mysterious tone as he retold the old legend of the Academy’s mansion …

  Eustace Barrington stepped off the elevator, blinking in the bright sunlight that flooded through the large windows in the cupola. He closed the mahogany bookcase that concealed the elevator’s doors, then went to the window and gazed out.

  He’d been right to build the house here, right to perch it high on the hillside, so that from this small apartment on the roof he could see not only the mountains behind the house, but the sea as well, sparkling in the distance.

  See all the things his son could no longer see.

  Or did not choose to see.

  When he’d begun building the house, Eustace Barrington had already known there was something wrong with the boy, something that made him different from any other child Barrington had ever known.

  His son didn’t talk like other children, didn’t act like them. Instead, he kept to himself, seeming more interested in what was going on within his own mind than in the outside world.

  Finally, when the boy had stopped talking altogether, Eustace Barrington had taken his son to the family doctor, then to every other doctor he could find.

  All of them had shaken their heads.

  “Just slow,” one of them had said.

  “He’ll grow out of it,” another had assured him.

  “Perhaps you should put him somewhere,” someone else had suggested, and given him the name of a place on the other side of the country, where he’d never have to see his son again.

  Instead, Eustace Barrington had built this house, and constructed a special place for his son deep beneath the basement, accessible only by the elevator from his private suite, a suite that jutted up above the roof line of the rest of the house, allowing all the light that could never reach the chambers below the basement to fill these rooms, as if by compensating for his son’s lack of sunlight, he could ease the pain he felt for all these years.

  Still, Eustace Barrington was certain he’d done the right thing, for when his son had finally withdrawn so deeply into himself that he no longer responded to the outside world, and when the Barringtons’ friends had begun to talk about the boy as if he were some kind of inanimate object to be disposed of unless a reason for keeping him could be found, Eustace had brought him here.

  He’d moved the boy into the subterranean chambers, which he’d furnished with far more care than he’d given to the rest of the house, making sure his son would be comfortable, and have everything he could possibly need, and couldn’t accidentally hurt himself.

  The main room contained the boy’s bed, and enough furniture so the two of them could be comfortable while the man sat with the boy, and talked to him, disregarding the near certainty that his son no longer heard him.

  In another room was a dining table and two chairs, where he took his son’s meals every day, and ate with him.

  He took them himself. Never a servant, because he did not trust servants.

  No one but Eustace
Barrington knew the boy was there at all, for he had decided long ago that it would be better for this child to be kept at home, where he would be loved and left to whatever mystic thoughts he may have, than to be turned over to the care of strangers who would neither love, nor understand him.

  His son, Eustace Barrington was convinced, was a genius.

  Though the boy never spoke except to mutter numbers, and seemed to be both blind and deaf, Barrington was still certain that his son’s mind was special, not insane.

  Sometimes, when he could make out the numbers his son spoke, he wrote them down, and spent hours alone at his desk, working out the relationships of the numbers to each other.

  What his son was apparently calculating in his head in seconds, it took Eustace Barrington hours to work out on paper.

  Today, though, he was worried.

  He, after all, would be ninety-six on his next birthday.

  His son was only fifty-five.

  And it had been fifty years since his son had been taken to live in the suite of rooms beneath the basement

  Eustace Barrington, after all his years, had only one wish left.

  That he would outlive his son, so the boy would never have to be delivered into the hands of strangers.

  But if he died before his son, there was something else he would do.

  He would find a way to destroy anyone who might threaten the boy beneath the basement.

  The boy who lived in shadows.

  If the boy were harmed, so also would others be harmed ….

  “Has he ever come back?” Josh MacCallum breathed when the story was over. “Has he actually done anything?”

  Jeff Aldrich smiled mysteriously. “Maybe he has,” he whispered. “Maybe sometimes he comes back in the night, and creeps around the house, looking for his son. And they say,” he went on, his voice dropping so it was barely audible, and his gaze fixing on Josh, “that when he finds the right boy, he’ll take him away with him. In fact, last year—”

  “That’s enough, Jeff,” Hildie Kramer cut in, breaking the ghostly mood with a laugh. “You don’t want to scare poor Josh away on his very first night with us, do you?”

  “It’s okay,” Josh protested. “I like ghost stories!” As Jeff Aldrich gazed appraisingly at him, he decided to add just the tiniest little fib. “They don’t scare me at all!”

  Jeff’s eyes held his own for a moment, then shifted away, leaving Josh wondering if his new friend had believed him or not.

  Brenda MacCallum watched her son slowly being absorbed into the group. She had seen his guard drop lower and lower as these kids—bright kids so much like Josh himself—took him into their circle, making a place for him when he approached, listening to him when he talked, accepting him.

  Brenda herself, torn between her unease at leaving her little boy among strangers, four hundred miles from home, and her desire to give him a better opportunity than she could provide, spent the evening talking quietly with the Aldriches and learning that her problems were not unique. She listened in silence as Chet Aldrich, speaking softly, related the story about the night almost a year before when they’d found Adam in the bathroom, unconscious, an empty bottle of Jeanette’s sleeping pills next to him on the floor. After the shock and horror of that event, the two of them had finally faced up to the fact that both their boys needed special programs, and had brought them to the Academy. “Kind of makes you wonder about our own intelligence,” Chet remarked wryly, adding that the transformation in the twins had been nothing short of miraculous since they’d been at the school.

  And this is my miracle, too, Brenda thought. The miracle I’ve been waiting for.

  With that, the last of her ambivalence crumbled.

  Tomorrow morning she would sit down with Hildie Kramer and go through the formalities of enrolling Josh in Barrington Academy.

  The strange uneasiness she’d felt earlier, when George Engersol, watching Amy trying to conquer her fear, had stood by with that odd detachment, observing her as if she were some kind of scientific specimen beneath a microscope, had been completely forgotten.

  Indeed, all the misgivings she’d felt in the last few hours, from her first sense of foreboding as she’d seen the immense old house and the almost abnormally quiet children spread around it, to her dislike of George Engersol, were forgotten, for Josh, she could see, was going to be happy here.

  In the end, that was all that really counted.

  8

  That first morning, when he awoke to the sound of classical music, Josh had felt a momentary disorientation. Blinking in the strong sunlight that flooded through his east-facing dormer, he had one of those awful seconds of panic when he didn’t know where he was. And when he finally remembered, the panic only swelled, for he also remembered that last night, Sunday, his mother had kissed him good-bye after getting him settled into his new room, assuring him that she’d come back to visit him the next weekend, bringing the rest of his clothes with her. Josh, putting on a braveness he didn’t feel, told her just to send his stuff. He didn’t need her coming back to see him, he’d insisted. But that first morning he wasn’t so sure. He’d stayed in bed for a few minutes, paralyzed with a sudden fear.

  What was he supposed to do?

  Was he supposed to take a shower this morning, like he had every morning at home?

  Deciding it couldn’t hurt, he pulled on the worn flannel bathrobe that had been his Christmas present last year, but was already too small for him, and padded down the narrow hall to the boys’ room at the end. Someone was already in one of the shower stalls, but the other one was vacant. Feeling self-conscious as he took off his bathrobe and stood naked in the rest room, Josh reached into the empty shower and turned on the hot water.

  “Jeez!” The boy in the other stall screeched as the temperature of his own shower instantly dropped ten degrees. “Will you get out of here and leave me alone, jerkface?”

  “I—I’m sorry,” Josh stammered, stung by the boy’s words, and all the memories of the torment he’d received from the kids in Eden rising with the force of a gale off the ocean. He was about to slink out of the bathroom when the door opened, and Jeff Aldrich came in. Seeing the other boy in the shower, and holding his finger to his lips to prevent Josh from protesting, Jeff reached into the vacant stall and twisted the hot water off while turning the cold on.

  A scream, this time of pain, erupted from the occupied stall, and instantly Brad Hinshaw burst out, his face red with fury. “What the hell are you—” he demanded, his outcry cut off as he saw Jeff Aldrich grinning wickedly at him.

  “Gotcha!” Jeff cried, bursting into laughter at Brad’s fury.

  “Jeez,” Brad groaned. “Why can’t you leave me alone?” Grabbing his towel, and pulling on his bathrobe, he stomped out, still dripping with water.

  “That’s five mornings in a row,” Jeff told Josh. “When I couldn’t find him in the boys’ room downstairs, I figured he’d sneaked up here.”

  Josh found himself laughing, too. “I got him just before you came in. It was just an accident, but he must have thought I was you. He was really pissed off at me.”

  Jeff Aldrich, satisfied with the success of his prank, started out of the bathroom, but then turned back. “Hey,” he said. “Which room did they give you?”

  “One in front. The second one from the stairs.”

  Jeff Aldrich’s lips twisted into a strange grin. “Boy, I wouldn’t want to be in that room. That was Timmy Evans’s room.”

  “Who?” Josh asked.

  “Timmy Evans,” Jeff repeated. “He was here last year.”

  Josh frowned. “How come he’s not here this year?”

  Jeff Aldrich’s grin widened. “He died,” he said.

  “D—Died?” Josh stammered, feeling a chill run down his spine. “What happened?”

  Jeff shrugged. “They said he killed himself,” he replied. “But maybe he didn’t at all.” He paused, appraising the look on Josh’s face. “Maybe old Eustace Barringto
n came for him. Maybe the old man thought Timmy was his son, and took him away. Anyway, I sure wouldn’t want to sleep in that room.” Shooting Josh one last look, as if to say, “Watch out!” Jeff Aldrich sauntered out of the bathroom, leaving the door swinging slowly behind him.

  A few minutes later, his shower forgotten after what Jeff had told him, Josh had gone down to the dining room, where most of the other kids were already eating. He’d chosen his breakfast from the table where the food was set out, and automatically headed toward an empty table, but before he’d gone more than a few steps, Jeff had waved to him. He hesitated for a second, the story of Timmy Evans still fresh in his mind, but then, when Jeff beckoned to him a second time, he’d joined the twin brothers.

  When Amy appeared in the dining room, Jeff had waved her over, too. For the rest of the week, the four of them would sit together at every meal. To Josh’s relief, Jeff hadn’t mentioned Timmy Evans again.

  The days passed quickly. Both Josh and Amy discovered that the Academy was nothing like the schools they had come from. While there was still a lot of teasing among the kids, for the first time in their lives both of them felt that they were part of the group, not outside it, and both of them had begun to join in the good-natured banter, and even to share in the laughter when the jokes were at their own expense.

  Josh was finally beginning to think that maybe he wasn’t the kind of freak all the kids in Eden had made him feel he was.

  Now, on Friday, he sat in Steve Conners’s English class, a copy of Hamlet open on his desk. They’d started reading the play at the beginning of the hour, with himself as Hamlet and Amy as Ophelia. At first it had been kind of boring, but then Mr. Conners—Josh still hadn’t gotten up the nerve to call him Steve, as the rest of the class did—had stopped the reading and stared at them in mock exasperation.

  “What’s going on with you guys?” he’d demanded. “This is a play! It was written as entertainment. Who do you think would have paid good money to see it if the actors had read it the way you do? Come on, gang, a little ham, okay?”