But no amount of reasoning could convince me Madison was safe, not even hearing her voice on the phone when we finally made it home. And so, despite her complaints that I had agreed to let her sleep over at Abby’s, I insisted on picking her up.
Madison was not happy to see me. And once the wave of relief at seeing she was unharmed wore off, I wasn’t happy to see her either, for I soon understood why she had been so upset by my change of plans. Madison was wearing the skimpy outfit that, earlier that day, I had strictly forbidden her to wear.
I shook my head in disbelief and motioned her to the car.
“It’s not what you think,” Madison told me after sulking for a while.
“And what’s that?”
“That I planned to wear this dress all along. I didn’t, really.”
“Why did you wear it then?”
“Courtney had the same cat costume I bought at the mall. She posted her picture on Facebook before the party. I couldn’t wear it after that.”
“Of course you couldn’t.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you. I knew you wouldn’t understand. Besides, you were not home so I couldn’t ask you, could I?”
“No. But you knew I would have said no. Yet, you ignored my wishes.”
“You mean I’m grounded?”
“Yes.”
She thought about it for a moment. “Could we do the grounding in two weeks?”
“Because … ”
“Isabel’s birthday party is next Saturday.”
“You should have thought about that before disobeying me.”
“Please, Mom. I’ll clean my room, I promise. And I’ll keep it clean, if you let me go to Isabel’s.”
We argued still, but we both knew she had won. There was little I wouldn’t trade for seeing the carpet of her room once again. I hadn’t for ages, as it was hidden under the piles of clothes and stuff that covered her floor.
Madison disappeared into her room as soon as we got home. I wished her goodnight through the closed door, and after getting a reluctant goodnight back, checked on Ryan. He was sleeping already in the shirt he had been wearing. His jeans lay in a heap next to the bed, as they frequently had since he was a little boy. I picked them up, out of habit, and set them on the chair.
Then I took the duffel bag downstairs and emptied it into the washing machine. As I suspected, Ryan had thrown his wet clothes in with the clean ones and they were all damp now. They could have waited till morning, I suppose, but I couldn’t. If I couldn’t make the events of the evening disappear, I could, at least, get rid of the mud and smell of the lake from Ryan’s clothes.
I sat in front of the blank TV screen while I waited for the cycle to finish, and revisited in my mind my conversation with Ryan in the car. To my relief, Ryan had not mentioned his intention of moving out and didn’t argue against coming home. Even better, his version of his kidnapping did not include any supernatural twist.
Beatriz had grabbed him from his seat as he arrived at Bécquer’s house, he had told me, and dragged him to her car. When he resisted she had knocked him unconscious.
By the time he came back to his senses, Beatriz was talking on her phone with Bécquer. Which was, I realized, what Bécquer had meant when he said he could track her. After a while, she hung up, turned the car around and, at neck-breaking speed, headed toward Peace Valley.
Once there, she had ordered him to get out of the car and forced him to follow her up the path to the walkway over the dam that runs along the west end of the lake. Bécquer had soon joined them, coming from the southeastern shore. There had been no exchange of words between them, Ryan told me, sounding puzzled. They had stood in silence, facing each other for a moment, and then Beatriz had lifted Ryan and thrown him over the rail. After the shock of the cold water wore off, Ryan had tried to swim ashore but the gates were open and the current pulled him toward the gap. His voice trembled as he told me how he had panicked when he realized he could not beat the pull of the water. Luckily, Bécquer had come to his aid and dragged him to the shore.
I told Ryan that Bécquer had fired Beatriz because she had stolen from him, and Beatriz had kidnapped Ryan to blackmail Bécquer out of telling the police.
I could see this explanation, as close to the truth as I could make it, didn’t convince Ryan entirely, but he had not argued. Not then anyway.
I had no idea what I would tell him if, after he had time to think it over, he was to question Beatriz’s or Bécquer’s impossible strength, apart from suggesting he ask Bécquer and trusting that Bécquer could charm his way out of Ryan’s doubts. Except that I couldn’t do that for I didn’t want Ryan to see Bécquer ever again, and that brought me to an impasse I had no clue how to overcome.
The next day started earlier as Madison missed her bus and I had to drive her to school. When I came back, I found the coat I had left at Bécquer’s house hanging from the coat rack and my purse and an envelope that had not been there before sat on the table by the front door. My heart skipped a beat when I noticed Ryan’s name on the envelope written in Bécquer’s ornate gothic style. Inside (yes, I looked) there was a check and a thank-you note, also handwritten. I put the envelope back and went to the kitchen where I could hear Ryan typing.
“Did Bécquer come?” I asked him, trying and failing to sound casual.
“No,” Ryan said, his eyes never leaving the screen of the laptop set before his bowl of cereal. “Matt did. He brought back your things and my check for last night.”
“Are you going to accept it?”
“Why not?”
“Because you didn’t play.” And the check is incredibly generous, I thought, but didn’t say for I couldn’t admit to having opened his correspondence.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Ryan said, crunching his cereal loudly. He swallowed. “Besides, Bécquer will be offended if I don’t.”
Something in the way he said Bécquer’s name, a note of respect and trust I had heard only rarely in the voice of my students over my many years of teaching, warned me Ryan would not take well to my request to stay away from Bécquer. Yet, I had to ask.
Ryan stopped his typing and met my stare. “Stay away from Bécquer? Why should I?”
“Because … ” Why indeed? Apart from the fact that Bécquer was immortal and could lose control and kill him without even trying, or that Beatriz had kidnapped him the previous night and could do it again, I had no reason. No reason at all to keep him from seeing Bécquer. And my real reasons I couldn’t share.
“Please, Ryan. Do as I say,” I finished lamely. “You don’t understand but — ”
“No, Mom. It’s you who doesn’t understand.” Ryan’s voice had the steel determination that over the years I had learned to recognize as the beginning of an impossible-to-win battle of wills.
“Listen to me, Ryan. You don’t know Bécquer. He — ”
“You’re wrong, Mom. I do know him. Bécquer is cool. He saved my life.”
“Yes. I was there last night, remember?”
“I’m not talking about last night.”
“What do you mean?”
“Forget it.”
“Ryan. If you don’t tell me, I’ll ask him.”
“Oh, so it’s all right for you to talk to Bécquer, but not for me?”
“Don’t change the subject. What do you mean when you say he saved your life?”
“It’s no big deal. I OD’ed once, and he took me to the hospital.”
I dropped on a chair by his side, for my knees felt like rubber and I would have fallen otherwise. “You were using drugs in his house?” I asked in a voice so high-pitched I barely recognized it.
“No. Of course not. He wasn’t with me when I used. I was hanging out with friends.”