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Adam got to lunch early enough to find a small, empty table in one corner of the cafeteria. He knew where he stood on the social ladder of Aglionby Junior High. Or at least, he knew where his classmates expected him to stand: at the very bottom. If Adam could manage it, he’d stay outside of Aglionby’s pecking order entirely.
It would be lonely, but that was better than the alternative. In Adam’s nightmares, he had to sit right in the middle of the cafeteria, surrounded by sneering classmates. He knew that particular dream was unlikely to become reality, but he’d prefer not be the target of snide remarks in the hallways, either.
“Hello!” Adam looked up, startled out of his theories about Aglionby social life. “You’re Parrish, right?”
Adam recognized the other boy - he was the only other eighth-grader new to Aglionby. He looked just as rich and not-Henrietta as the rest of the school, but for some reason he seemed excited to be talking to Adam.
“Yeah,” Adam said cautiously. “Cheng?” He knew Cheng’s first name was Henry, but using last names seemed to be an Aglionby thing.
“That’s me! Mind if I join you?”
“Um. Sure.”
Henry plopped his lunch tray on the table and sat down. Adam tried not to look at the thin sandwich he’d brought from home. Maybe if he didn’t draw Henry’s attention to it, he wouldn’t notice.
“I hate switching schools,” Henry said quietly. He stabbed a piece of broccoli on his fork and inspected it. “Just when you’re making friends, bam! You have to start all over. You know?”
Adam’s closest friends at Mountain View had been the handful of kids who’d worked out that he was a reliable source of homework help. He didn’t think that’s what Henry was talking about, so he shrugged and offered a different fact. “I’ve never switched schools before.”
“Lucky you,” Henry replied. He seemed to be sincere. “At least we can stick together, right?”
“Yeah,” Adam said. He risked unwrapping his sandwich; he was hungry.
If Henry noticed, he didn’t mention it. “Excellent!” He said instead. “So, where do you live?”
Had Henry really not heard the townie whispers Adam knew had been going around? “Um. With my parents?”
“I mean--” Henry said.
They exchanged looks of mutual confusion.
“Oh!” Henry exclaimed. “You live in Henrietta?” Against all logic, this information made him even more enthusiastic. “You must know all the good spots. Could you show me around after school?”
“Probably?” Adam still didn’t know what to make of Henry, but he did know that hanging out with him was preferable to the chores waiting at home. “I gotta get home, but I think I have like half an hour free. Not like there’s much to see here, anyway.”
“Perfect!” Henry said, apparently not the least bit put off by the lack of things to see. “I’ll see you out front after school, then?”
Adam was relieved to find that Henry had a bike -- new and shiny and not a Wal-Mart special. This meant they could actually cover all of Henrietta in half an hour.
Well, in theory. Their progress was slowed by Henry’s requests for “intel” about every boring place Adam pointed out. What kind of intel could you have about the Dollar General? It was a dollar store. It was open late.
At least Henry had taken Adam’s time limit seriously. “It’s been almost half an hour,” he remarked when they were about halfway through town. “I guess you need to head home soon?”
“Yeah.” Adam was grateful he hadn’t had to bring it up himself. “Can you find your way back to Aglionby?”
“Shouldn’t be too hard, because--” Henry groaned dramatically -- “it’s all uphill . Where do you live?”
“That way.” Adam pointed away from Aglionby. At least Henry probably hadn’t been here long enough to realize he was pointing towards a trailer park.
“Cool,” Henry said. “Do you have time to show me the rest of town tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
They biked around town again the next day. Henry sat with Adam every day at lunch, and in the classes they shared. Adam waited for Henry to realize that he lived in a trailer park, that he was the scholarship kid, that the reason he could only hang out for half an hour was all the chores he was required to do (or else). But Henry gave no indication that he knew any of this, and he kept hanging out with Adam.
Adam was starting to feel a little guilty about it, actually. Probably he should tell Henry some of it, at least. Henry would then realize Adam wasn’t a good person to be friends with, but he was going to realize it sooner or later anyway. Maybe it was better to rip the band-aid off.
In the end, Henry found out before Adam had decided what to tell him. Adam missed two days of school due to an encounter with his father’s fists. Henry opened his mouth as Adam sat down next to him in first period, but he’d barely gotten there in time, so he was saved from Henry’s questions by class starting.
Adam left class as quickly as he could -- it was really avoiding Henry, he told himself, he did need to get stuff from his locker -- so the next time they saw each other was lunch.
“What happened?” Henry asked without preamble.
“Fell off my bike,” Adam mumbled back. He knew the existence of bruises on both sides of his face made this unlikely. But most people stopped asking questions if you gave them an innocent explanation to believe.
Of course, Henry wasn’t one of those people. “Damn,” he said, very quietly. As if any adult who happened to overhear would care about Henry saying damn . “How fast were you going? I’ve never done anything like that with my bike.”
Adam looked down at the table and chewed his bottom lip. “Parrish,” Henry said, quieter still. “Should I not have asked about it in public?”
“Um,” Adam said, thinking furiously. Henry had gone off-script from every way Adam knew for this conversation to go.
“I’m sorry,” Henry said.
This was so far from what Adam expected that it startled him into looking up. “What for?”
“For bringing up a personal matter in the middle of the lunchroom, of course.”
Adam digested this for a minute. “You aren’t mad at me?”
Henry looked confused. “No? Whatever happened wasn’t your fault.”
“I mean for lying just now.” A horrible thought occurred to Adam. “I thought you knew I was lying?”
“Oh, that,” Henry said. He waved a hand as if it wasn’t important. “It’s equally my fault. I know how to exercise discretion, and I didn’t.”
Adam had never heard someone his age use the phrase exercise discretion . He gave Henry a small smile. “Okay,” he said.
“We can talk after school?” Henry suggested. Adam’s face must’ve given away what he thought of that, because Henry quickly added: “or we could go climb the tree.”
The tree was a grand old live oak in a nearby park. Its thick lower branches spread 15 or maybe even 20 feet from the trunk; several of them had drooped until they rested on the ground. You could walk up these branches and then step from them to other branches until you were a dizzying height off the ground. Even up here, the branches were large enough to provide multiple places for sitting securely.
Henry sat on one of the more horizontally-oriented branches, while Adam perched in the notch created by two upright branches near the main trunk. They had walk-climbed up in silence. Adam wasn’t inclined to break it.
“I was kidnapped when I was ten,” Henry said casually.
Adam wrapped an arm around a branch and leaned out to look at Henry. Henry was looking out over the park, gently swinging one leg then the other.
“My mother’s business can be dangerous,” he continued. “And one of the….dangerous people didn’t like something she did, and they found out where I was. Ergo, kidnapping.”
“Shit,” Adam said, because profanity seemed like the appropriate response. “Then what?”
“I survived, obviously.” Henry looked up at him and smiled. “And my mother drastically changed how her business worked, to keep it from happening again. Now she has a full-time private investigator to check out anyone who wants to buy from her. Or sell to her.”
“Is that why you’re all the way out here?” Adam knew Henry’s mother lived in Vancouver. The farthest Adam himself had ever traveled was his grandparents’ house two counties over; Vancouver was an unimaginably long way away.
“Kinda,” Henry said. “But also, sometimes my mother has me move schools when she’s looking for things in a specific place. So she has plausible deniability for visiting.” He gave Adam another, sadder smile. “Didn’t want you to get the false impression that her business revolves around me.”
Adam’s worry that Henry would want to talk about his bruises was forgotten. This was far more interesting. “Do you work for her, then?”
Henry looked down again. “I wanted to tell you sooner. That’s part of the reason I asked you to show me around.”
Adam tried not to feel disappointed. That did make more sense than Henry just wanting to be his friend.
“It wasn’t only about business.” Henry looked up at Adam again. “I’m glad I asked you instead of somebody else. You’re a good friend, Adam.”
Adam had been working on a response to something like so you see, we aren’t really friends . He didn’t know how to reply to this. He must’ve been silent for too long, because Henry mistook it for something else.
“I understand if you’re angry with me,” he said. “That was a lousy way to make friends. And I should’ve told you sooner.”
“I’m not angry,” Adam protested. “Just…..surprised we’re actually friends.”
Henry hunched down miserably, as if he thought this was a criticism of himself instead of Adam. “I get it. You--”
“I mean,” Adam broke in quickly, “I’m surprised you actually want to be friends with me.” He hadn’t meant to say this, because it sounded pathetic to his own ears. But he couldn’t let Henry think this was his fault.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Aglionby snobs not wanting to be friends with you is a positive reflection on your character.”
Adam laughed out loud, but a little bitterly. “Yeah, that’s it. They’re thinking can’t be friends with Adam, he’s too good for us. ”
“They should be thinking that,” Henry insisted. “How much money you have doesn’t mean anything.”
Adam snorted. “It means a lot. But it’s not just the money, you know.”
Henry was watching him with a serious expression. Adam sighed and went on. “You hear what people say, right? Trailer trash, scholarship kid, townie.”
“Scholarship means you’re smart and they’re jealous,” Henry said dismissively. “You know, I’ve been trying to figure out what townie means since I got here. Are they just….saying you’re from here as an insult?”
“Yeah. That’s pretty much it.”
“God,” Henry said. “That is asinine .”
Now Adam cracked a real smile. “I like that word. You can tell what it means by how it sounds.”
“It’s great,” Henry agreed. “And accurate.”
Adam lightly touched one of his bruises. “Do you think any of our asinine classmates will be observant enough to start rumors about this?”
Henry studied Adam’s face. “What kind of rumors?”
Adam dropped his hands into his lap and stared at them. “True ones,” he said quietly. Words lined themselves up in his mind, but he couldn’t force them to fall out of his mouth.
“You think people would think less of you because --” Henry’s face contorted as he found the truth -- “because someone hits you?”
Adam closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the inevitable pitying look. “I know they would,” he whispered. “Everyone does.”
For a moment Adam thought Henry wasn’t going to say anything. He was going to climb back down the tree limb and walk away, so he wouldn’t have to deal with Adam’s mess. Then Henry said fiercely, “They’re all assholes, then.”
Adam risked opening his eyes to thin slits, just enough to read Henry’s expression. It couldn’t be mistaken for pity; Henry was clearly angry. But not angry at Adam. He opened his eyes the rest of the way.
Adam searched for the words to describe how he felt about….things. About this conversation, about Henry’s reaction, about how in general Henry was not what Adam had expected him to be. He could feel Henry watching him as he thought. Eventually, Adam just said, “Henry, you’re not normal. In a good way.”
“It’s because I was kidnapped,” Henry said solemnly. Their seriousness dissolved into laughter.
“My mother’s coming this weekend,” Henry announced a few weeks later. “She’s looking for a psychic to help her with a business problem.”
Adam attempted to fit this statement into his idea of how businesses ran. It didn’t work. “I didn’t know psychics did things like that,” he said slowly.
Henry shrugged. “I dunno about in general, but for what she does they help sometimes.”
This did not clarify anything for Adam.
“You can come with us, if you want,” Henry continued. “I asked and she said it would be ok. It would be interesting, right?”
“Maybe,” Adam said, meaning both maybe it would be interesting and maybe I can come. He considered his weekend chore list. He could probably make it work. “I think I could come.”
“Great!” Henry said. “My mother said our options are Fox Way Psychics or All-Seeing Mystic. Do you know anything about either of them?”
Adam was about to say he didn’t. Then he remembered Blue. They hadn’t interacted much at Mountain View, but she stood out because he’d sensed she thought of him as a person rather than a machine to dispense homework solutions. “I knew someone who lived at Fox Way. At my old school,” he said. “I don’t really know anything about her family’s, um, psychicness though.”
“I’ll tell her that,” Henry said, “maybe it will sway her to Fox Way. Doesn’t All-Seeing Mystic sound like someone trying way too hard to sound legitimate?”
Apparently Henry’s mother had agreed with him on this, because they headed to Fox Way on Saturday afternoon. They picked Adam up at the gas station near the trailer park.
Henry’s mother sat in the passenger seat. She met Adam’s expectations of what a successful business owner looked like; a petite woman wearing khakis and a dark green buttondown blouse, with hair cut in a short style that made it appear to be several different shades of black.
The man driving the car looked equally businesslike, except stripped of all personality. He was handsome in a nondescript way, with medium-brown hair and medium-brown eyes, dressed in a forgettable Gray suit.
“Hi, Adam!” Henry said as he got into the car. “This is my mother, Seondeok. That’s Mr. Gray. He’s not as scary as he looks.”
The man driving the car gave an amused snort as he shifted into gear. “I’m glad we get to meet you, Adam,” Seondeok said, twisting in her seat to look at him. “Henry’s told me so much about you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too, Mrs. Seondeok.” Adam wondered how much Henry had told her.
“Oh, it’s just Seondeok.” Seeing Adam’s pained expression, she added, “Or Ms. Seondeok, if you must.”
The Fox Way psychics house was very large and very blue, with a dense tangle of flowers and bushes lining the walk leading to the front door.
The door was open as soon as they climbed the porch steps by a woman with a cloud of long, white-blond hair. “There you are,” she said. She seemed to be looking right at Adam, for some reason. “We’ve been expecting you.”
“Glad to hear it,” Seondeok said. “I need a psychic who knows what’s coming their way.”
The woman looked over to Seondeok as though she’d just noticed her. “Oh yes, you too,” she said. “Do come in. I’m Persephone.”
“Maura!” Persephone called. “They’re here. Reading room’s this way.” She led them through a living room filled with a comfortable-looking couch, overstuffed chairs, and friendly knick-knacks.
The reading room contained a similar couch, along with a row of chairs facing it from across a large coffee table. Three decks of tarot cards sat on the table. The middle one seemed to Adam to be vibrating slightly. Persephone sat down in front of it.
Two other women joined them soon, sitting on either side of Persephone. Adam knew immediately which was Maura, since he recognized the other woman; she worked in the Aglionby office. She’d been the one helping him with the paperwork, and she’d looked at Adam like she could see right into him. Maybe that was just how psychics were. Persephone and Maura had both looked at him that same way when they first saw him.
“Ah,” Calla said with satisfaction. “It is you boys.” The other psychics nodded like they knew what she meant. “Hello Adam. Hello Henry.”
“Hello, Ms. Johnson,” Adam said politely.
“Howdy, ma’am,” Henry said. Calla gave him a half-smile and shook her head, like this was an inside joke.
Maura had apparently finished trading introductions with Seondeok and Mr. Gray. “Right,” she said briskly. “You said on the phone you’re looking for a magical object. So what is it, and why should we help you?”
Seondeok looked surprisingly pleased by the question. “Good,” she said, “I’m glad you’re not the kind of people who'd do anything for enough money.”
“I did check,” Mr. Gray said, quietly and a little reproachfully.
“The function of the object,” Seondeok went on, “seems to be translating languages. We don’t know much about the appearance other than it’s fairly small. Would easily fit in that pocket, I think.” She gestured at Adam’s cargo pants.
“Sounds fairly harmless,” Maura remarked.
“Nothing is truly harmless,” Persephone said dreamily.
“Regardless, go ahead and tell us why we should help,” Calla said.
“I trade in magical objects, which I’m sure you already knew,” Seondeok said. “It has a well-earned reputation as a dangerous trade, but Mr. Gray and I are working on changing that. He investigates our potential business associates before we make contact, to ensure they aren’t the kind of people who would try to harm my family or colleagues. We’re as unlikely as any of your other clients to bring danger to your door.”
“We do have ways of checking that kind of thing, you know,” Maura said. “What about this object specifically? Who’s it for?”
“Ah,” Seondeok replied. “This one’s for me. Having a translator would be very useful in this business.”
The psychics exchanged a silent look. “Alright,” Maura said. She picked up the tarot cards in front of her. Persephone and Calla followed suit.
Adam watched in fascination. He’d heard of tarot, of course, but he knew basically nothing about it other than that there were cards involved. There was a lot more variety in the tarot cards than in playing cards. How did people know what cards to pick - was one card really warmer than the others? How were cards supposed to help Seondeok find a location? Why did Persephone’s cards seem to be vibrating?
Persephone was explaining the cards to Seondeok. “Explaining” was too strong a word, really. Her description included things like “oh yes, it’s near the ley line, but be careful the ley line doesn’t lead you away” and “I don’t think you’ll find it unless these boys search with you.”
That last one was straightforward enough as a sentence, but how finding the magical thing could require Adam was completely mysterious to him.
“Adam?” Persephone said, breaking into his thoughts. “I think you have some insight here.”
Adam looked in confusion at the map laid out under Persephone’s cards. He’d been so lost in his own musings that he hadn’t noticed when the map appeared. “I’m not a psychic, ma’am,” he replied. He kept looking at the map anyway; a small section of it seemed to be vibrating in sync with Persephone’s cards. He dropped a finger on the vibrating spot without thinking about it.
“Yes,” Persephone said. “That’s the general area. Your abilities should get us closer.” Adam looked at her and opened his mouth. Persephone shook her head and smiled. “You can hide psychic abilities from yourself, but you can’t hide them from psychics.”
“I think it’s time to be less mystical, Seph,” Calla said. She turned to Adam. “How did you know it was that spot?”
“It’s sort of….vibrating.”
“Is anything else here vibrating?” Adam laid his other hand on Persephone’s tarot deck. It turned out he could feel the vibration in addition to seeing it. The source seemed to be about a third of the way down the deck. He carefully removed the top cards until he got to that one.
Adam picked up the vibrating card and looked to Calla for further guidance. She just raised her eyebrows at him. The spot on the map seemed to have changed a bit when he picked up the card, so he moved the card closer to it to see what would happen.
Instantly, the spot shrank until it was no more than the width of a needle. It pulsed urgently up and down. Adam was sure everyone else must be able to see it now, but when he looked around, they gave no indication. He put his finger on the spot. Then he quickly jerked it away and shook his hand out.
“It’ll zap you sometimes,” Calla commented.
“Good work,” Maura said.
Persephone just smiled at him and leaned closer to the spot on the map. “I think I see it now,” she said. She reached under the table and came out with a pen that had collected rather a lot of cat hair. Carefully, she aimed it at the spot and made a dot there.
Seondeok smiled at Adam too. “Impressive,” she said. “I hope you’ll be able to come with us tomorrow to search.”
His parents would complain he was “shirking work”, but Adam had gotten up early today to make sure he finished all the weekend chores; he didn’t think they’d actually stop him from going. “I think I can, ma’am,” he said.
Seondeok had insisted they drive Adam back rather than dropping him off at the gas station. Adam knew he shouldn’t have let her by the time they were halfway down the road to the Parrish trailer. The silhouette of Robert Parrish loomed in the open front doorway.
“Just here is fine,” Adam said quickly, as soon as they were at the driveway. “Thank you.”
His father waited to start shouting until Adam was almost within striking distance. That usually wasn’t a good sign. “Is that the kinda people you’ve been runnin’ around with --”
The first blow fell. Adam tried miserably to keep himself upright, and wondered miserably if the car was still close enough for them to hear the slurs his father was shouting.
A fist hit the side of his head. The side of his head hit the stair railing.
Adam was dimly aware of the sound of car doors shutting. He curled protectively around himself and waited to be kicked. No kicks came. His head throbbed.
There was a gentle touch on his back. “Adam,” Henry said. “Do you think you can stand up? Without hurting yourself, I mean.”
Adam tentatively stretched cautiously stretched his limbs out. The pounding in his head seemed to be making his vision and hearing fuzzy, but at least his legs were ok. “I think so,” he whispered.
“Ok,” Henry said. He moved in front of Adam and held out a hand. “Let’s see if we can get you to the car.”
Adam couldn’t think why Henry would be taking him to the car, but he didn’t have the strength to protest. Once Henry had helped him to standing, he saw that Mr. Gray had his father pinned to the ground.
Robert tried to get up when he noticed Adam, but Mr. Gray was immovable. He started yelling instead. “You cain’t just come here and steal my child--”
“We’re taking him to the hospital,” Seondeok interrupted coldly. She stood in front of Robert, so close that her shoes were probably all he could see, looking down at him. “Unless you were planning to?”
“If you think I’m going to spend my money on unnecessary shit for that--”
His father’s voice disappeared as Adam turned to get into the car.
Henry got in on the other side and began rummaging around under the seat. “First aid kit,” he explained when Adam looked at him.
“Concussion,” Adam said dully. “Won’t help.”
“Your ear’s bleeding.”
“Oh.” Adam let Henry dab carefully at his ear. They waited silently for the adults to come back to the car.
Mr. Gray started driving as soon as all the car doors were shut. At the trailer park entrance, he pulled over and turned to look at Adam.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two.” Adam knew what he was being asked. “Blurry ones though.”
Mr. Gray gave him a short nod. “Turn that ear toward me?”
Adam turned. He thought Mr. Gray said something, very quietly. “Sorry, sir?”
Seondeok frowned. “We’re going to the ER to get your hearing checked.”
“I can’t.” Adam looked away. “I can’t pay.”
“You’re not going to pay,” Seondeok said firmly. “I know you want to argue about that, but save it for later.”
Adam did want to argue, but he wasn’t sure he was capable right now, anyway.
Much later, after Adam had laid in the ER bed for countless hours, after he’d endured all the examinations and questions, after he’d learned he would never hear out of his left ear again, they finally drove to the B&B where Seondeok and Mr. Gray were staying.
Only Henry had gone past the waiting room with Adam. He’d been allowed to go in and out as he pleased, but the adults had stayed in the waiting room. Adam wasn’t sure if this was required by some hospital rule or if they’d been busy with something else, like filing a police report. He didn’t ask about the police report. He wasn’t ready to deal with its existence.
“I owe you.” Adam said it to the car in general, though he was sure Seondeok was the one responsible for settling the hospital bill.
“You don’t owe us,” Seondeok said. “Not money or anything else.”
Adam made an unhappy noise. Seondeok sighed. “I don’t know how to put it to you, Adam.” She was quiet for so long that Adam thought she might’ve decided not to put it at all.
“You don’t owe your parents for putting a roof over your head.” Adam’s eyes snapped to Mr. Gray. He tried not to wince at the pain caused by the movement.
“I know they tell you you owe them, because I had family like that,” Mr. Gray went on. He briefly met Adam’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “And it’s mathematically true that you’re almost grown up, but adults should still be responsible for someone your age. Ideally.”
“I was gonna get out myself,” Adam said sullenly. He felt he should explain himself better, but he was choking on the words. He was too tired to line them up properly.
“I was, too,” Mr. Gray said. The car lapsed back into silence.