SCENE 12
Our first day back in class was surprisingly quiet. Wren hadn’t appeared, and Meredith arrived so late Monday night that none of us saw her, and she was given permission to sleep through Tuesday. With only the boys and Filippa in attendance, our teachers seemed content to simply explain what the short winter term between Thanksgiving and Christmas would include: Romeo and Juliet, our introduction to weapons combat, and midterm speeches.
Evening found the four of us in the Castle library (vigorously tidied by me the previous day), writing out our new monologues and beginning to scan them. Pens, pencils, highlighters, notebooks, and wineglasses were strewn on every table. A towering fire lit the whole room but didn’t keep the cold entirely at bay. Filippa and I sat toe-to-toe on the couch, one thick wool blanket stretched over both of us. My eyelids had begun to droop an hour before, and at last I let them close. I might have fallen asleep if not for the constant motion of Filippa’s left foot, which wiggled persistently against my leg as she wrote.
The words of my newest piece tumbled around between my ears, disconnected and chaotic, not yet regimented and committed to memory. They’d given me something surprisingly robust—Philip the Bastard’s rousing battle speech from King John:
Your royal presences be ruled by me:
Be friends awhile and both conjointly bend
Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town:
And when that we have dash’d them to the ground,
Why then defy each other and pell-mell
Make work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell.
I sat up when a small voice said, “Hello. Sorry I’m late.”
“Wren!” James launched himself out of his chair.
She was standing in the doorway, eyes dreamy and tired, a carry-on bag slung over her shoulder.
“We thought you weren’t coming back,” Alexander said, shooting a dirty look down the hall toward Meredith’s room.
“Had enough of me?” Wren asked, as James pulled her bag off her shoulder and set it on the floor.
“Of course not. How are you?” Filippa stood up with her arms already open.
Wren drifted into her embrace and hugged her tight around the waist. “Better now.”
I followed Filippa off the couch and, in a moment of foolish affection, put my arms around them both. “Us, too.”
Alexander snorted. “Really?” he said. “Group hug? Are we going to do this?”
“Shut up,” Wren said, her cheek squashed against Filippa’s shoulder. “Don’t spoil it.”
“Fine.” A second later Alexander’s long monkey arms crushed us all together, and then James latched on as well. We lost our balance, swayed, Wren trapped and laughing at the heart of our human knot. The sound shivered through us, moving fluidly from one body to the next like a breath of warm air.
“What’s going on in here?”
I looked over everyone’s heads toward the hall. “Meredith.”
She stood in the doorway, barefoot, barefaced, in leggings and a long T-shirt I was fairly sure had once belonged to Richard. Her hair was tousled, her eyes dusky and slow. I hadn’t seen her since the airport and I felt slightly winded.
Our little clutch broke apart, each of us retreating half a step until Wren emerged again from the middle. Meredith’s stern expression softened. “Wren.”
“Me.” She smiled weakly. Meredith blinked, staggered into the room, and crashed into her. The two of them were hugging and laughing and falling over all at the same time, and Filippa and I barely caught them before they hit the coffee table.
When we were all upright again, smarting from colliding elbows and trodden-on toes, Meredith let go of Wren and said, “It’s about time. Best of comfort / And ever welcome to us.”
Filippa: “You must be exhausted. When did you leave London?”
Wren: “Yesterday morning. I’d love to hear about Thanksgiving, but I don’t want to offend anyone by falling asleep.”
Alexander: “Don’t be stupid. Get thee to bed and rest; for thou hast need.”
James: “Where’s your suitcase?”
Wren: “Downstairs. I couldn’t face carrying it up just yet.”
James: “I’ll get it.”
Wren: “You sure?”
“Let him go,” Meredith said, brushing Wren’s hair back off her forehead. “You look like you might need someone to carry you.”
“Come on,” Filippa said. “I’ll help you get settled.”
They disappeared down the hall together, while James vanished into the stairwell. Alexander gave me a soporific smile and said, “The gang’s all here.” His eyes moved lazily from me to Meredith and the grin slid off his face. All of her gentleness seemed to have left the room with Wren, and she stood staring at me with a hard, unassailable sort of look. “So,” Alexander said. “I think I’ll go have a smoke before bed.” He wound his scarf tightly around his neck and left the room, whistling “Secret Lovers” under his breath. (I considered running after him and kicking him down the stairs.)
Meredith was in Flamingo Pose again, one foot perched on the inside of the opposite knee. She made even that look graceful. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I slid them into my back pockets, which felt far too casual.
“How was New York?” I asked.
“You know, hustle and bustle,” she said, dryly. “We had a parade.”
“Right.”
“How was Ohio?”
“It sucked,” I said. “It always does.”
The fact that I could have come to New York and didn’t hung so heavily in the air between us that there was no need to mention it.
“How’s your family?” I asked.
“No idea,” she said. “I only saw Caleb once and everyone else is in Canada.”