Freddy looked at Ban again. This time, Ban returned her gaze. “He seems nice,” she remarked. Freddy shook her head, but it wasn’t really a denial. This stiff, tormented version of Roland did seem nice. She thought maybe he didn’t know how to be nice in an ordinary way.
“You know,” said Josiah aloud, “I’m very pleased you’re working through your issues and coming to realisations about yourself, but do you have to do it here? You seem to be blaming me for your own emotional hang-ups because I’m new. ‘I feel there’s something wrong about you, but I have no idea what’ is not the best possible reason for this little confrontation. Perhaps you should find out what your own problem is before you dump everything on me.”
Roland stared at him, and Josiah stared back. Cuerva Lachance walked through the wall.
She did have a habit of treating physical objects as if they weren’t there. Freddy had grown used to it, but Roland hadn’t. He staggered back three steps. “Oh dear,” said Cuerva Lachance. “This is completely accidental in every way.”
“Cuerva Lachance,” said Josiah. “For crying out loud.”
The blood had drained from Roland’s face. “You…”
“It’s okay. You didn’t really see that,” said Josiah wearily. “You fell asleep briefly and dreamed it. There was an atmospheric disturbance. We discovered a secret passageway built into that wall. Are any of these working?”
“I knew you were wrong,” said Roland. “You keep away from us!”
“I don’t think so,” said Cuerva Lachance. With dismay, Freddy realised she was in one of her scarier moods. Her hair and coat billowed out to the left, though the air of the room was perfectly still. She was smiling in a way that made Freddy’s brain hurt.
“Oh, leave him alone,” said Josiah.
Roland backed slowly out towards the front hall. He nearly made it, too. “The chair,” said Freddy sharply to someone who couldn’t see or hear her. Roland being Roland, he had backed right into one of Cuerva Lachance’s chairs. He stumbled and fell, awkwardly, half on the chair and half off. Cuerva Lachance advanced across the room towards him, still caught in an invisible, intangible storm.
“You can’t protect them,” said Cuerva Lachance as Roland struggled to rise. “You can’t protect anyone. Why would you want to? Isn’t it easier just to look after yourself? Why go out of your way for two girls who don’t even like you?”
“Mel likes me,” said Roland, trembling.
“Mel likes everyone,” said Cuerva Lachance. “She doesn’t count.”
“Stay back!” Roland regained his feet, staggered backwards into the wall, and rebounded, propelling himself out into the hall. Freddy heard him knock something over. Then the door was open, and running footsteps were receding down the walk.
The impossible wind died down.
“That was interesting,” said Cuerva Lachance cheerfully. “Do you think he noticed anything?”
Josiah was making neck-wringing motions with his hands. “You are the most … infuriating … I can’t believe you … He was already a problem, and now he … My God, you annoy me.”
“I force you to have fun,” said Cuerva Lachance.
“This is what you call ‘fun,’ is it?” He glared at her. “Please put the house back to normal. I think the other me is trapped in a box somewhere. You’re completely out of control.”
“It’s my natural state,” said Cuerva Lachance. However, when he continued to look pointedly at her, she sighed and moved out into the hall. Josiah followed.
Ban said, “Intrigued yet?”
“Why did you want me to see that?” asked Freddy.
Ban made a complicated body motion that Freddy thought might have been her version of a shrug. “Who can say? You may find something to do with it eventually.”
“I can’t trust you,” said Freddy. “I can’t trust anything about Cuerva Lachance.”
“Of course not. But I just let you watch. I’m not telling you what to think.”
“Do you want me to think something in particular?”
“It wouldn’t be right if I just told you,” said Ban virtuously.
Freddy narrowed her eyes.
Ban nodded. “Remember: everything is backwards.”
“I don’t know what that means,” said Freddy.
Ban made the complicated body motion again. “Who does?” she said. Then there was just empty air where she had been.
18
By Thursday, Freddy was about ready to kill someone. She couldn’t shake the feeling that September twenty-seventh was a sort of mirage, always off on the horizon, never getting any closer.
She was tired of eavesdropping. She was tired of lurking on the margins, slipping behind the scenes like a ghost. She was tired of living in a house that didn’t stay the same shape from day to day. She was really tired of not being able to put the puzzle together. She had tried, but there were still pieces missing. She didn’t know who Three was. She didn’t understand why Three was so important or what “Everything is backwards” meant. She would have punched the wall if she hadn’t been afraid it would turn into something when she did.
It was ten after three. She was in her room, trying to read “Kubla Khan.” She was so desperate to know what was going on that she had been driven to poetry. She didn’t really expect to find any answers in Coleridge’s poem, but she couldn’t think of anything else to try. At any rate, it wasn’t working. The poem was mostly a description of the pleasure-dome, which seemed to have trees and rivers in it, for some reason. There was a bit at the end about some guy who seemed enchanted; she didn’t understand that part at all. Where had the guy come from? Why was everyone wanting to weave a circle round him thrice? Why would anyone experience holy dread while weaving three circles around a random enchanted guy who was building pleasure-domes in air for no apparent reason? Then the poem just stopped. That was her fault, she supposed. In the end, she had to admit there were no answers here.
It was unseasonably warm, and she had left her window open, which was why she noticed the voices in the yard. Sighing, she dragged herself to the window for a bit of requisite eavesdropping.
Peering through the leaves and branches of the trees, she saw Josiah and Mel. The elementary school was only about a block and a half away, so Mel tended to get home earlier than Freddy.
As usual, the eavesdropping didn’t work as well as she wanted it to, though it could have been worse. She wasn’t all that far away from the others, and they weren’t bothering to keep their voices down. “Snooping again?” said Josiah.
“There’s a mystery to be solved,” said Mel. “Of course I’m snooping.”
The next few exchanges were inaudible. Then Josiah said more loudly, “Take frogs, for instance.”
“I usually don’t,” said Mel. “Why frogs?”
“They start out as tadpoles,” said Josiah, “then metamorphose. As adult frogs, their physiology is completely different.”
“Not completely,” said Mel. “They’re still cold-blooded. They retain many characteristics—”
“The point is that looking at a tadpole, it’s hard to predict a frog.”
“So you’re saying my understanding of what’s going on is at tadpole-level right now?”
“Yes, but maybe that’s just what I want you to believe.”