The mansion sat on a large scruffy lot with a couple of huge trees. Nobody had cleaned up the fallen leaves for a long time; a few stray rags of coloured plastic, red and silver, shone out from the drift of mulch.
Ada headed towards the house, glancing back to make sure I was following. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. I felt a little dizzy. I walked behind her over the uneven paving; it felt spongy, as if my foot could go through it at any moment. The world was no longer solid and dependable, it was porous and deceptive. Anything could disappear. At the same time, everything I looked at was very clear. It was like one of those surrealist paintings we’d studied in school the year before. Melted clocks in the desert, solid but unreal.
Heavy stone steps led up to the front porch. It was framed by a stone archway with a name carved into it in the Celtic lettering you sometimes see on older buildings in Toronto—CARNARVON—surrounded by stone leaves and elvish faces; they were probably meant to be mischievous, but I found them malignant. Everything seemed malignant to me right then.
The porch smelled of cat piss. The door was wide and heavy, studded with black nailheads. The graffiti artists had been at work on it in red paint: that pointy writing they do, and another more legible word that might have been BARF.
Despite the slummy look of the door, the lock worked with a magnetic key fob. Inside was an old maroon hall carpet and a flight of broad stairs winding upwards, with beautiful curved banisters.
“It was a rooming house for a while,” said Ada. “Now it’s furnished apartments.”
“What was it at first?” I was leaning against the wall.
“A summer house,” said Ada. “Rich people. Let’s get you upstairs, you need to lie down.”
“What’s ‘Carnarvon’??
? I was having a little trouble getting up the stairs.
“Welsh place,” said Ada. “Somebody must’ve been homesick.” She took my arm. “Come on, count the steps.” Home, I thought. I was going to start sniffling again. I tried not to.
We got to the top of the stairs. There was another heavy door, another fob lock. Inside was a front room with a sofa and two easy chairs and a coffee table and a dining table.
“There’s a bedroom for you,” said Ada, but I had no urge to see it. I fell onto the sofa. All of a sudden I had no strength; I didn’t think I could get up.
“You’re shivering again,” said Ada. “I’ll turn down the AC.” She brought a duvet from one of the bedrooms, a new one, white.
Everything in the room was realer than real. There was some kind of houseplant on the table, though it might have been plastic; it had rubbery, shiny leaves. The walls were covered with rose-coloured paper, with a darker design of trees. There were nail holes where there must have been pictures once. These details were so vivid they were almost shimmering, as if they were lit from behind.
I closed my eyes to shut out the light. I must have dozed off because suddenly it was evening, and Ada was turning on the flatscreen. I guess that was for my benefit—so I would know she’d been telling the truth—but it was brutal. The wreckage of The Clothes Hound—the windows shattered, the door gaping open. Scraps of fabric scattered over the sidewalk. In front, the shell of Melanie’s car, crumpled like a burnt-out marshmallow. Two police cars visible, and the yellow tape they put around disaster areas. No sign of Neil or Melanie, and I was glad: I had a horror of seeing their blackened flesh, the ash of their hair, their singed bones.
The remote was on an end table beside the sofa. I turned off the sound: I didn’t want to hear the anchor’s level voice talking as if this event was the same as a politician getting onto a plane. When the car and the store vanished and the newsman’s head bobbed into view like a joke balloon, I switched the TV off.
Ada came in from the kitchen. She brought me a sandwich on a plate: chicken salad. I said I wasn’t hungry.
“There’s an apple,” she said. “Want that?”
“No thank you.”
“I know this is bizarre,” she said. I said nothing. She went out and came in again. “I got you some birthday cake. It’s chocolate. Vanilla ice cream. Your favourites.” It was on a white plate; there was a plastic fork. How did she know what my favourites were? Melanie must have told her. They must have talked about me. The white plate was dazzling. There was a single candle stuck into the piece of cake. When I was younger I would have made a wish. What would my wish be now? That time would move backwards? That it would be yesterday? I wonder how many people have ever wished that.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked. She told me, and I went into it and was sick. Then I lay down on the sofa again and shivered. After a while she brought me some ginger ale. “You need to get your blood sugar up,” she said. She went out of the room, turning off the lights.
It was like being home from school when you had the flu. Other people would cover you up and bring you things to drink; they would be the ones dealing with real life so you didn’t have to. It would be nice to stay like this forever: then I would never have to think about anything again.
In the distance there were the noises of the city: traffic, sirens, a plane overhead. From the kitchen came the sound of Ada rustling around; she had a brisk, light way of moving, as if she walked on her toes. I heard the murmur of her voice, talking on the phone. She was in charge, though what she was in charge of I couldn’t guess; nonetheless I felt lulled and held. Behind my closed eyes I heard the apartment door open, and then pause, and then shut.
23
When I woke up again, it was morning. I didn’t know what time it was. Had I slept in, was I late for school? Then I remembered: school was done. I would never be going back there, or to anywhere else I knew.
I was in one of the Carnarvon bedrooms, with the white duvet covering me, still wearing the T-shirt and leggings, though I didn’t have the socks or shoes on. There was a window, with a roller shade pulled down. I sat up carefully. I saw some red on the pillowcase, but it was only lipstick from yesterday’s red mouth. I was no longer nauseous and dizzy, but I was fuzzy. I scratched my head all over and gave my hair a tug. Once when I had a headache I’d been told by Melanie that pulling your hair increased the circulation to the brain. She said that’s why Neil did it.
After I stood up, I felt more awake. I studied myself in the big wall mirror. I wasn’t the same person as the day before, although I looked similar. I opened the door and went along the hall to the kitchen in my bare feet.
Ada wasn’t there. She was in the living room, sitting in one of the easy chairs with a mug of coffee. On the sofa was the man we’d passed when going in through the side door at SanctuCare.