Neverworld Wake(32)

She smiled primly. “I cannot vouch for the continued existence of anyone who messes with my best friends. They hurt Bee? They have to deal with unleashing the vengeful forces of the known universe.”

“Well, Zeus, I’d pipe down if I were you,” muttered Cannon, slowing the car.

Darrow’s security gatehouse was ahead.

“What are we going to say?” asked Martha.

“Oh, the usual. We’re former students. Kinda sorta dead? Stuck in a cosmic catacomb?”

“That sounds so tedious,” whispered Whitley with a giggle, squeezing my hand.

Cannon pulled to a stop in front of the gate, unrolling the window. We watched in uneasy silence as Moses—Darrow’s notorious security guard—took his time zipping his jacket, fixing his shirt collar, and opening a golf umbrella before ambling out. Grumpy, bent over like a question mark, he was whispered to have arrived on campus the same year the school was founded. He was a die-hard Christian, shoehorning God into most conversations, and a recovering alcoholic. Every Wednesday at midnight he secretly abandoned his post to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the gym at St. Peter’s, which meant there was a reliable two-hour window when you could stroll brazenly past the gatehouse, absconding from campus without getting caught, so long as you made it back before he returned.

“Evening,” Moses shouted officially through the rain. “How may I help you?”

“You don’t recognize us?” asked Cannon.

Moses peered closer, his bushy white eyebrows bunching together in surprise. “Well, I’ll be. Cannon Beecham. Kipling St. John. Whitley. Beatrice. And little Martha. What on earth are you kids doing here on a soggy night like this?”

“We were in the neighborhood and wanted to take a quick drive around,” said Cannon. “We won’t be long.”

Moses scowled in apparent consternation and checked his watch. When he glanced back at Cannon, he seemed uneasy.

“A quick look,” he said, pointing at Cannon. “But no mischief, you understand me?”

Cannon nodded, waving as he rolled up the window, and we took off down the road.

“No mischief you’ll remember tomorrow, old friend,” he muttered.



* * *



—

“My goodness. This is a surprise.”

Standing in the doorway, Mr. Joshua looked exactly the same. He was still trim, with sparkling blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and a flagpole posture, plus a penchant for sweater vests.

“To what do I owe such a treat? Come in. Out of this tempest.”

He beamed with genuine warmth, causing me to feel a pang of guilt as the five of us filed inside, dripping wet.

“We’re here to visit Vida,” said Whitley, smiling. “Is dear Kitten at home?”

We’d already seen her car in the driveway, the red Nissan, the many lit-up windows, so we pretty much knew the answer to that question.

Mr. Joshua blinked, puzzled.

“Vida? Certainly. We’re—uh—just having dinner. Come in. Come in. Please.”

We moved after him through a quiet living room into the dining room, where we found Vida and Mrs. Joshua. Mrs. Joshua, wearing a yellow apron, was forking corn on the cob onto the three plates as Vida, seated idly at the head of the table, scrolled through her cell.

It seemed captivity had taken a toll on her, because she looked less intimidating than I remembered. She was stockier, with thinner, rattier hair. Though the five of us wordlessly assembled around her chair, she was totally oblivious, glancing up in apparent disinterest before returning to her phone. She was used to her father’s students visits at all hours for guitar lessons and rehearsals.

“Peggy? Kitten? These are friends of Jim Mason’s. You remember, Jim, my student? The, uh, wunderkind? One of the very best young lyricists I’ve ever come across.” Mr. Joshua held up a finger, a soft smile. “He was going to go far. His musical about Lennon was one of the most gorgeous— A veritable tapestry of music and words…” He seemed to forget himself for a moment, blurting this with unabashed sadness. His face reddened. “Well. What brings you to our neck of the woods?”

It had never occurred to me to consider how Mr. Joshua had taken Jim’s death—not until now, standing in the shabby taupe modesty of his house, the deafening rain pounding the roof, the faint smell of mothballs, acoustic guitars mounted on the walls hinting at some unplayed song. It had been Mr. Joshua, after all, who’d been Jim’s biggest champion, coaching him about out-of-town tryouts and a Broadway run. It was Mr. Joshua who had taken Jim’s dozens of demos, recorded on Logic Pro, and transcribed them into sheet music, Mr. Joshua who had pushed him to dream up cleverer lyrics, sharper characters, more variety for the ear, analyzing with him the ingenious phrasings and renegade words of Stephen Sondheim and Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tennessee Williams. It was Mr. Joshua who had arranged for a major New York producer to listen to Jim’s demo of songs from Nowhere Man. The producer had loved what he’d heard, and a meeting, a lunch in New York, was being set up around the time Jim had died.

I found myself wondering if Mr. Joshua had been in love with Jim. Or was it something else? Had he seen himself attached to Jim’s rising star—Jim, his one-way bus ticket out of town; Jim, his partner, pet student, meal ticket—all those hopes and prospects null and void now that Jim was dead?