Chapter 10

Four Weeks Later - Friday

The heavily shaded windows had allowed Shawna and me to sleep in. Still half-awake, I felt Shawna stir slightly in my arms. I shifted my head a tiny bit to bring my lips in contact with hers, and felt them curl into a smile. Sleepily, her eyes still closed, Shawna mumbled, “Thank you, Amy.”

I laughed, exasperated. “ For the hundredth time, I’ve told you you don’t have to keep doing that.”

Shawna tightened her arms around me and kissed me again. “Yes, I do. I’m never going to stop thanking you. I’m only a graduate because of you.”

I sighed. “Shawna, everything you needed was inside you.”

Shawna scrunched down enough to snuggle her head against my chest. “And it never would have come out. I was going so crazy ... Look, you know better than anybody what Grant was like when he first came here. I was just never up to rooming with him. What you did, when you got me out of that situation, it’s just ... I don’t have any words for it, except ‘thank you.’ So I’ll keep using those. And then, getting us back together again...”

“Okay, that I’m not going to take credit for at all. That was totally his idea.”

“Well, I know. But he’s just changed so much from when we started here, and I’m not going to let you tell me you didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Not as much as you’d think. When he decided he needed to change, he made himself over the way he thought he needed to be. He’s like that.”

Shawna wrinkled her nose and elbowed me playfully in the ribs. “Thank you again. See, you won’t stop me.”

I laughed and kissed her again, then turned to look over my shoulder as the door opened softly behind me. Grant and Jackie were there, Jackie with her arm around Grant’s waist. Jackie gave the two of us a small wave, and rubbed her head against Grant’s shoulder. I’d never seen Jackie this visibly affectionate with Grant outside of bed. Jackie had just spent the night with Grant—their last time together—and that probably had a lot to do with it. Grant had only a few students to say intimate goodbyes to. He would be spending Saturday night with Jana. Then he and Shawna would take advantage of Shawna’s class-free day on Tuesday to spend all day and all night together. The last of Grant’s official teaching duties had ended yesterday; that would give him a week to prepare for his hanging.

Other than his dates with Jana and Shawna, the rest of Grant’s remaining time before his hanging next Saturday would be spent with me.

Grant grinned and said, “Going to breakfast. Want to come?”

I nodded eagerly and pulled Shawna out of bed, toward the shower. “Just give us a few minutes, and we’ll meet you down there.”

Minutes later, I was putting on my uniform as Shawna was still toweling dry. Holden appeared at the door, looking apologetic. Grant and Jackie were still there. “Grant? I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Grant smiled at Holden and shook his head. “We’re just going to breakfast.”

“I just wanted to ask ... Not right this minute, but could you think about ... if you’ve told me everything?”

Grant looked puzzled. “About what?”

Holden bit his lip, obviously feeling he was being a little pushy, but unable to resist asking a crucial question. “I mean, do I know everything I need to know about hanging, before you go?” The concern that he could miss an opportunity in the last week of an important teacher’s life was scaring him a little.

Grant gave him a serious look. “Holden, you don’t know how hard it’s been lately to find things to tell you that you haven’t already figured out.” He laughed suddenly. “It’s a good thing I’m getting out of here. In another week you’d be telling me stuff I don’t know. But listen...” The serious look again. “Anything, anything at all I could be telling you, I know you’ll be able to work it out before long.”

Holden gave him a small smile. “I’m just...”

Grant stopped him, smiling. “I know what you are. You’re as obsessive as I am. That’s all you need.” Grant gave a quick look around to the rest of his friends, then back to Holden. “Come with us to breakfast?”

Holden’s eyes went wide, his mouth in an open-faced grin. I knew how much this meant to Holden, being included as an equal in a group of his idols. “Sure!”

Tuesday Morning

Shawna had arrived early in the morning for her twenty-four hour goodbye to Grant. She had spent the night with Jackie, then gone to the cafeteria as soon as it opened up, filling a cooler with a full day’s food and drinks for two, including the breakfast Shawna, giggling, insisted on sharing with Grant in bed. It had been Grant’s idea to spend the entire time alone with Shawna in the room, even eating their meals there, with a sign on the door to turn away visitors, directing them to me. I had kissed both of them, and gone over to Jackie’s room to shower.

From there, I went to the Dean’s office. Tina, the Dean’s secretary, was a little surprised at my request. But she relayed it to the Dean anyway, and the Dean gave his approval. Tina then ushered me into the Dean’s conference room, and simplified things by lending me her own personal cell phone.

I was in the room now; I had Driskoll Sadler’s phone number. Still, I hesitated, my heart suddenly fluttering in a late attack of nerves. I’d maintained a constant inner attitude of optimism that had prevented Grant from discerning my worry—one of the very few times I’d ever managed to hide anything from Grant. But the optimism was dissolving quickly now that the moment had come. Kathleen was twelve ... no, I reminded myself, thirteen now. I knew how flighty kids that age can be.

Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I punched the number into the phone.

Grant’s father himself answered the phone. Probably rings into his office. I cleared my throat. “Mr. Sadler? This is Amy, Grant’s roommate. From the Academy.”

Driskoll Sadler made no effort to hide his astonishment. If he’d had a list of people he might expect to call him, my name was probably near the bottom, if it was present at all. “Amy! Hi!” Suddenly he sounded worried. “Is Grant okay?”

I responded quickly, “Oh, yes, sir! He’s really excited about his hanging. You’re still going to be there, right?”

“Oh, absolutely! I wouldn’t miss that for anything.” Sounding puzzled now, he said, “He does know I’m coming, right? This isn’t ... sort of a surprise party, or something like that?”

“No, sir. That is, yes, he knows you’re coming. You and...” I hesitated, then plunged in. “Kathleen? Is she coming too?” I held my breath.

There was a long pause, and my heart began sinking even before he spoke. “No, she and some of her friends are planning to go to a concert...”

There was more to the sentence after that, but I couldn’t hear it over the pounding in my ears. I doubled over in my chair suddenly, feeling as if a massive hand were trying to rip my stomach apart. I fought back a wave of nausea; it would never do to vomit here. I should have called earlier!! I screamed at myself. But no, this was the right time. Calling any earlier would have given Kathleen time to change her mind again later.

I took several slow, deep breaths, fighting for calm. In a voice only slightly shaky, I managed, “Sir, Grant is really hoping for Kathleen to be there. And you too, of course, but you’re already coming. This is really important to him.”

In a sympathetic voice, he said, “I’m sure it is, Amy. I’ll try to give him enough support for both of us.”

No, I said to myself, wishing I could scream it at him. That’s not it at all! My right hand gripped the arm of the chair so hard I thought the wood might splinter. Kathleen has to be there. She has to be there.

I had never seen any emotional concern interfere with Grant’s ability to hang. But if Grant’s show started and he saw Kathleen wasn’t there...

I realized there was nothing I could say. Driskoll Sadler was a good father, an excellent one by many standards. He cared about his children, he listened to them, he set rules and boundaries for them. No sleepovers on a school night. No going anywhere if he didn’t know where they were going, whom they would be with, when they would be home. No going anywhere if it would interfere with schoolwork.

But while he was perfectly capable of telling them what they couldn’t do, he was constitutionally unable to do the converse—ordering them to do something they didn’t want to do. It wasn’t in his nature. At least, it wasn’t now. I had wondered if he had tried that, early on, with Grant. Grant would surely break any parent of that habit.

To try speaking directly to Kathleen would be pointless, even if Kathleen were home now rather than in school. Kathleen surely had seen, when Grant had been home a few months ago, how much Grant wanted her to be at his hanging. It hadn’t mattered then, and wouldn’t matter now. It had been clear that Grant had very little influence on his sister. Grant’s absence of several years was no doubt a major factor in that. He couldn’t just breeze back into Kathleen’s life and start telling her to do things. And I was even further removed than that, a total stranger.

If only Grant’s mother were still around. Maybe she could do it. She may have had the kind of relationship with her children that...

I blinked. There was another person in the Sadler household. One whom Kathleen loved and listened to. Hardly believing what I was about to ask any more than Driskoll Sadler was going to, I said, “Mr. Sadler ... Is Maya there?”

Mr. Sadler was astonished—even more than when I’d introduced myself at the start of the call. I could hear it in his voice. “Ummm ... Well, yes, of course.”

“Could I ... speak to her? You could listen, of course.” I was feeling my way along in a situation for which there was no standard protocol. A slave didn’t just phone up and ask to talk to another man’s slave.

“Oh ... I ... Well, that wouldn’t be necessary. She’s doing some dusting right now. Let me go get her.”

I breathed a little easier, as hope, completely buried moments earlier, began to sprout anew. I heard a noise as the phone was picked up again, and then Maya’s voice, no less amazed than her owner’s. “Miss Amy? You wanted to talk to me?”

“Yes, thank you, Maya. It’s about Grant...”

Maya interrupted, alarmed. “Is Mr. Grant okay?”

The reaction was certainly promising. Even though she barely knew Grant, Maya obviously cared very much about him as a member of the family. “He’s fine, Maya. But he needs you to do something ... I’m not sure how to explain this.” I thought a moment. “Maya, if you could do something that would really help Grant, and also would really help Kathleen too, even if Kathleen might not realize it—you’d try to do that, wouldn’t you?”

Maya’s answer came quickly. She didn’t need to think about it. “Of course, MissAmy. If it’s something I can do.”

I paused again, seeking a direction to go. Yes, that’s a place to start. “Maya, you’ve seen that picture on the wall in Grant’s workout room, right? The one of Grant with his Uncle Seymour?”

“Whenever I dust in there, sure.”

“That picture ... it’s really important to Grant. Well, not the picture itself, I mean, but it ... kind of lets him touch Seymour. See...” I hesitated again, then took another direction. “We Noosemeisters ... the way we look at it, we’re kind of born with something inside us, something that makes us what we are. We need to do this. There’s nothing else we can imagine ever wanting to be, other than a Noosemeister. I think you know something like that yourself. I remember you said ... I don’t remember exactly how you said it. But that once you decided to be a slave, it was somehow just the right thing for you. Right?”