Rebel understood how a young, beautiful woman like Sasha could focus a man’s brain on his honeymoon. He texted back:No problem. Take as long as Sasha wants. Autumn, Tash, and I are having a great summer. He misses you, of course.
Rebel looked up to see Autumn and Tash standing in the doorway of his office, Tash’s hand raised to knock on the door. Rebel smiled. “Good timing, kids. Tash, I just got a text from your father. He and Sasha will be in Europe for another month. He says he’s going to tell you all about the joys of Paris and he swears no more talk of museums.”
Tash bloomed out a huge smile. “Another month? That’s great.”
Rebel said, “He said Sasha wants to go to Cannes.”
Tash said, “Yes, I know. Autumn says that’s on the Mediterranean.”
Autumn said, “Sir, did Mr. Navarro agree to Tash living here with you forever?”
Forever?The word stretched the years out in his mind. Great years with Tash, challenging years, and oddly, Rebel thought about what he’d get Tash for Christmas this year. But he dreaded the talk with his brother. Still, if Tash was right and Sasha really didn’t want him around, if she wanted Archer all to herself without his being underfoot, just maybe he could make it happen. She’d probably have kids of her own, and then how would she treat Tash? This private-school business—surely Archer wouldn’t allow that. He said slowly to the expectant faces, “I haven’t brought it up with Tash’s father just yet. Are you sure, Tash? You and your dad love each other, and—”
“It isn’t Dad, Uncle Rebel, it’s her. She doesn’t want me around.” He gave a little shrug. “And Dad will do what she wants.”
Tash was probably right. Children knew, they always knew. Rebel said, “Let me think about how to present it to him. Don’t worry, I will.” He could hear Archer saying no, impossible, Tash belonged with him, attending his fancy private school in Philadelphia, and if he was still bullied there, he’d go off to another fancy private school in Connecticut, Choate maybe, then Yale, of course. He could hear Archer say in a disbelieving voice, “You want him to get a half-assed education in that bumfuck little mountain town in Virginia and end up a canoe salesman?”
Rebel smiled at the pretty little girl, the image of her mother, Joanna. He’d asked her yesterday about her mean uncle with the weird name—Blessed—that Tash had mentioned, asked her who he was. She’d frozen, given him a deer-in-the-headlights look, mumbled something he couldn’t understand, and was outthe door the next second. He was still curious, but he didn’t want to embarrass her again. Maybe Tash would tell him more.
Later that evening, their plates loaded with hot dogs, baked beans, and Tash’s favorite wavy potato chips, they talked about Rebel’s favorite hikes in the Titus Hitch Wilderness. The best, Rebel told him, was climbing Sod Drummer’s Ridge, a jagged, toothy line of rocks that cut the wilderness in half. He asked Tash if he’d like to go with him, maybe Autumn too, have a picnic with his specialties, tuna fish sandwiches and lemonade. Tash thought that sounded great. Rebel pulled another hot dog from the long-pronged fork that had been resting near a burning log in the fireplace. It was nearly black, as he and Tash both liked them. He was amazed at how much food the kid could sock away. He watched Tash squirt mustard on the hot dog, and said easily, “Autumn’s mean uncle, Blessed, tell me more about him.”
The hot dog didn’t make it to Tash’s mouth. He stared at his uncle, who looked all unconcerned, forking down a bite of beans, as if he’d asked about an everyday thing, like if he’d washed his hands before dinner. Tash didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t asked Autumn if he should tell his uncle Rebel or if this uncle Blessed was a secret. He said carefully, “Autumn said her uncle was real scary—maybe even scarier than Hilgar the demon from hell in your book, but he’s dead now, made her parents really happy, because Blessed hated them.” He paused, then burst out, “Blessed was like Autumn and me, Uncle Rebel, only he was rotten and crazy and he could make people do anything he wanted with his mind. All they had to do was look at him. I think he was worse than Hilgar.”
It was Rebel’s turn to forget his hot dog. Tash thought Autumn’s uncle could force people to do things with his mind, just looking at him? And Tash and Autumn were like him? Why was Autumn filling his head with nonsense?
Then Tash spurted out, “But I’m not like him exactly, Uncle Rebel. I’m prescient, that’s the word Autumn told me. And I’m not nasty or mean and neither is Autumn.”
Rebel was floored, hoped Tash didn’t see it.Tash thought he could see things that hadn’t happened yet?He was prescient? Rebel studied Tash’s serious little face, realized he really believed it. He said slowly, “Tash, remember when you wanted me to try for that really tough bank shot when we were playing pool yesterday?”
Tash nodded, looking wary.
It was hard, but Rebel kept his voice matter-of-fact. “I made it, against all the odds. Is that what you thought you were doing, seeing what would happen, seeing me make the shot before I even tried it?”
Tash nodded. “I saw the ball go in and you laughed.”
Tash really believed he’d seen it? He really believed he was prescient?Go slow, go slow.“So tell me what else you’ve seen before it happened.”
Tash told him about how he saved his father from being T-boned by a truck speeding through an intersection. “Dad didn’t ever mention it to me again. I think it scared him.”
You bet it scared him spitless. Rebel kept his voice calm, matter-of-fact. “Anything else?”
Tash nodded. “My mama.”
Celia? He’d been only six years old when Celia had died of cancer, and both he and Archer had been devastated. “What about your mama, Tash?”
“Dad brought me in the bedroom to say goodbye to her. The doctor said she was unconscious and I knew she meant Mama wouldn’t wake up again. She was never going to wake up, she was just going to die. I knew my dad was trying really hard not to cry. But, Uncle Rebel, when I took her hand I knew she was still there and she was scared, so I sang her the lullaby shesang to me every night when I was little, in my head. Then she opened her eyes and smiled at me and said my name and told me she loved me.” Tash started crying, deep wrenching sobs.
Rebel pulled him into his arms and rocked him. He’d been a little boy and he thought he’d helped his dying mother—with his mind. Rebel knew Autumn had nothing to do with this memory. Tash believed it, believed it to his soul. What to do, what to say? “Did you tell your dad about singing to your mama?”
Tash blew his nose on a paper napkin Rebel offered him, nodded, and slipped off his lap. “I heard the doctor tell him I should get counseling from a shrink—that’s what Sasha calls them. But Dad never called a shrink. He never said anything about my singing to Mama either, just like after the truck that almost T-boned us.”
Now that he’d opened the floodgates, Tash let more of it burst out. “Autumn’s helping me, Uncle Rebel. She’s gifted too. She’s amazing. She told me her uncle Blessed could stymie almost everybody—that’s the word her uncle used—you know, stymie people to do whatever he wanted, even kill themselves, just by looking at them. But he couldn’t stymie Autumn or Dillon.”
He, the writer, again didn’t know what to think, what to do. He heard himself say, “Who’s Dillon?”
“He’s an FBI agent Autumn knows. She says he’s her hero and she loves him. She told me they’d been through a lot together, but she hasn’t told me about all that yet.”
Rebel wanted to know how it was Autumn could have become such good friends with an FBI agent, but it wasn’t Tash who could tell him. He felt like he’d wandered into an oldTwilight Zoneepisode or into one of his own novels. Whether any of it was true or not, Tash believed it, and Rebel accepted that. He had to find out what it was all about.
