in his own backyard.
He’ll never again wield that paintbrush, using it to create worlds, plot escapes, wreak vengeance, and right wrongs. Never. Never.
I will not get to know him, not even the demented shell of a person who has been living in that tower. To know him was the thing I wanted most in the world, but I’ll never know him any better than I do at this moment.
Kingsley will never explain to me who I am.
He lost track of who he was, himself.
—
June is speakingquietly to Meer, sitting on the edge of the pool, cross-legged. Staring at the body. She is wet from the waistdown, her indigo trousers clinging to her legs. The lower half of her long braids is wet. Her eyes are blank as she talks to her son, never looking at Meer but fixing her eyes on Kingsley with intense concentration, as if looking at a work of art she’s trying to understand.
Brock is also wet from the waist down. He takes me and Tatum to sit on the edge of the deck, our backs to the other two. “Tell us what happened,” I say. “If you can.”
“Of course,” he says. “A hundred percent.”
But he doesn’t, exactly.
“I was over by the picnic table, searching, you know? And I didn’t know where you all were, and I was calling for Kingsley in a friendly way, telling him I was worried about him and I wanted to keep him safe. Then I heard June make a noise. Not a scream, but like something was wrong.”
“We must have been down at the end of the driveway then,” says Tatum.
“So I ran to where the noise was and I found June in the pool. The leaves were all around her, and Kingsley was there, face down like you saw him. June saw me and she said, ‘I can’t roll him over, I can’t roll him over.’ Because she was in above her waist and he’s so much bigger than she is. She couldn’t manage it. I jumped into the pool and waded out to them as fast as I could. I was going to flip Kingsley—but it was too late. I heaved a couple times and I could tell he was just a weight, nowhere near conscious. So I…” Brock stops talking and rubs his forehead with a shaking hand. “I tipped his head to one side, and his mouth was wide open and full of water. I felt for a pulse on his neck. And there was absolutely nothing. He had to have been face down in the water for a bunchof minutes before I got to him. He was. Just. Gone.” He straightens his back and shakes his head as if to clear it. “I’m so— This is so severely rotten.”
“Should we try to move him?” I whisper.
“I don’t think so,” says Brock. “There’s nothing we can do for him now.” Then he adds, his voice so low it’s almost inaudible: “She gave him a sedative.”
“What? When?”
“What kind?” asks Tatum.
Suddenly June is standing over us, still dripping water. “Don’t talk about me,” she snaps at Brock. “Don’t talk about it.”
“We all love Kingsley,” says Brock. “They need to know what happened so we can figure out what to do next.”
“We should call the police,” I say again.
“I said, don’t,” says June, authoritative. “You in particular, Matilda.” She wipes a strand of hair back from her face. She’s lit by a single dim light that shines on the pool deck. “Don’t call anyone. Donot.None of you.”
“Okay,” says Brock.
“I’m thinking,” says June. “I’m going to decide how we handle this. There are a lot of options, and I am considering them. I don’t want to hear anything from you, because this ismypartner here. Kingsley Cello, the artist. Everything else and everyoneelse is secondary.”
We are silent.
The sight of Kingsley in the water is almost unbearable.
I reach for Meer’s hand as we stand around the pool in a semicircle. He is trembling.
June doesn’t say anything for a long time, so we don’t say anything. We are waiting for her decision.
63
Half an hourlater, Brock, Tatum, and I meet back in the kitchen, all in dry clothes. Meer stayed outside with his mom, who remained at the edge of the pool.
Tatum is rooting around in the fridge. He brings out some packets to mix with chamomile tea and honey.
