Juniper Wiles, page 8
“She’s scared,” Jilly says. “And I’ll bet I know why.”
Tam and I exchange puzzled looks.
“Scared of what?” I ask. “What are any of us doing that’s scary?”
“It’s not you,” Jilly says. “It’s more a defense mechanism. I don’t think she trusts that any of this is real.” She looks up to Judy. “She got like this when you told her why we’re here right?”
“I guess,” Judy says slowly. “But she’s a dog. It’s not like she can actually—”
Jilly interrupts her. “Oh, they understand way more than people give them credit for.”
Judy gives her a doubtful look.
“I don’t blame you,” Jilly says. “I know you love the animals that come in here. Sonora’s just got issues.” She holds out a hand. “Can I have the leash?”
Judy hands it to her and Jilly promptly lets it fall on the floor. She sits down cross-legged in front of Sonora. Putting her hands on either side of the dog’s narrow face, she looks deep into Sonora’s eyes.
“Hey, girl,” Jilly says. “Remember me? Remember Juniper and the fun we all had yesterday?”
The tail lifts a little and gives a small wag.
“Well, Juniper brought her brother Tam to meet you,” Jilly goes on, “because she fell head over heels for you. And you know why? It’s because you’re such a good girl.”
Sonora looks past Jilly’s shoulder, her grave gaze settling on me for a moment, then on Tam.
“And you know what she told me?” Jilly says.
The gaze returns to Jilly’s face.
“That she can’t live without you. That she thought about you all night long and first thing this morning she just had to come down here to break you out so that you never have to come back here again. She’s offering you a forever home, sweetie. What do you think of that?”
Sonora looks at me again. Her tail wags once, twice, before she returns her attention to Jilly.
“I promise you it’s true,” Jilly says. She takes her hands from where they rest on either side of Sonora’s head and puts her right palm on her chest. “You know me. Ask anybody. I don’t lie.”
Sonora bumps Jilly with her head then steps around her to where I’m still kneeling in front of my chair. I don’t know why I thought she had a serious gaze. Her eyes are bright like a good-natured clown. She puts her forepaws on my knees and gives me a big lick on the cheek. I put my arms around her and she burrows in under my hair, licking my neck.
I could burst with happiness.
“She’s been in and out a couple of times,” Jilly says as she stands up. She’s looking at Judy.
“How did you know that?” Judy asks.
Jilly shrugged. “I didn’t. But it had to be something like that. Why did the people who took her bring her back?”
“She can be a little willful.”
Jilly laughs. “Who isn’t?”
But now Tam’s got the doubtful look. “I don’t know, Joon. If she’s got a moody temperament…”
Jilly stands up, a thoughtful look on her face.
“When’s she being sent away?” she asks.
Judy won’t meet her gaze. “Monday. After the weekend. We have an anonymous benefactor who apparently has a big farm out in the country. He takes in all the old animals and the ones…you know, with attitude problems. We never want to do it. You know we’re a non-kill shelter and we want the animals to get to bond with a person like you and Bobo have. But she’s already been returned twice and I swear she’ll be fine there.”
And now I know why Jilly really wanted to come inside with us. Somehow she knew there’d be a problem she’d need to smooth over for me.
“There’s no way I’m leaving here without her,” I say.
“But if she’s developed behavioural problems,” Judy begins.
“I’ll sign a waiver,” I tell her.
“Joon,” Tam tries.
“What if nobody believed in you?” I ask him.
He knows me well enough. I’m pretty easygoing, but once I make my mind up about something, you’d have more luck pulling the moon out of its orbit with a lasso than get me to change it.
The corner of his mouth lifts in the ghost of a smile. He goes down on one knee beside me and reaches out a hand for Sonora to sniff.
“Welcome to the family,” he says.
It takes another half hour to get through the paperwork and pay. The guys leave in the meantime for their rehearsal. When Jilly, Wendy and I leave, we take three other dogs along with our own to the park for a walk and a romp.
I’ve got James again and I feel a little bit guilty because in my head I imagine he knows I picked Sonora over him and it’s making him sad. But that’s the movie running in my head. In reality he just seems happy to be out of the shelter and part of a pack. Wendy has Rubie, who’s part black lab, while Jilly has a shepherd/setter mix named Ginger.
We were warned that Ginger’s a runner, but when we get to the park Jilly lets him off his lead anyway. He starts to bolt, but stops dead when Jilly calls his name. There’s something in her voice that makes all the dogs go still and turn to look at her.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Jilly asks Ginger.
She doesn’t raise her voice or look angry, but Ginger ducks his head, tail lowering.
“You stay close and play nice with everybody,” Jilly goes on. “Can you do that for me? Can you be a good boy?”
Damned if that dog doesn’t come right back. He’s still a little diffident, but he perks right up when Jilly fusses with him, then he runs off to play with the others.
“How do you do that?” I have to ask her.
“It’s just this gift she has,” Wendy says.
Jilly shrugs.
“Well, I hope you can teach me,” I say.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Jilly tells me. “You’ll get the hang of it in no time.”
I doubt that, but I’m sure going to give it my best try.
We spend another hour in the park before we bring the dogs back to the shelter. Then it’s off to the pet store to pick up stuff Sonora and I will need before we return to the house on Stanton Street. Wendy has lunch with us then heads down the hall to the library to work on her blog for In the City.
Jilly and I go into the studio, dogs at our heels. Sonora jumps up onto the sofa and curls up against one fat arm. Bobo waits a moment before he jumps up beside her. When he cuddles up against Sonora I have to get my phone out to take a picture. I have the feeling I’ll be doing this a lot in the future.
“Come see,” Jilly says.
She’s standing by her hedge faerie painting. There’s something different about it, but I can’t tell what from where I’m standing. Tucking my phone in my back pocket, I join her by the easel.
“What do you think?” she asks.
It takes me a moment to figure out what she’s done. At first it doesn’t look any different, but on closer inspection I realize that now my gaze is travelling through the painting as if it’s on a planned journey. Which it is. Using only light and shadow, she’s turned the whole busy unfocused scene into an absorbing narrative.
“It’s brilliant,” I say. “How did you think of that?”
Jilly shrugs. “I sat and stared at it for most of the night. Then I went and sat on the sofa and dozed off. When I woke up the dawn light was coming through the windows and as soon as I saw the play of that light moving across the studio it came to me.”
I have so much to learn. I could never have fixed it. I step closer to see just how she made the haphazard scene it was the last time I saw it into something that now makes sense.
Allison was really surprised when I mentioned I was painting in Jilly’s company. She said, “You don’t have any interest in painting fairies, so why are you studying with her?” But the thing is, the subject isn’t important. Hanging around with her and Sophie, I absorb insane amounts of technique just by watching them work. It’s such a gift. Then I apply what I learn to the subjects that I’m passionate about, which is mostly cityscapes or the details of buildings.
“I should sign some prints,” Jilly says. “Keep me company?”
I nod and go over to the long table where the prints are stacked. We sit down beside each other. She signs one from the undone stack, then I take it and start a new stack.
“Okay,” she says as she finishes signing one and reaches for the next. “Let’s list what we do know about Ethan Law.”
“Well, he’s dead,” I say.
Jilly nods. “And before that he was fixated on the fictional you, collecting all kinds of memorabilia.”
“And let’s not forget documenting made-up versions of my sex life.”
Jilly pulls a face. “He either really thought he came from another world where the Nora Constantine books are real, or he wanted Emma Rohlin to think he had.”
“His ghost is still hanging around—or at least it was a few days ago. And he wants me to think that a dead villain is walking around in the real world.”
“It’s not much to go on,” Jilly says.
She lets me take the print she’s just signed and pulls another in front of herself.
“And we’re no closer to finding out the big answers,” she says. “Who killed him and why. And how does Nora Constantine fit in.”
“With great discomfort,” I say.
Jilly smiles. “I got Christy to talk to Sam Cray at the NPD.”
“The Spook Squad guy?”
“The very one. Apparently the M.E. hasn’t got a cause of death. The consensus at the moment seems to be that he simply stopped living.”
I look at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That it’s not a homicide. They’ve ruled that he died of natural causes even though they can’t determine the actual cause. But Sam told Christy that this got him curious, so he ran a background check on Ethan. Want to guess what he found?”
I shake my head.
“There’s no record of him until a couple of years ago. When Sam dug deeper, he came up with nothing. No record of birth, no school records, no work history. Zip, zilch and nada. He told Christy that he’s heard of people going off the grid, but that this is the first time he’s run into a case of someone coming on the grid. Even criminals, apparently, make some effort to sketch out a life for themselves when they get a new identity.”
“Are you…are you saying he really did come from some other world?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. But he had to have come from somewhere.”
“So what do we do now?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Maybe we should hold that séance? Did you ever do that on the show?”
“Yeah, but it was just part of some elaborate con.”
Jilly pauses with her pen above the paper to look at me.
“Maybe that’s what this is,” she says.
“It seems really complicated and bizarre to me. Why would anybody go to so much trouble?”
I take the print after she signs it.
“We need to know the end game,” she says, “before we can figure that out.”
“Good luck with that.”
“We could start with his computer,” Jilly says. “We’ll get Wendy to go through it and see what she can find.”
“I thought Saskia was the computer whiz.”
Jilly shakes her head. “Saskia’s the internet, Wendy’s the whiz.”
“I’ve still got the keys,” I tell her. “I can go by and pick it up. Though we should probably run it by Edward first.”
“Giving us the keys already implies that he won’t mind.”
“Okay.”
“And if we hit another wall, maybe we really should try a séance. Christy must know a half-dozen spiritualists.”
I open my mouth to say something like, it’ll just be a waste of time, except these days I’m still trying to navigate through a whole world of things that I never would have thought possible. For all I know, Ethan’s ghost will show up as soon as we join hands and call his name.
I think about that episode with the séance later as I’m walking over to Ethan’s office on Flood Street with Sonora. I remember how Dean—Dean Farris who played my boyfriend James—got upset while we were shooting that particular episode because he took the idea of spirits and ghosts very seriously, but everybody else thought it was a laugh and teased him mercilessly.
Maybe I should call him and see what advice he can give me. I could ask him if anything weird’s come into his life. Or for that matter, I could reach out to all the cast.
Hey guys, I met the ghost of a guy who has the same name as a character in an unpublished Emma Rohlin novel, except he was real and walking around but now he’s dead. Hence the ghost part. What’s new with you?
No doubt Dean would think I was pranking him. Everybody would think I was pranking them.
I hope Wendy can find something to help us on Ethan’s computer because I don’t love the idea of a séance. But suddenly the need for one becomes irrelevant.
Sonora and I have just passed a bus stop. Sitting on the bench is a guy staring down at his shoes. I’m a few steps past him before I realize who it is. I return to stand in front of him but he doesn’t look up. Sonora shifts her weight a few times and I try to stay patient.
“So, Ethan,” I say finally. “What was this case you wanted me to take on for you?”
He lifts his gaze. He seems defeated. Worn out.
“I don’t have a million dollars,” he says.
I sit down beside him. “Yeah, sorry about that. You caught me at a bad moment and I was just being pissy. I shouldn’t have come down on you the way I did. On the other hand, you have a sex blog featuring me front and center, my face pasted on some porn star’s body, so maybe I was prescient and have every right to be pissy.”
Instead of responding, he goes back to looking at his shoes.
It’s weird, what can come to you at a moment like this. I never really thought about meeting a ghost, but if I ever had, I wouldn’t have thought it would go like this. I’m even finding myself feeling a little sorry for him, which he so doesn’t deserve, but I can’t help myself.
“It’s funny,” I say when he continues to give me the silent treatment. “I thought you dead guys just hung around because you had unfinished business, but here I am offering to help you finish yours and you won’t even talk to me.”
He looks up again. “Wait. I’m dead? How did I die?”
He goes from a moment of surprise to immediate resignation. I watch it happen in his eyes.
“Nobody knows.” I tell him. “The medical examiner says you just stopped living.”
“I don’t feel dead.”
“I can’t help you there. I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like.”
He holds his hands in front of himself, turning them palm to back, back to palm. “I don’t think it’s supposed to feel like this—you know, exactly the same as being alive.”
His gaze goes to where Sonora lies with her chin resting on top of my foot. Her rear legs are splayed out behind so she looks a bit like a frog.
“Is that your dog?” he asks.
I nod.
“You’re not supposed to have a dog. You never have a dog.”
“Focus,” I tell him. “You had a case for me. What was it?”
He looks away from Sonora. “I’m trying to find this guy who sold me a book.”
“Let me guess. A Nora Constantine book.”
“But not just any Nora book,” he says.
“The one that has you in it.”
“But not the one you’re thinking of. I thought it was that one, too—Nora Constantine and the Secret of the Blue Diary, the unpublished book from when the series was set in the sixties. The one the guy sold me was also unpublished, but it carried on from the last season of the TV show.”
“So you got ripped off. What were you planning to do if I had found him for you?”
“You don’t understand,” Ethan says. “He sold me a manuscript with Rohlin’s byline on it—not just the title page, but on every page.”
“That’s easy enough to fake. And dumb, too. Everybody knows she stopped writing Nora books in the sixties.”
“I don’t think she did. I’ve studied her style and if she didn’t write this manuscript, then the person who did could mimic her perfectly. And here’s the thing. I’m in it. It’s like she rebooted Blue Diary to fit into the modern version of the series. I think she wrote all the novelizations.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t she publish them under her own name?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping the guy who sold it to me could tell me. What I do know is that it looks like she was toying with the idea of shifting the series so that it would fit the current paranormal/post-apocalyptic craze.”
“That really doesn’t make any sense. I used to talk to her on set. She could see the shift that was coming after the Harry Potter books took off and hated that kind of story. She said they wouldn’t have any longevity—not like a book set in the real world.”
“Tell that to a million Tolkien fans.”
I give a slow nod. I don’t know about longevity, but the bookstores are filled with clones of Twilight and The Hunger Games and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of the trend coming to an end.
He’s studying his hands again, squeezing the fingers of one in the palm of the other. I’ve never seen anybody actually wring their hands before. It’s a little mesmerizing.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” he says.
“What part can’t you believe?”
“That Palmer’s gotten this close.”
“Yeah, I saw the text you sent Nick—that was you, right?”
He nods.
“Why’d you do it?”
“To warn you about Palmer. I knew if you started to investigate you’d end up at Nick’s store. I couldn’t think of any other way to get in touch with you.”
I hesitate for a moment, then decide to play it as if the books are real. “Palmer died. I saw his grave.”
Ethan shakes his head. “Nothing’s permanent over there. Palmer died and then he came back as this monster called Charlie Midnight. That’s why I wanted to escape. I stole this life for myself, but now he’s stealing it from me.”
