With a shake of her head, Mrs. Denning looks at me and says in a semiwhisper, “You don’t mind, do you, Kate? I shouldn’t be but a few minutes.”
“Oh, no. Not at all. We’re just waiting on the car anyway.”
Mrs. Denning pushes the wheelchair over and parks Tilson next to me, giving the old guy one more indignant look before scurrying off, her low heels clicking on the stone.
Once the door has closed behind her, Tilson glances briefly at Trey, then at me, lingering on my face. His eyes narrow and then dart down to my hands, which are mostly covered by the full red skirt. “Are you one of them, young lady?”
I start to answer, but Trey leans forward. “Dr. Tilson, this is Kate Pierce-Keller. Her dad teaches at Briar Hill? Harry Keller?”
“Don’t know him. And she hasn’t answered my question.”
I lift my hands up and turn them around so that he can see the backs. “No, sir. Not a Cyrist. Not a fan, either,” I add in a lower voice.
“Anyone ever told you that you resemble their female demigod?”
Demigod?
I give him a pained smile. “Yes, sir. That fact has complicated my life more than once.”
His expression thaws slightly. “Well, you’re a pretty girl, nonetheless, and more importantly, a smart one, if you want nothing to do with those frauds. I just wish you and Mr. Coleman had the privilege of graduating from Briar Hill before it sold its soul to the goddamn devil.” He nods toward Trey. “As his father and grand–father can attest, it was once a fine school.”
“It was still a fine school last year,” I say.
“So your father teaches there now. Did he support this merger?”
“I don’t think he had much say. He only started last January, a few months after we moved here from Iowa.” I glance around and then continue in a lower voice. “But he didn’t know Carrington Day was Cyrist, or he’d have told me. We’re—well, I guess you could say we agree with you on that topic.”
“And how about you, Coleman?”
Trey also looks around before he speaks. “I’d have said I was agnostic on the Cyrists a few months ago, but I’ve . . .” He gives me a quick smile and then looks back at Tilson. “Let’s just say recent events have opened my eyes a bit.”
Tilson nods vigorously. “Ah, the election.”
I’m pretty sure that’s not what Trey meant at all, but the old man continues. “I’ve never trusted them and never understood how anyone could fall for their bill of sale, but between the last campaign and some of the laws they’ve passed in the last few months, you’d think more eyes would be opened. Whatever happened to the First Amendment? Freedom of religion? Of speech? I’d like to think those laws will be overturned, but the Supreme Court is as useless as tits on a bull these days.”
Trey and I just nod. It seems the safest response. I make a mental note to ask Connor for an update of recent events, because I’ve been paying too much attention to the past to focus on the here and now.
“But most people are fools,” Tilson continues. “They see exactly what they want to see and nothing more. It’s like Niemöller said, if you ignore it when they’re taking rights from everyone else, pretty soon they’ll come after yours, and there’s no one left to protest.”
Just then a stout man in his late fifties huffs through the door. “Dr. Tilson, Carol Ann tells me you’re not feeling well. How about I take you back home?”
Tilson gives the two of us a conspiratorial glance. “Carol Ann is mistaken, Anthony. I’ve never felt better. I was just enjoying a pleasant conversation with two students whose futures your wife and the rest of the board have sold down the river. But, yes, all in all, I do think it’s time to go home.”
The man doesn’t reply; he just glances around for the valets. They’re both off fetching cars, so he turns the wheelchair around and begins lowering it, rather clumsily, down the stairs.
Trey jumps up. “Wait, I’ll help.”
Between the two of them, the wheels reach the pavement safely just as the cars arrive, Trey’s blue Lexus following behind a tan SUV that must belong to Denning.
Tilson gives me a quick smile as they wheel him around to help him into the car. “Au revoir, Miss Keller.”
I wave goodbye as I get into Trey’s car. He joins me a minute or so later, shaking his head. “Well, now that we’ve ruled out barbecue for dinner, how do you feel about Mexican? There’s a good place over on Wisconsin.”
“Mexican is fine with me.”
Trey calls ahead for a reservation. As we pull away from the house, I cast a parting look at the wide, green, soggy front lawn. The sky is beginning to cloud over again. Mrs. Meyer’s party probably isn’t going as well as she’d hoped, given the mushy grass and Tilson’s unceremonious exit. Her comment about having Patrick put Katherine on the Cyrist prayer list gives me a shiver, especially since she seemed so sincere about it. Either she’s a good actress or she really is oblivious to what’s going on under her nose. I suspect it’s the latter, since she seems oblivious to the fact that her granddaughter is a total bitch. I rub the inside of my arm, now decorated by four angry, blood-filled crescents.
Once we’re out on the main road, I say, “Tilson is . . . interesting.”
Trey laughs. “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it. Someone should really have told him where his retirement party was being held. Even I knew he had strong views on the Cyrists, based on one of Dad’s stories about his classes. When I introduced myself, he said I should tell my dad and granddad to be thankful they were students at Briar Hill when it was a real school and not the propaganda wing for a bunch of lotus-wearing parasites.”
I laugh. “He actually said that?”
“Yeah. One of the teachers coming to Briar Hill from Carrington was within earshot, too, and you should have seen Principal Denning’s face. Beet red. So . . . this demigod he was talking about?”
“Prudence—the aunt I mentioned who’s working with Saul? Although I can’t say I’ve ever heard her referred to as a demigod.” I hesitate and then ask, “Did you see the painting in their living room?”
“Which one?”
I shudder. “If you have to ask which one, you didn’t see it. Let’s just say it would have to be entitled Mother Prudence rather than Sister Prudence. I thought you must have seen it, since you stepped in with that Disney Channel comment when Mrs. Meyer was trying to place my face.”
He looks surprised. “No, I just hate when people spend five minutes trying to figure out who you look like, then decide it’s their cousin Ed when he was your age, or whatever. And you do look like one of those girls. I can’t remember the show, but she’s cute, kind of short, with long, dark hair.”
“Well, I look much more like Prudence, unfortunately.” I decide to hit Google Images when I get home so that I can inoculate myself against the Cyrist notion of religious art. I don’t want to be caught off guard the next time I’m walking along the National Mall in downtown DC and find a sidewalk vendor hawking statues of the Madonna Prudence next to the black-velvet paintings of Elvis.
“Who was the girl you were talking to?”
“Charlayne Singleton. My best friend before the Cyrist takeover, or whatever you want to call it. In that timeline, her brother, Joseph, was dating a Cyrist, but her mom and dad had mixed feelings. With this latest shift, Joseph is already married, and Charlayne’s parents have been members of the Temple since before she was born. You actually met Charlayne in the other timeline. And Eve.”
“I take it you and Eve have a history?”
“You could say that. I hit her over the head with a chair. And sort of kicked her dog.”
A smile lifts the side of his mouth. “I’m going to guess they both had it coming?”
“Eve was planning to turn us over to Cyrist temple security. I apparently didn’t hit her hard enough, because she released the hounds before we could get out of there. And yeah, the pup definitely asked for it.” I lift the hem of my dress about two inches. Trey glances away from the road to see the two thin pink lines on my thigh from when I was bitten.