The Mysteries Read online

  Far more likely that Peri had hooked up with some wretched, anachronistic vagabond who liked to keep his woman barefoot and pregnant. She'd made her way off the cramped, dingy fishing boat and found the nearest telephone in an attempt to put her mother's mind at rest about her; but she was so thoroughly under this goon's spell that she was terrified in case she was gone too long, and he sailed off without her.

  Why did wonderful women fall in love with horrible men, make unnecessary sacrifices, give up everything for them?

  It was one of the great mysteries of life.

  But I was getting carried away. I didn't know that Peri had done any such thing. At the beginning of an investigation, everything is wide-open. Anything is possible and it's too temptingly easy to build up elaborate stories that one solid fact would demolish. The truth of what had happened to Peri might be much, much stranger, or utterly banal.

  I picked up an A5 hard-bound book covered in a sort of paisley pattern in dark pink, blue, and white—Peri's diary? Inside the front cover she had written her name and two different addresses. The Texas address had been lightly scored through; beneath it was an address in West Hampstead.

  I flipped through the pages, noticing the careful, rounded handwriting of a good girl student, the same throughout. Only about the first third of the book had been used, and most of that as a sketchbook. This, like her handwriting, was schoolgirl stuff, and repetitious. She had only three subjects: horses, dogs, and elaborately coiffured Barbie-doll women. There was no evidence here of any great artistic talent; most twelve-year-olds could do as well. Although there was something oddly obsessive about the style and subject, I guessed there was nothing more sinister behind the pictures than a bored teenager passing the time.

  After the drawings came about twenty closely written pages. There was no heading, no title or date to introduce it. Flipping through to the end of the text I saw a small drawing of a butterfly beside the initials P.L.

  Ordering another cup of coffee, I made myself as comfortable as the hard chair allowed and settled down to read.

  I know Cu was there from the beginning, because there's a picture of him in my crib, all fluffy and white and new-looking, with a bright pink ribbon tied around his neck. He must have been a present when I was born, but Mom can't remember who from.

  “Probably Polly,” she said. “She was the only real friend I had when you were born. We didn't get many presents.”

  Wherever he came from, Cu was the first of the Guardians.

  Mocky came next. There's a picture of me, age two, clutching the little purple pony with the flying pink mane and tail. Mom thinks we got her at a garage sale.

  Queeny was naked, one-legged, and half-bald, not a doll anyone would give as a present or pay money for. I brought her home with me from day care: Mom remembers trying to take her back while I screamed my head off. In the end, she was allowed to stay. Mom gave her a good washing, braided her sad hair, and made her a dress out of an old purple silk scarf: I thought she was beautiful.

  How did I know they were Guardians?

  I guess they must have told me.

  They weren't like other toys; they could talk. Not out loud so other people could hear them, but just to me, secretly, when we were alone.

  Once I asked them where they came from.

  Cu said he couldn't remember. Mocky told me it didn't matter.

  Queeny said they'd been sent by Him to watch over me.

  But when I asked who “He” was she wouldn't say His name.

  I tried to reason it out. Who else got a capital-H Him? “You mean God?”

  She got mad; it was a jangling sort of noise inside my head that made my teeth ache. If I'd thought first, I would have known it was a stupid question. The Guardians didn't have anything to do with God; they wouldn't let me take them into a church—not that I went into one myself very often. That didn't mean they were bad, though; they just weren't Christian. I didn't dare ask Queeny what they were. She scared me a little, to be honest. Cu and Mocky would love me no matter what, but I had to be careful with her.

  One day, as I was getting ready to go to school, Cu asked me to take him along.

  Yeah, sure.

  “No way!” I laughed. Then: “Sorry, Cu, but you haven't come to school with me since first grade! Too babyish! What's up?”

  “I like to be near you,” Cu said, low and mournful. “I know you don't really need me anymore, but . . .”

  I grabbed him and cuddled him close to my chest: my baby-toy, my sleepy-time doggie, my coo-coo Cu, and said, “Of course I need you, I'll always need you—don't ever leave me, any of you!”

  “Oh, my dearie, you'll have much finer horses than me when you're married—a whole stableful. Proper horses you can really ride, not like little me,” said Mocky. “And you won't miss raggedy old Cu when you've got the finest hunting hounds in the world.”

  They'd never talked like this before.

  “I'll always love you-all the best, no matter what. Don't you know that?” I looked Cu right in his soft, furry face. “Promise me you'll never leave me—promise!”

  “I'll never leave you of my own will,” said Cu, the faithful hound. “I'm yours forever.”

  “Mocky?”

  The little purple pony gave a deep chuckle. “I'd die for you, my deario, if you asked it. And if you ask me to live, why, I'll do that, too.”

  “Queeny? What about you?” I had to ask, but I felt nervous.

  “You won't be needing me much longer,” said Queeny, and her voice sounded different, farther away already.

  “But what if I want you to stay?”

  “You won't want me when you're married.”

  “What if I do?”

  “I can't go with you to your husband's house.” There was no arguing with that tone.

  “OK, then, but as long as I'm not married, you'll stay with me?”

  “I will.”

  So that was OK, since I didn't plan to get married, ever. I would be like my mother and just have a daughter someday, to keep me company.

  I went off to school as usual, and did the usual sorts of things until it was time to go home on the bus. It was one of the days when I didn't have any after-school activity, which meant I would get home before Mom. Whenever this happened, I went next door to the Stahlmanns.

  Ray and Regina Stahlmann didn't have kids, but Regina didn't have a regular job. She went all over the state, buying and selling at flea markets and collectors' fairs at weekends; but during the week she was home every day, and she always seemed really happy to see me.

  I liked going there. Regina collected dolls and old-fashioned toys, and even though you weren't supposed to play with them, she let me look at them. She made delicious snacks, plus there were the dogs, Pancho and Cisco.

  This particular day, though, was different. As soon as I got off the bus and walked over to their house I saw that Regina's red station wagon was missing from the garage, and Ray's shiny black pickup truck was parked on the driveway. It winked at me beneath the dazzling sun, and dangerous black animals raced through my head: sharks, panthers, spiders, snakes.

  But that was just stupid. Ray was OK. I didn't feel as comfortable with him as I did with Regina, but I liked him fine. For an old guy, he was good-looking, with thick, dark brown hair, well-muscled arms, and a flashing grin. His chocolate-brown eyes were just like the eyes of his sweet-natured mongrel dogs.

  Thinking about the dogs made up my mind, and I marched on up to their front porch like nothing was wrong.

  The front door was open. I looked through the dark wire mesh of the screen door into the familiar living room, and this is what I saw:

  Ray was lying on the couch, stretched out on his back. His eyes were closed, and his chest was rising and falling evenly. I could hear the slow, steady whisper of his breathing. Regina always kept the television on, a constant background to whatever she was doing, but not today. The room was utterly silent except for Ray's breathing. He looked naked, with onl
y a cotton throw draped across his middle.

  I stared, fascinated and repulsed. I'd never seen him without a shirt on, and I guess he didn't often go out bare-chested, because his dark suntan stopped at his neckline. The skin on his chest was as pale as a peeled potato, but heavily sprinkled with coarse, springy hairs. Some were as dark as the hair on his head, others were white. His nipples were reddish brown. There was a curving, puckered scar high on his belly. His legs were very hairy.

  Was he really asleep? What if he opened his eyes and saw me looking at him? I felt a crawling, wormy sensation deep inside, and my heart began to pound.

  I backed away from the door, turned slowly, biting my lip with agony as my school bag creaked and my shoes slapped too loudly against the steps. I launched myself off the bottom step and ran flat out across the springy grass and didn't stop until I was on my own front porch, sweating and fumbling to find the key.

  Even inside my own room, door shut and locked, and the outside door locked and bolted, I couldn't relax. Only as I cuddled Cu did I finally calm down.

  Then I felt like a total idiot.

  What had happened?

  Nothing.

  Ray was probably off work sick. Regina probably went down to the drugstore to get some medicine for him, and she'd left the front door open so Ray could talk to me from the couch, and explain—only he'd fallen asleep. The wrongness was only in my head. I didn't say anything about it to Mom, or to Regina when I finally saw her.

  One week later the same thing happened. I got off the bus from school and once again there was Ray's pickup and no sign of Regina's car.

  My stomach gave a queasy lurch, and I walked slowly around to the side of the Stahlmanns' house, avoiding the front porch with the open front door.

  The two little dogs, Pancho and Cisco, were in the backyard, shut in behind the chain-link fence. They whined with pleasure when they saw me approach and wagged their stumpy little tails. I poked my hand through the fence and let them kiss me. I talked to them for a while, loudly, hoping my voice would carry inside. If Ray was lying on the couch, and he heard me, he might come out. He'd have to put his clothes on to come out.

  The dogs left off licking my hands. Their ears pricked as they stared alertly behind me.

  I turned around and saw a man. For a second I thought it was Ray. Then, with a feeling like a roller-coaster drop, I saw he was a stranger and looked nothing at all like Ray Stahlmann.

  I thought he had to be the best-looking man I'd ever seen in my life. At the same time, although he was a stranger, I was absolutely sure I'd seen him before. Maybe on television? He looked like he ought to be famous: tall and fair and young and strong and handsome, with something about him . . . There's a word older people sometimes use, “vibes.” That's what he had. Powerful vibes. Special vibes.

  Even the dogs knew he was special. They always barked at strangers, and sometimes at people they knew, but they hadn't barked at him. They were just standing quietly, their tails shyly wagging, hoping he would notice them.

  I didn't feel scared or nervous at all. Afterward, I thought this was odd, because I generally do feel at least a little bit wary about strange men, no matter what they look like, because . . . well, because. But that old warning of “don't talk to strangers” didn't even cross my mind.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Don't you remember me?”

  I shook my head. “When did I meet you?”

  “In another country, long ago.”

  I laughed. “I've never been to another country—not even to Mexico!”

  “I'm talking about the life you had before you were born into this world. You were my wife then.”

  It looks crazy, written down, but not when he said it. Then, it seemed absolutely right. It was like something I'd always known. And yet it was a shock.

  How could it be both familiar and strange? Well, I guess because it fitted in with something I'd thought about, although no one had ever said anything like it to me before. I had always thought that birth could not be the beginning. I didn't talk about it much, but I had the feeling that I'd had another life before I was born. I'd read some books and things about reincarnation, but they never told me what I really wanted to know.

  Now, looking at this familiar male stranger, I felt I had finally met someone who could explain my feelings to me.

  I stared hard into his blue, blue eyes. “How did I die?”

  “You didn't die. You are immortal, like me.” He said it like it was totally ordinary. In the same way he explained: “My first wife was a sorceress. In her jealousy, she separated us. She turned you into a fly and caused you to be blown out of our world and into this one. Here, a mortal woman swallowed you in her drink, and nine months later you were born again. Once you were called Etain; now you are known as Peregrine Alexandra Lensky.”

  That sent a shiver through me. Not many people knew my full name. It was almost like a secret. Even on official forms, my mom usually put down my name as “Peri Lensky,” or “Peri Alexandra Lensky,” and so I did the same. Only someone who'd seen my birth certificate would know my mother had once upon a time given me the hippie-ish name of Peregrine. I liked Peri for all sorts of reasons—not just because it was easier to spell—but I liked having a secret other name, too.

  A peregrine is a type of falcon, so named because it was taken not from its nest, but while in flight. To peregrinate is to travel about; to live in a foreign country; to wander or go on a pilgrimage. A peregrine is a wanderer, a stranger in a strange land.

  A peri is a Persian fairy.

  When I learned that (from the same dictionary that had given me the meaning of peregrine), I got a thrill. I looked up “Persian”—“of, from or relating to Persia (now Iran).” That was less thrilling; Iranians were not a group much loved in Texas. But the fairy part was fine; I'd always loved fairy tales.

  The handsome stranger standing in front of me in the Stahlmanns' side yard seemed to have stepped out of a fairy tale, especially when he said, “I've been searching for you throughout many mortal lifetimes. Now, finally, I've found you. Will you come with me, back to our own land, and rule beside me as my queen?”

  I shut my eyes, but when I opened them again, he was still there, right in the middle of the familiar, ordinary neighborhood where I'd lived for the past five years. I looked around at the Stahlmanns' house and, beyond it, to my own. A squirrel suddenly dashed across the lawn and up a tree; I could hear the faint scrabble of its claws on the bark, and the leaves shivered as it plunged into them, out of sight.

  The hot Texas sun beat down on me, out of a blue sky cloudless but faintly hazed by the city's pollution. Perspiration soaked my cotton shirt. I was hot and tired and hungry. Mom wouldn't be home for at least another hour, and inside the Stahlmanns' house, instead of Regina with her dolls and ice cream and freshly homemade lemonade, a naked middle-aged man was dozing on the couch.

  I felt like bursting into tears, so I got mad and yelled, “You're crazy! I live here! Why should I go anywhere with you?”

  “I can give you everything you want. In my country, you'll live and be young forever. And you'll always be safe with me. I'm very powerful, Peri. Who do you think made Ray fall asleep?”

  “I guess you mean you did.”

  He nodded.

  I shrugged. “Why?”

  “To protect you.”

  “To protect me from Ray?”

  “The man is sick with love for you. He's been waiting all day for you to come. And, if not for me, there'd be no one to stop him having his way.”

  “That's sick. That's totally sick. He's an old man. I'm just a kid!”

  “You're a beautiful woman. But love can be a sickness, that's true. Don't worry, I've given him a healing sleep, and when he wakes, his sickness will have passed. He won't ever try to bother you again.”

  “He'd better not! It's totally illegal, you know. I could call the police.” My face was burning, but I started to shiver, feeling cold and ho
t, disgusted and excited.

  “I've taken away Ray's sickness, but other men will fall in love with you, whether you will it or no. That is your fate. But, I promise you, I won't let you be harmed or dishonored. I'll always watch over you, even if you don't return my love. When you are ready to take a lover, it will be by your own choice entirely.”

  My feelings changed again. I noticed how handsome he was, how noble and sad. Maybe, once upon a time, in another country, I really had been his wife. I said, “Can I see you again? I mean, I'd like to. When I'm older.”

  He smiled. “When you are ready for a husband, I'll come again. I've waited more than a thousand years; a few more years don't matter to me.” He smiled, and his bright eyes were looking into mine, seeing me as I'd never been seen before. He was so handsome I could hardly stand it, it was like a sweet ache in my bones.

  And suddenly I was scared, not of him, but of the way I was feeling about him. I turned around and ran back to the safety of my own house.

  I took a big breath, and stood quietly for a few moments in the living room (in shape, exactly the same as the one next door), breathing in the familiar smell of home, listening to the slow ticking of the old-fashioned clock on the plain white wall, feeling the cool breath of the air-conditioning.

  I yawned. Then I wriggled and stretched, blinking and feeling sleepy. Did I fall asleep on the bus, or what? Maybe the whole thing had been a dream.