“He’ll be back tomorrow,” says the boy. “He had to do a thing.”
“He didn’t tell you my details?”
“I might have missed the message. We’re mostly unplugged here—off the grid.” The boy scratches Glum’s ears. “Are you the best dog? You walked Matilda here, didn’t you?” He turns to me, smiling brightly. “Her name is Puddleglum. It’s aChronicles of Narniathing. But we just call her Glum. I’m Vermeer Sugawara. Named after the painter, Vermeer. You heard of him?”
“I think so.”
“He was a Dutch guy in like, the sixteen hundreds. Lots of blue and yellow. People standing near windows in milky sunlight. Whatever. Everyone calls me Meer, ’cause I called myself Meer when I was a baby.” He takes my duffel bag off my shoulder and heads toward the castle but stops before he opens the door. “You know what? Let’s not go in. With the indigo and all that. Let’s go to the beach instead. You tired?”
“Not at all,” I lie.
“Good.”
Who is Meer? And who is this June he’s talking about? Do they live here, or work here, or what?
I look at my phone quickly. Nothing from Kingsley. He hasn’t bothered to tell me he was called away from home.
This whole trip suddenly seems like a terrible idea.
We pile the bags by the front door and I follow as Meer leads me around the side of the castle, rattling on. “Tatum could be down there in the water. But he also might have been sucked into the indigo. Or he could be at work, I have no idea. Brock’s gone off, I don’t know, to the market, maybe?”
“Who’s Brock?”
“He lives here. He came on like, a pilgrimage to Kingsley. Like you did.”
“I came to see myfather.”
“Brock’s father is a very different type of guy. Like, a swindler. He took all Brock’s money and spent it on pills.” The path takes us past what I now see is a separate pool house and an enormous, circular swimming pool. It’s filled with water, but it’s filthy—sludgy with rotting leaves. “We don’t use the pool much,” quips Meer. “The beach is down this way.”
We walk through a copse of trees to a wooden staircase. It’s built into a monstrously high cliff in a tortured marriage of angry wood to submissive clay. The stairs go down, then left, then down, then right, twisting their way to the sand.
At the top of the steps is a large plastic jug with a pump top. A label of blue masking tape readsHorrible liquid. Do not drink.Meer pumps what looks like oil into his hand, then rubs it on his cheeks and arms, making his skin shine.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Horrible liquid.”
“Really.”
“Don’t drink it,” he says, grinning.
“It’s sunblock,” I say. “Oh, duh.”
“June makes it,” he says. “The stuff from the drugstore is evil or toxic or too expensive or something. But I wrote the label.”
I pump some into my hand. It smells of tangerines. I rub my hands together and slick it on my face and arms. “Who’s June? Because Kingsley didn’t say much when he invited me. Nothing about her, or Tatum, or Brock. Or anyone else who lives here.”
Meer shrugs. “Kingsley never tells anyone anything. It’s not your fault.”
“Okay. I don’t know whoyouare, actually,” I confess.
“Kingsley’s my father,” says Meer. “Just like he’s yours.”
13
The sound ofthe ocean rings in my ears as I follow Meer down the staircase. I run to catch up with him on the sand. He stands with his feet in the sea.
“You’re my half brother,” I say, stupidly.
