The Red Hunter: A Novel - Softcover

Lisa Unger is an award-winning New York Times and internationally bestselling author. Her novels have sold more than two million copies and have been translated into twenty-six languages. She lives in Florida. Visit LisaUnger.com.

The Red Hunter one

Raven looked repentant, but Claudia knew that she wasn’t. The girl had her head bent, and the sheets of her blue-black hair, thick and impossibly glossy, fell to hide her face. It was October. A week from Halloween, and this was Claudia’s second time in the principal’s office since school began. The first one was about grades. Raven was already struggling. We can see from her test scores that she’s capable of more, the desperate math teacher said. But it’s like she’s just not here. Not paying attention. Leaving answers blank on her test. Mrs. Bishop, she’s not even trying.

Claudia could already see it on Principal Blake’s face: The Look. It was the expression that careful people, kind people got when they started to wonder if there was something wrong with Raven.

“It’s difficult to start a new school,” said Principal Blake. “But here at Lost Valley Central we have a zero-tolerance policy for physical violence.”

Physical violence? That was new. Claudia still wasn’t sure what Raven had done. She’d raced in as soon as Principal Blake had called. A bland man with a soft voice and graying head of hair, he had greeted her in the office with an understanding smile. We’ve had a problem in the cafeteria. A girl has gone home.

“Oh, really?” said Raven. “So, it’s okay for her to be verbally abusive to me, and I just have to sit there and take it?”

“That’s enough, Raven,” said Claudia. She wondered if she sounded as exhausted by her daughter as she felt. The kid’s capacity for outrage was endless.

“There are other ways to solve your problems that don’t involve flipping a lunch tray onto someone,” said the principal easily. “What did she say to you exactly? What made you so angry?”

Raven shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

The principal answered her with a quick nod, like he got it, like he knew how cruel kids could be and how words could hurt as badly as any blow.

“I understand that bullying can be verbal and emotional as well as physical. And Clara Parker has had her moments; she’s sat here with me more than once. Still, when we step over that line into the physical, that can’t be tolerated.”

Oh, god, thought Claudia. She’s going to be suspended—expelled. She could just hear her sister Martha crowing, I told you that changing schools wasn’t the solution. You can’t just keep running away.

“I need a clearer picture of what happened,” said Claudia. She looked at Raven. who had turned her head away.

“Apparently, Clara and a friend had some unkind words for Raven. I am not sure what was said since neither Raven, Clara, or her friend Beth will say. But, in response, Raven flipped a tray that was in front of them, covering both the girls with food.”

Claudia felt the tug of a smile but bit it back.

“It was an accident,” said Raven unconvincingly. “I was picking it up to walk away and finish my lunch elsewhere.”

“It was meatball and spaghetti day at school today, so it made quite a mess.”

“So it’s not that she hit anyone,” said Claudia. She didn’t want to be one of those parents, the kind that rushed to the defense of her obnoxious, misbehaved child. But it was important that she be clear on exactly what happened.

“I didn’t hit anyone,” Raven said. “It was an accident. Clara went home because I ruined her outfit, not because I hurt her.”

Principal Blake nodded carefully, cocking his head and wrinkling his eyes a little. “People around the girls said that it seemed like Raven purposely dumped the tray onto Clara.”

“Yeah,” said Raven, sitting up a little. “All her friends, who were laughing while she was verbally abusing me.”

Claudia struggled against a flush of anger, a surge of protectiveness for Raven. “So, basically,” she said, trying to keep her voice mild. “A group of girls surrounded Raven, saying unkind words—to use your phrase—and when Raven got up to leave, she tipped her tray either by accident or on purpose and ruined another girl’s outfit. Is that right?”

Raven gave a light nod. “It was an accident.”

Claudia was reasonably sure that it wasn’t an accident. She knew Raven’s temper was a flash flood, surging against everything in its path and then quickly receding, leaving regret in its wake.

“That’s what I gather,” said the principal reasonably. He seemed like a nice man, trying to do his job.

“Were the other girls reprimanded?” asked Claudia.

“It’s unclear what was said,” said the principal. “So it’s difficult to address.”

“Okay,” said Claudia. She took and released a breath. “So where are we with this? Is Raven going to be punished?”

“Look . . . it’s Thursday,” said Principle Blake. He had nice hands, long thin fingers, and a white-gold wedding band, clean, pink nails. You could tell a lot about a person by his hands. He was careful, responsible, tried to follow the rules. He laced his fingers in front of him on the green desk blotter.

“I’m not going to suspend Raven; it’s not going on her record,” he went on. “Let’s just have her take the day off tomorrow and we can all start fresh on Monday, let her think about what happened and reflect on how she could have handled things better. Maybe on Monday we can have a conference with each girl and her parents to discuss how we can better handle conflict. How does that sound?”

It sounded like shit actually. A “day off” was a suspension, even if it didn’t go on her permanent record. She would have to attend the conference alone while Raven sulked unapologetic, and Principal Blake played benevolent mediator. This Clara and her parents The Parkers would play the injured party, and Claudia and Raven would be the outsiders. But she found herself nodding.

Claudia wanted to say something. She wanted to say thank you, and assure him that she was going to make sure that Raven understood the seriousness of her actions, but also ask that this Clara be made to understand the power of words.

Instead, there was a big sob stuck in her throat, a bulb of anger and frustration and sadness. She was afraid that if she opened her mouth, she wouldn’t be able to contain it. So, instead, she just kept nodding and rose. She felt Raven’s dark eyes on her. Only her daughter, and maybe her sister, knew that silence from Claudia was more serious than yelling—which she didn’t do very often either.

“Ms. Bishop?” said Principal Blake. He was staring at her with concern. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she managed. “Thank you for your patience with Raven. She and I will talk over the weekend, and of course, there will be consequences at home.”

There. She didn’t burst into tears. Was there any more vulnerable position than being the single parent of a badly behaved child, sitting in the principal’s office? Weren’t you the one being reprimanded, really? Because wasn’t it, after all, your fault that your child couldn’t control herself?

“Raven,” she said. “Do you have something you want to say to Principal Blake?”

“I’m sorry,” she said dutifully. “I lost my temper and I shouldn’t have.”

The principal smiled warmly. “It takes a big person to admit when she’s wrong. I think that’s a good start. Write me an email over the weekend, okay? With your reflections?”

Raven nodded. “I will.”

Claudia draped an arm around her daughter’s slender shoulders as the girl stood, gave her a little squeeze, then nudged her out the door.

· · ·

CLAUDIA STOOD BESIDE RAVEN’S LOCKER while the girl stuffed her belongings—iPad, binder, dirty gym clothes—into her knapsack. Claudia had hated school—the ugly lights, the cafeteria smells, gym class, the pathetic social hierarchy where looks and athleticism trumped brains and character (not that that ever changed). The scent of the hallway—what was that smell?—brought it back vividly.

“It’s not my fault,” said Raven, slamming shut the locker door.

“It never is, is it?” said Claudia.

That glare, those dark eyes in that ivory skin. That full, pink mouth and ridiculously long eyelashes. Raven’s beauty was shocking, frightening in its intensity, in her utter obliviousness to it. We need to get a burka on that kid, Martha had joked. A body like that? On a fifteen-year-old? It should be illegal.

Luckily, Raven’s gorgeousness was tempered by the boyish way she carried herself. She loped. If Claudia didn’t insist on showers and hair brushing, the girl would look most of the time as if she’d been dragged through a bush. And still, the way they stared. Men, boys, the same stunned goofy expression, eyes wide, smile wolfish on male faces young and old. Raven didn’t even see. Claudia took to carrying pepper spray in her bag. She’s a baby, Claudia had to keep herself from screaming. Don’t you look at her like that!

Claudia knew that she was a fairly attractive woman still, and she’d been pretty hot when she was younger—blonde and bubbly, with glittery blue eyes. Never thin, never one of those waifish, patrician women she’d always admired. She was full-bodied and curvy, never smaller than a size 12, sometimes bigger than that when she wasn’t watching every single goddamn bite of food she put into her mouth. Still, she’d turned her share of heads.

But she’d never looked anything like Raven—a princess, a fairy, a siren, men climbing towers, and slaying dragons, and crashing themselves upon jagged rocks, dying happy. More disturbing though was the way women looked at Raven—with a kind of naked hatred, unmasked envy. They knew what a commodity had been bestowed upon Raven, through no fault of her own. The kid had won some kind of genetic lotto. Did anyone really know how isolating it was? How dangerous? No doubt it was part of the reason Raven was drawing fire from her classmates.

“Mom!” Was it only Raven who could imbue the single syllable with so much annoyance? “You’re doing it again.”

“Sorry.” Getting lost, drifting off into her own thoughts, being somewhere else. According to her daughter, Claudia did that all the time. God forbid a mother should have her own inner life.

“What did she say?” Claudia asked as they exited the building and headed to the car. She dropped an arm around her daughter’s shoulder again, pulling her in. And the girl shifted closer, matching her gait.

Raven shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

And maybe Raven was right. It didn’t matter what Clara had said. What was important—what had been important back in the city—was that Raven couldn’t control herself, her mouth, her temper. Impulse control was the problem.

They climbed into the rattling old Ford pickup, almost an antique, still a workhorse, which she needed in her business, something she wasn’t worried about scratching or dinging, something that could haul loads.

“I hate this truck,” said Raven. It was a far cry from Raven’s father’s Range Rover, certainly.

“I know,” said Claudia, pulling out of the school driveway and onto the road home.

Claudia always found it funny—not funny but rather interesting or notable—that one moment or really a series of moments might derail your entire life. There you are, moving along on one track, full speed. You have your destination clearly in mind, and the journey itself is not half bad either. In fact, you’re quite happy with the whole package.

And then one thing, or a series of things . . .

Maybe a woman, suffering from depression, drives her car onto the tracks a moment too late for the conductor to stop the train on which you’re commuting. Your path (and the conductor’s and other commuters’) and hers collide. What happened to her in her life and what happened to you in yours—everything, where you were born, how you were raised, if your parents were nice, if you were bullied in school, if the gene for depression was turned on in her or not, or in you, all of these infinitesimal elements of her existence and yours lead you to be in the exact same place at the exact same moment and—KABOOM.

Or a gust of wind takes your scarf, and who should catch it but your husband-to-be, who happens to be walking past you on the same street, in the direction the wind is blowing at the exact moment on the right trajectory so that it trails beside him a flash of red and he reaches for it and turns around and your eyes meet and—SHAZAM. Love at first sight. These moments—less dramatic but equally meaningful—happened every day, Claudia often thought, and almost no one seems to notice how many things have to go wrong or right for them to occur.

It’s never one thing that leads to a tragic accident, she was sure she’d read once—though she couldn’t say where. It’s usually seven things—seven mistakes, or errors in judgment, or acts of negligence. If you reverse engineer any major disaster—oil spill or train derailment or airplane crash—there are usually seven things that had to go wrong in order for them to occur.

Claudia had spent a lot of time thinking about that theory, even though what happened to her wasn’t an accident by any measure. Especially in the darker moments—like this one—when she questioned the wisdom of almost every decision she’d made since that night. It was comforting in an odd way to look back and think that if she had changed any one of those seven things, she’d still be on that figurative train heading in the right direction.

The first thing was that her (now ex-) husband Ayers wanted to live in Midtown, since it was where they both worked. But she was in love with the East Village and had been since college. That was the real New York City—Yaffa Café and Trash and Vaudeville and St. Marks Books. There was still grit, even though it was very stylized now, and most of those wonderful places were gone or going. And very expensive even then. But she’d found a place she just loved on Fifth Street. Out back there was a garden, and it butted up against a church and an old graveyard, and the windows opened. It was utterly unlike the place Ayers wanted in Midtown, a tower with a doorman and central air, a pristine gym, and Friday socials on the sun deck.

Ayers was not a fan of grit. But he gave Claudia her way, because that’s the kind of man he was. The kind of man who subordinated his wants and needs for Claudia’s. A good man, a darling husband who she knew right away would be a lovely father.

There were gates on the back windows, of course there were. It was the East Village and as much as New York City was gentrified, junkies still busted in and took your stuff if you didn’t have bars on the windows. So they got bars, even though it bummed Ayers out. He loved unmarred city vistas. They were nice gates, painted white, with wrought-iron ivy and twisting branches, and they opened like French doors. Claudia was terrible about closing them and locking them. She forgot sometimes. That was two.

They had been married a year and they were trying to have a baby. Not in that sad, desperate way that people often seemed to. More in a joyful, let’s fuck all the time with no protection because we’re—wink wink—trying for a baby. They’d been trying for about eight months, and no baby. But hey, said Ayers, it’s about the journey, not the destination! Now take off your panties, you little tart.

Because they’d had a glass of Prosecco, Ayers got frisky. Then they messed around, having a quickie with her underpants around her ankles and her skirt hiked up, while he t...