Raquel Byrnes (26 page)

“I was beginning think you were avoiding me,” Davenport said and nodded to the man standing next to him. “This is the good doctor I’ve been complaining about.”

“Ms. Ryan.” Thin, with wispy brown hair and an aquiline nose, Dr. Fliven’s Adam’s apple bobbled on his thin throat, reminding me of a stork. “Davenport has told me you take excellent care of him.”

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Fliven.” I shook his hand. “Do you have any word on Tobias?”

“Goodness, no. This is the first I’m hearing about his condition. I came to see Mr. Hale. Seem to have wandered into a bit of a situation here though, haven’t I?”

“Yes, I guess you have.”

“Are you OK, Ms. Ryan?”

“I’m fine, Doctor, thank you.” I tried to smile, but the look that passed between Dr. Fliven and Davenport told me I wasn’t pulling off “fine.”

“I can see what I can find out if you want,” he offered.

I nodded, grateful. We talked about Davenport’s apparently improving health and my background in botany for a while. Dr. Fliven seemed not only interested in alternative medicine but quite approving.

“And how is Lavender doing?” he asked before leaving. “Is she taking all of this hard?”

“Well, you know what happened around this time,” Davenport said, his gaze going behind me. “Simon isn’t doing well, either.”

“Is the dreadful day here already?” Dr. Fliven clicked his tongue. “What’s this you said about Simon?”

“He looks terrible, doesn’t he, Ms. Ryan?” Davenport said. “Disheveled, banged-up, and looks as if he hasn’t slept in days. No wonder the sheriff is giving him the stink eye.”

I smiled nervously, not sure what to say.

Dr. Fliven shook his head, gathering his equipment in a leather medical bag. I watched him, wondering what he’d make of Simon’s blackouts. The whoop-whoop of the squad car made me jump, and the blue and red lights flickered through the dense ivy surrounding the solarium.

“Do you suppose he’ll let me take a look at him?”

“Ah, you know Simon,” Davenport said and waved the question away. “Some things never change.”

The men nodded to me and left for the foyer, chatting. I stood in the ruins of the heart of the house and felt my soul shudder.

Some things never change.

Sitting in my room sometime later, I ran my palm down the onionskin pages of my Bible and bit back tears. Worry and doubt swirled in my head, and I found I had no words to pray. I was lost. My heart ached so much I struggled to breathe.

“Find any answers?” Simon’s voice at my door pulled me from my thoughts, and I stifled a startled gasp.

“Simon, h-hello.” The nervousness in my voice was apparent by the way he furrowed his brows.

“What’s wrong, Rosetta?” He stepped into my room. “What did Levine say to you?”

“Nothing,” I said a little too quickly. I stood, slamming my Bible shut.

“He and I went to school together, Rosetta. He wasn’t exactly treated well, and I regret it. I don’t think—”

“It’s not that,” I cut across him.

“Then what is it? Talk to me. You’re obviously upset.”

“I’m just...” I walked around to the other side of the bed, tossing the Bible onto my covers.

“What have I done to make you need to do this again?” Simon motioned to the bed between us.

I shook my head, eyes filling with tears, unable to find the words to tell him I was terrified everything people suspected of him was true and devastated that I was starting to believe them.

Simon held my gaze, sorrow darkening his countenance as he slowly walked towards me. He held out his hand and ran the back of his fingers along my cheek.

“You’re trembling,” he whispered and his voice broke.

“I’m sorry, Simon.” I took a step away, hugging myself. “I-I’m just so confused by what everyone—”

“That’s all right, my love,” Simon uttered, his face full of pain. He took in a jagged breath, his jaw working. He turned to leave.

“Simon—”

“Please don’t,” he said over his shoulder. “I can’t bear to see you look at me like that.”

I watched him go, a whimper squeezing from my throat.

32

My dream stuttered forward in fits and starts like a silent black-and-white movie. I was in my father’s home. The young accountant and his wife stood at our door begging to speak to him as I looked at their frightened forms on our vast porch. The police cruiser pulled onto the driveway, lights capturing her face torn with jagged cries as she clutched her husband’s arm, begging them not to take him. I screamed at my father, our argument flaring to violence, and I watched him leave from my vantage point on the carpet. My mother followed him out of the room, never looking back.

Brilliant flashes filled my vision, and I stood on the courthouse steps, the mob of photographers an angry roar as they chased me into the building. Irate echoes in marble halls filled my ears as I watched my family tear in two; my hand going out to my mother, begging her to listen.

My breath came in painful gasps, and the hallway narrowed. The door to the courtroom was the only light in a sea of darkness. It swung open, and my heartbeat rammed in my ears as I moved in the forward jerking of broken film. My hand on the Bible. My palm to God. My heart torn asunder.

I’d been my father’s assistant. I knew he was lying. I saw the young accountant’s stunned face as his wife’s gaze found mine, her hands still clasped in prayer. The images melted together as the judge banged his gavel over and over again; the media in the courtroom going wild. I gave them the proof they needed. I saved one family and destroyed mine.

The slam-slam-slam ripped me from my sleep, and I opened my eyes in my room at Shadow Bay Hall. A shutter hammered against the window. Exhausted from not sleeping the night before and spending the day cleaning up after Tobias and Mrs. Tuttle left, I crashed before it even hit eight at night. The storm must have worsened while I slept. Morning still bore the angry black welts of storm clouds. The pale sun slid behind them, its wan light barely breaking through the gloom.

I rose, went to open the window, and let the frigid gust of wind and rain pummel me, reveling in the feel of something other than the hollow ache in my chest. I latched the shutter, closed the window, and stood dripping on the carpet. Sorrow and frustration hit me like a torrent. Tears burned down my cheeks. Sinking to my knees, a shudder rocked through me.

How could You let this happen, Lord? Why would You bring me to this place and allow my dreams to crumble, my heart to break? Why have You not protected me?

I buried my face in my hands, the silent sobs ripped from my throat as I cried out, lost and broken. A single resonant thought filled my mind.

Truth
.

I fell silent, my breath hitching in my chest. Slowly, I shook my head, anger welling.

“No,” I said aloud. “Not again.”

Truth had destroyed my life. It had left me with nothing. And now, truth took from me my last chance at happiness. Simon flashed in my mind, his crystalline eyes holding me with tenderness. Lavender’s sweet kisses on my cheek, the feel of her arms around me in a hug. All of it, slipping away. Anger and sorrow seared a path through my soul. I didn’t want to obey.

“I can’t,” I whispered, my fists clenched. “I have nothing left to give.”

Truth.

****

I spent the morning and afternoon helping to finish the cleanup, trying to calm my mind; but the images kept coming back to me. Davenport left to have lunch in the village with Phillip and Dr. Fliven. With Mrs. Tuttle gone, nothing had been done. The floor was still covered in mud; the furniture, dirty and still out of place from last night’s visit by the paramedics and sheriff. O’Shay helped me, but he was preoccupied. His answers were gruff and monosyllabic.

Lavender continued to pout and hide out in her cubby on the stairs, and I could do nothing to lift her spirits. Not that anything would work on this terrible day. I remembered what Davenport said to Dr. Fliven. Her mother had died on this day.

Resolved to keep busy, I realized I’d left the botany book I borrowed from Davenport’s library in the gazebo. I held a newspaper over my head and ran in the rain to the garden to get it.

A low rumble from a truck pulled my attention towards Simon’s workshop, and I saw him and Josif carry sealed crates out to it. The authentication must be finished. Rain poured in rivulets from the gazebo roof; a curtain of water that hid me, and I backed further into the shadows watching him. Longing tugged at my core. He said something to Josif by the door and then climbed into the cab of the truck. Without thinking, I hurried along the gravel path separating the garden from the workshop, my heart ramming in my chest. I stopped short, my gaze finding his through the rain-slicked window as the torrent sloughed over me.

“S-Simon…”

He froze, held my gaze with sorrowful eyes for a moment, and then started the truck, looking away. “Go in the house, Rosetta. You’ll catch your death out here.” With that, he pulled away.

“But…” I stood in the downpour and watched him back down the driveway to the main road. Sorrow settled cold and hard in my stomach. What had I done?

“Rosetta,” Josif said with surprise. He ran towards me with a towel in his hands. “Please, come inside.”

He pulled me into the workshop, and I stood shivering in the doorway, the towel draped over my shoulders.

“Everything is falling apart, Josif.” I wiped at my face with the towel, my throat constricted.

“So it is not just Simon that this black weather follows,” Josif said and frowned at me from his place at the counter. “You look the same as he.”

“And how is that?”

“Broken.”

I bit my lip, nodding. A pile of yellow suitcases lay next to the door. I took in the pattern of baby ducks and daisies and knew they belonged to Lavender.

“Is he still sending Lavender away?”

Josif put down his pencil, motioned to the chair at the small kitchen table, and poured me a cup of hot tea.

“He believes that she is in danger here, though I do not know if he fears himself or something more.” He leaned against the counter, his arms crossed. His gaze bore into mine. “Do you?”

I shrugged helplessly. I had nothing. No answers, just so many questions that seemed to multiply with every new conversation.

“Why have you not abandoned Simon, Josif? Almost everyone else tells me he’s a monster, but you don’t.”

“Because he is not a monster, Rosetta. I believe him to be haunted, tortured by something, but not full of darkness.”

“You are a great friend, Josif.” Guilt pricked at my heart. I had promised to stand by Simon, yet yesterday, I’d let my fear come between us. “So you think he’s innocent?”

“I did not say that, Rosetta…” Josif’s face changed, his gaze slid from mine.

“But you just said—”

“I know Simon,” Josif cut across me. “He saved my life on more than one occasion, but something is…wrong.”

“The blackouts,” I said.

He raised a brow. “You know.” He shook his head, a sad smile pulling at his mouth. “And still you stay and hunt for the truth.”

“If I ask you something…” I hesitated. Fiddling with the mug, I sloshed the honey tinted liquid in circles. “Will you believe that I mean no disrespect?”

“Yes.”

“The old magic. What can you tell me about it?”

“Is there a reason you ask this?” His expression didn’t change, didn’t get defensive. A genuine question.

“I met Lavender in the woods earlier in the month, at the cemetery, and she showed me a line of ash on the ground. It surrounded the cemetery. She called it a ghost line. Do you know about this?”

“It’s used to protect the living; to bind the souls of the dead to their place of burial.”

“Why would someone do that?” I stared at the reflection of the kitchen light in the tea. “I mean, at first I thought it was Tuttle. She and O’Shay were keeping things from me, scaring me to protect their secret, but this doesn’t fit. This doesn’t feel like misdirection.”

“If someone believes there is unrest, that a soul is unable to move on, they might cast the line,” he explained. “But this is not used by my people anymore, Rosetta. It’s a dark practice.”

“Is it meant as a threat of some sort?”

“It can be a threat or a binding for protection. There is no knowing the heart of the one who does this.”

“Josif, I think there’s something treacherous going on. I think Simon is in danger.”

“I think you are right.” He pushed off from the counter, motioned for me to follow. “Come. I have something to show you.”

He led me out the back of the workshop, grabbing an umbrella from the hook by the door. The storm met us with an icy sheet of gust and rain. The wind tugged at the umbrella, and the gray surrounded us, washing out all the color from the landscape.

I leaned in, grasping the handle with him as we made our way along the back field. It rose at an angle to the woods, and we took roughhewn stairs up to the clearing just before the tree line. We turned towards the meadow, the vast field of flowers bowing and churning with the waves of wind.

“Where are we going?”

“To the greenhouse.” Josif sighed heavily, and the wind snatched the vapor of his breath. “I found something there this morning.”

We made our way to the stand of trees just before the clearing where the metal and glass structure stood. I remembered the time I’d been here with Simon, how he called me beautiful and made my pulse quicken. How could things have gone so wrong? We entered the greenhouse, and I saw immediately why Josif seemed disturbed.

A circle of five candles made a ring of waxy puddles around a clutter of strange objects. Lavender’s hoarded trinkets sat in the middle: O’Shay’s wooden button, Tuttle’s ivory comb, my botany lens. They were all encircled by the candles save for one artifact. On a pile of gray ash, Simon’s handkerchief, lay bound by a red ribbon.

“What is this?” I asked, dread growing in my gut. I spotted a rope of hair, blonde interwoven with raven, the ends burned as if the braid was used to light the candles. Small bones were tied to it with twine. My hand went to my own head, feeling for missing chunks. “Is this some sort of gypsy spell, Josif?”