The Fate of Mercy Alban (38 page)

It caused as much of a furor as we thought it would—the literary world was knocked on its collective ear and produced expert upon expert who examined the manuscript and concluded that it was indeed written by Coleville.

What would become of the manuscript itself remained to be seen. If we sold it at auction, it could bring millions of dollars. But I was leaving that up to Harris, and he seemed to want to keep something of his father’s all to himself, for the moment at least. I also left it up to him to tell the world, or not, about his parentage. Although it involved my family, this was really his business, not mine. He chose to keep that to himself as well, for the time being.

I opened the book for the first time. “In the foreword, Harris tells the world the truth about Coleville’s death,” I said to Matthew, my eyes scanning the page.

“Do you still feel okay about that?” he asked, putting an arm around my shoulders.

“I do,” I said. “The man died saving my mother. If he hadn’t given his life for her, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

“I knew I liked the guy for some reason.”

I opened the book to the first chapter, marveling at the look of the words on the printed page.

“You know, we never did go back and read this entire story,” I said. “We always said we’d find some time to read it from beginning to end and learn how they fell in love.”

“That’s right,” Matthew said, leaning back and setting his feet on the ottoman.

“What do you say, Reverend?” I grinned at him. “In the mood for a good ghost story?”

“Why not?”

So with snow falling, the tree lights twinkling, and the spirits of my family swirling around us, I took a deep breath and began to read.

Amity curled up on her bed, holding the volume in her hands, a large book with an embossed leather cover, its pages brittle and yellowed. She kept it hidden in her suitcase, not wanting her mother to know about it. Not yet.

Amity supposed that was because she knew she had gone against her mother’s wishes when she found it and couldn’t quite find the words to tell her how it had all occurred. She had discovered the book because she couldn’t keep a secret as good as the existence of secret passageways from Heather. She just
had
to tell her. So one day, while her mother was off with Reverend Parker—she was
always
with Reverend Parker—Amity swore her friend to secrecy, popped open the panel door in her room, and led Heather into the darkness.

They didn’t get far. There it was, sitting just inside the passageways, in front of her door. Amity couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before, but it was there now, plain as day.

“What’s that?” Heather had asked.

Amity squinted at the book. “I have no idea.” She bent down and picked it up, and as soon as she touched its leather surface, a trickle of electricity ran through her hands. “Whoa,” she said, locking eyes with her friend. “This is weird.”

She and Heather abandoned their expedition in the passageways and went back into the light of Amity’s room and sat down on the bed, the book open between them. Amity carefully turned page after yellowing page to find strangely scrawled words in a language she didn’t understand among illustrations of herbs and weeds and plants and powders. They saw pentagrams and candles and rings and other strange-looking symbols they didn’t recognize.

The girls didn’t know it then, but as they looked through the book, something strange and monstrous seeped out, rising from the pages just as it was intended to rise, just as it had risen time and time before. It swirled around the girls and nestled into their hair and their eyes and their noses, a faintly smoky scent of lavender and lilac and grass and fire. And soon, before they even realized what was happening, the symbols on the page transformed into something they knew, something familiar.

And that was how Amity and her friend began to read the spell book her great-great-grandmother had written in the old country, all those years ago.

She sat on her bed, running her fingers along the book’s embossed cover. As she did so, a strange little tune tinkled through her head. Amity knew she had heard it somewhere before but couldn’t think where.

“
The witch in the wood comes out to play
,” she sang to herself.

At this, she could have sworn she heard a loud sigh coming from inside her room, all around her, as though the walls themselves were exhaling.

One of the things I love best about writing is the surprise factor, when something occurs to me out of the blue while I’m tapping away at the keyboard. It happened several times during the writing of this book, including when I was crafting the scene in which Grace is sitting in the library on a rainy day trying to think of a way to coax her daughter into spending some time with her. The idea of passageways hadn’t even entered my mind before that chapter, and it just came to me, as though Grace herself had whispered it into my ear. Later that evening, I was at dinner with some friends who asked about how my next book was coming along. “I think the house has secret passageways,” I told them. Their delighted reactions made me want to hurry home to find out exactly where those passageways led and what was lurking inside of them.

So, first of all, I thank my friends and my family for being interested enough to ask about what I’m writing and for inspiring me to come up with twists and turns I hadn’t seen coming. And speaking of friends and family, I owe a big debt of gratitude to Janet Lyso and her daughter and son-in-law, Melinda and Paul Smithson. After I had settled on the character of Matthew being a Lutheran minister, I realized that I had no idea how a minister might react when confronted with all of the strange and otherworldly things that were swirling around Alban House. Paul (a former man of the cloth himself), Jan, and Melinda gave me some excellent insights that really helped in the development of Matthew’s character. To any Lutherans out there who take issue with something Matthew says or does when confronted with the supernatural: These are my mistakes, not theirs, and are certainly unintentional.

Thank you to all of the readers who came to see me at speaking engagements, invited me to attend their book clubs, or simply wrote to tell me how much they enjoyed my first book,
The Tale of Halcyon Crane
. It truly was awe-inspiring for a first-time author to show up at a bookstore, library, or book club to find the room filled to the brim with people, all with copies of my book in their laps. I’m grateful beyond measure and I hope to see you all again this year.

An enormous thank-you to all of the bookstore owners, booksellers, librarians, and readers, including the Midwest Booksellers Association, the Independent Booksellers Association of America, the Great Lakes Booksellers Association, and the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library for supporting and promoting my work. It means the world to me.

To all the authors I’ve met during the past two years, especially my colleagues from Minnesota, thank you for being so warm and welcoming to the new girl on the block. I’m honored by your friendship.

As always, my never-ending gratitude goes to my friend and agent, Jennifer Weltz, for helping me work out sticky plot points, for making me laugh during every conversation, and for being my most ardent champion. I don’t know where I’d be without you but it certainly wouldn’t be where I am, living my lifelong dream. Thanks, too, to everyone at the Jean Naggar Literary Agency—you all are completely delightful to work with and I wish I lived closer to the city so I could take you out for cocktails. Repeatedly.

To my fantastic editor Elisabeth Dyssegaard—I am thrilled beyond measure to be working with you. Thank you for loving the story of the Albans as much as I do. Your masterful editing made the tale so much better told. Speaking of editing, thank you to the copy editors at Hyperion. I’m sure if you never see another ellipsis followed by “My words trailed off,” it will be too soon.

To my son, Ben, thank you for making me the proudest mother on the planet because of the achingly fine young man you have become.

And finally, to Steve. Without your support and love, none of this would be possible. It means everything … of course it does!

When Grace Alban returns home after twenty years because her mother has died unexpectedly, she expects her visit to be fraught with sadness, some guilt, and a resurgence of memories from a childhood spent within the vast, ornate, and imposing family home.

What she doesn’t expect, and yet finds, is a complex family mystery that undermines everything she knew to be true about her famous and eccentric family—a mystery that includes secrets, conspiracy, the occult, and murder. Her discovery not only threatens the way she remembers her mother, father, and grandparents, it threatens the very lives of Grace and her teenage daughter, Amity. Someone—or something—is moving within the walls of the old family home, through the secret passageways Grace used to play in as a child. That someone or something is watching them, and it doesn’t like what it sees.

As Grace attempts to piece together a new version of her family’s history with the assistance of her handsome clergyman neighbor, and reconcile each piece of new information with what she grew up believing, she’s forced, too, to protect her home and loved ones from whatever evil lurks within the walls of the estate—be it friend, foe, or even, most surprisingly, family.

1.
When you were reading the novel, how many times did you think you’d “figured it out,” but then have to change or qualify your assumptions about the Alban family mystery? Who did you originally think killed (or scared to death) Adele? Who did you suspect killed David Coleville? How many times did you have to change your opinion, and what were some of the early conclusions you came to about the characters and the plot of the novel?

2.
Discuss Grace’s relationship with her daughter, Amity. In what ways does it elude the “mom versus teenage daughter” stereotype? Does it change, strengthen, or weaken during the course of the novel? What kind of insight does their relationship offer us? (Also, compare Grace’s relationship with Amity to her relationship with her own mother, Adele.)

3.
Grace comes from a family of prestige and privilege and money—discuss why she is nonetheless a sympathetic character in the novel and worthy of our sympathy. Note the particular difficulties or struggles in her life: the boating accident with her brothers, her father’s suicide, her divorce, her growing alienation from her daughter. How do these plot points make her a character worthy of our attention and affection? Did any aspect of her character surprise you?

4.
On a related note, is there any part of Mercy’s storyline that makes us feel some sympathy for her—even though she is guilty of murdering at least three people by the book’s end, one of whom is her own sister, and has a cunning, cold, and deliberately cruel persona? What, if anything about her personal history (i.e., being sequestered to the hospital in Switzerland) may have earned her some pity? Is she a less dynamic character because of her evil nature? Does this work well within the book, or would you have liked to have seen her good side (if there was one) at least once in the story?

5.
How much did the setting of the novel contribute to the tone and suspense of the book? To this end, discuss the secret passageways in the house, the nearby lake, and the third floor where no one feels comfortable residing, and the ways in which these settings helped establish a mood and/or create suspense in the novel.

6.
Consider Grace and Matthew’s burgeoning romance throughout the novel, and discuss its function within the mystery story. Did it provide a welcome distraction or break from the drama of the mystery? Did it serve to help you understand any aspect of Grace’s character? Was there any significance, in terms of symbolism or plot development, to Matthew’s occupation (that of a clergyman)?

7.
Similarly, discuss the significance, if any, of the names of the women in the Alban family: Grace, Amity (which means friendship or harmony), Mercy, Fate, and Charity. What kind of irony exists within the book because of these names? Are the names symbolic? What additional meaning or insight do the names of the women bring to the novel and its characters?