Blackthorn Winter (35 page)

"And he nearly got away with murder again!" Edmund added.

"That heartless bastard!" Mom seldom swore, but as she reached across the table and grabbed my hands, I could feel the intensity of her rage. "Messing with my baby."

Mom had never known me as a baby, but I loved when
she called me that. Now the thought of somebody else's baby was bothering me. Nora's baby. "Poor Duncan," I whispered. "He finds out his mum was
murdered
by Quent—and now he's lost Quent, too. Now he doesn't have anybody."

"He has his grandparents," Mom reminded me.

We continued to sit at the table together for a while longer, none of us wanting to break up the family circle and go off to bed. Too much had happened today. I didn't think I was alone in wondering how life would ever feel normal again.

When the phone rang for a third time that night, I stiffened. It was late; who would be calling now?

But Mom smiled at me before getting up to answer. "Hello?" she said into the phone. "Oh, good, it's you. I was hoping ... Yes, that's great. Yes, perfect. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. No, really, I do. You didn't have to—well, all right. Of course." She listened for a long moment, then nodded, as if the person on the phone could see her. She wrote something on the notepad. "We'll be there, right on time."

Then she hung up and smiled at us.

"We'll be
where,
right on time?" I asked, bewildered.

"At the airport, day after tomorrow," Mom said. "To meet your dad's plane."

"Dad's coming? He's coming
here?
" Of course that announcement had us all cheering, but when we calmed down, I had to ask. "Are you two getting back together again? Is that why he's coming?"

"No, honey," Mom replied. "He's coming for you. He was horrified to hear about all that has happened—and when I talked to him while you were in the tub, we hadn't even heard yet about Quent..."

"But
why
is he coming?" I pressed. "I mean, I'm not hurt..."

"He needs to see you. Wants to be with you. I told him about how Quent tried to—" She hesitated. I think it was all still so hard for us to believe. "How Quent tried to
kill
you, and how that fright cut through the amnesia about your life before you came to us. When Dad heard that you'd remembered what had happened to your poor birth mother, he said, 'I'm on the next plane.' And so he will be." She reached over and stroked my cheek. "He hates to think of your remembering a traumatic death by suffering through another trauma. What you've been through is something no parent wants a child to experience. I think he needs to see you just as much as you need him. He's your dad. He loves you very much."

"We do, too!" declared Ivy loyally.

Edmund was nodding vigorously. "Yeah! We don't want you dead."

"I think there's been enough dead people around here," Mom said. And then she herded us all up the stairs to bed.

Sleep didn't come quickly, despite my exhaustion. I lay in my little room in the narrow bed and tested my memories. Yes, I remembered finding Buzzy's body. I remembered running to the beach.... But I remembered other things—little snapshot moments. Collecting shells with Buzzy. Filling a sand pail and turning it over to make a castle. Riding on the back of a motorcycle, wearing a helmet that was much too big and heavy, zooming on city streets. Clutching the driver—was it my birth father?—around the middle. His leather jacket soft on my cheek and smelling of cigarette smoke. Sleeping in blankets outside—were we homeless? I recalled only the coziness of being cocooned between two people—my parents? A dark-skinned, very tall woman—was that Tiara?—teaching me to dance, loud music filling a smoke-filled room, the two of us bopping to the beat and laughing.

 

"D
AD'S FLIGHT WILL
actually be leaving California late this afternoon, California time," Mom told us the next morning at breakfast. "It's an eleven-hour flight, so with the time difference, it'll be tomorrow morning here when the plane lands."

"I don't get it," complained Edmund, so Ivy, who understood such things, started trying to explain. Mom slid a mound of fluffy scrambled eggs onto my plate. I poured myself a glass of black currant juice, and poured some for Mom and the Goops as well. We were back at the kitchen table, just where we had been sitting last night. I still felt I
was in some sort of dream. Everything seemed different, somehow new and unreal.

The knocking on the cottage door was very real. Loud and peremptory, as if the person on the other side had no time for nonsense and did not want to be kept waiting.
Probably the police again,
I thought, going to answer.

But it was Celia Glendenning standing there, with Kate hovering like a shadow behind her. "Good morning!" boomed Celia. "I've heard the most incredible account of events from Hazel Cooper. She came into the Emporium this morning and was talking to Oliver, and I was there, too. What a horrifying ordeal for you, my dear!"

"Yes," I said, not quite sure what Celia had heard. About Quent, no doubt. But had Hazel also passed on the news that I'd remembered finding my dead birth mother? Did all of Blackthorn know things about me now that I barely knew myself?

"And then I saw that unsavory Simon Jukes walking down Castle Street with his equally awful brother. Heading straight for the pub, no doubt, even at this time of day."

Celia was dressed impeccably as usual, wearing a dark blue skirt and sweater, a colorful silk scarf at her neck, navy blue pumps with sensible heels. She carried her tapestry bag over one shoulder. "May we come in for a minute?" asked Celia when I just stood there, staring at her. I was thinking that I was glad Simon Jukes was free, unsavory or not.

"Oh, I'm sorry—of course." I stood aside and smiled like a good hostess, though she was one of the last people I felt like seeing. Celia sailed in, with Kate slipping in quietly behind her. "We're still having breakfast, but—um—would you like a cup of tea?"

Mom came into the sitting room and welcomed our
unexpected visitors more warmly than I ever could. She invited Celia to sit down at the table, and Celia did. I stayed back, close to Kate, near the door. I was still remembering how frightened I had been when Celia Glendenning was hiding behind our bathroom door, still remembering how even as recently as yesterday afternoon, I was thinking she could have been the one who killed Liza Pethering. Celia Glendenning was a very strange person, and I doubted I would ever feel comfortable around her, even now that she hadn't turned out to be a murderer.

I glanced over at Kate. She was standing with her arms wrapped around herself as if for warmth, though the room didn't seem cold to me. "I can't believe Mr. Carrington killed his wife and Liza," Kate whispered to me. "It's such a shock. Poor Duncan!"

"I know. It's a tragedy, really."

"Come here, Juliana," Celia summoned me imperiously. "I have something for you."

Kate and I went to sit at the table with the others. I looked at Celia with raised eyebrows.

Celia rummaged in her large tapestry bag. I let out a little yelp as she withdrew my framed school photograph and set it on the table in front of her. "I've come to return this, Hedda," she said to Mom, although she kept looking straight at me.

I knew it! I knew you'd stolen it!
My thoughts were triumphant, but only puzzlement must have shown in my face because Celia reached over and patted my hand. "I owe you an apology, and an explanation, of course."

"Yes," said Mom drily. "I rather think you do."

Kate was looking mortified. She would probably rather
be anywhere than here with her obnoxious mother who went around breaking into people's homes and stealing their pictures off the mantel and hiding in their bathrooms. I looked at my own normal mom and felt proud of her, and grateful. What if someone like Celia had adopted me instead of my own mom and dad? It didn't bear thinking about, really. I'd be dead from embarrassment a hundred times over. Poor Kate!

"The other evening I stopped by to return your key—just as I've already told you. No one was at home, and since I had the key with me, I thought I would leave it inside on your table rather than outside under the doormat or something. So I opened the door—"

"You could have put it through the mail slot," Edmund pointed out. "I mean the post slot, or whatever."

I nodded and gave my little brother the thumbs-up sign. But Mom frowned at us both. "Let Mrs. Glendenning tell her story, please," she said to Edmund.

"I could have dropped it through the post slot, indeed," Celia agreed, nodding at Edmund. "You're quite right, young man. But I must admit to having another reason for coming to your house that evening. I wanted to look again at the photos I'd seen earlier on your mantel." Her gaze shifted back to me. "You see, ever since I first met you, my girl, you reminded me of someone. Someone I knew when I was a child, living in Norwich. Her name was Barbara-Elizabeth Ellis and she was jolly good fun to be with, but rather wild with it, all the same. She was always seeking attention and coming up with the most daredevil sorts of schemes. She was an incredible risk taker, too, and I was not encouraged to play with her. We never did become real
friends, but I watched her escapades from afar, with a kind of envy. Our mothers had once been friends, but her mother died of cancer when Barbara-Elizabeth was only about three or four, and I remember her father as a remote man who left Barbara-Elizabeth on her own most of the time. She grew wilder as she got older, always seeking attention of the most outrageous sort and messing up at school. Her father couldn't handle her."

Ivy's eyes met mine across the table, and when she rolled them at me, I knew my little sister was thinking
so what?
But I found I was holding my breath as I listened. Somehow this obnoxious woman's seemingly random story was going to matter. I listened hard.

"When we were teenagers," Celia continued, "Barbara-Elizabeth was sent off to live with her aunt and uncle in Hethel, a tiny village outside Norwich. But she soon ran off, taking all the cash they'd had on hand in their house. The aunt and uncle did make enquiries, and her father was quite upset, but the girl was nearly eighteen, and no one had any idea where she'd gone. When I met you, I was immediately reminded of her. Same eyes, same hair. Same shape of the face. You'll remember I asked you, Hedda, whether you had relatives in the Norwich area. You told me you didn't, and I knew your husband was from America, so I was stumped. I thought it must just be coincidence, after all, that your daughter should look so much like this girl I remembered from my childhood."

I shifted in my chair. "So ... where does my school photo come in to the story?" Despite my nonchalant tone, I was feeling a little tremor of possibility.

"I'm getting there, dear. But I must tell the story in my own way, so you'll see I'm not really a thief!" She chuckled.
"Poor dear girl, you had such a fright when you found me in the toilet."

I still didn't see what was funny about that, so I sat staring at her until she cleared her throat and continued her story.

"I rang my mother, who still lives in Norwich, though she's in a retirement home now. I asked her whatever had happened to Barbara-Elizabeth Ellis. Mum recalled that Barbara-Elizabeth did send her aunt and uncle a postcard—just one—about a month after she'd left, promising to pay back the money someday. But first, she said, she needed to get rich! Silly girl. But the exciting part about this news from my mum was that the postcard had been sent
from America.
From
California,
in fact. There was no return address on the postcard.

"Now I knew
you
all were from California, so I still thought there might be some connection. And then later, learning you had been adopted, Juliana, I felt even more certain there must be. The resemblance is too striking! My mum suggested I send a photo of you to her, and then she would show it to the aunt and uncle, and to Barbara-Elizabeth's father, who is still living in the same house in Norwich. I wanted to proceed cautiously, and not get their hopes up if there were no connection. I didn't want to tell you about what I was doing for the same reason. And, well, maybe you'd say it was none of my business! You'll remember I asked Kate to snap a photo of you and develop it quickly. That was so I could send it to my mum." She cast an irritated glance at Kate. "But her camera was broken—"

"It still is! Because
you
dropped it, Mother!" Kate snapped so unexpectedly that we all stared at her. "You don't think my camera is of any value, so you treat it like it's just some old plastic toy—and now it's broken!"

"It got knocked off the counter in the kitchen," Celia said icily. "And if you would put your belongings away properly in your bedroom instead of leaving them lying around, things wouldn't get broken."

"So you decided to get a photograph another way." Mom tried to get the conversation back on track.

"That's right," Celia nodded. "I let myself in with your key, took Juliana's school photo off the mantel, and put it in my bag. And then—what a fright I had!"

"Not as much a fright as Juliana had," Edmund, my staunch little protector, said severely.

"Well, perhaps not, dear," Celia said vaguely. Then she continued, "I heard someone fumbling at the door, trying to open it with a key! Of course, it was already open, so the person just locked it, trying to open it. That gave me the few extra seconds I needed to bolt into the loo. When I came out, I had the photo hidden in my bag, and I took it home and scanned it, and e-mailed it straight off to my mum in Norwich."

"What did she find out?" Mom asked.

"It is rather interesting," Kate murmured. "She sent us something—through the post. Something she got from her neighbor."

Celia drank deeply from her teacup, making us wait. I was holding my breath. Then she fished deep in her tote bag and withdrew another, smaller photograph. It was unframed. She turned back to me, and winked. "Barbara-Elizabeth's old dad gave this to my mum to send to you. It was taken the last year she lived at home with him, right before she was sent off to Hethel. What do you think of it?" She handed me the photo.