Fiona (9 page)

A few days later,
when I can't battle the boredom anymore while Poppy's at school, I decide to run a few errands. After lunchtime, I ask Albert if he can drop me off at the village.

“Not a problem,” he says. “I've got to visit someone at the hospital at Beasley, not too far from there.”

“I'm sorry,” I say, and he blinks at me, confused. “That your friend is in the hospital,” I clarify.

Albert smiles slightly. “Thank you.”

I nod, confused by his lack of reaction, and follow him silently out to the car.

Albert drops me off at the familiar intersection by the train station and tells me he'll pick me up in a couple of hours. I wave goodbye to him and take a moment to look around at the tiny
cluster of stone buildings. This place is unusually sleepy, even for a Wednesday afternoon.

I decide to go to the store first. The whispering has continued every night, and even with the help of my heather chamomile tea, I'm having trouble ignoring it. It feels like I've only slept in snatches of time for the past few days. I'm hoping that a good pair of earplugs will bring me some peace. And I need a new phone, one that I can use in Scotland. With the bit of salary that's been put in my bank account, I buy the cheapest smartphone I can get and set up a plan. Just having it in my pocket makes me feel more independent.

I still have an hour until Albert comes back, so I head for the pub next, seeking shelter from the wind that seems to grow bitterer every day.

A group of old men sit at the bar, the pub's only patrons, but they fill the dark space with their good-natured laughing.

I cozy up to the bar, one seat over from the men, and order a Coke from the taciturn bartender. I'm eighteen, so I could order a beer or anything else I wanted here, but I want to keep a clear head. Though as I consider what I came here to do, I wonder if some liquid courage might help.

I promised myself that, once I got here, I would ask around about my mother's family. I want to know more about her
parents, my grandparents, who died before I was born. I want to know what they were like.

The men beside me are glued to a soccer—football—match on the suspended TV, all agreeing very loudly that the referee is some kind of idiot.

Eventually, one of the men looks over and catches me watching them. “Anything I can do for you, lass?” he asks, sounding amused.

I take a deep breath and nod. “Yes, actually. Have you . . . did you ever happen to know a girl named Moira Cavendish? She lived here about twenty-five years ago.”

“She of the fancy Cavendish people?” he asks, rubbing a hand against the back of his bald head. “Big house about half an hour from here? All that money from their wool mills?”

“Oh. I guess?” I say, surprised. I always got the impression that Mom's parents were well off, but his description makes it seem like it's much more than that. “Her parents were Angus and Greer Cavendish.”

“Were? They're still alive, far as I know.”

I grip the edge of the bar tightly with both hands. “I'm sorry, what? They're still alive?” I ask.

I feel the blood drain from my face, and the man leans a bit closer to me. “Are you all right, lass?”

How can they be alive? They can't be. Mom told me that
they died soon after she left Scotland. She wouldn't tell me how—she said it made her too sad.

Was she lying to me?

All of the men are staring at me now, and I take a deep breath. I can't freak out. Not now, not here.

I start ripping the damp napkin beneath my glass to shreds, focusing on the little decimated pieces as I ask my next question. “What are they like?”

Thankfully, they all lean back and start drinking again, probably just relieved that I didn't keel over or faint. “Haven't ever met them,” says the first man. “But I bet Tommy knows—hey, Tommy, you know the Cavendishes?”

“Aye,” Tommy says, dressed a bit more formally than the others, in a tweed jacket. “Did a bit of work on their toilets a few years back, over at Dunraven Manor.”

Dunraven Manor. Is that where my mother grew up?

“Tommy's the best plumber in all the northwest,” his companion boasts.

“Was,” Tommy corrects. “I'm retired now, which is why I can spend my days sipping whisky with you worthless lot.”

As his companions laugh, Tommy looks to me. “I met the missus once. She was a frosty kind of woman. I was only too happy to work with the head housekeeper after that, believe me.”

I nod, trying to look interested and not as nauseated as I feel.

“Do you know anyone who might know them? A bit, um, better?” I ask.

“We don't run with the fancy set. Better ask the Moffats up there at the castle or some such if you want to know about that sort.”

I nod, taking a final sip of my Coke and hopping off the barstool. “Thank you,” I say to the group as I slide the bartender a few pounds. The men all tip their caps at me as I walk out.

I look around the village, as if I'm seeing it for the first time. My grandparents. My grandparents are alive and not far from here. I have a family.

Why would Mom lie? Were my grandparents cruel to her? Did they disown her because of my dad? What happened all those years ago?

And why didn't Lily mention my grandparents in her emails to me? Did she assume I knew they were alive and just didn't think to mention it?

I don't understand any of this. Questions overwhelm me, and I shove the palms of my hands against my eyes.

I spend the rest of the afternoon wandering up and down the road, those questions banging around inside my head as I wait for Albert.

Beyond the image of my grandmother as a standoffish
upper-class woman, the men hadn't offered me much. They didn't know the Cavendishes, not really.

If I want to find out anything, I'm going to have to ask Charlie. But I can't ask him without revealing that my mother used to be one of the “fancy set,” as Tommy called them. And if I reveal that, I could end up revealing everything: her schizophrenia, her suicide, the danger in my own genetic makeup.

I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear for him to see me as I see myself: a ticking time bomb. I imagine him telling Blair, how she would look at me with those feline eyes and a grimace of distaste. They wouldn't understand. They would see my mother as damaged, as trash. They wouldn't see her as the woman who poured her soul into her music, who taught me Highland dance and the Texas two-step, who challenged me to sword fights with wooden serving spoons around the apartment until we both collapsed from giggling too hard.

I can't ever be Fiona Cavendish. I am Fiona Smith and will keep my father's name, like I've always done.

Charlie can never know.

My teeth are chattering by the time Albert finally pulls up, and I get into the heated car with a sigh of relief.

I head for the stables
at five that evening to meet Poppy after her ride. Gareth is nowhere to be found, the only sounds in the dark space the pawing and snorts of the horses.

The horse to my left, the smallest in the stable, looks up at me with calm eyes. I approach it cautiously, and it sticks its head out the door to meet my outstretched hand. I stroke its long snout, which is velvety-smooth beneath my fingertips.

“Hi,” someone says behind me.

I whirl around, nearly falling into Gareth as I stumble over my own feet. I brace my hands against his strong chest until I regain my balance, and then a moment longer, as I look up to meet his eyes. “I'm here for Poppy,” I say quickly, snatching my hands back.

He nods with mock solemnity, like he doesn't believe me, and I can't help but roll my eyes.

“It's okay,” he says, planting the shovel he's carrying into the ground. “You can admit it. You just couldn't wait to see me again.”

I should frown at him, shoot him down. He's using the same hollow charm that Charlie tried on me that night he was drunk. I think of Alice and know I should deflect this immediately.

But I can't help but laugh. This house is filled with so much grief and pain, and this news about my grandparents has made me feel so confused and off-balance. It feels good to laugh again, to flirt with a cute guy and not have it mean anything. So I bat my eyelashes dramatically at Gareth and coo, “Yes, I just can't stop thinking about you. You haunt my every thought or whatever.”

He laughs, resting his arms on the shovel. “Poppy should be back in a few minutes. She and Copperfield were just having their therapy session.”

“Their therapy session?” I repeat, my sarcasm falling away.

He smiles. “That's what I call it, anyway. Only time that girl relaxes is with that horse. I guess it's her way of working through the darkness.”

“You understand what she's going through?” I ask, but it
comes out more like a statement. Because there's this tone in his voice that I recognize. A tinge of heartbreak.

He clears his throat, all traces of laughter now gone. “My pa was a drunk. Spent most of his life in the pub and ended it in a ditch. He'd tried to walk home in a snowstorm.”

“And your mom?'

He looks away, down at the ground. “Ran away with a bloke from the village when I was six. He was married, left a wife and five kids. He came back a couple of years later, but my mum never did.” He shrugs, like it means nothing, but I can tell what it's costing him to tell me this. I know that talking about all that pain can feel like reliving it.

The small horse snorts, and I realize that we're standing too close together, my body leaning too much toward his. I blink and step back as casually as I can.

“I'm sorry,” I say, because it's the only way a person can respond to a confession like that.

He nods. “Me too. About your mum.”

My breath stutters in my throat until I realize that he just means that he's sorry that she died. He doesn't know about her illness. “Thanks,” I breathe out.

Suddenly I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling confused and scared and sad all the time. I want to be free of it all, if just for
a moment. I want to feel brave and in control. I want to work through the darkness, the way Poppy is.

I look back at the horse whose snorting interrupted us, and, before I can second-guess myself, I ask Gareth, “Can you teach me how to ride one of these things?”

When I look back at him, his eyes are wide with surprise, and a warm smile is growing on his face.

“You can ride Oliver here,” he says, grabbing a saddle and heading toward a huge gray horse in a stall a few spaces down.

“Oliver?” I ask.

“Oliver Twist. Got him last year with Copperfield, when Poppy was going through a Charles Dickens phase.”

A ten-year-old who loved Dickens. No wonder Poppy's not having any trouble with English class.

“What about the small one?” I ask, pointing at the snorting horse I'd been petting.

“Nessie? She'd bite your hand off as soon as look at you. Oliver's a safer beastie.”

I pull my hand away from Nessie immediately.

I watch Gareth expertly saddle Oliver and lead him out to the yard, and my stomach begins twisting in knots. I liked the idea of riding a horse much better when it was safely in a stall, calm and still. Now that I'm thinking it through, I have no
desire to get up onto the back of one, especially one as big as Oliver, who seemed a much smaller, more docile creature back in his stall.

Gareth must be able to see the tremendous doubt on my face. “Oliver's a big softie, aren't you?” he says, rubbing the massive creature's neck like they're old friends. “He'll be a good horse to learn on,” he assures me, holding out his hand.

I stare at his outstretched hand for a second, unable to move.
Take a chance, Fee
, I tell myself firmly. It's what Hex used to say to me whenever I'd get too much inside my own head. She was always encouraging me to step out of my comfort zone and take control of my own life. She thought I let my fears rule me, and I knew she was right.

So I pretend to be brave and take Gareth's hand. He clasps mine firmly. “Put your left foot in the stirrup here,” he instructs.

I'm just about to when Oliver nickers and shifts his feet, and I back up hastily.

Gareth pats Oliver's neck again, watching me. “Come on, then,” he says.

I look into his eyes and see the challenge there, and so I march back up to that damn horse and put my left foot in the stirrup. Gareth hands me the reins and shifts behind me, placing his hands on my waist. Before I can react to his touch, he's
lifted me up, my right leg swinging over Oliver's broad back to find the other stirrup. And I am officially on a horse.

I've seen plenty of people do this before—the rodeo in our town was the biggest annual tradition, and some families had a horse or two tied up in pastures on their property. But those people, and of course Poppy, look natural up there. I don't think anything about me hesitantly perched upon Oliver looks natural.

I glance down at Gareth as he adjusts my stirrups and catch the remnants of the smirk on his lips. “What do I do now?” I ask, my voice at a much higher pitch than usual.

He takes the reins from my hand. “Why don't I just lead him around a bit so you can get used to the feel of him?”

I nod. I can handle that. I think.

Gareth clucks at Oliver and pulls him forward. The beast follows, and it's as if a massive, solid wave is rolling underneath me. It's strange, but not as terrifying as I was sure it would be. Before I know it, I'm actually smiling.

Poppy and Copperfield canter over as Gareth and I are circling around the yard.

“Not bad,” Poppy says, casually slinging herself off Copperfield. I try to square my shoulders and stop looking as unsettled as I feel.

I hear a delighted laugh behind me, and I shift to see Blair walking over to us from the castle, her slate blue eyes shining as she watches me. “Oh, sorry,” she says, covering her smile with her hand. “Is this your first time on a horse?”

I blink. “Yes,” I say.

“Well, good for you for trying,” she says brightly, and I instantly want to get off this horse and hide under a rock somewhere. I frown down at my hands so that I don't frown at her.

“I think that's enough for today,” I tell Gareth quietly. He nods, looking from Blair back up at me, a frown on his face as well.

“Swing your right leg back over,” he says. I slide down into his arms, grateful to be back on solid ground.

His hands linger on my waist for a moment, and I look anywhere but at him. Which is how I see Blair watching us carefully, that calculating look on her face. It's only there for a second, until she meets my gaze and replaces it with an expression of bland politeness.

“Come on, Poppy,” I say quickly, stepping out of Gareth's grasp. “Let's get started on your homework.”

• • •

That night, I wrap myself up in a blanket on my bed, warding off the pervasive chill of the attic. I type “Dunraven Manor” into
the map app on my phone and study the route I would need to take from the closest village, Perthton, not too far from here. My grandparents are there. So close to me.

I press my fingertips to my temples, rubbing circles there as if I could clear my thoughts, but that's not going to be enough to get me to sleep. So I slip out of my blanket and patter down to the kitchen to make a mug of chamomile tea.

I'm just putting the kettle on the stove when I see Mabel scurrying past the doorway, holding an electric lantern in her hand. Like the electric lantern that Poppy used to show me the strange room below with the tree in the middle of it.

I can't help it. I go to the door, peek out, and see her disappear down the hall that leads to the heart of the tower and that terrifying spiral staircase. I sneak down the hall to see the reflection from her lantern cascading down the steps, then hear the scrape of the door closing behind her at the bottom of the stairs.

What is she doing down there?
I strain to hear something, but all I get is silence.

The thought of her down there, in that room with its strange crackling air and that spindly tree trunk . . . it makes me tremble. Does she truly believe the tree has some kind of magical power?

What would I find if I crept down that narrow staircase and opened the door?

My pulse races at the thought of it, and an unnerving sensation creeps over my skin. I hurry back to the kitchen, where the kettle is screaming bloody murder. I take it off the burner and run back up to my room without my usual cup of tea.