The Kingdom (29 page)

She was on the verge of another denial. I could see it in her eyes. Then she seemed to deflate, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Amelia, why can’t you just leave it be?”

“Leave what be?”

“I knew nothing good would come of you going up there to that place. If I could have found a way to stop you, I would have.”

“Aunt Lyn—”

“It was all such a long time ago. Best forgotten, I say.”

I reached over and took her hand. “Don’t I deserve to know the truth?”

She took my hand in both of hers and closed her eyes on a sigh. “Of course, you do. But I never wanted to be the one to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

She dropped my hand and smoothed back her hair, as if trying to soothe her emotions. “It’s not my place. And I don’t really know all the details, anyway. Your papa’s always been so secretive, but that’s his way. Keeps everything bottled up inside. If only he and Etta had been able to talk it through. But…” She let out another breath. “That’s all water under the bridge now.”

I watched her anxiously. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I know you don’t.” She was silent for a moment. “Has either of them ever told you how they met? They don’t talk about it much.”

“I know they met here in Charleston.”

She nodded absently. “Your father was one of the caretakers at St. Michael’s, and Etta spent a lot of time in the gardens there, especially in the days leading up to her wedding.”

“But she and Papa weren’t married at St. Michael’s.”

“I don’t mean her marriage to your papa. Etta was engaged to her high school sweetheart before she met Caleb.” She pressed a hand to her heart. “They were such a handsome couple. A perfect match. Everyone said so, and Etta, bless her, bought into the notion that she was destined to lead a fairy-tale life. I guess that’s why she was so devastated when he left her. Not at the altar, mind you, but close. He broke it off the day before the wedding, and Etta was inconsolable. You can imagine the humiliation. And there was Caleb, in love with her from afar. He was a comfort to her and a balm to her shattered pride. They eloped a few weeks later.”

I sat in stunned silence. I’d never before heard the details of my parents’ courtship. The hasty marriage didn’t sound like either of them to me. They were both so cautious and reserved. So…restrained.

“What does any of this have to do with Asher Falls?” I finally asked.

“I’m coming to that.” My aunt seemed to muster her thoughts as she idly picked at a loose embroidery thread on her tunic. “Your mama and papa…they lived up there for a while.”

I almost gasped. “In Asher Falls?”

“It was a long, long time ago. Caleb hired on with a stonecutter that summer. He loved the work, but Etta hated living in the mountains. She hated that place. Said it was oppressive. It did things to her, played with her mind. She tried to tough it out, but she missed her family. Missed Chaa’stun. So she came home. Eventually, Caleb quit his job and followed her. They reconciled, but things were never quite right. I’ve heard people say that the hardest thing in the world is to live with someone you don’t love. But I’ve always thought it would be far more difficult to live with someone who doesn’t love you.”

“You don’t think Mama ever loved Papa?”

“In her own way, I guess she did. But he was never going to be the love of her life and he knew it. That’s hard on a man. Hard on his pride. Understandable, I guess, that he would turn to someone else.”

“Papa had an affair?” I could hardly imagine such a thing.

“That was Etta’s suspicion. There was a woman in Asher Falls… I never knew her name. She had no family, no husband or children. She worked as a midwife, I think. I guess she and Caleb were both lonely. Something happened between them. Etta knew, but she put it behind her and she and Caleb never spoke of it. She had other worries by then. Other heartbreaks. So many devastating miscarriages. Years passed and they moved to Trinity. Etta eventually gave up on the notion of having a family. Maybe it was for the best, she said. They were getting too old, anyway. Too set in their ways. And then one night seventeen years later, Caleb was called away. When he returned home, it was in the dead of night. With you.”

My heart was pounding. “Where did he get me?”

She shuddered. “From that awful place.”

“Asher Falls?”

“You were such a tiny thing and so upset. You cried and cried for days.”

“Why?”

“You’d been through some trauma. I don’t know any of the details of your birth. I’m not even sure Etta knows everything. But whatever happened the night your papa brought you home…whatever he found in that town…changed him.”

By this time, my aunt had worked herself into quite a state. She sat wringing her hands, which was not at all like her. Mama was the high-strung one. Lynrose had always been her rock.

It was strange, but the more agitated she became, the calmer I grew. I felt almost detached, as if we were talking about a stranger or someone I barely knew. “Who is my mother? My birth mother,” I clarified, because no matter what happened, no matter what I found out, the woman who had raised me would always be Mama.

“I never knew and that’s the God’s honest truth.” She bit her lip. “But Etta and I have always had our suspicions. You see, the woman we think Caleb had the affair with, the midwife… She had a daughter.”

“How do you know?”

“Your mama found a picture among Caleb’s things once, long after he brought you home.”

I shook my head in confusion. “And the girl…”

“Was Caleb’s daughter. Your mother.”

“But if that girl was my mother, then Papa—”

A tear spilled over and ran down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand as she nodded.

That moment was very surreal, and I knew later on, I would never be able to describe it. The snapping together of those puzzle pieces. If everything Lynrose suspected was true, then the man I had always known as my adoptive father—my beloved Papa—was in reality my biological grandfather. That was why we could both see ghosts. I had inherited my ability from him.

My mind flashed back to that first sighting in the graveyard and to the look on Papa’s face when I asked him about the ghost. There had been regret and pity in his eyes because he had known what my life would be like from that moment on. The years of loneliness that faced me.

I looked down at my clasped hands. The knuckles had whitened. “What about my biological father?”

She shook her head.

I thought about the porcelain wing I had found in Papa’s treasures and suddenly I knew it was true. Freya Pattershaw was my mother and Tilly, my grandmother.

“Why did no one ever tell me any of this before?”

“Because those memories are still too painful. And because…” She trailed off on a whisper.

“Because why?”

My aunt reached over and clutched my arm so tightly, I winced. “You can’t utter a word of what I’m about to tell you. Promise me you won’t tell another living soul.” Her nails dug into my flesh, and her face had gone as ashen as my sick mother’s.

“Aunt Lyn, let go! You’re hurting me.”

Her grip eased, but her brimming eyes held me enthralled. “The night he brought you home…your papa was covered in blood.”

* * *

I had an early dinner with my mother and Aunt Lynrose before heading back to my place on Rutledge Avenue. I hadn’t said a word to my mother about any of my aunt’s revelations. I would never risk upsetting her when she needed all her strength to battle the cancer. Somehow I’d managed to put on a mask and playact my way through the meal.

But now that I was alone in my own garden, my mind returned time and again to that conversation. Papa was my biological grandfather. That somehow felt right, even though I was still in deep shock. He’d always seemed so old to me. White-haired and stoop-shouldered for as long as I could remember. Mama was older, too, but she had the kind of grace and beauty that wore well with age and seemed timeless.

I sat in the swing, lost in thought, as Angus became acquainted with his new home. It was a cool, breezy night, one that made me think of summer’s end. Of lost love. Of Mama and her high school sweetheart. Of Papa and Tilly Pattershaw.

Inevitably my mind turned to Devlin. I wallowed for a moment, and then I tucked those memories away.

And now it was Thane Asher who occupied my thoughts.

* * *

When I arose the next morning, I knew I had to talk to Papa before I went back to Asher Falls.
If
I went back. I’d promised Thane that I would return, but if I really was the target of evil, then I had no future with him. I had no future with anyone. My loneliness—once an old friend that had sheltered me from the real world—was now the enemy, a monster that threatened to swallow me whole. I searched for an end, no matter how dire, but now I couldn’t trust my own thoughts. Maybe the evil was still inside me.

I almost expected to find the house closed up, but Papa’s truck was in the driveway, and when he didn’t answer my knock, Angus and I walked down to the cemetery to look for him.

The scent of fading roses drifted on a mild breeze as we wound our way through the lush trails of ivy and creeping phlox. I found Papa working on the angels, the collection of fifty-seven statues that commemorated those children whose lives had been lost in an orphanage fire at the turn of the last century. It had taken Papa years to restore the memorials, and as I moved among them now, I couldn’t help but compare those sweet, pensive faces to the hubris of the Asher angels. But I didn’t want to think about those arrogant, upturned visages that watched the mountains. I didn’t want to dwell on what had happened between Thane and me in that dreamy circle. Time enough later for brooding.

Papa glanced up as I approached, then went right back to his work.

“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” I said.

“Your aunt called.” His voice had thinned in the past year, and his face was even more weathered than I remembered. But the passing years hadn’t diminished his quiet dignity or his distance. He was right there before me and yet he seemed a million miles away.

“You know why I’m here, then.”

“Yes, child.”

I drew a trembling breath. “We have to talk, Papa. No more secrets.”

“Those secrets were meant to protect you, Amelia.”

“I know that. But the only thing that can protect me now is the truth.”

Silently, he gathered up his tools and put them away. “Let’s sit a spell,” he said, and we sank to the ground, facing the angels, our backs to the gate. When Angus padded over and plopped down at my feet, Papa leaned in absently to rub his head.

“That’s Angus,” I told him.

“Where did you get him?”