The Truth Against the World (3 page)

4

Hir yw pob ymaros.

All waiting is long.

Welsh proverb

I picked up my spoon and slurped up a mouthful of minestrone soup, organic store brand. My parents were arguing without trying to sound like they were arguing. I stared blankly across the dinner table, thinking about verb conjugations and wondering how I'd ever learn to pronounce the letter “ll” and trying not to worry about Gee Gee, alone in the hospital overnight.

“
Ll
,” I muttered, but I couldn't seem to do it without spitting. “Llangollen. Llanelli. Llyn y Bala.” I could just see myself visiting Wales someday, riding the bus somewhere, asking where Llangollen was and everybody laughing at me. “
Llwy
.” Spoon.

“Everyone speaks English there, Wyn,” my mom burst out, sounding annoyed.

“Don't take this out on Wyn,” Dad said mildly.

I was sick of this. “Don't take what out on me?”

There was a long silence, then Dad put his spoon down inside his empty soup bowl. I got a strange feeling, suddenly scared of what he might say, and I stopped eating.

“What?” I asked.

Mom sighed. “There's no sense in keeping it from her, Rhys.”

“I know.” Dad looked right at me, shut his eyes tightly for a moment as if in pain, and then opened them again. “It's Gee Gee. She wants to—” He broke off.

I twisted my hands in my lap, looking from one to the other.

“She doesn't want her life to end without having seen her home one last time,” Mom said bluntly. “She wants to go back to Wales.”

Dad pressed his lips tightly together. “We can do this. As a family.”

“Wait—what?” I stared at him. “Right now?”

“Summer,” Mom said shortly.

There was a long, painful pause. “It's going to be expensive.” She was talking to Dad again, and I could sense the argument threatening to boil over. “A month, maybe two, abroad? With only a few weeks to plan?”

I couldn't believe it. I'd always wanted to go to Wales. And yet now I wanted to cry, because I knew what it meant. I knew what they weren't quite saying.

Gee Gee wanted to die there.

Dad put a hand on my shoulder. “Your Welsh will come in handy,” he said, his voice strained. “You'll be able to pronounce all the place names.”

He was trying so hard. Too hard. I forced a smile.

“Just don't let it interfere with your sleep,” my mother added. “You've been awake a lot lately. I hear you muttering in there.” My smile disappeared. I hadn't been sleeping well and the whole family knew it. It was impossible to hide anything in our house; all four of us were crammed into our second-level flat. It had only been a few months since Gee Gee first moved in, and I started having the dream soon after that.

Stress, my mom said. I wasn't so sure.

I'd always had vivid dreams, but this was … different somehow. Maybe because it just didn
'
t
feel
like a dream. Or maybe because I would wake up with my heart pounding, covered in sweat. Sometimes more than once a night.

“My sleep is fine,” I said flatly, not meeting my mother's eyes. Lately, whenever I woke up in the wee hours, I'd turn on my laptop and start listening to things in Welsh—
podcasts, Internet radio, anything at all—losing myself in the rhythms, the music of the words. It was better than lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, one word repeating itself over and over in my head:
cancer
. One word my parents never seemed to say.

“When is Gee Gee getting home again?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“The day after tomorrow,” my mom said. “She's finished with that clinical trial, but they want to run a few more tests.” Tests. Once liver cancer metastasizes, the prognosis isn't good; I didn't need more tests to tell me that. That was why Gee Gee had refused further treatment. That was why there was a hospital bed in our office.

That was, clearly, why we were going to Wales.

I'd be surrounded by Welsh people, speaking Welsh for an entire summer. It felt unreal. I'd tried out other popular Celtic stuff: Irish folk dancing, Scottish Highland Games, Elizabethan dress-up at the Renaissance Faire, even steampunk outfits at the Edwardian Ball. You can do anything you want in San Francisco, and I had cardboard boxes full of costumes to prove it. But Wales was better. The minute I heard the language, I knew.

And in a few short weeks, we'd be there for real. I looked down at my hands, turning my Celtic knot ring from the Ren Faire around and around on my finger. It would be my first time overseas, my first vacation out of the country.

It might be Gee Gee's last.

Born to Wyn, May 15, 12:32 p.m.

I've learned enough Welsh to say “Hello, my name is Olwen Nia Evans and I come from California.” I can also say “Please,” “Thank you,” and “Where are the toilets?” If I can manage to hold a conversation by the time we get there—even a boring one—I'll be happy.

Other than visiting Grandma Hazel in Orlando (and her new husband Angus, who served with Grandpa William in Vietnam—a long sad story that actually had a sort-of happy ending!), this will be the far
thest I've
ever traveled.
I've
even started dreaming about the trip.

It's a nice change from the other dream, the recurring nightmare.

I deleted the last line and typed instead,
Maybe if I keep listening to Welsh music while I sleep, I'll learn by osmosis.

I didn't talk much about the dream, even though my blog wasn't really all that public. Judging from the lack of comments, I was pretty sure nobody was reading it. Not even Rae. I tried to tell myself that a minimum of unsolicited advice is a sign of a good listener. If so, my blog was definitely a good listener. A bit less satisfying than talking to a real person, but better than nothing.

The after-lunch bell rang. I logged out and pushed my chair back from the computer in the library. Rae just kept having more and more student government meetings, leaving me in lunchtime limbo. There were too many days like today, spending my lunch period doing homework or blogging in the library.

I tried to make it romantic somehow; tried to see myself as a solitary writer, not needing anyone. In the long vintage sundress I was wearing today, at least I looked the part. But it still felt like an act.

I hitched up my backpack and pushed open the library doors, squinting into the late spring sunlight—pretty, but I preferred our usual gray weather, the sky pearly with soft clouds and the air cool and smelling like the sea. Clearly everyone else disagreed with me. The masses of Geary High School students were a rowdy, happy, shouting mob in jeans and T-shirts, ready for the weekend to start.

I stood off to one side, feeling very alone.

Maybe it was a good thing I was going to be gone this summer.

Just a couple of hours later, I paced back and forth across the living room, all the lights blazing. Being home alone in a converted Victorian that creaked and cracked during a rainstorm was too creepy. Mom and Dad had called to say they were stuck in traffic and wouldn't be home with Gee Gee until later. Plus, water was pouring out of the sky, complete with thunder
and
lightning, which would make their drive even slower.

I really didn't want to be alone right now. But I didn't want to brave the storm, either. My steps led me into the kitchen. Silent and empty. Then back to the living room.

This was crazy. I had to talk to
someone
. I grabbed my phone, sat in the tiny window seat at the corner of our living room, and called Rae. She would know the right thing to say; she always knew how to distract me, how to make me laugh. The first day we met, in third grade, she made vampire fangs out of French fries and made me snort milk out of my nose in the middle of the cafeteria. We
still
laughed about that.

The phone rang seven times, long enough for me to wonder what she was doing and whether she'd been avoiding me all day, and then she finally picked up.

“What's up?” She sounded distracted.

“Are you busy?” I asked.

“Um … kind of,” she said. “I'm helping my mom make wontons for the student government meeting tomorrow.”

“I could help,” I said, frowning. I'd made wontons with Rae and her mom a million times. “I feel like we haven't talked in ages.”

“Eh, they don't deserve your magic touch,” she said. “Anyway, what's up?”

I ticked off each point on my fingers, even though she couldn't see me. “My house is empty and creepy. My Gee Gee is sick. Mom and Dad keep arguing. Nobody reads my blog. Oh, and I haven't been sleeping well because I keep having weird dreams.”

“Have you been snacking late? It might be an indigestion problem,” Rae asked innocently.

“Har har.” I looked out the window, down at the street: the rain had stopped. People were shaking off and closing up their umbrellas, either hurrying home with briefcases held close or dressed up and heading out for sushi in Japantown. It was like looking at an aquarium of strange, colorful fish, only I was the one trapped inside the tank.

The figures blurred behind the wet glass, and I wondered if I should tell Rae the truth: that there was something weird about this dream. Something scary, uncanny. I shuddered, not wanting to think about it.

Rae spoke again, sounding serious now. “If it's a real problem, maybe you should tell your parents?”

I shook my head. “They'll probably just make me see a therapist. I don't want to talk to a stranger.”

“Better a therapist than Chinese herbs,” Rae said. “Trust me, you do not want to drink my mom's stinky tea. It works, but—” She stopped abruptly and let out an
eep
. “I'm so sorry, Wyn. I have to go. Listen, though, I think you
should
talk to someone.” She paused. “Maybe your great-grandma?”

I thought for a moment. “Maybe,” I allowed.

“Okay, good,” Rae said. “I promise I'll call you on Sunday, 'kay?”

“Okay,” I said forlornly, and ended the call.

I leaned my forehead against the cold glass of the window. How could I ever explain something that was so completely off the wall? I hadn't even known where to start with Rae. I hadn't even had a chance to tell her how lonely I was feeling.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I wondered if this was just another thing that was changing, ending, like everything else in my life right now.

Born to Wyn, May 15, 6:37 p.m.

It's raining outside, and everything is slipping through my fingers like water.

I'm alone. Maybe that's why it feels like the right time to say this. If any of you are faithful readers of this blog, you should probably know this about me: I have recurring dreams. I always have. But the one I've been having lately—it's different. Scarier.

In this one, I'm standing in front of a mirror, the huge one with the wooden frame that takes up half my dresser, the one Gee Gee gave us when Great-Grandpa John died and she had to move into a smaller place. We've had it since I was a kid. I reach out to run my fingers over the carved frame, the wood seeming warm and alive under my hand.

There is a girl reflected in the mirror. Is it me? She looks familiar. I reach up to touch my hair; the girl in the mirror reaches up to touch her long, dark hair. She's wearing a dress, a white, billowing dress. And then her hair is turning white and she's going blurry like an unfocused camera lens, but she's still smiling although she's old now, wrinkled. As I touch my own face, my skin crawls with nameless dread, but my face feels normal.

A small black fuzzy patch appears on the old woman's dress, like mold, then grows in snaking tendrils that spread over the white figure, faster and faster, until she's completely obliterated and the mirror shows only darkness.

I moved my mouse to the
Save as Draft
button. I wasn't sure I was ready to let this one out into the world, nonexistent audience or not. I let the cursor hover over
Publish
, then moved back to the draft button. I closed my eyes, listened to the rain pouring down. Washing everything clean. Almost everything.

My hand trembled, sliding the mouse a millimeter. Darkness behind my eyes.

I had to let go.

I clicked the button and turned away.

5

Nid cyfrinach ond rhwng ddau.

It is no secret unless
it is between two.

Welsh proverb

Gareth shoved the front door open with his shoulder, his hair flopping into his eyes as he juggled keys, school bag, and a plastic bottle of water.

“Coming in or not?” he shouted.

“Keep your pants on.” From the sidewalk, Amit gave the soccer ball one last kick; it arced high and landed in Gareth's mum's neatly weeded flower bed. “Oops.” He retrieved the ball and set it next to the gate, then jogged up the front walk. “What's wrong with you these days? You're all grumpy and weird. Is it a girl thing?”

“What? No. I'm just tired,” Gareth said. He switched on the light in the narrow front hallway, and Amit followed him inside.

“Are you sure? I heard Anita saying that the Year Nine with the red hair fancies you.” Amit paused. “Or maybe she said ‘Aaron,' not ‘Gareth.' But still. My point is, you're being a tosser.”

“You're the tosser,” Gareth retorted automatically.

“Knobhead. Arseface.” Amit dumped an armload of books on the living-room floor. “Did you start your history project? It's due next Monday.”

“Yeah, I was just thinking about that. I still have loads to do on it,” Gareth said. “Family history. It's such a primary-school assignment.”

“I don't even want to think about it.” Amit sat on the floor and started rummaging through his bag, pulling out a notebook and pen.

Gareth sat at the desk under the side window and switched on the computer. Next to it was a handwritten list his dad had left for him, for the family tree part of the project, with names and birthdates of all his aunts, uncles, and cousins. He scanned the list briefly: Uncle David. Aunt Liz. Uncle Nick, Aunt Rhian. Cousins Bronwen and Nia …

Something about that name “Nia” rang a bell. But he was sure he didn't know any other girls by that name. Except …

“Olwen Nia Evans.” The words slipped from Gareth's mouth involuntarily, almost a whisper. He hardly noticed he'd said anything, just stared into space until a crumpled-up wad of paper hit the side of his head.

“Oi,” Amit said. “What're you muttering about over there?”

“Eh? Nothing. Talking to myself.” Gareth shook his head. What had he been doing? Oh, right; the history project.

“Better not be programming mumbo-jumbo. IT exam's not until next year.” Amit poked Gareth in the foot with his pencil. “Even
you
don't need to study that long.”

“Ha ha.” Gareth threw the wad of crumpled paper back at his friend.

Amit caught it easily, then flopped onto his back on the paisley carpet, tossing the wad of paper and catching it again. On his second toss, it hit the ceiling and ricocheted back down onto his forehead. “Bloody Christmas!” Amit rolled around theatrically.

Gareth laughed, and swiveled back around to face the computer. “Yep. Tosser.”

“I,” Amit declared, “am amazing. Even your mum loves me. She wishes she had a daughter so I could marry right into your family.” He sat up and opened his math book.

“The horror,” Gareth said. He clicked into the browser so he could start researching public records. The browser window was open, the cursor poised over the blank URL field waiting for him to type, but there was something … .

His head felt fuzzy all of a sudden.
Something was nagging at him, like he was trying to remember an important date or name. But he didn't know what he was trying to remember. If he'd been sleeping better lately, maybe he could actually remember—

Olwen Nia Evans.
The name drifted into his mind like a thread of music into a silent room. This time he was acutely aware of it, heard each syllable as if someone were speaking right into his ear. His entire body shuddered like someone had run their finger down his spine. But nobody was there. Just Amit, studying trigonometry formulas across the room as if nothing had happened.

Then it hit him.

Weeks ago, during the spring holidays. A deserted hillside trail through green meadows, a cliff overlooking the waves. And the grave. The plaque had said “Olwen Nia Evans.” Just to make sure, he pulled out his phone with the snapshots of his trip and scrolled to the one with the cairn.

There it was:
“Our Little Girl,” Olwen Nia Evans, 1944–1950.

This time, there was nobody in the photo.

Gareth felt cold sweat on his forehead and wiped it away impatiently. He didn't have time for this. He'd probably imagined the girl appearing in the picture, anyway. Or dreamed it or something. He turned his attention back to the screen, trying to focus. Family history project. All he really had left to do was research the public records and fill in the missing dates on his family tree. Then he'd type up his interview with his dad and be done with it.

“Hey, which of the essays did you pick?” he asked Amit. “The interview or the one about the history of your surname?”

Amit groaned. “Oh, no. Don't remind me.”

“I know,” Gareth said. “I picked the interview. I didn't think my dad could
be
that boring. But my great-granddad didn't want to do it, so … ”

“The frowny one who lives in Coom-Whatsit?”

“Cwm Tawel, yeah. ‘Quiet Valley' in Welsh. Really quiet, I guess, since he didn't have anything he wanted to say about it.” Gareth shook his head and tried to get back to work. But something was still rattling around in his mind. Great-Granddad … Cwm Tawel … It was as if his brain was trying to make some connection but wasn't there yet.

He accessed the Office of Public Records website and typed in a few names, copying down dates of marriage for his great-grandparents. “Married, Ellen Angharad Hughes, Swansea, 1952,” he mumbled under his breath. He stopped and put down his pen. Cwm Tawel. The cromlech.

Olwen Nia Evans.

He was struck with a sudden urge to type “Olwen Nia Evans” into the Public Records search box. He took off his glasses and wiped the sweat off his forehead again.

“You look positively green,” Amit said. “You didn't eat in the canteen again, did you?”

“Ugh … no.” Gareth leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. What was wrong with him? “Sorry. Maybe it's the flu.”

“Maybe it's that time of the month,” Amit said, and then ducked the flying pen Gareth aimed at him.

“Very funny.”

Amit grinned, checking the time on his phone. “I should go, anyway.” He gathered his books and notes into an untidy stack and pulled on his Arsenal Football Club stocking cap. After a moment, Gareth heard the front door shut with a bang, and the room was blessedly silent.

He let out a lungful of air. A strange feeling had been building up inside him, and his shoulders were tense and aching.

Olwen Nia Evans
. It wasn't a whisper this time; it was just a thought drifting past. But he'd had enough. The photos. The name. The weirdness. “Fine!” he said loudly, and typed the name into the search box before he could change his mind.

Despite all logic, a shiver of anticipation ran through him and he crossed his fingers. Maybe if he found something out on Public Records, he could stop fixating.

The search results came back as he watched. For a moment, all Gareth could see on the screen was the reflection of blue eyes peering intently from his worried-looking face. He swallowed and stared at the results page. Odd. There was no entry. More precisely, there was an entry, but a blank one. Just a name with birth and death dates. No other information.

They were the right dates, though. At least now he knew for sure she existed.
Had
existed. That had to be enough to satisfy his subconscious curiosity, didn't it? The girl in the cromlech couldn't have been the same Olwen. It was impossible. End of story.

All this bloody research into his family tree. It was making him obsessive.

Gareth scrolled down the screen to find the
Search Again
button and realized he'd missed something, just below an inconspicuous heading labeled
External Search Results
. It was a single line of hypertext:
Olwen Nia Evans (Blogsite)
. No further information.

He clicked on the link. He didn't know what he'd find—maybe historical records or old pictures scanned in. If he could find something on Cwm Tawel, it might be useful for his project.

The page loaded. Gareth stared for a moment. It wasn't what he'd expected at all.

Born to Wyn
.

That was what it said at the top of the page, in a fake typewriter font. It was someone's blog. A prefab template—he could tell by the simple layout.

On the right he could see the top part of a photo, still loading. Below was the blogger's bio. It said:
Call me Wyn. Short for Olwen Nia Evans. San Francisco native.
Mythology buff. Language nerd. Compulsive writer. Self-confessed geek girl
.

Interesting.
His eyes kept returning to her name: Olwen Nia Evans.

Before he could read more, before he could check out any of the actual posts, the rest of the picture appeared. Gareth froze, his pulse beating in his ears. Long dark hair; thin oval face; dreamy smile. It could almost have been her. The girl from the cromlech, from the photo. The ghost girl.

Or whatever. He told himself to be logical. This Olwen was years older than the little girl he'd seen in the cromlech, and obviously existed now, somewhere in San Francisco. He looked more closely. This girl—Wyn—had brown hair, not black. She really wasn't quite the spitting image of the other girl, like he'd thought at first. Still, there was a resemblance, wasn't there? It was eerie.

And her name …

He had satisfied his curiosity, all right. But now he had a new nagging question: Who was this other Olwen, the living Olwen Evans? Was there some sort of a connection, or was he reading too much into it?

Before he could talk himself out of it, he started typing.

Hello Wyn,

My name is Gareth Lewis. I live in London. I don't know quite how to put this without sounding cheesy, but in a way I feel like I already know you.

It sounded like a chat-up line, a bad one. But it was the simple truth.