The Truth Against the World (8 page)

Gareth re-read the post. What if he could meet her at the airport? Then he could
show
her the mutating photos. Assuming
there was anything in them by the time he looked at them again. He glanced warily at his bag, which still held his phone.

It hadn't rung again since he'd come inside. But that didn't mean anything. What if it kept happening? How would he explain it?

He'd have to turn off the ringer. He had no idea how to even begin talking about this with his parents.

When he pulled the phone out to silence it, he got another shock. The background image was the silver sports car, a Jaguar F-Type.

It was as if none of it had ever happened.

Dear Gareth,

I know it's hard to believe, but the photo you sent of the clifftop, with those stones, is exactly the place I saw in my dream. Exactly.

I didn't see anyone in the picture. But I believe you. This might seem like a stretch, but I wonder if the Olwen you saw is the same little girl I saw in my dream? I think we should try to research Cwm Tawel at the time she lived. Maybe we can find something out. Can you check online records? I'll keep asking my Gee Gee.

We leave in four days. I'll send you a link to where we're staying. Please come if you can. I'm getting a temporary phone, so send me your number.

—Wyn

Gareth closed the email window on his phone. The previous night, he had told Wyn everything. And he was surprised at how much lighter he felt simply because someone
knew
. Someone who didn't laugh or joke or doubt. Someone, in fact, who claimed to be having a similar experience.

Yet another improbable coincidence in his currently unbelievable life.

Wyn was right, though. They only had two potential sources of information about the other Olwen: her great-grandmother, and the collective wisdom of the Internet. At least searching the Internet was something Gareth knew he was good at.

He got up off the sofa and sat down in front of the computer in the corner. It seemed like a good idea to start with a general search and then narrow it down from there; a good history site would probably have regional information. He typed
“Wales history”
into the browser search box and hit
Enter
.

Really? 277,000,000 results?
Gareth sagged in his chair. Who knew so many people were interested in Welsh history? He scrolled aimlessly through a few of the pages, then typed in
“Cwm Tawel”
along with
“Wales history”
to see if that narrowed things down. It helped a bit, but he was still faced with thousands of possible matches: The local newspaper. Civil budget proposals. Boring government documents from the last ten years. He rubbed the back of his neck, wondering what other keywords he could use.

Then, about halfway down one of the pages, a site caught his eye:
South Wales Historical Society
. It seemed as good a place to start as any. He clicked the link, and found a short listing of regional subheadings:
Pembrokeshire, Vale of Glamorgan, Cardiff, Newport
. He went straight to the
Swansea
link and clicked.

It was a directory of sites, and the very first listing was Swansea Local History:
Information on the local history of Swansea and its environs, including Gorseinon, Llansamlet, Pontarddulais, Gowerton, and Cwm Tawel.
He grinned to himself and murmured “Yes, thank you, I
am
good.” He rapidly clicked into the site, fidgety with anticipation.

He was only vaguely aware of the sound of the front door opening, but seconds later Tommy entered the living room and bounced on the sofa, clarinet in one hand.

“I want to play Angry Birds,” he said loudly.

“I was just finishing up,” Gareth said. “Five minutes, I promise.”

Tommy jumped up and down. “Mum said I could!”

“Give him a minute, Thomas. And sit, please.” Mum sat down in the green easy chair with a quiet “aaahhhhh,” letting her hair out of its severe bun; Dad sank down onto the sofa and clicked on the TV remote. Tommy climbed down and headed toward the computer.

Gareth quickly bookmarked the link and shut the browser window. He'd have to try again later, or use his phone to check. Stupid Tommy. Annoyed, he spun the chair around to face his brother, who was now creeping toward him with his hands behind his back. His face was cloaked in a rather suspicious smile.

“What have you got there? Give it here,” Gareth said with a frown.

“It's nothing. Just something I got at school.”

“Show me,” Gareth said warningly, expecting the worst. A worm, fuzzy with pocket lint? A wad of used gum? He braced himself for something vile when Tommy opened his hands over the desktop, but all that spilled out was a handful of toffees.

Gareth eyed them, but they looked perfectly normal. “Can I have one, then?”

Tommy nodded, his eyes wide.

Gareth unwrapped a toffee and put it in his mouth. He immediately spat it out again. It tasted like it had been coated in salt.

“Blech! Bloody—what did you do to it?” He felt like gagging. “You little slug. I should have known.” He grabbed his brother around the middle and dangled him upside down, thinking about how satisfying it would be to pummel him into the sofa cushions. Tommy shrieked and laughed. “I'm serious. You are an annoying little twit.”

“Gareth! What's going on over there?” Their dad turned the volume down on the television. “Leave your brother alone.”

“He did something to this toffee,” Gareth said angrily, but he let Tommy go. His brother scooted over to the couch with a nasty grin.

“I don't care what he did,” Mum said, eyebrows raised. “There's no need to be short-tempered.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, taking deep breaths. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. Slowly, his anger dissipated.

His mum made them apologize to each other, which annoyed him all over again. “All I wanted to do was finish researching this thing online, and Tommy won't let me be,” he complained. “I have exams coming up, and all of this other stuff keeps happening.”

“What other stuff?” his dad asked, glancing sharply at him. “If something's wrong, tell us, but don't take out your temper on your brother.”

“But he was the one who—”

“Enough,” his mum said. “We're all tired. Tea first.”

Gareth's shoulders sagged as he headed into the kitchen after his parents, but in a way, he was relieved. He couldn't believe he'd blurted that out about “other stuff,” and then managed to escape a real explanation.

But maybe it was time for him to say something. It was only a matter of time before his parents found out about his phone acting weird, or caught him talking to Wyn. If he actually told them about it—not all of it, but some of it—maybe he could do something more than just search the web. He sat up straight in the kitchen chair. Maybe, if he didn't botch it up, he really
could
meet Wyn in person.

Hours later, after his brother had gone to bed, Gareth came downstairs in his pajamas and sat in the easy chair. His parents broke off their quiet conversation.

“You look like you've got something to say.” His mum's tone was light, but she looked at him intently. Clearly she hadn't forgotten his earlier outburst.

“Here's the thing,” Gareth said, swallowing down his nervousness. “I have a friend online, sort of a pen friend, from the USA. Olwen Nia Evans.”

“Isn't that a lovely name,” his mother said, relaxing a bit into the sofa.

“Her parents must be Welsh,” said his dad with a small smile. “Did you ask her about it?”

“Yeah, so, this is really amazing,” Gareth continued. “Her great-gran, who lives there with them, is from Cwm Tawel, same as Great-Granddad.”

“Is that so?” Both of his parents looked interested now.

“Are you sure she isn't having you on?” His mother looked at him doubtfully. “It could be one of those scams. Like the Nigerian prince.”

“It's not,” he insisted. “I even talked to her on video chat. She's a real girl, Mum.”

“Video chat.” His mum closed her eyes for a moment, looking a bit pained.

“Honestly, it's just like that pen friend you told me you used to have in Budapest,” Gareth said nervously. “We were just writing to each other at first, and it came up in our emails, the Cwm Tawel connection. That's why I asked if there were Evanses in the family. I thought we might be distant relatives or something. And she's really interested in her family history.”

“It's not impossible she's related somehow,” his dad said, and Gareth relaxed a little. “But it's so hard to figure these things out. There aren't always records from these small villages, and some of them got destroyed during the war.”

“There's more,” Gareth said. “Wyn's great-gran … she's got cancer. It's bad.” He crossed his arms, then uncrossed them again. “So their family is bringing her to Cwm Tawel for the summer so she can be in her hometown. They're coming soon.”

“That's quite a big decision to make. I imagine their family is feeling quite uprooted at the moment.” His mother looked at him questioningly.

“Well, Wyn wants to find out more about her great-gran's life. She's kind of a writer.”

“Get to the point, Gareth,” his dad said.

He let out a breath. “Okay. I thought perhaps I could meet her there and we could go around getting stories from Great-Granddad and the other old folks in the village. After school lets out, I mean. I could stay with Great-Granddad, have a bit of a visit.”

And maybe he could find out something more about the gravesite, about the other Olwen. Maybe he and Wyn could even go to the cromlech themselves, if he could remember where it was. All he knew was that it was near a beach, and they'd driven there.

“Going back to Wales by yourself?” His mum gave him a confused look. “We were just there, and you complained the entire time.”

“I thought Wyn might like some company. You know, with her gran being sick. I could take her out hiking.”

Gareth's dad winked at him knowingly, and he felt his cheeks go red. “I mean, she's never been here, and she doesn't know anyone besides her family, and—”

“Very charitable of you, yes,” his dad said.

“I'll make all the plans. I can research the train schedules and everything,” Gareth told them. “I'll even call Great-Granddad and let him know I'm coming.”

His mum looked at his dad. “What do you think, Aled?”

“You know, son, there's no Internet in Granddad's house,” his dad said solemnly, one corner of his mouth twitching.

“That's okay,” Gareth said, inwardly wincing. “I'll have my phone.”

His mum got up, turning off the table lamp. “Anyhow, we can talk about the details later.” As she walked past, she put a gentle hand on his head. “It's time for bed.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mum.” He was already halfway to the stairs when something else occurred to him. “Hey, maybe we could meet Wyn's family at the airport when they arrive.”

“There's no need to be bothering them when they're trying to get settled in, Gareth.” His mother turned back to look at him. “And you have exams coming up and there's no need for extra distractions.”

His dad nodded in agreement. “Your mum's right. Exams first. Don't worry, you'll be on holiday before you know it,” he added in an annoyingly jolly tone.

Gareth didn't bother responding to that. Trudging upstairs, he tried to suppress his disappointment. He wouldn't get to meet her for a while yet. But at least he would be able to go to Cwm Tawel. That was the important part.

He closed his bedroom door and climbed into bed. As he reached out to turn off the bedside lamp, he heard a chime from his phone: a voicemail message. Probably Amit. He propped himself up on one elbow and dialed his mailbox.

Silence. And more silence.

“Not again.” He sighed loudly, trying to ignore the growing knot in his stomach.

There was a second message. This time somebody did speak.

But it still wasn't Amit. It was a small girl's voice, a familiar voice. Like an echo, a memory: “ … promise me that you'll come back to visit me? I'm so lonely.”

The voice faded into nothing.

The line was dead.

10

Y doeth ni ddywed a ŵyr.

The wise will not
say what he knows.

Welsh proverb

“Are you still online? It's high time you went to bed, missy,” Dad said, rumpling my hair as he walked past. From the kitchen, he called out, “If you're having trouble sleeping I can make you some herbal tea.”

“That's okay,” I said. “I'm almost done.” I typed the last lines of my email to Gareth as quickly as I could and hit
Send
.

“What's got you up so late, anyway? More Welsh?” Dad came back in, holding a glass of water, and hovered uncertainly.

“No, just writing to my friend.” It had been a few days since I'd last opened the Welsh language software and I felt a slight stab of guilt.

“
Something on your mind, baby?” He looked a bit down himself; a double frown-line creased the space between his eyebrows, and as he sat down, he sighed heavily.

“You look tired, Dad,” I said, avoiding the question. “Are you okay?”

“Sure,” he said with a wry smile. “The vacation cottages are going to charge us an outrageous fee for carting in a hospital bed, and your mom is having kittens about only having three days to pack, and I have a kid who's got a computer growing out of her lap. Everything's peachy.”

“Sorry.” I shut my laptop and set it on the coffee table.

“What about you, though?” he persisted. “I want to make sure you're handling everything okay. What's the scoop these days?”

“Nothing much.” But a smile crept onto my face. “I kind of … met a guy,” I confessed, not looking at him. “Not really ‘met,' I guess. He's been reading my blog. We started writing to each other because he thought he recognized my name. He's got Welsh family, too, and here's the thing.” I finally met my dad's eyes, unable to disguise my excitement. “His family's from Cwm Tawel, too! He lives in London now, but anyway, I can't believe it. Maybe I'll get to meet him.”

“Hmm,” my dad said. He wasn't smiling. “What did you say his name was? I'd like to do a little background checking to make sure he is who he says he is.”

“
What?
Dad, come on.” I stared at him. “I'm not an idiot. I checked around. Plus, we talked on Skype. I've seen his face.”

Dad scowled at me. “I'm sure you were thorough, but Mom has access to all kinds of databases at the law office. I'd feel a lot better if we found more out about this person before you decide to meet him. Which I'm still not sure is a good idea.”

“Okay, okay.” I relented, but I was still seething at his implication that I could actually be duped by some middle-aged Internet predator. “His name is Gareth Lewis. But I promise you, he's a teenage boy. And not a psycho.”

“I'd like you to forward one of his emails to me so I can look at the header data,” Dad continued. “And maybe during one of your chats, I can say hello to him.”

I let out a wordless noise of frustration. “Fine. I wish you would trust me, though.”

Dad's face softened and he shifted toward me, hugging me with one arm. “I do trust you. But you're fifteen years old. I still want to protect you.” He squeezed my shoulder. “I can't help it. I'm a dad, and we're about to spend the summer in a place I haven't visited since I was your age. Cut me some slack, man.”

I rolled my eyes, but I leaned into him.

“I'm sure Gareth is a perfectly normal kid. Just humor me, and we'll see what happens when we get to Wales.”

I sighed. That was probably the best I could hope for. It still wasn't a sure thing, but I was starting to feel a tiny bit excited about seeing Gareth. We would work it out somehow, I was certain. Maybe this was a good sign.

I stood in front of the antique mirror on my dresser, pulling out folded piles of underwear and socks. In the spotted glass, I could see Rae's reflection, sitting subdued on the rumpled bedclothes.

“I can't believe you're leaving.” Rae ran a hand through her short, dyed-coppery hair. “You have to email me as soon as you get there. Or I'll worry you were eaten by wolves.”

“I'm pretty sure there aren't wolves in Wales.” I laughed a little, but at the same time I felt like crying. My face in the mirror looked pinched and pale. “I'll write to you as soon as I can. The main farmhouse has wi-fi but our cottage doesn't.”

“What'll I do without you?” Rae wailed, flopping back onto the bed.

I rolled my eyes. “You'll be fine. Don't you have that leadership program for student government?” I asked pointedly. “You'll have Bethany.”
And you could have been hanging out with me more this whole time anyway
. But I didn't say that.

“We've never spent a summer apart,” she said, her voice still sad. “Can you believe it? We even went to that horrible camp together back in fifth grade, the one where I got eaten alive by mosquitoes and you fell into the river with your shoes on.”

I relented, finally. “My purple Converse sneakers. I was so mad I yanked Derek Atkinson into the water after me.” Now I
was
crying, and smiling at the same time. I shoved aside a pile of sweaters and sat down next to Rae on the bed. She leaned her head on my shoulder.

“You know, if you end up marrying that Gareth guy, you have to invite me to the wedding.” That surprised me into laughing again. “Or you guys can just sneak off and do it behind a bush, but you have to tell me everything
.
”

“God! My parents are scared he's a predator, while
you,
on the other hand, are the actual perv.” I shoved her back onto the bed. “Give me some credit. Anyway, at this rate I might never get to meet him.” I hated to even think about that possibility.

“You have to, Wyn.” Rae was serious now. “You're going to be alone there. You need a friend. It'll make it feel more like home.”

Home. Wales would be home for the next month at least. Maybe for the whole summer. I swallowed back a lump in my throat.

“Rae, can you hand me that duffel bag?” I sniffled a little and started stuffing a change of clothes into it.

“Hey,” Rae said after a few silent minutes of me packing. “You'll have to learn to drive in opposite land.”

“Um, no.” I zipped up the green duffel. “I'll take driver's ed this fall instead.” I tried to sound like it didn't matter, but I still felt an emptiness in my chest. I'd be missing so much.

A few months was starting to seem like forever.

Alone in my darkening bedroom, I pulled my bulletin board off the wall and started unpinning photos: me and Rae as kids, playing on China Beach with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background; me as a two-year-old with my parents at Christmas, Mom with feathery 1980s hair.

A photo Gareth had sent me: the desolate church by the sea, the one that was the same as the scene in my dreams. Just looking at it made me shiver.

And my favorite, an old black-and-white photo of Gee Gee when she'd first moved to the United States: long dark hair swept up into an old-fashioned-looking knot, the expression on her round face somber, almost sad. In the picture, she was wearing a pale, 1950s-style dress and fingering an oval silver locket that hung around her neck. I remembered being disappointed, as a child, when she told me she'd lost that locket.

Last but not least, I pulled off a strip of photo-booth pictures of me and Rae. My throat tightened again, and I shoved all the pictures into the back of my new Welsh dictionary. Before Rae had left, I'd hugged her for what seemed like the longest time. Now she was gone, and I already felt like something was missing from my life. Even if maybe it had already been missing for a while.

Moonlight and shadows dappled my bedroom ceiling. I was too queasy to sleep. A cricket emitted muffled creaking outside, and I could hear Dad snoring all the way down the hall. I couldn't imagine what it would be like in a tiny cottage. Not to mention on the flight. I hoped Mom had earplugs.

I lay on my back, idly following the moonlit patterns as my eyelids began to droop. I had no idea what time it was, and I didn't want to know, since my alarm was set for 5:45 a.m. and the airport shuttle was coming less than two hours after that.

When I opened my eyes next, I was sure I was dreaming. The soft beams and the ambient light from a nearby streetlamp had coalesced into one wide ellipse on my ceiling, like a silvery spotlight. I sat up and peered more closely at the pool of light; but when I looked back down, I could see my sleeping form sprawled out on the bed, moving restlessly on top of the covers. Then I was floating up rapidly toward the moonlight, up toward and into it. It spread over my skin like a cool bath, spilling into my eyes so that all I saw was pearlescent darkness.

Before I could see again, I could feel, and I patted my hands around me: grass under my left hand, tree bark under my right. There was a strong smell of pasture and wet sheep, and then a scene blinked into view. In front of me was a small valley, more like a dip in the hilly landscape. The slopes were dotted with cottages, crisscrossed with dirt roads and hedgerows, and bordered by newly tilled farmlands. Though dusk was gathering rapidly, there was not a single light to be seen in any window. All was quiet except for the occasional “baa” of a restless sheep, and a distant roaring, buzzing sound that might have been airplanes. And, a moment later, the low, rippling tones of a woman's laughter, followed by a young man's voice.

“They'll be missing you at dinner—come on!” Two shadows separated themselves from the larger mass of tree-shapes, and I was drawn along in their wake, back toward the gloomy cluster of cottages.

The two figures separated after reaching a main road, and I floated behind the smaller one, a woman in a dress hastening toward a cottage on one of the side roads. The windows of the cottage were pitch dark except for a line of candlelight showing through the slit of an open door. The woman hurried toward the strip of light and slipped in.

One last insistent whisper escaped into the night.

“Come now, Rhiannon, inside, or the warden will be catching you! There were air raids again tonight, you foolish girl.” The door shut and I heard the sound of a bolt being driven home.

Had that been Gee Gee? Before I had time to wonder further, I was drawn backward, irresistibly pulled; but thickly, as if through mud, and buffeted with so many images that I could only discern a few: An older man, ravaged by age but wearing a dented saucepan helmet and carrying a rifle. A young man, handsome and blond-haired, standing in a line outside a shop clutching a fistful of ration coupons in a mud-stained hand. He smiled briefly, a moment of sun in a gray, sad landscape.

A flood of children, mostly alone, but some clutching their mothers' hands, spilling from a train, clutching battered suitcases and gas masks. This last image filled me with such a profound sadness that I began to sob, crying out into the dim pearly light that was surrounding me again as it had at the beginning of the dream.

I awoke with my cheeks wet and throat raw. It had been a dream, but so much more than “just a dream.” Much more than ever before. It was far too real.

I sat up and wiped my eyes. What had happened to Gee Gee back in Cwm Tawel, during the war? I needed to ask her this. I needed to talk to her alone—about the dream, about the things she wasn't telling me. I didn't know if I'd get the answers I was looking for, but I would have to try. I had to find out everything I could; I couldn't think of any other way to make the dreams stop, except maybe sleeping pills. But somehow, I had to make the dreams stop.

I wasn't sure I could handle it otherwise.

Morose and sleepy, I stared out the cold glass window of the airport shuttle at the foggy morning light, the pastel houses of Daly City. I'd be stuck in various sorts of enclosed spaces with my family around me for the next, oh, twenty hours or so, with no escape—and no way to talk to Gee Gee in private. I wanted the chance to be direct with her, even if she was being evasive.

It was interesting … no matter what she'd told me about her childhood in Wales, it was always like a story, a “once upon a time” where everything was magical and good. But it couldn't have been like that. It was wartime.

I'd already sensed she was leaving some things out.
Would she want to remember the rest of it?

If I showed her Gareth's photo of the clifftop, what would she say?

I didn't know what to do next, but I needed to figure it out, before … what? Before time ran out. Before Gee Gee died. Before I lost my chance. I dug my fingernails into the hard vinyl armrest and let out a loud sigh, then repeated under my breath:

“
Coeden
.” Tree. “
Bryn
.” Hill. “
Mynydd
.” Mountain.

“How're you doing up there, Wynnie?” Dad's voice floated faintly up from the rear seat. “Carsick?”

“I'm fine.” I didn't even sound convincing to my own ears. I turned around to give him a weak smile. “Just a little nervous.”

From the middle seat of the van, Gee Gee reached forward and gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder. I could feel her hand trembling, and that made me feel even worse. How could I ask her about something that might be upsetting? I turned back to the front and swallowed hard, fixing my eyes on the San Francisco airport terminal buildings that drew ever closer.

Then the shuttle was stopping at the International Terminal; then we were rolling our suitcases across the walkway to the curbside counter; then the uniformed employee was helping Gee Gee into a wheelchair and we were at the airline check-in desk, hefting the suitcases onto the scale.

“Boarding passes and IDs, please,” the woman said briskly, smiling. She clicked around on her computer for a minute or two, then stamped our printouts.