The Unquiet past
Page 18
“I…don’t know you,” Jackson said.
The old man smiled. “Perhaps not, in the sense that you don’t know much about me, but we have spoken. Just this evening, in fact. You were supposed to call me back.”
Jackson’s eyes went wide with dawning realization, and he turned to Tess. “It’s the man who sent me to Sainte-Suzanne. When I phoned home tonight, Mom said someone called and left a number, saying it was urgent. I called back from the dorm, and we agreed it was better to talk from a pay phone, and then the professor called and…” He turned to the old man. “Things happened.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Tess murmured.
“Why don’t you tell me about it?” the old man said.
Jackson shook his head. “Not until you tell us who you are and what you want. After tonight, we’re not trusting anyone.”
“Understandable. I was already concerned you’d uncovered a situation more dangerous than I expected. Walk with me a bit, and I’ll step out of the shadows, literally and figuratively.”
They headed for the lit path. The old man said, “I had a nephew. He passed on a few years ago. Cancer. In the end…it was terrible in the end. He was in agony and seemed to be losing his mind. He believed the cancer was punishment for something he’d done, some secret experiment from his time in medical school. Before he died, he begged me to find two children. His actions had, indirectly, led to them both being orphaned. He gave me the names and made me vow to find them and tell them what happened to their mothers. Yet he died before he could tell me what happened to their mothers.”
“He gave you our names,” Tess said. “Mine and Jackson’s.”
“Yes. I found you, and I made sure you were safe and healthy, but it seemed best not to interfere until you were older. I contacted Jackson last year, when he went to university. I wasn’t in any rush though. Not to reveal myself or to insist that you investigate your parents’ deaths. You’re young and you have other concerns, and, in truth, I was hoping to have more to give you before you began. My own inquiries weren’t getting me far. Travel is difficult these days.” He indicated the cane. “I have”—a vague wave—“health issues.”
“You were monitoring that phone number though. For the house in Sainte-Suzanne,” Tess said.
“Yes. I’d sent that envelope to the Home, to be opened on your eighteenth birthday. I’d bribed the local operator to contact me if anyone ever called the number.”
“You could have just given Tess your number,” Jackson said.
He smiled. “And deprive her of an adventure?” He shook his head. “I had nothing to tell her. Just an address and old phone number. It seemed best to entice you both with a mystery. Now, if you’ve found the solution, I would love to hear it. That, however, is up to you. It’s your story. My only job was setting you on the path to finding it.”
Tess looked at Jackson. He nodded, and she told the old man everything.
Epilogue
One Month Later
TESS WALKED OUT of the admissions office, clutching a folder in one trembling hand. Jackson stepped from the shade of a maple and came to meet her.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
At those words, the kernel of panic inside her exploded. “I don’t know. It’s so late, and my school record is good, but it’s not exactly from a normal school, and the interview seemed all right, but maybe they were just being nice—”
He cut her off with a kiss. “They’re never being nice. I’m sure it went well, so I shouldn’t have asked.”
“What if I don’t get in?”
He put his hands around her waist. “Then you have a plan. What is it?”
“Work in Montreal and try for winter-term admission.”
“Exactly. And if you wanted to travel instead…” He met her gaze. “I won’t hold you back, Tess. I want the girl I met in Sainte-Suzanne, the girl who does exactly as she pleases. Admittedly, I would hope you wouldn’t plan to travel forever, or I might do something stupid, like follow you—”
“I’m not going anywhere. I will one day, but…”
She might not have traveled as far as she’d planned, but she’d found what she was looking for. A future. Not necessarily with a boy. That was nice—very, very nice—but it was like building a house on unstable ground. She had to make her own future. All her life she’d dreamed of traveling, and now she’d done it, and she realized it hadn’t been a destination so much as an escape. She’d wanted to get away from Hope and that constricted life. Moreover, she’d feared she didn’t have a future, not a long one, that in a few short years the visions and the nightmares would rob her of it, and so she had to do and see everything right away.
She knew now that she wasn’t going crazy. Which meant her future stretched ahead as far as she could see. Meeting Jackson and coming to McGill had shown her that she wanted something different. Like Jackson, she wanted to learn. Also like him, she had no idea what she wanted to learn. He was just starting to realize that himself, to admit that the path his parents had set him on—to a career in law—might not be what he wanted. They would explore their options together.
The trip to McGill for her interview was only a brief interlude in a busy summer. They’d reported Steve from Sainte-Suzanne, which had meant police interviews. Jackson’s father had helped with that. Tess was staying with Jackson’s family. They’d insisted she do that while they all unraveled the mysteries of what had happened at Sainte-Suzanne with Tess’s and Jackson’s mothers.
Tess had learned more about her mother, with the help of Jackson’s parents. She had indeed walked into the path of a car. Accidentally, from all reports. Had she been lost in one of her visions? Or was it a result of the experiments—the confusion and memory loss? Tess didn’t know, but she’d learn more someday. For now, she had a real name: Thérèse Vaillancourt. A real name and a glimpse into a real past.
Dr. Augustin had been right—there was no father’s name on her birth certificate. That didn’t bother Tess as much as she’d thought it might. She had her answers. As for her identity, that was up to her. She’d make her own. Discover her own.
“Tess?”
They were walking now through the campus, holding hands. Jackson looked over at her, his brows knitting.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Je vais bien,” she said, stopping and putting her arms around his neck. “Très bien. Et toi?”
He smiled. “Très, très bien,” he said and leaned down to kiss her.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, thanks to Eric Walters for inviting me onto this project and to my fellow Secrets authors for their patience with my first collaborative series effort.
Thanks to Sarah Harvey at Orca for her help knocking this one into shape.
Thanks to Xaviere Daumarie for checking my French and reminding me about all those accent thingies I really did mean to add…later.
And thanks to my daughter, Julia, for double-checking my research, knowing that while I love to read historical fiction, writing it always makes me nervous!
KELLEY ARMSTRONG is the author of the Cainsville Modern Gothic series and the Age of Legends YA fantasy trilogy. Her past works include the Otherworld urban fantasy series, the Darkest Powers and Darkness Rising teen paranormal trilogies and the Nadia Stafford crime trilogy. She also co-writes the Blackwell Pages middle-grade fantasy trilogy as K.L. Armstrong with M.A. Marr. Armstrong lives in southwestern Ontario with her family. For more information, visit www.kelleyarmstrong.com.
For more Secrets:
ReadtheSecrets.com
Copyright © 2015 Kelley Armstrong
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Armstr
ong, Kelley, author
The unquiet past / Kelley Armstrong.
(Secrets)
Issued in print, electronic and audio disc formats.
ISBN 978-1-4598-0654-2 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-4598-0657-3 (pdf).—
ISBN 978-1-4598-0658-0 (epub).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1088-4 (audio disc)
I. Title. II. Series: Secrets (Victoria, B.C.)
PS8551.R7637U57 2015 jC813'.6 C2015-901750-5
C2015-901751-3
C2015-901752-1
First published in the United States, 2015
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015935515
Summary: In this paranormal YA thriller, Tess embarks on a quest to find out the truth about her parents and realizes that she possesses unusual powers that link her to the past.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Cover design by Teresa Bubela
Front cover image by iStockphoto.com; back cover images by Shutterstock.com
Author photo by Kathryn Hollinrake
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
www.orcabook.com
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