by Jane Kindred
He glanced up in surprise. “I did?”
“Yes, you did.”
He mulled this for a moment. “You can call me Koste if you want,” he said finally.
I smiled. “Thanks. I’ll try to remember to call you Konstantin, but I’m glad I can call you Koste too, if I forget sometimes. So what do you say we get to work?”
The time passed quickly while I took Konstantin through the basic set of exercises and corrected his technique on the areas he was still having trouble with. When the knock came announcing it was time for him to head back for lunch, I was expecting Roger. Instead, Aravella was at the door. I resisted the urge to slam it in her face.
“Time to go, Konstantin,” I said. “I’ll carry your crutches down the steps if you can make it down on your own. Just hang on to the rail, and you’ll be fine.”
He made it down the stairs and took the crutches from me, getting to the car without help, and Aravella watched his progress with a surprised and pleased expression.
“You’ve done such an amazing job with him already,” she said, coming around to the driver’s side once he’d gotten settled in the car.
I shrugged with my hands in my pockets. “That’s what you’re paying me for.”
“Still, it’s so much farther than I thought he’d be at this point.” Aravella paused with her hand on the latch of her door. “Listen, that was a shitty thing I did this morning.” That was true, but I certainly hadn’t expected her to say so. “There’s so much you don’t understand, but that’s not your fault, and I had no business leaving you stuck in Jerusalem like that just because you struck a nerve.”
I inclined my head. “Apology accepted. But I don’t think we have anything more to talk about. I’m not going to sign anything.”
“What you said about Koste needing a medical doctor—did you mean that?”
I was having trouble keeping up with her mercurial shifts. “Yes, I meant it. Something’s going on with him, and in my opinion, the last thing he needs is a shrink telling him it’s all in his head.”
“I know you think I’m being paranoid, Millie, but…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Is it possible he’s being poisoned?”
“Poisoned?” I gaped at her, glancing sharply at Konstantin, occupied with the handheld video game he kept in his pocket. “Why would anyone want to poison him?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. But I don’t have any control over what happens to him here. Signe is in charge of the household. Karolina works for her. She’s the one who decided Koste couldn’t tolerate gluten.”
“You think Karolina is putting something in his food?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore.” Aravella looked genuinely upset. “I just know he’s not safe, and I can’t even get him out of here because of that damned prenup.”
“What does the prenup have to do with it?”
Aravella’s fawn eyes were troubled. “If I leave Lukas, I have to give up all rights to my son.”
“That was in your prenup?”
The window on the driver’s side made a sudden buzz as it slid down. “Mamma, can we go? I’m hungry.”
Aravella’s worried look vanished, and she smiled. “Of course, darling.” She glanced at me. “Will you join us at the house for lunch?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I think I’m just going to take a nap. But why don’t you come by later, and we’ll continue our conversation over tea.”
Aravella nodded gratefully. “I’d like that.”
* * * * *
Before I settled on the couch for my nap, I checked my email and found another message from Cole. Shit. I’d forgotten all about him in the aftermath of the mudslide. He was still in a panic, still claiming there was no Jerusalem.
I tried calling him once more, and amazingly, managed to get through.
“Millie! Jesus Christ on a pogo stick! Where the fuck have you been?” Even pissed off and freaking out, his voice was a welcome sound.
“Hey, Cole. Miss you too.”
“Oh, sure. Just act like you haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth into a made-up town and sent bizarre emails about staying with your psycho ex who, need I remind you, devastated you.”
“Oh my God, Cole. I am not staying with him, and I am not in a made-up town. Jerusalem is right there on the map. Just google it.”
“You google it. Seriously. Right now.”
I sighed. “Fine. Googling. J-E-R-U-S-A-L-E-M, C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A.”
“And?”
I stared, confused, at the list of Bay Area restaurants and Southern California churches. “What the fuck?” I was positive I’d googled it before I even took the job. I had entered it into my GPS app. Or had I just entered the address the agency had given me?
“You see? Nice try. Next time, make up a city that actually exists. Seriously, Millie. It’s not funny anymore. Where are you?”
“I swear to you, Cole, the town is called Jerusalem. I don’t… This doesn’t make any sense. Maybe it’s a nickname. Or maybe it’s just never been mapped. It’s a really small town.”
Cole’s sigh was audible. “What’s all this about Lukas Strand, then?”
“I told you. I took the job before I realized it was his kid I’d be working with. He owns the Strand Winery, and his wife hired me. Or his aunt did.”
“You realize you sound like you’re just making shit up left and right, here.”
“Cole. I am not making anything up. The kid’s name is Konstantin. He’s a sweetheart. Broke his leg climbing in the lighthouse on the property—that’s where I’m staying. Anyway, I’m coming home in a few days, as soon as my car gets out of the shop.” I hesitated, and then decided to tell him the rest. “And, Cole? I know, you already think this sounds nuts, but…I found out I was born here. My mother died here. This is where the fire was.” I wasn’t prepared to tell him just yet that Lukas was my uncle.
There was silence on the other end, and I was afraid I’d lost the connection again, but after a moment, he responded. “Millie, I’m worried about you.”
“There’s nothing to worry about. Give me some credit, why don’t you?”
“If I disappeared somewhere nonexistent and told you I was at Eric Connor’s winery and I’d found my long-lost mom there, what would you think?” Eric had been Cole’s first boyfriend, who’d turned out to be a total dick, practically date-raping Cole when he was a freshman in college.
“I’d think you were being an asshole, since you weren’t left at a fire station with third-degree burns when you were two days old and you know exactly who your mother is.”
“Okay, fair enough. Sorry. But you have to realize how completely off-the-wall this sounds. You were born in the lighthouse Lukas Strand happens to own? And he just happened to meet you by chance twenty years later?”
“Not by chance.” My voice was quiet. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Wow. Millie, sweetheart, this is not cool. Someone is messing with you, big-time. I’m coming up there. Text me the address, right now.”
I opened my mouth to tell him off, but the connection dropped, and when I dialed again, it wouldn’t go through.
As it turned out, I didn’t get much of a nap. The fact that there didn’t seem to be any record of Jerusalem was a little unnerving, and I couldn’t get Luminous’s peculiar revelation that she recognized my mother in me out of my mind. And more annoyingly, the wind had picked up again, dragging a tree branch against one of the windows upstairs in a repetitive, unpleasant sound, like someone clawing at the sill. Aravella’s paranoia and Cole’s suspicions were obviously getting to me, because when Aravella returned at dusk and knocked on the door, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
She looked a bit nervous herself, glancing behind her as I let her in. “Thanks for agreeing to see me, Millie. I know I’m
probably not your favorite person right now.”
I shrugged as I went to the kitchen to put on the kettle. “According to Lukas, I’m not really yours either.”
“According to Lukas?” Aravella stopped in the doorway between the two rooms.
“He picked me up when I called from Jerusalem.”
Aravella frowned. “Millie, you need to stay away from him.”
“It wasn’t exactly my idea to hitch a ride with him.” I folded my arms and leaned back against the counter. “And I’m going to tell you right now, I don’t believe for a minute what you said about him knowing who I was.”
Aravella drew a heavy breath. “Look, Millie, I’m not supposed to tell you this.” She glanced over her shoulder at the lowering light. “And you’re not going to believe me anyway. But I owe you this much. The Strands are a very old family, with some very odd traditions. As I told you earlier, blood is very important to them.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning…they prefer to keep the family as pure as possible.” Aravella had begun to fidget with the shirttails hanging below her vest. “When Lukas married me, it was against my family’s wishes.”
I raised my eyebrow. “That’s not what he told me. He referred to it as an arranged marriage, some business-related merger of your families’ wealth.”
“That’s true. The Strands wanted it. But the Apostolous didn’t. Signe offered my father a significant…bonus…to give the marriage his blessing. The Apostolous were investors in the winery from its inception, and my father’s wishes were something Signe couldn’t ignore. The only holdout was Lukas. But when he came back from San Francisco voluntarily, the deal was struck. We’d been happy when we were first dating—before he learned about the family drama—and I thought we could be happy again when he came back and agreed to the marriage.” Aravella looked troubled, her eyes tight and her color off, as if she might be ill.
The kettle whistled, and I turned it off and studied her. “Are you all right?” I asked when she didn’t go on.
“I have to tell someone. I can’t take this anymore. I have to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“The reason Lukas hates me.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to this, and Aravella didn’t say anything further. “Let me get the tea,” I said, and she nodded.
She was quiet while I got out the Earl Grey and steeped it. It might keep me up later, but I didn’t think chamomile was Aravella’s style.
When I brought it into the living room and she’d stirred in the cream, Aravella held on to her cup with both hands as if for courage. “My family wanted to continue the Apostolou line. Signe, of course, wanted to continue the Strands’.” She took a sip and stared down at the cup. “That’s the reason the prenuptial agreement states that any child I have during my marriage to Lukas remains with him should I choose to leave. That my child will be a Strand, no matter what.”
I sat with my cup in my lap. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“Because they insisted, you see.” Aravella burst into tears, and I shifted awkwardly, eventually putting a hand on her knee, which only seemed to make her worse.
“Aravella?”
“They insisted,” she moaned. “It was family tradition.”
I moved my hand to her back, alarmed by her distress. “What was?”
“The Apostolou seed.” Tears were pouring down her delicate cheeks. “They wanted it to take root in the US. After the marriage was consummated, I had to accept the Apostolou seed, so that if I became pregnant, they would have a claim to my offspring.”
I set my cup down and swallowed, not sure I was understanding. “What exactly do you mean by the Apostolou seed?”
“Their seed,” she whispered. “My brothers. I couldn’t tell Lukas, but Signe knew. My father and Signe worked it out and forged the agreement. And after I got pregnant, my father told him. Told him that every time Lukas gave me his seed, I—” Aravella’s hands began to shake, and she dropped the cup, leaping from the couch as it shattered on the wood floor.
Chapter Eleven
I stared aghast as she ran to the bathroom. Her brothers? Making an effort not to listen as Aravella was ill, I cleaned up the broken china and the tea, trying to process what she’d told me and praying I’d misunderstood.
She returned after several minutes, her face pale and damp, and raised her red eyes to me. “Lukas didn’t understand why I didn’t just refuse. He wouldn’t forgive me for letting it happen. And when Koste was born, he didn’t want anything to do with him.”
“Letting it happen? Aravella, are you telling me your brothers…they raped you? And Lukas blames you for it?”
“No. No.” Her hair was damp around her face where she’d splashed water on it, and she pushed it back, raking her fingers through it. “That’s not how the families see it. They didn’t force me, not physically. None of the Meliae would ever do that. It was my duty. My father impressed that upon me. He said if Lukas had a sister, he’d have done the same. That’s how it’s always been done.” She gave me a significant look, and I realized what she was implying. If Lukas had a sister…or a niece.
“Who are the Meliae?” I asked, not wanting to dwell on this.
Aravella looked startled. “Did I say Meliae? It’s just a Greek word for the families.”
The wind had been howling around the cottage since the sun went down, that infernal branch scraping loudly against the upstairs window, and a sudden crash sounded above, accompanied by the musical notes of breaking glass.
Aravella let out a sharp gasp and looked to the stairs with panic in her eyes.
“It’s probably just the tree in back,” I said. “It needs to be trimmed. It’s been scraping and banging up there all afternoon.” I got up to check it out, but Aravella grabbed my arm as I headed for the stairs.
“I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have said any of this. Please just forget it.”
“Aravella, what your family did to you was wrong, and you’re not to blame. If Lukas understood—”
“No!” Her eyes widened with fear. “Don’t say anything to Lukas! Please. It’s all in the past. I don’t want to dredge all this up again.”
I put my hand over hers. “I’m not going to say anything. But I think you need to talk to someone besides me about this.”
Aravella pulled her hand away and shook her head. “I came here to warn you, Millie. You don’t understand what the families will do to protect themselves. You should get out as fast as you can. Sign the papers and get out and don’t look back.”
More glass fell upstairs. As I turned to head up and take care of it, the front door opened and slammed behind me. Aravella was gone. Just inside the door, the briefcase sat, as if she’d had it on the porch and thrust it inside as she left.
Upstairs in the bedroom where my mother had died, the wind was rattling the empty pane, and the tree branch was swinging where the glass had been, now shattered on the floor. I’d have to call the house and get Roger to fix it. Right after I had something to eat. I hadn’t eaten anything since the scone this morning, and hunger was warring with nausea. There was one last meal from Karolina in the fridge.
I closed the bedroom door and went down to heat up the Gorgonzola ravioli with creamy pesto and asparagus while Aravella’s words repeated in my head. “If Lukas had a sister, he’d have done the same. That’s how it’s always been done.” What kind of monsters had she grown up with that she thought forced incest was normal? My antipathy for her had dissolved into sympathy. I couldn’t imagine the shame she’d been living with, and to have Lukas turn against her after what had happened to her must have been devastating. Had he really understood what she’d gone through? I shuddered. No wonder he didn’t believe Konstantin was his.
The ravioli, as incredible as everything Karolina made, took my mind off the unpleasant th
oughts for the moment. I took my bowl to the living room and lit a fire in the fireplace before curling up on the couch to eat.
* * * * *
I couldn’t remember getting off the couch, but I found myself in my bed. Gloomy daylight was visible through the window. I groped for my phone and checked the time. Eleven a.m. Christ, when had I fallen asleep? I winced at a twinge in my hand as I set down the phone, and saw I’d cut my palm. It didn’t look like the scrapes from my fight with the hillside. It looked fresh. As I puzzled over it, a persistent rattling from upstairs reminded me about the broken window. I’d meant to call the house and ask Roger to come help me board it up with something until the glass could be replaced.
Before I could muster the energy to get up, another loud bang startled me. Someone was at the front door. I jumped up, realizing I’d slept in the buff, and pulled on my bathrobe as I stepped out into the hall just in time for Lukas to burst in.
I wrapped the robe tight. “Lukas? What’s going on?”
His expression was grim. “Is Aravella here?”
“Aravella? Why would she be here?”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“I don’t know…maybe…six o’clock yesterday evening?” I came farther down the hall to where he stood with fists clenched at his sides. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“She left me a strange text message. Said she was coming here to tell you ‘the truth’ and that I was to tell Koste she loved him. I didn’t get it until this morning. No one has seen her since yesterday.” He ran his fingers through his hair as if it took an effort to unclench them, leaving his hair disheveled. “What did she tell you?”
“I don’t think it’s my place to say.”
Lukas took a step toward me, his expression dark. “Millie, if you know something, tell me now. If something’s happened to Aravella and you withhold information, you could be liable.”