by Jane Kindred
“If I didn’t say it yesterday in all the chaos, I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
He nodded an absent acknowledgment, little lines of pain etching crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes.
“How’s Koste?”
Lukas sighed. “That’s why I came up to the cottage. He’s handling it about as well as you’d expect. I tried to frame it in abstract terms, which was a mistake. He thought his mother had left him. Telling him flat-out what happened in order to counteract the damage that stupid tactic caused—I don’t know if that was the right thing to do either. But I had to tell him. Didn’t I? I feel like I’m floundering, like I don’t know the first thing about my own son—how to communicate with him, or how to comfort him.”
“It’s just like with adults. Sometimes there isn’t any right thing you can say.”
He tilted his head at me, and I wondered what he was thinking. “Where were you just now?” he asked after a moment.
“I went to see Lumi. She gave me her card and said I might want to talk to her about—”
“Beverly,” he supplied. I nodded.
Roger stood, looking from Lukas to me. “Beverly? Petty?”
I’d forgotten; he must have known her. “It turns out Beverly was my mother. I only just found out.”
Roger’s ordinarily open expression went swiftly closed. I had the impression it took a great deal to surprise him into revealing any strong emotion, as though it were part of his job as a servant of the family to remain unaffected. “That’s…astonishing.”
“I understand it’s information Signe probably won’t be too pleased to hear,” I added, realizing it might not have been wise to tell him.
“Of course,” said Roger. “I’ll keep it in confidence.”
“What gave you that idea?” Lukas leveled his gaze on me, part curiosity, part suspicion.
I glanced at Roger, wondering how much more I ought to be saying in front of him. “Clara,” I said.
Lukas shrugged. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. Signe already knows.” Before I could dwell on the implications of this revelation, Lukas got to the point of why he’d come looking for me. “Listen, I was wondering—I mean, the sheriff’s department will want to do another sweep of the cottage anyway, especially after this—so I thought maybe you could stay at the house and help Konstantin cope with things. You’re really good with him, and he’s just…so lost right now, Millie. I don’t know what to do.” The wavering sound in his voice said he was on the verge of tears.
While I didn’t relish the idea of being in such close proximity to Lukas, I did want to be there for Konstantin, and the cottage no longer seemed safe. “Sure.” I nodded guardedly. “I can do that.”
Lukas let out a breath as though he’d been holding it. “Thank you. You don’t know what this means to me. I have all these preposterous, cruel decisions to make—what kind of coffin, what kind of urn; do you want the ‘special loved one’ package of keepsakes and engravings? And what kind of service will you have? Have you chosen your music? The death business is a rather sordid collection of vultures I’d never given much thought to before. It’s like planning the most morbid, depressing wedding you could ever imagine. And the paperwork—” He paused and focused on me. “I’m sorry. I’m ranting.”
“That’s okay. You’re entitled.” I gave him a wan smile. “This isn’t something anyone wants to be good at.”
He nodded, grateful. “I’ll call the sheriff’s department and let them know about the vandalism in here. Roger can bring your things over.”
“That’s all right, Roger,” I called as he headed downstairs. “I didn’t bring much. There’s no need for you to cart my bag around for me.”
Lukas shrugged, heading down after him. “Well, we’ll see you back at the house, then. I think Karolina is making a special lunch for Koste.”
Though I couldn’t prove it, my informal experiment had convinced me that there was something in Konstantin’s food. I descended the staircase slowly, trying to decide whether to say anything, and stopped at the bottom, waiting for Roger to head out. “Lukas.” He turned back at the doorway. “Aravella had some suspicions that—I don’t even know how to say this.”
The green eyes narrowed, and he returned to where I stood. “To say what?”
“She thought someone was poisoning Konstantin.”
Lukas’s mouth set in a thin line. “Aravella had a unique imagination.”
“But I’m not sure she was imagining it. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Konstantin’s fugues. I was thinking how they seemed more like something neurological, that there must be a physical cause rather than a psychological one, and then Aravella mentioned her suspicion. And last night when I was heating up the last of Karolina’s leftovers, I remembered that I’d accidentally eaten the food labeled for Koste the night before—and woke up afterward in my bed without knowing how I got there.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know how you got there? Are you telling me you blacked out the night of Aravella’s death?”
Hearing it from his mouth, I realized how bad that sounded. “No, of course not. Not blacked out, exactly. I just don’t remember going to sleep. It reminded me of when I’d taken sleeping pills in the past. And if someone were dosing Konstantin’s food with that kind of hypnotic, it would totally explain why he seems to fugue out shortly after he eats, and why he sleepwalks and doesn’t remember it. Those are classic symptoms.”
Lukas’s expression was still dark with misgiving. “You think someone’s, what—putting Ambien in Koste’s food? Exactly who do you think would do that?”
“I have no idea why she might do it, but Karolina labels almost everything Konstantin eats as specially prepared for him.”
Lukas relaxed visibly and shook his head. “Because he has a wheat allergy. I promise you it’s nothing more sinister than that. Karolina has been with the family since I was a child, and I trust her absolutely. You were probably just overtired. You’ve been through a lot in the past few days.” His expression turned wistful, and my body gave a little jolt of surprise at the touch of his hand on my shoulder. “I know none of this was what you expected when you took this job, and it kills me that you had to find out about us this way. I wish I could erase all of it and let you go back to your life before me. But I have to admit, at the moment, I’m very glad you’re here.”
Life before Lukas. BL—I hadn’t thought of the silly, self-mocking designation in days. “I don’t,” I said honestly. “Wish I could erase it. Even though it’s been painful finding out the truth, I know who my parents are now. I know where I came from and that my mother didn’t abandon me. And I know it wasn’t me. I don’t have to wonder any more what was wrong with me to make her leave me.” My voice caught in my throat and came out much softer and raspier than I meant. “Or to make you.”
“Shit. Millie.” Lukas took his hand from my shoulder and scrubbed his face, his hand stopping to rest around his jaw, partly covering his mouth, as though he wanted to hold his words in. “God, I’ve fucked things up. I never wanted you to feel that way. I wanted you to hate me and think I was a jerk.”
“Oh, I did that too,” I assured him with an attempt at a smile.
“I’m glad, then,” he said, giving me a look probably meant to be the same, but failing. There was too much pain in it. “But I promise you, you could never hate me as much as I hate myself.”
Chapter Thirteen
After Lukas had gone, Lumi’s words nagged at me. I didn’t know you were in love with him. Your feelings can’t ever be wrong. Was I still in love with Lukas? The hurt—for myself over the long-past rejection I should have been over, and for Lukas over his loss—felt like I was.
I went back into the cottage, feeling sick as I packed up my belongings. I was in love with my own uncle. True, it wasn’t my fault; but my skin prickled with shame over it just the s
ame. My feelings felt horribly wrong.
I wasn’t sure what to do with the box of my mother’s letters that someone had placed here—Clara seemed the logical choice, though how she’d snuck in to put them in the bedroom, I couldn’t figure out. They weren’t mine. It seemed odd to keep them. I latched the box and left it where I’d found it.
When I arrived at the house, I found I’d been given the room across the hall from Konstantin’s. The room was gorgeous, full of unique built-ins in natural wood and a tremendous walk-in closet, not to mention the dauntingly high sleigh bed in a reddish wood that contrasted nicely with the blond of the built-ins. A velvety soft deep purple bedspread looked so inviting I was tempted to lie down and take a nap. But Konstantin was in his room, and he was the reason I’d come.
He was absorbed in his usual video game. I knocked on the doorframe, and he looked up but went back to playing.
“Hey,” I said gently. “Can I come in?”
Konstantin shrugged, thumbs twitching rapidly as his character raced through a dark tunnel in search of clues to a treasure. I sat beside him on the bed and stroked a hand over his head.
“I know you probably don’t want to talk to anyone just now, but you can, if you need to. You can always talk to me. About anything at all.” He went on playing, as if he didn’t hear me. “You know, I lost my mamma when I was a little girl.” His playing slowed, though he didn’t look away from the screen. “I didn’t ever get to know her, so it didn’t hurt as much as you must be hurting, but it still made me very sad. Still does sometimes.”
Konstantin stared at the screen, but he was missing opportunities to grab extra lives. “Why does everybody say ‘lost’?” he asked finally, his voice small, and sounding lost himself. “They found her. On the beach.”
I was quiet for a second, wanting to make sure I said the right thing. If there was a right thing. “‘Lost’ can mean different things. Sometimes it means you can’t have the person you love with you anymore, and it hurts like someone took something away from you and you can’t find it again, no matter how hard you try.” He’d gone back to concentrating on his game, and I wasn’t sure if it was because my answer had satisfied him or because it hadn’t. I wasn’t good at this. “Sometimes I still see my mamma, though.” As soon as I’d said it, I wished I hadn’t. The last thing Konstantin needed was for me to fill his head with delusional, magical thinking.
He stopped playing and looked at me with those big, brown eyes, so like Aravella’s with their earthy warmth, but so like Lukas’s in their expressions. “You do?”
“Well, not literally.” I tried to backpedal without being disingenuous. “I mean, it’s not that I actually see her in front of me. I feel like she’s somewhere around me even though I can’t see her. And I dream about her. The dreams are her way of telling me she loves me and is watching over me even though she can’t be here. Does that make sense?”
He nodded slowly. “I dreamed about Mamma that night. She was standing by my bed. But she was all glowy, like a vampire, and she was crying and saying she was sorry.” He looked at me hopefully. “Do you think she came to watch over me?”
“I do.” I smiled and smoothed his hair out of his eyes. If it was magical thinking, let him have that one. “She was probably sad because she couldn’t be here with you anymore and she knew that would make you sad.”
“Then why did she go in the lighthouse and jump?”
This was a question I hadn’t been expecting, and it made my heart ache. “Who told you that?” Konstantin shrugged, looking back at his paused video game. “No one really knows for sure if that’s what happened, Koste. But if she did—I promise you it wasn’t because she didn’t want to be here with you. Sometimes things get messed up in people’s heads and their thoughts don’t make sense, like the wires are crossed on a game controller. They can get so sad, they don’t know what to do, and they can’t get their thoughts unscrambled. And if that happened to your mamma, it wasn’t her fault. Just like it isn’t someone’s fault if they get sick.”
Konstantin resumed his game. He’d obviously reached his limit, and I was dumping too much on him for him to handle right now. I could have kicked myself.
I touched his shoulder lightly and got up to leave him alone. “I’m going to be staying right across the hall from you for a few days,” I told him. “If you need anything, you just call me, okay? Even if you just want a hug or something. Even if you think I’m sleeping.”
He gave me a noncommittal half nod, and I figured that was the best I could expect right now. I only hoped I hadn’t made things worse.
When I returned to my room, I found Lukas waiting in the chair at my desk. He gave no indication whether he’d heard what I’d said to Konstantin, studying me with an expression I didn’t know what to make of. He wasn’t angry, but he wasn’t happy about something. He’d probably heard.
“The sheriff’s department examined the glass at the base of the tower,” he said in a low voice. “It didn’t fall where she…fell.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means—” He glanced at my hand, where the cut was already healing over. “That someone broke the glass first.”
“Well, wouldn’t she have?” I spoke as quietly as possible, conscious of the sounds of Konstantin’s video game across the hall. “I mean, she wouldn’t have just…run at it.”
“If she’d been shoved, and broken the glass, the glass would have fallen with her.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what the significance of that was, given that he was obviously still suspicious about the cut on my hand.
“A smaller person would have needed to break the glass first.”
“Lukas—”
“Don’t say anything to me, Millie. I’m not making any accusations. I’m just telling you it would probably be a good idea if you got a lawyer.”
My palms broke out in a sweat, and I actually felt guilty even though I knew I hadn’t done anything. A childhood of being presumed guilty until proven innocent had made it an automatic response.
“I’m getting one myself,” he said then, his expression grim. “I know you aren’t used to having the kind of resources the family has, but—” He swallowed a shudder. “You’re a Strand, and you ought to have the best representation available. Aunt Signe has made a few calls to practices that have been friends to the family. You may want to consider them to represent you. She’ll arrange to have any fees paid from the estate’s account.”
I shook my head, flabbergasted. “She…what? Lukas—” I cut short the protest I’d been about to make as I remembered what Aravella and I had argued about just before her death. “Lukas, there’s something you need to know.”
His eyes narrowed as if in pain. He probably thought I was about to confess.
I sat on the bed and took a deep breath. “Aravella was apparently on other business than a trip to Thessaloniki. She came back with some papers she’d dug up.”
“Papers?”
My heart was pounding as I screwed up the courage to say it, but it would come out eventually, and he might as well know. “It seems…it seems your brother was the sole beneficiary of your father’s will. And it…seems he left the Strand to me.”
He stared at me as if I’d suddenly begun speaking in tongues. I did feel a bit dizzy; maybe I was about to be slain in the spirit. I nearly choked on the laughter that threatened at the absurdity. One of my foster homes—the one where I’d lit the fire that had landed my at the YGC—had been with a Pentecostal family, and I’d seen more than I cared to of such phenomena.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he burst out at last, hissing the words in disbelief and putting a damper on my internal hysteria.
“Aravella found Sebastian’s will. Along with my birth certificate. She wanted me to sign everything over to you. That’s what we were arguing about in town that day.”
&nb
sp; Lukas’s face went red with fury. “Is that what you’re doing here? Is that what all this has been about?”
“No! I didn’t know anything about it! And I didn’t want any of this—you’d better damn well believe I didn’t want to be your fucking niece!” I put my hand over my mouth, but it was too late to keep the words in. Stupid tears spilled out again, and as before in the lighthouse when he’d made his confession, Lukas’s demeanor changed instantly, and he reached for me as if to give me comfort. I shook my head and pressed myself flat against the door. “Please. God, don’t make this worse.”
Lukas stepped back, watching me helplessly, and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a silk handkerchief.
“You carry a silk handkerchief?” I asked in disbelief and then dissolved into nervous giggles in the midst of my tears. Lukas smiled reluctantly and looked down at his feet while I laughed and cried into the soft fabric, trying to get ahold of myself.
After giving me a few moments, he looked up at last, his face serious and sad. “I didn’t want any of this either. You have to know that.”
I nodded, wiping my eyes. I did know it, despite the seeds of doubt Aravella had tried to sow. Lumi was right. Aravella had been hurting. “So what do we do now? I don’t want to take the Strand away from you and Koste. Or your aunts. But I’d be a fool to give it all up like Aravella wanted me to.”
Lukas sighed. “Let’s not worry about that now. We have enough to worry about. But you should put the papers in a safe place. And you probably shouldn’t mention any of this to anyone else until you talk to the lawyer.”
“I—” The papers. Where had I put them? Aravella had set the case inside when she’d left the cottage. And I couldn’t remember seeing them the following day—the day after I’d been inadvertently drugged and Aravella had fallen to her death just a flight of stairs away from me. They certainly hadn’t been in the cottage when I’d packed up.
Lukas didn’t seem to notice my aborted sentence. “I’ll text you the list of firms Signe gave me for you to contact.” He reached for the doorknob as I stepped away from the door. “And, Millie? Thank you for being so good to Konstantin. I heard what you said to him. It was—you’re kind of amazing. I could tell how much it meant to him to have someone just lay it out for him like it’s normal and real. It’s the kind of thing I just don’t do well. And it means more to me than you know.”