Llewelyna knew the maze of our house better than any of us. Whenever my father asked me to fetch her, I could never find her. I would call her name but the walls of the house absorbed my voice. Then she would appear in the most ordinary of places, in the kitchen making a pot of tea or on the front porch reading a book.
“Quit your hollering. I’m right here.”
It was incredible how she could appear out of nothing. Reminded of one of Llewelyna’s stories, I told Jacob I thought she might possess the warrior Caswallawn’s Veil of Illusion, which allowed him to defeat armies without being seen. I found a gold scarf I thought could be the veil. As a joke, I walked around the house with the scarf over my head. No one seemed to notice my prank and I soon grew tired of the game.
Once while exploring the house, I discovered a half-built room on the top floor. It was the size of a closet and hidden behind a bookshelf. Inside I found a wooden box full of photographs of people I didn’t recognize. There were a few of Llewelyna and her twin sister, Gwyn. I could tell them apart only when they were both in the picture together, and even then it was difficult to determine what exactly it was that distinguished them. The sisters looked porcelain and cold in the black-and-white photographs. Their red hair turned to grey shadows. In one photograph they sat together on a staircase, with what looked like a piglet wrapped in a blanket on Llewelyna’s lap. In another, the sisters sat stiff and sombre-faced beside a cage full of canaries. They were no more than six years old. They wore plaid aprons over their patterned dresses and ridiculous top hats that left shadows on the wall behind them. Some of the birds in the cage were caught mid-flight by the flash, and were nothing but a blur of light.
Before Llewelyna’s family moved to the Isle of Anglesey after her father died, they lived in what she called the Valleys. There, her father had been a miner, and her mother bred canaries for the coal mines. Llewelyna told me she and Gwyn snuck into the mine one night to look for Carwyn, a fourteen-year-old boy they were both sweet on. He had been lost to the mine the day before. Llewelyna had dreamt of Carwyn trapped in a cave of rocks. She thought the dream showed her the way to him, and so the girls crept down the earth’s throat into the eternal night. In the narrow tunnels rats nipped at their ankles and the ghosts of dead miners brushed past their bare shoulders and breathed on their necks. Gwyn could hear a bird tittering, and so they followed that otherworldly sound as if it were a sign. The trembling canary was barely visible in the liquid dark. The girls released the bird from its cage. It slipped out of Llewelyna’s hands and scrambled, unused to flight, deeper into the earth. Soon they could no longer hear its eerie song.
Also inside the wooden box, I found a portrait of Llewelyna as a young woman. Her cheek was smooth and clear; there was no trace of the crisscross scar that appeared there after she fell into the McCarthys’ barbed-wire fence during one of her wanderings. But in that reflection of her young self, Llewelyna’s eyes held a secret. She was not looking at the camera but just past the lens. On the back of the photograph was something written in Welsh. I sounded out the words. They tasted like citrus.
My father liked to tell guests the story of the Welsh barmaid who forked his heart when she spilled his ale onto his lap. I preferred Llewelyna’s version. She told me she met my father in a dream and had borne him a child before they even met. I liked to think that child was me, though Llewelyna never specified.
Llewelyna had been completely out of place in the rush of Cardiff, where my father had been visiting that summer to check in on the family coal mine. When he told the story of their meeting, he would stretch a long arm over Llewelyna’s shoulders and pull her a little closer as he described how her hair had shone like bronze when she bent to clean his spilled ale and how her eyes had sparkled like emeralds in the dim lamplight of the saloon, and how he had not understood her apology, her Welsh accent so strong. He had made her repeat her apology again and again just to keep her talking, to keep her near. My father spoke of Llewelyna as if she were all precious metals and gemstones, as though she were some kind of prize. She smiled when the story was over, but when he turned away from her, Llewelyna’s face would darken, the smile not matching her eyes.
My grandmother had viewed my father’s engagement to Llewelyna as a rebellion. She gave permission to the marriage only when she discovered Llewelyna was Catholic. It was much later that she understood Llewelyna’s Catholicism was a breed very different from her own. Llewelyna spoke of demons and saints and shape-shifters like others spoke of rosaries and wafers and teaspoons.
Llewelyna refused to wear a hat to church despite my grandmother’s insistence that she cover her head. “It is disrespectful,” my grandmother would say, her hands clenched in white fists. She stared up at Llewelyna’s pile of hair as if it were a capital offence.
“Best leave judgment to Gad, Missus Sparks,” Llewelyna said, exaggerating her rural accent to further torment her mother-in-law.
I was nine years old in 1907, when my grandmother visited us for the first time. We attended the small church in the valley that summer. She brought with her some gifts, one of which was a black silk hat decorated with pearls, dried rosebuds, and a long white feather. Llewelyna set the hat in the middle of our kitchen table and thanked my grandmother for the fantastic centrepiece.
Although Jacob and I were much too old for it, my grandmother insisted on bathing us before church. She scrubbed the dirt from under our fingernails and combed our hair until it sat flat against our heads. Jacob’s hair was as wild as Llewelyna’s, so my grandmother would spend extra time glossing his curls down with wax and oil. Five minutes later the curls would spring back up. My own dark hair, unaccustomed to my grandmother’s fastidious grooming, fell out and collected into tumbleweeds that blew around our drafty house. Llewelyna and I wore to church matching pieces of yellow lace over our eyes and pinned behind our ears.
At church Jacob and I passed a scrap of paper back and forth over my father’s lap in a game of tic-tac-toe. Llewelyna spun one of Saint Francis’s small blue chest feathers between her fingers until my grandmother snatched it away. We lined up to receive the host. Father John set the wafer too far back on my tongue and it made me cough a little. When Jacob fell asleep against my father’s shoulder I gazed up at Jesus, his ruined body contorted against the cross, and imagined the wafer inside me, now transformed into Christ. The sight of his sinewy muscles, yellowing skin, and decomposing body always made me a little queasy. I stared at the spikes in his ankles and wrists, and the thorns the size of my fingers that dug deep into his scalp. I counted the many red cuts on his body. Each time I counted there were more. When I told Llewelyna about the spread of these gashes, my grandmother overheard and said it was because my sins inflicted Jesus with fresh wounds. Llewelyna smiled, satisfied with my grandmother’s response.
4
Although the peach trees in our orchard had now been growing quite beautifully for a few years, none had yielded a single fruit, which concerned my father. “It says here that if we put a branch in water and it blooms, then we can expect blossoms next spring and harvest next summer,” he said, balancing a book on his knee at the kitchen table while Llewelyna dished us each out a bowl of porridge. He sprang up from the table and rushed to the door.
“But your breakfast, Noah.”
“I’ll be a moment only.”
Jacob and I watched our father climb one of the larger trees in his suit coat with a small saw between his teeth.
“Lunatic,” Llewelyna said, stirring her tea at the table.
He came back with a leafy branch. My mother had already filled a pickle jar with water. My father set the branch in the middle of the table. We all watched the branch silently, our bowls of porridge steaming into our faces, scared to miss the moment a blossom might curl out. Llewelyna waved her hands in front of the green buds like a magician. It took weeks for the branch to blossom. It happened at night, when none of us could witness the metamorphosis. The flowers were dark pink in the centre with li
ttle antennae sprouting out. The petals were thin and smooth as moth wings.
Llewelyna said that in Wales, peaches were imported from China and were extremely expensive. She had only eaten one peach in her entire life, given to her by my father, and it was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. My father always said that Llewelyna had married him for that peach. I hadn’t tried a peach yet. No one else in the valley was growing peaches. Despite warnings from orchardists in Winteridge about the fastidious and delicate nature of stone fruit, my father persisted with his peach trees. The promise of a peach orchard had been his wedding gift to Llewelyna.
* * *
Every year more people settled in Winteridge. The dispossessed reserve land was affordable to purchase, and there was plenty of work for newcomers in the surrounding orchards and farms. The Bells built their house in the plot next to our orchard. They were our nearest neighbours. Their white house looked quaint next to our sprawling, sea-green labyrinth. They were new in town, straight from the motherland as my father said. The Bells did not have any children. Instead they owned a dove they called Angel and a greyhound named King Edward VII.
Angel’s wooden cage was designed like a palace. It had a tower and a little door made out of twigs that opened like a drawbridge. It was painted white and sat monstrous atop the liquor cabinet in the dining room.
“Isn’t it darling?” Mrs. Bell said. “Phillip had it made for me.”
Llewelyna stood in front of the cage and said nothing. Angel was perched on a long wooden pole. The bird looked at her sideways. Llewelyna and the dove stared at one another as if in a contest.
“I’ll put some tea on, then,” Mrs. Bell said as she turned towards the kitchen, her eyes briefly exposing her discomfort around my mother.
“What’s the wire ring for?” Llewelyna asked suddenly, still not moving her eyes from the bird’s eyes.
“Oh, let me show you.” Mrs. Bell rushed back. She pulled a thin chain from a drawer in the cabinet and held it as she opened the drawbridge. Llewelyna stood stiffly beside her, eyes cold and slicing. The dove cooed as Mrs. Bell reached towards it. “Now, now, Angel. Be nice.” Mrs. Bell clipped the chain to the wire band on the dove’s foot. She held her index finger out in front of the bird. Angel stepped onto it hesitantly. Mrs. Bell brought the dove out of the cage and nuzzled her nose against its feathers.
“Isn’t she darling?” said Mrs. Bell.
“Yes,” Llewelyna said, “darling.”
Angel flapped her wings and rose towards the ceiling until the chain went taut. The dove flapped absurdly, suspended above our heads. The candles on the chandelier sputtered from the beating of her wings. Each flap was closer and closer to the flame, and I imagined the phoenix.
“Well would you look at that,” my father said from the sitting room.
“One of Gracie’s little playthings,” Mr. Bell said.
“Women and their birds,” my father said. Llewelyna’s eyes flared. Mrs. Bell gathered up Angel by pulling at the chain inch by inch. She tucked the dove back in her cage.
“Go on and sit with the gents,” Mrs. Bell said to Llewelyna. “I’ll be in shortly with the tea.” Llewelyna joined the men in the sitting room.
I wandered into a room off the hall lined with bookshelves. There was a large redwood piano at the room’s centre. I ran my finger over the cool ivory of the keys and thought of elephants.
“Do you play?” Mrs. Bell asked from the door. She wore a white lace apron over her flouncy yellow dress. Her question startled me and I accidentally pressed down on a low key.
“No,” I said and crossed my arms at my chest.
“In England every respectable girl knows how to play piano,” she said, not unkindly, only stating a fact. She tucked the tulle of her dress beneath her and sat down on the bench. As her fingers danced along the keys her ruffled sleeves fluttered. Mrs. Bell angled her chin this way and that as if its position affected the tone. She was a skilled pianist and I could tell she enjoyed it. At one of the softer, rain-like portions of the song, Mr. Bell could be heard hollering from the sitting room:
“Lovey, there’s a funny smell coming from the kitchen.”
“Oh, dear. How I miss my cook.” Mrs. Bell’s slack face tightened. “Why don’t you go play outside with Jacob, Iris?”
In the backyard the Bells’ big black greyhound dashed back and forth. He whipped up dust and pebbles behind him. The dog ran towards me and jumped up to lick my face, knocking me backwards.
“Isn’t he grand?” Jacob laughed from the other side of the yard near the garden shed.
I pushed the dog off and wiped my face with my sleeve. I walked carefully along the perimeter of the yard to avoid the dog. It had gone back to racing along an invisible path of figure eights. Jacob had his hands up against the window of the shed.
“What are you doing snooping about?” I said.
“Take a look for yourself.”
I cupped my hands against the glass and peered through. Inside was a cabinet with long rifles on hooks. A pair of antlers was nailed to the wall.
“I’ve never seen so many guns,” Jacob said. He went to the side of the shed and tried the door. He pulled a piece of wire out from somewhere and jammed it in the lock.
“You can’t just go breaking in,” I said. “Jacob, stop that.” He ignored me.
“Where are you, children?” Mrs. Bell called from the house. Jacob rolled his eyes. I peeked out from behind the shed. “Ah, there you are,” she said. She rang a bell, smiling. “Dinner is ready.”
On the way to the dining room I passed a china cabinet full of figurines. On the top shelf there was a collection of miniature glass cottages that looked just like the Bells’ house. They had tiny windows, chimneys, and doorknobs. A jade deer and bouquet of porcelain flowers appeared monstrous next to the little community. On another shelf was a collection of real butterflies. The glistening powder of their wings dusted the wood board they were pinned to. I could see a faint fingerprint on the wing of an enormous monarch. The bottom shelf displayed a collection of tiny sugar spoons. Mrs. Bell caught me looking at them and went ahead and told me the story that belonged to each and every spoon.
“These ornaments are all straight from England. Collectables. They are all I have of home now.” She smiled sadly. “You can come over whenever you like and look at them,” she whispered. “Or if you need anything at all…” Her eyes drifted above my head to the sitting room where the other adults were. I nodded. “Good. That’s settled, then. Go let the others know dinner’s ready.”
Mr. Bell’s cheery voice boomed down the hallway. “These Japs are coming in hordes. All I’m saying is I don’t think it right to supply them with jobs instead of our own.”
Llewelyna and my father were seated on a burgundy loveseat in the sitting room. Mr. Bell sat in one of the two matching wingback chairs facing them. My father’s arm was around Llewelyna’s shoulder, his knuckles white.
“Our own?” Llewelyna said.
“You know what I mean.” Mr. Bell looked to my father for solidarity, but my father was looking out the window.
“No, I don’t believe I do,” she said.
“Dinner is ready,” I said.
Mr. Bell looked up at me and smiled, no doubt relieved by my interruption.
We sat at a large table in the dining room. My back was to Angel’s cage and I could hear the bird coo every now and then. Mrs. Bell came out of the kitchen in her lace apron. She set a steaming dish in the centre of the table.
“You folks are in for a treat,” Mr. Bell said, rubbing his hands together. “Gracie here’s made her famous shepherd’s pie.”
“I haven’t eaten lamb in years,” my father said.
“I’ve only made it a couple of times.” Mrs. Bell reddened. “Phillip, darling, serve it up while it’s hot,” she said and returned to the kitchen. Mr. Bell cut out servings of the shepherd’s pie and handed a portion to each of us.
“This self-service has been rather d
ifficult to get accustomed to,” he said.
“Did you employ many maids in London?” my father asked.
Llewelyna tipped back her wine and clinked the glass down on the table a little too hard.
“A slew. And didn’t your family?” Mr. Bell asked my father. Mrs. Bell came back in from the kitchen and placed the sprouts on the table.
“Yes, my father’s estate—”
“My sister is a housemaid,” Llewelyna interrupted, her chin lifted too high.
“Oh, is that right?” Mrs. Bell said.
“Lew,” my father warned. “Life is different in England.” He turned to the Bells. “Llewelyna is from the north of Wales, a rural—”
“Seems the English,” Llewelyna said, “can’t even choose their own clothes or pain their weak wrists and pour their own damned tea.”
Mr. Bell smiled. “Well, you’ve got that right. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to put these on the first time I tried.” He raised his sleeves to show his gold cufflinks.
Mrs. Bell wriggled in her seat. “So I hear you are off to London for school soon, Jacob.”
“In a few years. Not until I’m thirteen,” said Jacob. “I’m only ten.”
“I think you will enjoy London. Have you been before?” Mr. Bell asked.
“Excuse me a moment.” Llewelyna pushed back her chair and slipped out the dining room. The front door slammed.
“Oh, dear. Is Le-wall…” Mrs. Bell began.
“Llewelyna,” I said.
“Is she ill?”
“Just needs some fresh air, I’m sure.” My father took a sip of his wine. “She isn’t fond of Jacob going to London. It’s a difficult topic for her.”
“Only natural for a mother to feel that way,” Mrs. Bell said. “But surely she understands the boy needs a proper education.”
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