by A.L. Tyler
“It’s nothing. Nothing.” Lena wiped her eyes one last time, blew her nose, and tossed the tissue into a wastebasket.
“Lena! What just happened here?” Mrs. Ralston’s voice was becoming frantic as she eyed David suspiciously.
“I was…upset. About my dad, and stuff, and David suggested I take a moment to let it all out before dinner…”
“Don’t lie to me, young woman,” Mrs. Ralston was hysterical. She was almost shaking.
“Mrs. Ralston, nothing happened!” Lena pleaded insistently, struck by the irony that earlier in the day, she had hardly been able to convince Mrs. Ralston that David was a threat. Now, she was hardly able to convince her of his innocence.
Lena threw up her hands. “Besides, I wouldn’t be the only one here lying, would I?” She was done crying. Something had snapped in her, and she decided she was done with all the lies that had sprouted up in the last twenty-four hours. She grabbed David’s arm and started for the stairs, Mrs. Ralston running ahead of them, as though she’d just seen a ghost.
Lena walked down the stairs with her head held high. Her cheeks and eyes were still rosy from her tears, but she was more angry now than hurt, and really didn’t care. Lena didn’t know what she expected to find in the dining room, but it certainly wasn’t what she found.
Uncle Howard, dressed in a not too formal suit, was standing at the end of the table; a terrified Mrs. Ralston was clinging to his right arm, partially hidden behind him. Lena was taken aback by the struck expressions on their faces, but decided she would remain in control and pretend that nothing had happened.
“Well, thank you for the dress, Uncle Howard. As you can see, it fits very well, though it might need some tailoring around the hem. It’s just a little too long.” David escorted her to her seat before maneuvering around the table to his own spot. There were four places set out, and Lena assumed David and Mrs. Ralston must normally eat dinner with Uncle Howard. The two adults exchanged looks.
“That dress…” Howard seemed to be in shock.
“I presume it was you who left it for me?”
Howard paused for a moment, studying Lena. “Yes. Glad it fits. It looks beautiful on you.” He shook Mrs. Ralston from his arm and sat down, motioning for her to do the same.
“I see you changed your mind on the color of the hall.” Lena pushed some food around on her plate.
“Yes. I did. At Mrs. Ralston’s urging, actually.”
Lena looked up. Howard was looking quite exacerbated. For all the calmness of his voice, his eyes held the fear of a doe in the headlights.
“Well, I must say, David’s doing an excellent job. That hall looks much better in green.”
“Thought it would.”
Lena put her fork gently down on the plate, folded her hands on the table, and looked calmly over at her uncle. Mrs. Ralston hadn’t touched her food yet, and didn’t look like she was going to any time soon.
“But Uncle Howard, the hall’s going to be blue now.”
Howard didn’t look up from his plate; Lena watched him as he slowly closed his eyes and shook his head ever so slightly.
“Lena, no more talking for now. You told me that you didn’t want to be treated like a child, and I will apologize for having done so. Meet me in the second floor study after dinner. We will discuss your questions then.”
Lena felt a little pang of triumph in her chest—she wasn’t sure why she felt so victorious about knowing what color the hall was going to be, but she liked that she was more in charge than Howard at the moment. The rest of the meal went on in silence, though Uncle Howard and Mrs. Ralston kept shooting each other uncomfortable looks. Once they had finished eating, there was an uneasy peace as everyone sat motionless.
It was Howard who rose first, followed swiftly by Mrs. Ralston. Lena was about to stand as well, when Howard stopped her.
“If you’ll allow me just five minutes before you come up, Lena?”
“Okay…five minutes.” There weren’t any clocks in the dining hall, and she wished she hadn’t removed her watch before coming down, but the aqua blue plastic hadn’t matched her red dress very well. As she watched Howard and Ralston walk out, she turned on David.
“Do you have a watch?”
“Not with me. Howard considers it rude to bring timepieces into the dining hall.”
“What do you know about what’s going on around here?”
“What’s going on…what do you mean?” David had said the words, but didn’t look confused at all.
“There used to be pictures or paintings or something in the hall outside my room. What was on them?” Lena pressed.
“How am I supposed to know?” He taunted.
“David, don’t be like them…”
“I’m just the hired help,” he smirked, “I don’t usually get to come in the house.” He leaned back in his chair and watched her become more and more flustered.
“Screw you.” Lena hissed.
She got up and made her way back to her room. She changed out of the new dress and hung it carefully with the rest of her clothes, put on her pajamas, and walked down the hall to the study.
She had expected to be confronted by both Master and Housekeeper, but found Mrs. Ralston to be absent.
“Lena, please sit down.” Howard had a drink in his hand which looked suspiciously alcoholic. As Lena took a seat in an old, cracked, brown leather chair, she watched her uncle shift positions nervously, one hand itching toward his ear. It had grown completely dark outside, and the only light illuminating Howard’s face came from a desk lamp. He was the younger brother of Aaron Collins, which made him only thirty-five, but just now he looked much older.
“I’m going to be as honest with you as I can, Lena. You’re going to have to accept that there are things going on in this household that don’t concern children. Stay out of them.” While he talked, he avoided her eyes, staring always at his drink or into the dark corners of the room.
“But I live here now, and I’m not a child. I think I have a right to know.” Lena said, unshaken in her resolve.
Howard sat quietly, thinking over his response.
“You do have the right to know some things, and I’ll have to beg your pardon for some of the things I feel you have the right to know. Your father apparently didn’t want you to know some of the things I’m about to say. He wasn’t entirely as honest as he led you to believe.” This time, Howard looked her directly in the eye.
Lena sat in outraged silence. This man, who she had never met before in her life, dared to tell her he knew more about her father than she did?
“I’m not the Master of this house. I’m not even in line to inherit it. I’m a caretaker, like Mrs. Ralston. We look after it together; I hired on David to do the yard work because there’s already too much to do in here. We keep it safe, along with everything in it.”
“Then whose house is it?”
“It belonged to…your mother. Your mother’s side of the family.”
“And the paintings?”
“Only some were paintings. Most of them were family portraits. Your father didn’t want you to have anything to do with your mother’s side of the family. He was a good man, and I really thought it would be best to honor his wishes…at least for a while.”
Lena closed her eyes and shook her head. “Then who was I living with last month? That was my mother’s mother.”
“Didn’t you find it odd that she didn’t have any pictures of her as a girl?” Howard asked, suddenly unimpressed with Lena’s powers of deduction after her rather impressive display concerning the paint color of the second floor hall.
“She said there was a house fire.”
“That woman was my mother, Lena. Your father’s mother.”
Lena shook her head more firmly. “No. My dad’s parents are dead. Everyone on his side was dead except for you.”
“Until last month, your paternal grandmother wasn’t. We made it up, because we thought the truth about y
our mother’s side would be too much of a shock. Aaron—your father—insisted that making up a fake family for your mother’s side was the lesser evil, and it kept you from asking questions. They’re bad people, Lena. Not your mother for the most part, but everyone else…” He shook his head.
Lena paused, trying to objectively consider what Howard had said, but she couldn’t imagine her father would have been so conniving. “You’re a liar. He would have told me.”
“Parent’s aren’t perfect, Lena. Grow up.” Howard took another gulp from his drink.
It was as if he had slapped her. And he was lying. He had to be. There’s no reason for any of this…
“You’re the liar. Not him.” She stood and walked out of the dim study and back to her room. Howard didn’t try to stop her.
The next few days went by quickly. Lena had boycotted talking to both Mrs. Ralston and Uncle Howard, however little she got to see him. According to Mrs. Ralston he was sick, which Lena made known she didn’t believe, and had stopped taking his meals in the dining hall. While David was no great friend of hers, he did help to pass the hours.
“So, when did you first come to Waldgrave?” Seeing no reason to continue eating in the dining hall without Howard, Lena had taken to eating wherever David was around the noon hour. Today he happened to be out clearing a section of land to the south of the house; in the spring, it would be planted as a new garden. Lena sat bundled in her coat, watching, as David turned up rocks and tossed them aside.
“I’ve been here since I was ten.” David said with a husky voice, breathing deep as he thrust the spade of the shovel down into the dry grit.
“Your parents let you do that?”
“It was an odd situation with my parents. I was sent here for an education, of sorts.”
“How’s that?” She leaned back on her elbows, staring at the overcast sky above. The clouds here were thick and bulgy, like marshmallows melted together on top of a sweet potato casserole.
“Well, I guess you could say I’ve known the Master for a long time. My family’s not nearly as well off as yours, and I was offered a good private education for earning my keep here. I stayed on after because…I like it here.”
“An education? From Howard? You know he’s not the real Master, don’t you?” Lena snorted. The thought of staying on at the Waldgrave property because one liked it was ridiculous.
David eyed her suspiciously, as if trying to decide something. Then he sat down next to her, setting down the spade on the ground and wiping his palms on his jeans.
“What do you mean by that?” He asked cautiously.
“He told me. He said he’s just a caretaker, or some bull like that.” Lena sat back upright so that she could speak to him properly.
David was conflicted, but decided to let it go. “Well, Ralston is what I meant by the education part. She’s trained in teaching. I suspect she’ll take you as a pupil next, seeing as there aren’t any public schools nearby. Let’s break out lunch.”
Lena pulled out the sandwiches she had stashed in her pockets and handed one to David. She watched him unwrap the plastic around the sandwich and take a bite. Looking down at her own meal, she sighed.
“Well, that won’t do.”
“I assure you, she’s an excellent tutor.” David said.
“I don’t want to learn anything she has to teach.”
Oddly, this phrase made David’s eyes seem to glitter. He passed a glance back up at the house, as if to check that they weren’t being watched. He leaned in closer, and started to whisper.
“Can you keep a secret?”
“I suppose.” Lena grumbled, still focused on the prospect of being trapped in a room with Mrs. Ralston for hours on end, solving math problems and learning about the Great Depression.
“No, I mean, really…can you keep a secret? A big one?” He glanced back at the manor, and this time Lena followed his gaze. There was a silhouette in one of the fourth floor windows, watching her, trying to develop new lies to hide the truth…
“I can’t believe he’s spying on me. I hate my uncle. I mean, if that’s really who he is.”
“Lena!” David grabbed her firmly by her shoulders, looking deep into her eyes.
“Yes, okay! I’ll keep your stupid secret, since you’re so desperate to tell me!” The wind blew slightly, throwing a few loose strands of her hair across her face. She shivered and looked out at the western horizon. Darker clouds were gathering; the weather said there was supposed to be snow by tomorrow morning. The landscape was so dry here, she welcomed the change.
David pushed her away, frustrated that she cared so little, causing Lena to lose her balance and topple over.
“Hey! Do you mind?!” She pushed herself up and started to brush the dirt off of her clothes and pull bits of dried grass out of her hair.
“Stupid girl.”
He got up and started back to work. Lena decided they were done for the day and removed herself back to the house, shooting David unnoticed evil looks over her shoulder. Entering through the front door, she saw Howard starting up the staircase in the entrance hall and decided to break her silence.
“Finally out of your cave, I see? Think of anything else to insult my parents with?”
Howard stopped and looked back at Lena. His face was unshaven, his hair uncombed, and he looked to be losing weight. In short, it appeared he really had been sick, but Lena didn’t relent.
“Lena, please, just try to…” His voice was weak.
“No. I’ll try to understand when you’re ready to tell me the truth.”
“I came down an hour ago to try and find you, Lena. We need to talk.”
“Oh, an hour ago, you say? I saw you in your office window, or whatever rooms you keep up there, just a few minutes ago. So no, I don’t think we need to talk just yet.”
Howard went very pale; he hurried up the stairs and out of sight. Then something occurred to Lena... She went into the dining room, and found Mrs. Ralston clearing away a place setting. The woman looked up at her, and her tone was scathing.
“He wished you would have joined him for lunch, but I told him…”
Lena rushed back out of the house.
If Howard just finished eating in the dining room, then who...?
She searched the upper windows, looking for the shadow she had previously suspected of being Howard, expecting to find a human-looking coat rack, or something, anything that could have misled her. But the shadow was gone…someone, a man, had been upstairs while Howard had dined below. The house was enormous, and it was far too big for Howard to have gotten from the top to the bottom, or vice versa, in such a short amount of time. Even with an elevator he couldn’t have done it.
It was getting colder. Lena pulled her coat tighter around her body as a powerful gust of wind swept across the land, blowing dust, leaves, brambles, and other loose articles around the property. Two large hands landed on her shoulders and she gasped, spinning around quickly.
David looked like he had been expecting her. “I’m only going to ask you one more time. Yes or no?”
“Yes…”
“Good.” His cold eyes seemed pleased. “Meet me out by the barn after dinner. You’ll have to be sneaky, because if they catch you, we’ll both be in more trouble than you can possibly understand. Okay?”
Lena stared into his eyes…David was the last person at Waldgrave she would have suspected of keeping a secret of this magnitude. It scared her. He scared her. But she needed to know what was happening here, and why there were so many lies.
“Lena?!” David squeezed her shoulders hard and she let out a yelp of pain.
“Okay! After dinner! I won’t get caught!”
He let her go and stalked away. Lena turned and ran back into the house…her right shoulder still stung a little, but she was determined to know now. There was a fifth resident at Waldgrave, someone who never left the upper floors, and someone that Howard seemed to very specifically not want her
to know about.
She had never bothered to actually explore the third floor, using the time instead to visibly sulk in front of Ralston, but decided to do so now. Lena knew of no staircases on the second floor that led up to the third (though doubtless they existed, as Ralston seemed to use them on occasion), so instead she started up the entrance hall staircase, which she had not used up to this point. She didn’t know how, but it managed to skip the second floor altogether, going straight up to the third floor landing.
The third floor was nothing like either of the other floors she knew. The hallway, instead of running in a straight line through the house, ran in a square—there were rooms on the outside of the hall, but there was no door leading into the center island room that the hall wrapped around. As she had done in the study the day Mrs. Ralston had disappeared, she ran her hand along the inside wall, searching for any hidden seams, but again didn’t find any. She pressed her ear up to the wall, but didn’t hear anything. She knocked on it in a few locations, but couldn’t discern any echoes or irregularities.
She looked at her watch. Two hours to dinner. There were at least eight doors on the outside of the hall that could be investigated.
Lena walked back to the stairs and started to the right. The first room was empty. And the second, and the third; she was getting worried. Was it possible that all of the rooms on the third floor held nothing, except the one in the middle that she could not enter?
What’s going on here?
When she came to the fourth door, and found it locked, she was almost relieved. Her relief faded as she found doors five and six also empty, while seven and eight were also locked. No stairs to the fourth floor, and all of the rooms empty or locked. She felt oddly like Bluebeard’s wife, her curiosity about to lead her to a horrible fate.
This is getting very creepy…
She went back to the first room, opened the door, and walked in. She paced it from side to side, looked at the ceiling, the hardwood floor… It was just a room. A big, empty room, lit only by the setting sun through one good sized window. Despite its appearances, Lena had a creeping feeling that somehow the Waldgrave house itself was also lying to her, because deep down she knew the room was not empty. And the center room, it had to have a door—but the house was hiding it from her. Perhaps it was playing some sort of cat-and-mouse game with her, and the mysterious door slid around the next corner every time she got too close. It was purposely deceiving her somehow, so she wouldn’t find something. Goosebumps broke out on her arms. Her adventurous spirit abandoned her.
She walked back down to the entrance hall, went to the living room, climbed the staircase to the library, and went into her room. Still having an hour and a half until dinner, and exhausted from the effort it took to simply navigate the house, she laid down on her bed to think. There’s a room behind that wall. A room without a door. Maybe it really didn’t have a door. She puzzled out that if there were a staircase, a hidden one that led up into the mystery room, it would have to be located in either the purple or yellow bedroom, or the library. Her head was spinning. A room with no doors, a lying pair of guardians, missing family portraits, a shadowy guest she’d never met, and a yard boy who seemed to know what was going on…
Lena’s eyes drooped shut. Her mind was busy, but her body was tired. It was some time later that the sound of a door clicking shut awakened her.
She looked around. Had it only been in her mind, or had she just heard someone attempting to quietly leave her bedroom as she slept? She raced to the bedroom door and threw it open, expecting to catch the culprit in the act of fleeing, but the hall was as empty as five of the eight third floor rooms. The smell of the fresh paint woke her up for good. Looking at her watch, she realized she had only fifteen minutes left until dinner started.
She went to her closet to hang her jacket up, which she was still wearing from earlier, and stood in amazement. Howard had left more clothes. A lot more clothes. There were day dresses, formal dresses, dresses for the snow, dresses in every color imaginable…
Lena had never liked dresses. She found herself liking them even less now that they composed ninety-eight percent of her wardrobe. She wondered if Howard knew it had become socially acceptable for women to wear pants in the last few decades.
Nevertheless, she was happy to find a heavy, full-length coat. She would need it later. She changed into a simpler blue dress and headed down to the dining room.
“Where’s Howard?” She asked Mrs. Ralston, who set a plate down in front of her.
“The Master is…busy tonight.”
“Okay. Sure.” She sat quietly as Ralston set two more places and then sat down. Once David joined them, dinner began.
“Mrs. Ralston, will you deliver a message to my uncle for me?”
Ralston looked up. “Certainly, dear. What is it?”
“Well, I do appreciate the clothes he’s been getting me, but could you ask him to stop with the dresses? I mean, I’m much more of a blouse-and-black pants kind of girl. And I prefer doing my own shopping.” This wasn’t true, but she was willing to say anything to make the dresses stop.
“He’s been getting you dresses?”
“Yeah.” Lena furrowed her brow; the way the new dresses had been hung suggested a modicum of care, and she had imagined Mrs. Ralston must have brought them up—somehow, it was hard to see Howard tending to such a task. “Where did you think I got this one?”
Mrs. Ralston looked at Lena’s apparel for the first time that night, and actually dropped her fork. It made a loud clank against the table before disappearing to the floor; Ralston looked as terrified as she had the first night at dinner.
“You said the Master got that for you?” Her voice had become a high whisper.
“Yes. Left it in my closet, along with all the others…”
Mrs. Ralston went back to her food, now using her spoon, but didn’t actually eat anything. After ten minutes of pushing things around on her plate, there came a buzzing noise.
“My goodness,” Ralston stood up, “Who would come calling at this hour?” She started toward the door. David kicked Lena under the table. When Lena remained seated, he kicked her again, harder.
“Ow!”
Mrs. Ralston turned around, bewildered. Lena stood up, glaring at David, whose gaze was cast in the direction of the housekeeper.
“Wow! I’m tired. I think I’ll be going to bed early tonight. If it’s at all possible, I’d like to not be disturbed. For any reason. I get very scared when people wake me up when I’m tired.” She hoped it didn’t sound as stupid as she thought it did. Lena faked a yawn.
“Okay, dear, I’ll be sure not to bother you…” Ralston eyed Lena for a moment before another loud buzz summoned her, once again, to the front door. The second she was out of the room, David grabbed Lena’s arm and started pulling her toward the side entrance.
“Ow! Wait! I need to get my coat!”
“You can borrow mine.”
“What if she comes back? Or goes up to check on me, or something?”
“Trust me,” He looked out the side entrance door to be sure no one was outside watching, “She’ll have her hands full with the guest, and she’ll be more than happy that you’re out of her hair for the night.”
Lena tried to keep up with David as they walked down toward the old barn, but she kept tripping, and every time she did, he only squeezed her arm harder and walked faster. They finally reached the barn and David pushed her in before him.
On the inside, Lena looked around and had trouble believing the building was fashioned as a barn on the outside. It had been done up as a sort of one room make-do apartment. It was a large space, considering how little it held. There was a cot, a wood-burning stove, a chest, and a three-legged stool huddled in one corner.
“Is this where you live?”
David glared at her. “Go sit on the bed.”
Lena stared as he climbed up a ladder into what must have been the hay loft, rummaged for a moment, th
en reappeared, climbing back down. He had what appeared to be a picture frame in his hands.
“I said sit!”
Lena hurried over and sat on the bed as David pulled the stool up in front of her and seated himself. Taking a deep breath, he began.
“How much do you know?”
“About what?”
“About…your mother’s side?” David was suddenly very serious, and Lena wasn’t having as much fun as she had thought she would. She had never snuck out of a house before, but knew from television that it was supposed to be fun.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or what?”
“Just answer the question!” He was getting angry again.
“Okay, fine! Um…well, my mom died shortly after I was born and I’ve never seen any pictures. I thought I met my maternal grandmother, but it turned out she was a dirty rotten liar like my uncle, who says my mom’s side sucked anyway. The end.”
“Great. That’s just great.” He tapped the picture in his hand.
“Can I see—“
“Not yet. Do you ever have strange dreams, princess?”
“Would you please stop calling me that?”
David smiled wryly. “Sure. Right after you stop acting like one. Strange dreams?”
She stared at him. Didn’t everybody, at some point or other? “Can I borrow your coat now?”
He opened the chest at the foot of the bed and threw a heavy winter coat at her. It smelled sweaty and dusty, but she put it on anyways.
“I used to.” Lena shrugged, diverting her gaze around the barn. “But I talked about them with my dad, and he said they were just silly nightmares. He told me to forget them, and I guess I had, until now. I don’t dream anymore.”
“Tell me about them.”
“I don’t want to.” She immediately flinched, expecting him to be angry, but when she looked over, he was smiling.
“Princess, they weren’t just silly nightmares…”
He handed her the portrait he’d been holding. It was Lena, but it wasn’t. This woman…she was older. Same face, same body…they even had the same hair color, and wore it in much the same fashion…
“You got your father’s eyes, I’m told, but I don’t have a picture of him to prove it.”
She was wearing a red dress. It was the exact same one that Lena had worn to dinner just a few days ago. That’s why it fit so well.
“Turn it over.” David said in softer tone.
On the back of the frame, there was a short note written in a serpentine crawl of black ink: Princess Avalon Daray, September 3rd, 1987.
“Princess?” Lena mouthed the word, unable to speak.
“That’s what he doesn’t want you to know. You’re royalty.”
Lena stood up very quickly. She smiled and thrust the portrait back at David. He had a look in his eyes that was confusing; reverence mixed with his frustration of her ignorance.
“I’m sorry David, but you’re crazy. I’ve got to go now.”
He lightly touched her shoulder as she walked past him, and she felt…something. A warmth ran through her. She looked back.
“If you stay a little longer, and I’ll tell you who the man in the attic is.”
“Who are you?” She stepped back, but he made no effort to stop her leaving. He already had her, and he knew it. His eyes were as dark as ever, but there was a new interest in them. They were alive with a force of passion. Possibly even obsession. “David?”
“I’m here because your grandfather asked me to be. That’s the man in the attic. Your mother’s father.” He sat down on the bed, and continued to talk.
“That’s what I meant by coming here to get an education. Your grandfather, the true Master of Waldgrave, has taken me on as an apprentice. But you can’t tell Howard. Howard is the enemy.”
Lena and David stared at each other. Understandably, she was having some trouble taking him seriously.
“Well, if he’s trying to teach you to be a crazy hermit, you’re both doing a great job.”
David stood up and took several quick steps toward her. He certainly knew how to intimidate. “It’s an honored position, and I won’t let you speak of him that way again.” He’d gone serious again.
Lena sat down next to the wall and held her face in her hands. I don’t know why I let him bring me here…
“You let me bring you here because you wanted to know. And now you do.”
Lena looked up. “What?”
“We’re a race of very ancient people, Lena. And we’re dying off. Some, like Howard, prefer it that way.”
“David—you’re crazy!”
“If I’m crazy, then how do I know what you’re thinking?”
Lucky guess.
“It wasn’t. It isn’t.”
“Oh my God…”
“Let me teach you, Lena,” He crouched down on the floor in front of her, pushing her hair out of her face and raising her chin so that she was looking at him. “You will learn these things, whether you are a willing student or not. You’ve been shown the truth, and it’s only a matter of time before things start happening on their own. I suggest you take my offer…Master Daray won’t be so kind as to give you the option.”
What the hell does that mean? I don’t believe this…
“Then ask your mother tomorrow at breakfast,” he looked in the direction of Waldgrave, “Anyway, I suggest you find your way back before it gets too cold out.”
There was a cramp growing in the middle of her stomach… her mother? At breakfast? Lena scrambled to her feet, dropped the odorous jacket, and ran out the door and away from David as quickly as she could. The pain in her abdomen grew with every step she took toward Waldgrave; icy tears were streaming down her face and sweat collected on her brow. Ten feet from the front door Lena collapsed in a heap, only to be discovered the next morning covered in a light dusting of snow and running a high fever.
*****