“You’re the mad one,” I said quietly.
“Me? You’re the one who thinks her mother is dead.” At my perplexed look, he exclaimed, “You said were—that your mother was, not is! Well, your mother is alive, and mad. She’s mad!”
I stayed silent. He was right. She was insane and put away.
He narrowed his eyes, and I could almost see him thinking, calculating. “There’s a visitor in the house,” he said finally.
He paused, but he had more to say. He tipped his chin at me. “I’ve put him in your old room.”
Disappointment pierced me. I’d wanted to be back in my childhood bedroom, with my canopied bed and high wide windows, my chest full of a young girl’s toys.
“Mr. Bauer’s from the university,” Ben said softly. “He’s here to look at the books you used to like.”
My library too! Sanctuary had an impressive collection. I’d been telling Elizabeth about it for years and felt ownership of it, like it was all mine. Many of those books had helped me through scary, lonely patches.
“He’s young for a professor,” Uncle said.
I said nothing, wanting him to stop talking, to leave the room, to leave Sanctuary, to leave me alone with my cousin.
“He’d heard about the library,” Uncle continued, “and asked to take a look.” He shrugged. “I said he could, for a fee. So I put him in your old room.”
“Where am I to sleep, Uncle?”
“You’ll be in Anna’s room,” he said.
All of these rooms in this house, and he was putting me in with our cook? For all my childhood, Anna had slept in a small room off the kitchen. I had been in there rarely, but I knew it only held a twin bed. “Where will Anna sleep?”
“Anna and I are married now,” Uncle said with a sly grin.
“But … but,” I protested in shock, “Aunt Laura hasn’t been dead much more than a month.” Ben shifted in his chair.
Uncle’s face grew dark. He left the room, finally.
Shaking from this astonishing news, I looked at Ben. He bit his lip and gave me a sad smile.
“They are married?” I asked him.
He nodded.
“But … when?”
“Last week.”
“But … no, it can’t be. Who would marry them?”
“Reverend Miller,” Ben said, quite sensibly answering the question. But then he looked at my face and must have seen something there that gave him pause. For he suddenly seemed sad and serious.
My cousin was simple-minded, yet fretted in a way too deep for his nature. I’d not seen him much these last few years, but he’d come with Aunt Laura on most of her visits.
I squeezed his hand quickly, not knowing if it was for his reassurance or mine. There was something about knowing someone you grew up with—even if you only saw them occasionally as time went on—as if a tight bond was set in young years that couldn’t be easily broken.
Jasper came back in and settled down on the rough stone floor, laying his head on my foot, comforting me. The old faucet dripped.
My cousin handed me his apple. I pushed the stew away and took a cautious bite.
“DO YOU WANT ME TO TAKE YOUR SUITCASE TO AN—TO YOUR ROOM?” BEN asked, pointing to the door to the service hall.
“Thank you, Ben,” I said, “but I remember where the room is.” I didn’t want him to see how shaken I was.
Tossing the apple core away, I grabbed my hat and gloves in one hand and my suitcase in the other and nodded a good-night to Ben, who headed upstairs, looking back at me worriedly as he left.
Anna’s room was off the dark service stair hall outside the kitchen. It was a gloomy area, dimly lit, with a servants’ staircase on the right and several closed mahogany doors. I tried one, only to find the pantry. The next opened to the lone downstairs bedroom, a small windowless cove.
Anna had lived in this small place, waking before dawn, scurrying to the service bathroom before hustling to the kitchen to direct her large staff. But the old servants were gone, and most of my family dead. And here I was, sleeping in the cook’s old room.
I set down my suitcase. I turned on the lamp, which sent out weak light, and sat on the narrow bed. The spare room had no pictures on the wall and only a wardrobe, the bed, and a bedside table.
No girls laughed around me and ran across the floor above my head. Instead, Sanctuary creaked and groaned into an eerie, unwelcoming silence. Sadness enveloped me.
Then I heard whimpering and opened the door to Jasper, his little tail wagging. Sitting on the floor, I kissed him on his sweet nose. “Did you miss me, boy? Did you miss me?”
I played with him for a while. Dogs were so forgiving. It hadn’t been my fault I’d been sent away, but he didn’t know that. Jasper had always been my dog more than anyone else’s.
With one last lick on my cheek, he scampered out of the room. “Don’t leave,” I called out, going after him immediately. I’d wanted him to sleep in my bed as he used to, burying his head under my feet.
“Jasper,” I said softly, going into the kitchen and through an open door into the formal dining room.
I hesitated, then turned on the electric chandelier, casting light into the magnificent room with its fine rosewood table. High windows graced the back wall, dark and mirrored from the night now. Into my mind came a wavy image of my family gathered around for dinner, with my father at the head, Mother to his right, and Mamie to his left. The memory was so vivid I felt I was there, back in the past, seated between Tess and Aunt Laura. I opened my eyes to find my family gone and cobwebs floating above my head, like waves on an invisible sea.
My aunt had shut up this room after they’d come for my mother. For those few months before the fire and before I was sent away, Aunt Laura had hardly left her bedroom, even taking her meals there with Uncle. The rest of us shared bleak evenings in the kitchen. The dining room had been abandoned.
I ran my fingers along the doorframe, wondering if a house could absorb conversations and feelings, releasing them when it wanted. Memories of moments, of whisperings, nudged at me. Was my family captured in Sanctuary’s walls? I put my ear to the wood, listening. But instead of my father’s calm voice, I heard another, harsh and unrecognizable. My eyes flew open. I stepped back, my heart speeding.
It’s just rats or mice, I thought. At school, they’d climb in between the walls, sometimes hissing at one another.
Shutting out the light, I hurried past the long, lonely table and my imaginings into the high-ceilinged foyer. Jasper’s paws made scampering noises up the wide oak staircase.
I treaded silently across the mosaic floor of the shadowy foyer. I didn’t want to glance up to see if Jasper was there because I couldn’t shake the feeling something was here with me, watching me. My stomach in knots, I made my way to the library, a place of refuge just beyond the stairs.
The door was solid mahogany and heavy, creaking as I opened it. I shut it and turned on my old desk lamp.
I smiled at the familiar sight of the wide, very tall shelves of books on the back wall, instantly feeling better. Opposite the shelves were windows that I knew gave a lovely view of the lawn during the day. I scented a sweet fragrance in the air that I couldn’t place. It made me think of happy things I was impatient for, feel an acute sense of longing.
I stared at the books, drinking in the sight of each familiar leather binding. I’d read only a fraction of them as a child, finding comfort in rereading the ones I liked best. I had always been a slow reader, but that didn’t stop me from doing it.
Many of the books were written in languages I didn’t know, but the leather bindings, the black curves of the letters and marks, the radiant illustrations, the textured paper were all things I did understand. These books had been lovingly created; the tales they told must have value.
A long glass-topped case ran alongside the length of wall between the fireplace and the shelves. Inside it were special books. I never touched the fragments of clay tablets, which were fragile
and inscribed with symbols that looked ancient and powerful, and I rarely rolled out the thick-skinned paper scrolls. But my eyes and hands always greedily went to the bound manuscripts, some with heavy leather covers and ornate metal clasps and corners.
I glanced around the shadows of the large room, past the quiet upholstered chairs in front of the fireplace, the small empty cart that had held bottles of liquor for our guests, the bare places on the wall where paintings once hung.
I went to the love seat by the window, glancing at yesterday’s New York Times casually left on the side table with its disturbing headline GERMAN ARMY ATTACKS POLAND in bold print across the top. I picked up the fedora lying beside the paper.
A stranger was in this house, sleeping in my room, with his hands on my books. I played with the hat, resisting my urge to flatten it, and wondered about Sanctuary’s guest, the young professor—wondering how young was young and what he taught and what he looked like. The boarding school only hired woman teachers.
Putting the hat on my head, tilting it over my eyes, I climbed up on the love seat as I used to do and looked out the window into the dark. Tomorrow, I had all day to swim in my wild, cold ocean, read a tantalizing novel in my library, and then explore the island. It would be a good day.
This thought lightened my mood, triggering a surge of courage. I found I wanted to be closer to her, to see her grave, even if it was night. Seeing her name, Therese Cross, might be a comfort. I had wandered the boarding school cemetery many times, not bothered by it. I wasn’t a child anymore, and no longer the younger sister.
I left the library and the hat and went out the front door.
AS I STEPPED OUT FROM UNDER THE PORTICO TO THE STONE PATH, THE breeze of the night air cooled my skin. I couldn’t find where the path branched off to the graveyard. It was either because it was dark and I couldn’t see, or because Uncle had long ago removed the old stones. Ankle-high grass brushed wet against my stockings as I left the path.
A short wrought iron fence surrounded the stones. The gate squeaked as I opened it, the high-pitched noise grating on my ears.
The cemetery was not a well-designed one. A large dry fountain stood in the center, but graves had been haphazardly dug around it, like someone had scattered seeds into the air for the planting of the dead. The graveyard’s disorder didn’t bother me—it seemed more in keeping with the wildness of nature—but the dead did.
The cemetery had been Tess’s place, not mine. She’d known my fear of the not seen and liked to tease me about it—prick, prick, prick. I’d challenged her to cliff diving and exploring caves. And she’d return the favor by leading me into the graveyard at night, then breaking away to hide.
Her grave was next to my father’s and grandmother’s, abandoned in a deeply shaded corner, branches scraping their stones. Uncle must have laid Aunt Laura there too. The thought stopped me in my tracks. Her fresh grave would be there beside the others, my dear sweet aunt with her soft eyes and heart. It was too soon to stand before my family while they slept in the earth.
But I told my sister, as if she could still hear me: See, Tess, I am in the graveyard at night alone without you.
Sometimes I’d find her lying on a grave. Such an odd thing to do. She was very fond of one in particular. I felt pulled toward that one now, as if that was where I was supposed to go all along. I glanced around me as I walked, just to make sure I was alone.
I stopped and hugged myself with my arms, trying to warm up in the chilly air. It was too dark to read the headstone, but I knew what it said. “Amoret Winship,” I whispered to no one. “Lost in 1756.”
Amoret’s grave. Tess’s place.
The dark-haired beauty Amoret had been the first mistress of Sanctuary. Tess and Mother had been obsessed with her, talking endlessly about her while sitting right here by her grave or huddled with their heads together in a corner with one of Tess’s books.
Tess told stories at the dinner table about Amoret, with Mother listening intently, a wineglass in her elegant hand, her dark eyes riveted on my sister.
Amoret had been young, the captain old. Living two hundred years ago. Some tragic mystery swirled around her death. Her life had been sad as well. Tess claimed Amoret longed to return to her home. I hadn’t asked where her home was. Instead, I’d been watching Mother watch Tess and wondering what I might say that would get her to listen to me in that way.
I went to the headstone, dragging my fingers along the top of the rough stone. “Amoret,” I whispered, and felt something tingle in my chest. Suddenly, I realized I was angry with this dead sea captain’s wife. It made no sense, of course, but I blamed her for bonding my sister and mother so closely there was no space for me.
You were never interested in me, the wind seemed to whisper.
“You were dead and gone,” I told the wind. There had been so many other things to explore on our rocky, wild island—caves, trees, sea animals. Especially the sea. I’d always loved the sea.
Yes, you did, came the whisper. You were less interested in the dead.
I nodded.
But everyone in your family is dead or near dead, Cecilia. Perhaps you should pay attention now.
About to nod again, I froze and squeezed my eyes tight, not wondering why I was talking to the wind, but knowing something was here, in the cemetery.
I caught a sharp scent beyond the wild fragrance of the bushes and the trees. It reminded me of what I’d sensed in the library—that longing—but there was nothing sweet about the longing floating about these dead stones. It was sharp and sad—and angry. I was transfixed, trying to listen to it as if it could speak or sing. It wanted me to do something. It was desperate for me to do something. I had no idea what, but the feeling was building. It was unbearable.
I RAN, WINDING THROUGH THE GRAVES, NOT KNOWING WHAT I WAS running from. My foot caught the edge of a flat stone by the fountain, and I fell, ripping my stockings and scraping my knees.
Frozen with fear, I didn’t want to look behind me. But I turned my head slowly, peering back into the deep shadows. I wanted to call out, to ask who was there, but my voice died in my throat. Not even the wind stirred now.
“No one is here, Cecilia,” I whispered. “No one.” No one is in the walls of Sanctuary. No one is in the graveyard.
I stared off into the past, remembering my aunt ushering me into the hallway as my mother’s incoherent screams came from her bedroom. “Go find your sister, Cecilia,” Aunt Laura had told me.
“Why is Momma yelling?” I’d asked. “She sounds scared.”
“It will be all right. Go find Tess.”
But it hadn’t been all right.
My knees were stinging and the stone was cold beneath me. I pulled myself up, brushing off my hands and my dress. I threw open the squeaky gate and hurried to the house. As I got closer to Sanctuary, I began to run again. By the time I was through the front door, I was breathless. I shut it, not caring how loud I was. I leaned back against the heavy wood, shaken to my core.
“Hello,” someone said. I gave a surprised shout.
I took a breath only when I realized it was a real person talking to me.
He stood on the stairs. Dull light from the second-floor landing cast shadows across his face. “I’m sorry,” he said, coming down a few steps. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You did,” I accused, my heart still pounding.
“Did what?” he asked quickly, now at the bottom of the staircase, his face slightly more visible in the moonlight coming in the windows above the door. Even though Uncle had said that he was young for a professor, I’d still been expecting a man with gray hair and spectacles. He wasn’t that.
“Startle me,” I said slowly.
“You did too,” he said, his voice amused.
I was quiet.
“Startle me, I mean.”
“You came down for your hat,” I said, gesturing toward his hands.
“Yes,” he said, holding it up, then playfully twirling it
around his fingers.
I stared at the spinning hat, blushing when I thought of wearing it, an act that seemed intimate now. “I saw it in the library,” I said, not sure of what to say.
“Yes.” I could tell he was smiling.
“Well … good night,” I said, going past him.
“Wait.”
“Yes?”
“Are you Cecilia? Cecilia Cross?”
“Yes. And you’re the professor who’s come to look at our books.” I might have sounded resentful. I hadn’t meant to reveal that.
“Eli Bauer,” he said, stepping toward me with his hand out. I’d never shaken anyone’s hand before. His touch felt nice and warm. We paused for just a second, looking at each other, our hands clasped together in the moonlit foyer.
He let go. I wondered if I’d lingered too long.
“Well, good night,” I said again.
“But—”
“Yes?” I asked, turning back to him, wanting to hear what he had to say.
“What were you doing outside?”
I hesitated, and he waited. “I was just looking at the front lawn,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as defensive as I felt. “I hadn’t seen it in a long time.”
“Since you were a child, I hear.”
“I was twelve when I left.”
“You went to a boarding school?” When I didn’t reply, he added, “Your uncle told me.”
I stiffened at the thought of Uncle talking to someone about me. I didn’t even want my name on his lips. Aunt Laura should have told me what kind of man Uncle had become, instead of giving me vague warnings about not coming back to Sanctuary.
Mr. Bauer was still waiting for an answer from me, but I couldn’t remember what he’d asked.
“What was it like, your school?” he asked, in a fumbling way, as if he were trying to think of things to say too. It made me like him better.
“All girls,” I said.
“I know what that’s like.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
He laughed. “I have sisters.”
“Sisters,” I repeated. “How many?”
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