by Sara Hanover
“I don’t know.”
“Who would know? Carter? Hiram and his clan? The professor if we could find him?”
I managed a shrug, still fighting with the lump of words, and ended up just shaking my head.
“I thought that you thought that Mortimer might have observed something, noted something in his journal.”
I grabbed for my juice and gulped down a big swig of slightly sweet and acidic orange juice. Winter season oranges were never as good as spring and summer. My tongue stung a bit. “Nothing yet,” I managed. “And there’s something else I need to tell you.”
Her gaze narrowed ever so slightly.
I didn’t want to say it, but I had to. “I chased him out of the house when I found out he’d emptied my college fund.”
“And where was I at the time?”
“Evening office hours. I think you were trying to talk a student out of dropping too late and getting a horrible grade on his record.”
She slid her hand over the table to mine and gripped me. “Honey, I’m sorry. So, so sorry he did that to you.”
“No. No, no—you don’t get it. I did that to him.”
“Don’t think that. Ever. I knew something was going on and should have called him on it before it got that far. You reacted.”
“I overreacted.”
“Maybe. But it wasn’t your fault then, and it isn’t now. Your dad caused most of his own problems, and I got tired of running interference for him. I loved him, but—”
“But?”
“It was like watching an alcoholic drown in booze. I couldn’t make myself step in and stop it. I kept hoping that he’d come to his senses. I did love him. Yet he’d changed so much . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Her hand, tight on mine, felt a little chilled. I hesitated before asking, “Would you have left him?”
“Not then. I might have, but he left us first, didn’t he? Long before you told him to leave. I don’t know what I would have done. If you get him back now, will he be the man I married, the man who was your father, or the man who couldn’t stop gambling?”
“I think he deserves a chance.”
“You would. Then give him that chance, if you can. But don’t beat yourself up if you can’t. I think it would be cruel to keep him trapped in limbo.”
“Do you believe in hell?”
She took her hand away. “Not exactly. But if I did, I think that’s where he’s been for the last few years, don’t you? Not able to return or move forward. I think he’d tell you to do what you have to do.”
“If only I knew what that was.”
She got up, put her tea in the microwave to heat it up again, and said, her back to me, “You’ll figure it out.”
The appliance dinged, masking my reply, which was probably wise because she hated hearing me say things like, “Whatever the fuck that might be.”
* * *
• • •
I was handling the laundry when Evie called. I’d been out for a long run, winter day or not, because when the semester started, I knew coach would be jogging our legs off, season or no season for field hockey. I pried my phone out of my pocket. Not a good sign, that. I might have to start running on a daily basis. My jeans shouldn’t be quite that tight.
“Tessa, Tessa, Tessa!”
“Ohh-kay. That would be me.”
“Did you get the invite?”
I glanced around the laundry room before answering, “What invite?”
“Party, this weekend, Hiram.”
“Oooooh.”
Evelyn pounced. “Good oh or bad oh?”
“Neutral. Meaning, at least I know why you’re so excited and I may have to turn the volume down.” I stopped sorting clothes for a minute and leaned one hip against the washing machine as it churned. “Is this the big everybody-meet-everybody luncheon?”
“It is!”
It looked to me like this was going to be my week for coming clean. I was going to have to pull her aside and tell her about the birds and the bees and fairies and magic. “Saturday?”
“Yes. Late lunch, around three pm. You’re coming, right? And your mother?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Actually, I would if I could, but only because I’d met my quota of running into brick walls this month and it was still really early in January. “Don’t embarrass me by asking him to marry you again.”
Evelyn’s voice dropped a tone. “I won’t. That was really stupid of me, wasn’t it?”
“Not stupid, just extremely premature. If he’s the one, you’ve got time to get to know him first.”
“With these butterflies?”
“I think those butterflies might be hormonal.”
“Never!” But Evelyn laughed. It was good to hear that rather than a frantic explanation of why things had to be the way they were, from her point of view. Maybe there was hope for her yet.
The dryer buzzed. “Gotta go, I need to lay these clothes out so they don’t wrinkle. I’ll give you a call when I get my own invitation.”
“Done deal!” She signed off, and I bent over to disperse the load. I wouldn’t get the mail for a few hours yet, so I buried myself in chores.
As it turned out, it didn’t come in the mail. Hiram delivered our invitation in person, our front porch groaning a bit as he ascended it and stood at our front door, very formal.
The dryer buzzed again from the laundry room in the back as I opened the house for him. “Is this about Saturday?”
“It is. And I hate to trouble you, but I need a word or so.”
“Hiram! If you’re trouble, I need more of it. We’ve biscuits and jam left over from breakfast—go help yourself while I move the clothes over?”
“I will, indeed. Peach jam?”
“Raspberry. Home put up.”
He smiled broadly. “Don’t mind if I do!”
When I showed up at the kitchen table, he had a spread of biscuits, two kinds of jam, one jar of honey, and a pot of wonderful-smelling coffee brewing.
He also had my mother’s binder under his left hand, a third of it read. He closed it and put it aside when I sat down. His brows had settled deeply over his eyes.
I buttered a warm biscuit half, discovered he’d found peach jam in the pantry, and decorated my snack. “Everything all right?”
“So far.”
He didn’t look it, and I wasn’t convinced, but Iron Dwarves weren’t easy to pry words out of if they don’t want to talk.
“Evelyn is excited.”
“I know.” His face twisted wryly for a few brief seconds. “Any chance you could calm her down?”
“I will do my best.” I dusted crumbs off my fingers. “I’m glad you’re doing this. It’s really important to her.”
“I am honored to be in her regard.”
“Don’t sound so stuffy. She’s crazy about you, and I know you care for her.”
“I do. I’m aware. I’m just not certain . . .” His gaze dropped.
I leaned forward and supplied an ending to his sentence. “That you have a future together?”
“Aye, that would be it.”
“So, you should quit it if you haven’t got the courage to stay in it.”
“Well, now . . . I don’t like hearing that. Broadstones are not quitters.”
I decided to point out the obvious. “Nor are they mired in convention. Look at your own father. He fell in love with a harpy, no matter what the others said.”
Hiram sat very silent for a long moment, an index finger ticking on the kitchen table. He cleared his throat. “He did, did he not?”
“He certainly did. And although they had their troubles, I venture to say they loved and respected each other in their own ways for decades. Goldie speaks very highly of him.”
“I wouldn’t want to live sep
arately the way the two of them did.”
“I shouldn’t imagine Evie would either. It’s a little early to be thinking about that now, though.”
“I like to plan for contingencies.” He devoured a raspberry jam biscuit in one bite.
“My advice would be to take it slowly and carefully, at least until after Statler’s inauguration in two weeks. If you rock that boat, all your hopes will sink. Evelyn won’t be able to save either of you.”
“He’s a strong man.”
“And powerful. If you have to go up against him, it will be like those rams that butt heads against each other for days.”
“Bighorn sheep.”
“Those would be the ones.”
Hiram laughed. “You’ve the right of that one. We would, indeed, butt heads until one of us fell over.”
“Not good for anyone.”
“No.” Hiram’s gaze drifted downward, glancing over my mother’s dissertation, and I thought I saw a wince. He pushed away from the kitchen table. “I’ll see the two of you?”
“Long as we have an address.”
He dropped a gold-edged envelope on the table. “Now you do.” He gave a bow. “Thank your mother for the biscuits. She has a delicate hand with them.”
He left, the house softly creaking with each footstep as he did.
I picked up the invitation and slid it open to stare at the address, not at all surprised to find that he owned an estate house in a very good part of town, edged with woods and bordered by a small creek, and likely to have cost more than I could possibly imagine. I would definitely have to have a sit-down with Evelyn before the dinner.
I could hear Mom vacuuming somewhere in the living room and what passed for a parlor/dining room, heralded by Scout’s somewhat panicky retreat to the upstairs. Brave as my dog could be, he’d never quite gotten used to the vacuum cleaner. I followed him up, determined to get that journal and more reading done.
Flopping down in my chair, feet up, dog at one knee, I pulled the journal into position . . . and then noticed a ragged edge of a page I hadn’t ever seen before peeking out of the top. I leafed forward and back until I found the damage. Someone had ripped nearly an entire page out of the journal, something I had never noticed before. The spine held a ragged, jagged edge, of which only one word could be seen. Half a word, in truth. A name? A description? Nic—whatever. I stared at it and then read forward and afterward quickly to see if I could pick up the full name and context.
I finally dropped the journal on my lap. Someone had been into Mortimer’s diary in the last few days. Someone didn’t want me learning what the journal could teach me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SAY MY NAME
HARD AS IT was to skim through the entries, because Mortimer wrote in great blocks of exposition and description, I went through the next thirty pages as quickly as I could, hoping to pick up some sense of whatever it was that had been torn out.
He did mention a “great blight” upon the city and territory of Richmond, and he didn’t refer to the Civil War, near as I could tell. He was writing about the last fifty years or so, although the root of the blight went back to the founding of the country itself. That sent a shiver down the back of my neck. I closed the journal around my finger to bookmark it and considered his writing. If he meant a person, it would have to be someone like himself, or Steptoe, or the professor. Someone or something with a lifespan covering centuries. Or a dynasty of power. Either way, it would be formidable. Someone or something that would think nothing of getting me out of its way. Or my father. Or anyone who was a mere mortal. The realization gave me a chill that sank into me and wouldn’t let go.
Had that blight sent an agent into my house? Why not take the entire diary? Well, no. That would have immediately set off questions. But whoever had ripped out the page hadn’t done it neatly, and I might never have noticed it otherwise because I usually skimmed Mortimer’s words, looking for only the essential bits that might apply to my father. No one could know my method unless they’d been reading over my shoulder—at that thought, I did look over my shoulder in case something invisible resided in the corner of my room—sheer idiocy, but I felt spooked. My prowess with my stone shields and my field hockey stick only went so far in defensive work.
And, it seemed, I wouldn’t be able to trust the Society either for lessons or schooling.
I got up. Scout followed me downstairs, watching quizzically as I stuffed the journal into a bag and then hid the bag inside a half-full cereal box in the pantry. Not terribly original, I admit, but what agent of a centuries-old blight would be that familiar with modern American cereals?
Then I trotted downstairs to look at the professor’s stack of boxes. The sound of someone rattling around in the kitchen reached me. “Mom?”
“No, ducks, it’s me,” Steptoe called down. “Problem?”
“No.” I thought about it. “Yes. Come down for a moment?”
He cleared his throat and came down the stairs slowly. “It’s like being scalded,” he told me.
“You didn’t say anything earlier.”
“Earlier we knew the house had been broken into.” He chafed his arms a bit. “What is it?”
“I need the boxes the way they were.”
“All scattered about? Are you bat-shit crazy?”
“Probably. I don’t want them shoved about, but in the order . . . do you remember what we found where? Not the proper order but the mismatched order.”
Steptoe humphed. “Since it’s you, I could. And will.” He bent over and unstacked the boxes. I helped getting them all on one level and then sorted again into the way we’d found them, although much neater. Scout whined once or twice from the stairs. I stood back and looked at them.
“Nope,” I decided. “Back the way they were.”
Steptoe rolled a dark eye at me. “Seriously?”
“Yes.” I bent over and began to move and stack boxes myself. After making a disgruntled noise, he joined me.
He stood and clapped his hands on his trousered thighs when we’d finished. “Done?”
“I think so.”
“And what was the point of all that?”
“Someone didn’t want me getting into the professor’s things.”
“No? Then why did we just play Jenga with them?”
“They were mixed up, deliberately out of order. Whoever did it, hadn’t planned that either you or I had a sharp enough memory to put them back in their proper place. At first, I thought the mess was deliberate, and it was, as messes go. But this order is deliberate, too. You and I both remembered it keenly. We put everything back in place expertly. Why?”
“I don’t know about you,” said Steptoe with a sulky curl to his bottom lip, “but I’d find it hard to forget now.”
“Yes, but under normal circumstances, we’d have hardly paid attention to any of them, except for the leaker. Yet we did. Keen attention. As if they’d been bespelled.” I put my hand out. “Got a pocket knife on you?”
He stared at me. “Why?”
“I’m going to cut that one open.” I pointed at a box on the upper end.
He flexed his hand, and a nail lengthened into an impressive razor-sharp point. “That one?” he confirmed before stepping forward and slicing it free. He waved his hand, and the nail disappeared.
I took a minute to handle my shock and surprise before approaching it and unfolding its cardboard ears to see what lay inside. I have to admit, I forget from time to time what Steptoe is and what he might be capable of. I reminded myself that it would be careless to do so again. His menace didn’t simmer just under the surface the way Malender’s did, but he was, when all was said and done, a demon.
And right now, a slightly discomfited one.
The books inside still smelled a bit of smoke and water from the fire which had destroyed the professor�
�s home. Their spines were mottled, titles and authors near impossible to read. I dipped a hand inside, still operating on what I could only call instinct. Something resided inside this box that I wasn’t supposed to find.
“What are you looking for?”
I glanced quickly at Steptoe. “Harry Potter’s Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook.”
His jaw dropped for a moment as he stumbled for a word, and then he simply shut his mouth and said nothing at all. While he went silent, a book seemed to rise up out of its position and into the fingers of my hand. I pulled it the rest of the way out and examined its front cover.
“The Enemy and How to Defeat It,” I read.
Steptoe visibly paled. He tried to reach around me. “I think that should go back in its carton.”
I held it out of his reach. “Why?”
He mumbled something I couldn’t understand.
“What?”
“Starting a war, are you? That’s the only thing that book is good for.”
I thought about Malender’s chilling warning. Someone had marked us for harm. “I think this book might possibly be perfect. Let me tell you why . . .”
“Can you tell me upstairs? This is getting to me.” He chafed his suit coat sleeves again, and he did look a bit frazzled, his normally wavy hair gaining strands that seemed to want to float off by themselves.
I locked the box flaps into place and waved him to lead the way. Halfway up, I turned about. “Don’t worry, Dad. I have this handled.”
I didn’t, not yet, but I would.
Steptoe didn’t like a word I said about the journal which had been altered. He sat and simmered, rather like a pot put on to boil, and I wondered if steam would come out of his ears as I finished.
“You didn’t tell me most of that earlier.”
“I told you about the Butchery, even when I thought I couldn’t tell anyone.”
A sound came from the kitchen doorway. My mother entered and sat down, her chair scraping across the floor as she did.
The two of them traded looks. “She’s been holding out on us.”
“That she has.”
I thumped the book which now rested on the kitchen table. “Not anymore.”