Raquel Byrnes (11 page)

He towered over the dark man next to him. The angled shadows of the sun framed Simon’s muscled body like a beautiful sculpture as he gripped the weapon. Sunlight reflected off the sheen of sweat on his skin.

I felt almost guilty seeing him like this—as if I was peeking through a crack in his door. I flipped the photograph over. Dated fifteen years ago, it had three words scrawled across the back:
Simon’s rite; victory
.

I caressed the image of Simon’s face. A fresh cut dripped crimson along his jaw; the scar I noticed when we first met. A tug in my chest pulled my thoughts to him and that moment in the greenhouse when he’d told me I looked beautiful. His presence pushed logic out of my head. He made my breath catch. I’d known he was striking, but there’d been more; something I couldn’t understand until I saw the picture. I finally understood the undercurrent that pulled me to him. Hidden beneath crisp shirts and proper manners lived the man in this photograph. The man who stared fearless from the depths of a strange land.

I’d almost lost track of where I was, and footfalls on the stairs outside the door caught me off guard. Someone was coming. Had they followed me in from the library? Three jarring bangs shook the door panel, and I stumbled from the stool, knocking the photographs to the ground as I backed up. I rushed forward, blew out the candles, and stood against the wall shaking. Another bang sent me to whimpers, and I listened to sliding movement along the wall as someone searched for a way in.

Something poked my back, and I felt behind me, my hand closing around a door knob. A second door.

“Please open,” I whispered and turned the knob.

The handle clicked, and I rushed out of the room. Desperate not to be discovered, I scurried down a dark corridor searching the walls on either side for doors, and finding none. The sensation of sliding down threw me off balance, and I stumbled along the hallway. A few feet in front of me, I spotted a slit of light on the floor. I reached out, pushed on the wall in front of me and toppled out into the foyer of the house. Panting, I blinked with confusion. Behind me, the grandfather clock stood next to an open panel. The passage led out here? I staggered around the foyer, confused. I was back on the first floor of the house.

A thought occurred to me. If the storage room had two entrances, then perhaps the room behind the library wall had two, also. I made a mental note to visit the room again in the daylight. Remembering the moans, I decided I was done exploring for tonight.

I rubbed my eyes, exhausted and overwhelmed. Heading for my room, I realized I still had the picture of Simon in my hand and shoved it in the front pocket of my sweatshirt.

“Daddy!” Lavender’s terrified scream warbled through the floor.

I ran for her room, the echoes of my dream still rattling through my head. I burst through her door. She stood on her bed, huddled in the corner under the large canopy, hugging her arms. Candles on her mantel cast the room in an eerie flickering glow.

“Daddy!” Eyes wild, she screamed again. “They’re coming!”

“Shh, it’s OK, Lavender.” I ran to her, scooped her into my arms, and held her close.

She buried her face against my neck, trembling. “Did you hear it? Did you hear the monster?”

“It’s OK, sweetie,” I murmured.

She shook her head vehemently, her face wet with tears.

“How about a song?” I asked and started a Sunday school song.

She listened for a moment, but her lip quivered again. “I want my daddy.”

“I’m here, Lala.” Simon’s deep voice brought on relief I hadn’t expected. “Come here.”

She dove for his chest and clung to him with her arms around his neck. She sobbed into his shoulder, and he stroked her hair soothingly, murmuring softly as he walked with her around the room. His compassion touched me, and I sat, watching the two of them. After a few minutes he stopped, tried to see her face.

“What’s the matter?” he asked her, but she shook her head, not raising her eyes to look at him.

“She was screaming about monsters,” I said.

“Monsters, Lala?” Simon tried, but Lavender said nothing.

He sighed. “This has been going on for almost two years. I don’t know how to help her. Night terrors, the doctor said, but…” He shook his head, worry etched under his tired eyes.

“She said she was having bad dreams,” I whispered. “She looked so scared.”

Simon reached out, ran his hand along my arm. “Thank you for getting to her so quickly.”

I nodded, my breath caught in my chest. “I was up.”

“Been walking around, have you?”

The question seemed innocent on the surface, but the knowing look on Simon’s face gave me pause.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you’re covered in dust and spider webs, Rosetta. Where have you been?”

The photograph of him still in my pocket, I couldn’t tell him the truth—that I’d been sneaking around his home and poking into his life without permission. I flashed on the argument with my mother in courthouse hall. Angry words reverberating along the marble walls as the consequences of my choices tore my life apart.

Would finding out what I’d been up to prompt Simon to send me packing? How could I risk losing the only place I had to live?

Simon watched me intently, as if waiting for my answer.

I ran my gaze along his perfect lips and jaw, the feel of his hand on mine still fresh. My stomach fluttered.

What if he didn’t believe me?

It wouldn’t be the first time I was accused of lying. It wouldn’t be the first time I lost everything because of my words.

12

“Can’t we talk about this later?” I whispered and pointed to Lavender.

Simon sat down with Lavender in the overstuffed chair by her fireplace. He patted her back, and she settled into him, relaxing despite sniffles coming in hitches.

“For now,” Simon intoned, a curious look on his face. “But you’re not off the hook. As soon as Lala falls asleep, I want to know.”

I crossed my heart with my finger and sat on the bed watching them for a while, his head tilted toward hers, cheek resting on her forehead. He held the delicate child, and I was struck with the duality of his character: the gentle father and the warrior with the spear in the photograph. So tender and so dangerous, at the same time.

My throat ached with the thought of him raising her alone.

He closed his eyes, humming softly to Lavender.

Not wanting to disturb them by getting up, I looked around the room in the dim candlelight. A white iron canopy bed swathed in gauzy pink frills towered in the corner. The room’s walls flanked it with cheerful murals of rolling hills dotted with jumping white bunnies. A yellow sun cast its rays over an ideal land of blooming trees and multi-colored butterflies. I knew what it was to be surrounded with fake frivolity and still feel the chill of loneliness. I thought of her frightened face, and the memory of her terrified screams ripped at my heart.

Lavender’s breathing slowed and eventually deepened.

Simon put her in bed.

We walked out to the hall, candles in hand.

Simon looked at me, puzzled, as he shut her door.

“Why?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Why were you up?” Simon asked. He nodded down the hall, and I walked, wondering where we were going. He was silent, waiting for my answer.

“I left my window open and nearly drowned with the rain coming in.” I tried to make light of the terrible feeling of dread I’d experienced, but my smile must have seemed forced because Simon stopped and regarded me silently, his eyes holding mine.

“What else?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s more. I can see it in your eyes, Rosetta. What happened?”

“I had a bad dream.” I shifted. “No big deal.”

“That’s not all, I think.” Eyes narrowed, Simon shook his head after a few seconds. “If you don’t want to say, that’s fine.”

My throat closed, aching with the words, but too scared to share. How did I explain the state I was in? Alarm and attraction mingled, crashing together in a jumble of thoughts and emotions. I looked at him, helpless and without words.

He nodded, a grim cast to his face. We followed the curve of the hall, down the stairs to the kitchen.

“I heard that Tuttle mentioned a picnic,” he said and searched through the fridge. “Your suggestion?”

Remembering her ire at my lunch outside with Davenport, I cringed.

“She isn’t happy with me again.”

“Don’t worry about her.” He placed the platter of cut-up fruit on the table and sat down. “She’s crusty on the outside, but very loving under all of her dour English looks.”

I chose the seat opposite and leaned on my elbows, watching the candle’s flame waver with our breathing. Outside, the wind tore through the trees, the branches slapping their wet leaves against the kitchen window. My heart raced, nerves prickling. Picking up a slice of kiwi, I inspected its tiny seeds in the candlelight. I didn’t want to lie to him. I didn’t want to keep secrets. Not after I’d seen the destruction they could cause.

“I thought I heard…a noise.” I kept my gaze on the candle. “A moan. That’s why I was out and about. I tried to follow it, but I couldn’t.”

When he didn’t answer me, I looked up. He was staring at me with a strange, unsettled look on his face.

“It was probably the wind.” His face didn’t reflect confidence in his own words.

“It sounded like someone in pain,” I said. “And there were footsteps.”

Simon put his hand over mine. His face changed, shifted to a look of resolve. “You’d just had a nightmare. Maybe you were disoriented. The wind can sound ominous in this old house. The cracks—”

“No…I know what I heard.” I withdrew my hand from his and shook my head. How could I imagine all of it? “What about this?” I showed him the smears of dust on my clothes. “I didn’t dream this.”

“Did you find a secret passage?” He leaned back, his look not surprised. “This place has quite a few. They were built into the house by my great grandfather. There are passageways that snake all through the interior of this house.”

“Why would someone do that?”

“Moonshine. Davenport, Sr., my great-grandfather, was paranoid the sheriff would find the stash he served to his guests. When my grandfather inherited the lodge, he converted it to the family home, but my father remembers playing in the passageways as a child.” Simon popped a grape into his mouth. He smiled. “I used to play in them, too. I thought I had them all sealed when Lala got old enough to explore, but it seems they missed a couple.”

How could he be so nonchalant about this? His body language said one thing, but the wariness in his eyes told me something else.

“And the footsteps?” I sat back, pushed the plate away from me, and twisted a lock of my hair.

“Probably O’Shay. He’s always walking about. He can’t sleep. Never could.” Simon shrugged, his brows furrowed. “I thought you’d be happy to have your phantom explained.”

“I never said it was a ghost, Simon.” My cheeks burned that he thought me silly. And then even more so when I realized I cared what he thought of me at all.

“Why do you call her Lala?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“That’s what she used to say her name was when she was learning to talk. It just stuck.” The wistful smile faded to a concerned frown. “I don’t know how to help her.”

“She’s afraid of something.” Did he know about the dreams of her mother falling? Surely he did. He’d sought help for her before. I decided not to bring it up.

“Thank you again for comforting her,” Simon said and held my gaze. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”

“She’s a sweet girl.”

“She likes you.”

“That’s because I gave her cream puffs for lunch,” I said and shrugged, trying to control the way he made my breath catch.

“It’s more than that. You know what it is to miss your mother.”

His words cut through me, and I blinked, surprised at the onslaught of sorrow that pooled. I stood abruptly, causing the chair to scrape on the floor. Walking to the fridge, I felt wooden, stiff with fear of what might happen if I let go of my emotions.

“Why won’t you talk about your family?”

“There’s nothing left to say. They aren’t my family anymore.”

I heard him move and then he was next to me at the sink, his voice low and thick at my ear. “What you did, Rosetta,” he said and turned me to face him. “It was the right thing to do. You kept an innocent man from going to prison.”

“And sent my father there, instead.” I choked on the words. “I got death threats. My mother disowned me. It doesn’t feel like I did the right thing. It feels like I…” The tears threatened. Fighting for control, I turned back to the sink.

“How do you do it, then?”

“Do what?” I looked at him, confused.

“That song you sang to Lala, it was Psalms,” he uttered, a frown on his full lips. “Aren’t you angry?”

“At who?”

“At God,” Simon said and a shadow of anger crossed his features

“It was my choice to do it,” I said over the lump in my throat. “I did it because it was right.”

“But the price you paid—”

“It’s…hard.” I swallowed back tears. “But, I believe in His promises. I know I’m not alone.”

“How do you know that?” His brow furrowed. “To strip you of all you loved…it’s impossible to forgive that. To believe God cares at all.”

“Are we talking about me or you?” I studied his face, the anger there. “What happened?”

“God and I just have very little to do with one another anymore.” He sat and held his head in his hands. “There’s nothing more to say on the subject, Rosetta.” His sorrow and anger were palpable. He seemed so tired. Like he’d been wrestling with whatever haunted him for so long it left a physical mark.

“What is going on with you, Simon?” I wiped my face. “You said you aren’t sleeping, either. Why not?”

Did he hear the noises, too? Wouldn’t he have confirmed my worries instead of waving them away with weak explanations? It must be something else. Something he seemed to want to tell me. I watched him, waited for him to answer.