Strangers She Knows

by Christina Dodd

  “Maids who worked at Morgade Hall,” Kellen explained to Rae.

  “Here’s Ruby’s mother!” Kellen had found a plain headstone inscribed with her name, Reika Morgade, and the dates 1901 to 1948.

  Kellen did the math. “She was young, only forty-seven. I wonder what happened to her?”

  “Here are Ruby’s brothers!” Rae’s voice rose in excitement.

  The tombstones were side by side, well cared for, with the names clearly etched.

  Alexander Joseph Morgade

  Son, brother, hero

  Lawrence Elmer Morgade

  Duty above all

  “It’s like seeing the story made real,” Rae said.

  A very sad part of the story.

  A few more stones were scattered throughout the cemetery, but Kellen couldn’t keep her mind on who else rested here. Instead, she looked back at that mausoleum, desolate and empty. Why wasn’t Mr. Morgade interred here on his island? Where was he was interred? And why? Why wasn’t Jamie here?

  Why everything?

  In a flurry, the wind picked up. Clouds from the southeast began to sweep over the island in thin, tattered streams. The surf surged against the island, battering against the rocks. Shadows raced across the land; in a few hours, this world seemed to have changed from isolated and still and wild to menacing.

  Rae’s small, frightened voice said, “Mommy?”

  At once Kellen leaped to attention, looked around for a threat, for the remains of Jamie, for Mara, for anything.

  But Rae stood, with Luna at her side, over the top of a tombstone and pointed. “I don’t understand.”

  Kellen walked over.

  This tombstone looked newer than the others.

  It was well tended. Recently tended.

  The headstone read:

  Hermione Jasper

  Friend of the heart.

  The date of her death was…three years ago.

  Now, for a different reason altogether, Kellen looked around at the rippling grasses, the headstones, the fence, the oak and that absurdly fancy mausoleum.

  “Is this Ruby’s Hermione?” Rae asked.

  “I think… Yes. Before Harry Potter, it was not a common name in the US. Too hard to spell. Too hard to pronounce. How many Hermiones could have lived on this one little island?”

  “Did she live here her whole life?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she came here to die. We don’t actually know what happened to Ruby, either.” Although Kellen was starting to have a few thoughts. “Isla Paraíso is so plain. A few trees, a lot of grasses, cliffs and beaches and ocean and rare birds. One massive house, and many mysteries. When we get back to civilization, I intend to look up Ruby Morgade and her whole life and her whole family.”

  “Yes.” Rae, suddenly mature, folded her hands in front of her in an attitude of prayer. “I want to solve all the riddles. I need to know.” She stared at her mother. “We haven’t found Jamie, and I don’t know where else to look. I’m hungry and I’m tired. Let’s go home. Let’s read the rest of Ruby’s story.”

  32

  The attic was bright, then dim, as clouds raced across the sky. The wind rattled the old house, whistled through the cracks of the windows. The storm was making itself felt.

  As if she were cold, Rae huddled into the window seat, the throw wrapped around her shoulders.

  Luna, minus her socks and garters and tired from the day’s exertions, lay stretched out flat on her side beside Rae, asleep except for the occasional moments when she lifted her head to look around. Luna was uneasy.

  Kellen, as tired as Luna, stretched out on the couch, and read aloud from Ruby’s diary.

  It took Hermione to tell me why I was ill. I had no idea that if I was expecting a child, I would throw up every morning, feel terrible all day, and lose weight until my hands look skeletal and my hair breaks off. How can making a baby be such a terrible toil? Hermione assures me it’s not so for every woman. She’s only twenty-two, but she has younger brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, so she does know. She tells me soon I’ll be fine, but I can see every day she grows more worried. When Mother realized what was wrong, she fled for most of a week. Then she crept back, cowering, as if Father would miraculously appear and punish her. Now she comes up every day and holds my hand and strokes my hair. I’m going to have a baby, and it’s no coincidence that nothing feels so good as my own mother’s touch on my forehead.

  It’s been three weeks since Patrick’s last letter. I know I shouldn’t be impatient, for I found a story by him in the Atlantic Monthly, and his ship has sailed from Hawaii. He may write me, but how can he mail the letters? He can’t, of course. Nor can my letters reach him. I wish I could tell him about the baby, but that would be cruel, for him to realize that the beautiful moments we shared has resulted in so much illness and trouble for me.

  Should I think like that? No! It’s a baby! Patrick’s child. But I feel so desperately ill, I can’t drink even water and I have no tears to cry.

  If only I could take a bath, but although Hermione dragged a small tub up the secret passage, I can’t sit up long enough. I really think I will die. I, or the child, or both of us.

  Dear diary, you will not believe the good news! The child is moving in my belly. Kicking at me as if demanding release. I can see a small bump. Despite my constant sickness, the baby is growing, and I am happy. Perhaps we’ll live through this, baby and me.

  Father has arrived. He came to the attic door and pounded and shouted at me to stop my silly megrims and obey him. I must marry Alfred. I must do it now, or he’ll break the door down and beat me until I do his bidding. I listened to him, and wondered why he was so frantic. I think I know. I still read his newspapers. He’s losing control. The government gives him war stories, and he has to print them. He doesn’t get to interfere in politics and business as he used to. He can’t ruin people’s lives with a single slash of his pen. He’s lost influence and power. He wants to join with Alfred and become the mogul he was before. For that, he needs me.

  He gave me three days to come to my senses.

  The three days are up. Father had his men tear down the barricades outside the door. He strode in, his belly thrust out in that bullying way that he has. I was sitting in the chair waiting, and when he stopped and really looked at me, at my gaunt face and lank hair, he said, “You look old. You’ve done this to yourself. Come down, stupid girl, eat from my table and marry the man I’ve picked for you.”

  I stood up and let the blanket fall from my lap. I will never forget his expression, or his words. “You’ll have to get an abortion.”

  In my worst nightmares, I never imagined that. He delivered his line so coolly, as if killing his own grandchild, his only grandchild, meant nothing to him.

  I staggered back. Hermione caught me and guided me to my chair. Father pointed a finger at her and said to me, “If you don’t do as I say, I’ll throw her off Morgade Island without a reference.”

  I never expected what happened next. Never imagined it could happen. Neither did Father, by the look on his face. Mother charged from her hiding place at the top of the secret passage, shouting in Japanese. I understood her, because she taught me the language, but I was the only one in the room. Yet everyone caught the gist. She told Father No. Not just a little No! It was such an emphatic No to everything he had said. He retreated like a giant flounder before a small, vicious shark. Now, two hours later, I think it’s funny. Wildly, inappropriately, weirdly funny. Mother, attacking Father, making him run away. He didn’t even know what she was saying to him. It was lovely. If I hadn’t been so astonished, I would have cheered.

  As an aside, I don’t think anyone has to bring my dinner up the secret passage anymore.

  As another aside, I’m not leaving the attic. I don’t trust Father. He’ll recover from his shock, and if I’m anywhere wi
thin reach, he’ll grab me and I’ll be hurt in ugly ways. My baby will be torn from my body, and I’ll be given to Alfred. No. I’m safe here.

  If only I could receive a letter from Patrick. Do you suppose Father is intercepting his letters? Or General Tempe is? Or…or that Patrick has forgotten me and our love?

  Something is not right. My belly is cramping. The baby’s not big enough to be born. Not now. I know this isn’t right. I know when this baby was conceived, right to the very hour. Oh, please. Not yet. I’ve suffered so much, and it’s all I have of Patrick. Please, God.

  Dear diary, my little Aileen was born, and she died on the same day. I held her while she breathed her first breath and her last. I named her for Patrick’s mother, who may never know about her darling granddaughter. Mother and Hermione are with me, but I’m empty, and I’m bereft. Please, dear diary, explain to me how it’s possible to be so rich with love seven months ago, and to be so alone now.

  Kellen turned the page. It was empty. So was the next. And the next. She rifled through the rest of the diary.

  Empty.

  “What’s next?” Rae asked belligerently.

  Kellen cleared her throat. “Ruby stopped there.”

  “Stopped? There?” Rae stood up on the window seat, her stocking-clad feet curled around the edge of the cushion. She lifted her arms straight over her head. She shook her fists in rage. “No. No! After all this, Ruby can’t have a baby who dies, and Patrick who goes away and doesn’t come back. Ruby has to have something. Some crumb of happiness. She has to. Please, Mommy. This can’t be all there is.”

  Luna was on her feet, watching Rae in alarm, whining softly.

  Kellen wanted to say stuff about, Life’s not fair, which was true, but right now, after Olympia, and Dylan and Jamie, and being alone on the island—that wasn’t what was needed. “Rae, you’re right. Um…” Kellen looked at the diary, then shut it with a finger in the last page. “There are pages that are torn out at the end. It’s the stuff Ruby didn’t dare to leave on paper.” A lie, but a lie told for good reason.

  “What?” Rae demanded.

  “Well… Well…” Kellen thought hard and fast, making up stories. “She had lost her baby. So terrible. Such a heartache. She thinks Patrick left her. Her mother is a broken woman. Her father is a bully. She doesn’t have anywhere to turn. She talks to her friend, to Hermione, and asks if she’ll take a message to General Tempe, begging an interview.”

  “Ruby is begging General Tempe for an interview? Why?”

  Luna stared at Kellen as if she, too, wanted to know.

  “Well. Well.” Kellen was doing better, coming up with story ideas. “Remember when the general asked if she spoke Japanese?”

  “Yes. So what?”

  “The Japanese were the enemies. They had bombed Pearl Harbor without provocation. And…and the American Army needed spies.”

  “Ruby became a spy?” Rae sounded suspicious.

  “Yes. Yes!” Sure. Why not? “Her father still didn’t know about the secret passages, so with Hermione and her mother covering for her, he never knew Ruby had disappeared from the house.”

  “That’s prodigious!”

  Prodigious. The word stopped Kellen for a moment. But Rae had always had an impressive vocabulary, the result of having a teacher for a grandmother. Kellen plunged on with Ruby’s story. “The Navy took her across the sea to their prisoner-of-war camps, and asked her to listen in on the important prisoners and report what they said. The information she gave them was so good and so valuable, they made her a real spy.”

  Rae collapsed back onto the cushions on the window seat and hugged Luna around the neck. “What kind of spy stuff did she do?”

  “The World War II US secret spy organization—” so secret Kellen didn’t have a clue what to call it “—managed to smuggle her into Japan, where she penetrated the depths of their war planning operation!” Her brain was flinging up nonsense so fast Kellen wanted to pat the poor probed and picked-on organ. Kellen’s Brain, indeed! “When one of her contacts betrayed her, she barely escaped with her life!”

  “Whoa.” Rae scooted closer. “Is that what really happened?”

  “As far as we’re concerned, it is.”

  Rae was good with that. “What about Patrick?”

  “The reason why she didn’t hear from him was because he had become a spy, too. He was one of the men in charge, and he knew all about her mission. When her transmissions ceased and she vanished, he dressed up like a Japanese fisherman and took a boat to the meeting place. They almost missed each other. At first, she didn’t recognize him in his disguise.” Kellen was impressed with her own imagination. “Then she ran to his arms. They embraced. They kissed!”

  “That is so perfect.” Rae leaned forward eagerly. “Then what?”

  Then what? Wasn’t that enough? “They were caught by a Japanese soldier.” Good one, Kellen!

  “No!” Rae covered her mouth in horror.

  “Only Ruby’s quick thinking and her mastery of the Japanese language saved them. She told the soldier they were newlyweds—and he let them go.”

  Rae put her hand over her heart as if it was racing. “Then what?”

  “They got back to his ship and returned the United States.”

  Rae sagged in disappointment. “Is that all?”

  Is that all? “Both of them were so good at their jobs, the US Spy Team didn’t want either of them to quit. But in the excitement of the escape, Patrick had been wounded. Fearing for his life, Ruby begged the ship’s captain to marry them—” not that shipboard weddings were legal, but this was no time to be reasonable “—and the captain performed the ceremony.”

  “That’s so romantic.” Rae sighed.

  Luna smiled.

  “By the time they got back to the States, she was pregnant again, and the officials realized because of his wounds, Patrick would never be able to return to active duty. So they both retired from military service and lived happily ever after.” Whew. Kellen had successfully wrapped it up.

  Ruby hopped off the window seat and knelt beside Kellen. “What about Ruby’s mother?”

  Luna came to join them, sat on the carpet and stared at them both.

  Kellen had celebrated too soon. “She came to live with them.”

  “But she died and they buried her here.” Rae remembered that tombstone in the cemetery. “What about Ruby’s mean ol’ father?”

  “He died alone somewhere else—” Kellen still wondered where “—and he never returned to Isla Paraíso.”

  “Good. I did not like that man.” Rae scratched Luna’s head between the ears. “Did Ruby and Patrick have a boy or a girl?”

  “Twins, one of each.”

  Rae’s eyes shone. “Did you make all that up?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you did. But I like it.”

  Kellen hugged her. “I like it, too. And it could have happened.”

  “That’s the best part.” Rae went to the window seat and snuggled into the pillows.

  Luna joined her.

  Kellen picked up one of the books on the shelves, stretched out on the couch, and read, while Rae watched out the window and daydreamed of a happy ending.

  33

  It was late afternoon when Rae said, “I hear the helicopter!”

  They looked out the window, saw Max make another circuit of the island, and when he landed, Kellen and Rae were waiting, fighting against the surges of wind. The air smelled like salt; Kellen could taste it on her lips, and she wondered what news Max would bring about the storm—and everything else.

  He acted as if he’d been away for days: he hugged them both hard, took their hands and walked with them toward the house. He had looked the island over. He’d seen no trace of Jamie. He shot a significant glance at Kellen, which told her he’d also seen n
o trace of Mara. He told them the oncoming storm had gathered strength, and he asked them what they’d done while he was gone. The search of the Conkles’ cottage made him look solemn, and he seemed taken aback when Rae reported they’d entered the cemetery and found Hermione’s grave, and he stared up at the house as if stricken by the same suspicion Kellen entertained. But he kept walking up the stairs, through the front door and into the library. There he sank wearily into the overstuffed chair. “Sweetheart, would you get Daddy a glass of water?”

  Rae ran toward the kitchen.

  “Did he remember where he put…where Jamie is?” Kellen kept her voice low.

  Max was quiet, too. “No. He’s under the influence of something powerful. Not…what we thought.”

  “Not moonshine?” They’d spoken of it. She’d assumed…

  Max gave a quick shake of the head. “I didn’t stick around to find out what the EMTs had learned, but I got the impression that wasn’t it. Maybe he smoked the wrong weed. Mother Nature’s got some powerful hallucinogenics, and Dylan would be the one to try them.”

  Rae came back with the water.

  Max drank it in big gulps, as if he had been running rather than flying. “Dylan kept talking about Jamie and the birds. He said she loved the birds.”

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” Rae asked in a small voice. “She’s got to be. There was so much blood.” She broke down and for the first time, she wept. “Why didn’t we know? Why didn’t we help her?”

  Kellen sat on the floor with her, pulled her into her arms, and looked helplessly up at Max.

  “We didn’t know because we didn’t know, and we didn’t help her because she didn’t want to be helped.” Max made his voice matter-of-fact. “I don’t think Jamie Conkle would have known how to ask for help.”

  “She didn’t deserve to be hurt!” Rae shouted.

  “No one deserves that.” Not true. Kellen could think of one person. But she wouldn’t discuss Mara with Rae. “Bad things happen. Sometimes they happen to people who don’t deserve it. Wondering why them, why in this place, why at this time—that doesn’t accomplish a thing except make you feel wretched, and we’re already wretched enough.”