by A. L. Tyler
“Nothing.” David sighed.
“You look sick. Er. Sicker than before.”
“I’m fine…” He turned the ignition. “Just tired of having to look after you.”
She looked blearily closer at him. “No…That’s not it.”
He sighed. She still had the soda clutched in her hand.
“Here.” She offered it to him, cringing with the realization. “It was for you anyways, wasn’t it? You brought it for yourself, not me.”
He glanced over at her, took a few sips, and then passed the can back to her. They rode home in silence. After parking the car, David walked back down to the barn. Lena rang the doorbell, and then disappeared to her room while Howard and Mrs. Ralston unloaded the groceries. She was sure she would be very upset over some of the things David had said that afternoon, but it would have to wait, because at the moment she was feeling too tired and blurry.
The next day Lena combated what she believed was her first hangover. However, now that she was certain David was willing to give up information, nothing was going to stop her visiting him as often as possible. Her mother watched her closely all morning, until just after lunch, when she felt it necessary to comment.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Lena managed a weak smile, “How are you?”
“Has David been at it again?” She asked, looking around the library to be sure they were alone.
“Been at what?”
“Don’t lie to me, Lena. That kind of thing can really, seriously injure you…”
“I’m fine, Mom! I probably just caught whatever David has.”
Ava reached over and held her daughter’s hand. “Sweetie, I seriously hope not.”
“I was thinking I might go and visit him later.” Lena said innocently.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. You know, I realized I never thanked him for the bracelet.”
“You’re keeping it, then?” Ava looked away and out the window. She seemed to be lost deep in thought.
“I guess so. I mean, it was a gift.”
“A gift, yes…”
Ava got up and walked away. She paused and turned around. “Lena, I think maybe you and I and David should talk sometime.” Her voice had an odd quality to it, and Lena wondered why her mother was always so strange when talking about David.
“Sure. Whatever.” Lena shrugged. Ava walked out of the room.
Over the next few weeks, Lena continued to hardly have a moment without her mother watching her. She managed to see David on almost a daily basis, but with her mother standing right there, she had to play the question game, which proved itself to go nowhere. And despite her small victories, with David standing there, smirking at her from behind her mother’s back, she felt like she was making no progress at all. There were even subjects that her mother refused to discuss altogether; normally, these were the ones Lena had the most interest in.
Her reading had slowed almost to a halt. She kept encountering words she didn’t understand, which her mother refused to explain for fear of hurting her. She really needed a moment with David, and so managed to slip him a note at dinner one night. He had winked at her, which she found annoying, but was happy he was open to the idea. Much later that night, she found herself creeping out of her room and into the greenhouse, where David was supposed to meet her.
The greenhouse was different at night. Moonlight streamed through the many-faceted walls and ceiling, painting everything a pale blue. Some of the plants had started to grow prematurely; while the ground outside was still blanketed with snow, and while the greenhouse itself was quite frigid, a few young leaves and vines could be seen reaching out from under the corpses of last years’ growth. The cold seeped through her jacket and nightclothes. She walked to the wrought-iron spiral staircase, down, and found David sitting next to the pond, very close to the place where she had first met him.
“Now, I’m serious this time. If you get sick on me, I’ll have to kill you myself.” He looked down into the koi pond and smiled. He’d brought a flashlight that was now illuminating his impish expression. “I’m not even going to go into what your mother wanted to do to me the last time you made yourself sick.”
She had brought several books down with her. She picked up the first one, a large, ancient looking volume, and started. “Okay. What does the word ‘Silenti’ mean? I’m seeing it everywhere now.”
“Silenti is the word that commonly refers to the first ones of us. It's Latin.”
Lena nodded. “Who were the first ones?”
“No—not specific people. Well, some of them were. Mostly it’s a generic term. It means us. It’s a word that separates the typical human from people like us.”
“We’re Silenti?” Lena asked, curling her legs beneath her and scooting closer.
“No. We’re part Silenti. You especially.” David's lips twitched into an entertained smile.
“Who are the Durands?”
“The who?”
Lena pushed a smallish book towards David. It had an understated brown cover; Lena wasn’t sure if it had a title or not, but if it did, she couldn’t see it. “I think it’s a diary or something, but I’m not sure. It caught my eye because it has the name Daray in it too. Like my mother.”
David picked up the small manuscript and flipped through the pages. His brow furrowed.
“Well?”
“I can’t…I don’t know who they are. You can read this?”
“Parts of it. Just a sentence here or there. Some of it looks like it’s in Latin, but—“
Lena’s cell phone went off. David jumped up, throwing the diary back down at her. “Don’t lose that.” And then he sprinted out a side entrance on the first story of the greenhouse that Lena hadn’t noticed before. She reasoned that it must have appeared fairly recently, and then the lights in the house started to come on. She calmly gathered her books and walked through the first story entrance into the living room, and was quickly accosted by her mother.
“What are you doing out of bed at this hour?!” Tears were rolling down her cheeks. She grabbed her daughter and pulled her into a tight hug. “Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again! Do you understand?!”
“Mom!” Lena tried to pry herself free and dropped several books in the process. “I was just reading! That’s all! I wanted to read by the pond. I couldn’t sleep.”
Ava continued hugging her daughter and crying.
“Mom, why are you even up?”
Ava let go, but still rested both hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “I just needed…to see if you were okay. I needed to know that you were safe.”
Lena guided her mother over to a couch and they sat down together. “Don’t you think you’re being a little irrational?”
Ava smiled and laughed a little. It looked funny, because she was still crying. “You sound like your father.” She reached over and touched Lena’s cheek. For all the time she’d spent with her mother, this was the first comment of that nature she had made. Lena had wanted her mother to tell her about their relationship before, but Ava had so successfully locked Aaron out of her mind that she had always glossed over the topic or changed the subject. Now that it had come up of its own free will, Lena wasn’t sure she was ready to hear Ava’s opinion of him. She felt like she was going to cry again.
“Sweetie, what’s wrong?” Ava asked.
“Why don’t you ever talk about him?” Tears rolled down her face silently. Lena looked away. She always looked away when she cried, because somehow it made her feel less exposed. Ava reached over and held her hand. She squeezed it gently.
Ava spoke quietly. “There’s a lot of things I wish I could tell you. I just can’t yet.”
“Did you love him?”
“That’s a very complicated question, Lena. And a very personal one.” Ava sighed and stood up.
“What?” The answer was not what she had expected. “Mom, no, it’s not a complicated question. I asked if you loved him, and you’re
going to tell me it’s complicated?”
“I’m sorry, Lena.” Ava sighed again. She walked over to the window and looked across the snowy grounds. “You should really go back to bed.”
She got up and left her mother standing there, the books still strewn about. She returned to bed and tried to stop crying, but she couldn’t stop her brain from thinking thoughts that made her depressed. It seemed she was the only one who had loved her father. It seemed everyone else knew him better.
The next morning, Lena found the books she had dropped the night before neatly stacked at the foot of her bed. All of them but one.
“Mom? I think I’m missing one of the books I had last night. It’s a little brown one.”
“Sorry. Everything I found is up there.” She looked over at Howard. Today was a rare occasion—Howard seemed to be taking some sort of a work break, and had decided to join Ava and Lena in the living room to watch television. It was reruns; Ava’s choice. Lena wondered if it somehow felt like she was making up for lost time.
“Are you sure?” Lena shifted her eyes from Ava to Howard, who remained with his eyes fixed on the television. “Howard? Did you find any books down here?”
“No.” His eyes didn’t move. Since Ava’s arrival, he had avoided talking directly to Lena as much as was humanly possible. She wasn’t sure if he didn’t like her, or if Ava had specifically asked him not to talk to her, but either way, Lena was starting to miss him; even though they’d never been friendly, there really weren’t that many people in the house to talk to.
“So, neither of you found the book?”
“Apparently.” Howard replied.
“Well, I’m going to go look for it, then. It was a very interesting little book.” She stood up and watched their faces very closely, but couldn’t detect any trace of deception. Usually when they tried to hide something from her, they had a tendency to stare at one another; now they were just two people watching television.
She walked up the stairs. Then, she saw something in the library that hadn’t been there before. It was the largest transformation that she had ever seen the house make. There was a new staircase, but it wasn’t just any staircase—it was the staircase. It led towards the middle of the house—perfectly past the third floor hall. It was the missing entrance to the mysterious sealed room on the third floor.
But as her eyes followed it up, it ran straight into the ceiling without stopping. There was no third floor landing. Not yet… Lena climbed the staircase up to where she had to duck to keep from hitting her head. She pressed her hands satisfactorily against the ceiling, impressed with her progress. The book, still at the back of her mind, would have to wait.
She went back to her room and changed into some warm clothes—it was late March, and while the snow that had lately whitewashed the Waldgrave property was melting, the chill remained. She used the greenhouse staircase to avoid her mother knowing she was leaving the house and started to look for David. He was turning fertilizer into the land that he had cleared not too long ago; spring was coming, and Lena allowed herself a wandering thought about what would eventually be planted in the space.
He smiled when he saw her. “Princess,” he nodded. It had been a long time since he had referred to her that way.
“Hello, David.” She smiled. He could tell she was pleased with herself.
“Can I help you with something?” He stuck the shovel into the muddy ground and leaned on it.
“Have you ever been up to the third floor?” She pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders.
“Sure.”
“What’s in the middle room? The one the hall wraps around?”
He shrugged. “It’s an office, I guess. Your grandfather used to keep important documents in there. Why?”
“I found the other staircase. The one that goes up to that room, but I still can’t get in. I want to meet him.”
David raised his eyebrows. It was an unusual request.
Suddenly, Lena heard her name being shouted. She turned around to see her mother running toward her.
“You’ll be meeting him soon enough.” David straightened up as Ava drew closer.
“Lena! You can’t just go sneaking off like that…” Ava didn’t have a coat on, and crossed her arms to keep warm.
Lena crossed her own arms in exasperation. “Why not?! You’re so clingy, and you won’t tell me why!”
“I’m your mother and I don’t have to! And you!” She turned on David. “You shouldn’t be encouraging her!”
“Nothing’s going to happen. Trust me.” He stared very seriously back into Ava’s accusing eyes. She shivered. David took a few steps towards her, a strange glint in his eyes, “Leave her alone. I’ll take care of it.”
Lena turned and started marching back up to the house. She wanted to trust both her mother and David, but it was moments like that that prevented her. As honest as David was, he was going over her head, and she hated it. When she got back up to her room, she saw out the window that David and her mother were still talking.
Lena had hoped that hearing what was in the room would have opened it to her, but it didn’t. That day she had wandered back to her room to read, slightly light headed, and continued to attempt reading. She was greatly pleased, however, that she was only light headed—she appeared to be gaining a tolerance for David’s teaching. Her efforts to rediscover the lost brown diary went unrewarded.
She found herself going back up to the third floor constantly over the next several days, attempting to ascertain if anything had changed. She paced back and forth in the rooms, which were admittedly starting to fill up, but not with anything useful to her. There were dressers with old clothes, boxes of old lamps and empty picture frames, and covered furniture. She sorted through it all, because she knew there had to be some truth, or at least something that would spark her to find the way to the upper floors.
Finally, one day, she thought she had struck gold when she found a box of old picture albums. They were mostly empty at the time, but Lena reasoned they might work like the library books, and so secreted them off to her room, where she inspected all of the pictures very closely. Some were of people she didn’t recognize. Some she did.
There were pictures of her mother as a girl. She knew they were her mother, because she had seen that face in starkly clean hotel mirrors every day when she was young. The pictures were old and slightly yellowed, but still in very good condition. She apparently liked wearing dresses then, too. The Waldgrave house hadn’t changed much, unless the pictures lied—her mother, next to the koi pond, in front of the house, entertaining at a party, smiling in the garden… A span of several years of her life, and even a few photographs that seemed to foretell Lena’s future; pictures of her mother when she was late in her teens. The last photograph of her mother was when she looked to be very early in her twenties, at some sort of party. She was standing in the living room as a man, who appeared to be her date, attempted to hold her hand. While he appeared to be having a good time, Lena quickly recognized her mother’s forced smile. Not the one she had when she laughed, which was rare, but the one she had every time she talked to David.
The back of the photograph only bore three words: Avalon’s engagement party.
Lena flipped the photo back over, and carefully analyzed the man. She could only imagine that Ava must have broken the engagement at some point, because the man in the photo wasn’t her father. Curiosity urged her to ask Ava, but her better judgment told her the issue was too personal.
It wasn’t until she went back through the photos a second time that she noticed something odd. A cat, with short hair and overly large ears, appeared in most of them. It was a reddish brown color, with blue eyes. A family pet, maybe? While young Ava made a crown of daisies, the cat stood still as a stone carving, tense, staring into the camera. Where she stood in front of the house, the cat could be seen leaping down from the window behind her. And there—peeking from behind the door, going up the stairs, glowing eyes in
the shadows of the distant trees. But the thing that bothered her wasn’t the cat itself, but rather the fact that it didn’t seem to have aged in any of the pictures. However, Lena had never owned a cat, and wasn’t really sure how long they were supposed to live.
There was one other item, tucked into the back of an album, that caught her interest briefly. It appeared to be a copy of her birth certificate; she remembered when her mother had retorted to her that her father had never let her see the original. She must have been right, because the certificate (which she decided to keep in a bathroom drawer for fear of having it confiscated) was almost entirely blank. It had her birth date on it, and her parent’s names—that was all. Lena wondered how much her father had kept from her.
“Mom, is Abilene my real name?”
“Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?” They had run into each other in the library. Ava hadn’t been nearly as clingy since the incident with David. Lena wasn’t sure what Ava had been doing with her newly found free time, but she was definitely glad to have the extra freedom.
“I don’t know. It’s just…” Lena almost brought up the blank certificate to prove her point, but stopped herself just in time. If her mother didn’t want her to know, there was a good chance the certificate would be taken away if she found out. Lena smiled, “I’m starting to…you know…question a lot about dad.”
“Oh?”
It was almost painful, but Lena tried her best. “Yeah…well, he wasn’t exactly truthful, was he?”
“Well,” Ava sat down on one of the couches, “Well no, he wasn’t. Aaron was like that.”
Lena glanced over at the staircase and sighed. Ava noticed.
“You can see it then? You’ve never noticed it before…”
“See what? The staircase? Yeah.” Lena didn’t like the look on her mother’s face. It screamed of Ava becoming her shadow again.
“You haven’t been up it?” Ava’s eyes were wide.
“No…”
“Howard works up there. And your…grandfather…too.”
“So?”
