“Probably someone who doesn’t know the nursery hours,” Ellis said.
She rolled down her window. The woman in the driver’s seat opened hers.
“The nursery is only open to the public Wednesday through Saturday,” Ellis told the woman.
“We’re not here for the nursery,” the woman said. “Are you Ellis Abbey?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve come to talk to you.”
Ellis could see someone in the passenger seat. A young woman.
“We were just leaving,” Ellis said.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d see us. We’ve come a long way.”
Her license plate was from New Jersey. But that didn’t mean anything. It was probably a rental.
“Weird,” Keith said.
“Yeah. They better not be selling something.”
She turned around and parked next to the house. She and Keith stood in the gravel driveway and watched the woman park. Both doors opened. The older woman had fair skin and hair and was well dressed. Ellis didn’t recognize her. She now realized that the younger woman was a teenager. She was slim with long, wavy dark hair and tan skin. Her dark eyes were intent on her and Keith.
She looked familiar . . .
No, what she was thinking was impossible. It was a coincidence. Jonah would have told her if her daughter had been found. He knew where Ellis lived. He’d tried to contact her about a life insurance policy a few years ago, but she’d ignored him.
The woman and girl stood in front of Ellis. Why were they staring at her like that?
“I like your house,” the girl said. “And these woods. Is that moss on the trees?”
“It’s called Spanish moss, but it’s not a moss. It’s a bromeliad, if you know what that is.”
“We have lots of moss on the trees where I live.”
“Where is that?” Ellis asked.
“Washington.”
“The moss is beautiful out there. I’ve seen it.”
The older woman extended her hand to Ellis. “I’m Sondra Lind Young.”
Ellis shook her hand. She looked at the girl, waiting to be introduced.
“This is Raven Lind,” Sondra said. “She’s . . . perhaps we should go inside to talk.”
“Why would we need to do that?” Ellis asked.
“Because I used to be Viola,” the teen said.
Ellis felt like she’d stepped into a blaze. Her face was that hot.
Raven. They must have gotten that detail from Jonah. He was the only one who knew about the raven calling the day Viola was taken.
“This is disgusting,” Ellis said to Sondra.
She looked stunned.
“Why would you do this?” Ellis demanded.
“Do what?”
“Try to pass her off as my daughter. What are you after?”
“She is your daughter,” she said. “It’s been proven with genetic testing. We’ve come here from Jonah’s home in New York.”
Ellis had the same hollow feeling she’d had the day she stared at the empty ground where she’d last seen her baby. As if most of her body and soul had vanished with the child. Now the portal had opened again, thrusting her grown child back into her world. But there was so much Ellis had lost that could never come back.
Sondra took out her phone. “Would you like to talk to Jonah to verify? I’ll call him right now.”
The girl’s face was her own, just younger. Ellis even saw a similar ache in her gaze. What had she been through all these years?
“Don’t call him,” Ellis said. “I see it. She’s Viola.”
The girl defiantly lifted her chin. “I want to be called Raven. I’ve been called that since I was a baby.”
“Who named you that?”
“My sister did,” Sondra said. “I’m sorry to say she was the one who took your daughter.”
The raven. She had named the child after that damn raven. It had to be where she got the name. Ellis was afraid she would faint. “Where is she? Where is your sister? Do the police have her?”
“She’s dead,” Sondra said.
“Ellis . . .”
She turned around and saw Keith. How had she forgotten he was there? And talk about wounded gazes.
“What is this? You have a daughter?”
“I . . . yes. She was kidnapped. Sixteen years ago.”
“How could you not have told me this?”
“I can’t explain . . .” She looked at the girl. At her daughter. “Not now.”
“I’ll leave, then,” he said in a shaky voice. “You obviously need time alone with her.”
He went inside and emerged with the keys to his car.
Ellis followed him to his car. “I’m so sorry,” she said quietly.
“Sorry seems inadequate, Ellis.” He opened the car door.
She would never see him again. She was certain of it. She’d expected it to happen long ago.
“Before you leave . . . I want to tell you the rest. When she was a baby, I left her in a parking lot. I was upset because . . . well, it doesn’t matter why. I forgot her and drove away. By the time I remembered, she was gone.”
“Were you stoned?”
“That didn’t start until after it happened. Her abduction was why it happened.”
“Jesus, Ellis, this is a hell of a lot to have kept from me.”
Tears burned. “It’s worse.”
“How can it be worse?”
“I have two boys. I walked away from them. I don’t know why. I don’t know what was wrong with me. And then I couldn’t fix it. Or tell you. I’m just not right. I never have been. I always thought you’d figure that out and leave. I didn’t see the point of telling you when you’d leave soon anyway.”
“You have three children?”
She nodded, wiping her hands down her cheeks.
“All this time . . . this is why you wouldn’t have a baby with me?”
“Yes.”
“Why you refused to marry me?”
The tears fell faster.
“I moved in with you ten years ago, Ellis. Ten years. And we’ve been together longer than that.”
“I tried to warn you that first night you came here.”
“I was supposed to see all of this in those jokes you made that night? Caveat emptor?”
“That wasn’t a joke.”
“I’m the only joke in all of this. How could I have trusted you?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you see how ridiculous it is for you to say that? I’ve wasted years on your lies!”
He got in the car and slammed the door. He drove away and disappeared into the trees.
Gravel crunched behind her. Her daughter and Sondra. Ellis wasn’t sure how much they’d heard.
“I’m sorry,” Sondra said.
I’m sorry. Keith was right. What stupid words those were. The woman’s sister had wrecked her whole life, and that was all she could say?
Ellis looked at her daughter. “Do you live with Jonah now?”
“I want to live with you.”
“Is she serious?” Ellis asked Sondra.
“She refuses to live with her father. She didn’t like it there.”
“Please let me live with you,” her daughter said.
“You have to go to your father’s.”
Again, the willful tilt of her head. “I won’t.”
“Did you hear any of that conversation? I left you in a parking lot and drove away.”
“I know,” she said.
“I left my boys.”
“I know.”
“You don’t want to be with me. I have no ability to be a mother.”
“I don’t want a mother. I have one.”
Ellis was glad her heart had been ripped out long ago. Those words would have done her in if she still had any maternal urges left.
“I thought the woman who raised you was dead?”
An odd look surfaced in her eyes. “She’s still with me in spirit
.”
Sondra reacted with an uneasy stare at the girl.
“I only want to live here for a while,” the girl said. “When they let me go back to my house, I’ll leave.”
Ellis looked to Sondra for an explanation.
“My sister left the Washington house to her,” Sondra said. “But it won’t be legally hers until many issues are settled. And Jonah, as her legal guardian, doesn’t want her living alone out there at sixteen.”
“She can inherit the house when she isn’t related to your sister?”
“I could contest it, but I won’t. My sister tore apart many lives. I saw that at Jonah’s, and I see it here. I know the estate my sister left to your daughter can’t repair your lives, but it’s a start.”
The girl opened the rear door of the rental car. She slung a backpack over her shoulder and pulled out a large suitcase.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Ellis said.
“She has nowhere else to go,” Sondra said.
“What about school?”
“I talked to her school. They know the situation, and they’ll let her finish this semester remotely. She may be able to finish all of high school that way.”
Ellis gestured toward the woods around her. “Look at how isolated this place is. A teenager won’t want to live here.”
Sondra smiled slightly. “This one will. And this is the ideal place to be if her reappearance triggers a media frenzy.”
“Do you expect that?”
“I don’t know what to expect. Jonah and I plan to keep it as quiet as possible.”
“Do the police know yet?”
“Raven, Jonah, and I have spoken to detectives in New York.”
“Can I see inside the house?” the girl asked.
“Why don’t we all go inside?” Sondra said to Ellis. “I’m sure you have many questions.”
Two questions came to mind: How can you possibly do this, Ellis? How will you not damage this girl more than she already is?
3
RAVEN
Ellis Abbey was better than Raven had hoped. She didn’t want her at her house. That had been clear enough. But that was okay because Raven didn’t want to be there either.
But she liked the house made of wood, the forest around it, and the huge trees laden with long, swaying hair. She was greatly relieved when the ancient trees stirred the kind of earth kinship she’d known in Mama’s woods. She’d sensed no presence of earth spirits at Jonah’s house or anywhere else since she’d left Washington. She had begun to worry that she’d never feel their presence again. Maybe Mama had been as wrong about the ancient earth arts as she’d been about how Raven had come to her. But the land around Ellis’s house was definitely a place of spirits. Raven had felt them even before she got out of the car.
They followed a flat-stone walkway to a big, open porch. There were two wooden rocking chairs that looked out at the trees.
When Ellis opened the door, a huge dog came out and barked at Raven and her aunt.
“Quiet, Quercus!” Ellis said. “He’s friendly. Are you okay with dogs?”
Raven couldn’t answer. The only dog she’d ever known—or not known—was the werewolf.
The dog licked her hand. “Quercus is a good name for him,” she said.
“You know what it means?” Ellis asked.
“Yes, the genus of oaks.”
Ellis seemed surprised that she knew.
Raven was happy to see the house had wood walls and floors, same as her log home. And the furnishings were simple and few, as Mama liked. The house was smaller, but it felt good. There was even a stone fireplace in the living room.
Ellis showed Raven and her aunt around. There was a guest room, where Ellis put Raven’s suitcase. The patterned quilt and wood bed with posts were beautiful. Aunt Sondra said, “I love the country feel of this house. The antique furniture is a perfect complement.”
“Most of the furniture was more trash than antique when I found it,” Ellis said. “My business partner is a carpenter who can work magic with any junk I haul home.”
Raven loved the screened porch at the back of the house. It looked down a hill at a garden—all native plants, Ellis said—and beyond it were more woods and fields.
“Are those fields out there part of your property?” she asked Ellis.
“Yes. Those are old pastures I’ve seeded with native wildflowers and grasses. And beyond that is bottomland forest with more big oaks and a marsh.”
“How many acres do you own?” Aunt Sondra asked.
“Twenty-eight. About five acres of that is used for the nursery.”
“This place is perfect for you,” Aunt Sondra said to Raven.
Only Mama’s land in Washington could be perfect for her. But the Florida land would be all right until she was allowed to go home.
“Did you live in a rural area in Washington?” Ellis asked.
“We live on ninety acres of woods and fields,” Raven said.
“It’s beautiful,” Aunt Sondra said.
Ellis had a cold look in her eyes. “Isolated, I suppose?”
Aunt Sondra nodded.
“Did she take the baby straight there from New York?”
“I assume so. She bought the acreage around that time. She lived in a trailer on the property while the house was built.”
“Weren’t you at all suspicious that she suddenly had a baby?”
Aunt Sondra said, “Raven, why don’t you go unpack your clothes while I talk to Ellis?”
Raven almost refused to let them talk about Mama behind her back. But she also wanted to know what they’d say. She pretended to leave the screened porch but stayed around the corner, where she could hear them.
“I live in Chicago,” her aunt said. “I didn’t see my sister very often. I assume she’d been visiting our mother’s grave the day she took the baby. That cemetery is very near the woods where you left the baby.”
Silence.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have worded it that way,” Aunt Sondra said.
“Why not? It’s true,” Ellis said stiffly.
“I didn’t find out she had a baby until Raven was about seven months old. Audrey called me in a panic because the baby had a high fever. I flew out with a doctor to help.”
“She was afraid to take the kidnapped baby to a doctor. That should have made you suspicious.”
“No, that fear was typical for her. At a young age, she developed phobias about doctors. Our father sent her to physicians to help her with her mental illness. Those irrational fears became extreme after our mother died. Audrey was very close to her and traumatized by her death. She believed the doctors, medicines, and hospital killed her mother.”
“Didn’t you think it was strange that she had no birth certificate or evidence of a father?”
“Again, that fit Audrey’s life. She was a loner who preferred wilderness to society. One day when we met—she was thirty-two, I think—she told me she was trying to get pregnant. She was suddenly obsessed with having a child.”
“Was she in a relationship?”
“No. From what I could tell, she was randomly meeting men and trying to get pregnant. I was concerned about that, but more so because I didn’t know if she could competently care for a child. When I found out about the baby, she told me the father was a man whose name she didn’t know. She said she’d birthed the baby alone in a forest. That was why there was no birth certificate.”
“The school took her without one?”
“I asked the doctor who gave Raven her immunizations and wellness exams to create one for her.”
“You and this doctor went there often?”
“Once or twice a year.”
“And you never saw anything unusual?”
“I admit I did the first time I went there. The house was protected with video cameras, alarms, and locks. But as I said, Audrey had other irrational fears, so that didn’t seem too unusual for her. And these days, lots of people monitor their propertie
s with video cameras.”
“But if you visited only once or twice a year, you didn’t really know what was going on.”
“I knew how it was to live with my sister. She’d had emotional problems from a young age. So yes, I was worried. I did everything I could to normalize Raven’s life. After she turned five, I pressured Audrey for years until she finally gave up on homeschooling and let Raven enter second grade. That was important. The socialization of public school did wonders for Raven.”
After a long silence, Raven was about to leave for the guest room when Ellis said, “All these years, I’ve been tortured by the thought of someone hurting her.”
“The doctor and I never saw any hint of abuse. I wouldn’t say her childhood was normal, but I can assure you, she was loved.”
Raven pressed her hand over her mouth to hold in a sob. No matter what bad things everyone said about Mama, she had certainly loved her. And Raven loved her back.
She sensed the conversation was over and hurried to the guest room, wiping at tears. She brought out stacks of folded clothes and laid them on the bed. She opened the closet and found a hanger for her favorite sweater.
“I doubt you’ll need that anytime soon,” Aunt Sondra said from the doorway. “It’s already summer here.”
“I guess so,” she said.
“Raven, I need to leave,” her aunt said, coming into the room. “You have my number, and Ellis has a phone. Call if you need anything.”
Raven stayed silent. Because she and Jonah were withholding everything she needed.
“We’ll work out what you want sent from the house later. First we should see how things go here.”
Raven looked out at the trees to stop herself from crying again.
“It will get better.”
It wouldn’t until she went home. She wanted Jackie so badly her chest hurt.
Her aunt hugged her. Raven returned the embrace, though she was angry.
“I feel better about you being here than with your father,” Sondra said. “Your grandmother is mean-spirited, and Jonah has completely lost control of River. That wouldn’t be a favorable environment for healing.”
Ellis came to the door.
“I’m going to buy a ticket and drive back to Orlando,” Aunt Sondra said.
“You’re leaving already?”
“I have to. There’s a situation that’s come up at my company.”
The Light Through the Leaves Page 30
