There weren’t many pictures after Quenby turned four, the year her dad died. On the last page was a picture of a girl waving as she circled around on her elephant. Smiling as if she really could fly.
Through the window, she heard a woman’s voice. “Who was that?”
“A solicitor.”
The woman groaned. “I hate it when people come begging.”
“Me too,” Chase replied.
“Did you give him anything?” the woman asked.
“Of course not.”
“Hopefully he won’t come back again.”
“No,” Chase said. “He’s gone for good.”
Quenby closed the album. Chase Merrill was right. She wouldn’t be knocking on his door again.
The golden turret on Cinderella’s castle blazed like a torch in the setting sunlight, and the realm below smelled like dark chocolate and caramel corn. Hundreds of children crowded Main Street, ice cream dripping from their cones, balloons dipping and soaring. The cheery music overhead and clanging bell of a train welcomed Lucas and Quenby into the kingdom.
But the scene didn’t bring the same joy to Quenby as it did to the kids around her. Instead the magic cut through her heart.
As she stared up at the castle, Lucas reached for her hand and together they rounded the castle moat, walking toward Fantasyland.
Lucas hadn’t insisted they visit Disney World, but when he suggested they make new memories here, to replace some of the old ones, she’d agreed.
On the car ride over, she’d shown Lucas the photo album. He’d stared at the picture on the last page alongside her.
“My mother took that, right before she abandoned me.”
“It’s almost like she wanted you to be happy for life. Like she had this image in her mind and in this album of how she wanted your future to be.”
“I stopped smiling the moment I got off that ride,” Quenby said. “And it was a long time before I smiled again.”
“She loved you, Quenby.”
“But she loved Chase even more. And perhaps the drugs.”
“People sometimes do terrible things when they think they’re in love.”
“Chase said something about Jocelyn’s mother,” she’d mused. “Perhaps I still have family. . . .”
Now Lucas stopped on the path, interrupting Quenby’s thoughts. “There it is.”
Lifting her eyes, she saw a yellow-and-red circus tent. Two Dumbo rides with carousels turning in opposite directions. The flying elephants were ablaze in color, the lights reflecting in the pools below them. The carousels seemed larger than she remembered. And the old fence was gone. The ride, in its essence, was the same, but it had changed in the past two decades. Like her.
“I think we need to take another flight together,” Lucas said.
Her eyebrows slipped up. “On the Global?”
“No, on an elephant.”
She took a step back. “I don’t think so.”
Lucas reached for her hand, trying to inch her toward the circus tent. “New memories, Quenby.”
She hesitated at first, but Lucas wasn’t trying to harm her. He only wanted the best. One more ride on Dumbo might do her some good.
She climbed into the seat of an elephant clothed in orange, wide enough for a kid and an adult. Lucas began to climb in beside Quenby, but she stopped him. “I like my personal space, Lucas.”
He smiled. “I happen to like your personal space too.”
She eyed him again before scooting toward the far side. Truth was, she didn’t want to ride this without him.
His arm rested casually behind her, her back rigid as they rose from the ground.
“Let’s fly, Quenby,” he shouted over the music.
She took the joystick and flew high above the park, above the lights. And it felt . . . magical. As if she could do anything.
They spent the evening riding the mountains of Space and Thunder. Then they dined in the Beast’s enchanted castle before Quenby talked Lucas into taking a cruise around It’s a Small World.
The sky was pitch-dark when they emerged from the trip across the continents, the song looping in her head. But it didn’t annoy her. It made her happy instead. They did share hope and fears, laughter and tears, with people all over the world.
Night cooling the air, they stood by a waterway and watched sprays of golden fire, a spangle of color, turn the dark sky into a parade of light. When Lucas pulled her close, Quenby didn’t resist. She leaned back against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her.
The strength of his body anchored her; the touch of his hands, overlapping hers, sent a tremor of warmth through her skin. The snide remarks, cutting comments, came easy to her, the keeping him at an arm’s length, but what was she supposed to do now?
As she rested against him, she knew they needed to discuss this, whatever this was. Or maybe there would be no discussion. By the time they landed back in London, he would probably change his mind; then he would leave like everyone else.
A fountain of a thousand lights rocketed up into the air and cascaded down, glittering like pixie dust. The warmth of it, the beauty, mesmerized her. Oddly enough, in this park where she’d lost everything, perhaps she would begin to find again what was most important to her.
The finale ended, but she didn’t want Lucas to let her go.
He stepped back, clearing his throat. “Ready for an overnight back to London?”
She didn’t want to step away, but it was time to return to Newhaven and find Brigitte’s wishing tree.
He smiled. “It’s a good thing we have Samantha to chaperone tonight.”
She nudged him. “You’re the only one who needs a chaperone.”
“Quenby—” he started, his voice much too serious.
She stopped him. “Let’s not break the magic.”
“This isn’t about a place,” he said, the crowd behind them swarming toward the exit.
“I know.” At least she thought she did. Places were powerful.
“It’s about people. Namely you and me.”
“Tomorrow, Lucas.”
“I thought, when I first met you, that you were arrogant—”
“I wasn’t the arrogant one!”
“But now I think—”
She shook her head. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Do you need me to write a contract?”
“No—”
“We can seal it with a kiss.”
Quenby shivered. “A handshake will do just fine.”
Chapter 50
Rodmell, June 1956
When Lily Ward first asked for the baby girl’s name, Brigitte had called her Hannah after her mother, so that the woman who’d loved Brigitte as a child would never be forgotten. A Hebrew name meaning “favor” or “grace.”
It was a miracle that Hannah had survived her early days of starvation and the filth at the Mill House. She’d grown into a striking young woman who entertained her sister and mother and ultimately the entire village with heart-stirring melodies that teemed from her lips.
Hannah didn’t fear like Brigitte. She’d grown up in a home filled with love and laughter. Plenty of good food and clean clothing and a personal tutor in her younger years since Lily had refused to send her to the village school.
No one told Hannah that she hadn’t been born a Ward, but still she suspected. When she was eleven, she’d asked Brigitte if she was adopted. Brigitte told her about Rosalind and the little she knew about the man who had fathered her. Lily might not have birthed either of them, but the woman had rescued them both.
Brigitte attended nursing school up north to learn how to care properly for children. After graduation, Lily fell ill and Brigitte returned home to nurse her as well.
Mama Lily lived two more months at home, and then one night she slipped away. Brigitte grieved the loss deeply. In her twenty-six years, she’d loved and lost two mothers.
Lily left all her worldly goods to her daughters, though there wasn’t much to give them after
she poured her widow’s pension and the small income from the farm into rearing Hannah and sending Brigitte off to school. Brigitte had found a position in Yorkshire, and her new income was enough to enroll Hannah in a public school nearby.
A week after Lily died, while Brigitte was still putting their affairs in order, a stranger knocked on the door. Hannah didn’t trouble Brigitte in her work until after the stranger was gone.
The man, she’d said, was searching for someone named Brigitte, and Hannah knew no one by that name. Which was true. Brigitte had changed her name to Bridget Ward years ago. It meant she was British. Safe. And thanks to Lily, her English was as polished as any of her classmates’ in London.
But the moment that man showed up, the illusion of safety was gone. Somehow, it seemed, one of Lady Ricker’s people had found her. For her ladyship was the only one left who knew Brigitte’s secret. And perhaps Brigitte was the only one who knew hers.
She heard her old friend’s voice, whispering to her to run one more time.
So she and Hannah had packed their bags quickly, cramming everything of value into her little Fiat before fleeing to their new home in Yorkshire. It wasn’t until much later, when she was unpacking, that she realized Dietmar’s knight, the one she thought she’d shoved into her purse, was gone.
CHAPTER 51
_____
Pink stars were bursting from the yellow-and-green magnolia, a galaxy of blossoms to transform the forgotten garden into a place that whispered the promise of new life.
Quenby traced the tree’s bark with her fingers, but she didn’t find initials carved into it. “I wish Mr. Knight were here.”
Lucas smiled. “We’ll phone him the moment we have news. Where’s your mobile?”
She slipped the phone out of her pocket and opened the metal detector app they’d downloaded on the plane. Hopefully Brigitte had buried a letter far enough away from the trunk that the sprawling roots hadn’t destroyed it.
The app whistled as she scanned the ground; then the sound turned into a piercing scream. Lucas reached for the shovel he’d brought and stomped on the edge of it to dig between the roots. He persisted until his shovel hit metal. “There’s something here.”
She rubbed her hands together. “Brigitte knew what she was doing.”
Instead of a tin, they found a rusted metal box, buried within the web of roots. Quenby brushed off the dirt and lifted the clasp. Inside was an envelope.
She carefully peeled back the flap and removed a single piece of paper, handwritten in English instead of German. Then she began to read it out loud.
Dearest Dietmar,
If you’re reading this, you have kept your promise. After all these years, you have returned.
I wish I were there to greet you. I waited so long for you, hoping that you would come. Praying I would be able to find you one day. I know now how many were detained during the war. How many died. Yet in my mind’s eye, you are still very much alive.
My father died in 1942, and I suppose your lovely father and mother died as well. Sometimes I think I can see them, waiting with arms outstretched for you and for me.
Did you return to Germany? Or did you run someplace else?
It seems like a dream, the years you and I had together. Our autumn in the fields of Belgium, the time we closed our eyes and pretended to be blind. How I wish I could go back and thank those monks for rescuing us.
Now I want to rescue others, like those monks—and you—rescued me.
I listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, Dietmar. And like the eagle, I’ve decided to catch it this time.
With a grateful heart,
And forever yours,
Brigitte,
Your Princess Friend
Quenby dropped the letter to her side. “She doesn’t want to be found.”
“You don’t know that.”
“It’s her good-bye to Mr. Knight. The end of their journey.” Quenby reread the last paragraph. “‘Soft wind breathing through the grass’—that’s from Wuthering Heights, when Lockwood is passing by the graves of Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff. He thinks they will be peaceful in death—”
“But the reader knows differently,” Lucas said. “There will be no peace with Catherine and Heathcliff together in the grave.”
She glanced up at him, startled. “How do you know?”
“Required reading at secondary school.”
“I’m impressed you remember.”
“I’m here to impress you,” he quipped. “How did you remember that last line?”
She shrugged. “English lit minor and Brontë aficionado. It’s like Brigitte was burying her life to start anew.”
“She’s conflicted, but I think she still wants to see him.”
She folded the letter and put it back into the box. “Some people really want to disappear.”
“She isn’t your mother, Quenby.”
“I know, but perhaps there was a good reason that she wanted to start again. Perhaps Rosalind’s daughter thought that Brigitte was her mother.”
“You’ll have to ask Brigitte when you find her.”
She took a blossom from the magnolia tree and placed it in her handbag along with the letter. It didn’t particularly matter whether or not she should continue searching for Brigitte as the letter in her hand was another dead end. A soft wind left no path. Someone might have felt it rustling once, but they would never remember.
She and Lucas hiked out of the forest as Brigitte’s words replayed in her mind. She’d said her good-byes and left to live her life. Saying good-bye to Dietmar—her past—probably freed her to embrace her future.
Had Brigitte forgiven those who’d wounded her?
Quenby needed to do the same thing as Brigitte, this letting go of her own past, but she knew she couldn’t do this on her own.
Jocelyn had been addicted to a drug that made people do strange things, and in her craziness, she’d probably thought she loved Chase Merrill. It wasn’t an excuse for what she had done, but it helped Quenby understand.
If she truly forgave her mother, would God take away her pain even if her memories remained? Perhaps that was the superpower she needed most. The power to let go. And the power to love again.
Shivering, she glanced at the man walking beside her.
She needed to finish this assignment for Mr. Knight and say good-bye to Lucas. At first he’d gotten on her nerves, but somehow he’d maneuvered his way under her skin, precariously close to her heart. He’d been a friend to her, a good one. Like Mr. Knight had been to Brigitte. But like Brigitte, Quenby had to step into the wind and let it take her wherever she needed to go.
“Should we call Mr. Knight?” she asked when they reached the mill ruins.
“I suppose.”
“At least he’ll know she was safe after she left the Mill House. Perhaps that will keep him from worrying.”
They stopped beside the waterwheel, and Lucas dialed the number, putting it on speakerphone so Quenby could hear. Eileen answered the call.
“He’s too ill to speak tonight, Mr. Hough.”
Lucas shot Quenby a look of alarm. “What did Dr. Wyatt say?”
“For him to rest, but he isn’t resting well. He keeps asking for Brigitte.”
“I’m afraid we may not find her,” Lucas said. “But she left him a letter telling him that she is well.”
“Can you read it to him?” Eileen asked. “I’ll hold the phone to his ear.”
Lucas glanced at Quenby. “Will you read it?”
She lifted the letter and read Brigitte’s words before she folded it back into the metal box.
There was a long silence on the other end, and then Eileen spoke to them again. “I think he heard you. He opened his eyes for a moment.”
Tears spilled from Quenby’s eyes as Lucas reached over, taking her hand. She clung to his.
“Thank you, Eileen,” he said.
“It’s good for him to know that she survived the wa
r. It will give him comfort.”
After he disconnected the call, Quenby wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “I wanted to find Brigitte for him.”
“You gave him the gift of her words.”
“But where did she go from here?” A motorboat sped up the river, and she glanced up the rural road to the north.
She didn’t want to stop searching yet. Not when they were so close to finding her. Perhaps Lucas was right—they could continue looking, and if Brigitte still didn’t want Dietmar to know her location, Quenby would keep her secret. “I’d like to visit the cliffs where Rosalind last saw her,” she said. “And then I want to stop in Rodmell.”
But even as she said the words, her eyes began to grow heavy. Unlike Lucas, she hadn’t rested well on the airplane in either direction, not with everything racing through her mind.
He tucked his phone back into his pocket and held up the keys as they walked toward the car. “You want to drive?”
She shook her head. “Wake me up when you find the cliffs.”
The sunroof open, they began driving north. The road was flat here, but according to sat nav, it curved away from the river a few miles up and climbed between farmland and trees. Then they would have to hike to the cliffs.
Her eyes closed, she thought about Mr. Knight locked away in his fortress. He had the best of care, yet his body wouldn’t hold on forever. He’d been hanging on, it seemed, until she brought him word about Brigitte. Perhaps this final letter was what he needed to let go as well.
“What in the—?” Lucas blurted, and he swerved suddenly to the left, toward the trees.
Quenby’s eyes flashed open, and she saw a gray lorry on the road ahead, barreling toward them, stirring up the dirt into a blinding cloud. At first she thought it was Kyle, trying to flare his feathers again, but the driver, it seemed, had lost control, racing toward a head-on collision. If he didn’t stop, he’d kill her and Lucas both.
“Hold on,” Lucas shouted.
He spun the wheel right, toward the river, and she heard the grating of metal as they plunged over the bank. Then there was an awful ripping sound, the car shuddering.
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