“Just a second,” she said, bracing herself against one of the magnolias.
Surely there was more than one house in Yorkshire that used the honey-colored stone, but . . .
Was it possible her mother had visited here when she was a girl? Or even been raised here, as one of the fostered children?
Ivy covered part of the stone front, and the lawn around it was overgrown. The house had been expanded with a wing of a darker-colored stone that bustled toward a garden and greenhouse. It wasn’t derelict by any means, like the abandoned Mill House, but it could use some care.
Maya motioned her toward a side door as Elias raced away. Quenby and Maya both brushed their shoes off on a rug inside the house.
The floor of the narrow hall was wooden, rugged and unpolished, but neatly swept. Another child glanced out a door, a toy knight clutched in his hand.
“I’ll find Ms. Hannah,” Maya said, dashing down the corridor.
Quenby turned right into a formal library, paneled with knotty pine and filled floor to ceiling with the colorful spines of books. She picked one of the books from a low shelf, titled The Amber Light. It was a fairy tale, illustrated with watercolors, but she didn’t know the author. Sir Vincent was all it said.
Outside the window, divided by a dozen panes, she saw a woman sitting on a wooden bench, surrounded by five or six children, a dark-pink scooter parked at the edge of her bench.
Quenby replaced The Amber Light and moved out of the library, into the sitting room next door. There she lingered beside a set of open French doors, listening to the woman read a story.
One of the older children, standing behind the bench, turned toward Quenby. When the girl saw her, she tapped the woman’s shoulder. And the woman turned as well.
Her pale skin was wrinkled, her blue eyes clear and kind. And strong.
Quenby stepped down the flat ramp leading out of the house. “Brigitte?” she asked.
The woman looked terrified.
CHAPTER 57
_____
Children were scattered across the garden and park, playing on a swing set and climbing trees. As Quenby slid onto the bench, she removed the metal box from her handbag. The woman glanced down at the rusted box, but she didn’t say anything.
“Brigitte—” she started again.
“Please call me Bridget. There’s no joy in that old name.”
“I think it’s a beautiful name.”
“Only a handful of people know it, and most of them want to bring me harm.”
“Not me,” Quenby said. She opened the box and took out the photograph first, of Brigitte and her parents.
Bridget clutched the old picture in one hand, the other hand over her mouth. “I’d forgotten what they looked like.”
“They must have loved you very much.”
She nodded.
Quenby took the wooden princess out of the box and set it gingerly in one of Bridget’s palms. “Do you recognize this?”
Bridget folded the toy between both hands before clutching it to her heart. “Where did you get her?”
“From a friend who’s been looking for you.”
“Dietmar?” she asked, and in her voice, Quenby heard a thread of hope.
Quenby nodded slowly. “Except his name is Daniel now. Daniel Knight. And he’s been worried about you for more than seventy years.”
Bridget lowered the princess to her lap. “Long ago, he said he would find me.”
“After you left with the Terrells, Mr. Knight was sent to the Isle of Man,” she explained. “He was interned there until 1944, and then after the war, he searched relentlessly but couldn’t find you.”
“I looked for him as well, but I thought he’d died in the war.” Bridget glanced out at the children. “In my heart, I knew he would keep his promise, if he was still alive.”
“Would you like to see him?” Quenby asked.
Bridget fidgeted with her hands, rubbing them across the book in her lap. “It’s been too long.”
“And yet not so long between friends.”
“Do you believe in a God who saves?” Bridget asked.
“I do.”
“I believe God uses our pasts, even our regrets, to help us and other people find Him.”
“You think God kept you and Dietmar apart?”
“No, but He used our time apart to tear open my heart and fill it back up again.”
Maya sailed up beside them. “Ms. Hannah said she’ll be out in a moment.”
“I need to speak with Ms. Hannah before she meets you,” Bridget told Quenby. Then she held up the book to Maya. “We were just reading your story.”
Quenby could see the cover now with its fierce dragon, blowing fire at a little girl. The title was Dragons & Ash by Princess Maya.
Bridget handed the book to Maya. “Could you read it to our guest while I speak with Ms. Hannah?”
Maya looked quite pleased to do so.
When Bridget pushed herself up on the arm of the bench, Maya reached for one of her arms, helping her move onto the scooter, and Quenby reached out to help as well. Then Bridget maneuvered her way toward the house.
Maya settled back down on the bench beside Quenby.
“Did you write this?” Quenby asked, tapping on the cover.
Maya nodded. “With a little help from Ms. Bridget.”
“When did you become a princess?”
“When Ms. Hannah and Ms. Bridget invited me to live here.”
Quenby smiled with her until her phone chimed. “Just a moment,” she said as she dug it out of her handbag.
Should I phone the police? Lucas texted.
She sent him a message right back. No.
Did you find her?
She sent back a smiley face and then dropped the phone into her bag.
Maya opened her book. The first illustration was of the fierce dragon from the cover, more charcoal black than green.
And Maya began to read her story.
Fire flared from the dragon’s breath, his throat and cheeks seared with burns. He was ugly and fierce and tortured the villagers who tried to fetch water at the town well. Each night he paced through the streets, searching for anyone who dared to leave their home. Some nights he sprayed fire on the houses and the residents were forced to run.
Maya turned the page, and Quenby saw the little girl dressed in a simple brown cloak, her hands clutching the handle of a cup.
Maya continued reading her story, turning the pages slowly so Quenby could appreciate the artwork. As she read, the children began bringing Quenby flowers and she bundled them together as a bouquet.
One little girl lived in town all alone. She’d waited for days to fetch water, and now she was so thirsty, she thought she would surely die without a sip.
All she had was a tin cup, dented from the dragon’s heat. On a cloudy night, she crept through the narrow alleys until she saw the well ahead. As she tiptoed forward, she prayed the dragon was asleep. Or that he’d left their town.
When she reached the well, she uncoiled the rope with the bucket, dipping it down into the water like her mother used to do. Her first sip of water was cool and sweet on her tongue. There was life in her tin cup, streaming down her throat, filling her empty stomach.
When the cup was empty, she refilled it and began to drink again.
But then the dragon rounded the corner, its beady eyes searching the broken buildings around the square until it found her.
The girl trembled at the dragon’s roar, water spilling over the sides of her cup. It tromped slowly toward her, and she knew she should run, but the fire would find her, no matter which direction she fled.
She was terrified of the dragon, but the creature had taken her mother and her father and her beloved brother. It had stolen away her grandparents and auntie and her sweet dog.
No weapon could kill the dragon, but she would fight back, the best she could.
She flung the drops of cold water toward the dragon and braced herself fo
r its fire. But the most marvelous thing happened. The dragon reared its head, blew out of its nostrils, but no fire came. Instead it was only smoke.
The little girl filled her cup again and threw it toward the dragon.
The creature began to shrink, and other villagers rushed out into the street, escaping their shuttered windows and doors. They filled their cups and buckets and began drowning the dragon until the creature was so small, a gust of wind swept into the town and blew the ashes away.
As Maya closed the book, she looked up at Quenby with expectation.
Quenby blinked back her tears, quickly slipping on sunglasses so the girl wouldn’t see her cry. “That was a beautiful story.”
“I dedicated it to my brother.”
Quenby didn’t ask about her brother’s whereabouts. The sadness in her voice made it clear that he wasn’t here.
Maya passed the book to Quenby, and she held it in her lap, the dragon and the girl staring back at her, until the door slid open behind them. Bridget drove her scooter back outside, trailed by a thin woman of timeworn beauty, a woman Quenby recognized from the movies as Hannah Dayne.
“May we speak with our guest?” Hannah asked Maya.
“Her name is Quenby,” Maya told her. “And her boyfriend is waiting outside the gate.”
“Is that correct?” Bridget asked.
“Lucas is a friend,” Quenby replied. “And Mr. Knight’s lawyer.”
Bridget shooed Maya off the bench with her hand. “Go let him in.”
Maya kissed Quenby on the cheek before she raced around the house.
“Her story is remarkable,” Quenby told both women.
Bridget reached for her hand, squeezing it like Mrs. Douglas had done. “There’s power in story,” she said slowly. “We may be powerless at times in this life, but on paper, we can chase our demons away.”
“Do all the children here write their own stories?”
“Most of them do,” Bridget said. “There is a lot of healing to be had, and we think it helps.”
Quenby slipped off her sunglasses. “Where are their parents?”
“Many of them died on their journey,” Bridget said.
Hannah motioned back toward the house. “Could we talk inside, Miss Vaughn?”
Quenby blinked, surprised at the woman’s use of her last name. “You know who I am?”
Hannah nodded. “I saw your picture with the series on refugees.”
Bridget stayed on her scooter, watching the children play, while Quenby followed Hannah toward the house. She’d already admired the woman for advocating for refugees, and her admiration grew as she saw the private work they were doing here, far away from the spotlight.
“My sister is very old,” Hannah said as they walked through the sitting room, into the library. “She’s lived a good life, helping me when I was young and then caring for a number of children. There’s no need to exhume the past.”
Quenby sat in a chair across from her. “It’s not about exhuming. It’s about redeeming what has been lost.”
Hannah looked over at the window. “Redemption comes in different forms.”
“It’s wonderful what you’re doing here.”
“The work has transformed all of us, but unfortunately, our funds to keep up a house like this are diminishing quickly.”
“How long have you been operating this house?”
“My sister has been living here for fifty years.”
Quenby took a deep breath before asking. “I believe my mother might have visited here as a child, perhaps even lived with the other children.”
“What was your mother’s name?” Hannah asked.
“Jocelyn.”
Hannah reached for the arm of the couch, steadying herself as if she might faint.
“She used to talk about a house of buttercream.”
Hannah leaned forward. “You’re Jocelyn’s daughter?” she asked as if she hadn’t quite understood.
“I am.”
“I—I didn’t know she had a girl.”
Quenby’s heart skipped. “Did she grow up here?”
“Oh no,” Hannah said slowly. “She grew up in London.”
“How do you know her?”
Hannah’s eyes focused on the shelves of fairy tales before looking back at Quenby. “Jocelyn was my daughter.”
And with those words, Quenby thought she might faint as well.
CHAPTER 58
_____
Raw tears funneled down Quenby’s cheeks as she climbed into the rental car. She didn’t even care that Lucas was sitting beside her. Their work was done. She’d come here to find Brigitte for Mr. Knight, and yet it seemed as if two lost girls had been found.
Dietmar had rescued Brigitte from the Nazis long ago, but in their afternoon together, Hannah explained that Bridget had spent her life rescuing her and a host of children. Bridget was worried, saying she still needed to protect Hannah from Lady Ricker’s descendants, but Hannah assured her that she didn’t need protection anymore.
The truth unfolded like a shaky ladder in Quenby’s mind.
Lady Ricker wasn’t just some aristocratic woman bent on harming her country. Janice Ricker was the mother of Rosalind. And Quenby’s great-great-grandmother by birth.
She grieved deeply in that car, for the people who’d died at Lady Ricker’s hand, for the children during the war who’d lost their parents, for children today who continued to lose them. This wasn’t someone else’s story any longer. This was her story, rooted in a muddy reality. And she couldn’t make peace with her past, she realized, until she cried. Couldn’t love again until she grieved her loss.
Lucas didn’t try to stop her. Instead he reached out and pulled her close to him. She wanted to say something witty, something smart to keep him at bay, but the strength of her aloneness seemed to siphon out of her. And in its place was a weakness—not of character or physical power but of a deep heart’s desire to have someone there next to her, someone who wasn’t afraid of her tears. Or her story.
He kissed her hair, kissed the tears from her cheeks.
She leaned back. “I know God has forgiven my sins, but there are so many ghosts roaming around in my past.”
“A clean slate—that’s what you and I have in Christ, Quenby. Whiter than snow.”
And she saw it in her mind, the powdery snow of a ski slope, waiting to be forged. Everything was changing for her. After today, she was no longer alone. She had family left in this world—a grandmother who’d been racked with guilt as well over Jocelyn’s leaving. A grandmother who said she’d welcome Quenby into her life and her home.
She couldn’t change her past, like any of the children here, but it didn’t define who she was today. Nor did she have to hide behind someone else’s script, play a role like Hannah and Rosalind had once done.
She had the power to write a new story from this moment forward. Her story. One where the past molded and then empowered and strengthened instead of crippled her. A new story filled with strong, healthy relationships with people she loved and a heart open to trusting God and Lucas as well.
A heart willing to forgive.
She prayed silently that God would help her forgive her mother for what she had done. She’d never forget what happened, but she wanted to let go of the bitterness that she’d kept locked inside her, stop using it as a weapon against anyone who wanted to love her.
Lucas rolled down the window, and images fluttered into Quenby’s head with the breeze, pictures of a new story. She and Lucas together, following wherever God led. A smile when she thought of the good memories with her mother. Prayers for those trapped, like Jocelyn, in an addiction.
She glanced out the window, at the tree branches fluttering in the breeze. “What do we do now?”
“We fly to Solstice Isle for the reunion of a lifetime.”
Quenby nodded; that’s exactly what she’d hoped he would say. “Are you going to call Mr. Knight?”
“I tried, but Eileen said he
still couldn’t talk on the phone.”
“We need to leave soon.”
He nodded. “Quenby, you don’t have to be afraid of me.”
She almost told him that she wasn’t, but it would be a lie. She was terrified.
“If you’ll have me,” he said, “I won’t leave you.”
She looked into those dark-brown eyes that had captured her days ago. “You can’t promise that.”
“I won’t run or walk away—how about that?”
“You hardly know me, Lucas.”
He smiled. “It’s been a pretty educational two weeks.”
“Indeed it has.”
“The real question is, would you dare to take a chance with me?”
Quenby thought back to that meeting with Chandler before she met Lucas—at the pictures her boss had pulled up online. She’d thought Lucas arrogant, but she had built the same type of wall around herself. And yet here they were, hearts exposed.
“I think I just might,” she said.
His kiss was quite gentlemanly, but she felt it all the way down to her toes.
Bridget Ward drove her scooter right up to the jet at Leeds Bradford, eyeing the flight of steps that led into the craft. Before they left Adler House, Hannah had warned Quenby about the last time Bridget had tried to fly, of her sister’s fierce claustrophobia.
But there was no Jetway leading onto this plane. No pilots on a strict schedule. They could wait all day and night, if they must, for her to overcome her fear.
“We’ll have a scooter waiting for you on the island,” Quenby promised, her hand resting on the woman’s seat back.
“Is it pink?”
“I have no idea.”
Bridget’s smile was strained. “I suppose any color will do.”
Quenby patted her shoulder. “You can do this.”
Bridget gave a sharp nod. “I’ll regret it if I don’t.”
“Would you like a hand?” Lucas asked, stepping up beside them.
“More like two feet.”
Lucas flashed her a winsome smile. Bridget had already fallen for him, back at Adler House when he’d complimented her on her beautiful voice. And Quenby was thoroughly smitten as well.
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