The Truth Against the World

by Sarah Jamila Stevenson

  It was nearly impossible to think of his great-granddad as a young man; let alone that he was that sort. Amit might want to be a bit of a lad, but it was exactly what Gareth hoped not to be. His muscles tightened until his arms ached and he felt like hitting something.

  “What do you think we should say?” Wyn asked suddenly. Gareth looked over at her. Her eyes were large and she looked terrified, but, like him, she was still walking on, still determined. There was a flash of something there that reminded him of little Olwen the first time he’d seen her—some fierce will that kept her going. He felt a sharp stab of remorse. It was because of his great-granddad, in a way, that Olwen had died. If Edward had been there, if he hadn’t left Olwen without a father and Rhiannon without his love and support, then maybe things wouldn’t have been as bad.

  “Say something,” Wyn said, her voice pleading.

  “He ruined her life,” Gareth burst out, quickening his pace even more.

  Wyn jogged a few steps to catch up with him. “Gareth!” she said urgently as they turned the corner onto his great-granddad’s street. She grabbed his arm and he stopped, pulling away. He could see the hurt in her expression and he immediately felt sorry, but he didn’t think there was anything he could say to make any of this better. He was sorely tempted to just grab his things and head straight back to London, and pretend none of it had ever happened. It wasn’t like he could do anything about the past, anyway. He started walking again.

  Then his phone rang.

  He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Wyn walked a few more steps before turning back to look at him.

  “Is that … ?” Wyn stopped. All the color had drained out of her face.

  Gareth pulled his phone from his pocket. The ringtone—it was “Ar Lan y Môr.” He fumbled with the buttons of his phone but it was playing insistently, louder and louder, until he could hardly hear anything else.

  “Aren’t you going to pick it up?” he heard Wyn say, faintly, from somewhere beside him. He shook his head, trying to clear the rising sound from his ears, but it wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t stop.

  He clicked the Talk button.

  It was like the time he’d blanked out in the kitchen, only this time, he didn’t quite lose the scene around him entirely. He sensed the road, the cottages, the fences and blue sky and hills, all becoming insubstantial; the sights and sounds of the village were slowly consumed by a dim, dark miasma—except for Wyn. His stomach roiled and he put one hand on her shoulder to steady himself.

  He pulled back as if burned. When he’d touched Wyn, it was like there was an electric crackle in the air all around them, a physical shock like the completion of a circuit. But even when he’d withdrawn his hand, the strange sensation continued, a sense of linkage even when he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring straight ahead, but he could feel that Wyn was turning her head to stare at him. He knew, without being told, that she too felt that connection; she too now saw what he was seeing.

  What he saw was a tiny waiflike figure, limned with light and growing more substantial by the second, materializing in the dim, blurry half-world they stood in.

  “Please … hurry! You mustn’t … ” Broken up as if by static, the small, faint voice pierced the unnatural quiet that surrounded them like an enveloping ocean wave. Wyn grabbed his hand, and this time he clutched it tightly. Soon, the little figure became just solid enough that they could see her features, see the tears running down her pointed little chin and the anguish on her face. Then she opened her mouth and a thin, wailing cry came out, the cry of a lonely child. It could only have lasted a moment, but it seemed as if the wail echoed up and down the years, unending.

  Gareth couldn’t bear it. He let go of Wyn’s hand and shook his head violently, squeezing his eyes shut. If it didn’t stop, he thought he might start screaming himself. He put his hands to his ears, dropping his phone on the sidewalk with an audible crack.

  Then, abruptly, it did stop. The sidewalk was solid and reassuringly hard under his sneakers; the street, the block of little houses, the moist and breezy air—everything was as it had been a few moments ago.

  Almost everything. Gareth looked at Wyn. Something unspoken passed between them, a flash of understanding. She had seen it—seen Olwen. She had been there. His tensed shoulders relaxed, just a tiny bit. Just enough.

  He picked up his phone and the battery, which had popped out. There was a jagged crack across the screen.

  “Mum’s going to wallop me,” he said. Then he grimaced. Flying phones. This was how it had all started, and here he was again.

  Wyn smiled at him sadly.

  They started walking again, without speaking. For now, it was enough just to feel Wyn’s presence next to him and smell the salty, grassy scent of this town, this patch of land that had silently witnessed so many people’s hardships. His mind was lucid now; it felt scoured clean.

  As they walked, though, his anger slowly seeped back in. He wasn’t going to let his great-granddad off the hook. His actions were, as far as Gareth was concerned, inexcusable. But he felt more ready now, ready to deal with any possible reaction. Anger. Denial. It didn’t matter. He’d find out the truth. And maybe that would be enough to end all of this—the drama, the unhappiness, the lingering ghosts of the past that wouldn’t rest.

  When they arrived at the little house, Gareth let them both inside and then stalked from room to room, Wyn following after him. His great-granddad was in the small living room at the side of the house, sitting in a brown tweed chair reading a newspaper. As he looked up at the two of them, Gareth took a deep breath and let it out slowly, hoping his voice wouldn’t shake.

  “What’s this, now?” his great-grandfather asked. “I understood she wasn’t to visit with you unsupervised.” He glared at them from underneath bushy, grizzled eyebrows. Gareth felt like backing down, but he thought about Olwen, about Wyn standing close behind him, and he knew he didn’t have the option of letting this go on any longer.

  “We’ve got to talk to you about something really important,” he said stiffly, his hands clenched at his sides. “Both of us.”

  “Yes? Well, what is it?”

  “We want to talk to you about … well … the thing is, Wyn … ” Gareth’s brain was a muddle of thoughts all competing to leave his mouth at once. He took another deep breath, but then Wyn spoke.

  “We want to talk to you about this,” she said, and pulled the metal box out of her backpack. She placed it between them on the dark wooden coffee table and opened it. The first thing she pulled out was the diary, which she set on the table. Next to it she put the locket, the birth and death certificates, and finally the two letters.

  “What’s this now?” Gareth’s great-granddad said uncertainly. His gaze fell upon the letters, his eyes darting back and forth. His mouth opened and then closed again. He still didn’t say anything, but his hands were clenched on the arms of the chair. He looked like he was miles away, an eternity away.

  Then he seemed to snap out of it. “What do you mean by all this? Where did you find it?” His voice grew louder, and angrier. “Why are you bringing this to me now? It’s too late, it’s far too late!” He turned his face away, toward the window. “I can’t do anything. It’s finished. It was over a long time ago.”

  “It is finished,” Gareth said, finding his voice. “So why does it matter? We just want to know what happened.” His volume rose as well.

  “It’s my great-grandmother,” Wyn added quietly. “I think I deserve to know.”

  His great-granddad gripped the arms of the chair for a moment as if he were going to stand up. Then, suddenly, his whole body sagged. He looked older than Gareth had ever seen him look, and the expression on his face was one of sorrow and anger. He didn’t look at them; he didn’t look at the letters again. But he stayed silent.

  “You have to tell us,” Gareth urged him. “Please! Wyn won’t be h
ere in Wales much longer. And we—we can’t leave things like this. You don’t know how hard it’s been for both of us.” His own voice sounded ragged and exhausted. “She won’t leave us alone.”

  Wyn shot him a look and jumped in. “We understand what happened to Olwen, I think, and the diary told us Gee Gee’s side of the story. But—what was your part in this?” She drew a shaky breath, and Gareth heard the tears in her voice. “Why did you leave? Why did you let this happen?”

  “She’s dead now. What does it matter?” his great-granddad said in a quiet, hopeless voice. Gareth wasn’t sure whether he meant Olwen or Rhiannon. “I hardly remember those days.”

  “Please,” Wyn said. Gareth turned to look at her. Tears were running down her cheeks, and that made him furious all over again. “I know you remember. Even if you don’t want to tell us. But—” She closed her eyes, one hand clutching at her locket. “You’re the only part of the story that’s missing here, and Olwen isn’t going to rest until you come clean. I won’t be able to rest if I don’t stop having dreams like my great-grandmother.”

  Gareth’s great-granddad went pale, and he looked at Wyn almost fearfully.

  “You know about Rhiannon’s dreams?” His voice was a ragged whisper. “That was the one thing about her I never … ” Then he closed his mouth and pressed his lips together, as if he’d said more than he wanted to. “No! I tell you I don’t remember, and there’s nothing more to say than that.” But he wouldn’t meet either of their eyes.

  “Now, please leave, or I will ring your parents and tell them what you’ve been about.” His ashen face turned toward the window again, dimly lit by the graying dusk.

  Gareth was gobsmacked. He felt like punching the wall. They’d told him everything. Now what could they do?

  Wyn looked at Gareth, sighed, and put her hand on his arm. “I should go,” she said, her brown eyes sad and sympathetic at the same time. “I’ll talk to you later, okay? Everything will be fine. It has to be, or Olwen will never leave us alone. She’ll be lonely forever.” She glared at his great-granddad.

  Gareth hated all this, hated feeling like he had no control over anything. Wyn wasn’t at fault. She was the only one who still seemed sane in all of this. He turned to walk her to the door, wondering if she felt as unmoored as he did.

  His great-granddad didn’t utter another word, but as they left the room, Gareth took a quick look back. From his chair, Edward was staring at Wyn, his hands clenched together on his lap.

  The expression on his face was one of utter fright.

  25

  Twyllo arall, twyllo’th hunan.

  To deceive another

  is to deceive thyself.

  Welsh proverb

  My feet were pounding the sidewalk on autopilot as I made my way back to the cottage, but my mind was like a video stuck on replay. The way Mr. Lewis’s old hands had clutched at the arms of the chair. The way Gareth had looked at me just before I’d explained about Olwen. The sick feeling I got at Mr. Lewis’s refusal to talk about anything that had happened. I felt a flutter of panic in my chest and returned to my standby coping mechanism, repeating words with each step.

  Tristwch. Sadness.

  Gobaith. Hope.

  The orange light from the setting sun illuminated the white-painted shopfronts on Cwm Road, and I hurried a little faster. My parents were going to be livid; I was supposed to be home an hour and a half ago. And, of course, I was already on thin ice. I tightened my hands into fists in my jacket pockets. Gareth had tried to convince me he’d sort it all out on his end, but I wasn’t so sure. He’d walked me out of his great-granddad’s house saying he would make sure to get the full story, and then he’d come over the next morning to explain everything, so we’d have an airtight case for my parents.

  I wanted to believe that would work. Oh, how I wanted to. Deep down, though, I wasn’t sure if it mattered. Why I was trying to get every last detail before telling them? What if I just showed them the metal box?

  But this wasn’t just my story to tell. It was Gareth’s as much as it was mine; as much as it belonged to anyone besides Edward, Rhiannon, and Olwen. It didn’t seem right to tell my parents without Gareth there. It would be like a betrayal of everything we’d already done together.

  Once on the grounds of the Gypsy Farm Cottages, I paused under the trees, composing myself before going up the path to Primrose Glen. I had an excuse ready, but Mom and Dad would still be angry, and I would still have to live with whatever the next few hours would bring. I took a deep breath and opened the door.

  My shoulders slumped. There were my parents, sitting stony-faced on the couch, Dad’s dark eyebrows a hard line, Mom’s face pale and set. The room was utterly quiet, and I couldn’t break the silence.

  “Well? Where were you?” Mom’s words were clipped and hard, and I felt them almost physically. “And why didn’t you pick up your phone?”

  I took a step back but stuck to the plan, futile as I knew it would be. “I’m so sorry, Mom, I completely lost track of time,” I said, which was more or less true. “I was with Hugh and Annie in HMS Tasty’s, practicing Welsh. I’m really, really sorry.” I hoped the worry on my face, in my voice, sounded enough like remorse. They’d find out the truth soon enough anyway.

  “Well, that’s interesting,” Mom said, tapping her fingernails on the end table. “Because we were just over at the pub ten minutes ago and guess who we saw there?”

  I blinked. “What were you doing at the pub?”

  “Looking for you,” Dad said. His voice sounded angry and scared and it ripped right through me. “We asked Hugh and Annie if they’d seen you and they said they’d left HMS Tasty’s more than an hour ago. But when we went down there to check, we didn’t see you there.”

  “What were you doing wandering around for an hour? We trusted you to be responsible.” Mom got up and paced, and I backed away, toward my room, to get out of the way.

  “I—I was walking.” I couldn’t meet their eyes, so I played with the strap on my backpack.

  “We were worried.” Dad looked up at me. “Why didn’t you just call us?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, truthfully. I should have. I wasn’t thinking. I could have avoided this. But it was ridiculous, too. “It was only an hour or so.”

  “I was just about to call Mr. Lewis in case you’d gotten it into your head to try to see Gareth. I’m glad you were sensible about something.” Mom threw that out casually, but it stung.

  My temper surged all of a sudden, and I couldn’t see the point in lying anymore. I had a right to be doing this, even if nobody else could understand that. It wasn’t even for me. It was for Gee Gee. She couldn’t very well take care of this from beyond the grave.

  I dropped my backpack on the floor, swallowed down angry tears, and steadied my voice. “You know what? I was with Gareth. And his great-granddad. And I had a really good reason for it. I know you don’t want to hear any ‘excuses,’ but I’m doing this for Gee Gee. It’s about Gee Gee. Gareth is going to stop by tomorrow morning so we can explain everything, together, and I really hope … I really hope you can trust me. Please.”

  My chest was tight, and in the tense, brittle silence, all I heard was my own ragged breathing.

  “Yes, I should have called to tell you I was going to be late, and I’m sorry,” I continued, my tears spilling out now no matter how I tried to keep them in, my words overflowing one after the other. “I know you didn’t want me to see Gareth, and I really am sorry I had to go behind your back. But please just trust me this time, okay? You know I’m not irresponsible. Think about it. I wouldn’t even ask if it wasn’t important. It means—it means everything.”

  I met my dad’s eyes, then my mom’s, suppressing the urge to look away. They both stared at me for a moment, seeming lost for words.

  “Wynnie, we do trust you,” Dad said with a small smile tha
t seemed hard to force out. “We’ll just have to think about this, is all.” He looked at his hands, then back at me. “I just wish you’d tell me, if there was something about Gran we need to know.”

  “Sorry, Dad.” I winced. I had kept things from him, things he had a right to know. But soon enough he’d know all of it.

  “Wyn, you need to understand that this is not over,” Mom said, her voice simmering with suppressed anger. “I am not happy to have to call Mr. Lewis yet again and give excuses for my daughter’s behavior.”

  Lovely. Now I was being referred to in the third person. I breathed in; breathed out. Bore. Morning. Noswaith. Evening.

  Wait a minute.

  “Call him? You don’t have to call him.” My heart sank. What would that do to our plans? What if that just ended up making Mr. Lewis clam up forever?

  “I think we do,” Mom said. “You made that necessary. If you’re going to act like a child, we’re going to treat you like one.”

  “You don’t understand, I—” I cut myself off. I was not the one acting like a child. Mom could go ahead and call Mr. Lewis if she wanted to see someone act like a child. “Fine. Go ahead.” I turned on my heel and went straight to my bedroom. I could feel my parents’ eyes like frigid ice cubes on my back, but I didn’t turn around.

  Once the door was shut and I was alone in my small room, I finally allowed myself to let go. Today had been too much. I’d tried so hard, was still trying so hard to help Olwen, and it seemed like nothing I did helped. I sank onto the bed and took shaky, gasping breaths. One line from Gee Gee’s diary kept running through my head: Edward is gone and I’ve nobody left but Olwen. Not long after that, Olwen had died.

  Gee Gee. She was gone now, too.

  I inhaled sharply, realizing something. I didn’t have anything to lose now. I had nothing to lose except time, and nothing to regret except not trying. It only took a moment—as quick as a little girl’s smile, a heartbeat—but I realized I would do whatever it took to make sure Gee Gee could have her Olwen back again, even if it was too late. And it wasn’t too late; it wouldn’t be too late until I’d left Wales.