by A.L. Tyler
“Out here! Out here! Howard, quickly!” Ava Daray had returned to her father’s house. The past eighteen years of her life had not met anyone’s expectations. “Howard!”
Howard took the stairs at a run as he raced to the front door. Rosaleen had raised the alarm early that morning, before Howard had risen, and his bathrobe trailed behind him like a powder blue cape. “Well how the hell did she get out here?! Rosaleen, call a doctor!”
“No! No doctors…” Ava knelt and held a hand to her daughter’s forehead. “She’s got a fever. We need to get her inside, but I don’t think the weather’s done her any harm.” She looked around at the snow that had fallen over night, and then smiled into Howard’s frowning face.
Howard picked up Lena and carried her up to her bedroom. Her mother sat with her for several hours, watching her beautiful child up close for the first time in more than ten years. She stroked her hair and knew that the coming days were going to be difficult for both of them. Around lunch time, David came looking for her.
Ava didn’t move her eyes from her daughter’s face as the door opened, closed, and footsteps slowly approached her side.
“What did you tell her?”
Only silence met her question, and Ava turned to face David.
“What in God’s name did you tell her?!” She said in a deadly hiss.
“Only the truth.” David sat down on the foot of the bed.
“Did she ask you to—“
“No. That’s why I told her. Your father needed to know.” His eyes rested uneasily on Lena’s sleeping form. If he’d known the results would have been this detrimental, he might not have done it.
“You should have waited for her to ask…”
“Your daughter’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I had to give her something to go on, or she wouldn’t have figured it out on her own. Not with Howard going out of his way to hide everything from her.” He stood up and strode to the door, pausing, only for a moment, to look back over his shoulder before closing the door behind him.
When dinner time rolled around, Mrs. Ralston came in with a plate for Ava. The two didn’t speak, and Ava never touched the food. The hours were beginning to wear on Ava, and around ten, she fell asleep in her chair. Time passed as it always did.
Sometime later, Lena’s eyes fluttered. She had been dreaming again, very strange dreams…they weren’t nightmares, like they used to be, but somewhere in her being she feared them just as much. Her eyes opened. She had to still be sleeping... There she was, asleep in a chair. Lena was watching herself sleep. What strange dreams…
Her eyes—well, those of the Lena asleep in the chair—opened very suddenly. Lena jumped. The other Lena smiled…
“Who are… Mom?” Her voice cracked. Her throat was dry, and a monstrous headache was starting to grow. Her gut still hurt like someone had punched her.
Ava nodded and reached her hand out to touch Lena’s cheek. Had Lena been more aware and less unwell, she would have pulled away.
“Oh, Lena…” The woman who looked like her hugged her. A few moments passed as Lena gained control of the situation and her spinning head. She gently pushed the woman away.
“Dad told me you were…Why are you here? What’s going on?” Her brow furrowed, and tears were starting to slide down her cheeks. Her mother had a look of compassion and frustration; Lena was confused and tired. It was too much for her to deal with.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be a little more specific.” Ava said, leaning forward to rest her chin on her propped up fist.
“What?” Lena shook her head and sat up, and then bent over and held her head in her hands. “What do you mean? Specific?”
“Sweetie, I know this must be strange to you, but you have to ask me very specifically...”
Lena stared down at the sheets. The nuisance of the past week came back to her very slowly—like paint drying…
“Why do I have to be specific?!” She said it more forcefully than she had intended to; but then, here was a woman she didn’t remember, who claimed to be her mother, and everyone was lying to her, and David was crazy, and there were so many dead people in her life, and…
“That’s as good a place as any to start, I guess. I just have to warn you, it’s unsafe for me to tell you anything you’re not ready to hear. It could hurt you…like David hurt you.”
“David didn’t hurt me, I just—“
“Well, yes he did,” Ava looked away, and then quickly looked back, “That’s very, very important.”
“Why? You believe him?” Lena stared at the older copy of herself. She already knew that they had very little in common, and probably wouldn’t get along well.
“I know you’ve got no reason to trust me just yet, so look at it this way: Howard’s been lying to you. I’ll try my hardest not to do that. I’ll even keep your secrets for you. I know things that Howard doesn’t, and you can keep those secrets from him.” The idea of having a secret, and keeping it against Howard and Ralston, was very pleasing. But there was something wrong with the whole situation, and it was very bothersome.
“What’s wrong with me?” Lena asked.
“David told you more than you were ready to hear,” She reached toward the nightstand, opened a drawer, and tossed a box of tissues onto the bed. She waited for Lena to finish wiping her face and blowing her nose before continuing. “And he apparently saw fit to leave you out in the snow and unconscious for several hours.”
“Why would he do that to me?” Lena felt a pang of disbelief run through her; David could be cruel, but he wasn’t dangerous. She had trouble believing he would leave her to hypothermia.
Ava looked down at the sleeping gown she had been wearing since that morning, using her palm to smooth it against her thigh. “If he had told people you were out there, it would have raised questions. Howard can’t know that he’s the one who told you, Lena, or he’ll be in a lot of trouble. As things currently stand, no one knows why you were outside, and you don’t remember, either.”
“Why?” Lena asked. “I could have died…”
Ava smiled pathetically. “Because Howard would make him leave. And while your immune system hasn’t quite developed yet, a little cold hasn’t hurt you. Some extra durability comes with the territory of the…changes, I guess, that you’ll be experiencing. The information you received was actually far more worrisome to your health.”
“The information?” Lena repeated.
“Your mind wasn’t ready for everything you were told, and it made you very sick. What were you told, Lena?” Sitting forward in her chair, Ava looked more concerned than she had at any previous moment.
“By who?” Lena rolled her eyes. It seemed everyone currently residing on the Waldgrave property had their own version of things. Her head was pounding.
“I see. I know you’ve been getting some mixed messages here, and probably some straight lies,” Ava pursed her lips and took a deep breath, “All I can do is say I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner. I’m sorry for everything, and I promise that I will never lie to you. I’ve lost a lot of time with you, and I want to make it up to you—“
We’ll see about that, won’t we?
Ava stopped speaking immediately and a troubled look spread across her face; Lena’s eyes went wide as she realized the yard boy wasn’t the only one reading minds anymore.
“I—I’m sorry. It just sort of… I can’t believe anyone here. Everyone lies to me, and nobody cares.” A significant pile of used tissues had grown in her lap, but the tears were finally fading. Both mother and child were silent until Lena remembered she was supposed to be answering a question.
“He told me that you were alive, and that Howard was hiding the fact that I’m a member of some sort of secret royalty, or something like that. Um… My grandfather lives in the attic; and David can read minds, and he’s lying to Howard about why he’s really here.” Lena watched her mother’s face as she said all this. Ava’s worry seemed to weigh against h
er outrage for a moment, but the former won out.
“At least you have questions, then?”
“Is it all true?”
“Yes. I think the term ‘royalty’ is overstating it, but according to your grandfather, yes—you are descended of a noble lineage.”
“What’s your name?”
“Avalon Daray.”
“It says Sarah Collins on my birth certificate.” Lena had regained her footing. She wanted control of this conversation, and was going to get the answers she needed now that she had been offered the opportunity.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if you haven’t actually seen your real birth certificate; at that time though, I was going under the name Sarah Collins.” Ava was tired; it was going on eleven, and she had been up early that day searching for a missing person.
“Why were you going under a fake name?”
“That’s a very complicated question, and as I’ve said before, I’m afraid of giving you more than you’re ready for. The simple answer is that I was hiding, and I didn’t want to be found. Trust me when I say the rest will make you sick. For now, get some sleep, and we’ll sort it all out tomorrow. Do you need anything? Water, or an aspirin?”
Lena shook her head. She still wasn’t sure if she trusted her mother, and even though she had spent most of the day sleeping, she was exhausted. She could get her own water.
“Well, if you need anything, I’m in the room just across the hall.” Ava rose, walked to the door, and then turned around.
“I love you, Lena.”
“Okay. Thank you.” It was the first time she’d heard those words since Egypt. She felt her eyes tearing up again, but bit her lip hard to keep them in.
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” The door clicked shut, and Lena cried herself to sleep, just as she had that night in the hospital.
By the next morning, Lena had almost fully recovered. She was groggy, and ached all over, but she seemed to have back her capacity to control her emotional states. She woke up late, wondering why no one had bothered to get her for breakfast, which would have already started. She was too bleary to get dressed and entirely ready without missing breakfast, but realizing that she was still in the blue dress she’d worn down to David’s two days earlier, she elected to put on some pajamas and a bathrobe and just let it go. As she wandered down to the dining room, she remarked how different the house had become now that Howard had been forced out of his lies. Walking to her seat, she received a smile from her mother, but Howard had a look of remorse.
Sitting down at the table, she forged on.
“I see you decided to put those pictures back after all.” She put her napkin in her lap and picked up her fork. Ava looked confused.
“Yes…they’re back.” Howard didn’t look up.
Ava looked questioningly at both of them; it was Lena who spoke, because Howard didn’t look up to it.
“Well, when I got here, I noticed there was some light bleaching around the places where the pictures used to be. Howard said they were removed just before I got here.” Lena watched Howard slowly put down his utensils and sit in a purgatorial manner. “He had the hall painted blue, and I was told that they wouldn’t be returning.”
Ava glanced over at Howard, who let out a long sigh, and then she started to laugh.
“I was told you were going to great lengths, but you’ve really put yourself out!” She continued laughing, Howard’s discomfort turned almost to indignation, and while Lena smiled politely, she had no clue what was going on until Ava calmed down. Remembering their conversation from the night before, Lena realized she was expected to press the issue over waiting for an explanation.
“What was going on with the pictures that’s so funny?”
“Sweetie,” Ava chuckled again, “Those portraits were never removed. Everything leaves a shadow, even if you can’t see the thing leaving it.” She turned her attention to Howard. “Apparently you were destined to failure. She knew something was up from the moment she got here.”
“A…shadow?”
“A shadow. The mind is an incredible thing, and it protects you from things you’re not ready for. That’s why the general rule in this situation is to not tell unless asked. You weren’t ready to see those things, and you weren’t looking for them to be there, so you couldn’t see them. But sometimes it glitches a little, and you see things you shouldn’t—like shadows of things that otherwise aren’t there. You weren’t seeing light bleaching, but the shadows of portraits that were there all along. Now that you’re ready, you know they’re there, and you can see them. I think you’ll be finding a lot of…interesting things…in the house now.” Ava winked at her. She talked more than anyone else had. She seemed genuinely interested in answering Lena’s questions, and that gave her more credibility. However unbelievable the things Ava said were, it was somehow easy to trust her information, because she seemed the type who was a poor liar. Howard sat silently, eating his breakfast, and generally seeming to ignore what was happening around him.
“Is that why…the library. Those shelves were half empty when I got here, and now they’re not. You’re telling me the books were always there, but they were invisible?”
“Ah…” Ava rested her head on her hand and stared into space, thinking. “That’s a difficult one. Yes, they were invisible to you, but that’s not all. They don’t exist to you until you… well, that’s not true either. Have you ever lost something, and haven’t been able to find it, even when it’s right in front of you?”
Lena reflected on how her father used to spend near thirty minutes some mornings looking for his glasses—only to finally find them sitting there on his face. She smiled gently at this thought, and suddenly realized Ava was watching her. As much as Lena liked her, the woman still hadn’t explained herself and was therefore not worthy of her father’s memory.
“I used to spend a lot of time looking for the hotel keys, and then realize they’d been sitting there on the T.V., in plain sight, the whole time,” she lied.
Ava looked very pleased. “Exactly! It’s just like that. Those books were lost to you, and you couldn’t find them until you were prepared to. You might want to look through them when you go back up.”
Mrs. Ralston rolled her eyes; Lena wondered if Ava knew what she was talking about.
“Is that what was happening with the clothes, too?” Lena puzzled.
Howard cleared his throat, glaring at Ava. “No, Lena, that’s not what was happening with the clothes. But the issue has been addressed.”
Ava wrinkled her nose. “Clothes?”
“Master Daray claims they were presents for his granddaughter.” Howard did not look amused as he spoke in jabs at Ava. “The rest of us more or less believe he was directly disregarding a Council ruling that he not be allowed contact with her to facilitate her…conversion.”
“Conversion?” Lena asked with more energy than she would have thought she could muster. Staring at her with grey, angry, concerned eyes, Howard was now the most interesting person in the household for having said so much. “Council ruling?”
Howard inhaled and opened his mouth, but Ava shrieked.
“No more!” She interjected. “Howard, she’s in a sensitive state.”
Behind Ava, Ralston rolled her eyes again, and Lena wondered how dramatically her new mother was overstating her condition.
“But I have questions! I want to look around—“ She insisted.
“You need to rest.” Ava insisted with equal fervor. “You’ll need lots of rest after what happened. You can look around tomorrow. For today, just stick to the books.”
Not wanting to upset her new teacher, Lena chose not to fight it. She finished her meal as quickly as she could before excusing herself and going up to the library.
There were more than new books to interest her. There were whole new bookcases that had materialized. New objects—relics, of some sort. The furniture looked different than it had before. There was even a new w
indow, through which the greenhouse could be seen. She started to look at an object that appeared to be a guitar turned inside out; it had once been a bright red color, but the paint was peeling, revealing the wood grain beneath. She wanted very dearly to pick it up and see what it sounded like, but it looked too old to put up with too much handling. Lena yawned; Ava was right that she wasn’t going to have a very active day.
She went to one of the new bookcases, grabbed three books, and then went back to her room. She set them on the nightstand while she showered and then put her pajamas back on. Sitting on the bed, Lena studied the hardback volumes more closely. Two of them were oversized and very thick, while the third was the size of an average paperback; the covers were entirely bare. She picked up the small brown one first, opening it cautiously. She expected answers—who she was, or what she was. Maybe a history of how people like David and her mother came to be, or what they were really capable of. She expected what most people would expect from a book: pages filled with writing on a particular subject, be it science, history, or fiction. What she got was an empty book.
Blank pages, all of them. Lena’s mouth fell open in confusion and surprise as she flipped the pages front to back, and then back to front. It was completely bare. The first large book, a dull yellow one, contained nothing as well. Lena furrowed her brow. Something was going on here, and she desperately needed to know what. Her own curiosity would kill her if she didn’t find out. Her mother’s words at breakfast came floating back into her mind…
Maybe I’m just not ready to see these things…
She gingerly checked the last book before taking them all back to the library. This time, she took more care in selecting her reading material. She spent an hour flipping through empty books before she found one, a pocket-sized blue book, that actually had a title written on the inside cover, but nothing else…
Raised by Humans: A Case Study of Seven Silenti
“Silenti?”
To her astonishment, Lena watched the author of the book materialize in front of her eyes. She didn’t exactly see it, though. She had blinked, and what hadn’t been there before suddenly was.
By Dacian Lecrois
She turned the page. A single sentence faced her boldly from the first page. Lena sat down on a chair. In all her years of travel, this was the most astonishing thing she had ever seen.
Although it is doubtless that this unfortunate scenario has occurred countless times throughout history, little is yet known about the processes by which these individuals
The sentence ended there.
“But that doesn’t make any sense… ‘these individuals’ what?”
Down the page, several more random letters popped onto the page. Two whole words, “with” and “and” appeared amidst the jumble, about two inches apart.
Well, that’s helpful.
She flipped through the pages again. While most were still bare, some now contained similar alphabet soup. There were about a dozen complete words, and one more island of communication:
