Fiona

by Meredith Moore

  I raise my eyebrows but say nothing. I must have been wrong. If Charlie feels so strongly about her, she must not be too bad. And it sounds like her home life was a wreck.

  Poppy taps the paper in front of her with the eraser of her pencil. “What’s my next step?” she says. I turn my focus to the problem, but I can’t seem to shake the thought of the strange feline girl with the unsettling eyes.

  • • •

  That night, I tell Poppy that I’m going to be eating with the other servants from now on. The thought of sitting at the table with Charlie and Blair makes my stomach clench, and I know I wouldn’t be able to eat a bite. She only nods in response, but I can tell she’s confused. Maybe even disappointed. I have to remind myself that Blair probably doesn’t want me at the table anyway, since she can’t even remember my name.

  “You’ll still have breakfast and lunch with us, though, right?” Poppy says.

  “Sure,” I say, unable to say no to that trace of pleading in her eyes. “Of course.”

  I’m slipping away from the kitchen and up to my room after dinner with the servants when Charlie catches me. I hear his footsteps behind me in the hallway before I see him, and I know I can’t escape.

  “Fee, hey,” he says, his fingers brushing along my arm to stop me. I draw my arm away from his touch as subtly as I can as I turn to face him. “I’d like you to meet Blair.”

  He steps aside, and I see she’s been standing behind him the whole time. I can see now that she’s shorter than she seemed in the front hall this morning or in the courtyard this afternoon, a few inches shorter than I am. She offers me a broad smile, but I can feel those narrow blue eyes examine me carefully once more. “We’ve met,” she says.

  “Yes, good to see you again,” I say with the barest suggestion of a smile.

  She snuggles into Charlie’s side, and he places an arm around her shoulders. They stand there, a unit. Indestructible. “Charlie says you’ve been great with Poppy,” Blair says, her voice syrupy with politeness. What happened to the strange girl lying on the courtyard, who practically refused to remember my name?

  “Well, Poppy—she’s great,” I stutter. “You know,” I add quickly, “I was actually on my way up to go help her with her math homework. She’s been doing so well, just got a B on a pop quiz today. I think she’ll be able to pull her grade up nicely.” I’m babbling and staring at Blair like an idiot, so I press my lips shut and shift my focus to Charlie.

  “Thanks, Fee,” he says softly, his expression inscrutable.

  I hesitate for a moment, trying to read what he’s feeling, but I snap myself out of it quickly and leave before I can make things any more awkward.

  “So nice to meet you!” Blair calls brightly after me.

  So maybe she is the sweet girl everyone says she is. But then I think of the calculating narrowness of her eyes as she looked at me. And Charlie’s arm around her shoulder.

  I need to stop thinking about her, so I dive into a night of helping Poppy with her homework. When it’s Poppy’s bedtime, I retreat to my room with a book about Mary, Queen of Scots, and try to lose myself in the sad tale of a woman who had terrible luck and made some of the worst decisions in life and love.

  Hours later, the whole castle is sleeping and still, but I’m still awake, trying to focus on the murder of Lord Darnley, Mary’s second husband. Suddenly, a strange scraping noise starts up, right next to my head. It comes from that outside wall, the same place that the loud bang came from a few nights ago. This time, it sounds as if someone is dragging some kind of metal or wire along the wall, slowly. It can’t just be an errant tree branch or something, not with that metallic screech. It must be from Keira’s room, I decide. Is someone moving furniture in there?

  I turn my attention back to the book, but the scraping doesn’t stop. It persists and persists, until the words below me swirl into unrecognizable shapes. I slam my book shut and swing my legs out of bed, trying to think of the politest way to ask my neighbor to quit doing whatever the hell she’s doing.

  Thankfully, though, as soon as I reach the door, the metallic scraping stops. But now it’s been replaced by that muffled whispering noise, the one that I mistook for a TV on one of my first nights here. And it’s definitely coming from that outside wall. I look around, bewildered, and catch sight of an air vent on the opposite wall, which I share with Keira. Could it be that the sounds are coming from there, through some weird acoustics caused by the castle’s ventilation system?

  I get out of bed again and pull my desk chair up to that wall. I stand on top of it and put my ear to the vent but hear nothing. The sounds are definitely coming from that stupid outside-facing wall.

  I throw myself back in bed and pull the pillow over my ear. Worry about it in the morning, Fee. For now, just try to fall asleep.

  CHAPTER 10

  A few days later, when I can’t battle the boredom anymore while Poppy’s at school, I decide to run a few errands. After lunchtime, I ask Albert if he can drop me off at the village.

  “Not a problem,” he says. “I’ve got to visit someone at the hospital at Beasley, not too far from there.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and he blinks at me, confused. “That your friend is in the hospital,” I clarify.

  Albert smiles slightly. “Thank you.”

  I nod, confused by his lack of reaction, and follow him silently out to the car.

  Albert drops me off at the familiar intersection by the train station and tells me he’ll pick me up in a couple of hours. I wave goodbye to him and take a moment to look around at the tiny cluster of stone buildings. This place is unusually sleepy, even for a Wednesday afternoon.

  I decide to go to the store first. The whispering has continued every night, and even with the help of my heather chamomile tea, I’m having trouble ignoring it. It feels like I’ve only slept in snatches of time for the past few days. I’m hoping that a good pair of earplugs will bring me some peace. And I need a new phone, one that I can use in Scotland. With the bit of salary that’s been put in my bank account, I buy the cheapest smartphone I can get and set up a plan. Just having it in my pocket makes me feel more independent.

  I still have an hour until Albert comes back, so I head for the pub next, seeking shelter from the wind that seems to grow bitterer every day.

  A group of old men sit at the bar, the pub’s only patrons, but they fill the dark space with their good-natured laughing.

  I cozy up to the bar, one seat over from the men, and order a Coke from the taciturn bartender. I’m eighteen, so I could order a beer or anything else I wanted here, but I want to keep a clear head. Though as I consider what I came here to do, I wonder if some liquid courage might help.

  I promised myself that, once I got here, I would ask around about my mother’s family. I want to know more about her parents, my grandparents, who died before I was born. I want to know what they were like.

  The men beside me are glued to a soccer—football—match on the suspended TV, all agreeing very loudly that the referee is some kind of idiot.

  Eventually, one of the men looks over and catches me watching them. “Anything I can do for you, lass?” he asks, sounding amused.

  I take a deep breath and nod. “Yes, actually. Have you . . . did you ever happen to know a girl named Moira Cavendish? She lived here about twenty-five years ago.”

  “She of the fancy Cavendish people?” he asks, rubbing a hand against the back of his bald head. “Big house about half an hour from here? All that money from their wool mills?”

  “Oh. I guess?” I say, surprised. I always got the impression that Mom’s parents were well off, but his description makes it seem like it’s much more than that. “Her parents were Angus and Greer Cavendish.”

  “Were? They’re still alive, far as I know.”

  I grip the edge of the bar tightly with both hands. “I’m sorry, what?
They’re still alive?” I ask.

  I feel the blood drain from my face, and the man leans a bit closer to me. “Are you all right, lass?”

  How can they be alive? They can’t be. Mom told me that they died soon after she left Scotland. She wouldn’t tell me how—she said it made her too sad.

  Was she lying to me?

  All of the men are staring at me now, and I take a deep breath. I can’t freak out. Not now, not here.

  I start ripping the damp napkin beneath my glass to shreds, focusing on the little decimated pieces as I ask my next question. “What are they like?”

  Thankfully, they all lean back and start drinking again, probably just relieved that I didn’t keel over or faint. “Haven’t ever met them,” says the first man. “But I bet Tommy knows—hey, Tommy, you know the Cavendishes?”

  “Aye,” Tommy says, dressed a bit more formally than the others, in a tweed jacket. “Did a bit of work on their toilets a few years back, over at Dunraven Manor.”

  Dunraven Manor. Is that where my mother grew up?

  “Tommy’s the best plumber in all the northwest,” his companion boasts.

  “Was,” Tommy corrects. “I’m retired now, which is why I can spend my days sipping whisky with you worthless lot.”

  As his companions laugh, Tommy looks to me. “I met the missus once. She was a frosty kind of woman. I was only too happy to work with the head housekeeper after that, believe me.”

  I nod, trying to look interested and not as nauseated as I feel.

  “Do you know anyone who might know them? A bit, um, better?” I ask.

  “We don’t run with the fancy set. Better ask the Moffats up there at the castle or some such if you want to know about that sort.”

  I nod, taking a final sip of my Coke and hopping off the barstool. “Thank you,” I say to the group as I slide the bartender a few pounds. The men all tip their caps at me as I walk out.

  I look around the village, as if I’m seeing it for the first time. My grandparents. My grandparents are alive and not far from here. I have a family.

  Why would Mom lie? Were my grandparents cruel to her? Did they disown her because of my dad? What happened all those years ago?

  And why didn’t Lily mention my grandparents in her emails to me? Did she assume I knew they were alive and just didn’t think to mention it?

  I don’t understand any of this. Questions overwhelm me, and I shove the palms of my hands against my eyes.

  I spend the rest of the afternoon wandering up and down the road, those questions banging around inside my head as I wait for Albert.

  Beyond the image of my grandmother as a standoffish upper-class woman, the men hadn’t offered me much. They didn’t know the Cavendishes, not really.

  If I want to find out anything, I’m going to have to ask Charlie. But I can’t ask him without revealing that my mother used to be one of the “fancy set,” as Tommy called them. And if I reveal that, I could end up revealing everything: her schizophrenia, her suicide, the danger in my own genetic makeup.

  I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear for him to see me as I see myself: a ticking time bomb. I imagine him telling Blair, how she would look at me with those feline eyes and a grimace of distaste. They wouldn’t understand. They would see my mother as damaged, as trash. They wouldn’t see her as the woman who poured her soul into her music, who taught me Highland dance and the Texas two-step, who challenged me to sword fights with wooden serving spoons around the apartment until we both collapsed from giggling too hard.

  I can’t ever be Fiona Cavendish. I am Fiona Smith and will keep my father’s name, like I’ve always done.

  Charlie can never know.

  My teeth are chattering by the time Albert finally pulls up, and I get into the heated car with a sigh of relief.

  CHAPTER 11

  I head for the stables at five that evening to meet Poppy after her ride. Gareth is nowhere to be found, the only sounds in the dark space the pawing and snorts of the horses.

  The horse to my left, the smallest in the stable, looks up at me with calm eyes. I approach it cautiously, and it sticks its head out the door to meet my outstretched hand. I stroke its long snout, which is velvety-smooth beneath my fingertips.

  “Hi,” someone says behind me.

  I whirl around, nearly falling into Gareth as I stumble over my own feet. I brace my hands against his strong chest until I regain my balance, and then a moment longer, as I look up to meet his eyes. “I’m here for Poppy,” I say quickly, snatching my hands back.

  He nods with mock solemnity, like he doesn’t believe me, and I can’t help but roll my eyes.

  “It’s okay,” he says, planting the shovel he’s carrying into the ground. “You can admit it. You just couldn’t wait to see me again.”

  I should frown at him, shoot him down. He’s using the same hollow charm that Charlie tried on me that night he was drunk. I think of Alice and know I should deflect this immediately.

  But I can’t help but laugh. This house is filled with so much grief and pain, and this news about my grandparents has made me feel so confused and off-balance. It feels good to laugh again, to flirt with a cute guy and not have it mean anything. So I bat my eyelashes dramatically at Gareth and coo, “Yes, I just can’t stop thinking about you. You haunt my every thought or whatever.”

  He laughs, resting his arms on the shovel. “Poppy should be back in a few minutes. She and Copperfield were just having their therapy session.”

  “Their therapy session?” I repeat, my sarcasm falling away.

  He smiles. “That’s what I call it, anyway. Only time that girl relaxes is with that horse. I guess it’s her way of working through the darkness.”

  “You understand what she’s going through?” I ask, but it comes out more like a statement. Because there’s this tone in his voice that I recognize. A tinge of heartbreak.

  He clears his throat, all traces of laughter now gone. “My pa was a drunk. Spent most of his life in the pub and ended it in a ditch. He’d tried to walk home in a snowstorm.”

  “And your mom?’

  He looks away, down at the ground. “Ran away with a bloke from the village when I was six. He was married, left a wife and five kids. He came back a couple of years later, but my mum never did.” He shrugs, like it means nothing, but I can tell what it’s costing him to tell me this. I know that talking about all that pain can feel like reliving it.

  The small horse snorts, and I realize that we’re standing too close together, my body leaning too much toward his. I blink and step back as casually as I can.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because it’s the only way a person can respond to a confession like that.

  He nods. “Me too. About your mum.”

  My breath stutters in my throat until I realize that he just means that he’s sorry that she died. He doesn’t know about her illness. “Thanks,” I breathe out.

  Suddenly I’m tired. I’m tired of feeling confused and scared and sad all the time. I want to be free of it all, if just for a moment. I want to feel brave and in control. I want to work through the darkness, the way Poppy is.

  I look back at the horse whose snorting interrupted us, and, before I can second-guess myself, I ask Gareth, “Can you teach me how to ride one of these things?”

  When I look back at him, his eyes are wide with surprise, and a warm smile is growing on his face.

  “You can ride Oliver here,” he says, grabbing a saddle and heading toward a huge gray horse in a stall a few spaces down.

  “Oliver?” I ask.

  “Oliver Twist. Got him last year with Copperfield, when Poppy was going through a Charles Dickens phase.”

  A ten-year-old who loved Dickens. No wonder Poppy’s not having any trouble with English class.

  “What about the small one?” I ask, pointing at the
snorting horse I’d been petting.

  “Nessie? She’d bite your hand off as soon as look at you. Oliver’s a safer beastie.”

  I pull my hand away from Nessie immediately.

  I watch Gareth expertly saddle Oliver and lead him out to the yard, and my stomach begins twisting in knots. I liked the idea of riding a horse much better when it was safely in a stall, calm and still. Now that I’m thinking it through, I have no desire to get up onto the back of one, especially one as big as Oliver, who seemed a much smaller, more docile creature back in his stall.

  Gareth must be able to see the tremendous doubt on my face. “Oliver’s a big softie, aren’t you?” he says, rubbing the massive creature’s neck like they’re old friends. “He’ll be a good horse to learn on,” he assures me, holding out his hand.

  I stare at his outstretched hand for a second, unable to move. Take a chance, Fee, I tell myself firmly. It’s what Hex used to say to me whenever I’d get too much inside my own head. She was always encouraging me to step out of my comfort zone and take control of my own life. She thought I let my fears rule me, and I knew she was right.

  So I pretend to be brave and take Gareth’s hand. He clasps mine firmly. “Put your left foot in the stirrup here,” he instructs.

  I’m just about to when Oliver nickers and shifts his feet, and I back up hastily.

  Gareth pats Oliver’s neck again, watching me. “Come on, then,” he says.

  I look into his eyes and see the challenge there, and so I march back up to that damn horse and put my left foot in the stirrup. Gareth hands me the reins and shifts behind me, placing his hands on my waist. Before I can react to his touch, he’s lifted me up, my right leg swinging over Oliver’s broad back to find the other stirrup. And I am officially on a horse.