by Toombs, Jane
Chapter Twenty-Five
Martha was back in the nightmare with Johann, disembodied voices great colors bursting in her head. Had Johann managed to sneak an hallucinogen into her food again? She was swaying, drifting away from the earth. Words broke like soap bubbles and spattered her with droplets of meaning.
“…hospital…”
“…serious…head…bloody shame…”
Blood. No longer bright and filled with life, the red changing, becoming rust, sticky to the touch…Johan floating in his own dead blood, and she was too late, forever too late.
“…gun…”
No, not a gun. Johan had used a knife—the Thai dagger he affected as a letter opener, it’s bronze handle etched with a many-armed god who had no power to save him either. First the dagger, then the window.
One of Oscar Wilde’s poems said, “The kindest use a knife because the dead so soon grow cold.” What had he meant? That dying by degrees, death in life was worse? He was wrong, wrong. The dead stay alive forever in the mind and never grow cold.
“…remember…”Josephine doesn’t remember. The years are lost. Josephine. Martha struggled to recapture her thought, Josephine doesn’t belong with Johann. He’s gone, those years are gone, this is another time…
“Martha.” Not Johann's voice, and yet a man she knew.
“ Martha, can you hear me?” Jules's voice.
She opened her eyes. Jules's dark eyes were inches from her own. She was lying—where? On the ground. Why was she on the ground?
“ I know you're in pain,” Jules said. “But try to think. Do you know where Jimmy Smithson is?”
The night's events raced back into her mind. Sarah and Jimmy—the fountain—Matthew—
Where was Sarah? Martha tried to rise, but the pain in her arm and shoulder stopped her. Her head throbbed.
“ Don't move,” Jules warned. “We're waiting for an ambulance. Can you remember about Jimmy?”
“ I—he—near the fountain,” she said, her head pounding with the effort to force out words. “Matthew—by the fountain.”
“Jimmy's near Ross Fountain?”
“Yes.”
Jules turned his head and spoke to someone else. Martha heard the words but they had no meaning.
“Jules,” she said. “Don't go away—” Martha wanted to reach out and touch him, but her eyes closed and she drifted away again. She wanted to hold on to Jules but could not. Jules was not for her, not for Marty Collier....
When Martha came to awareness again, she was in bed. The walls around her were green and she was gazing at a picture of Mary holding the infant Jesus.
Hospital? thought. St. Joseph's? She raised her head a few inches from the pillow to look around. Yes, a hospital room. Sunshine was outside the window, a piece of blue sky. The night before was over.
“ Martha—you're awake!” Josephine's voice was warm, and as Martha turned around, Josephine leaned over and kissed her.
“ You're all right,” Martha said. “You're dressed.” She felt stupid, her mind still foggy.
Bran stood alongside Josephine. “Thank God you're all right, too,” he said.
“There won't be a scar,” Josephine told her. “Dr. Hansen said so himself.”
Scar??
“Does your head ache? You're frowning so.” Josephine leaned over her again. “Do you want the nurse?”
Martha started to shake her head, then realized something was wrong. Her left hand was bound across her chest but she could move her right arm, and she raised her hand to her head, encountering cloth—a bandage? “Did I hurt my head?” she asked.
“A cut across the temple—I think they shaved off some hair,” Josephine said. “Dr. Hansen said you had a concussion, too.”
Last night, Martha thought. She'd been lying on the ground and Jules was there. And— She struggled up onto her right elbow. “Where's Sarah?” she demanded. “Is she...?”
“She's here in the hospital,” Josephine said. “I—we've just seen her. They've moved her out of intensive care and she's conscious. She told me she was hungry.”
“And Jimmy?”
“His mother took him home this morning. Just a bad bump on the head, I guess. He was hit with something.”
The gun, Martha thought. Jimmy was hit with the gun. She had to try twice before she got the next name out. “Matthew? ”
“He's dead,” Bran said. “Ran into the woods and shot himself.” There was a moment of silence.
“Do you know about Matthew?” Martha asked at last.
“Jules told me—told us.” Josephine took Bran's arm.
“About—Sarah, too?”
“Oh, she'll be fine,” Josephine said. “She does have a skull fracture, but it's only a hairline crack across the side of her head. Dr. Hansen says not to worry.”
Martha stared at Josephine. Obviously she didn't know about Sarah being her daughter. Did Jules? Did anyone else? Her eyes shifted to Bran and he grinned at her, and Martha suddenly realized what was familiar about Sarah's wide smile—her mouth was like her father's. The resemblance shone clearly when they smiled.
“Daddy's being buried today,” Josephine said. “So many terrible things have happened. I hope that his funeral is the last of death.”
Matthew needs to be buried, too, Martha thought, but she said nothing.
“I'll come back and visit you as soon as I can,” Josephine said. Her face clouded. “I still don't understand about Uncle Matthew. Not really.”
“The money,” Martha said.
“Yes, I know that. Jules explained. Poor Jules—I've blamed him all along.” Josephine shook her head. “But why would Matthew need more money than Natalie has? Why would he try to—to kill me to get it?”
“Jules told us Matthew wanted more money for his Indian research,” Bran said. “He'd turned down Matthew's requests for more money just as his father had always done.” Bran shrugged. “After all, Matthew had no credentials in the field—he was an amateur.”
Why, you intellectual snob! Martha thought, for a moment forgetting her terror of Matthew the night before.
“Matthew was a fanatic,” Bran went on. “Any research he did was biased, slanted the way he wanted to see it. A hobby—that's how he should have viewed what he did. Instead...”
A fanatic. Yes. Martha closed her eyes, remembering the terrible moment when she'd thought he would drop Sarah off the edge above the fountain.
“You're tired,” Josephine said. “We have to go, anyway.”
When they were gone, Martha rang for the nurse and asked her to try to get a message to Jules Garrard. “Tell him it's about Sarah,” she said.
Josephine and Bran had to be told they were Sarah's parents as soon as possible. But she wasn't the one to tell them. She had no doubt that Matthew's information through Simon had been correct. Everything fit. She'd let Jules know, and then he'd have the responsibility.
The day passed, and Martha dozed and ate and dozed again. Dr. Hansen came in to see her and let her walk to the bathroom, and she found that the trip left her only a trifle dizzy. Josephine didn't return as she'd promised, and Jules didn't come.
Day edged into night.
Does Jules think I'm going to be an embarrassment? Martha wondered. Hanging on him, begging him not to leave me as I did last night? Her face flushed as she recalled her plea.
He needn't worry about having her return to Black Tor.
As soon as Dr. Hansen would release her, she'd head for Seattle and convalesce in Ginetha's apartment. And then--
And then what? Martha took a deep breath. She shut her eyes and Jules's face was there in her mind. Would it always be?
When she awakened, she thought at first she was still dreaming. Jules's dark eyes looked into hers and his fingers stroked her cheek.
“Oh!”
“I didn't mean to startle you,” he said, and sat back in the chair he'd drawn up to the bed.
“I—I asked you to come because of Sarah,” Martha began. �
�Matthew told me that Josephine—”
“I came because I wanted to see you,” Jules said. “I couldn't get away earlier.”
“But you don't understand. Josephine is Sarah's mother. She...”
Jules sighed. “I've just finished talking to them—Josephine and Bran. They're completely overwhelmed. Josephine was all for rushing back here and having an emotional reunion with Sarah, but of course we convinced her that she couldn't. The poor child—what will she make of it?”
“Sarah loves Josephine.”
Jules nodded. “But Josephine as a—a mother?” He turned his hands upward.
“She has Bran now,” Martha said. “And she'll grow up once everyone quits protecting her as though she were still a child herself.”
“Did Matthew tell you how he found out?” Jules asked.
“From Simon. Somehow Simon extracted the information from your father. That, and about the Will—about Natalie getting the money if Josephine died.” Martha frowned. “I can't understand why. If your father knew about Sarah, why wouldn't he have her inherit?”
“I'm not sure,” Jules said. “I suspect he thought an illegitimate child should have no rights. He was very old-fashioned. And then, too, he didn't know who Sarah's father was. Josephine thought her lover was dead, so there was simply no other information.”
“How did you discover all this?” Martha asked.
“In my father's safety-deposit box. I was able to have it opened yesterday. He left a detailed letter in the box for me, telling me how he located Josephine soon after she ran away from Black Tor,” Jules said. “He found her in Seattle, and when he had a doctor see her, he discovered right away that she was pregnant. Josephine was incoherent much of the time, but she did say her 'Diego' was dead. ”
“When Sarah was born, he placed her in a home there in Seattle, intending to bring Josephine back to Black Tor. Josephine by now was living in another world, scarcely aware of what went on around her. Father certainly had no idea she would run off again. Even then he'd probably have found her, except she got in with one of those commune families who were going back to the land in Oregon. It took him over a year to trace her. Luckily she'd been treated fairly well.”
“And Josephine still remembers none of this?”
Jules shook his head. “I'm going to have Louis—Dr. Marston—see her again with all the facts available. Perhaps he'll be able to help her retrieve the missing memories.”
“Your father never did acknowledge Sarah, then,” Martha said. “Why did he bring her to Black Tor?”
“After he eventually found Josephine again and brought her home, he went back to Seattle and took Sarah to a new foster home in Victoria. He wrote that he finally brought Sarah to Black Tor when he saw it would be obvious to everyone that she was a Garrard. She developed the white streak in her hair when she was about two.”
“It seems so unnecessary,” Martha said. “All the secrecy. Bran acted equally clandestinely, sneaking notes to Josephine and signing them 'Diego.' Why didn't he simply come for her?”
“It took him years finding out who she was.” Jules shook his head, “What a romantic pair, the two of them. And so foolish, wasting all that time.”
“But once he did know,” Martha said, “why not march up to Black Tor and ring the doorbell?”
“Bran says he heard stories in Victoria about Josephine being shut in the tower—can you imagine—and having a keeper so she couldn't ever leave the house. He thought he might not be let in to see her, and of course I suppose he wondered if she really was mentally ill. He didn't admit to that. He's all right, though—had a rough time getting where he is in life. A hard worker.”
“He'll be good for Josephine,” Martha said. “You do see that.”
Jules sighed. “I'm glad she's off my hands. I've never known what to make of her since father brought her back home—sarcastic one moment, a whining child the next and then, seemingly without effort, a poised young woman.”
“How is—Natalie?” Martha said after a few moments.
“Broken up, of course,” Jules said. “But I also have a feeling she's curiously relieved. As though she'd known something was wrong but hadn't dared ask what. There's no question that she loved Matthew. While he treated her well enough, I don't believe he really cared for anything but his Indian research.”
The way I love you, Martha thought, while you care for—what? “I'll be leaving sometime next week,” she said. “Dr. Hansen wasn't sure of the exact day, but—”
“Nonsense. If you need a nurse, we can have one at the house. Will can certainly see you there if need be.”
“But, Jules, there's no need for that—I'll soon be well enough to fly to Seattle and—”
Jules leaned across the bed and took her right hand, holding it between both of his. “You belong at Black Tor,” he said. “I want you to be my wife.”
Martha stared at him, speechless.
“Well?”
“I—I won't have all those stuffed animals around,” she said at last, unable to speak the words of love that almost choked her. “They’re like a curse.”
Jules laughed. “I’ve had the remains of the killer whale swept out,” he said. “You’ll rid Black Tor of any curse when you dispose of the rest.” He looked into her eyes and she saw the warmth and love in his face.
“The time of hiding and pretense is over, Martha. Come back to Black Tor with me and we’ll begin again, with no clinging to what is past.”
His words made her realize she’d been preserving her own past--keeping Johann’s memory around like the Garrards kept their stuffed pets. Not letting him go, not letting him rest in final peace.
Jules was now. Jules was waiting for her. Love was waiting for her. “Yes,” she said.
“Oh, yes, Jules.”
The End
About The Author
Jane Toombs, the Viking from her past and their calico grandcat, Kinko, live on the south shore of Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula wilderness. Here they enjoy refreshing Springs, beautiful Summers, colorful Falls and tolerate miserable Winters. Jane is edging toward ninety with her published books and has over twenty-five novellas and short stories to her credit. She’s been published in every genre except men’s action and erotica, but paranormal is her favorite. She’s a member of a closed twelve author promo group called Jewels Of The Quill, where she’s “Dame Turquoise”
Also from Books We Love by Jane Toombs
Golden Chances Books 1 to 7
Hallow House, Books I and II
Ten Past Midnight
Mountain Moonlight
The Outlaw
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