That wish is second only to her desire to rid herself of her youngest stepdaughter.
Everett Cooke withstands his wife’s insistence that the Donnellys must go because the Donnellys are useful. Cora, on the other hand, is growing more impossible as the months wear on. She can’t seem to help herself, and spends most of her time refusing to do anything her stepmother asks, then running off into the woods every chance she gets.
Mam despairs of her.
“Poor child,” she calls her. “Poor lost child.”
A time comes when the library doors are always closed. Helena’s voice is muffled and Everett’s responses too low to make out, even with an ear pressed to the door.
But when those doors finally open, a decision has been made.
Cora’s bags are packed and a car is waiting to take her away. She’ll attend a boarding school, they say. She’s fourteen now, a young lady. She’ll be sent to a fine school, where her insolence won’t be tolerated and she’ll be molded into an acceptable young lady.
“Please don’t go, Cora,” Peter cries, holding her tightly at the waist. But Cora’s usual bravado has deserted her. Where Helena’s presence made her reckless, it dampened her little brother’s spirit, leaving him silent and fearful.
“Don’t cry, Petey,” she says, holding the boy tightly. “I’ll be back soon, and I’ll write you every day. I promise.”
Deirdre holds his hand as the car drives away, but the little boy isn’t the only one with tears. Deirdre puts on a brave face, but her cheeks are wet with sorrow.
Helena won that battle, but the war is far from over. Cora is true to her word, and in less than a year, the boarding school has sent her back. But Fallbrook changed while Cora was away, or perhaps the changes were in her. Either way, the world she returns to no longer seems to fit her, if it ever did.
Despite Helena’s reservations, the second Mrs. Cooke has become a mother after all. Baby Imogene is born.
But the biggest change, one with consequences no one could dream of, comes in the form of a private tutor and a battered violin case.
Lawrence Pynchon isn’t the only person to answer the advertisement Helena places for a private tutor, but he is the last. It’s easy to see how he managed to win her over, and it has little to do with the music lessons he offered to include.
“Your children are in good hands, Mrs. Cooke,” he says in a smooth baritone as he leans at the waist to kiss Helena’s hand upon accepting the job.
“Stepchildren,” she corrects.
“Of course.”
The smile he gives her is conspiratorial, punctuated by a wink that brings a bright flush to the apples of her pale cheeks.
If ever there was a snake in the Cookes’ garden, it was Lawrence Pynchon, violin in hand.
Even Deirdre, practical, no-nonsense Deirdre, is taken in. Everett Cooke, perhaps in an attempt to compensate for his wife’s disposition toward the family that keeps his home running smoothly, hires Mr. Pynchon to tutor not just his own children but the Donnellys as well.
Kitty longs to go back to the village school, but Deirdre watches the man with an undisguised adoration that leaves Kitty cold and resentful.
“You don’t understand,” Deirdre says when Cora teases her about her obvious infatuation. “You’ll always have opportunities, because your father is rich.”
Cora tries to laugh that off. “Mr. Pynchon is chock-full of opportunity, all right. The opportunity to flatter his way into my stepmother’s bed. I wish he’d pied piper her right off a cliff.”
Deirdre’s eyes flash and Kitty watches, shocked, as she turns away from her oldest friend in anger for the first time in the girls’ lives.
“Deirdre,” Cora calls. “I’m sorry. Come back.”
But she doesn’t.
“Come back,” Kitty calls softly as the fog steals the image of her sister’s retreating back. She fights through the mist, searching for her way home. Her eyes open, and she’s seated in the cottage again, as she has been all along.
But she’s not alone.
“You’re not looking in the right places,” Peter says sadly from one corner of the room.
“You only see what you want to see,” Cora says from the other corner.
“There’s more,” Ruby says by her side. She leans closer and cups a hand around her mouth to whisper in Kitty’s ear. “You know there’s more. Don’t be scared.”
“I don’t want to,” Kitty says, but Ruby takes her hand and leads her back through the fog, leads her to a door Kitty doesn’t want to open.
“Go on,” Ruby whispers. “You’ve been here before. The dead can’t hurt you anymore.”
Click. Click. Click.
Heels upon the hallway floor.
Click. Click. Click.
Heels moving quickly to the library door. Mrs. Cooke’s heels, while Kitty’s world teeters delicately in the balance.
The latch is pressed and the door swings wide.
“Your daughter has gone too far.”
Mr. Cooke doesn’t look up from the ledger open in front of him.
“Helena, please refrain from dramatics. What has Cora done?”
“Not that daughter. This one.” Helena’s voice is brimming with something like glee.
Everett Cooke glances upward, his eyes grazing the tops of his glasses, and studies the pair in front of him. His second wife is gripping the forearm of his eldest daughter.
“Ruby?” he asks. He removes his glasses and massages the bridge of his nose. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Tell him,” Helena prods. “Go on.”
“Papa, I . . .” Her face is clouded with worry, and she glances back and forth between Helena and her father. Finally, she pulls her arm from her stepmother’s grip and stands up straighter.
“Papa, I’m not a child any longer,” she says with only the slightest hint of a waver in her voice.
Everett Cooke sits back slowly in his chair.
“I can see that, Ruby.”
“I’ve made a decision. It’s my life, and I have a right to make decisions about my own future.”
Helena scoffs. “I would hardly call what you were up to an intelligent decision, Ruby Cooke. Not with that . . . that—”
“Don’t talk about him that way,” Ruby says sharply.
“Young lady—”
Mr. Cooke raises his voice to be heard over the two of them. “Perhaps one of you would be so good as to tell me what’s going on here before this degenerates into a shouting match.”
“She—”
“I—”
He holds up his hand for silence when they both try to speak at once. “No, no. That won’t do. Ruby, you may begin.”
His wife stiffens at the perceived slight, but Everett Cooke doesn’t seem to notice.
Ruby takes a deep breath and clasps her hands together. She spares her stepmother hardly a glance before she takes two steps closer to her father’s desk.
“Papa . . . I’m in love.” Ruby’s voice contains all the breathless hope and naivety that should always accompany those words.
“Love?” Helena barks out a high-pitched laugh, one full of derision. “My dear, I assure you that what I saw had nothing to do with love, and if he’s managed to convince you it does, then you still have a great deal to learn about the ways of the world.”
“This has nothing to do with you,” Ruby hisses. “You’re not my mother.”
“Consider yourself lucky, dear, because if I were I’d lock you in your room and throw away the key. You’re certainly not capable of protecting your virtue on your own.”
“My virtue? Since when do you give a damn about my virtue? All you care about is spending Papa’s money and worrying about what people might say. I’ll tell you what they say, dear stepmother. They say you’re a gold-digging, coldhearted bi—”
“Ruby, that’s enough.” Everett Cooke doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t have to. The words pin his daughter where she stands. Anger colors her
face and neck, but she lowers her eyes to hide her temper.
“I’m seventeen, Papa. I’m old enough to decide for myself, and I intend to marry him.”
Everett Cooke narrows his eyes and stares at the top of his daughter’s head.
“Ruby, you’ve yet to tell me exactly who it is you’re determined to marry. I believe that might be pertinent information to share at this point, don’t you?”
Ruby looks up at him, her face full of wishes and worry.
“Aiden, Papa. Aiden and I are in love.”
He says nothing, and the silence that fills the room is broken only by the ticking of the grandfather clock.
“Do you realize how ridiculous you sound?” Helena finally says. “You’re the daughter of a prominent man, Ruby. You can’t simply run off and marry the stable boy.”
But Everett holds up his hand again for silence. He leans forward and rests his elbows on the desk. One hand comes up to massage his temple.
“Where is the boy now?” Everett asks. His voice is mild, revealing nothing of his thoughts.
“I sent him away after I caught them embracing,” Helena says. “He nearly refused to go, in the most outrageous display of disrespect. I did try to warn you these people couldn’t be trusted, Everett. Now look where we are.”
Ruby opens her mouth to refute her stepmother’s claims, but Everett speaks before she has the chance.
“One hour, Ruby. The stable boy who wishes to marry my daughter has one hour to present himself before me, and until that time, I do not intend to discuss the matter further.”
He picks up his glasses and hooks them back upon his ears. Neither his wife nor his daughter moves. After a moment, he raises his gaze.
“Go on, then. Both of you.”
Kitty’s heart is beating heavily in her chest. She’s having trouble catching her breath. “Aiden and . . . Ruby?” she whispers. The figure seated to her right smiles sadly.
“I did love him,” Ruby says. “And he loved me. But hatred grows best in a place where love dies, Kitty.”
She holds out her hand, but Kitty’s seen enough. Too much. She pulls away, stands, and turns her back.
“Be brave,” Peter says in his sweet, clear voice.
“You only see what you want to see,” Cora repeats.
“No.” Kitty shakes her head, but Ruby is back by her side, and this time there are tears on her cheeks.
“Forgive me, Kitty,” she says, then reaches toward her. Kitty’s eyes flutter closed, and the fog is thick. She waves her hands, trying to push it away from her nose and mouth, but it won’t go.
Fear overtakes her, and she’s choking. She can’t breathe. Kitty opens her eyes as the library doors are opening again.
Ruby’s face beams, and Aiden stands next to her in his worn, stained work clothes. He grips her hand in his, a united front in a world he’s only seen from the outside. Until now.
Everett Cooke claps him on the shoulder and holds out a hand for Aiden to shake, as one man does to another.
“I come from nothing,” Mr. Cooke says. “I do not believe a man’s station at birth determines his worth. I’ve watched you grow into an honest, hardworking young man. I’m confident that, given the right opportunities, you can make something of yourself.”
Aiden almost smiles, then schools his expression back to one of deference. “Thank you, sir,” he says. “I won’t let you down.”
Mr. Cooke glances at Ruby. Another sort of man might embrace his daughter upon granting approval for her to be wed, but Everett Cooke isn’t given to displays of emotion.
He gives the pair a nod. “See that you don’t.”
Ruby and Aiden leave the library together, and the joy on their faces is clear for anyone to see. Even Mr. Cooke, as indecipherable as ever, has an air of satisfaction about him.
Only Helena, seated in a chair and forgotten, seethes with indignation.
She stares at the place where the pair of lovers disappeared, and the venom in her gaze reaches across time and death and memory. Kitty gasps, stumbling backward.
A crash brings her back to the present, back to the cottage and a broken lamp at her feet.
She studies the pieces scattered across the floor, dismayed at how quickly a thing can be broken. How delicate an illusion happiness can be.
At how quickly a person can become lost, without moving a single step.
34
TESSA
She could get lost in here.
Tessa is deep in the forest before the thought occurs to her. Strangely, it doesn’t concern her as much as it should. The wind is wistful and soft. The birds are calling, heedless of the woman wandering below them.
There is a path, she’s relieved to see, though it’s strewn with fallen leaves and branches and dotted with moss-covered rocks. She follows it deeper, letting curiosity lead her on.
Water trickles into her consciousness. By the time she registers what she’s hearing, the music of a brook has been playing for a while, growing more distinct as she gets closer.
There’s no sign of Aiden Donnelly and the yellow jacket, if in fact it was Aiden she saw. Tessa can’t be sure, and she’s lost the urgency to find him, abandoned it somewhere along the way.
If she looks behind her, will she see that urgency scattered like bread crumbs, marking her path?
She doesn’t look, content to keep her eyes forward. Eventually, the forest thins. A small stream lies in front of her, and the path curves to follow beside it. Clear, cool water tumbles over the rocks in the streambed.
She lifts her gaze and spots an old wooden bridge that curves up and over the water a little farther ahead. Beyond the bridge, even deeper into the woods, a flash of yellow catches her eye.
Slowly Tessa makes her way across. She doesn’t call out, but makes no effort to hide her presence.
The yellow, it turns out, isn’t a jacket at all, but a knitted cardigan the color of freshly churned butter.
“Hello,” Tessa says softly as she approaches.
Deirdre Donnelly is kneeling, facing Tessa’s direction. There’s a basket on the ground at her side.
“Ms. Shepherd,” she says. The greeting isn’t warm, but neither is it contemptuous. The elder Donnelly sister sounds resigned.
“This is a beautiful spot,” Tessa says.
Deirdre nods, and continues her task without looking up. She’s carefully removing moss and undergrowth from a section of ground.
Tessa takes one step closer and sees that there are cut roses in her basket. She stops, not wishing to intrude on whatever pursuit has brought the woman all this way.
Deirdre doesn’t seem inclined to talk. Tessa should feel awkward, but the peacefulness of their surroundings enchants her. The low-level anxiety she normally carries, one even medication can’t eliminate entirely, is silent for once, and the lack of it leaves her feeling serene.
“Have you made things right with your sister?” Deirdre asks, surprising Tessa out of her contentment. Deirdre’s hands don’t slow, but her sharp eyes study Tessa while she works.
Tessa’s gaze slides past hers, and she curls her arms protectively around her middle.
“As right as they can be, I suppose,” she says. “For now.”
Deirdre doesn’t respond. She simply watches her.
Tessa’s interviewed hundreds of people. She’s familiar with the urge to fill silence with explanations. It’s an old trick that shouldn’t work on her, but her guard is down and she feels inexplicably safe here, a million miles from the real world.
“Margot and I . . . we . . . we’ve been estranged for a long time. Only our mother’s death brought us back together.”
“You were close once?” Deirdre continues with her task. Her voice is unconcerned, as if the answer makes no difference, but Tessa can’t help feeling it’s a test.
“Yes,” she says. Whether that means she’s passed or failed, Tessa can’t know, but it is the truth. Anything less would be wrong in a place like this.
> Deirdre leans back on her heels and brushes scraps of green and brown from her pants legs. She reaches for a handful of roses from her basket. Pink roses, like the wallpaper peeling inside Fallbrook.
“What does it take to break the bond between sisters?” she asks as she lays roses on the section of ground she’s cleared. “Only something monumental, I would think.”
Against her will, Tessa goes back there, the place her dreams insist on taking her. The stars overhead, the feel of lake water drying on her skin in the cool night breeze.
And the panicked realization of what’s about to happen. Reaching, always reaching. The feel of Margot’s skin sliding through her palm, fingers fumbling as her sister is ripped away, taken by gravity and an inescapable fate.
“An accident,” Tessa says. Her words are sparse but heavy with everything that’s come before them. “My fault.”
The familiar shame and helplessness the memories bring wash over her.
“She survived, but . . . she asked me to leave.”
Deirdre peers at Tessa, her head tilted slightly to one side. One eyebrow rises above the other. “So you left?” she asks.
It’s a simple question. An obvious one. But it dawns on Tessa that it’s one she never asked herself. Of course she left. Margot was broken. In pain. Damaged in a way Tessa could neither understand nor fix, and the only thing her sister asked—no, not asked, demanded—was that Tessa go.
Margot excised her from her life.
There was never any question of choice. Tessa had no choice.
Did she?
The skepticism in Deirdre’s eyes says differently. The thought leaves Tessa breathless.
The old woman stands, then leans down slowly to pick up her basket. She walks a few steps to her right and sets the basket down again.
With a sigh, she lowers herself back into a kneeling position. “Getting old is hell,” she mutters. “But I suppose it’s better than the alternative.”
She leans forward and begins clearing the earth in the new place she’s chosen.
With a start, Tessa realizes what Deirdre is doing. She looks around with fresh eyes, taking in a wider view of her surroundings. They’re standing in a small clearing. The gentle melody of the brook sings softly in the distance. Branches and leaves frame a circle of blue sky overhead, and there’s an overwhelming sense of tranquility.
The Caretakers Page 16
