So she grinned and met his eye, and between bites of a purple and red fruit, said, “Okay.”
Chapter 10
Lasting Legacy
Henry Wenderdowne was not patient by nature. In fact, most of his childhood he had been infamous for his temper tantrums. But as he and Drustan aged and his brother became known for his recklessness, Henry felt the need to balance him. Someone had to, after all. Drustan was meant to lead, and Henry was supposed to be the irresponsible but loyal steward of his estate. It was a time honored tradition in their family, going back to the beginning of the oldest tales, that a child with emerald eyes must lead. This child was supposed to possess the greatest power and was to be guarded at all costs. Yet his brother never could stomach the responsibility that came with his inheritance and passed most of his duties along to Henry. There were times he came close to hating Drustan for putting him in this position, but over time he learned to be better than his brother at ruling.
In the years since his brother had abandoned them, as the estate slowly fell into decay, Henry cared less and less about much of anything. He was still secretly fascinated by the world outside but outwardly determined to preserve the old ways at all costs. All these years as he honored the memory of the dead, his spies were out there, looking for his brother.
To find him before they did.
Henry leaned back against the opposing wall he and his niece faced and shut his eyes briefly as he remembered the day he found them. He had all but given up hope, let alone trying to convince Drustan to come home and reclaim the birthright Henry didn’t want. Long past the days when he would have blamed his younger sibling for ruining his life, he pushed the temptation for bitterness away and focused on his prize. His heart ached when he opened his eyes to watch her take the endless hall of portraits in.
The Wenderdownes were the oldest family in the Vale, as it was commonly known. Every generation the ruling set were painted together, whether they were siblings, lovers or married pairs. He continued in his lesson. “Two must always rule together, one for the night and one for day. This is the way it has always been done.”
Jessamiene laughed without turning around to face him. “Rule? Good grief, you sure are imperious CEO’s, aren’t you?” Her tone was teasing, as if she could hardly believe her uncle might be in charge of something so powerful or important.
His mouth pulled into a half smile as her fingertips hovered over the rich colors of the tall female represented before them.
If you only knew, my dear…
They had nearly come to the end, where nothing but cruder drawings and reliefs represented their past. Amazingly, time had left the color of the female’s eyes still a brilliant emerald. Forgetting her earlier jab, Jessamiene sighed. “Wow…she’s so beautiful.”
Henry’s smile grew as he came to stand beside her, careful to clasp his hands behind his back. “You were named for her, you know.” He nearly laughed when she turned and screwed up her mouth in disbelief. “Not your first name, of course, but Nimue.”
“Oh yeah…I never liked my name,” she muttered and fixed her stare on the figure she resembled so closely, the portrait could have been her own.
As he often had since her arrival, Henry bit his tongue to hold back his thoughts. There was so much she didn’t know, so much which would seem senseless to her now. The old bitterness arose like a green-eyed monster as he thought of her upbringing. It wasn’t Jessamiene’s fault she was so ill-equipped for the burden. Henry couldn’t help feeling once again what he had known all along. Drustan’s one true selfless act had only turned out to serve himself in the end. True, she was living and breathing before him and being prepared to take on a burden his brother should have never left her to bear. Pushing aside his own guilt for allowing it to happen in the first place, Henry tried to focus on her lesson.
Grasping their entire family history in one afternoon was a daunting task, but not for his Jessie. She might not have realized it, but she was already beginning to change. He might have won her over their first dinner, when he attempted to apologize for matters largely out of his hands, but she was naturally mistrusting of him and everything he introduced her to.
Could you blame her, you blithering old fool?
Interrupting his train of thoughts, he heard her speak again, as she often did. He smiled, realizing he was neglecting his duty. “Yes, my dear? What is it?” He watched the corners of her lips twitch, fighting to expose his favorite of her smiles. As long as she was here he had made it a point to memorize her.
“I was wondering why the paintings stop here. What changed? You mentioned earlier how the golden age of the business took place over five centuries, but there are only two portraits.”
She’s almost too quick, he thought with a wry grin. Her inquisitiveness she had certainly not inherited from Drustan. Poor fool only cared about three things, sex, food and his closet obsession, flowers.
“Aye, you noticed. I’m afraid ’tis a part of the—”
“I know, I know,” she interrupted with a groan and threw her hands up over her head to link atop her loose curls. “It’s all part of the big secret you think you can’t tell me.” Pivoting on her heel in something akin to a villager’s dance, she rolled her eyes at him. “Look, Uncle Henry.”
He flinched in spite of himself.
“I get that you can’t tell me everything. It’s all in the fine print, right?”
“Fine what?” He blinked, momentarily stunned yet again by her odd phrases.
“There’s some contract out there you sign when you become part of a company? I just assumed…”
He shook his head, annoyed by her outsider thinking. “You’re not ready to know everything yet, Jessamiene. Now as to your previous question, I can explain.” He pointed to the first crude rendering and smiled fondly at his favorite relative. “This poor chuckling is Chuck the Mad.”
“You’re kidding?” Her green eyes sparkled as they often did when something amused her. The sunlight pouring in through the tall window ten meters against his back and over her face made them gleam like freshly polished jade.
Once more he was struck by her resemblance to her namesake. Nimue hopefully would remain where she belonged, in his past riddled with warfare and strife. Shaking himself free of the memories of a darker time, he continued, “I kid you not, my dear. I believe it was the—ahem—fever which drove him to madness, but the term finds its root with him. A chuckling is one inflicted with madness.”
“Are they called chucklings because he was named Chuck?”
“No, because he fancied chucking random objects out the window,” he answered with a warm smile. Her laughter, hearty and rooted in her chest, flowing in waves from her lips, was the cause of his joy. As the sweet sound echoed down the hall they had come, Henry watched the house drink her in. Already things were beginning to change like they had before. She made all things new. And this time Henry welcomed her brand of change.
Perhaps she is ready for a little test.
Facing her and hoping he wasn’t getting his hopes up, he offered, “Care to visit the gardens, my dear?”
…
Seven days awake, three days asleep…you’ve been here ten days, Wentworth!
Amie still couldn’t believe the backwards world she had woken up to. She never could forget to the morning she found herself lying in a canopy bed in an English castle. The whole thing felt very Jane Eyre, minus the crazy wife hiding in the attic. Tilting her glance a few feet higher above the rafters, she grinned.
At least, I hope Uncle Henry isn’t keeping a psycho ex-wife up there.
With the hall of portraits behind them, Henry led the way back to the kitchens. She followed the trail of his Regency-era dress coat and breeches, returned her gaze to the back of his hair. It was black as hers. Drustan, her father’s, had been a rich chocolatey brown and he claimed she inherited her hair from her mother. But Amie’s mother, while a very dark brunette, lacked the blue-black shade her curls had grow
n into. Seeing her hair on someone else’s head was comforting, because it reminded her they were family.
So far, Amie was learning to love being her uncle’s apprentice. She had never signed a binding contract or anything, but this was what she had come to think of herself as. Seeing the endless sea of faces that had lived and ruled over this estate before them was humbling and made her American roots seem childish. In the beginning she had scarcely believed she could come from such a rich legacy. Against her wishes it made her memories of her father taste bittersweet. She couldn’t help but wonder why he had never cared to share this with her. Nothing she had seen or learned warranted what he’d done. Henry rarely spoke of those darker days, when Drustan ran away from home, but even now she could see the hurt in his eyes.
“Where are we going?” Amie asked, rushing to rest her hand at the crook of her uncle’s shoulder, and received a genuine smile in return.
“Somewhere marvelously brimbling with things certain to snatch the nix out of you!” was his cryptic reply. Half the fun was in the game of it. In the short time she’d known her uncle Amie was happy and frustrated that he loved surprises as much as she did.
Amie had thought he would take her by the kitchens for sure. Two doors led outside directly from the partly underground kitchen, one on a path to the stables, the other to the gardens. Cook’s domain was Uncle Henry’s favorite place to take lunch. Cook was a gregarious, hefty man who enjoyed talking about the price of meat and spices in terms which made no sense. He had yet to explain to her what an acornip was, or why it was better to receive nuts than gold coins in Silver Hollow. Every afternoon they were treated to the hustle and bustle of Cook’s world before he rushed off to the market. And Amie was finally convinced the castle wasn’t the ghost town she had initially thought of it as.
Servants were all over the castle. Dressed in clothing a time apart and similar in style to Underhill’s costume, women sported those ridiculous white caps while men wore breeches and pants, even the occasional kilt, yet all donned the same brown and green coattails and vests. And everyone seemed genuinely overjoyed to see them. Their eyes lingered on her and her father’s eyes in her face, in a way Amie wasn’t used to. It made her feel heavy inside, as if they all were expecting something from her.
Lunch was devoted to teaching her all about the food they ate, how it was grown or squidgimied, whatever that meant, and the two crops he grew. Thus far they had kept to the house, not even venturing out to the stables in the last seven days, so she was very eager to feel the sun and wind on her face.
After reaching a tapestry of scrawling flora, Henry pushed it aside and led her down a dark narrow passage. The door they soon came to was old and rusted with some mysterious light seeping through its large key hole and the space beneath it. Now certain she was being kidnapped to Wonderland, Amie threw her arms over her face. Henry opened the door and sunlight poured over her like a broken wave. Laughing low, he took her by the arm and pulled her further.
Chapter 11
Possibly Impossible
She stumbled blindly through the rose-hedged archway and along a petal-covered pathway. Immersed in the power of the sun and flowers and the rich sweet air, Amie couldn’t blink enough to see clearly.
Uncle Henry’s voice called above the song of the fowl and wind sneaking through the hedge. “One would think you had never seen the sun before, Jessamiene! And you a Wenderdowne!”
“I’m a Wentworth,” she stubbornly insisted. Henry had filled her in on her rightful name and heritage all morning, but Wentworth was the surname her father had chosen in America. She had never felt so far from him as she did now, staying in the home he grew up in, because the Drustan Henry spoke of was nothing like the father she had known. Keeping his name, and his ring on the chain around her neck, was her way of keeping him close to her.
Her vision faded in and out as they continued through the long hedge. She hesitated when they stepped over a tiny stream, rocks and mushrooms circling beneath its darkest recesses. Stone archways intersected with the rose-littered hedge, crumbling from weather and marked with fading ancient carvings. On one side the foliage grew tight and thick until it nearly obscured the oldest arches, and when she peered deep enough, she could see a door hidden at its far end. Etched between the two largest stone arches, it was drawn from the naked eye by the white trunked trees in front of it. As they passed the wind kicked the white trees’ scarlet and magenta petals into her eyes.
Shadows of the thin, spider-like hedge interspersed with brilliant pockets of sunlight. The shadows covered Amie’s skin and she felt as though she were walking through one of her odder dreams. The dreams had not ceased since her arrival, thanks to forgetting her prescription sleep meds. In fact, they only seemed more tangible, like living another life. When she awoke she was surprised to find the transition between worlds was not as difficult as it had been before. Everything about this place felt eerily familiar.
“Here we are!” Henry proclaimed once they faced the bright opening at the other end. “This was Drustan’s pride and joy, you know, his secret passion.” When he turned to look at her and found her nod, a curious frown creased his brow. “You aren’t surprised?”
Amie shook her head and, holding a hand over her eyes against the afternoon rays, stepped beyond the hedge. “We had a garden when I was little. It used to be our thing…until we moved.”
Henry nodded. “Drustan was most a Wenderdowne here. To everyone outside of our home he was a rake, as they called it then.”
“Rebel without a cause, huh?” Amie grinned as she tried to picture her father in a biker gang, wearing expensive leather, and came up short. They both laughed at the same time before continuing her tour.
The gardens were vast, drafted into sections by thick rose-littered hedges much like the one they had come through. It fenced in the garden with high walls, occasionally betrayed the gray stones beneath. All Amie could see of the manor’s grounds were the tops of the forest and a large slice of open orange-tinged sky. She grinned wryly at the irony. Finally she had been given the fresh air she’d been craving but nothing of the grounds she had not seen.
Amie stared at the flowers choking themselves in the effort to be the boldest, the most beautiful. She walked amid a painting of pure color, richer than anything she had ever seen back home. The emerald green of the leaves and vines made her think of her father’s eyes. She pushed his face and the painful memories from her mind. “So what are we doing here? Are you planning on teaching me the tricks of the trade or something?”
“Yes,” he replied with a beaming smile. “Come, I have a plot for you just around the bend.” After another twist of the path they passed the squatty statue of a bow-legged gnome. Henry inclined his head to the left and swept his right palm to the side, saying, “Pleasure and a pinch of nutmeg, ye kin.”
Amie frowned as she paused, her eyes lingering longer on the statue. Gooseflesh rose over her arms as the stony eyes seemed to follow her, altogether too lifelike for Amie’s comfort.
Rushing after to catch up with Uncle Henry, she stumbled into the circular garden. At its center sat a fountain and what she suspected to be the same babbling brook cutting its narrow way through. Amie followed the spiral carved stepping-stones, clutched her father’s ring hidden beneath her dress and stepped onto a clover-covered hill.
Henry was already on his knees in the middle of a mound of dirt and Amie grinned to see the tools nearby. “Here we are…good old Periwinkle, always senses when I’m coming,” he said while examining something akin to a spade.
Amie’s brow furrowed with confusion before she brushed the comment aside. “Finally something I understand,” she said to herself, thinking of the sea of corsets, skirts and shirtwaists up in her new wardrobe. Always a tomboy at heart, she had no trouble pushing up her sleeves and getting her skirts dirty. She reached for the gloves and frowned to find none waiting. “Don’t you use gloves? You’d think with all the other archaic traditions you people fo
llow…?” Amie looked up only to see Henry’s usual whimsical grin meeting his eyes.
“You are a Wenderdowne, Jessamiene. You will find you do not need gloves at all to make things grow!” As he promptly dug his hands into the dirt and ignored the tools between them, a transformation took place. Her uncle’s usual pleasant, albeit hard, demeanor was slowly stripped away to reveal the man beneath. Out here beneath the sun, even wearing a period film costume, he looked almost human.
Amie frowned at the odd thought, then gestured. “Aren’t you going to use the spade?”
“No indeed!” Henry scoffed and added, “They’re only here in case we find a flobbergidit.”
“Where are the seeds?” she asked after searching every which way.
Henry was watching her, she realized as soon as she looked up at him. “You won’t need them.” His smile grew uncanny, gray slate eyes glowing in the dusky light, and then he abruptly added, “Well, go on then! Dig!”
Amie shrugged, and sank her fingers into the cool earth. A minute later and they had already dug six sizeable holes. Henry broke the brief silence with his smooth, pleasant voice. He was always telling her stories and she was always asking him more questions. Oddly enough she never tired of listening and, unlike her poor memory recall back in school, here she could quote him verbatim.
“You should know, as you are indeed a Wenderdowne, gardening is also a part of our blood. Sometimes it manifests here with the earth, other times it inspires loyalty or even greatness. Our people have always known how to make things grow and change. And that is a sort of gardening, is it not?”
“If it were up to me things would never change. They’d stay where they should be…not leave everyone else behind.” She packed the last dirt patch a bit harder than necessary.
“Yet if nothing ever changed,” he countered, “then everything would slowly die. It must remain in motion, can’t you see?” He gestured to the blooming garden and the burning sun. “Even the flowers wither and fade and the sun waltzes with the moon, yet things must change to begin anew. Only the Creator has no need for change.”
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