Charles rooted around in his brain, desperate to get ahead of whatever came next. Cordelia’s tears were not incidental. Nothing about that woman was. And what did this have to do with Lizzy? “I’d hoped you’d be smart enough to call off the wedding when I couldn’t.”
She licked at a batch of tears that had come to rest at the corner of her mouth. “Hindsight is a cunt, isn’t she?”
“Why are you bringing this up now? Why now?”
“Because your sister said things to my father that he couldn’t forget. And then your other sister said even more terrible words.” Cordelia stepped away from the safety of her car. She side-stepped through the gravel, instead of approaching. “It wasn’t that I didn’t believe your bullshit stories about their parlor tricks, Charles. It was that I didn’t fucking care. What is it about every Deschanel that makes them believe they are so goddamn special? What is it that makes you all believe you can do whatever you want, without consequence?”
“Cordelia—”
“My father is dead, Charles, and while those insipid little cunts are surely culpable, I blame you!”
Charles sucked in a sharp, cold breath. And there it was. The moment they’d dreamed about, laughed about. Even thinking of Maureen turning into Daisy Mae gave him a thrill; the look of pure terror creeping into old Franz’s eyes as his chickens finally returned to roost.
But he felt no joy now. Cordelia’s hatred was only a mask for her grief. Real grief, not the sociopath searching for the emotion they believe their audience needed. The man was a monster, but that monster was her father, and the victory of his death was hollow and Charles struggled to find the meaning he believed it would once give him.
“I am so sorry, Cordelia.” He did take a step forward then. She cringed. “I mean that. I really am.”
“How?” Cordelia demanded. She rolled her gloved hands into fists at her side. “How can you mean that? You orchestrated this! You told Elizabeth to plant the idea, and then you let Maureen torture him with it!”
Now was not the time to remind her that her father was a murderer and a rapist. Charles had wondered, once upon a time, what it was like to see a mother witness her son’s execution for violent crimes. To others, that son was a monster, but to the mother, he was only her son, and she grieved twice; for the man he was, and for the man he could’ve been.
“Elizabeth’s visions are what they are. It wasn’t a good idea to corner her and demand her to give them, because you never know what she’ll see. She can’t control her visions. But they always come true. Always. And I told you that in the beginning.”
“You told me what you thought would lead me down exactly a path like this.”
“I’m not capable of that kind of foresight, Cordelia! I’m just not!” Charles took another few steps. “I told you about Elizabeth and the others because I wanted you to run away screaming, not run toward us, and use her to your advantage. I am so, so sorry you’re hurting right now. There’s no love lost between us, but you’re the mother of my child and that binds us for life, in a way marriage never will. But you cannot put on my shoulders your decision to kidnap and exploit my sister’s ability, and I won’t be blamed for it backfiring.”
Cordelia shook with rage. Her jaw hung wide, a halo of cold breath surrounding her reddened cheeks. “You are anathema to me, Charles.”
“I don’t know what that word means, but I get the drift.”
“Don’t you even want to know how he did it?”
“Sorry?”
“My father. Aren’t you going to ask how he did it?”
Charles set his mouth tight. This line of conversation had nowhere good to go, but he saw no choice. “How? How did he do it?”
“He hung himself from the same bridge Daisy Mae jumped from.”
Charles swallowed. This tidbit erased any last lingering doubt that the prophecy and subsequent information was the cause. But was it really? Franz Hendrickson had committed the atrocious crimes. All they did was remind him.
Cordelia reached into her jacket pocket and withdrew a knife. She held it to her belly. “I should cut this demon from my womb and let you watch him hang like my father.”
Charles held his hands out and began a slow approach. “Jesus Christ, Cordelia, put that down. Now.”
“Why? Why should I give you what you want most when you’ve taken everything from me?” she cried.
“Cordelia, I didn’t take anything from you! Your father killed his best friend after raping his daughter, and then sold you into marriage so he could avoid consequence. Why am I the villain in this story?” He took another step, and then another.
“Your father should have turned him in when he had the chance,” Cordelia said. Her knife-holding hand trembled, and he feared she’d slice herself by accident. “He should have stopped this when he had the chance!”
“I wish he had,” Charles agreed. He was close now… close enough to take the knife, but in her current state, it was risky. “I wish none of this had happened. But it did. You and I, Cordelia, we’re the victims in this. Your father and my father, they decided our futures years ago by the river, and now here we are. But it doesn’t have to be this horrible all the time.”
Cordelia’s tears rolled down her cheeks, dripping off her jaw and into the gravel.
Charles leapt forward and wrapped his arms around her from the side. The knife dropped to the ground and he gently eased her to the side, pinning her to the car. He didn’t realize he was crying, too, until the horror of the past few moments caught up. “I’m sorry about your dad. I mean that.” He whispered the words in her ear. He prayed they calmed her. “But we can end the suffering. With us.”
Cordelia struggled, but her protestations were weak. She was exhausted by her grief. “Charles, our suffering has only just begun.”
* * *
An hour later, Charles had finally calmed enough to break the seal on his cognac bottle. He had only just stopped shaking.
He would always wonder if it was wrong to let her leave like that, after she’d threatened to harm his son. But he called in a favor with some old friends, and she’d be followed from here on out, until their son was born. Tomorrow, when she was at the funeral parlor arranging her father’s service, he’d have cameras installed in the townhouse. Knives removed.
Charles had always thought of his future children in an abstract way. The completion of a puzzle only he could solve. He never considered what it might be like to hold them, or hear them laugh, or grasp their life in his hands. And now that he’d seen his son on the ultrasound image, tangible proof that part of Charles had taken root and found new life, and would grow into a real, full person, he was changed. Everything he did, from here on out, would be in service to that life growing within the monster he’d married. And even she was not fully a monster as long as she could nurture and develop the son of Charles Deschanel.
His thoughts stopped there, for too much rumination on children would be a reminder he already had one, somewhere. A daughter, who would now be running around, and using words, and…
He lifted the empty bottle to the light and admired his handiwork. Drunk, but not drunk enough. Never drunk enough.
This time of year made him think of the two women who’d left his life too abruptly. Madeline and Catherine. He could never venture too far into the memories of his sister, because many of them only exacerbated his grief and regret at how he’d treated her. Not only in those end days, but always. He’d taken what gave her life and turned it into a point in which to shame her. For that, he’d always pay.
Catherine was easier to think of, for she’d wronged him far more than he ever wronged her. Her ultimate betrayal made conjuring up images of her almost fun, like playing a sport he couldn’t lose. It was easy to hate her, and it felt good.
Would their children be friends, he wondered? Would they encourage it? Raise their boys together, under the guise of a friendship that was now based wholeheartedly in a lie? Colin would never be the wiser
, but Charles and Catherine would know. And would, later, their daughters and sons, dip their toes into the same forbidden dance?
“Now is the winter of our discontent,” Charles muttered. He launched the bottle into the flames of the parlor fireplace.
Richard, walking by, remarked, “Ahh. Shakespeare.”
* * *
Augustus never intended to stay until winter.
In the summer, when he’d talked about returning to Summer Island in the winter, that felt like such a faraway point in time. Some distant etch in the future that he needn’t worry about. Then, when summer turned to fall, and Ekatherina refused to come home with him, it seemed a lifetime away. By winter, she would have spent more of their marriage in Maine than in the home intended for Augustus and his family.
But after their successful sorting of the Maureen situation, Augustus came to the realization that he’d known all along he must return, and that, when he came home again, his wife must be on the plane with him.
When he flew up in late fall, he didn’t tell Ekatherina ahead of time that he was coming. He wasn’t trying to deceive her, or catch her in some salacious act. But he did need to know what her initial, and therefore most authentic, reaction to seeing him would be. That would tell him, for better or worse, what he needed to know.
He called St. Andrews and let him know. Asked if he might be willing to meet him with a car at the ferry station, to which his neighbor eagerly agreed.
The man’s two-year-old son was strapped into a car seat in the back. Johnathan, he said his name was, and he was the spitting image of his father, with dark hair and wide, inquisitive eyes. He was quiet, for such a little one, and seemed to be more interested in the conversation in the front seat than the one between his two panda bears.
“You’re doing right, coming here,” St. Andrews said. Augustus noted how hard the man worked to cover his accent. He wanted to tell him the pretense was unnecessary. Augustus liked hearing him talk. It reminded him of the bigger world out there.
“I shouldn’t have left,” Augustus said. He looked away, out the window, remembering his first drive down Heron Hollow Road. “But it’s hard, being the head of your own company. I can’t abandon my business.”
“No, I don’t expect any man could for long.”
“You’re a doctor, so I know you understand.”
“I know where I’m needed, for sure.”
Augustus tried not to read any double meaning into the man’s words. There was no accusation in his tone, and St. Andrews had never been anything but neighborly.
The first snow fell just as they eased into the gravel driveway of the gothic Victorian that reminded him of Manderley. Snow. How many winters had he and Charles played pretend, throwing around sand from the river bank, or tearing up old cotton? How badly they’d wanted to see the earth blanketed in that elusive white coat.
Ekatherina appeared on the wraparound porch at the sound of the noise. Her hand created a shield from the last of the afternoon sun as she strained to see who’d come to visit.
This is the moment of truth, thought Augustus. When I know whether I’m married to a woman who loves me, or who has fallen instead for a world I can’t give her.
Ekatherina’s whole body came alive at the spark of recognition. She raced down the steps, forgetting her shoes, and flew through the gravel.
Augustus stepped out of the car and caught her in his arms.
“You’re here,” she purred, and he forgot everything else.
* * *
A month had passed, and Augustus watched his wife busy herself to get ready for the Winter Solstice Festival while he thought of his business back in New Orleans. He didn’t know where she’d bought such a beautiful dress, and wondered, if he peered in her closet, would he find others he didn’t recognize? And should he, when they’d cohabitated such a short period of their marriage?
“You look beautiful,” he said. He should say it more. It didn’t matter that he’d warned her, that he didn’t have the pretty words of other men. That didn’t stop him from saying what he meant.
Ekatherina beamed back at him from the mirror. Her fingers played with the emeralds on her necklace. Her strapless blue gown came only as high as her bust, and her soft, milky skin looked so pale against the blue. “Really? You think so?”
Augustus went to her. Frowning at her bare shoulders, he hoped this particular gala, unlike their innumerable summer festivals, was indoors. There was over a foot of snow outside, and a fresh storm started about an hour earlier. St. Andrews warned him they could lose power, and to make sure the generator was ready and gassed.
He kissed the tops of both shoulders. It seemed so unlike him, but it felt right. She felt right. “You’re always beautiful, Ekatherina. You always have been, to me.”
“You are good to me, Augustus.”
A chill ran through his whole body. She never said his name. He’d never realized how badly he wanted to hear it on her voice.
“Where’s this thing at again?”
“The grange hall,” Ekatherina replied. “They’re having it indoors for obvious reasons.” Her annunciation had improved in her short stay on the island. He supposed she’d had more interactions with others here than ever before.
He held out his arm. “We ready?”
Ekatherina smiled with her whole face and slipped her hand through his elbow.
* * *
For most of the month they’d been reunited, Ekatherina had, somewhat surprisingly, insisted they stay at the house. She squelched his skepticism with the reviving of the ardent affections that had him believing, back in the summer, that he finally understood the meaning of happy. After days and days in bed, learning each other, Augustus didn’t much care why she’d pulled herself out of society in Summer Island. She was his again, and he was hers, and she had a way of making this the only thing that mattered.
When Andrew St. Andrews invited the Deschanels to join him and his wife, Claire, at the Winter Solstice Festival, Augustus almost turned him down outright, for Ekatherina’s sake. She’d found excuse after excuse not to go into town, or socialize with anyone other than their neighbors. He buried the reason why somewhere deep and inaccessible. She was his again, and he was hers.
But when he mentioned it to her, Ekatherina brightened and insisted they go. Maybe she’d grown tired of her self-imposed exile, or maybe she had other reasons. Augustus would do anything for an appearance of that smile.
When they opened the barn doors and entered the soiree, he practically heard the record scratching to an end. Everyone turned. Few smiled. Ekatherina cowered into him, and he slipped his arm around her waist to show he was with her.
The men nodded at him and then shook their heads with a sad smile as they passed. The women made no attempt at pleasantries with Ekatherina, drawing into tight packs to whisper and assess.
Ignore it. Sure, you know why they’re doing it. It doesn’t matter. She is yours, and you are hers again.
George Cairne and his wife passed. The small, pitiful sound his wife made at his side was almost the thing that finally did send Augustus over the edge. George made a sidelong glance but otherwise addressed neither of them. His wife held his arm with an indignant, shoulders-back pride that she dared others to challenge.
“Come on, let’s get a drink,” Augustus said.
White bulbs lit the inside of the old grange hall. He imagined it hadn’t changed much since the days of the barnyard dances. What little paint once existed peeled to form a patina that belied another era, where choices, and people, were simpler. Or so it seemed.
Augustus scooped punch out of the bowl and handed Ekatherina a glass. She accepted it with a nervous, grateful smile and cupped it with both hands as she sipped, as if she could disappear behind the red Solo.
“Did you wanna dance?” he asked.
“Dance? Oh. No, no,” Ekatherina said, and he remembered her dancing with the brightest smile as George Cairne led her across the floor.
> “You sure? I’m terrible, but that could be fun, too.”
His wife’s smile was courteous, but her eyes darted around the party, at all the people who had labeled her persona non grata. They wondered, as he did, why she was here. What kept her on the island. Why didn’t you call me sooner? I would have come. I didn’t think you wanted me.
His stomach seized. None of this was right. He could pretend, but that had never been his strength. You addressed, or you moved on, but you didn’t dwell and you didn’t paint a picture that didn’t exist.
“Do you wanna go home, Ekatherina?”
“We just got here.”
“But do you?”
She dropped her eyes into her punch. Nodded.
“Not just home on the island. I mean home to New Orleans. It’s time, don’t you think?”
Augustus scanned the room with his own challenging stare. These close-knit islanders didn’t scare him. They didn’t intimidate him, and their sympathy wasn’t only unwelcome, it was inhospitable.
He removed the cup from her hands and kissed her in front of everyone.
She was his, and he was hers again.
He wanted them all to know.
For the last time.
Seventeen
Over the Hills and Far Away
A light snow blanketed Arthur’s Seat, the volcanic hill overlooking Holyrood Park and the whole of Edinburgh. Colleen’s eyes glazed, and her heart sagged, heavy with homesickness. The campus was a ghost town two days prior to Christmas, but outside the thatched windows and gothic spires, the city bustled with holiday activity. This was the Christmas of Dickens and other novelists who sought to bring the magic to life on the page.
News from home chipped away at her sleep and focus until there was little left. Charles and Augustus had solved Maureen’s problem, but in a way she might never forgive any of them for. She was married to the man now, quietly, in a hushed reception at the City Hall that happened so fast Colleen hadn’t even had time to fly in. All her calls to Maureen went unanswered, and she knew why. But even as she struggled with the choice her brothers made, she understood it. Was that not, maybe, why she’d asked Charles to take the lead? So he could do what she could not?
Nineteen Seventy-Four Page 16
