Chapter 21 YELLOW LIGHT REVELATIONS
Chapter 21
Y ELLOW L IGHT R EVELATIONS
Present Day
Charli runs a hand through her hair in shock. The man at the Hampshire Archives is being kind, offering to print out whatever it is he’s looking at, but she’s finding it hard to answer him. She’s the descendant of a murderer. The notion is no longer a possibility. It’s a fact.
Not only that, but the reason she’s here, the constellation. It wasn’t a bunch of woo-woo.
“Looks like he was sentenced to swing and—” the man starts.
“Wait, who did he kill?”
The printer comes to life, and he reaches down to take the paper. “Take a look for yourself.”
Charli takes it from him, and her eyes go straight to the drawing of a young man sitting in court. Her throat tightens. The image is faded and grainy, but there’s enough detail to see that it’s him, her third great-grandfather.
Though she’s befuddled by Miles’s predicament, she can’t help but think about how her father would be so proud of her for following through, and she can’t wait to tell Frances and even Aunt Kay. She still doesn’t know the details, so she sets her eyes to work to make out the grainy text.
It’s a newspaper clipping from the Hampshire Chronicle from September of 1881. She breathes in some clarity and reads the copy.
Hampshire Man Sentenced to the Gallows
In a speedy trial that has caught the attention of all of England, Miles Pemberton was sentenced to death today for murder. As has been previously reported by this newspaper, he caught the victim stealing a necklace from the estate of his family, his father being Lord James Pemberton. The victim, eighteen-year-old Lillian Turner, is the daughter of Tom Turner, owner of the Smythun Inn it’s Armstrong. She supposes that is easily explainable with a change of name through marriage. She’s sure she heard him right. Which means her third great-grandfather murdered someone in Noah’s family tree.
Her mind is blown. Her heart pounds. Her brain shuts down.
“I ... I need to ... think through this ... thank you.” She stands and stumbles out of his office and the building. The train station is close by, and she heads in that direction. It’s all too much, and she wants out of Winchester, out of England. She buys a ticket for a train that leaves in twenty minutes, then goes to the small store to get another bottle of water.
On the other side of the tracks, she finds the end of a bench available. She drinks her water and starts to sift through the information that’s whirring about in her head. A murderer in her family, the victim of whom was a Turner. What’s mind-bending is that she somehow walked into the pub that the Turner family owns. That wasn’t a coincidence. What it is, is scary. Terrifying.
Is someone toying with her? Charli’s not sure what her relationship with God is, but it feels like he’s having a good laugh at her expense. It’s like she’s been given a glimpse inside the universe, seeing how it all works. She can’t even bring herself to look at the piece of paper that’s now folded up in her back pocket.
She catches herself mumbling and glances over to see an elderly woman with shaky fingers looking at her. Or is it Charli who’s shaking? The distance between her and home seems so vast at this moment, and she’s wondering if she’s having some sort of episode, a mental breakdown. Her head starts spinning again as she looks around and sees all these foreign faces. The English accents sound so foreign, too, despite this being her homeland. She’s terrified that she’s going to faint and wake up in an ambulance.
A train roars by without warning, and the wind blows her back. A man comes over the intercom and says something indecipherable to Charli that suddenly causes a stir among the other travelers. They pull out their phones and stare with worry. Charli’s anxiety skyrockets. A group swarms a man in uniform, who tells everyone to settle down. She stands up and leans in to hear the specifics of the issue. There’s a strike that’s causing major delays for trains heading into London.
Charli feels trapped.
With a kick of fear, she realizes she left her bag on the bench and turns around.
It’s gone.
She races over in a panic. “Where’s my—”
“Are you okay?” someone asks.
Charli looks over at a girl dressed in a school uniform. “Someone took my ...”
Then she sees it. She was at the wrong bench. Once it’s looped around her shoulder, she sits and tries to calm herself. She can’t make any decisions while she’s losing it. She closes her eyes and tries to shut out the madness around her, the people frustrated at the delays, angry that they’re missing meetings or their reconnections with family.
Charli’s not sure what to do. She can’t sit here on this bench all day.
She decides to go to the bathroom so she can splash some water on her face. She follows the signs, but there’s tape on the door. It’s out of order.
First she can’t get home, and now she can’t even use the bathroom. Why is everything blocking her way? “What is going on?” she asks herself.
Her forehead is sweaty; her head still hurts. She wants to be back in Boston, back in her bed, holding Tiny. She wants her dad and wants to call him, but she’ll make him worry. She sees the tall stairs that will take her back across the tracks and thinks she has to get out of there. She climbs the steps, checking constantly to make sure she has her phone and wallet. Her thoughts are bumper cars running into each other.
Once she comes down the other side, she’s totally unsure of what to do. She finds another man in uniform, who is smoking a cigarette.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry. I know you’re probably ...”
“How can I help you?”
“I’m so far out of my comfort zone right now, and it seems like my train is canceled. How do I get to London?”
He studies his phone, surely used to foreigners scrambling to make sense of the chaos. “Yeah, looks like the strike is going to make it hard today. You might catch the 12:15 toward Leeds, but I suspect that might get canceled too.”
Charli feels like she’s stuck in the Matrix with the weird robotic worms chasing her. “Where’s the bus station?”
The guy is so calm and collected as he says, “Bottom of High Street. You might hurry, though. They’re probably booking up quickly.” He takes a long drag, then politely blows smoke up and away from her. “Are you okay?”
“I hope so. Thanks for your help.”
She exits the train station and starts walking. She’s sweaty and has to go to the bathroom and ...
“Pull it together, Charli,” she tells herself. “You’ve got this.”
She stumbles upon a coffee shop, buys an Americano so she can use the restroom. Or toilet as the barista calls it. Charli walks out feeling better. She tells herself that she’s safe. She doesn’t have to be anywhere. And she has money. She can just get a hotel.
But what she wants to do is call Noah. He’s so close, and she wants to be in his arms. She can’t believe she’s thinking such a thing, but she wants him to protect her. Of course, he’s the last person she can contact.
There’s a park a couple of blocks down with a bench that’s free of people. She sits and tells herself she’s not moving for a while. A bus sounds awful, but she doesn’t want to take a taxi or Uber all the way to London. The cost is too high, and she’ll be carsick the whole time.
She sets her coffee down, as the caffeine is already making her predicament worse, amplifying it. She folds her head into her hands and pulls at her hair, feeling the sting of it. She needs to see it all written out on a whiteboard, all the facts. Samuel Hall is not even a real person. It’s Miles Pemberton. And he killed a woman named Lillian Turner, who must be a relation to Noah. Of course she is. Her father owned the Smythun.
Charli’s mind starts to come back to her, and her curiosity comes alive. How had she not even googled Miles’s real name yet? She couldn’t have imagined he’d be in the papers for a murder. She takes out her computer and connects it to her phone’s hot spot. A Google search for Miles Pemberton leads her to multiple articles. According to an article in the Hampshire Chronicle dated July 3, 1881, Miles shot Lillian in the chest with a rifle.
She eventually finds a drawing of Lillian Turner.
“Wait ...” Charli’s mouth turns into a flycatcher.
How could she only now realize? The girl in the photo. The one with Miles as a young man. It’s her, Lillian! She tears through her bag to find the shot. It has to be. That’s the way her life has worked since she originally found the photo, all these coincidences that are not coincidences. So he killed her? If there’s an opposite of wanting to kill someone, that’s how he looks, what with the way he’s smiling, almost laughing.
She’s unquestionably the exact young woman in the photo. Miles killed her. But why?
The murderous side of Charli comes alive as she imagines him becoming fitful with a rage that can only be quenched by ... hold on, why?
Charli feels like she’s been dumped into an Agatha Christie novel and wonders how she can possibly piece together all the facts of a case without going berserk.
And the constellation! How had Charli not realized it until now? She’s just figured out who Herman and Letícia represented. Charli is suddenly back in Frances’s studio looking at Herman standing over Letícia, who is curled up under the blanket.
“Herman is Miles and Letícia is Lillian ...” The idea is almost too much. Total strangers had somehow acted out a murder that they knew nothing about.
Noah pops into her mind as if he’s pulled open the door. How did she end up staying at that pub? What are the odds? She thinks back to how it happened, how she felt drawn to it. Was that it? She was waiting for more information from Winchester College and then ... she met Noah, and she’ll never forget the power of their first exchange, as if atoms had split when their eyes met. It was as if they had to meet, as if it was destiny.
“How is this even possible?”
Waves of information crash down on her, and she hops on one and rides it.
“Miles was sentenced to hang,” she says out loud. “He didn’t hang, though. He somehow found his way to a boat to the US, then changed his name. What happened?”
It’s all impossible. But considering the constellation’s accuracy and how she slept with Noah all weekend, maybe anything is possible.
She’s reminded quickly of another apparent fact. That Miles’s father was in the House of Lords. An internet detour teaches her a few things about what that means; how, for instance, he’s referred to as a peer due to his inherited position. She searches for the man who is quite possibly her relative: Steven Pemberton.
Lord Steven Pemberton lives near Stockton at his estate known as Elmhurst. She looks at the picture of him, studying his face for any similarities to her own. Or with her mother. She’s not quite sure she sees it, though her mind is definitely playing tricks on her. She finds him on a list of members of Parliament and even finds his email address.
Charli composes a quick note to him: My name is Charli Thurman, and I’m researching my family history. Looks like I might be related to you. If you’re not too busy, I’d love to connect via phone or email.
When she’s done, she sits back and takes a moment. A stone fountain gushes water in front of her. Across the street, there’s a school, and a herd of children pour out to the playground. She wonders if the red lights are gone now. She’s done exactly what she should do; she’s found the truth. But she doesn’t feel any different.
Charli forgets that she’s decided not to drink the Americano, and it’s empty. Her mind is a frenzy now, ideas ping-ponging back and forth. She reads everything she can, finally coming across a piece talking about how Miles had escaped prison.
“So that explains it,” Charli says to herself, her face contorting as she puts more of the pieces together.
She reads on. He escaped in September of 1881. A prison not too far away from where she is sitting now. But it says he was declared dead shortly afterward.
“Oh, I don’t think he was dead,” she says. “Unless he’d gotten her pregnant first.” A rare feeling of pride is rising out of her. Has she done this, come all the way to England to find answers and actually found them?
She can’t go another minute without calling her dad. When he picks up, she says, “You won’t believe what’s happening over here, Dad.”
“Well, good morning. No, I guess afternoon for you. Tell me. I can hear it’s good from the tone of your voice.”
“It’s good, I guess. More to the point, I’m getting somewhere. Seriously, I came here with so much skepticism, but you wouldn’t believe the pieces falling into place. I know all this sounds absurd to you, but I’m starting to think it’s not absurd at all. I’m starting to think that Viv’s guru knows exactly what she’s doing.”
He laughs, which is like a pacifier for her ears.
“It’s not pretty, though. The truth. Samuel Hall ... was not Samuel Hall. His name is Miles.” Charli goes on to tell him everything, and he’s listening and asking questions and making her feel even more proud of herself. “The thing that I don’t even believe, or what is really blowing my mind. Noah. The guy I spent some time with this weekend—it’s his pub.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I know. I know, Daddy. I can barely process all this, but it’s happening. It feels like I’m supposed to be here, like I’m onto something. And maybe, just maybe, this curse or whatever it is that’s hanging over us, maybe it will go away.” She hears what she’s saying and knows he’s as skeptical as she’d been. “I know it doesn’t make sense.”
“It does. Sure. More importantly, I like hearing you so excited about something. You know when I heard you like this the last time? When you told me you were going to open your bookstore.”
Her eyes turn watery. “Yeah, it kind of feels like that. So how are you doing? Tell me you haven’t sold the boat.”
“Nope, haven’t sold the boat.”
“Good. I’ll be home soon; it’s kind of a moving target. But I can’t wait to see you. I love you.”
“I love you too, kiddo. And I wish I could tell you how proud I am of you, how much I love this fighter inside of you. You stay as long as you need to, okay?”
“Thank you.”
After hanging up, she calls Frances and leaves a desperate message. “I’m onto something, Frances. And I need your help. I have all this wild information and not exactly sure what to do with it. Please call me when you get this.”
She has one more phone call to make before she gets back on the trail. She calls Viv and congratulates her again on the promotion, then catches her up on the goings-on in Winchester.
“Hey, I don’t doubt it,” Viv says. “I told you. Frances is changing my life. I don’t doubt a thing she says.”
Charli’s head swivels back and forth. “I’m excited but a little creeped out.”
“Yeah, well ... there are big things happening out there, Charli. That’s what I keep realizing. We sometimes get stuck in our own little worlds, but things we can’t possibly fathom are happening all around us. I’m a believer, honey. What we don’t know is infinite.”
“You’re so not a lawyer anymore.”
“I know, right.”
Hunger pangs eventually get her, and Charli walks down the street and finds a Thai place. She’ll be happy if she doesn’t see a pub the rest of her life. While she eats tofu and vegetables, she goes back to her biggest problem at the moment, which is her inability to get back to London and her lack of a place to stay. Something is keeping her here, is that it?
She’s ashamed to do it, but she calls Frances three more times. This is an emergency that warrants phone stalking. Charli has no idea what to do with all this information. She’s come this far. She’s onto something. What little bit of her still holds hope for breaking through the red lights is telling her that she’s not done, that she’s close. She’s just not sure what to do next.
The truth is out there, and it explains so much. But ... what now? Fly back home knowing this fact and hope for a life of green lights ahead? Will the truth really set them free? Or is there more to it? Surely she needs to do something with the information.
“What am I supposed to do?” she says out loud, drawing the attention of the server.
“Do you need something?”
“No, sorry. I’m talking to myself.” Well, she does need something, but it’s not on this menu.
She pays the check, or bill as they call it over here, and goes out the door as directionless as before. Perhaps even more. She walks aimlessly for a while. Her backpack and bags are getting heavy.
Sure, she’s found a vital truth, but there has to be more to it. She nearly snorts as she imagines that maybe she has to write these truths down and then burn them in some sort of spiritual act. Another constellation could be necessary. She has no idea. This is why she needs to talk to Frances.
Another idea visits . . .
Does she need to make things right? Is there something to make right? Noah barely knows about the murder. It’s not as if his family is struggling like her own. Or are they?
Her phone rings.