Chapter 22 DO YOU BELIEVE IN DESTINY?
Chapter 22
D O Y OU B ELIEVE IN D ESTINY ?
It’s Frances calling from Costa Rica! A bus passes by and it’s loud, so she races across the busy street and goes toward a patch of trees.
“Hey there,” she says, “thanks for calling me back. Sorry to stalk, but you won’t believe everything that’s happened. Well, maybe you will.”
“Slow down,” Frances says in a pacifying tone. “I’ve got time.”
“Sorry, yeah.” Once she has a clear head, she gives Frances the lowdown. It takes about five minutes.
As she reaches the river, she catches herself rambling again and asks, “You still there?”
“I am ... and listening,” Frances says.
Charli follows the path along the rushing water. “I wonder if I have to do something to make up for what my family did. I did sleep with Noah—a few times—and it was great, but I’m not sure it was make-up-for-murder great.”
A barely audible laugh comes through the phone from Frances. “I’m not sure that’s the answer ...”
“But I can’t imagine that me figuring this out is going to do much good.”
“It’s early to tell, but you’re bringing your family’s pain up to the surface. It could be guilt that’s leading the way. Miles killed a woman and then went on to have a long life. He got married and had children. Was he consumed by guilt? Was he even aware of it? This is exactly the sort of occurrence that can knock a family system out of balance. Miles’s guilt could be affecting everyone, like your mother making you feel so small. I’m sure you feel guilt, too, even if it manifests as something else, like self-loathing.”
“Uh, yes to the guilt ... and self-loathing. I want to sentence myself to the gallows as we speak.”
“Don’t be so harsh on yourself. Part of restoring the balance is accepting that you’ve done nothing wrong, that your mother’s behavior, or anyone else’s in your family, doesn’t have to affect you the way it has. You get a fresh start. You are not bound by genetic determinism of any kind.”
“It sounds a lot more complicated than simply finding the truth.”
“In some cases, it is, but I’m sure the shift is already happening.”
The path diverts away from the river and winds into marshy terrain. Charli glances at a board that reads: W INNALL M OORS N ATURE R ESERVE . Under it is a trail map and a local-birds poster. Focusing more on the conversation than her direction, she keeps going.
“You’re not even surprised by my whole story, are you?”
Frances gifts her a laugh. “As you alluded to, there’s a reason you met Noah. I’m not sure it’s because you owe him something, but I can’t say that for sure. Every journey is so different. Some are easy; this one’s not.”
“You can say that again.”
“Suffice it to say, I don’t think you should leave Winchester.”
“Well, I can’t, so ...” Charli’s thinking of the train strike when Frances drops the hammer.
“You need to go see him, tell him the truth. That’s a good place to start.”
“Please don’t say that.” A flurry of paradoxical emotions tug at Charli like she’s being drawn and quartered. She wants to see him again, but it would be awful to have to tell him why she’s here and what she’s discovered.
“Noah aside, what do I do now? I have the truth. Maybe things are shifting, but I guarantee that if I call my dad right now, he’s not going to be doing jumping jacks, if you know what I mean.”
“I think that if you quiet your mind for a while, you’ll know what you need to do. But you’ve had a huge day. Find a place to stay and take some time for yourself. Be patient. Seize this sense of courage and confidence that you’re finding. Believe in yourself.”
Charli never wanted to be the protagonist in her own mystery novel. She enjoys the safety of being able to close the book if things get weird. Well, things have certainly gotten weird.
“I am so confused by the idea of Miles being a murderer,” Charli says. “All I see is an innocent boy who reads Shakespeare and rows crew and likes—maybe even loves—a girl with curls who is not exactly of his class. I don’t know what happened between them, why he killed her, or even if he killed her.”
“Sounds like there’s still more to uncover.”
Charli’s arms tingle. “I guess so. You keep telling me to trust my intuition. I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but something tells me he’s not guilty.”
“Listen to that voice, Charli. Allow it to keep speaking to you. And you know what my intuition is telling me? Perhaps you owe Lillian this journey. Think about it. You might not be alive had Lillian not died.”
“Whoa.” Charli processes the suggestion. Had Lillian lived, Miles might never have immigrated to the US, might never have changed his name and married Margaret and had children.
“You could have a life debt to Lillian,” Frances says.
“What does that mean?” Charli knows, though. That’s why she does have to make things right.
“If you listen, she might tell you. Maybe find her grave. Could you do that? Or a place that means something to her. Go see her, talk to her, see if she talks back. And, meanwhile, hand back the guilt to Miles. You don’t own it. You have nothing to do with it.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“You’re doing it, Charli. You might not see it, but you’re getting somewhere. Do you remember what I told you? Your destiny is to break the generational pain that has encapsulated your family since this murder. You, I believe, have the opportunity to set your entire family free of what happened. If you’re right and he didn’t do it, then who did?”
“This is not easy.”
“Keep following the pieces,” Frances says. “Take it all the way home. And I’m sorry to say, part of the truth that you must uncover is coming clean with Noah. About your feelings, about why you’re there.”
Charli shakes her head. “Why?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
“But I don’t. Not really.” Charli’s head is spinning around, and she’s terrified of even the idea of facing him, let alone telling him the truth.
“My mentor used to share a quote with me, and it took a long time for me to figure it out. But once I did, I found it to be profound.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t remember who first said it, but it goes like this: I went searching for a cure for my sickness, but it turned out my sickness was the cure.”
“What in the world is that supposed to mean?”
“You might have to sit with it awhile. You’re trying to fix all these things to reach a point of healing, but the healing is already taking place by you being on the journey.”
The way Frances says it this time does make sense. If only because Charli knows she’s changing. Even if she returns to the struggles from which her family continues to suffer, she will see them in a different light.
“There’s a reason you came to see me. And now you have to finish what you started.”
Charli’s shaking her head with frustration when she comes around a bend and nearly drops the phone. She stares in dead silence as the setting registers in her mind.
The grass is tall along the shore. A dead tree stands by the river. Everything about the scene seems familiar.
Then it hits her.
“You won’t believe it,” Charli says, looking around. “I’m in this park called Winnall Moors, and I think I’m where they took the picture, the one with Miles and Lillian by the river.”
Charli pulls out the photo and studies the tree; it’s definitely a beech tree. She compares the shape of the mossy trunk and sees some of the same knots.
Her heart charges out of the gates like a horse at the Kentucky Derby. “Yeah, I’m looking at the same tree. It’s wider and a little taller ...” She gazes up at the gnarly old branches. There’s not one leaf. “And dead,” she adds, “but it has to be the same tree. This is it, Frances. The exact spot. What is going on? I’m losing it.”
“No, you’re not. I think it means you’re on the right track.”
Charli can’t deny it. “What’s going on, Frances?”
“This is called setting yourself free, Charli. You’re doing it.”
The words hit her hard. She is doing it, whatever it is.
Charli has to get off the phone to process what is happening. Frances tells her she’ll make herself available. Charli barely hears her and drops her phone into her backpack.
Aside from the how of it all, she’s wondering, Why? Why has she ended up here of all places in Winchester? On the day she’s trying to get back to London. How is it possible that she discovered it?
Charli hears movement and whips around. It’s only a bird perched on one of the dead limbs of the tree. As if someone has possessed her body, she walks over and puts her hand on the crumbling bark of the tree and closes her eyes. She feels Miles’s presence and lets his energy run through her. It’s like a drug of which she can’t get enough.
When she opens her eyes again, she lifts her gaze and follows the knobs and knots upward. Then she sees it, a carving above her head that’s barely legible, as if it was done many years ago. She stands on her toes and tries to make it out; something is telling her it’s important.
The weather-worn characters come to life: M P + L T .
“No way,” she mumbles. Her eyes water as the initials register. Miles Pemberton plus Lillian Turner.
The letters have been stretched by years of growth, but she can still make them out. Chills wash over her as she reaches tall and runs her fingers along them. She can feel Miles and Lillian’s love, and it pounds inside her.
Retracting her hand, Charli looks at the photo again, now with a much better understanding of the love shared between the two. She stares into Miles’s eyes. “You didn’t kill her, did you?” If only he could speak back.
Eventually, she stands and snaps a picture of the carving so that she’ll know for sure she wasn’t dreaming. She lies back against the tree and tries to find her bearings. Her conversation with Frances returns to her. You might not have the whole truth, Charli.
“What if Miles didn’t do it?” Charli says to herself, considering the possibility. “How could someone feel that strongly and then take it away?”
The constellation in Costa Rica becomes a chessboard in her mind. Letícia, the woman who fell to the ground, had certainly been representing Lillian. But what about Herman, the man who represented the red lights in Charli’s family. The murderer ... he couldn’t have been Miles.
Or could he? What if something happened? What if Lillian broke up with him? Or cheated on him? Miles could have lost his mind. That notion seems possible. Love brings out the worst in people. The thought is sobering. Her intuition and all these feelings are one thing, but she could be wrong. Miles could have snapped like her grandfather and Georgina snapped.
If that’s how it happened, what does Charli do? Maybe she does need to make it right. But to do that, she would need to determine exactly how Noah’s family was affected. And if Miles didn’t do it, she needs to figure out who did.
It also means she had better change her flight again, so she calls the airline and puts it off until Sunday this time. She can always change it again. Next, she taps out a quick message to Marvin, saying that she’ll know more in another day or two, but she’ll be back by Monday at the latest.
Then she sets her mind on finishing what she started. There’s only one way to get to the truth ... by stepping back into the lion’s den.