Chapter 18
“It’s Anwen Dunn,” comes the whisper. An aged woman stands on the narrow footpath, a basket of silvery fish on her back held up by a burlap strip looped around the front of her straw hat. “By me word, it’s you.”
I blink, mentally examining the one piece of myself I’d always held with certainty—my name. “Who are you?” I ask. And who is Anwen?
She squints one eye. “You’ve gone mad, ’ave you? Forgotten Morveth Smythe?”
She sets down her burden and straightens.
An old wool shawl tucked into her belt provides ample protection against the wind.
She shuffles forward, gnarled and crooked with age, and her eyes dart back and forth.
“By ’eaven, it is you. What do ’ee mean, coming back ’ere, after all this time?
Don’t ’ee know what troubles you’ve stirred? ”
“I’m afraid I’ve forgotten a great many things. But I’m not—”
“In the house ’ee go, missy. Have a cuppa, warm those hands. You always were so chilled.” There’s the look of a cloudy day on her face, a hazy wandering expression that flits from my face to the hills beyond.
“Please. Won’t you tell me more?” I try to meet her gaze. “What have I ruined?”
“That girl of yours. She sits in her room and wails for ’ee, as if she hasn’t a mother a’tall.” She shakes her head. “Comes over for warm milk in the morns, she does, and follows me about while I milk and feed. An’ bully if I don’t sweep her up with me own young’n and mother the poor waif.”
Milk and feed. That’s what I smell. The world tips, another life eclipsing my current reality at the edges.
I force a sliver of it into focus and realize, looking intently into those faded eyes, that she hasn’t got it right.
Almost, but not quite. The woman leans close and the earthy smell of sheep and pigs and moldy old straw sharpen the images floating just out of view.
The barn is red on top, stone on bottom with a swinging lantern and a double door that won’t latch.
She busies herself out there every morning until…
Until I join her. I’m the girl. Not Anwen Dunn, but the girl Anwen left behind.
A sense of the familiar streaks through my brain the more I stare at this woman’s shrunken form. The waves of my past are just off the shore, gaining height as they roll in, ready to swallow me. My heart’s in my throat.
“Now get ’ee inside and see to that chile ’ee had the gall to leave behind.
G’on now, get!” A decisive shove and she’s off, lifting her burden onto her back, securing the band on her hat, and trundling side to side up the narrow footpath.
“Y’call to ole Morveth when you want to give that Merryn girl a proper mum, hear?
” She emphasizes the first sound in my name, softens the r. Mern. The way she says it…it’s right.
Sand blows about my feet, and an odd dizziness besets me.
I walk up and push open the door. It’s stone cold and dark inside but the past stirs in the musty air.
Low timbered ceilings, a long-dead hearth, and bare whitewashed walls that offer a humble embrace, and when I close my eyes there is music.
I blink, and my throat closes. There it is—on the wall opposite the door, carved into the timber, are the words my soul had tried to remember.
He hideth my soul
In the cleft of the rock
Yet there’s more. Music has tantalized me from the fringes of my mind for weeks, and this house, this cottage, is where it all originated.
I step inside and let history wrap around me, breath shallow as I wait for my eye to catch upon something familiar.
Something that will trigger memories to come cascading back.
But there’s only a hint.
“Do you know it?” AJ whispers behind me.
I inhale the damp air as the songs swell, all playing at once. I cling to the doorframe wrapped in thick rose vines, and the music settles into one song, strong and lilting.
Oh, the bonny bunch of roses,
They are bloomin' on the lea…
I close my eyes as home wraps around me. The musty, earthy smell, the pewter dishes upon the shelf, the scratched and battered refectory table crowding the room…
And people. I hear their lost voices, see their faces. Especially her—the gorgeous dark-haired woman with teasing eyes, her songs echoing about the rooms.
How I’d like to be there,
With my love a-sittin’ on my knee…
Images, sounds, and sensations crest over me in soft waves. I grab the table, letting myself float in them. I feared drowning in the memories, but now I’m submerged. I open my eyes under the water…and see clearly.
But she left me once,
She left me thrice
And now I’m clinging to
The bonny bunch of roses
With the thorns upon the lea…
I rise and walk to the fireplace, placing my hand on the letters carved there. “I made these.”
“You remember.”
“I wanted to leave my mark. To make certain people knew I had been here.”
“You must have been quite happy here.”
“Yes. That is…no.” Sadness curls through my soul the longer I stand before the cold, dead hearth, and her song strengthens.
She’s gone to Bremen City,
To the land beyond the sea…
I hear my younger self. Mama. Mama! Don’t go. Please…stay with me this time.
Oh, when will I see her again?
The one who meant so much to me.
She moves on a song, swaying and twirling each step before the glowing hearth.
Past the hooks, where she flips off her cloak.
She sparkles—this humble cottage cannot contain her.
The woman bends near, lifting my chin, and her voice wraps around me.
I’ll be back, Merryn love. Watch for me at the window.
A building pressure, then a plunging sense of loss as her fingers slide along my jaw and float away.
My mind’s eye is full
Of the girl I left behind me,
The one I loved so dearly,
And who I’ll see again…
“Don’t leave,” I whisper.
A hand settles on my shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere.” I shiver and turn—AJ.
I look up into his face and at last I offer him something concrete, after all he’s given me. “This is my home. Was my home.” At last, we have a roof over our heads.
“And?”
I turn from the expectant face of the man who’s desperately hoping I recall everything now, hoping I can return and live a normal life with him.
I inhale. “I don’t know.” I stare into the dank, abandoned space until it seeps into me and loosens the muscles I didn’t even realize had been tense. “Yet.”
His hand slides off my shoulder, and I dare not turn and risk seeing disappointment on his face.
My stomach growls. “I suppose we should see about food.”
“I shall attend to it, my lady.” He gives a shadowed smile. “I suppose you’ll want to bed here tonight?”
I nod. “It’ll do, won’t it?”
“It’s quite the bargain.”
I force a smile. Surely this is where the story turns for us—yet I cannot unhinge my mind from worry. “Dunn Cottage it is.”
“A fine cottage it is, too.” He takes a quick turn about the room. “Suppose we can get the fire lit? Looks rather wet.”
“The roof is leaking.”
“How grand!”
I sigh as I place a bucket beneath one of the drips. His jolly nature is like a balloon that won’t puncture. At times I wish he’d give me one good row now and then, let me feel the heat of righteous indignation, but it’s not in him. Perhaps then things wouldn’t feel so off-kilter.
He slings his dusty suitcoat over his shoulder and gives me a jaunty salute. “I’ll be back. With food. Stay put and rest, will you?” Then he sails out the door, banging it shut behind him.
I haven’t a habit of doing what I’m told, especially when the order includes rest. One question plagues me, making me restless—if Anwen Dunn is my mother, who is Isabella de Montfort?