Chapter 25
Is this how it happens? We marry someone, believing we know them, then reality erodes that lovely sheen and there’s something unrecognizable underneath? I sit in the attic at Dunn Cottage, looking down at his retreating form as he leaves for town—I’ve forgotten to ask why.
How did he kill his first wife?
Ugh, that’s quite enough! Ansel is a common name about England. Some other bloke has done his wife in, and Gould merely found the wrong Ansel Winthrop. The very idea of AJ belonging to any other woman…of murdering her…
The attic is cluttered with broken whalebone hoops, dusty trunks, and faded costumes spilling out of crates, all of it unfamiliar.
Faint lines on the doorway mark my height by age…
until my eighteenth year. There’s no mark above the seventeenth.
I touch the pencil marks. Measure my current self, which is roughly the same height as the last marking on the door. I’ve not grown much.
Yet I have.
Then, a ratty old curtain beckons me closer.
The tickle of memory. I sweep it aside with a sudden knowledge of the hole in the wall before I see it.
The jagged gaping space between one section of the house and the tower opens onto the middle of a crumbling, winding stair that climbs into darkness above and down to the ground level.
Lighting a candle, I climb through the hole, letting the curtain fall back over it.
No one will ever find me if I fall, but I won’t. Of course I won’t.
Steps crumble on the edges as I ascend higher into the chilly old tower. I pause to open a window of beautiful cut glass and I can see the oddly haunting outcropping above where the burned remnants of Dunn House lay.
What occurred there? And what does it have to do with me?
I continue climbing and emerge into a sparse room with a narrow bed neatly made, a stack of worn books, and a few moth-eaten linens folded on a table.
What stands out most is the jars—rows and rows of jars line the walls, most filled with something like tea herbs, and a heavy, tarnished candlestick.
Brass? Ancient, at least. This should bring ten or twenty shillings, which means food.
Perhaps another cawl from The King’s Head. Or a pasty! My stomach rumbles.
Soon.
I glance around, hardly daring to breathe in this time capsule. Scattered pages on the ancient desk are full of my handwriting. I had written poetry—not good poetry, but here it is. No…music. I can hear it. I also wrote letters, apparently, for they’re piled all over the desk.
But these are in a different hand. I hungrily read until it’s clear they’re written to me by my mother but never sent.
She begs me, reasons with me, to speak with her again.
She’s confused about why I’ve gone silent, refusing to see her when she visits.
They’re dated years ago. Heartbreak pours out of her simple words, and my heart twists just reading them.
How could I have been so cruel?
Then, one tri-folded but lying open.
I shall try one more time to reach you, my darling.
I dare to hope that now things might be different between us and that you’ll forgive whatever injury I might have caused you.
I cannot help but hope this time you will answer.
That you’ll allow me to visit. Perhaps time has softened your heart, for now you are a married woman…
The King’s Head Inn is a tall, narrow affair with beveled windows and a cross-hatched door. I slip inside and inhale the heavenly aroma before making my bargain with the publican. He doesn’t want the candlestick, but he’ll put a pasty on credit.
“Merryn Winthrop,” I say boldly when he asks for my name. I almost change it to Merryn Dunn of Dunn Cottage, just to see his reaction, but he’s gone before I can think.
I lean against a partition while I wait, and it vibrates with the low voices of the booth’s occupants on the other side. “Dishonest business, this.” The man has an accent, and he isn’t local.
“But worth it.”
I gasp, press my palms against the wood. That last one…that’s AJ.
“Look, I’m in a desperate position, Nigel. Everything’s gone upside down, and this is the only way I see to right it. So stay out, you hear? Stay out. This is my affair. I’ll do what I must.”
I shiver. He’s the angry man from the telephone booth again.
I lean against the tall back of their booth that separates us, and strain to hear more about this “dishonest business.” AJ is a high-spirited adventure-loving bloke who never takes the world or himself too seriously. I cannot imagine him killing someone.
He might, though. Anyone could.
“She will find out, Winthrop. She’ll find out what you’re up to and leave you so fast your head will spin.”
I fist my hands and feel my last thread of sanity slipping through them.
“The truth? The truth? You cannot be serious.” He shifts. “She’s not ready for it.”
He’s right. Humans will believe a lot of nonsense before they’ll allow themselves to believe the one person on whom they depend…cannot be depended upon. I’ve been doing that for weeks, and now that I cannot ignore it, the truth vibrates through me and panic rises.
A voice from the bar calls, “Winthrop. Order here, Winthrop!”
I crouch against the partition and focus on breathing. On not passing out.
“WINTHROP!”
That’s me. He means me. I turn and collide with a man—one that has lifted me and spun me, carrying me over life’s hot coals a time or two. “AJ!”
“Ah!” He breaks into a wide grin. “’Tis Mrs. Winthrop they mean. Well now, I’ve not lost my mind yet.” He scoops up the pasty wrapped in brown paper and offers it as if bestowing a gem upon a queen. “My lady.”
The very normalcy of this action tangles up my heart. I accept the paper-wrapped food and return his contagious smile with a flicker of my own.
“May I escort you back to your castle, my lady?”
I look into his penetrating eyes that make the inn’s chaos fade away. “I won’t take you away from what you are doing. I can manage.”
“Nonsense.” A flash of hardness in his jaw. “I wasn’t doing anything important.” Anyone else might have missed it, but I am coming to know him well, now that I’m paying attention. “Come, I’ll even carry your parcel.” He slips it from my grasp, then he’s gently guiding me out the door.
I glance over my shoulder to thank the publican and catch sight of the man in AJ’s booth. He’s glaring death at me. And his face…it’s familiar. I’ve seen him before. Where, though?
I look up at AJ, my heart pounding as if I’m staring over the rocky cliff at the edge of town. “So what were you doing, AJ? Not causing trouble, I hope.” I inject a playful tone and steal back my food.
Then it happens. He turns to face me, that magnificent, disarming smile. Time slows as he leans in, kisses his favorite spot on my jaw, his fingers indulging in my hair. I feel myself melting. “Were you this pretty when I first met you, luv?”
I stiffen with new awareness.
The park. That’s where I’ve seen that man before—at Pittville Park, where I later met AJ. He stared at me that day until I grew uncomfortable. I left early.
AJ’s words tumble back into my mind. So stay out, you hear? Stay out. This is my affair. I’ll do what I must.
My vision blurs at the edges. It’s like a code I cannot decipher, because none of it adds up. I try for a smile. “I’ve forgotten something inside. Go on ahead.”
His gaze fixes on mine, that bright gaze tunneling below the surface of what I’ve said. “I’ll wait for you. It’s growing dark.”
The stare lasts forever, but neither of us backs down. “Very well. It may take me a moment.” I cannot go back with him, of that much I’m certain. Also, that Gould might actually be right.
Might.
Shouldering my way through the crowd, I scan for the man who was in AJ’s booth, but he’s gone. “Pardon, sir. Which way to Newlyn?”
“Road to Newlyn, picks up on the western edge of Fore Street. Follow it through.”
“Thank you.” I shift. “Would you happen to have a back exit, sir?”
He blinks in surprise but points toward a service entrance. “Ee can use that one, if it helps.”
I thank him, take my pasty, and duck out of the crowd before I change my mind.
Out in the chilly night air, panic hits like a wall. The only thing that can protect me now…is running.