Chapter 78
The next day, I wake up in the hospital.
Topher and Alice are by my side. They tell me I have frostbite on my hands and feet and suffered mild hypothermia.
But other than that, I am okay. My baby is okay.
More than okay. She’s healthy and kicking away.
I’m sorry, I think as I touch my belly. I had to get us away.
Alice steps out to give us some privacy.
“El, I’m so sorry.” Topher is kissing my hand, kissing my face. “I’m so, so sorry for not believing you. I shouldn’t have trusted them.”
I take his hand and force myself to look in his eyes.
“I saw you and Madeline. On the security camera.”
“Security camera?” His brow knits together.
“There was one that showed the driveway.”
He looks confused, and then, suddenly, it clicks for him and the blood drains from his face.
“Oh, Elinor. I don’t know exactly what you saw, but it’s not what you think.
I was just in over my head. I didn’t know what to do and Madeline said she’d help.
That she’d keep an eye on things.” His voice wavers.
“I was just going to give her a hug, to say thank you, and then suddenly she pulled my face close to hers and was telling me everything was going to be okay.” He pauses, gazing out the window and gives a short laugh.
“I guess I should have realized something was off.” He bites his lip and shakes his head.
But I squeeze his hand and smile at him.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.”
All the anger I’d been holding toward him seems to have been washed away by the river. We both made mistakes. Both trusted people we shouldn’t have. Topher gently climbs onto the hospital bed beside me, behaving as though I’m made of glass.
When Alice comes back in, bearing cups of bitter coffee, they tell me that Julian was found dead in the woods earlier this morning.
The police had tried to search for him last night but were unable to find him in the blinding snow.
They presume he got lost in the whiteout conditions and succumbed to the elements, though he also sustained animal bites on his arms and torso. Bites that look canine.
Joan is in this same hospital, being treated for a shattered kneecap.
There are officers outside her room. Madeline was brought in for questioning.
I’m not hopeful anything will come of that.
She’s claiming she was not involved in Julian and Joan’s plot.
I know that’s not true. I know the Brooks are leaving Joan out to dry.
They will try and disappear into the protection of their money and connections.
But perhaps the greatest story they tell me is how Alice found me.
“I was checking on the goats,” Alice says, her face gray in the morning light, “and I suddenly heard a dog barking like mad down by the river.” She pauses, a strange look on her face before continuing.
“I knew something was going to happen that night, I just knew it. So when I get down to the bank, I see your dog howling to the night sky and you clinging to a tree root on the verge of death.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Someone was looking out for you.”
The best they can guess is that Julian lured Hugo into the woods and brought him deep in so that he wouldn’t come back to my calls.
He recorded the barking and was likely planning to kill Hugo, but Hugo must have escaped, disappearing farther into the woods before Julian could execute his plan.
He didn’t escape unscathed, though, and took a bullet to the leg.
But he’ll be okay. My beloved Hugo is okay.
Eventually, Alice leaves and Topher and I lie in bed together, the morning sun streaming through the hospital windows, the machines making various sounds indicating I’m alive, marveling at all that has happened and all we have survived.
* * *
When I go home the next day, Alice, Topher, and I go up to our bedroom and The Forest of the Dead.
I show them the bird in the shape of an arrow to the right of the wardrobe, looking as though it’s about to swoop behind the furniture.
Topher and Alice slowly and painstakingly slide the wardrobe away.
It scrapes against the wood floor, leaving marks, I’m sure.
When it’s moved far enough, we all stand back and look.
Behind the wardrobe, a river runs down the wall, its angles and proportions far from realistic.
We scan the scene. The water is a faded gray blue.
There are gentle curves and then it comes to a peninsula, which it snakes around.
On the peninsula, there’s a large boulder.
This is the area I ran to last night. It’s where the plunge pool is, the deepest part of the river.
It’s where I played so often as a child. It was our woods, after all.
“There,” says Alice, moving closer to the wall.
She points to a place beneath the boulder.
Topher and I move closer too. There are markings, which from a distance could look like grass or small rocks.
But up close, you can see there are four tiny crosses.
Beneath each are initials. J.A. L.A. D.C.
R.C. Abington and Clark. Husbands and wives. And one unborn baby, I think.
Alice stares at the mural, her jaw looking tense. “So there they are. After all this time.”
“Those innocent people, killed by their neighbors.” I shake my head, still heartbroken by this fact. What my ancestors played a role in. No, what heinous crime they plotted.
“I guess we contact some authorities,” Topher says, though none of us are entirely sure who would handle something like this.
“Yep,” Alice says, and I feel her eyes flick to me and then back to the painted trees. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you,” she says. “I didn’t know if you would try and bury the truth, like the others have done.”
I swallow the lump in my throat.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, the words sounding infinitely inadequate. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I realize, almost sadly, that I don’t feel Lydia’s presence anymore. And when I look at the painted trees now, I see only a mural.
* * *
Madeline, John, Stuart, and Isabelle move shortly after.
There was never enough to arrest Madeline, though Joan maintains she was involved.
I’m sure the Brooks had connections in the police station.
But they move anyway. Stories travel fast in small towns like this.
Rumors are hard to shake. The morning that the moving trucks came, I stood watching on our front porch, my eyes trained on Cold Brook Drive.
After a while, I saw a slim figure emerge from the grandest house.
She made her way down the drive, red hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She walked up to me.
Her face had lost some of its luster, and for the first time, I noticed the faint wrinkles around her eyes.
“You know,” she said, “we weren’t the ones to do it.”
I didn’t speak. I’d been advised to not speak with her.
“We’re not accountable for what our ancestors did. We can’t change the past.” Then she turned and started down the driveway. I watched her for a moment, but then I couldn’t help myself.
“You’re not accountable for what your ancestors did, Madeline.
But you are accountable for covering it up.
That’s what your family never understood.
And that’s what will be your downfall.” My voice echoes down the driveway.
I can see her shoulders tense. Then I turn, head back inside, and shut the door on the Brook family.
* * *
We hand over the old documents on the property lines, the death records, and Mathilde’s letter to Ezra to the Major Crimes Unit of the Vermont State Police.
Alice submits the journal, handed down to her from her grandmother, handed down from some other ancestor.
We tell the police the story as we know it.
That both families were involved at the beginning, but that we have evidence to believe my grandmother and Ezra were attempting to set things right, while the Brooks were actively trying to bury the truth, once and for all.
We show the authorities the mural. In the spring, when the ground thaws, a team comes to excavate the ground.
They discover evidence of four bodies. That of two men and two women.
And also the remains of a fetus. The bodies will go to be examined.
There are already splashy news headlines, talking about the downfall of the great Brook family.
Cold Brook Wool and Cashmere goes public and the stock immediately plummets.
What happens to Wildwood is a tricky question.
No distant Abington ancestors are stepping forward to try and claim the land, and there’s not a lot of precedent for situations like this.
Many people advise us to stay, that what happened was so long ago and we’ve earned the right to call Wildwood home.
But I think about the people who were here before the Abingtons and the Bishops and everyone else.
The people whose land this really was. So when June comes and we officially take ownership, our first act is to divide up the land.
We sell a small part of the land to the town.
We’ll use this money to get Mathilde into the best place possible, and to give us a fresh start, somewhere else.
Another plot we retain ownership of and designate a private cemetery.
The remains of the Abington and Clark families will be buried here, and a memorial erected.
The rest of the land we give back to the Abenaki. It was theirs to begin with, after all.
* * *
One chilly June morning, I’m in the library sorting through Ezra’s desk, trying to determine what to do with his journals.
As I am rifling through the bottom drawer, I find an envelope.
It had been pushed against the front of the drawer and buried at the bottom.
I guess that is why I didn’t find it until now.
Though there is a shakiness to the handwriting, I recognize the girlish script on the front.
It is from Mathilde. I open it. It is dated June 27, 2023.
Ezra,
I got your letter. I know I’ve always hounded you to find the bodies and to force the Brooks to acknowledge with us what was done.
But please, for the love of God, do not tell anyone about what you found.
Do not go to the Brooks. Elinor has been through enough.
I don’t want to burden her with this. Those poor souls died long ago, let’s just let them rest where they are.
I am so sorry. I’m so sorry for everything.
Love,
Mathilde
She wrote this letter shortly after my mother died.
It isn’t a shock. Not really. I think some part of me suspected this for a little while now.
I had come to believe that Ezra had found the bodies.
When we visited Wildwood that first time, Mr. Warnick told us my uncle wanted us to paint over the mural.
But first, you’d have to move that trinket.
I should turn this letter in with the rest of the evidence.
It’s part of the whole story. But then I think of Mathilde.
Both Mathildes. My beloved grandmother, who wanted to protect me, who I now want to protect.
And my sweet baby girl, snoozing away in her bassinet.
She’s already been through so much, I think.
She deserves a fresh start. And besides, I think I’ve done my part.
I helped to right the wrong. Is it enough?
I don’t know. I don’t know if anything will ever be enough.
So I stand and walk into the parlor and toss the letter into the crackling fire.