Chapter 28
The Lost Colony
Lillian
THANKS TO THE little stint last night with James and Ben hiding the bodies of my guards, I’ve been afforded a short afternoon of freedom. When it was found that they had abandoned their posts—and not returned—and I had not done anything to escape, they took it as me giving in.
They have no idea of the thoughts of sabotage swirling in my head.
I am too assured that I have not given in, but I play the part anyway.
They brought me out here to see if I can make any sense of the route to the facade carved into the side of the mountain.
Nestled maybe a hundred feet above where we stand now, no one in this party has had any luck in finding the entrance.
I pray that Ben and the others listened to me; I can only hope my theory of a side entrance won’t lead them astray.
I still haven’t gotten over the differences in the way the fortress feels in contrast to the rest of the colony.
The buildings down here bring warmth and comfort, while that dreaded stone castle above could be something found in Europe.
It’s just one of the things I take notice of that confirms the long believed idea that the Portuguese and native tribes had formed a place combining two ways of life.
If this were 10 years ago and I were left to study and categorize each square meter with my m?e, perhaps I would feel joy in what I have found today. Any triumph I might have felt is ruined by the constant disrespect for the dead by my father and the grave robbing of his two acquaintances.
It’s not long before the behavior gets the best of me.
I can handle snickers in my direction or German jokes at my expense, but I will not stand for the defiling and stealing of human remains.
“We’ve unveiled a tomb,” I say, standing from where I have discovered that of a baby in the arms of her mother.
Two souls I can still feel lingering within these walls.
From the items around them, I expect they were trying to flee with the others when the shadow caught them. The whispers confirm it.
Trapped, the woman seems to speak from the corner. Trapped.
“Why are we not heeding the protocol like we did in Egypt?” I target the question at my father; the other two can go to hell for all I care. I need to know when and where my father lost his respect for human life.
He does not even turn his head. Instead, he cuts a necklace free from the body and stuffs it into a sack. My heart breaks at the brutality, bile forms at the back of my throat. “We are on a timeline,” he says with a shrug. “We are looking for clues.”
“You’ll hardly find your way to the dagger by disrupting the spirits of this place!” Even when he had been shut off from M?e and me, he always found time to pay respects and always listened to his wife when human remains were found.
With one harsh look at the other two men, we’re left alone. I’m sure the two bumbling fools are just outside, but now in a once-grand room such as this with my father, I can’t help but wish it were my mother here instead.
“Your mother would have loved this,” he says through a half-hearted smile. Sure she would have loved uncovering a famed lost settlement, but she would not have loved anything about how it was being handled.
I shake my head in defiance. “No, she wouldn’t. She never would have taken it this far.” I nod toward the bodies on the floor and then at my father’s bag. Full of treasure and personal items, ready to be sold at full price back home.
Father’s face goes dark. Clouded in a perplexed haze, he reaches out and gives my shoulders a good shake. “You forget that your mother was looking for this too. That she would do anything to see what awaited her at the end.”
“She was only doing any of it to combat the evil you fell prey to, Father! the evil that you and your ideals have inflicted on her land! My land!”
“This is not your land, Lillian.” His grip hardens as if he can dig into my skin and place his truth there. “The fact remains that she never would have stopped us. She could have tried, and she would have failed.”
I’m forced to let the first comment go. There will be no changing his mind. “Mother would have stopped you. She would have died—” I suck in a breath. “She did die to stop you.”
“We prevailed,” he says through the terror in his eyes. No doubt he is going back to that night when the dead rose from the ground. I suddenly wonder if I might be able to replicate that moment here.
“Did you even mourn her?” I ask, pleading that he might show me one ounce of redemption.
His face suddenly shows every year of his old age. “I mourned both of you. I had a funeral.”
“And when you learned I was still alive? What did you do then? You continued on this silly journey toward world domination. Father, you betrayed your country.”
“I nearly left it all behind to come for you.” There’s no true turmoil in his voice; he’s only speaking a fact.
In my head there will never be a good enough reason for him not to leave it all behind, but I ask anyway. “What stopped you?”
“I knew Mr. Morgan had you in his grasp and that your goal would ultimately be coming back here. Ivo would have continued on without me, and I was scared that he might realize that you were alive if I left it all behind.”
I can feel tears clouding my eyes, clouding my judgment. “We could have hidden together. Without me, there is no getting to that dagger. Father, we could go now, put all of this behind us.”
He just shakes his head. “You really think Ivo wouldn’t have found another girl with blood of the colony and taken her? You might be special, Lillian, but there are others like you in this region.”
Ivo looking for another would have been a bloodbath. Ivo with the fate of the Reich on his back… It would have been an invasion. “It changes nothing,” I whisper, falling to sit on the ruined flooring.
He quickly follows suit. “It changes everything,” he counters, eyes locking onto mine.
“You aren’t doing this for M?e or me or any of those girls. You just want the glory attached to my name, your name.”
“Lillian, do not make this difficult. You only have two more tasks.”
“Father.” I find the strength to search for him one last time. “If you cannot leave with me right now, you are dead to me.” I know I’ve felt that sentiment since my mother died, but hearing that he had chances to change the outcome and still took the coward’s way confirms it.
A slight crinkle at the corner of his eye forms, but no other emotional trace follows. What he says next I want to believe, but I’m afraid I just don’t.
“I will always love you, my daughter. It doesn’t matter what I’ve done, or what Isadora did, or what you decide to do with the rest of your life. Nothing will ever change the love that I have for you.”
He leaves me on the floor then, barely holding myself together. Will I ever feel reprieve from the fatigue of extreme emotions, or will this be one of the last emotions I feel?
Fearing it all, I look over my shoulder out the square cut in the wall. A window that has allowed a piece of the mosaic floor to grow more faded by the sun than the rest. A perfect view up to the peak of the mountain.
Just by looking at it, I feel calm. Ben’s words run through me, and for a moment, I can feel his hands on me once again.
“Whisper and I will hear you,” he confided.
“I could use the steadiness of your hand,” I whisper, taking comfort in the thought that he can hear me. Stranger things have happened, so I’d like to pretend that he has heard me. I know he would steady me by counting breaths and soothing words.
As I lay my hand flat on the ground beside me to savor the illusion of Ben here beside me, I swear I feel the presence of something cold press into my palm.
Looking to my left, I don’t see anything that would be able to provide such a presence.
When I exhale in confusion, condensation balls up, and a chill runs through me. Then there’s a voice.
My son and I are here. We will stay with you. The same voice from the corner, but this time right beside me.
“And I will soon set you free,” I say in answer. The pressure grows heavier as if the spirit were squeezing my hand, and then it is gone altogether. I dare to look back at the mountain, hoping for a vision. I receive nothing in return but the overbearing weight of my own destiny.