Chapter 38 Avalynne
AVALYNNE
Freshly showered and dressed in unfamiliar clothes, I stand in front of the door to Xade's quarters. I wear pressed gray men's slacks kept at my waist by a leather belt and a white dress shirt that skirts my thighs.
I raise my hand to knock but hesitate. Questions mince my brain, demanding to know what all of this means and how far I need Xade to go before I forgive him. I don't have answers.
Some scars score deeper than flesh, and his words linger, chiseled into my bones.
Pathetic.
Na?ve.
Child.
His good intentions don't erase the humiliation, though I'm not blameless.
I know that. I brought this upon myself by making the ridiculous list in the first place.
My sister would have kicked Thatcher between the legs and told him to kiss her ass for embarrassing her.
For me, it's more than that, though. It's alienation and abandonment orchestrated by the only person I thought I could trust after Father Ezra lied and left me to Reverend Mother's wolves.
But if someone shoots you to save your life, how do you forget the bullet wound left behind?
When my sister and I were young, if Grandpapa lost his temper, we'd wake up to two new porcelain dolls waiting for us at breakfast the following morning.
I loved my dolls because I thought they meant my grandfather loved me, but I've since learned that's not love. That's bought-and-paid-for absolution.
Despite everything, I love my grandfather, and I know enough of our family's history to understand he is a product of his environment as much as I am of mine. Grandpapa loves to tell the story about our family, particularly after a glass of brandy with dinner.
My grandfather was the firstborn and only child of a wealthy fifth-generation descendant of a French immigrant and the youngest daughter of the governor of Massachusetts, Walter Charles and Marie Anne Immorier.
Walter's fortune and our family's legacy originated with Pierre Immorier, an ambitious immigrant who arrived by merchant ship to New Orleans in 1810 after fleeing Europe during the Napoleonic Wars.
With less than a dollar to his name, Pierre began a textile business, importing silk for Southern socialites across the gulf and eventually expanding across the continental United States.
By the time of his death, Pierre had amassed a sizeable fortune, one that has grown with each successive generation.
His sacrifices and those of my ancestors made it possible for my great-grandfather to expand operations across the globe.
Grandpapa always speaks of his father with enormous pride, but it's no secret the man devoted his entire life to his business.
Less than a year after marrying, my great-grandfather lost his wife during childbirth.
The doctors told him it was a miracle his son survived.
My grandfather is a fighter, though, defying all the odds since the day he was born.
The way Grandpapa tells it, his father, unable to cope with the untimely death of his wife, devoted his time to the expansion of the family business.
The part my grandfather often leaves out, though, is that the man left his only child to be raised by hired help.
I don't blame Grandpapa for the man he is.
He is the sum of his upbringing, yet, when my sister and I needed him most, he welcomed us into his home.
Widowed and without any living children, he gave us a family.
I hope that when I leave here, he will again welcome me and accept the woman I have become.
We can be more than reflections of the people who raised us and that starts with me right now in front of Xade's door.
Grandpapa's father substituted wealth for love, and Grandpapa followed, buying my forgiveness with gifts instead of words, but things can't unmake the cruel things Xade said.
My forgiveness isn't for sale, but it can be earned.
God help me, I want the enigmatic man with astute, ink-black eyes and a brilliant mind to earn it.
Finally, I knock on Professor Thatcher's door.
I don't wait long before he opens it wearing a smile, a black dress shirt, and dark jeans that hang low on his trim waist. His hair is damp, settling straight against his broad shoulders, and a stubble shadows his sharp jawline.
His lips part, and I glimpse a sliver of his straight teeth.
That addictive, breath-binding knot in my middle cinches tighter, drawing me to him.
How can he be so beautiful?
"Avalynne," he says.
It's a miracle I manage to form words. "Thank you for the clothes."
He blinks at me with that same indecipherable expression.
"I should be thanking you instead," he remarks, and I'm not sure I understand his meaning. "We'll get you clothes that fit on the mainland."
I chew on the inside of my cheek. "I don't have any money with me."
The door clicks shut behind him as Xade regards me like I've lost my mind.
"You aren't paying, Avalynne," he chides.
He's really going to make me say it.
"I don't like owing people." I leave the rest unspoken, the words that spell out you won't own me.
A heartbeat later, his thumb slips below my chin, gently tipping my head back as he steps closer. He looks down the straight line of his nose at me.
"This isn't quid pro quo." His words are soft but edged in steel. "Anything I give you is a gift. Nothing more."
He releases me instantly, his jaw ticking as he steps past.
"This way," he calls, starting down the shadowed corridor. "We need to get back before dusk. A Nor'easter is making landfall tonight."
I follow him downstairs and through a maze of crisscrossing hallways to a part of the convent I haven't been to before.
He pushes open a massive door that creaks against its corroded hinges, and we duck beneath a stone colonnade.
It takes us to a narrow parking lot tucked behind the main building.
The old asphalt is pitted and pockmarked, and the lot is empty except for a canvas-topped cargo truck and a sleek, black car, both dusted with snow.
Xade plucks his key fob from his pocket and hits the button to unlock the car before opening the passenger door for me.
"After you," he remarks, and I scoot around him, sliding across the plush leather seat into a world of carbon fiber stitching and polished wood trim.
Everything inside the vehicle is spotless and neat, and the interior smells faintly of leather and my professor.
A jolt courses through my middle as he slips into the seat beside me and starts the car, the engine rumbling to life in front of us.
His long fingers adjust the knobs on the console, and my seat warms. He casts me a sidelong glance. "Comfortable?"
"Yes, thank you."
He shifts the car into gear, starting away from the convent.
In the daytime, the island is different, the land around us ethereal rather than nightmarish.
Snow flutters lazily from a pewter gray sky, frosting the ground in white.
In every direction, a copse of trees towers above us, projecting long shadows through the sunroof and into the cabin of the car.
Sunbeams peek between the clouds, speckling the land in sparkling light, while whitewash cuts against the cliffside in a steady pulse.
We steer onto a single-lane road, hugging the mountain as we descend.
On the opposite side, craggy rock roughly hews the coastal cliffs, disappearing into a thin brume that clings to the outskirts of the island.
Nothingness and a quick descent into a watery grave wait below it, and the sight catapults my heart into my throat.
On a swallow, my gaze slides to Xade, his attention on the winding road and his hand loose at the top of the steering wheel. The frantic thrum of my heart calms.
We ride in comfortable silence, and I realize the island is gorgeous in a tragic way, reminiscent of ghost stories and gothic romances.
The drive is long, but finally, we reach the valley of the mountain, where the terrain morphs from dense forest to coastal plains.
Down here, for as far as I can see, the land stretches into an eternity of littoral flats and sandy marshlands.
We pass pitted, salt-worn signs that warn drivers not to attempt the road inland in the event of high tide.
Outside the car, the flats give way to brackish swamps and rocky shore that stretch for miles.
I take it all in, the cliffs to the north, shearing the mainland from the sea, and the island in the periphery, its mountain looming far above us.
The car lurches when its tires reach the mainland.
I look in the rearview mirror, and I catch a glimpse of the island, the spires of the convent peeking through the swirling fog.
The road widens into a two-lane street, and we follow it, climbing the incline and passing a hand-painted wooden sign that reads, Welcome to Farbrook, Maine.
Maine.
That's where I've been all this time.
Xade drives us further inland, and a small town unfolds around us.
We pass a marina filled with weathered fishing boats and rust-streaked trawlers, a pier that stretches into the sea, and crossroads lined with Cape Cod houses and iron lamp posts.
We turn onto a main street, driving by people bundled up in coats, walking on the sidewalk.
"We'll park here," Xade says, turning down a side street. "There's a place I want to show you."
He finds a spot, kills the engine, and steps out, walking around to open my door for me.
"Thank you," I say, my feet sinking into a thin slush on the pavement. Xade plucks a jacket from the backseat of the car and drapes it across my shoulders.
"I don't …" I begin before he gives me a look, and I know declining would be futile. I thank him and pull the jacket tighter around me.