Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
N o one would sleep in the main house tonight. The dining room ceiling had collapsed. EMS had come along with the fire and police departments. All power to the main house had been shut off.
As they ran out of the house, Rose got a glimpse into the dining room. Debris lay like a thick blanket over everything in that direction. The chandelier no longer hung from the ceiling.
It was after midnight before all emergency services left. After a shower, she climbed into her bed at the cottage. Willow slept in its guest room. Thorne had taken the couch. Broome had gone home.
Rose lay in her bed, waiting for sleep to come. Thoughts of the day’s events wouldn’t let her. The clock beside her bed ticked past one o’clock. She sat up, turned on her lamp, and reached for the large envelope Mr. Winslow had given her.
Folding her legs beneath her, Rose reached for the afghan Magnolia’s closest friend, Brigette Conroy, crocheted for her when she’d graduated college. She used it to cover her bare legs.
Rose picked up the dragon-shaped letter opener that belonged to Magnolia.
Its emerald eyes winked at her in the lamplight.
She slid its blade beneath the flap, then reached inside.
She wiggled the contents out. A stack of papers, a slightly smaller manila envelope, and a wrapped rectangular box emerged.
The stack of papers intimidated, at least a finger’s width tall.
Two loose pages sat on top. One displayed the Winslow and Barrow Law Offices letterhead, a brief letter addressed to her.
The other listed the contents of the envelope.
A pink binder clip held a copy of the will. It was quite thick. She set it aside.
Magnolia’s signature scrolled across the seal of the envelope. She ran her fingers over the calligraphy-style signature, but felt only the edges of the flap it covered. Once more, she used the letter opener. Paper-clipped pages and a letter-sized ivory envelope with her first name fell out.
The paper-clipped pages confused her. The top page was her birth certificate. She set it down. Broome had given her a copy years ago when she’d left for college. The second document gave her pause.
The words across the top made no sense.
Certificate of Adoption.
Had she received someone else’s documents? She checked the envelope. It still had her name on it. She examined the certificate, saw the name of the child.
Rose Everson Finch.
What the hell?
Her father was Clark Finch, her mother, Daisy Brooks. She’d come early while her parents were on holiday.
No way was she adopted.
Her birth certificate would prove it.
She picked up the document she’d set aside.
Her breath caught as she studied it. This wasn’t the birth certificate she’d been given when she’d left for college.
Her birthdate was different, a month earlier than what she celebrated; she noticed the same was on the adoption paper.
The names for mother and father were not Clark Finch and Daisy Brooks.
The line for father was blank. And for mother…
Rose flung aside the afghan and stood. Her bedroom was small. There was no room to pace, but crud. She sat back down and ran her hands through her hair.
Aspen’s arguments during the reading of the will, each word questioning why the youngest grandchild should inherit a house that had been in the Everson family for over a hundred years.
Rose knew the answer.
Bloody hell.
The tips of her fingers grazed the raised seal on the birth certificate. It was official, unlike the copy she had in her firebox, the one with Clark and Daisy Finch’s names on it. Their names were nowhere on this new birth certificate. She read the name on the line designated for her birth mother.
Magnolia Eleanor Everson-Brooks.
Could this be true?
Her grandmother was her birth mother?
Why had she never told her?
Needing a minute, she picked up the afghan and held it against her chest. Then, she caught sight of the small ivory envelope.
Her fingers shook as she reached for it.
Rose scrolled across the front in Magnolia’s calligraphy style script.
The letter opener sliced through the flap.
She pulled two pieces of paper out. The familiar feminine handwriting invited tears to her eyes.
Shaky words filled the page, a sign that this letter was more recent, perhaps after her first stroke.
She pulled the afghan higher, wiping her eyes on its soft yarn. Then she began reading.
My dear imaginative Rebel,
If you are reading this, you have learned the truth of your birth before I found the courage to tell you. This stubborn woman thought she had more time.
Perhaps in a different place, one not named for my great-grandfather, I could have kept you and raised you as my daughter.
I was alone and frightened. Fearful of what might happen if I acknowledged you as mine.
Evers Hollow will always be a small town. With its own woes and history. With all its ghosts, none more so than my ancestors. I ignored the stories passed down through generations before mine.
There came a menace to the woods, one that lurked, watched, and waited. I saw it, the glow of the lights, felt its icy fingers linger each time I lost someone. My father, my Devin, my precious Daisy and Clark.
When the accident happened, all five of you came to me. I feared keeping you. I feared sending you away.
In the end, I couldn’t let any of you go. Each of you deserved love and the best upbringing I could provide. I love each of you.
For a time I thought I’d won, pushed back the dark. But if this letter is in your hands before I have told you its truth, then something has failed. If the lights in the woods have returned, I’ve failed. My father once told me that a knight can only stop evil for so long.
Briar House, her grounds, her woods, were always going to be yours. I’ve heard your words, your poems to her, and the forest surrounding.
She speaks to you. You hear her as I do, as my father did when he was a boy. Not everyone has this gift. Your first time up the stairs, even amidst your grief for those you called Mom and Dad—the first time you touched the handrail, I saw it in your eyes. The hearing her, it’s a gift.
Listen to her. Take care of her. In turn, she will take care of you.
Love, Magnolia