Chapter 8
Piper scrambled for the papers Evie and Sam had pored over the whole night, flinging the diary at her so she could start reading it.
“Ugh, just tell me,” Evie said, bouncing on the bench. “I can’t believe Daria was in that time.”
“No way, you need to tell me about my mom,” Piper said, instantly giving up on the densely packed, tiny handwriting on the page. Even the notes Sam had written in his tidy script were too much for her excited mind to register. “That trumps Daria.”
“I have to admit I was feeling pretty smug up until a minute ago. I can’t believe we both have such explosive information.”
“I wish things could be less explosive,” Piper said, sitting down. “Now what in the hell do you mean, the baby was my mom?”
Evie ran her finger down the page in front of Piper, stopping midway. “This is a birth certificate from 1771. That is your grandmother’s name right there.” She leaned over and squinted, finding another spot on the page. “That is your mom’s maiden name. Finley Temperance MacGregor. Who else has that name in the history of ever? Rose never changed it when she came back, she kept her married name. She wasn’t really a widow— well, I guess technically she was, since her husband lived more than two hundred years earlier. But she never married anyone else when she first got back. Your grandfather is from the eighteenth century, Piper.”
That outlandish information went in one ear and out the other as Piper stared down at her mother’s name. A practically unheard of first name for the eighteenth century, unusually modern even for her mom’s birth year in the twentieth. Then that old fashioned middle name.
“Could it really be her?” Piper asked, trailing her finger over her mother’s name written so long ago with ink and quill. “That would make her so old, like vampire old.”
Evie giggled. “No it wouldn’t. She might have been born there, but you’ve seen baby pictures of her in her own century. They must have come back pretty soon after she was born.” Evie looked down at Magnus, who was gnawing clumsily on the corner of his blanket. “And she’s perfectly normal and healthy.” She turned to Piper and looked embarrassed. “I couldn’t help but worry about him, you know. That the time travel might have residual effects.”
Piper nodded. “No, she never gets sick. No weird twitches or bizarre extra limbs, either.”
“Shut up.” Evie opened the diary. “So, grandma Rose loved this guy from the past? Why’d she come back at all, I wonder? Though I’m glad she did, of course. It just seems like such a sad ending.”
Piper gave her a look. “Daria,” she said. “Daria’s why she came back. I think she might be the one who pulled her to the past in the first place.”
Evie scooped Magnus out of his bassinet and began to pace with him propped up on her shoulder so he could see around him. She spoke in a soothing, calm voice even as her brow furrowed in confusion. “I don’t know where to start. How? Or why? Okay, how. How could Daria be in 1770 when she was killed in 1729?”
Piper shrugged. “No idea. It hurts my brain to even guess.”
“She wasn’t dead yet,” Sam said without opening his eyes.
They both waited for him to continue, Piper thinking she might toss the heaviest book within her reach at him as he sat up and took his time stretching.
“Come on, Sam,” Evie said, still using her baby-soothing voice, completely undermining all the urgency that Piper felt.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked. “Talk about brain ache. I’m not sure I can explain it as I barely understand it.” He rubbed his eyes and continued. “So, we think the timelines are all concurrent, right, give or take a few months?”
Piper nodded. When Lachlan left the first time, on his side he’d only been gone six weeks, while she had lamented in loneliness for six months. There had been a loss of eight months that they couldn’t account for, on which Piper alternately blamed Daria and her own lack of spellwork ability.
“Daria was killed in our 1729, right?” Sam went on. “The one we went back to, from this time? Well, you have to remember, your granny was traveling from a different starting point, years before this one. So even though she ended up in 1770, from her starting point Daria would still be alive. In that 1729. Daria would still be able to travel about making trouble.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and made a pained noise. “Does that make sense to anyone but me?”
“Maybe,” Evie said, putting Magnus back in his bassinet.
“Not really,” Piper admitted. “But I’ll go with it. Because it’s clear she was there, screwing around with my family again.”
With a glance at the clock, Sam muttered something about the shop going to hell without him. “I really should get on,” he said.
Piper shooed him away. He’d been a great help. She couldn’t expect him to stay any longer. He packed up Magnus’s things and promised to bring the baby back after dinner, then seemed to remember something.
“Erm, actually, I guess it’s Thursday isn’t it?” he asked Evie hopefully.
Her face fell. Piper realized this was their custody arrangement and it was Sam’s turn to keep him overnight, or for the weekend. It was dumb and wrong and Piper had to turn away. She considered running down to see the horses so she didn’t have to see the long goodbye, but Sam made his exit with Mags mercifully quickly.
Evie had a lemon-sucking look on her face when she turned back around.
“What is it?” Piper asked. Had Sam asked her to move back in with him the night before and been shot down?
Evie wriggled as if her skin was too tight. “Nothing,” she said. “Just. Ugh. Nothing.” She looked at the empty bassinet and sighed. “I’m going to read the diary, is that okay? I’m dying to know everything.”
“What little there is to know,” Piper said, sliding back onto the bench. She rested her chin in her hand.
“Are you kidding?” Evie asked. “We learned so much. Your grandma went back in time before she ran off to America. Your mother was born in 1771.”
Yes, everything in the diary had been fascinating. She was glad her grandmother had found happiness, if only for a short time. What little she knew of her, she had never seemed content.
Daria had stolen that happiness, chased her from her land and heritage, from her true love, and made her fearful and bitter so that she alienated herself from her own daughter, never knew her granddaughter.
“And Daria was there,” Piper reminded Evie.
Evie grunted, but didn’t look up from her rapt absorption in the diary. The disappointment left a solid ache in Piper’s stomach, sure that there would have been answers in it. But she didn’t understand how any of it could help her fight Daria’s spirit.
Was that the lesson her grandmother had wanted her to learn by having her find the diary? Never expect a happy ending, because Daria was always there.
***
Later that evening, after having to pretend not to hear an uncomfortable phone argument Evie had with Sam, she got her to admit he’d asked her to move back in with him. They went around and around, until Evie finally agreed to give it a chance.
Piper was more relieved than she wanted to admit, even to herself. She wanted Sam and Evie to get back together, but she also wanted everyone to be a safe distance from her.
Mellie dragged herself in shortly afterwards and began tiredly pulling items from the refrigerator. The girl worked endlessly, putting herself through a nursing course, and doing double duty as Piper’s live-in housekeeper and chef.
Piper adored her, and Mellie loved living in the castle. She had admitted to dreaming about it when she was a little girl. It was going to be difficult getting her out without hurting her feelings, but Piper couldn’t have her be the sole target of her possible evil intentions.
“Put it all away, Mel,” Piper said. She knew she’d have to find a way to get her to leave, but it didn’t have to be tonight. “We’re celebrating.”
“No we aren’t,” Evie said, giving her a death glare.
“What is it?” asked Mellie, putting away the food.
“Evie’s moving out,” Piper said, her voice cracking. Well, damn. That was unexpected.
Poor Mellie’s face crumpled and she looked studiously at the bar.
“She’s moving back in with Sam!” Piper explained quickly, knowing she’d be unable to handle Mel’s tears.
“But that’s wonderful,” she said. “That is good news. You know I could whip up a pizza faster than we could get one up here from town.” She hurried to the pantry and brought out a ready-made pizza crust. “They’re quite good, I promise,” she said.
“Listen,” Evie said, full drill sergeant voice in effect. Mellie paused in unwrapping the crust. “Oh, I’m happy to eat homemade pizza, but this isn’t a celebration.”
Mellie frowned. “You’re not moving back in with Sam, then?”
Piper couldn’t help grinning at Evie’s discomfort. “Wait, you aren’t?” she asked meanly.
She couldn’t help it. It felt good and normal to tease her best friend. If she wasn’t mistaken, she might have even felt a bit hungry.
“Yes, but you know it’s just temporary. We aren’t getting back together.”
Mellie grinned as she sliced mushrooms with ninja speed. “I had that tiramisu I put in the freezer, but if it’s not a celebration, I guess we don’t have to have it.”
“I give up,” Evie said, throwing up her hands in defeat.
They ate the fattening feast in Mellie’s room, the only room that had a working television, and watched old episodes of Project Runway. They stopped teasing Evie and caught up with village gossip, of which Mel was a master, Evie her apprentice.
They didn’t talk about the past or old manuscripts or family secrets. For about an hour, Piper felt light. Full of food, which she ate mainly for the taste and was now uncomfortably stuffed, but for the first time in a long time, she felt lacking in darkness. She didn’t feel afraid for herself or anyone else.
When Mel began to nod off over her dessert plate, Evie and Piper took the dishes and snuck away, turning off the tv and the lights on their way.
“That was fun,” Evie said at the second floor landing. “I’ll miss nights like this.”
“No you won’t, because we’ll still have them.”
Evie nodded and headed to her own room, Piper turning in the opposite direction to hers. When she opened the door, her heaviness began to return. By the time she changed into her nightgown, the familiar sadness had enveloped her once more.
That’s okay, she thought. She could learn to live with it. At least she got a little break.
Hoover whined at the door until she let him in, glad she didn’t have to be alone.