day 1, afternoon #2
Claire frowned, glancing into the shadows of the hallway again before resuming her steady trek downward.
She hadn’t known Elias’s family was religious, but she guessed it made sense.
He’d always had a deep disdain for pretty much every major religion, scoffed at its falseness, its inability to see the world as it truly was.
Everything was so much bigger than standard religion wanted it to be, Elias would say.
So much messier. He was vehement enough in his revulsion that Claire actively avoided situations that might bring up the topic, not wanting to argue.
Because it always felt like an argument, even though she largely agreed with him.
Now she assumed that most of Elias’s contempt had come from being part of a family that built church pieces into their palatial estate. Fair enough.
“Do you have questions, Claire?” The Ashburys were still moving down the spiral staircase, disappearing into the gloom beyond.
Dierdre didn’t look back as she spoke this time, and her voice was quiet, as if she didn’t want to be overheard.
She’d married into this family, too. Maybe she still thought their idiosyncrasies were kind of weird and wanted to give Claire reassurance.
The thought brought warmth. “Not really,” Claire answered. “I just didn’t know you guys were religious.”
“In a sense,” Dierdre said. “It’s more about tradition. The rules, you know?”
Claire didn’t. But she nodded anyway.
Down, down, Claire followed the Ashburys, feeling the weight of the stone pressing around her, the knowledge of how deep underground they must be.
None of the windows she’d seen on the side of the cliff looked in on the staircase, nothing to break up the dimness.
There were only stone and dark and those weird mermaid statues, all claws and scales and teeth.
A lamp lit the way every few feet, wide and squat and suspended on a metal post that curved at the top, reminding her of the smoky lights you’d see next to a dock in an old movie. Other than that, shadows.
The mermaid statues made her think of her dream on the plane.
Elias rotting, Elias apologizing. As much as she wanted to see him alive again, she hoped she didn’t have another dream like that, wet and decomposing, pieces of him dropping away.
Though she didn’t want to see him as he’d looked in the first dream, either.
Maybe it’d be a good thing, to see his body. Closure. Put a pin in everything. There had been times the past few days when the clock approached five and she realized she was waiting for him to get home.
Finally the stairs stopped, leveling out to a flat landing.
Those odd old-movie lamps lined the edges of the room, shades patterned with the same ripple as the columns out front, the carpet upstairs.
A door nearly covered the wall before them, outlined with a sinuous shape that reminded Claire of the symbol painted on the side of the jet. The Ashburys loved a theme.
Elias’s family lined up in front of the door. Everyone’s face held a soft smile—other than Wellsley’s, but Claire assumed that was because his face didn’t really do soft—and again, it was Dierdre who spoke.
“We’re so glad you decided to come, Claire.
” Her smile wasn’t just soft; there was a hint of sadness to it.
Claire realized, just then, that none of the Ashburys really seemed to be grieving.
Though she guessed she couldn’t throw that particular stone from inside her extremely brittle glass house.
Maybe they were all as good at burying bad emotions as she was.
From what little she knew of the stupidly rich, that seemed to be a feature.
Even Elias had never excelled at showing his feelings, as Dr. Lark was fond of reminding her.
They were either absent or came in elaborate waves, huge gestures that made her feel simultaneously loved and slightly confused.
“We’re so glad you decided to be part of this.” This from Audrey, stepping slightly forward. She nodded her blonde head, smoothed her movie-star-expensive dress over her movie-star-thin thighs. Her smile trembled a little. “I always wanted a daughter.”
And Claire’s heart swelled, glowed.
“You’re one of us, Claire.” Wellsley had his hands shoved in his pockets.
The stance was so like Elias, like staring at a future he’d never have.
“You were a good choice, and we’ll always regret that you and Elias were never able to make it official.
” He said his son’s name with no break, speeding over it like he was afraid to spend too much time there.
They grieved, then. They were just good at hiding it.
Despite the warmth that flooded her—Audrey always wanting a daughter, the rest of them treating her like family—cold still seeped in at her edges.
The knowledge of being underground was hard to shake, and it made her acutely aware of the staircase at her back.
Surely they wouldn’t mind if she requested that they stay up in the castle?
Her legs twitched to run, to go, head up the staircase and into the open air, her gut at odds with her brain.
One telling her to get the hell out, one telling her this was all she’d ever wanted.
“Dear God,” came a voice from the shadows. “Are you guys trying to be creepy as shit?”
The voice was startling, made them all jump. The Ashbury patriarch’s mouth was a hard, steady line, but the ocean blue of his eyes had turned hurricane.
“Wellington,” he said, craning his head to look beside the door. A shape there, hidden in the shadows cast by the curved carvings. “How nice of you to finally join us.”
It took Claire a moment to realize he was addressing the shape, not just stating his own name. It took another moment for her to put together who that meant the shape was.
The shape pushed off from the wall, long and lanky, broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. A fizzle, a crack, then the spark of a lighter, held to the end of a cigarette.
The light of it illuminated the figure, incredibly bright in the gloom.
Sharp-planed face, shaggy dark-gold hair. Bright-blue Ashbury eyes.
Wellington Ashbury VI. Ash.
“Sorry I missed the initiation.” Ash stepped into the light of the lamps, blowing a plume of smoke that dissipated into the air.
Claire barely smelled it. The room was big enough that it was like someone smoking outside.
“Looks like you got it covered, though. She didn’t run screaming yet. Great job, team.”
There was something familiar about his voice. Not like Patrick’s; low and scratchy. Probably from the cigarettes. But Claire felt like she’d heard it before.
Audrey’s face was pale, her lips a white line. Patrick and Greg, too. Dierdre and Theo exchanged a quick, unreadable look, eyes darting from each other to Claire and then to nothing at all. Only Wellington—the father Wellington—didn’t seem particularly affected. He just looked annoyed.
“Yes,” he said, and the one word softened the shoulders of the others, almost like it was a relief. “She’s here.” Then, turning to Claire and infusing his voice with out-of-place jocularity: “And she didn’t think of running screaming once, did you, Miss Sutherland?”
Claire arranged her lips in a smile, almost a challenge, and met Elias’s brother’s eyes. “I didn’t even think of running silently. I don’t think I could in Louboutins.”
It took them a minute to figure out it was supposed to be a joke, which said far more about Claire than it did about them, but after a split second the Ashburys laughed, all of them except Ash. He just stood there, smoking his cigarette and watching her.
When the laughter died away, it seemed to take the tension in the air with it. Something shattered, and suddenly they were all just people again, a fractured family that might be a little odd, but hey, that’s what massive loss did. Claire knew all about it.
“Wellington,” Audrey said plaintively to her son, making a show of waving her hand in front of her face. “I have asked you over and over not to smoke in the house.”
“Yeah, Audrey, you have.” Ash made no move to comply. Neither did he make it a point to take a huge breath of nicotine. He instead remained exactly as he had been before, slowly puffing away and watching Claire, wholly unaffected.
Audrey’s pale face went a shade paler. She turned to her husband, leaving the subject of her son’s smoking behind. “Wellsley, let’s bring her in, shall we? She’s waited long enough. It was an arduous trip.”
All the Ashburys looked to their patriarch. He nodded, once. “Yes, I think you’re right.”
Ash snorted around his cigarette.
Then, as if Audrey’s thought made it happen, the doors cranked open, and light flooded through.
Claire gasped. Gauche, probably, but the gasp was just as much from relief as it was from awe.
Finally, here were the windows—a whole wall of them, turning the house from a grave to a wonder.
At least a dozen rows to Claire’s right, all covered in water and backlit by the setting sun.
Silvery fish swam beyond the glass, as if only the prettiest sea creatures were allowed to get close.
Beside the wall of windows were a long table flanked by heavy chairs and a small collection of couches next to a bookshelf.
To Claire’s left, balconies, six of them, all backed by rows of identical doors and facing the wall of windows.
A staircase connected the ends of the balconies, absent of mermaid statues.
She and the Ashburys stood on its largest landing, level with the third balcony, where the staircase turned and led to the main floor.
And on that main floor, no coffin. No Elias lying in state.
Relief softened Claire’s hand on her suitcase, and her knuckles ached from an iron grip she hadn’t realized she held until she let it go. She’d ask the Ashburys where he was later, but for now, she was glad not to see him. So much for closure.