Chapter 75 Mallory Plantation—Elliott
Mallory Plantation—Elliott
At ten fifteen, Elliott locked the door to the conference room. The metallic click echoed too loudly. He didn’t want anyone barging in after the meeting started. His pulse gave a quick thud, then settled into that low hum that always came before something he didn’t want to do but couldn’t avoid.
There were more people than he thought would attend in person.
Chairs scraped as the group shifted to make room for the late arrivals—Remy, Clay, Rick, and Tavis rolling forward in Charlotte’s new tilt-in-space wheelchairs, the mechanical whirring overlapping faintly with the drip of the coffee urn.
The sight of them—bright eyes set in battered faces—twisted something in his chest. He wanted fewer witnesses, not more, but there was no turning back.
Sophia arrived with Pete at her shoulder.
She was poised, already sorting colored pencils into a neat, meticulous line that reminded Elliott why he’d called her.
The room smelled faintly of coffee, whisky, and chocolate chip cookies.
David and Kenzie had taken the far end of the table, both laptops open, their blue screens casting light over their faces.
Elliott made himself move toward the opposite end.
He could feel the weight of every eye as he passed.
His spine stayed straight, but there was a tremor just under the surface—an energy that wouldn’t settle.
The leather of his chair creaked when he sat.
Meredith touched his arm briefly, grounding him, before folding her hands in her lap.
“Sophia,” David began. “Did Pete tell ye about the latest adventure to Chicago and New York City?”
Sophia’s lips curved. “He did. I wish I’d known—Capone would’ve made a fascinating subject to paint. Are we going back there?”
“Not this time, lass,” Elliott said. “Each of ye has a stake in what I’m about to tell ye.
Some more than others. Before I explain this to the entire family, I wanted to bring a few of ye inside so ye’d have the information to answer their questions later.
This is a bizarre story.” He looked around the table.
“I’d appreciate it if ye’d hold yer questions until I’m finished.
I don’t want yer questions to interfere with Sophia’s drawing.
There are scratchpads on the table to jot down notes.
Clay will take pictures to review later.
He’s promised to silence the camera shutter. ”
“What am I going to draw?” she asked, lining up a stack of individual sheets of drawing paper next to her colored pencils.
“Oz,” he said, forcing a thin smile. “The Magic Kingdom, Nirvana, the Garden of Eden. Or maybe hell itself. We’ll find out.”
“I want to know what you see,” she said, pencil poised.
“What’s in front of you, to the side, above, behind, and what you smell, sense, or feel.
Everything is important.” Sophia picked up a pencil and numbered the first page in the top-right corner.
“Start at the beginning of whatever happened that brought us here.”
He hesitated. The phrase, the beginning, pressed on his lungs like a weight. “To do that,” he said, “I’d have to start decades ago.”
Sophia’s hand came to rest lightly over his.
Her fingers were cool but certain. “If our goal is to understand what happened, then everything you remember is important without filtering your memories or censoring them. The goal is to allow unconscious material to emerge. I’ll draw what you see, and when we finish, we’ll look for hidden pictures. How’s that sound?”
Something in the steadiness of her tone broke his resistance. He swallowed, the sound loud in his ears. Every time Sophia did this for the family, the sudden and surprising disclosures were earth-shattering, and he wasn’t sure he was prepared for today’s.
He was a little shaky when he said, “Let’s begin.”
Remy removed an ice pack from his groin and picked up a scratchpad and pen. “I doan know how long I can stay awake. If I fall asleep, ignore me.”
“That’s hard to do,” Tavis said. “Your snoring is a crescendo that gets progressively louder, followed by a pause in breathing, and then a sudden snort.”
“I doan snore, asshole.” He cut a side glance at Skye, sitting beside him, and weakly asked, “Do I?”
She reached over and stroked his arm. “Sometimes. But I just put in my ear thingies and turn on music, so I don’t hear you.”
Tavis laughed and then groaned, gingerly holding the side of his head. “Don’t make me do that again.”
“Don’t make me throw yer asses out of here,” Elliott snapped.
“If Remy misbehaves again, I’ll roll him out into the hallway,” Skye promised. “But somebody else will have to manage Tavis.”
“I’ll take care of Tavis. Now, let’s get on with it. McBain and I have a late date tonight.” Kenzie winked at David.
He looked at her over the top of his glasses. “We do?”
She mimicked him, looking over a pair of invisible glasses. “We do!”
He grinned at her as if she were the last chocolate chip cookie on the plate. “Let’s get this meeting started.”
“Let me remind ye to hold yer questions, interruptions, outbursts, laughs, jests, coughs, throat clears, obscenities, and side comments until I’m through. Ye’ll break our concentration and delay our discoveries. If ye can’t, then get the hell out.”
Elliott stepped over to the credenza, poured a cup of coffee, and then adjusted the thermostat, delaying because, damn it, he was terrified.
He reclaimed his swivel captain’s chair. After taking a sip of coffee, he said, “Sophia said to start at the beginning of whatever brought us here. Most of ye have heard a part of this story, but I think there’s more to it.”
Then Elliott hunched, his head drooped, and he didn’t say anything for several minutes as memories took shape.
“I’m ten years old, and I’m in the barn on the castle property, hiding, crying.”
“Do you know why?” Sophia’s pencil made soft scratchy sounds.
“My mother left me, and then she died. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have let her go. I sat there in despair, and then a woman came to me.” Elliott paused, realizing that after almost seventy years, he could finally tell someone what happened, and they’d believe him.
“What did the woman look like, the color of her hair, her eyes? What do you remember?”
“I don’t know. Gentle.” Elliott’s fingers moved unconsciously in the air, sketching curves. “Her presence was warm—like sunlight through fog. It felt… safe. Safe was new to me.”
“What about her eyes?”
Elliott shook his head. “I couldn’t see them.”
“Why not?”
Elliott ignored the question, took a deep breath, and then slowly released it. “She told me what I was facing would forge an iron will, a deep reserve of compassion, and wisdom to guide the ones who would… save… the world.”
Sophia’s pencil moved faster, the gritty drag of charcoal growing louder. “What color were her eyes?” she asked again, softly insistent.
And again, he ignored the question. “The woman said I could cry my eyes out now, but the tears of despair would eventually be tears of joy. The joy might not come in the morning, but it would come. I didn’t believe her.”
“Elliott—her eyes?” Sophia asked for the third time, and she continued sketching.
“The woman told me I would face enormous responsibility, and that I could not fail.”
The faint sound of Sophia’s pencil grew louder and grittier. “Did she say her name?”
“She said that when it was time for me to know, the truth would reveal itself.”
“Does that mean anything to you now?” Sophia asked.
Elliott shook his head.
“Was it the first time you had seen her? Did she ever come to you again?”
His throat seized around the word no. He coughed it out, something between a sigh and a growl. “I—” His voice broke. “I don’t know.”
“What color were her eyes?” Sophia asked again.
He pressed his fingers against his forehead.
The gesture wasn’t conscious at first—it was the same way she had touched him all those years ago.
“She brushed my brow,” he whispered, “combed through my hair. Her hand was warm and soft, and her voice…” His breath shook.
“Her parting words were that sons should always know their mother’s love. Then she was gone.”
Sophia sketched a woman’s fingers sweeping across Elliott’s brow.
Meredith was about to ask a question when Sophia put a finger over her mouth. “Elliott, what did you see then? Her eyes? Did you watch her walk away? Did she just vanish?”
“Ah…” He blinked fast and gave his head a sharp shake, as if to throw off the daze. “She left in the fog.”
Sophia’s pencil swept across the page. “A brooch fog, or the kind you have in the Highlands?”
“It wasn’t drizzling like Highland fogs.”
“Did you notice anything about her hands other than her slim fingers?” Sophia drew a picture of a faceless woman with her arm extended.
“One arm was at her side. The other held a brooch, but I couldn’t see the stone.”
“What do you believe about the woman?”
“She came to help me.”
“Did you feel better?”
He shook his head. “No.” Then he took a deep breath, blew it out, and repeated the process several times. “I did… feel better, or I feel better now. I don’t know which is true.”
“I’m not a psychologist, Elliott, but I’ve spent a lot of time looking through your eyes, drawing what you see.
I don’t believe you wanted to feel better as a ten-year-old.
You were still punishing yourself for causing your mother to leave, which was a lie you believed.
It wasn’t you who caused her to leave. Was it?
You had nothing to do with it, and wearing a clean shirt wouldn’t have mattered at all. ”
“If Sophia will let me ask a question—”
Sophia held her finger to her lips, hushing Meredith again.
Elliott patted Meredith’s hand to let her know it was okay.
“Go back to the barn, Elliott, and look around. What else do you see or hear? Are there other people there?” Sophia sketched a boy in the straw.