Collinwood
Quentin and Laura!
Such a nuisance it was to be old, not being up and about,
seeing what was happening in
your own house. And for them all to be thinking that her mind
had grown as feeble as her
body, telling her nothing.
Well, if that wasn't just like Edward, treating her as though
she were already in her grave!
What other secrets was he keeping from her? At least Judith had
the good sense to tell
her about all these scandalous things. Imagine, Quentin and Laura!
How long had that
been going on? And Edward! How could he be trusted to run a business,
when he
couldn't even run his own household? Well, something must be done
of that...Edward
would need watching.
Quentin...such a reckless boy he had always been, but his
own brother's wife? She had
never liked Laura, well let that tell them all something. They
thought her an old fool, did
they? Well, she at least had the sense to never trust that Laura.
So she had run off after
Quentin had she? Well good riddance to her, and just see if she
would be allowed back in
this house, not so long as Edith had a breath left in her.
Those poor children. What had they been told? Jamison so
loved his uncle, it would
break his little heart to know of these things. It was a good
thing that Edward had sent
Jenny away, maybe the boy could believe that Quentin had the good
taste to leave with his
own wife, not his brother's.
Poor Jenny, she missed her singing. And such a pretty thing
she was, what a fool Quentin
had been. What a fool she herself had been, taken in by her grandson,
as if she were just
another one of those silly young things who went all a-flutter
whenever he batted those
blue eyes of his. Well, Magda had been right all along, hadn't
she? Quentin loved no one
so much as he loved himself. Now two marriages lay in ruins, and
poor Jenny gone off
somewhere with no prospects, she would always have to be alone.
There would be no
divorce, not in this family. If Quentin wanted to ruin himself,
that was up to him, but
Edith would not allow him to ruin the family's good name. As for
Edward, well, let him
just lie in a bed of his own making. He should have been paying
attention to what was
going on right under his nose.
Now what was Edith to do? It would serve them right if she
just washed her hands of the
whole lot of them, let them just do for themselves. But those
poor little children,
motherless now, what would happen to them if she didn't look out
for things? Their father
had proved just how capable he was of seeing what went on around
him. No telling what
those children could get away with under his eyes. And Carl, well
Carl was no more
grown up then they were. Quentin, it was best if he just stayed
away, she would continue
to provide for him, see to it that he had the means to take care
of himself. Isn't that just
what she had been doing anyway, even if she hadn't realized what
was going on?
She supposed Evan knew everything. He must, if he was handling
the matter of Quentin.
Of all people to trust with this. It was bad enough that Evan
knew every detail of the
family's business and finances, now he was privy to such personal
information.
Well, that would change. She had told Judith not to telephone
Evan, but to go directly to
him. Tell him to come here, tonight. To bring her will with him.
Then she would throw it
right into that fire there, right in front of him, she would.
He would know nothing then,
let's see how he liked that. It could be quite fun, watching Evan
trying to balance them all
in the palm of his hand, not knowing which one of them to sew
up neatly into his pocket.
He thought he was so clever, Evan Handley did, well she still
had a few tricks of her own.
She knew what she had to do. Magda and Sandor would be here
soon, and she was
ready.
Alexandria
How long had it taken for Evan's letter to reach him? Why
couldn't Evan simply date a
letter like everyone else did? Now he had no way of knowing just
how long it had been
since his grandmother had destroyed the will.
That she had done so at all told him all he needed to know
about what was going on at
home. Somehow, Edith had found out. But how much did she know?
She couldn't be
certain that Laura was here, with him. Or him with her. None of
them could know that for
sure. If he could only see his grandmother, talk to her. He could
make her believe
whatever he said, he had been doing so all his life. He just had
to get around Edward, get
to his grandmother to be invited home.
Jamison. That was the way to go. He could write Jamison,
post the letter to Evan's
address. I miss you Jamison, miss Grandmama, miss Collinwood.
Then Jamison would
tell Edith, and Edith would let him come home. No matter how put
out she was with him,
she would never deny the boy. Just like she had never denied him,
or Carl. She would let
him come home, and he could find out just where he stood with
her.
Laura would never just let him walk away. She wanted him
here for a reason, he just
could not for the life of him understand just what that reason
was. She hardly paid
attention to him, always going off by herself, sometimes for days.
That was fine by him,
but he did wish he knew just where she went, what she did. He
didn't even bother to ask
anymore, she would never tell him. When they did happen into conversation,
he would try
to draw her out, but she was so good at telling him nothing. Even
small talk had to be a
mystery with her, he couldn't even mention the children without
her giving him that look,
and telling him that everything she did, she did for her children.
As if she were far more of
a mother to them a world away than she had ever been at Collinwood.
He had to get loose of Laura, and to do that, he had to
learn her secrets. Only than would
he be free to go home.
But she was so slippery, here he had been following her
for nearly an hour, and still she
had managed to disappear, practically in front of him. He knew
this area, knew that it was
another field of those strange tombs the Egyptians had such a
penchant for. How could
she have slipped from his sight here?
But there, there she was, rising up, as if from the ground.
Could it be possible she had
actually gone into one of those tombs? He hid behind a stone monolith,
grateful for the
pecuiarity of these people who would erect such a monument in
the middle of nowhere.
He watched her walking away, hearing his heart pound with each
step that carried her
further, hating the interminable nothingness she had to cross
before being gone from his
sight.
When, finally, she was, he hurried to the spot he had seen
her appear. There, flush with
the ground was a level slab. He pulled at the iron ring in its
center, lifting it away from the
opening it concealed. Down beyond a flight of stairs a torched
burned, and he wondered
that it could remain lit in such an airless pit.
He would have liked to have run, to be far away from this
place, but the need to know
what Laura had been doing was greater than his fear, and so he
descended the stairs.
A fire burned in the center of the room he found himself
in, a single flame, independent of
any kindling. The walls seemed irridescent, as though the light
from the flame had been
absorbed by the ancient chamber. He had the sense of looking not
so much at a room as
at a book, for everywhere there were the symbols, he could understand
none of them.
They looked like a child's drawings, crude and unfinished, all
but one, over there, on the
far wall, which blazed with color.
He moved closer, so as to see more clearly what had been
etched with such percision. It
was a bird, majestic in its flight, its wings spread in a victorious
defiance. So captivated
was he with the arc of its head, the almost human stare of its
eye, he almost didn't look
further, to the body of the bird.
And when he did, he wished he hadn't, because there, were
the breast should have been,
was a woman's face. Lifelike. Menacing. Unnatural.
Laura.
He ran, not feeling his skin tear as he tripped up the stairs.
Ran through the heat of the
desert, not daring to look behind him. Ran from the terror that
was nipping at his heels.
What was she?
Collinwood
Her time had come. She had felt the pains in the early morning,
and embraced each one.
She liked this pain that grasped her, it was so much easier to
bear than the one that had
torn at her heart for so long now.
The pains came in waves, and she rode each one, hoping that
it would be the last, that it
would carry her to the shore, so that she could hold her baby,
Quentin's baby. She was so
tired of this, of being alone in this room, she wanted her baby
to come so she wouldn't
have to be all by herself, but with every pain, she clutched at
Beth's hand, asking if it was
time, and Beth would only say, not just yet, not quite yet, Jenny.
Judith sat in the corner, watching, wondering why she had
to be here at all. Beth seemed
capable enough, she seemed to know what she was doing, and this
whole business of
birthing a baby was such a messy one. No one had ever told her
it would take so long.
She had no interest in even seeing this child, it would be gone
in so little time, she would
not even remember what it looked like, so what was the point?
Beth mopped Jenny's brow with a cool cloth, and thought
of her mother, of all the dead
brothers and sisters she had held, watching the life drain out
of tiny bodies. When had she
stopped looking forward to the births, stopped loving the lives
that never really had a
chance to be? Never, she knew, just as Jenny would never be able
to stop loving this child
that would be taken from her.
She turned to look at Judith. "I think you should be ready. It is time."
Flustered, Judith tried to remember what she had been told.
The bath water, the warm
blankets, all must be ready. It had been so difficult to make
the proper preperations, here
in the tower, away from everyone, but they could not risk anyone
hearing the cries, either
Jenny's or the child's. This house had the most modern of plumbing,
yet here she was, in a
drafty room, keeping water warm in a kitchen pan over a kerosene
flame. Helping to
deliver the child of a brother she hated. She should have insisted
that Edward be here,
common decency had, after all, been left behind when Quentin had
made a mockery of the
entire family. She didn't know why Edward insisted on pretending
that none of what was
happening now was real.
But here Beth was, holding it now. It was a disgusting little
thing, covered in blood, but
Beth handled it as thought it were beautiful. She dipped it into
the water, and the traces
of its birth washed away. Wrapped in a fresh blanket, it looked
like it really was human
after all. Beth looked up at her, "A little girl."
Then, before she even had a chance to know it was happening,
she was holding it. She
had never touched anything so tiny before, she had never had much
of an interest in her
brothers when they were small, and was glad for that now. If she
had touched them then,
when they were as small and helpless as this baby girl, she may
have loved them. Even
Quentin, and to love him now could only complicate reason. She
sat holding the infant,
not noticing the minutes slip by her. The baby was sleeping so
peacefully, she was startled
to hear a cry. She looked up, and Beth was again bent over the
tub of bath water, again
placing a little body in a blanket. My God, she could scarcely
believe this, there were two
of them.
He looked nothing like his sister, this second child. Where
she had just the barest hint of
russet hair, his head was capped with a thick shock of chestnut
waves. He wasn't content
to sleep, like the girl, but seemed aware that something had changed
in his world, and
eagar to rush forward to meet those changes. His cries were indignant,
as though he were
frustrated by his own helplessness.
Holding him, Beth could feel the vibrancy of life that was
this little boy. He looked clearly
at her, and his eyes were not the clouded navy color of an infant's,
but a brilliant blue. She
knew those eyes as well as she knew her own name, and holding
this child, she felt herself
as empty as Jenny's womb now was.
Jenny. She turned to look, and Jenny was watching her, patient,
waiting to be told it was
all right to take her own children into her arms. She walked to
the bed, and gently gave
Quentin's son over to his mother. Taking the girl from Judith,
she laid the baby in Jenny's
other arm. "You have twins, Jenny, a boy and a girl."
The girl slept on, but the boy still fussed, and Jenny,
with a maternal clarity that denied the
confused state of her mind, drew her child to her breast. They
watched, Judith and Beth,
each knowing what must be done when Jenny fell asleep.
And Jenny did sleep, drowsy with happiness. When she awoke,
there were no babies, and
she thought maybe she had dreamt them.
Alexandria
"A legend, Mr. Collins. It may seem a fairy tale to
you, but, I assure you, legends are
often as real as anything you could read in a history book."
Quentin did not need the reassurance. Even if he had not
seen the etching in the tomb he
would have believed. He hadn't needed to be a part of this place,
hadn't needed to grow
up hearing the tales as familiar to the children here as his own
hometown widows were to
him.
He needed only to know Laura. He had led them to the tomb,
and they had told him their
legend, and doing so had given Laura a name.
Phoenix. Fire and ashes.
He remembered listening to Laura talk, how he had not heard
her words, only the
intoxicating sound of her voice. How may fires had he sat by with
her? How long had she
been letting the flames seep into him, carried by the whisper
of her breath in his ear? All
along, he realized, all along. From the first, and all across
the years, this is where she had
been leading him.
He understood her reason now, she had needed him to get
here. Edward would never
have provided her the means, so she had used Quentin. She had
taken his hatred for
Edward, and Edward's for him, and had woven it into a tapestry
of indiscretion that
Edward would spare no expense to hide.
Now her tapestry had become unraveled, and here he was,
in this God-forsaken place with
a woman who had manipulated him into throwing it all away. It
could not be to late.
Evan had to have given Jamison his letter by now, Jamison would
be thinking of him,
missing him, and soon he would hear that he had his grandmother's
blessing to come
home. He had trusted that damned gypsy to Evan, and had been disappointed,
but how
wrong could Evan go with a small boy?
But for now, his problem was that boy's mother. He would
do anything these men told
him, anything to be rid of Laura. Rid of her so that she could
never return to choke every
last chance out of his life.
Burn. They were saying she must burn, but away from
the sacred tomb of her god. Away
from the pagan flame that would allow for her to rise again. But
what if they were
wrong? What if she defied their legends, for wasn't she the very
thing of which such
legends were made? How could these men, who were merely mortal,
understand every
nuance and intricacy that allowed for her to be?
But he had only them to trust, and he would do as they said.
They would be watching,
this they promised him, and when she returned, he was to draw
the gauze curtains away
from the window so that they would know, and they would come for
her, take her away.
He would be free of her.
Then they were gone, and he was alone in this room, alone
waiting for her to return. He
laid down on the bed, but was afraid to sleep. Closing his eyes,
he willed other thoughts
to crowd out Laura, thoughts of home and times spent before she
had begun this game.
Summer afternoons with Carl at the brook, games of hide and seek
in the woods with
Jamison. His grandmother patting his hand, now there's a good
boy.
Then another image came to him, and he could see Beth standing
there, watching him as
he readied to leave. Take care of yourself, Quentin. He remembered
the look in her eyes,
and was warmed to think that it hadn't condemned him. He shifted
on the bed, turning to
face the empty place beside him, and wondered what she would look
like in the soft
diffusion of dawn, with the early morning tinting her skin shades
of rose, her hair spilling
like sunlight across his pillow.
When it was done, when Laura was gone and the letter from
Evan arrived telling him it
was time to come home, when this place was far behind him, and
he walked through the
doors of Collinwood, she would not be there.
He wondered if he would ever not be lonely again.