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Her mother gave a little scream and dropped her parcel of baked goods. “Kami! You scared me,” she said as Kami knelt down and began to pick up the contents of the parcel.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Kami said reasonably. “So I lay in wait for you.”
Mum had known Kami since Kami was born, so she just sighed at this brilliant logic. And Kami did feel it was logical: Claire’s was both a bakery that Mum opened at six and a restaurant she did not close until midnight. Mum got home to see the boys in between, but lately Kami was at her newspaper headquarters then. So midnight lurking it was.
Her decision may have been slightly influenced by the fact that Mum always brought home treats. The bakery box was mostly intact, and the pastries on the floor still looked good. Kami handed her mother the box, then picked up a chocolate chip cookie from the floor.
“Don’t eat that,” Mum said.
Kami bit in. “Mmm, floor cookie.” She leaned against the counter and said, “Spill it.”
Mum slid the box onto the counter. “What are you talking about?” she asked warily.
“Mum,” Kami said, “have you met me? You tell me to stay away from someone, and you thought I’d say ‘Oh yes, Mother, of course, no further questions’ and sit about in the garden making daisy chains?”
“I’d like to hear ‘Oh yes, Mother, of course, no further questions,’ ” Mum said, sighing. “Just once.” She leaned forward, meeting Kami’s eyes in the dark kitchen as if they were going to do a business deal. “All right, Kami, I made a bit of a miscalculation there. I was slightly overwrought. Sometimes that happens when you get phone calls saying that your child has tumbled into a well. But can’t you trust me that these people are dangerous?”
“Trust you?” Kami said. “Of course I can trust you. But I want to know why.”
Mum suddenly looked more tired than she had before. “I hoped they would never come back,” she whispered. “A lot of us hoped that.”
“Whatever the Lynburns did,” Kami said, “Jared and Ash aren’t responsible. They weren’t even born.”
A branch knocked on the window, its leaves silver in the moonlight. Kami and her mother both jumped.
“It wasn’t what the Lynburns did,” Mum said very softly. “It was what they were. What they still are. Creatures of red and gold. The whole town was terrified of them. Lillian Lynburn thought she was queen of every blade of grass in the Vale, and Rosalind Lynburn looked through you as if you were too unimportant to even notice. If she did notice you, it chilled you to the bone. But Rob Lynburn’s parents were dead, and the twins’ father was sick for a long time before he died. All the time we were growing up, the Lynburns were losing their grip on the land, and then Rosalind left and the others went after her. I was so glad they were gone.”
Kami’d always thought her mother had a face like a woman in a Pre-Raphaelite painting. She wasn’t like Angela, always fashionably dressed with flawless makeup. Claire Glass was usually in quiet rebellion against her beauty, pinning her hair up, always in loose jeans and sweatshirts. Kami had never seen her mother look tragic before.
“What about Rob Lynburn?” Kami asked. “Dad said he was the one you knew best. He said he had an office above Claire’s and he had lunch early so he could talk to you. Were you afraid of him?”
“Rob?” Mum echoed, sounding startled. “I was, but I understood him better. You don’t get how people felt about the Lynburns back then. We were terrified, but we were fascinated too. There were a lot of people who would follow wherever a Lynburn led. Rob Lynburn was used to having a crowd of girls after him, and he liked the attention. He expected it from all of us. He came and had lunch with me, the way men do when they’re set on catching your eye.” Her voice was unself-conscious as she flipped open the lid of the bakery box to examine the damage done to its contents.
It would be nice to be crazy beautiful for a day, Kami thought, and then told herself that the way things were always happening to her—through no fault of her own—she might start a war like Helen of Troy. Being beautiful would probably be too much of a hassle.
“So, Rob Lynburn fancied you,” Kami said. “And all the girls were after him, and all the boys were after the twins. So the Lynburns are hot blonds? That doesn’t sound so scary.”
“It didn’t matter who was after the twins. Lillian never cared about anything and Rosalind never cared about anybody but Rob.”
“Her sister’s husband!” Kami squawked.
“Well, not at the time,” Mum said mildly.
“Jared’s mum was in love with Ash’s father?”
Mum raised an eyebrow. “Bit of a surprise when Rob married Lillian—to Rosalind most of all. We all thought that was why she left with that American: hurt pride, a broken heart. If any Lynburn has a heart. I was hoping that the boys would act like the Lynburns usually do: that they would stay away from normal people. That you could keep away from them.”
“Mum!” Kami exclaimed. “You don’t know Jared. Or Ash.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t know,” Mum said. “You don’t know what it’s like to be in the hands of a Lynburn.”
“They aren’t monsters!”
Her mother whispered, “Yes, they are.”
Kami skirted the counter to draw close to her mother. “Mum,” she asked, “what did a Lynburn make you do??
?
