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I’m shell-shocked for the second time in as many minutes and press my fingertips to my temples. It does little to ease the tension making my head ache.
This is ludicrous, and I have no idea whether to believe him or not.
“Are you and Cora involved?”
He shakes his head. “Not anymore. Cora was eighteen when she first arrived here and we hit it off immediately. We hung out a lot. Then one night…” He reddens and looks away. “I pictured us leaving Arcania together. But Cora was drawn to Harlan Medville too and the next thing I knew they were engaged and she was pregnant.”
“Did you question the paternity?”
He nods, his expression so bleak I wish I could comfort him. “She assured me the baby was Harlan’s and Ava was born a few weeks early, so I had to accept the truth. But as Ava grew in that first year, I’d find myself studying her, and seeing snippets of myself in her.” He grimaces. “It may have been wishful thinking but I couldn’t take the chance of leaving in case Cora had lied to me. I’d already witnessed strange occurrences here, the cult-like atmosphere, so I stayed so I could watch over her child.” His intake of breath is sharp. “My child. I knew I couldn’t leave. I’d do anything I could to protect her.”
His eyes glaze over, lost in remembrance. “We bonded from the start, almost like Ava had a sixth sense I was someone special to her. She trusted me when she didn’t trust many in Arcania, not even her mother. Which ended up being a smart thing to do.”
He blinks rapidly, and I hope he’s not going to cry. “Cora wanted to bind Ava to Arcania. To ensure she had an heir to carry on after she dies. That tattoo on your mother’s sole? Cora stood by and watched as Harlan had her daughter branded like the rest of his workers in some warped way to prove loyalty. We all have them. And when you don’t want them, like Ava didn’t, it’s degrading.”
I press my hand to my chest. It does nothing to ease the tightness making breathing difficult. “What about my father?”
“He was a nice boy. A year older than Ava, a backpacker from California passing through. He was a carpenter who did some renovations for a while, then stayed on to work the orchard for a few months because he was smitten with Ava, and the feeling was mutual. Unfortunately, Harlan noticed too, and he started keeping an obsessive watch over Ava. Then Sam disappeared. We were told he’d left to continue his travels, but he would’ve never left Ava without saying goodbye.”
Disapproval pinches his mouth. “Ava found out she was pregnant two weeks later and confided in me because she suspected what I thought, that Harlan had made Sam disappear and Cora probably knew about it, either by offering him a large sum of money to leave or…”
Spencer doesn’t need to finish the sentence. The implication is clear, and I hug my knees tighter to my chest.
“I promised I’d help her escape. Her only thought was to protect her unborn child. Being taken by an alligator in the swamp seemed the most likely, but I knew Cora wouldn’t buy it unless there was some kind of proof. So when I saw that body on the beach…it was gruesome, but I had to get that finger.”
I wince, though somewhat impressed at Spencer mutilating a dead body to help save his daughter. “But how did she get away if Cora was watching her?”
“The tunnels. I know them like the back of my hand and one of them ends about two miles away and at low tide, it’s easy. I’d been diving for years, feigning an interest in finding Cora’s special golden compass, never telling her I found the occasional gold coin. That day your mother escaped, she had twenty-five gold coins with her. Her chance at a better life. And a life unencumbered by Arcania for you.”
I’m overwhelmed by how much Spencer did for Mom. The lengths he went to in order to protect her.
“I don’t know what to say,” I murmur, overcome by emotion. “Thank you for saving my mom. And me.”
Shadows cloud his eyes. “But ultimately, I didn’t save Ava because I believe Cora found her and if so, she has her sights set on you.”
Chapter40
Cora
THEN
If losingAva the first time around had devastated me, this time my pain is unbearable. More so because when I return to Arcania I have to pretend like everything is fine. I have to pretend that I didn’t witness my only child dying when struck by a bus. I have to pretend like I didn’t meld into the crowd and run away so I wouldn’t be blamed for her death. I have to pretend like I haven’t just killed another member of my family, no matter how inadvertently.
I remember Harlan ranting about Arcania’s curse one day and now I wonder if I’m tainted with it, too. I scoffed at the time, putting it down to the ravings of a lunatic because Harlan’s obsession with finding the compass consumed him, but with the deaths on our collective consciences, maybe there’s something to it after all.
I can’t get the image of Ava’s expression as she stumbled out of my head. She’d been aghast and repulsed by me reaching out to touch her and, in her effort to avoid it, she’d fallen into the path of that bus.
To be so abhorrent to my daughter, to listen to her accusations that I wouldn’t have stood by her and that’s why she cut me out of her life hurts so deep I’ll never recover. As if the guilt I caused her death isn’t bad enough.
A small part of me wonders if I can make amends by establishing a relationship with Lucy. I want to reach out to her so badly there’s a permanent ache in my chest where my heart once functioned. The same heart that’s now shattered because Ava and I will never have a second chance.
But I can have one with Lucy if I approach her carefully. She’ll be grieving now and not in the right frame of mind to embrace a grandmother she obviously knows nothing about. From what Ava said, she’d left to protect Lucy, and that means my granddaughter is unaware Arcania or I exist.
It’s particularly difficult to pretend in front of Spencer. I had to research the wellness centre on Long Island where I supposedly went for two days because he asked me about it at length, as if trying to catch me out in a lie.
And when he goes through the guests arriving tomorrow, I wonder if he knows more than he’s letting on. Because there are two couples checking in and one single.
Lucy Phillips.
