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His gaze shifted from Horace to Evelyn, Dorcas, and finally Helen.
Look.
He felt tugged southward. Holding his breath at the strange, faint sensation, he stood and shifted that way, peering into the untouched weeds, stepping on a tail of morning glory.
Reaching out, he parted grass one way and then another. Took a step, parted. Stepped, parted. Saw a glimmer of gray against the earth.
Crouching again so his knees would hold back some of the flora, he ran his hand over the unmarked stone. It was small, about the length of his head. Unassuming, dull, flat.
He curled his hands around it and lifted it. A centipede wriggled out from below, along with some beetles.
Merritt swept damp earth from the underside of the rock and saw beneath it the faintest carving of anO.
His pulse sped. Kneeling for better balance, he scrubbed his palm over the stone, uncovering a birth date that had broken apart midcentury, leaving just the bottom of a six. Grasping a clump of grass, he gingerly worked away grime, then pressed into the grooves with his fingers to help him read what time had worn away.
O. W. E. L?No,I. And it ended with anN. It was a Welsh name.Owein.
Merritt ran his thumb over the death date. Owein Mansel. Perished at age twelve. Before two of his sisters and both parents.
I don’t understand it. It couldn’t have been the parents. They didn’t have the right...mix.
No,Merritt thought.Not the parents.Lifting his fingers, he counted. One, Crisly. Two, Dorcas. And three, the youngest, Helen.
He looked at the faded birth date.Not the youngest.
Owein was. Born after Helen, though he’d lived eight years longer.
Merritt knew in his gut that this was the wizard. His stone had been dislodged, but his body would be lying beside his family, the location unmarked.
Glancing back to the other graves, a sinking feeling weighed him down. His hands clutched the stone.Separated from your family, are you?
Just like he was.
No wonder the boy’s spirit clung to the house. He’d died young, so young, and hadn’t wanted to lose his family. He had so much more to give... and he must have gotten the full brunt of his ancestors’ magical abilities, given all the spells he could cast. Come to think of it, the mischief of Whimbrel House very much seemed like the workings of a twelve-year-old boy.
No wonder he’d been so miserable when Merritt arrived! He’d been alone for so long... he was likely depressed, hurt, and angry. God knew Merritt would have been. Even the surveyors had separated him from his family—if they’d known about him, he’d have been on that family tree Hulda had found.
Standing, Merritt crossed back to the line of sisters and gingerly set Owein’s marker beside Helen’s.
He didn’t leave. He sat there, crouched in the dirt, staring at that worn gravestone, smaller than all the rest. How long ago had it been misplaced? How long had it been facedown in the muck?
Owein was just an angry little boy trying his best. Trying to remember what it meant to be a part of something.
After some time, grass-crunching footsteps approached. “Mr.Fernsby?” Hulda asked. “Are you ill?”
“Found him.” His voice was barely louder than the sparrows’ distant calls. He gestured to the stone. “It was turned about, over there.”
Hulda gasped and crossed to him, crouching to read the stone for herself. “O... Owen?”
“Owein. Owein Mansel.”
“Brilliant!” she cried. “Iknewit had to be one of the children. Fortunately, I have two more spell sheets. I can prepare—”
“Leave him.” Merritt rubbed his hands together, flaking off dried mud. Then he stood, blood rushing back into his legs, and started for the house.
After a moment, Hulda hurried after him. “Mr.Fernsby? Leave him?”
Merritt gestured toward... nothing in particular. “He’s just a boy.”
