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She waited, poised on her tiptoes to hear what he had to say. When he didn’t answer, she waved her hand in front of his face for dramatic effect. Something stopped him from pulling it out, from admitting that Darcy had asked him to return this necklace to her. But it would not yield from his hand. There had been a mistake.
“Are there some presents you’d like me to put on your list? Is that it? Don’t be shy. Daddy will get you everything you want.”
“No—it’s not that. It’s just that I forgot to tell you that …” He searched the nooks of his brain for something, anything.“Actually, now you mention it, I would rather like a new book, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Okay. Not another copy ofJane Eyre, right?” she said, pretending to scribble a note.
“Well, what if it is? What’s so bad about that?”
“Oh, I don’t know—maybe because you have, like, a bazillion copies.”
“You’ve been going through my stuff again, haven’t you?”
“No, I haven’t! I’ve just seen you reading it over and over, all the time really. And it’s always a different copy.”
“Well, I like having all the different editions.”
“Why?” she asked. “It’s a bit weird.”
“No, it’s not. Anyway, speaking of books, I was thinking we could stop looking atFrankensteinand move onto something else. I think you’ve grasped quite well what Mary Shelley was trying to accomplish with the text.”
“Oh, that’s good, I guess,” she said. “I was getting bored of it anyway. Too much sitting around describing things. Not enough monsters.”
Ada began to tidy away her books and set the clipboard and iPad down onto the dining table. “Maybe we can readJane Eyretogether next?”
“Maybe,” he said quickly. “Though I don’t think you’ll much like it. There’s a lot of sitting around too. And definitely no monsters. Oh, and Fire Marshal Ada?” This immediately had her beaming. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something. That necklace”—she clutched at her neck instinctively—“where did it come from? Who gave it to you?”
“Oh,” she said, and dipped the volume of her voice, ready to admit a secret. “Well, I’ve always had it, really. For as long as I can remember.”
“But do you have another?” he asked, wanting at once to discard the simplest of solutions. “Of the same likeness, I mean?”
“No,” she said; and then in a questioning tone, “Why would I have another?”
He shook his head. “No reason. Of course you wouldn’t.”
“Darcy has one just like it, though. Brother and sister—we both do.”
So there are two of the same. And this one must belong to Darcy.“He does?”
“Yes, I’ve seen it in his room before. Would you like to see mine?” She unclasped it from her neck, and held it in her palms so delicately he was convinced it was worth more than all the world. And of course, to her, it was. Worth enough that she’d wear it every day, and would have sought it out immediately had she dropped it in the dirt at night. She pressed the side of it, and the stone clicked open. The locket held a diamond ring inside, which she picked up, bringing it close to his eye to show him the inscription on the band. The letterA.
“A for Ada,” she said. “Obviously.”
He complimented its design, and she placed it back into the locket, snapping it shut. Declaring herself hungry, she left the room, leaving Bron with yet more questions on his lips that would go unanswered.
When he checked the hall to see she had moved far enough away, he turned back into the room. The iPad was still alight, the face of which offered rows of red and blue squares, which, on close inspection, showed rather grotesque images, the search for “dead dolphins” having brought up a gallery of the slaughtered creatures. He swiped the screen away, thinking there should really be a parental filter on that thing, and brought the necklace that looked like a stone out of his pocket. He clicked the side of it, just as Ada had, but nothing seemed to happen. Feeling only a hint of discouragement, he clicked it again, and this time to behold that this, too, was a locket, which also held a ring inside. He picked it out carefully, the dark purple amethyst a surprise when he’d just seen the diamond in the locket Ada carried. And as this was allegedly Darcy’s necklace, he searched for the expected D, or maybe even T for Theodore, to be etched into the band. Instead, he found three letters engraved there, three letters he was not expecting to find.
ADA.
Ada? He scrunched up his face in confusion, did a little one-eighty spin to check the door again to ensure nobody found him holding the locket. He held up the ring to the light; there was nothing else inscribed inside the band.ADA. He’d been certain Darcy’s name would be found there, so this twist in expectation seemed almost unreasonable. His heart thrummed in his temples, and he strained to make sense of it all. This had to be a clue to something. But to what? He ran through circumstances in his head and came up short.
Whatever it was, he had to know.
9
IN THE DAYS THATfollowed, Bron invented ways to ensure his path would cross with Darcy’s.
His growing desire to be near to him at all times, wherever possible, had developed into an ache that had him rubbing at his chest through the day, an indigestion that would not pass. And every morning, his first task of the day was to open his bedside drawer and click the sides of the locket with its hidden ring, to inspect any new names or words that might’ve formed upon it through the night. On one inspection, he’d been convinced it had, in fact, changed, reading now as —only to feel stupid for his absurdity.
