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“You’re only here to cause trouble,” Bron said. “And I would prefer it if you didn’t say anything else to me. I’ll leave it to Darcy to be honest.”
“Darcy, honest?” Giovanni retorted. “You couldn’t find anyone more dishonest. He was never a truthful friend nor a loyal son. You are better off searching like a vagabond if honesty is what you seek.”
Bron closed his ears to these words and felt suddenly the need to be alone. A jab at his side, a spear to the ribs. His heart went out to Ada, whom he loved like a sister, who had the most to lose. She was the pawn and wasn’t being considered at all in this game. What would happen to her now Mr. Edwards was gone? Ada was being lied to, and that was all that mattered.
He needed to get home to her at once.
15
THE FAMILY HAD BECOMEsuddenly unknown to him. Everything was darker, the corners of the manor shadowed in ink. From outside, its walls seemed much grayer, and the surrounding trees decrepit; the vines, the wisteria creeping along the walls were knotted and devoid of green and flower; the windows, with their large once shining panes, took on an oppressive glare, a language in itself that said:“This house, it harbors secrets.”
He couldn’t fathom why they would have lied to Ada about her parentage. What was there to be gained? And why had Darcy withheld the truth from him? When he got back to the house, he climbed the stairs, every creak a threat, and went straight to Ada’s bedroom, where she was flicking through the pages of her illustrated Bible.
“Are you alright?” He knocked quickly on the door before entering.
Ada nodded her head and snuggled up to him when he sat beside her, the still oncoming tears marking a patch on his shirt.
“I’m tired. Bron, tell me the truth. Has Daddy really gone to heaven?”
“Yes, Ada, of course he has.” He didn’t much believe in heaven. Hadn’t for years. “Where else would he be?”
“I don’t know. Will I go to heaven too?”
“Yes, but not for a long, long time.”
He should tell her what he knew, about her mother, about Darcy. But it was complicated; how would he explain all this to a child? Should he? She was fragile, and he didn’t want to hurt her any more than she was already hurting. But what else could they be hiding? From herandfrom him? What else went on behind these walls when their eyes were closed?
“Bron, I need to tell you something. It’s … it’s about Birdie.”
He looked at her, unsure. “Alright.”
“I was the one who opened her cage.”
He hadn’t expected that. “You did?”
“Yes. And the truth is, I never really did find her. I said I’d let her go, that I set her free. But that wasn’t true at all.”
“Then why did you say that you did?”
She took a big sigh and looked into her lap as she spoke, mumbling through most of it. “Everyone was too busy for me. Darcy, Papa, and you too. And I just thought, if Birdie was flying about, then someone would have to help me find her. But then you and Darcy were both helping me, and it was so much fun. But to tell you the truth, I wanted to see those pictures again. Of my mother. In the photo album. And there they were, in Darcy’s room. And I just thought, while you two were looking for Birdie downstairs, I could take another look at them. But I guess Birdie must have really flown out because I couldn’t find her afterward, and I didn’t know what to do. When I really thought about it, I was happy because, well, she’s a bird, she’s meant to be free. But then you all went back to doing your own things. And then Birdie was gone and now Papa, and I just … I don’t know what I’m going to do without them.”
“Hey, it’s alright. You’ve got me.”
“Bron, was that lady at Daddy’s funeral … the one with Uncle Gio … my mother?”
He couldn’t bring himself to conceal things from her. Not now. But he shouldn’t be the one to reveal the truth to her. “I don’t know, little one. Maybe.”
“But she’s the same woman I saw in the pictures. I’m sure of it. And that night, when they were all fighting in the games room.”
“I think it’s best you wait for Darcy to explain everything to you when he’s back.”
“He won’t,” she said, finally.
It didn’t take them long to fall asleep. He awoke beside his little companion in the middle of the night, with sweat on his brow and his throat dry and scratchy. He sipped at the water glass by Ada’s bed, the shape of his dreams dissipating from the black of his mind like water churning down a plug hole, but his brain was stained, dregs clinging to a basin sink.
They were strange, his dreams, and stranger still that they remained with him as he woke. This led him into thinking about the convenience of it all, that nobody had questioned the household’s lately occurring tragedies. The scenes were there, each neatly wrapped up as little snippets of a whole story, and the questions asked themselves: Was it merely coincidental that two incidents, a death and a fire, had affected the same family within a single year? These suspicions spiraled, and his mind took him to places that warped the people he’d come to know and love. Was it really faulty electrics or negligence that had caused the fire in the library, or was it something far less accidental? There was no madwoman in the attic to set the place aflame here, but there was a set of characters that could be substituted in her place: Giovanni and Toni, two lovers wronged; Darcy, the misunderstood son; Ada and the lies she’d been told. And how Mr. Edwards had died so unexpectedly, but of what? He’d never been told. How many lives had his employer touched—surely someone was to gain from his death?
Then there was Darcy’s unexplained anger toward the photo album and what Ada had seen there: her mother, Toni, he now knew. The explanation came suddenly to his head, as though it were obvious: Darcy had found, or thought he had found, Ada flicking through the album, and knew that if she’d seen thephotographs of her mother, then she might start to ask questions. This was what had made him so angry.
