She had thought Lettie wanted to establish a friendship. Why would she invent such horrid lies about how her parents died? It was cruel. Her parents had been quiet and respectable members of their town.
A silent no whispered from Dawn’s throat. She couldn’t listen to anymore or the fractured woman would pull her down into her madness. She needed to think, to sort through the riot Lettie’s words stirred up. She needed the tranquillity of the lake.
She turned and ran, trusting that Nurse Hatton and Elijah would settle Lettie. Dawn’s feet pounded the forest path. Mouse barked and loped at her side, keeping pace in case she faltered and needed to draw on his size and strength. Dawn learned that speed was the best way to cope with the suffocating growth on the heavy wooded paths, and she tucked her head down and kept running as tears spilled down her cheeks.
Had Soarers murdered her parents?
17
Dawn emerged from the overgrown forest on unsteady feet. Her head was dizzy as words and images spun in her mind and her vision blurred from the tears cascading down her face. She drew a deep breath and wiped her eyes with a handkerchief pulled from a pocket. Now able to see where she placed her feet, she walked to her favourite spot along from the narrow jetty and dropped down on a moss-covered mound that sloped toward the water’s edge. She drew her legs up and hugged her knees.
Lettie was deranged, and her words were thrown without any understanding of their meaning. Perhaps she had confused Dawn with someone else or other events. If you lived for hundreds of years, it might become difficult to keep people separate, and the lives of those around you might meld into one.
There was no way Lettie could know such details of how Dawn’s parents died. To say they were lured into a trap and were unable to escape the carriage was a vile lie from a disturbed mind.
Yet the words ate at her. What did Lettie mean that the garden in Whetstone had sheltered her, but here her true nature would be revealed? Lord Seton had probably told Lettie he suspected Dawn to be a Meidh and the other woman latched onto that.
A week ago Dawn had been an ordinary woman living an ordinary existence, beneath the notice of anyone. Now there was a slender possibility that mythical creatures had murdered her parents and would seek her out because of her supposed heritage. Not to mention that she had decided to battle the evil wraith poisoning the estate.
She should have applied to be a governess. This would never have happened if she were wrangling unruly children.
The earl burst through the trees to her right, and he scanned the lake’s surface before settling on her. Mouse wagged his tail and then dropped his head back to stare at dragonflies skimming along the water.
Jasper sat on the moss behind her, with a boot-clad leg on either side. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back to his chest. “Elijah said you were upset and ran off. Whatever happened?”
Dawn rested against him and let out a long exhale. It probably wasn’t very proper to sit on the ground in a man’s arms like this; certainly she never saw her parents do anything so frivolously romantic. Or it might be something only younger, courting couples did. Either way, it was delicious to have his arms secure around her while she talked to the lake in front of her, without having to meet his serious scrutiny. “It was something Lettie said. But I’m sure she did not know what she meant and was confused.”
“Will you tell me?” His voice was a low whisper from by her head.
Dawn laid her hands over his. The Cor-vitis wriggled into life and wound itself around their forearms. It had more leaves now and even sprouted off shoots that wove intricate patterns as it advanced up their arms. There was a slight tingle when it crept over bare skin, like a pleasant version of a stinging nettle’s touch.
“She was talking of my parents’ deaths. But how would she know about it?”
“I must confess that is my fault.” He held out a finger to a seeking tendril, and it tested his skin like a dog scenting a treat.
“I don’t understand.” Or rather she feared that she did. How much did his watchers see?
The vine ignored his left hand and went back to finding a way under his right shirt sleeve. “I mentioned the newspaper article detailing your parents’ deaths to Hector, and Lettie must have overheard. She should have been born a Soarer. She has a way of ferreting out information you don’t want disclosed.”
Another memory stirred in Dawn’s mind. Her mother had once become upset at discovering a weasel in the garden, seekers of secrets she called them. Just as the Warders had a watcher observing her family, had Soarers planted their own spy in their garden? There were so many strands to this world, more and more it seemed she had stumbled into a spider’s web that sought to bind her. No matter how much she struggled, she could not free herself.
Lord Seton’s explanation raised more questions – what was the Whetstone paper that detailed her parents’ tragic deaths doing here at Ravenswing Manor? “You were investigating my background.”
His arms tightened around her as though he feared she might flee. “Yes. That a gently bred woman with no family arrived here to undertake such employment was unusual enough. Then I found myself drawn to you in a way I had never experienced before, and Lettie said the garden could sense you. If you were indeed an Elemental, I needed to discover if there was a chance you could restore balance to us all.”
They sat for a moment in near silence, with only the gentle gurgle of water as it tumbled over the rocks at one end of the lake. She traced a vein on the back of his hand, and the vine mimicked her action. “Lettie said my parents didn’t die in an accident, that they were killed on purpose. Do you think it is possible that Soarers murdered my parents?” It was a gently asked question with such harsh implications. If there was any truth in Lettie’s ramblings, what had her parents been involved in, and was she truly in danger now?
Jasper couldn’t save Julian, and he won’t be able to save you.
Were their lives entwined in ways beyond the green stalk that wound around their arms, seeking its way to their hearts? Was his enemy also hers?
His chest was a solid presence behind her and his heart a rhythmic beat. It lulled her, like listening to a metronome. When he spoke, his words rumbled through both their bodies. “Do you truly want to know the answer to that question?”
Her comfortable existence had been torn apart when her parents died. Ravenswing Manor offered her a fresh start in a new place, but if she were going to be part of this world she needed to know everything. Including the truth about her parents – particularly her mother who had kept so much hidden. No longer would she be the sheltered child. Her mind sought knowledge to better defend herself and to inform her decisions.
“If my mother was an Elemental, then I need to know why she never told me, why they hid me away, and why the Soarers would have any argument with them.” Questions spiralled through Dawn’s mind in a never-ending eddy. There was a vast amount of knowledge she lacked. Did her congenital weakness stem from a human or Elemental condition?
Jasper kissed the top of her head. “There are constant feuds between Elementals, as we each protect the interests of our creators or seek to address the imbalances the actions of the others cause. Your mother might have remained neutral her whole life or, more likely, she may have been involved in a larger event. If she kept your true heritage from you, then perhaps it was to protect you.”