XIX
I take Henry to the attic. It is the only place I can think of where something could be properly hidden in this house. It’s a large attic, but it doesn’t feel that way, cluttered as it is with boxes and dust and cobwebs. There are three lightbulbs that hang from the ceiling, but I can only reach the first one before the boxes block our path. I pull the cord and the bulb flickers on, revealing everything from a chest full of old paperback romances—which Mom swears she’ll give to charity one of these days—to Christmas decorations that haven’t been put up since Dad disappeared. Farther back, old furniture and paintings in giant frames stand covered by drop cloths. They’ve always freaked me out. I used to think it would be so easy for someone to hide back there, in the shadows, covered with a drop cloth. Waiting for the perfect moment to let the fabric slip from their skeletal, ghostly body, curl their bony fingers around the cord, and turn out the light.
“Where do you think he might have hidden it?” Henry asks, dropping to one knee and wiping his palm across the dusty top of an old VCR. He scrunches his face as he picks it up, inspects it, and then unceremoniously drops it on the floor beside him. A plastic corner chips off and tumbles into the crack between the floorboards.
“Hey, careful with that. How’s my mom supposed to show old, embarrassing home movies of me if it’s broken?” I pause. “Actually, drop it harder next time.”
But Henry isn’t listening. He’s found the chest of paperback romances, and his eyes are practically popping out of his skull as he takes in the bodice-ripping covers. “These, uh—” He clears his throat. “That is to say, books have certainly changed a bit since my time.”
I push the chest aside. “If Dad hid anything up here—and that’s a big if—he wouldn’t have put it near the front, where Mom or I could have found it. So, come on. Help me dig a tunnel.”
It takes the better part of an hour to make it to the second lightbulb, in the middle of the attic. We’ve gone back several decades, each section represented by very specific items: my old Barbie dolls and Easy-Bake oven in boxes along with old photo albums and my first pair of hiking boots; prom dresses with shoulder pads I can’t believe Mom ever wore; a Nintendo and an Atari sitting side by side; Star Wars action figures from when Dad was a kid.
“We should start looking here,” I say, as Dad’s childhood toys start to morph into 1950s furniture and creepy porcelain dolls. No one would ever come back this far, which makes it a pretty good hiding place.
Henry scratches his neck. “There is much to go through.”
“My family’s lived in this house since 1794,” I say. “A lot of junk can be left behind in that amount of time. I guess no one’s ever wanted to take the initiative to clean it out.”
He nods. “There are times walking through my home when I do not know if I truly live in the eighteenth century, or if I have gone back to medieval times, or perhaps the Dark Ages as far as some of the privies are concerned. You are fortunate.” He meets my gaze. “At least you have a connection to these artifacts. I have no real connection to the suits of armor in the halls or the portraits of the people who used to live in the manor before my parents took up residence. At times, I feel as though I am an intruder in a life that belonged to someone else.”
“What happened to them? The family who lived there before your parents?”
Henry removes the drop cloth from an antique dresser and begins rifling through the drawers. “I am not certain. I’m told the family was bankrupt and could not care for their land or their tenants. My parents offered them a more-than-fair price for the property, and they jumped at the chance to be free of the land and the responsibility. Now, several hundred years later, my parents are the baron and baroness, the land is fertile, the tenants are well fed, and Augustus and Celia are able to use their magic so that no one wonders why it is the baron and baroness have never aged, or why the baroness never appeared to be with child before their son was born.”
He opens the bottom drawer and pulls out a leather-bound book with thin pages. My heart skips a beat as he opens it. He shakes his head, turning it around to show me the words King James Bible on the first page. He places it back in the drawer and moves on to a side table.
“What kind of magic do they do?” I ask. Other than my coin and the wonders of the wood itself, the only true form of magic I’ve ever seen has been via Uncle Joe. I mean, I’d always assumed the council members possessed similar powers, but it’s odd to hear it actually said aloud. To learn these little pieces about the people who have so much control over my life and yet give me so little information about their own.
“My mother is a healer,” he says, a line between his brows creasing as he pushes a stack of old papers and magazines aside, “and my father is a bit of a mind reader. He cannot pick your thoughts from your brain, but he can read people very well. He knows when they are lying, when they are being manipulative or manipulated, and he can tell if a person is good and trustworthy at his very core.” He laughs. “Growing up, it made sneaking broken vases and stolen cigars past him very difficult. I imagine it was because of his intuition that my parents learned of the conspiracy in the first place.”
I pull the drop cloth from an old dressing table. There’s still a hairbrush with an opal handle and silver combs lying on its surface. I pick up an old makeup jar and twist open the top. It smells like roses.
Whenever I came up here to help Mom gather decorations or put away some boxes, I should have asked more questions. About our family, about how every single person, guardian or spouse, dealt with the responsibility of the wood. I should have used every opportunity I had to better prepare myself for the day Dad wouldn’t be here to help me anymore.
I can’t say for certain that I would know what to do now if I had, but that’s not the point. The point is this: Dad’s gone, and it doesn’t matter that I was just a kid who didn’t realize he could be taken away from me in the time between going to bed one night and opening my eyes the next morning.
I should have asked.
*