Secrets of the Guardian (Waldgrave Book 3) (34 page)

When Heather didn’t respond, Ember stared at her significantly. Their gazes locked for an uncommonly long time, but Ember never blinked.

“Oh.” Heather said finally, and then, “Goodnight, Ember.”

“Goodnight.”

Ember switched off her bedside lamp as her roommate did the same. She twisted around under the covers to face the window, and heard Heather shuffle around for a moment before settling.

“Ember?”

“Hm?”

“If you told your mother you weren’t happy here, she would let you go back.”

Ember furrowed her brow, stuck somewhere between amazement at Heather’s sudden epiphany and annoyance with the intrusion into her personal life. She shook her head, twisting around again to face her. Heather’s face was a pale island in the dark bedclothes she had cocooned herself in, illuminated by the moonlight through the window.

“You don’t think I’m happy here?” Ember said with a frown.

Heather slowly shook her head. “Anyone who’s paying attention knows that you’re miserable.  But if you told her that, if you told her that you want to leave and go back to Alaska, I think she would let you.”

“You don’t know my mother.” Ember said, deflated.

Heather stared at her for a moment, and then shrugged, Ember was forced to concede—she didn’t know her mother, either. She laid on her back, staring at the ceiling, and the jagged pattern that the popcorn texture made in the slanted light. Eventually, she drifted off to a dream that felt like falling, causing her to start in surprise and jerk awake in the night.  It was hours later, and Heather had fallen asleep with her spider jar clutched to her chest like a teddy bear.

They never spoke of Ember’s family again. The next day, Heather took the photo, and their biology teacher arranged to have it printed on the glossy photo stock paper along with Heather’s homage to webs in the barn. Ember wrote her letter, explaining in a genial tone that she wanted to come back to Alaska, and tucked it into an envelope to give to Sister Helen.

No one ever replied.

The school year went on as it usually did, until the following April. Sister Helen arrived in the morning, as she usually did, for her fortnightly meeting to check on Ember. The meetings lasted about an hour, with forty-five minutes of that devoted to the school counselor reviewing Ember’s grades and schoolwork before the girl was brought in.

This time, however, the counselor had brought Ember in immediately, excusing himself from the room. The nun, a younger woman with hair that Ember had never seen (she suspected it must have been brown, like her eyebrows), gestured to the chair where Ember usually sat while she answered drill questions about how challenging her classes were or if she required any new clothes.

Ember sat down, straightening her cardigan. She tried to match the nun’s strict posture as she attempted to discern the look in her eyes.

“Your mother has asked me to speak to you about returning to your home for a visit this summer,” she said, sliding a plain manila folder out of her bag.

Ember felt her jaw drop as her heart skipped a beat in surprise. Sister Helen looked back up at her, as if she expected her to answer a question she hadn’t asked.

“She wants me…back?”  Ember stammered.  “She wants me to come home?”

The nun nodded curtly. “She does, if you still want to.  Do you still want to?”

“Yes!” Ember blushed; she hadn’t meant to yell.

The nun gave another curt nod, but her lips curled up just a little at the corners. “I see. I will make the arrangements and inform your mother. Will you need a suitcase, or anything else for your vacation?”

Ember shook her head, still searching Sister Helen’s kind, aged face. She was serious. “I don’t know.”

“Please think about it, and make a list.” The nun scanned the contents of her folder. “I will ask your mother about increasing your allowance for the day of the flight, in case you should require anything on your way. I believe you are old enough to travel alone, but I will arrange an escort if you prefer—“

“My mom could pick me up.” Ember said distantly.

“An escort.” The nun said more firmly. “If you prefer, but you’re sixteen now, and you should be able to manage two flights and a boat ride without too much trouble. The counselor seems to believe you are mature enough. I’ll see about getting you a cell phone, just for this trip, in case you do get yourself into trouble.”

Ember nodded, scared to death at the prospect of two flights and a boat ride and everything that could go wrong between the school and Alaska, but she didn’t want to lose the trust the counselor apparently had in her. She nodded more fervently—she could handle it.

At the start of May, Ember stood outside the administrative building, with a large duffle bag at her side and several maps, directions printed from the internet, and two plane tickets clutched in her hand.  Her new purse had five hundred dollars and a cell phone in it, and she was scared to death that she was going to lose something important.

There was no escort to ferry her between planes and boats.

Chapter 2

Gina and Thalia stood on the rocky shore, two somber women with blonde, frizzy, tied-back hair, in hippy skirts and walking sandals.  They were framed by the early summer fog, like a very small family portrait. Ember tried to swallow the nervous lump in her throat.  She was wearing her best slacks and cardigan, carefully applied makeup, and had meticulously styled her hair with mousse.

The strong family resemblance was nearly unrecognizable.

She dropped her bag in the water while trying to get off the little boat that had been commissioned to get her to the island. Gina and Thalia didn’t try to help her as she struggled to the shore. As Ember appraised her mother, she recognized the familiar, emotionless expression that was directed back at her. Thalia’s expression was lost somewhere between surprise and fear.

“Hey,” Ember said quietly, trying to smile warmly at her sister. She was her sister, after all, and Ember wanted to believe that even if they didn’t know each other, they could still be friends.  All of her favorite television shows told her so. “Where’s Nan?”

Gina eyed her with a critical glare, her green eyes wandering from Ember’s wet, impractical shoes to the artificial mess of hair on her head. She stared at her soaked bag, and her wide eyes, and the look of sheer fear on the girl’s face; that, at least, was appropriate to the situation.

With a short shake of her head, Gina turned and walked away.  “She’s back at the house.”

Thalia turned and walked with her, and Ember took a few quick steps to catch up to them.

“It’s nice to be home…” Ember said to their backs.

Neither stopped, and neither responded.  Thalia snuck one quick glance over her shoulder, but refused to make eye contact.

Ember fought the new ballet flats she had bought for the trip as they slipped on the rocks underfoot, and wedged herself between her mother and her sister. “Do you think I could come home more often?” Ember prompted.

“This isn’t your home, Ember,” her mother explained, pulling the shawl around her shoulders a little tighter to keep it from touching her younger girl. The girl was shivering; she didn’t belong on Tulukaruk. “This is Thalia’s home. Your home is back in Pennsylvania at the dormitories, and wherever you wish after that. I’ll pay for it. You have the entire world to explore and live in, and I don’t want you to waste your life on this little island.”

They walked a few paces in silence, and Ember wondered if this forced conversation was going to be the highlight of the next three months. Her mother’s tone wasn’t unfriendly, but Ember noted that she hadn’t smiled at her once. She wasn’t happy to see her.

“So why don’t you ever visit me at my home?” Ember asked meekly. She looked down and noticed that the shirts they were wearing had the same stitched hem around the cuffs; it wasn’t a regular pattern, like something that could be bought at a store. They made their own clothes.

“My home is here, too,” she said, as if this point were obvious.

“But maybe you could go on vacation or—“

“I don’t vacation.” She said curtly. “Neither does Thalia. You’ve done fine without us—everyone says so—and I’m sure you’ll continue to do so.”

Continue to do so.
Even being young and naive, Ember had grasped her mother’s meaning immediately. She wasn’t staying, so her plan to ask to stay was pointless. Her mother only required one daughter, and she had her, and Ember would just have to do without them, elsewhere.

As Ember looked back and forth between the two women at her sides, she realized that they felt nothing for her, and as strange as it was, she felt very little for them. They were strangers, and a small twinge of disappointment struck in her heart as she mourned the family she had imagined in her mind.

The house was different than Ember remembered it, with a forgettable grey pigment slathered on the wood siding and a roof made of worn, waffled metal of some sort.  Gina directed Ember her bedroom, and told her they would call her when dinner was ready. She could hear Thalia downstairs, talking and banging the pots around as she helped to fix the meal.

Ember hadn’t expected them to invite her to join them, because they weren’t the family she had thought they would be. Even looking back, the concise notes around her birthday never engendered much hope that people on Tulukaruk had missed her, or that they had even noticed her absence.  She sighed and shook her head, wondering why she had ever wanted to come back.

She unpacked her clothes, hanging them over the wrought iron bedframe to dry, and hoping that the sea water hadn’t damaged anything. There was a humming in the hall, and Ember opened the door to see her Nan, pacing back and forth, humming a lullaby as she ran her hand along the stair banister.

“Oh,” The old woman whispered in a creased voice, her small eyes staring out from the wrinkled tissue paper of her brow. “And who are you?”

“I’m…Ember, Nan, you don’t remember me?” Ember stuttered. No one had mentioned in those brief birthday notes that Nan was losing it. “You used to read my books?”

“Ember? Ember, Ember, Ember…” Her brow rutted with thought. “Ah!” Her eyes lit up as she acknowledged Ember’s face. “You’re the little girl from the bookstore, aren’t you? Who let you in the house, I wonder?”

Ember tried not to let her disappointment show. Nan had been her only friend.  She was the only one who might have been on her side, or at least less than disappointed to see her.

“You look so much like my granddaughter,” she crooned, taking Ember’s face in her hands and turning it right and left, comparing her to Thalia. She pursed her lips. “But my granddaughter is prettier.”

Ember flinched.

Nan walked away down the stairs. “Gina, there’s a strange girl in the spare bedroom!”

“It’s okay, I already know!” Gina called back without further explanation. She wasn’t going bother trying to make Nan understand. She wasn’t planning for Ember to stay long enough to warrant an explanation.

Realizing that the old woman that had pre-read her books was gone, Ember had given a moment of silence to grieve, and then resigned herself to reading alone in her room. It was going to be a long summer with these strangers who didn’t want her.

That night at dinner, Thalia had introduced Ember to her grandmother as a guest staying for a few months. Her mother didn’t say much. They assigned her a set of towels and explained the system for washing clothes and dishes, and asked that she please confine her possessions to her room. Sending things on after the fact might be a problem, her mother said, so it was better if everything stayed where it wouldn’t get lost.

After dinner, Nan had set to work making a quilt out of old, worn out blankets as Gina took a brush from a drawer and sat on the couch.  Thalia had dutifully stationed herself on the floor in front of her mother to have her hair brushed out. 

Staring at them all from the kitchen doorway, Ember wasn’t sure if she should join them or not; none of them were talking.  Thalia’s glazed eyes were fixed on the fireplace across the room as her head steadily bobbed with each draw of the brush through her shiny blonde hair.  Her unblinking, obedient expression was almost disturbing.

“Is this—“

Gina looked over sharply, and Ember felt herself blush.  She hadn’t realized how loud her voice would sound in the silence.

“I’m sorry…Is this how you spend the evenings?  With everyone in the living room?”

Thalia’s unfocused gaze slowly started to turn in her direction, but her mother used a gentle hand to keep her head still as she continued to brush. 

“Yes,” she whispered.  “Family time.  You can go upstairs, if you like.”

Rubbing her palms flat against the stiches, belt loops, and irregularities on the sides of her pants, she quietly excused herself to the stairs to fetch a book to read as everyone sat in silence.  Once she was in her room, however, the muted silence of the house compelled her to stay there.

Ember went to bed early. In the sitting room below, she heard her mother comforting Thalia that it was only for the summer—after that, she was hopeful that Ember would find somewhere else to go. Somewhere where she would be content, and safe, and where she wouldn’t trouble the community anymore.

Ember knew it wasn’t a normal thing for a mother to say about her child, or even a complete stranger.  She wasn’t sure how she felt about any of them. Her mother, sister, and grandmother had hardly been present in her life; she was a foreigner now, and the people she remembered were only memories.

Nan was gone for good, and Ember’s last moments with her had been stolen away by one untimely fit at the book store. Gina had taken away the relationship she should have had with her sister, and Thalia had grown into the awkward adult-child downstairs who stared warily at Ember, as though she were a thief come to rob them.

Ember had figured that she would always come back to visit, but at the same time, her mother was right that the island would never be her home. She had assured her that there was no room for her here. Ember squeezed her eyes shut, trying to push the unpleasant thoughts away and look for a bright side.

She assured herself that she was okay with the arrangements her mother had made. She didn’t feel sad about losing her family or her home, because she had never had them to begin with. They were imagined characters to her; people she made up stories about to appease curious classmates. Sometimes, she didn’t know if they were real or just made up; she was forgetting which parts of them were the lies she told and which were actual memories.

She had done fine without them, as her mother had said. She would continue to do so.

Even as she bit her tongue to stop the tears, she knew what it came down to.  It was better for everyone if they made a clean break.  When she left, she would never come back again, and this time there would be no letters.

It was better to be alone in the world and know it than to rely on a support system that was sure to fail.

Sixteen years old, lying in bed that night—or evening, as it was, because she had gone to bed so early—there came a light tapping at her window. She was listening to her would-be family talking in the living room. At first, Ember thought it was raining; the light, steady tapping of drops hitting the window pane. Then a rock the size of a large walnut sent tinkling shards of glass across the wood floor like a horizontal waterfall.

Ember felt herself bounce on the bed as she leapt in surprise.  The sound made by the exploding window was louder than she had ever imagined it would be.  Even as her heart went racing, no one in the living room missed a beat of conversation.

Cursing under her breath, Ember slipped on her shoes and walked to the broken window to gaze out at a group of teenage boys trying to stifle their laughter. She slid the empty window frame open and leaned out.

“Excuse me!” She bellowed, her voice echoing around the forest as she took stock of the situation. There were three of them, and they weren’t even slightly embarrassed.

“The prodigal daughter returns!” The one closest to the house called at her; he was wearing a red sweater. Pacing lightly from foot to foot, he fingered a small stone in his hand before letting it drop to the ground. “We just wanted to introduce ourselves and invite you out for the evening!”

Ember cocked her head in confusion and then checked herself and closed her mouth. She searched her mind for an appropriate response, but her learned manners failed her. Three boys had just broken her window, and were now attempting to ask her out to dinner? “And your name is…?”

“Isaac!” He called, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

“Do you have a problem with front doors, Isaac?” Ember yelled, but she had lost her force. Her voice trembled with doubt, but she was too polite to call them out forthright. They laughed off her implied accusation.

“Ember…” said the one with the dark hair; he was wearing a black suede jacket that had worn down to a soft grey around the elbows. “I am sorry about the window. Come out with us so we can make it up to you. Let us welcome you home. We’ve waited for years to meet you.”

Ember stared them down. Boys like these were the gateway drug to cussing and sloppy dressing. However, as she looked down on them like a princess in a tower, she felt that to deny them her presence was somehow so rude and pretentious that it would make her a horrible person for refusing their offer. They wanted to welcome her home—at least someone did.

She pursed her lips in indecision.

As if on cue, a girl with shining blond hair walked out from behind a tree to greet the group, filling the summer air with ringing laughter as she rested a hand on the shoulder of the last young man. His hair was a similar color to hers, though they obviously weren’t related. She leaned in to kiss him politely on the cheek before he turned his easy, amiable smile on Ember.

Placated by the presence of another girl, Ember found herself with no excuse to decline joining them for the evening. Without even pausing to tell them her plan, she ran from the window to grab her coat and clamored down the stairs so loudly that the noise almost broke the spell she had come under.

“Stop!” Her mother yelled from the living room as Ember’s hand hit the knob and wrenched open the front door.

Ember froze in place.

“Turn.”

Her hand left the handle and she turned towards the living room. Her mother strode forward, arms crossed and confusion clouding her expression.