A Promise of Fireflies (19 page)

“
Ry-Leigh.
” It crossed her lips as a whisper. “My name is his name.”

“Ah, yes, indeed. Eleanor chose this so not only would she see Ryan reflected in your beautiful blue-green eyes, but she would hear the sweet sound of his name whenever someone spoke yours.”

Ambrose rose slowly and gazed out the window. Banks of heavy, gray clouds threatened snow as morning wore on. “It looks as though inclement weather is settling in, Miss Ryleigh. I best conclude this story so you may return to the Inn.”

“Snow?”

“The forecast merely calls for a dusting.” His mustache curled around a healthy grin. “However, I believe my guess would be as reliable as any weatherman.” The silver-haired man bent to open the woodstove. With a lonely groan, the door gaped wide, and he placed a log atop the embers. “A small fire is a must for cold days and bones as cantankerous as mine.” He turned with his back inches from the stove and laced his fingers behind him.

“Ambrose,” Ryleigh began, emerging from a collage of conflicting thoughts. “Please, tell me more about the journal. Ryan, my father—I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to saying that—wrote the poems for my mother?” She opened the satchel and removed the worn journal. Her hand lingered over the dark stain. An odd sensation tickled her stomach.

“He did, indeed. He was gifted. He saw things others did not.”

“I think I understand.”

“Of course you do. You are of his loins. His heart beats as yours and the words flowed from him as naturally as his breath.” Ambrose’s eyes drifted beyond a long nose, one eye—the right—seemed to move a fraction slower. “Much as you do—your inheritance and future promise, if you will.”

Ryleigh traced the stain with her thumb, the pebbled leather familiar, yet as anomalous as her past.

“The words of your father abound with fear and death, beauty, and unending love. And darkness. The Screaming Eagles’ motto is ‘Rendezvous With Destiny.’ Ryan believed fate followed him through the jungles of Vietnam. He wrote vividly of being in the clutches of something he felt but could not see. His destiny. Do you remember what is written on the back of the photograph?”

Recognition lit up her face. “‘
Today this may be nothing, but tomorrow it may be all that is left.’
He knew, didn’t he?”

“A sixth sense, perhaps. Some are gifted that way.”

Ryleigh shook her head slowly. “I’d call it a curse.”

“I think you are, indeed, quite right.” His right leg dragged the floor as he crossed the room to the sofa.

“Ambrose,” she said, tilting her head, “the words in the journal seem so familiar.”

“Ah, yes. As they should,” he said, his voice rising. “One thing Ben insisted was you grew up knowing your father’s words.”

The sullen mask fused to her expression melted. The recollection felt like coming home, finding one spot of comfort in a maze of confusion. “This is the book Daddy read to me, wasn’t it?”

Ambrose beamed. “It is, indeed.”

“I loved this book.” She clutched it to her chest. “I remember crawling into his lap at bedtime. He smelled of soap and warm blankets and summer, and he’d read until I fell asleep,” she said, reflectively. “The words were so vivid and soothing. I felt safe curled in his arms.”

“Ah, yes. He loved you so, Miss Ryleigh, and he wanted you to know your father. But when Ben died, your mother hid the book. His words were her memories, and I believe they were simply too painful for her to read.”

“The stain.” She pressed her hand over the darkened leather. “This is his blood, isn’t it?”

“I beg to differ. It is your father’s love. Do you remember where he kept it?”

Lowering her face, she nodded. “Near his heart.” She traced the stain with her fingers. “The stain is his blood—love infused in the leather.”

Ambrose stood sentinel, watching her.

Overwhelmed and not quite sure it was permissible to love another as her father, yet knowing he was a part of her, a part of who she was, a frown formed on her brow. Her heart ached for what she had gained and ultimately lost at the hands of fate.

“There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” she said. “There’s one poem in here that doesn’t make sense.” Raising her eyes to meet the old man’s, she opened the journal, the pages parting automatically where a frayed ribbon marked the haunting poem.

“Ah,” Ambrose said as he lowered his eyes. “‘Lost.’ Is it not?”

“How’d you know?”

“It is the last missing piece to your puzzle, Miss Ryleigh. Come. We must take a drive before the skies open and spill their tears. I do not believe my leg will handle much cold today. We shall take the old Jeep.”

Ryleigh replaced the journal in the satchel and fastened her jacket.

Ambrose stretched leather gloves over his knotted fingers, buttoned his coat against the weather, and hooked his walking stick over his arm.

“She is an antique I’m afraid, but she gets around a bit better than I do,” he said, showing her out.

“Who?”

“This old Jeep,” he said. “She is old, but in superb shape, unlike her owner I assure you.”

She stepped into the vintage Jeep. “It’s nice.”

“Resurrected her from extinction myself. Ostrich leather. Exquisite.”

“Nothing will surprise me about you, Ambrose. And if you don’t mind my asking, how old
are
you?”

“Some questions have no sufficient answers. My age is of no consequence. I am as young and as old as love itself. Love is ageless. And true love is priceless.”

A million miles of memories were etched into the roadmap of the old man’s face. But where had they come from? And where did they lead? She smiled. Maybe he was right. Some questions have no sufficient answers.

The Jeep purred as Ambrose drove to the rear of the house and proceeded down a road concealed from every direction.

Ryleigh looked around. “This isn’t the way out.”

“My path takes a new direction quite frequently.”

“Okay, I have another question. The lights the other night. When you took a walk, I saw tiny pinpricks of light. It made me think of Gandalf.”

“Ah, yes. The remarkable wizard in
The Lord of the Rings
.” Ambrose chuckled. “Yes, I supposed it would.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“I am not.”

“Some questions have no sufficient answers,” they chimed in unison.

She leaned her head against the window. Random thoughts swirled in her head. She had acquired a piece of her past, of who she was, but when would she allow herself to truly embrace the knowledge? Ben was the one who read to her, whose lap she crawled into before bedtime, and who protected her from monsters under her bed. She had danced with him, invited him to tea parties and he had tucked her in at night. And she had called him Daddy.

“I fear you are contemplating things you should not,” Ambrose said, breaking the silence.

“You aren’t only creepy sometimes, Ambrose. You can be so convoluted.”

“Ah, yes, a bit twisted, indeed.” He nodded. “I am confident you will make sense of this story, make peace with your past and allow it to dictate your future. Please never doubt Ryan is your blood, but Ben was your father in the truest sense of the word. Without Ben, the words of your father would have remained silent.”

Very little traffic milled about the village. They followed Ballston Avenue for a short distance and then turned into a dirt drive. The iron gates were swung wide and twin stone pillars flanked each side. The Village Cemetery stood silent, empty, except for the host of occupants whose brief histories were etched in stone markers.

“Should I bother asking why we are visiting a cemetery?”

“Patience, Miss Ryleigh.”

The road wound through fir and maple trees, where generations of Ballston Spa occupants were laid to rest. Near the rear of the boundary, Ambrose cut the engine. “Our destination.” He removed a small sack from the seat.

Thick, heavy clouds hung low in the air, still and quiet with the muffled feel of impending snow. Icy winds blew in short gusts lifting Ryleigh’s hair and teasing her with the crisp spice of evergreen.
Christmas.
She blew on her fingers, pulled on her gloves, and then tightened the collar of her jacket. Ambrose leaned heavily into his staff, one footprint leaving a faint impression, the other a shallow furrow where his foot dug into the ground. Not far behind, Ryleigh followed.

She perused the headstones, careful not to step where the caskets rested. Patches of virgin snow covered those in shadow as if thick white blankets had been tucked around their resting place. Surrounded by history, Ryleigh bent to read the marker directly in front of her. An early settler in the 1700s. She envisioned her dressed in Colonial apron and bonnet, peacefully at rest. Another an infant, ten months and seven days old, died in 1832. A baby. Gooseflesh prickled her arms. And then a Major. Killed in battle, perhaps?

Following the path, the dates became more recent, the stones not as weathered. The one to her right a Ballston Spa police chief. A simple yet elegant Christmas wreath stood upright against the stone.
Daddy.
Her legs went liquid, knowing how it felt to visit your father in a cemetery.

Ambrose had gone ahead. She quickened her step and together they approached a stately maple tree that rose from the edge of a small pond, frozen and lifeless. Ambrose lowered his head and stared quietly at the grave nearest the pond. She followed his eyes to the headstone and her mouth flew open.

“I thought you told me Ryan’s body was taken to St. Louis?”

“He was, indeed,” he said, nodding toward the headstone.

She read it slowly, processing the words. “Ryan Michael Leighman II, September 21, 1967.” She gasped. “My birthday.” She turned to him. “But,” she said with a deliberate pause, “he only lived one day? This can’t be…”

“Ah, yes.” Ambrose opened the sack and removed two pure white roses, and for the first time since they’d met, he placed his arm around her shoulders, as a loving grandfather might. “He is your brother. Your twin.”

His words vanished in a puff of mist. Her head swam, thoughts rippling through her mind. The ache bypassed a range of feelings and squeezed her heart. “What happened?”

“He was much too small,” he said, his voice small and filled with anguish. He cleared his throat. “Will you do the honor of placing the roses?” he asked, handing them to her. “White. A symbol of secrecy. And of innocence.”

Secrecy. Innocence
. Her heart skipped as she absorbed their meaning.

“One for your father, the other for your brother. In a cross if you please, as I have done for over forty years as your mother wished. If you read the rest of the inscription, I believe you will recognize the words your father penned after he received the second telegram.”

Tears clung to her lashes. She blinked them back and read aloud,

“‘I placed a gentle autumn breeze

Within your tiny space—

I placed with you, a piece of me

And let you go—in God’s embrace.’”

“The journal,” she whispered.
And the roses
.

With a gloved hand, Ambrose embraced her shoulder in a gentle, yet firm grip, and she clung to him as though they held each other up. “Your mother wanted him close to the pond so he would be forever lulled by the fireflies. As she was that special summer.”

Stillness hummed through the air, so quiet it seemed even God held His breath. Ryleigh knelt beside the headstone and placed the roses, stems crossed, at the base. The ties that bound her to the boy in the grave tightened around the place where her brother would dwell and fill a portion of her heart where fate had carved a gaping wound.

A baby. Her brother. Another who shared her flesh. And he slept peacefully beneath the earth, nothing but a whisper of what could have been yet more tangible than the granite stone that sheltered him. The clouds huddled together, as gray and heavy as the weight pressing against her heart, as if the December sky had dressed to attend a funeral forty-three years in the making.

Another piece of her past had dropped into place, the tug palpable as if a rope linking her heart to her twin refused to let go. Two teardrops tumbled from her cheek marking the ground where the tiny casket had been placed forty-three years ago. So tiny. And alone.

Ryleigh rose. Lazy snowflakes fluttered around her and settled on her sleeve, blossoming into tiny circles of moisture. The skies set free its tears and the heavens wept.

And so did she.

And she dared to wonder if anything would ever be the same.”

Chapter Twenty

FLIGHT 258 ARRIVED
ahead of schedule. Under ordinary circumstances, Philadelphia’s history would captivate Natalie for hours with its vast assortment of museums and historical sites. But with a delay of nearly three hours before the connecting flight to Albany all she could think about as the sun rose in a sea of pink, was how disgustingly slow time seemed to pass. She was drained from the flight from Phoenix and irritated at the long delay.