The Gathering Darkness (26 page)

“That’s old.”

“Yup. Of course, it’s highly unlikely that it’s really his, but we humor him.”

“Oh, I get it.”

We broke free of the fog and came into view of a slender strip of land, one of many islands that dotted the bay here.

“Yeah, he’s a bit eccentric. To the public, he acts old and confused. To the family, his mind seems young and sharp. We can’t figure him out. We think it’s just an act that he seems all confused around others, but we don’t know why.”

I wondered how he would act with me there.

A flock of seagulls took flight when we neared the wharf, only to return to the pebbled shoreline once the boat’s engine cut.

We walked down a sun-bleached wharf. Its last few planks were buried under a thin layer of sand, transitioning the wharf into a well-worn sand path. Farther up the path, cut through a hedge of wild rose bushes, an inviting opening awaited. A once-white gate, which hung from its bottom rusted hinge, had broken some time ago and lay open.

A vegetable garden spread out before us on the other side of the broken gate. In the middle of the garden stood an older gentleman with a thick crop of wind-blown, granite-colored hair. He held a bunch of freshly picked carrots in one hand. Perched atop the roof peak of a gray-shingled Cape house with a faded yellow door, two seagulls eyed us curiously.

We walked up the sand path in silence, stopping at the edge of the garden. Uncle Edmund didn’t hear us approach. He stood with his back to us, mumbling something inaudible. Marcus greeted him in a low voice, so as not to startle him.

“Hi, Uncle Edmund.”

Nothing. He didn’t turn. It looked as though he was counting the bunch of carrots he’d picked.

Marcus looked at me and shrugged. “Must be going deaf.”

We took a few steps closer. Marcus stepped in front and in a louder voice said, “Hi.”

Uncle Edmund’s hands flew up in the air, scattering the carrots over the garden. I jumped back, just as startled. Marcus grabbed one of his uncle’s arms to steady him.

“It’s me, Uncle Edmund, Marcus.”

“Wha … who?” Uncle Edmund steadied himself, picked his glasses up from a cord around his neck and put them on. “Oh, it’s you, Marky. Why didn’t you say so? You almost gave me a heart attack.”

Marcus looked at me and rolled his eyes. I suppressed a laugh.

“What brings my favorite nephew all the way up here?”

“I brought someone I want you to meet.”

“What? You brought someone? Who did you bring?” His tone had picked up an edge of panic.

Uncle Edmund spun in his tracks. Once he had me in his sights, he steadied himself. The intermittent breeze had blown strands of hair across my face. I pushed them away and tucked one side behind my ear. All of Uncle Edmund’s movements ceased, even his breathing seemed to stop. I couldn’t read his expression. I looked from him to Marcus, my eyes widening slightly.

“This is Brooke,” Marcus said, slightly louder than he’d spoken the first time. He came and stood beside me.

His uncle gazed upon the two of us with a look of awe.

“Amazing,” he said.

Marcus shook his head. “What’s amazing?”

Uncle Edmund blinked, narrowed his eyes back to a normal size and came out of his trance. “Do forgive me … .” He fumbled with his words, as if trying to remember what Marcus had called me.

I thought I’d better break the ice. “Hi, I’m Brooke. It’s nice to meet you.” I flashed him a smile.

“Brooke.” He said my name as if he were amazed at the sound of it on his tongue. He straightened his body from his slouch and cleared his throat. His eyes became more alert. A more refined, older gentleman stood before me now.

“I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Brooke. Won’t you please come in?” He turned and walked toward the house, his head held high.

I glanced at Marcus, totally confused.

“You see? He does that when he feels completely comfortable around someone. Totally changes from befuddled to sharp and agile; although, I’ve never seen him change so quickly without knowing the person first.”

“Maybe he feels the love.” I brushed up against Marcus’ side in a playful gesture.

“That must be it.” Marcus smiled and took my hand.

Framed in mahogany, the questionable Harvard diploma hung proudly in the hallway, next to the living room doorway. The lettering looked Latin. Except for the name, Edmund Alcott Knight in bold script and the signatures on the bottom, I couldn’t read a word of it.

“It looks too old to be a fake,” I whispered to Marcus, who was standing beside me.

He pointed to the date, which was written out in Latin and whispered it to me. “Nineteen hundred and sixteen. It just isn’t possible.”

When I turned the corner into the living room, my eyes didn’t know where to look first. Two entire walls were covered with bookshelves, accommodating hundreds of volumes. Stacks of more books littered the floor, arranged to create paths through the room. Several were fanned out over a studded leather sofa.

Uncle Edmund walked over to a rustic beach stone fireplace and leaned an arm on one corner of the mantle. Beside him was a flat screen TV, which sat atop an outdated, wooden floor-model TV.

As I walked farther into the room, I took in the far corner, where an open laptop sat atop a burled wood desk, with a stained glass lamp on one corner and a brass armillary sphere on the other.

To me, this looked like a room for someone of high academic stature.

Perhaps Marcus and his family were wrong. I got the impression the Harvard diploma had been justly earned by Edmund Alcott Knight.

Uncle Edmund walked to the sofa, picked half a dozen books up, and stacked them on the floor, clearing a spot for us to sit. “Please, make yourselves at home.” He waited until we sat down before sitting in one of the two tapestry-covered wingback chairs opposite the sofa.

He picked a pipe up off the coffee table and held it in his mouth, but didn’t light it, all the while studying me.

Uncle Edmund cleared his throat. “So, Marky, was there something you wanted to see me about?” He spoke seriously, as if he’d known that we hadn’t just come to chat. Somewhere in between the garden and the living room, he’d picked up an air of sophistication.

“Well, Brooke has—”

Uncle Edmund cut him off, looked at me again, ignoring Marcus, and said, “Forgive me, but what did you say your last name was?”

I hadn’t said. “Day. Brooke Day.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. Of course it is.”

He mumbled into the mouthpiece of the pipe, but I’d heard him. I looked at him with my eyebrows raised, expecting an explanation, but none came.

He looked back to Marcus. “Please continue, Marky.”

“Brooke has something to show you.”

That was my cue. I pulled a picture out of my bag and handed it to Uncle Edmund; the one of Claire and Christian.

He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his straight nose, then reached across the table and took the picture from me. I couldn’t stop my leg from bouncing nervously up and down. Marcus took my hand and held it in the small space between us. Uncle Edmund studied the picture for quite some time. His only movement was when his eyebrows pulled together, deepening the lines in his forehead.

After a few intense moments, without raising his head, he lifted his eyes above his glasses to look down at our linked hands, and then to our faces and then back to the picture. His deeply tanned face was as somber as Marcus’ was now.

Come to think of it, he and Marcus had the same bone structure, and those eyes; right now they looked like bitter chocolate. The same as Marcus’ eyes looked when he was in a serious mood—like now.

After a couple of intense minutes, Uncle Edmund heaved a heavy sigh and lifted his head from the picture.

“Where did you find this photograph?” He addressed his question directly to me.

I chewed on my lip, not sure if I should divulge that information. Marcus saw how nervous I was and answered for me.

“She found it in a trunk in the attic of the Ravenwyck.”

Uncle Edmund’s eyes widened. “You’re not still working there are you, Marky? I thought you only had a small job to do. I warned you to stay away from that place.”

My leg stopped bouncing, my body stiffened, and I looked at Marcus disbelievingly, wondering why he hadn’t shared that fact with me.

I narrowed my gaze on Uncle Edmund. “Why should he stay away from the Inn? Is there danger there?” I knew there was for me, but … .

“Brooke works there too,” Marcus explained.

Uncle Edmund’s face grew stone-like. In an even tone he asked, “Does Margaret still own the Inn?”

I nodded, assuming he’d meant Maggie.

“Yes, of course she does.” Holding the bowl of the pipe in his hand, he shook the mouth piece at us. “Neither of you should step foot inside that Inn or go anywhere near it again. It was once, and I suspect still is, a place of great evil.”

I shuddered at his warning.

“What about that brother of yours?”

By his tone, it would seem he wasn’t as fond of Evan as he was Marcus. I thought back to when we’d first arrived, how he’d referred to Marcus as his favorite nephew.

“Evan’s still working there, too. What kind of danger are you talking about?” Marcus asked warily.

Still holding the picture with one hand and the unlit pipe to his mouth with the other, Uncle Edmund started to answer, but apparently changed his mind.

“What is it?” Marcus sat forward, releasing my hand. “Do you know who they are? In the picture?”

For a moment Uncle Edmund retreated back to the befuddled old man I’d met in the garden. “I shouldn’t, no, I mustn’t. It’s time, but how?” Uncle Edmund argued quietly with himself.

“Tell us,” Marcus demanded. When he didn’t answer him, Marcus looked at me. “I’m going to tell him everything.”

I nodded.

Marcus recounted our experiences in full, first my story from the start of my nightmares, to the events at the Inn. He told Uncle Edmund about the well and the pendant. I thought it odd how his eyes lit up when Marcus mentioned the pendant. He showed him his tattoo and told him about my scratches and what I’d seen in the painting. All the while, Uncle Edmund stared down at the picture, lifting his head now and then to look at me, as if he were comparing me to someone.

“May I see the amulet?” His eyes brightened when he asked.

I pulled the chain out of my sweater and proceeded to lift it off my neck. Uncle Edmund jumped up from the chair, as spry as a teenager.

“No! Don’t take it off. You mustn’t ever take it off.”

He looked at me sternly. I sat there in shock.

He placed one hand on the middle of the coffee table for support and leaned over it, picking the pendant up from the outside of my sweater, handling it delicately.

“Fascinating! Just as I’d remembered it.” He slid his hand out from under it carefully, and with his hands linked behind his back, he walked toward the far wall of books.

“I think it’s time you knew everything, Marky.” Uncle Edmund sighed and turned around, grabbing hold of his suspenders; his expression grew gravely serious.

Marcus’ eyes narrowed. “Knew what?”

O
n top of the highest shelf, Uncle Edmund pushed a few books aside, reached his arm behind a hidden row of books, and pulled out a polished wooden box. He walked back to us, but instead of sitting in the chair, he came around the coffee table and sat next to me on the edge of the sofa. He held the box on his lap, his tanned, aged hands fondling the glossy wood.

He cleared his throat and looked past me to Marcus. “I’ve been thinking about this day since you turned twelve. It was then, that there was no more doubt in my mind. I’d planned on telling you last spring when you turned seventeen, but I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

“Oh, I’d pretty much believe anything now,” Marcus assured him.

“Exactly.
Now
you would believe; last spring, it would be highly unlikely. It’s high time you knew the truth—both of you.”

“Both?” I couldn’t help repeat.

Uncle Edmund ignored my comment and opened the box. He flipped through a row of old pictures until he came to one in particular. He pulled it out and looked at it for what seemed like a long time before handing the picture to me.

Too scared to look at first, I held it for a few seconds before setting my eyes on it. When I finally did look, I could do nothing but stare in awe at the only person in the aged picture. I flipped it over. Claire’s name was on the back, and it was dated 1912. I flipped it back to the front.

A young girl, clothed in an early nineteen hundred’s style dress, was sitting on a large rock. Her gloved hands held a closed parasol. Ringlets cascaded down the front of her shoulders. But what took my breath away—literally— was her beaming smile. My smile.

I tried to speak, but choked on my words. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Uncle Edmund nodding.

“Why does she look like me?” I finally got the words out.

“My dear … she
is
you.”

Marcus grabbed the picture from my hand and stared at it. My eyes stayed fixed to the empty spot between my hands, where the picture had been.