Things Half in Shadow (44 page)

“Holmes,” Callahan said. “Someone's here to see you.”

My father didn't look up from his book. “Who is it?”

His voice. Unlike my mother's, I had forgotten how it sounded. For a moment, I didn't even recognize it. It seemed too strange, too foreign to be my father's. Unfamiliar though it was, it unlocked hundreds of memories—ones that had eluded me for years. I recalled him bidding me good night, reading me stories, telling me how much he loved me.

“A reporter from the
Evening Bulletin
,” said Callahan. “He wants to interview you.”

My father turned a page of his book. “I don't wish to be interviewed.”

“Well, he's here now. Might as well talk to him.” Callahan turned to me, his smile an apology. “I'll leave you two alone. If, after a few minutes, he doesn't talk, hurry back and I'll show you out.”

Then he was gone, leaving me alone with the Amazing Magellan.

I remember very little about those first few seconds with him. My emotions were too unruly to pick up many details or preserve thoughts. I recall my throat being dry, so much so that I wasn't sure I could talk. And I remember my right leg twitching—a nervous tic I had no control over.

But mostly I recall desperately wanting to see my father's face. I wanted to gaze upon the Amazing Magellan to see what had changed and what was the same. I wanted him to see me, as well. I needed him to lay eyes on me and see that I was still standing, that his unthinkable act all those years ago hadn't broken me.

I cleared my throat and spoke.

“Father.”

The book, lowered slowly, revealed my father's face in small increments. First was the thinning patch of hair, not so much gray as it was colorless. Next came the wrinkled forehead, followed by his eyes. Those eyes, at once friendly and unknowable, had long ago left crowds mesmerized. Now they stared at me, recognition flickering deep within them.

“Columbus?”

It felt intensely strange to be addressed by my given name. It had been so long since I'd answered to it. Still, I said, “Yes. It's me.”

The book dropped to the floor. My father sprang off his cot and rushed to the cell door, gripping the iron slats while peering at me from between them. He studied my features, seeking out similarities to the boy he had once known. He nodded at each one. Nose. Eyes. Mouth. Convinced I was really his son, Magellan Holmes did something that surprised me.

He began to weep.

“Thank God,” he said. “Thank you, sweet merciful God. They told me you were dead. That you died in the war. I thought you were truly gone. I thought I had lost you forever.”

The tears poured from his eyes, raining down his cheeks and dampening his shirt. I felt tears of my own pushing at the corners of my eyes, begging to be released. I held them back. I refused to cry in front of my father. I refused to cry
for
him.

“Columbus Holmes
is
dead,” I said. “I go by Edward Clark now.”

“But you're alive,” my father said. “The name is unimportant. What matters is that you're here. Oh, Columbus, you can't know how much I've dreamt of this moment! My boy. My sweet, sweet boy.”

He smiled at me, even as the tears continued. The smile was, unlike the rest of him, something I recognized. Neither time nor prison had been kind to him. He was far too thin and his skin had the pallor of a corpse. But his smile was still the same.

That recognition, strangely, created more anger than comfort. It made me think of the man standing onstage fifteen years earlier. The one who had disappeared behind a red velvet curtain and changed my life forever. So my rage took hold, momentarily eclipsing the true purpose of my visit. Fifteen years of resentment woke inside me, flooding my heart with blackness. Fifteen years of questions followed—a veritable storm of them swirling inside my skull. Only the most important one was strong enough to make its way from my brain to my tongue.

“Why did you do it?”

My father's expression changed instantly, going blank. It was as if yet another velvet curtain had been drawn shut in front of him, blocking everything out.

Despite not receiving an answer, I continued to speak. Now that my initial question had been uttered, all those other words that had accumulated over the years poured out in a seething torrent.

“She loved you,” I hissed. “She couldn't have been a threat to
you. If you wanted to be rid of her so badly, why didn't you just leave? You could have left us both. We would have been fine without you. You didn't have to take her from me. You didn't have to kill her.”

I had started to cry, despite my best efforts. In contrast, my father's tears dried quickly, his damp collar the only remnant of them.

“There are things you can't understand, Columbus,” he said. “Things you can never know.”

Deep down, I was hoping that he'd somehow be able to explain everything. To lay out, step by step, the reasons for what he had done. Even if the rationale was nothing but pure hatred of my mother, it would have been better than uncertainty. Better than not knowing why he felt she had to die. But Magellan Holmes was unwilling to give me even that, and I despised him for it.

“You owe me an explanation,” I said. “After the hell you put me through, I deserve something.”

“I have nothing to give,” my father replied, backing away from the cell door.

I moved
toward
it, gripping the slats just as he had done earlier. I wanted to get as close to him as possible, so that he might see my face, my hurt, my hatred. I wanted it to haunt him.

“May you rot here, you bastard,” I said, my voice wavering between anger and pain. “May you live a long, long life, with nothing but this cell for comfort. May you suffer within these walls. And when it's your time to die, may your last thoughts be of my mother and what you did to her and how despicable you are.”

I released the door, my fingers white knuckled and numb, and stumbled away from it, spent. I felt empty then. Hollow.

My father, meanwhile, had retreated to the gloomy rear of his cell. I could only make out his silhouette against the cell's gray walls. Although I couldn't see his face, I heard him weeping again.

“Is this why you came here after all this time?” he asked, his sob-choked voice emerging from the shadows. “To say that?”

After my speech through the door, I wasn't sure I had any words left in me. It certainly felt that way. Yet I was able to answer, “No. I was told to see you.”

“By whom?”

“That's not your concern.”

I couldn't tell him the truth. Even if he believed me, I didn't want him to know I had communicated with my mother. I didn't want to tarnish that memory.

“And why do you need to see me?”

“I was told a word,” I said. “A word only you can explain to me.”

“What is it?”

“Praediti.”

My father burst out of the darkness, flying to the door with a speed as frightening as it was unexpected. His eyes, wide and tear stained, darted about a moment before locking on to my own. His hands, I noticed, trembled.

“Where did you hear that?”

“I told you, it's not your concern.”

“Nor is it
yours
!” he said. “You must promise me, Columbus—”

“It's Edward.”

“Fine. Edward, you must promise never to utter that word again. Forget you ever heard it. And if you somehow hear it again, you run. Run as far away as you can. Do you understand?”

I didn't. Not in the least. Still, I said, “Yes.”

“Promise you'll do what I say!”

“I . . . I promise.”

My father, looking slightly relieved yet far from calm, turned his back to me and began to move deeper into his cell once more.

“Aren't you going to tell me what it means?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I can't. Don't ever ask me that again.”

“But it has to be something important. It's something I need to know.”

As Magellan Holmes retreated into the darkness again, he
seemed to merge with the shadows, making it impossible to see him. One final illusion.

“So that's all you're going to say?” I asked.

My voice, plaintive and pleading, echoed around the cell, almost as if it were suddenly empty. Only through the sound of his voice did I know that my father was still there.

“You shouldn't have come here,” he said. “Leave now, and don't ever return. You should stay dead, Columbus Holmes. It's better for both of us that way.”

I
t was raining when I left the prison. One of those chilly, late-spring showers that felt inescapable, as if the dampness has seeped into your very marrow. I trudged through it, ignoring the growing puddles and streams of rainwater that flowed to the gutters.

Seeing my father again had left me tired more than anything else. Yes, rage and grief were still present, simmering like a fever. But it was a deep, shoulder-slumping exhaustion that made me not even care when the rain suddenly picked up, leaving me exposed in an outright downpour a few blocks from home. Instead of sprinting, I slowed down, removed my hat, and tilted my face to the sky. The drops that hit my cheeks were cold and jarring—each one a tiny slap. My hope was that the rain would either wake me from my stupor or wash me away entirely.

Unfortunately, it did neither. By the time I reached Locust Street, I was a soggy mess, made even more fatigued by the long walk in inclement weather. All I wanted was to retire to my bed and sleep for days, not seeing or speaking to anyone. I finally wanted to do what Barclay had advised all along—withdraw from the world until this particular storm passed.

But that plan, like many a previous one, was laid to waste when I noticed a brougham sitting in front of my house. As I got closer, I recognized Winslow in the driver's seat, hunched, collar up, against the rain.

One of the Willoughbys had decided to pay me a visit.

The door swung open when I reached the brougham. Inside was Violet, staving off the chill with a wool blanket and one of the hats that had made her family's fortune.

“Violet?” I said. “Have you been waiting long?”

“An hour or so.”

“For heaven's sake, why didn't the two of you go inside? Winslow looks like a drowned rat up there.”

“Quite honestly, Edward, I don't want to enter your home.”

Although Violet was looking in my general direction, her eyes refused to meet mine. Instead, her gaze settled somewhere on my chest and remained there, not budging until I entered the coach and sat beside her. Then her focus shifted to the window.

“Why would you say such a thing?” I asked, fumbling beneath the blanket until I found her hand. Violet pulled it away as soon as I touched it.

“Bertie told me everything, Edward,” she said. “How he saw you at Mr. Barnum's party. How you ignored him and ran away.”

In hindsight, I should have known this conversation was coming. Yet Bertie and even Violet had been forgotten during the course of the day, eclipsed by bees and secrets and the pale, gaunt face of my father.

“Yes,” I said. “It was quite a coincidence.”

“He said you were with someone. A woman.”

“I was,” I replied. “Her name is Mrs. Lucy Collins.”

“The same Mrs. Collins suspected of Mrs. Pastor's murder?”

“Like me, she's one of the suspects, yes,” I said. “But I have no doubt about her innocence, nor does she about mine. Which is why we have been working together to prove it.”

“Is that what you were doing at Mr. Barnum's ball?” Violet asked. “Trying to prove your innocence?”

“As a matter of fact, we were. We had questions to ask of Mr. Barnum.”

“I suspect you didn't get the answers you were seeking,” Violet said. “Bertie told me it appeared as if the two of you were arguing as you left the hotel.”

“He was mistaken,” I said.

Violet edged away from me. Not by much, but enough for me to notice the slight space that widened between us.

“He also said you ran when he spotted you.”

“I did,” I admitted. “It was foolish of me. It was my assumption that if Bertie spotted me with Mrs. Collins, he would assume the worst. And so he has. I should have simply introduced the two of them and avoided all this trouble.”

Yet there was more to it than that. Bertram Johnson had seen Lucy dancing in my arms. He had seen me lost in her company. I wasn't certain if he had mentioned
that
to Violet, but it was my suspicion that he had.

“How badly do you want to marry me, Edward?” Violet suddenly asked. “Do you truly love me?”

“Of course I do,” I said. “How can you even question that?”

Sadly, I already knew the answer. Violet doubted my devotion because I had given her good reason to. Flitting about the city with Lucy. Dancing with her. Coming perilously close to kissing her. Looking back on my actions, Violet had every reason to question what was in my heart.

Yet I was certain that I loved her. I had loved her ever since that first bite of cake at that silly veterans' dance. Only lately, that love had become more complicated, thanks to the presence of Lucy Collins in my life.

I certainly had no intention of pursuing a dalliance with Lucy, nor did I expect us to remain friends once our names were cleared.
Yet my feelings for her had undoubtedly evolved since our first meeting—a fact that caused much guilt where Violet was concerned.

“I don't question it,” Violet replied. “But everyone else
does
.”

“I don't give a damn what everyone else thinks.”

“Neither do I,” Violet said. “I've said the same thing to Bertie and to my parents. But I don't like secrets, Edward. Everything you have done could be forgiven if you had simply told me about it.”