Arrival of the Traveler (Waldgrave Book 1) (6 page)

She walked back down to the entrance hall, went to the living room, climbed the staircase to the library, and went into her room. Still having an hour and a half until dinner, and exhausted from the effort it took to simply navigate the house, she laid down on her bed to think. 
There’s a room behind that wall. A room without a door.
 Maybe it really didn’t have a door. She puzzled out that if there were a staircase, a hidden one that led up into the mystery room, it would have to be located in either the purple or yellow bedroom, or the library. Her head was spinning. A room with no doors, a lying pair of guardians, missing family portraits, a shadowy guest she’d never met, and a yard boy who seemed to know what was going on…

Lena’s eyes drooped shut. Her mind was busy, but her body was tired. It was some time later that the sound of a door clicking shut awakened her.

She looked around. Had it only been in her mind, or had she just heard someone attempting to quietly leave her bedroom as she slept? She raced to the bedroom door and threw it open, expecting to catch the culprit in the act of fleeing, but the hall was as empty as five of the eight third floor rooms. The smell of the fresh paint woke her up for good. Looking at her watch, she realized she had only fifteen minutes left until dinner started.

She went to her closet to hang her jacket up, which she was still wearing from earlier, and stood in amazement. Howard had left more clothes. 
A lot
 more clothes. There were day dresses, formal dresses, dresses for the snow, dresses in every color imaginable…

Lena had never liked dresses. She found herself liking them even less now that they composed ninety-eight percent of her wardrobe. She wondered if Howard knew it had become socially acceptable for women to wear pants in the last few decades.

Nevertheless, she was happy to find a heavy, full-length coat. She would need it later. She changed into a simpler blue dress and headed down to the dining room.

“Where’s Howard?” She asked Mrs. Ralston, who set a plate down in front of her.

“The Master is…busy tonight.”

“Okay. Sure.” She sat quietly as Ralston set two more places and then sat down. Once David joined them, dinner began.

“Mrs. Ralston, will you deliver a message to my uncle for me?”

Ralston looked up. “Certainly, dear. What is it?”

“Well, I do appreciate the clothes he’s been getting me, but could you ask him to stop with the dresses? I mean, I’m much more of a blouse-and-black pants kind of girl. And I prefer doing my own shopping.” This wasn’t true, but she was willing to say anything to make the dresses stop.

“He’s been getting you dresses?”

“Yeah.” Lena furrowed her brow; the way the new dresses had been hung suggested a modicum of care, and she had imagined Mrs. Ralston must have brought them up—somehow, it was hard to see Howard tending to such a task. “Where did you think I got this one?”

Mrs. Ralston looked at Lena’s apparel for the first time that night, and actually dropped her fork. It made a loud clank against the table before disappearing to the floor; Ralston looked as terrified as she had the first night at dinner.

“You said the Master got that for you?” Her voice had become a high whisper.

“Yes. Left it in my closet, along with all the others…”

Mrs. Ralston went back to her food, now using her spoon, but didn’t actually eat anything. After ten minutes of pushing things around on her plate, there came a buzzing noise.

“My goodness,” Ralston stood up, “Who would come calling at this hour?” She started toward the door. David kicked Lena under the table. When Lena remained seated, he kicked her again, harder.

“Ow!”

Mrs. Ralston turned around, bewildered. Lena stood up, glaring at David, whose gaze was cast in the direction of the housekeeper.

“Wow! I’m tired. I think I’ll be going to bed early tonight. If it’s at all possible, I’d like to not be disturbed. For any reason. I get very scared when people wake me up when I’m tired.” She hoped it didn’t sound as stupid as she thought it did. Lena faked a yawn.

“Okay, dear, I’ll be sure not to bother you…” Ralston eyed Lena for a moment before another loud buzz summoned her, once again, to the front door. The second she was out of the room, David grabbed Lena’s arm and started pulling her toward the side entrance.

“Ow! Wait! I need to get my coat!”

“You can borrow mine.”

“What if she comes back? Or goes up to check on me, or something?”

“Trust me,” He looked out the side entrance door to be sure no one was outside watching, “She’ll have her hands full with the guest, and she’ll be more than happy that you’re out of her hair for the night.”

Lena tried to keep up with David as they walked down toward the old barn, but she kept tripping, and every time she did, he only squeezed her arm harder and walked faster. They finally reached the barn and David pushed her in before him.

On the inside, Lena looked around and had trouble believing the building was fashioned as a barn on the outside. It had been done up as a sort of one room make-do apartment. It was a large space, considering how little it held. There was a cot, a wood-burning stove, a chest, and a three-legged stool huddled in one corner.

“Is this where you live?”

David glared at her. “Go sit on the bed.”

Lena stared as he climbed up a ladder into what must have been the hay loft, rummaged for a moment, then reappeared, climbing back down. He had what appeared to be a picture frame in his hands.

“I said sit!”

Lena hurried over and sat on the bed as David pulled the stool up in front of her and seated himself. Taking a deep breath, he began.

“How much do you know?”

“About what?”

“About…your mother’s side?” David was suddenly very serious, and Lena wasn’t having as much fun as she had thought she would. She had never snuck out of a house before, but knew from television that it was supposed to be fun.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or what?”

“Just answer the question!” He was getting angry again.

“Okay, fine! Um…well, my mom died shortly after I was born and I’ve never seen any pictures. I thought I met my maternal grandmother, but it turned out she was a dirty rotten liar like my uncle, who says my mom’s side sucked anyway. The end.”

“Great. That’s just great.” He tapped the picture in his hand.

“Can I see—“

“Not yet. Do you ever have strange dreams, princess?”

“Would you please stop calling me that?”

David smiled wryly. “Sure. Right after you stop acting like one. Strange dreams?”

She stared at him. Didn’t everybody, at some point or other? “Can I borrow your coat now?”

He opened the chest at the foot of the bed and threw a heavy winter coat at her. It smelled sweaty and dusty, but she put it on anyways.

“I used to.” Lena shrugged, diverting her gaze around the barn. “But I talked about them with my dad, and he said they were just silly nightmares. He told me to forget them, and I guess I had, until now. I don’t dream anymore.”

“Tell me about them.”

“I don’t want to.” She immediately flinched, expecting him to be angry, but when she looked over, he was smiling.

“Princess, they weren’t just silly nightmares…”

He handed her the portrait he’d been holding. It was Lena, but it wasn’t. This woman…she was older. Same face, same body…they even had the same hair color, and wore it in much the same fashion…

“You got your father’s eyes, I’m told, but I don’t have a picture of him to prove it.”       

She was wearing a red dress. It was the exact same one that Lena had worn to dinner just a few days ago. That’s why it fit so well.

“Turn it over.” David said in softer tone.

On the back of the frame, there was a short note written in a serpentine crawl of black ink: 
Princess Avalon Daray, September 3rd, 1987
.

“Princess?” Lena mouthed the word, unable to speak.

“That’s what he doesn’t want you to know. You’re royalty.”

Lena stood up very quickly. She smiled and thrust the portrait back at David. He had a look in his eyes that was confusing; reverence mixed with his frustration of her ignorance.

“I’m sorry David, but you’re crazy. I’ve got to go now.”

He lightly touched her shoulder as she walked past him, and she felt…something. A warmth ran through her. She looked back.

“If you stay a little longer, and I’ll tell you who the man in the attic is.”

“Who are you?” She stepped back, but he made no effort to stop her leaving. He already had her, and he knew it. His eyes were as dark as ever, but there was a new interest in them. They were alive with a force of passion. Possibly even obsession. “David?”

“I’m here because your grandfather asked me to be. That’s the man in the attic. Your mother’s father.” He sat down on the bed, and continued to talk.

“That’s what I meant by coming here to get an education. Your grandfather, the true Master of Waldgrave, has taken me on as an apprentice. But you can’t tell Howard. Howard is the enemy.”

Lena and David stared at each other. Understandably, she was having some trouble taking him seriously.

“Well, if he’s trying to teach you to be a crazy hermit, you’re both doing a great job.”

David stood up and took several quick steps toward her. He certainly knew how to intimidate. “It’s an honored position, and I won’t let you speak of him that way again.” He’d gone serious again.

Lena sat down next to the wall and held her face in her hands. 
I don’t know why I let him bring me here…

“You let me bring you here because you wanted to know. And now you do.”

Lena looked up. “What?”

“We’re a race of very ancient people, Lena. And we’re dying off. Some, like Howard, prefer it that way.”

“David—you’re crazy!”

“If I’m crazy, then how do I know what you’re thinking?”

Lucky guess.

“It wasn’t. It isn’t.”

“Oh my God…”

“Let me teach you, Lena,” He crouched down on the floor in front of her, pushing her hair out of her face and raising her chin so that she was looking at him. “You will learn these things, whether you are a willing student or not. You’ve been shown the truth, and it’s only a matter of time before things start happening on their own. I suggest you take my offer…Master Daray won’t be so kind as to give you the option.”

What the hell does that mean? I don’t believe this…

“Then ask your mother tomorrow at breakfast,” he looked in the direction of Waldgrave, “Anyway, I suggest you find your way back before it gets too cold out.”

There was a cramp growing in the middle of her stomach… her mother? At breakfast? Lena scrambled to her feet, dropped the odorous jacket, and ran out the door and away from David as quickly as she could. The pain in her abdomen grew with every step she took toward Waldgrave; icy tears were streaming down her face and sweat collected on her brow. Ten feet from the front door Lena collapsed in a heap, only to be discovered the next morning covered in a light dusting of snow and running a high fever.

*****

CHAPTER
4

“Out here! Out here! Howard, quickly!” Ava Daray had returned to her father’s house. The past eighteen years of her life had not met anyone’s expectations. “Howard!”

Howard took the stairs at a run as he raced to the front door. Rosaleen had raised the alarm early that morning, before Howard had risen, and his bathrobe trailed behind him like a powder blue cape. “Well how the hell did she get out here?! Rosaleen, call a doctor!”

“No! No doctors…” Ava knelt and held a hand to her daughter’s forehead. “She’s got a fever. We need to get her inside, but I don’t think the weather’s done her any harm.” She looked around at the snow that had fallen over night, and then smiled into Howard’s frowning face.

Howard picked up Lena and carried her up to her bedroom. Her mother sat with her for several hours, watching her beautiful child up close for the first time in more than ten years. She stroked her hair and knew that the coming days were going to be difficult for both of them. Around lunch time, David came looking for her.

Ava didn’t move her eyes from her daughter’s face as the door opened, closed, and footsteps slowly approached her side.

“What did you tell her?”

Only silence met her question, and Ava turned to face David.

“What in God’s name did you tell her?!”
 She said in a deadly hiss.

“Only the truth.” David sat down on the foot of the bed.

“Did she ask you to—“

“No. That’s why I told her. Your father needed to know.” His eyes rested uneasily on Lena’s sleeping form. If he’d known the results would have been this detrimental, he might not have done it.

“You should have waited for her to ask…”