The Splendour Falls

  ‘You didn’t answer me,’ he said, sitting on the bed. ‘What makes you think someone was watching you from the window?’

  I shrugged, as casually as I could. ‘Gigi growled up at it. I guess it could have been a shadow on the glass or something.’

  He contemplated me seriously for a moment, maybe considering what I’d said versus what I hadn’t. Then he shifted, crossing his ankle over his knee. ‘Let me ask it this way instead. What made you think I would be watching you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said in frustration. It was the only thing that made even a little bit of sense. ‘You were the one being all weird this afternoon. You obviously think I’m up to something.’

  Denial rushed to his face, but he caught himself before he’d done more than open his mouth in indignation. He closed it, and seemed to chew on his next words for a long time. ‘I don’t know what to think about you, Sylvie.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what to think about you either.’ The height of understatement. The energy between us just then was not soothing or comfortable. It was charged, even in the way he said my name. I folded my arms, as if I could block out this push and pull on my emotions, and fired back inanely, ‘For all I know, you may be up to something.’

  I was only reflecting back the ridiculousness of the argument – a sort of ‘I know you are, but what am I?’ – but as soon as I said it, I thought about the way his expression had shuttered when I’d suggested he might be running away from something, like my own immigrant ancestors.

  And the way it had closed off now. ‘What would I be up to?’ he asked too casually.

  His reaction spurred me on. I threw out suggestions, just to see what he would say. ‘I don’t know. Maybe there’s oil under the land. Maybe buried pirate treasure.’

  That seemed to amuse him. ‘I don’t know anything about buried pirate treasure. If I did, though, I would definitely be looking for it.’

  I narrowed my eyes, irritated but speculative. ‘You admitted this afternoon that you have some secret project.’

  He exhaled incredulously, not quite a laugh. ‘I did not. I said I’m helping my father on his project and working on something of my own. Not searching for pirate treasure.’

  ‘Maybe your dad is just a cover story.’ I let my imagination expand to include the nonsensical. Not that pirate treasure was exactly reasonable. I put my hands on my hips, copying Paula’s take-no-arguments stance. ‘I haven’t even seen him yet. Maybe he doesn’t really exist.’

  Rhys smiled slightly. ‘Get up at a decent hour tomorrow, and you’ll meet him.’

  ‘Seven-thirty is decent. It’s not like I have anywhere to be.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He leaned back on his hands, tone turned mocking. ‘The lady of leisure.’

  ‘That’s not—’ And then I stopped, because he was doing it again. Whenever I pried into his business, he started goading me with accusations of divahood.

  ‘That’s not what?’ he asked when I snapped my mouth closed and dropped my hands from my hips.

  ‘Not important.’ I waved a hand, made my tone as airy as possible and saw his eyes narrow, just a fraction. Gigi had curled up on the rug, and I stepped around her as I sauntered oh-so-casually to the writing desk, and the bunch of books by the computer. ‘I mean, your dad must exist, since Clara and Paula aren’t delusional. And you have all these books.’

  He stood up as I ran my finger down the spines of the stack, reading titles aloud in the same offhand tone. ‘North American Geology. Native Americans of the Southeast – that must be how you knew about the mound builders.’

  ‘You’ve become quite the girl detective in the twenty-four hours you’ve been here,’ Rhys remarked, moving to join me at the desk. Pointedly, he reached across me and closed the laptop and the spiral notebook beside it.

  Ignoring the comment, I picked up the last book, which showed its age in its tattered fabric cover. ‘Notable Gardens of the South.’

  ‘That last one isn’t mine,’ he said. ‘I found it here.’

  I opened it to a marked page and saw a very old photograph of Bluestone Hill taken from a distance. When I looked up at him pointedly, he shrugged. ‘Naturally I wanted to know more about this place.’

  Holding the page with my finger, I flipped to the front to check the copyright date. It was a nineteen-sixties reprint of a turn-of-the-century book. ‘Did you find this in the study?’

  ‘No, actually. In this room.’ He paused, then flipped a few pages, the book still in my hands. His fingers brushed mine, and I chided my heart for its erratic reaction. I was still … not angry, exactly. Perturbed – that was the thing. He perturbed and intrigued me more than a mere acquaintance should.

  His words, though, evicted all that from my mind. ‘Someone wrote in the margins,’ he said. ‘Maybe one of your relatives.’

  My racing heart gave a funny stumble as the book fell open to a page of text, a photo of the knot garden and a woodcut print of the house’s landscape. But my eye fixed on the pencilled notes along the side.

  I sat down, landing in the chair only by accident, as my knees stopped working. ‘This is my dad’s writing.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I traced the faint graphite lines. At first touch, they tickled my fingers, as if the letters were raised. They should have been. Raised or etched … something to denote the impact that script had on me. ‘Maybe he wrote it when he was my age.’ My voice sounded oddly fragile. ‘Paula says they spent every summer here.’

  ‘I wondered about that.’ Rhys leaned back against the desk, strikingly casual compared with my awe at this find. ‘When you mentioned that your father was interested in stone circles and monuments, I wondered if the monolith in your family’s garden might have inspired him.’

  ‘Maybe so.’ I could see in the illustration that the rock was bare of foliage, just standing in the middle of the garden.

  ‘You can take that with you, if you like.’

  The offer shook me out of my fog. My eyebrows climbed and I shot him a look. ‘You think? Since it’s sort of mine, anyway.’

  Rhys gave me the same sardonic stare, of the same mild intensity. ‘So … you only get possessive about things here when it’s something you want. It’s Paula’s house, but it’s your book.’

  ‘It is Paula’s house.’ We had come full circle to our last conversation. ‘And I really don’t have designs on it.’

  ‘So you said.’ He didn’t sound censorious, though maybe a little droll. ‘You have plenty of money.’

  ‘That came out all wrong this afternoon.’ My tone was half confession, half apology. ‘I don’t care about money.’ I smoothed my hand absently over Dad’s book, the picture of the garden and the rock, and the ghost of his thoughts on the page. ‘All I want in the world is to be able to dance again.’

  I felt a small shock at the words. I never spoke them aloud. It was too foolish to wish for, too selfish and ungrateful, when I was lucky to be able to walk. But the wish was always there, the seed of all my misery. Blurting it out was like pulling the ugly white roots of my anger and bitchiness into the light for this guy, who should be a stranger but didn’t feel like one, to see.

  ‘It’s late,’ I said, even though it wasn’t really. Unable to look at Rhys, I slid out of the chair and went to pick up Gigi, who made a drowsy protest.

  ‘Sylvie.’ His voice, pitched low, caught me as I turned towards the door. I paused as he straightened from the desk, crossing the small distance. After the slightest hesitation, he touched my arm, and I forced my gaze up to his, just so I wouldn’t have to call myself a coward.

  The moment slipped somehow, with the sensation of a train that starts too abruptly, before you’ve braced yourself. Rhys’s grip tightened, and I realized I’d actually swayed on my feet.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘For what?’ The question was breathless with the sudden sprinting of my pulse. It was the déjà vu again, the feeling that we could be talking ab
out any incident, at any point in history, and not just the short time since we’d met.

  ‘That this happened to you.’ The vagueness of his answer stretched the moment longer. ‘Having to rethink your whole life isn’t easy.’

  His guarded compassion made me wonder what he knew about needing to change plans. My brow furrowed, a tacit encouragement to explain. Instead, he withdrew, taking a step backwards and shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  The surrealness vanished, with the gentle bump of returning to my feet after a long, inverted lift. I took a breath and let it out, collecting myself, searching for something to fill the silence. ‘Well, thanks for the book. Sorry I accused you of being a creepy spy.’

  Crap. I was pretty sure I winced visibly as soon as the words were out. I’d traded insane for inane. But Rhys seemed distracted too, maybe even a little relieved at the shift back to where we’d started this bizarre interlude.

  ‘No problem.’ He opened the door, but instead of stepping aside to allow me to pass, he went out first, looking up and down the hall. ‘What was it you saw, exactly?’

  So much for the hope he’d let the reminder pass. ‘I saw a shadow on the glass of the French door to the balcony.’

  He ventured to the landing, where he could see straight down the hall to the door. ‘Nothing there now.’

  ‘No.’ There was indirect light from his room and from mine at the other end. The temperature was cool, but not any more than the air-conditioned comfort of the rest of the house.

  ‘You’ll be all right?’ He turned to me, then answered his own question with a hint of a smile. ‘Of course you will. You’ve got your vicious little dog to protect you.’

  Since my vicious little dog was snoring softly in the crook of my arm, the observation was not terribly comforting. I watched Rhys for signs he was humouring me, but he seemed to take me seriously – that I’d seen something, even if it wasn’t him or his father.

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ I said, though I wasn’t sure of it at all.

  He studied me a moment longer – but with no hint whether he bought my assurance. Whatever he was thinking, he merely said, ‘Sleep tight, Sylvie,’ and moved towards his door.

  ‘You too,’ I whispered, and went to my own room.

  Once inside, with the door safely shut, I put the garden book on the desk and the dog on the bed and changed into my pyjamas, moving automatically through my nighttime routine, distracted by my thoughts.

  When I’d washed my face and brushed my teeth, I stood in front of the desk, contemplating the secret drawer, and the paper inside. Where would I put any of this on the list? My conviction that the shadow had been someone watching me, and the out-of-proportion anxiety about it. The cold on the landing, and the inexplicable moment with Rhys—

  Who was I fooling? Rhys would fill a page by himself.

  Back to the watcher at the window. Maybe, like the creak of the chair in the study, there had been a tangible thing – a reflection, the drift of the curtain inside – that Gigi and I both saw. But that didn’t explain my emotional reaction, and why I was so full of dread at the thought of discovery, when I hadn’t been doing anything wrong.

  I left the list where it was and grabbed the garden book, then climbed into bed with my vicious guard dog. Flipping the pages to the chapter on Bluestone Hill, I again traced the faded pencil of Dad’s notes. I didn’t try to decipher them in the soft lamplight. It was enough to let this evidence of his being here, of our occupying the same space in different times, connect me to his memory. Our travels together, his passion for growing things, for making art out of nature.

  What would my father have thought of Rhys? I’d never had the chance to introduce Dad to a guy I was interested in. Though ‘interested in’ was an inaccurately mild way of describing what I felt. What happened tonight wasn’t just attraction, or romantic tingles, or even déjà vu. When we connected like that, I was convinced – the way I was convinced I’d seen an aproned woman in the kitchen, the way I was sure someone had been watching me from the window – that Rhys and I were more to each other than we were. It would explain why – sometimes – I was so comfortable with him, why his smile seemed familiar, why his scent tripped my switch. And also why he could get under my skin with such ease.

  If this were not a completely insane idea, I would have wondered if that was why Rhys seemed confused by me, too, as if he kept expecting me to react differently to things.

  But that was crazy, and by now I was pretty sure that column would exceed the Not Crazy one by a mile. And that meant it was time to curl up with Gigi and try to get to sleep.

  I set Dad’s book down, but only as far away as the bedside table, and only after running my hand over it once again. Then Gigi, jealous I was petting the book more than her, wiggled under my arm and curled up under my chin.

  Chapter 10

  I’d meant to set the alarm – there was a vintage windup clock on the nightstand – but fell asleep so quickly that I forgot. I woke early anyway, thanks to the dog licking my face, telling me she was ready for a walk.

  I got up on autopilot, splashed some water on my face, wondered sleepily why I had rose soap when it should be lilac.

  The thought snapped me awake. I expected lilac as I moved through my routine at the washbasin. Which couldn’t be my routine, because I’d only been here two mornings.

  Gigi whined and danced on the corner of the bed, and I was grateful for the distraction. I threw on my jeans from the night before, a clean T-shirt and my hoodie against the morning chill, then picked up the dog. With the briefest peek out the door, I slipped down the hall. At the juncture I slowed, and then turned deliberately towards the French doors. The sun glowed on the sheer curtains and the air was warm.

  I sighed, unsure what I was expecting, and went down the stairs, through the den and out the side doors. From there it was easier to go through the knot garden and avoid being seen from the kitchen windows on the way to the back yard.

  I yawned while Gigi finished her business, then I cleaned up after her. This was my morning routine. Nothing rose-scented about it.

  The worn wooden steps squeaked as I climbed to the screened porch. Through the kitchen door I saw Rhys at the table, and I felt that aggravating spark again – excitement, recognition, expectation. I collected myself, focused my energy on not letting anyone see anything odd in my demeanour. The Sylvie-is-notcrazy show must go on.

  While I was distracted, Gigi pranced past me as if she owned the place. ‘Lord, girl!’ Clara called from the sink, where she was running water into a pot. ‘Keep that dog out of here while I’m cooking.’

  Annoyance flared and I tried to temper it with a reasonable argument. ‘Can I just keep her away from the food? She’s little and low to the ground.’

  ‘The health inspector would love that.’

  With a chagrinned start, I realized there was another man at the table with Rhys, an older man who gave me a friendly smile as he stirred sugar into a mug of tea and said, ‘You’re not open yet, Clara, and I don’t mind. My wife had so many dogs, I was forever picking hair out of my soup.’

  ‘That’s not the best argument for a dog in the kitchen, Dad.’ Rhys spoke dryly into his own mug before taking a sip. He’d glanced rather inscrutably at me when I came in, as if he, like me, was trying to figure out what ground we were on today.

  The older man was obviously Rhys’s father. Besides the identical accent – and the fact that he’d called him ‘Dad’ – he also had the same facial structure – the cheekbones, the jaw, the arched brow – and the same wavy hair, though the professor’s was white at the temples and scattered with silver.

  He bent in his chair, clapping his hands to call Gigi. ‘Come here, little one. Aren’t you a darling thing.’

  She bounded over and wasted no time charming the man with all her coy puppy tricks. I followed more slowly, and since Rhys didn’t make the introduction, ventured, ‘You must be Professor Griffith.’

  ‘I
ndeed I am.’ He smiled, and I pictured classrooms packed with infatuated coeds. ‘And you must be Sylvie Davis. We finally meet.’

  ‘You see,’ said Rhys, with a tinge of humour. ‘He does exist.’

  My eyes snapped to him, my insides knotting in panic. His brows climbed at my reaction, and I realized he’d been teasing me. And he looked like he regretted it, so maybe he wouldn’t say anything else about our late-night chat or my imagining stalkers at the window.

  I escaped his gaze and busied myself washing my hands, glancing at the kettle on the stove. ‘Is there still hot water?’

  Clara set down another mug and pointed to a tin of assorted tea bags on the table. ‘I guess Paula is the only coffee drinker. What will you have, Sylvie? Scrambled, poached or boiled?’ I noticed ‘none’ was not an option. ‘White or wheat toast?’

  ‘Scrambled. And, um, wheat.’ It was easier to agree than to argue about carbs. I picked a black tea, poured hot water over it, and sat in my usual spot.

  As the professor played with Gigi, Rhys not-quite ignored me by straightening his spoon and napkin. I wondered if he also felt awkward and uncertain, as if we’d been up to more than talking last night. To distract myself, I tried to picture him in his family home, and wondered why his dad had talked about his mom in the past tense.

  ‘What was your dog’s name?’ I asked.

  ‘How’s that?’ Rhys’s brows twisted in confusion. I supposed it was a non sequitur. I was way out of practice with small talk.

  ‘One of those many dogs must have been yours. What was its name?’

  He finished futzing with his cutlery and said sheepishly, ‘Bendy Gaid Fran.’

  ‘What?’ I knew kids named dogs stupid things – I mean, Gigi, for heaven’s sake – but Bendy Gaid Fran?

  ‘Bendigeidfran,’ said Professor Griffith. ‘He was a hero of Welsh myth.’

  I slid an ‘I see’ glance Rhys’s way. ‘A heroic hero, or one of those ambiguous types who kills people indiscriminately and then has to make up for it for twelve lifetimes?’