“Soon?”
“Don’t look so devastated,” she added as she stepped out and turned to me. “It’s not good for you, for any of us, to grow too fond of a place and especially the people living there.”
“I know. It’s just that… I thought Daddy liked living here.”
She laughed. “Daddy likes wherever he lives. That’s the point, Lorelei. He doesn’t live anywhere he doesn’t want to live. For a while,” she said. “Besides, don’t you enjoy starting new? I always did. Of course, I was never so susceptible as you seem to be.”
“Susceptible to what?”
“Friendships, boyfriends. Get over it,” she said, and left.
I sat there staring after her. If I had ever felt I was very different from her, it was right then, but was I really any different? Wouldn’t I soon be just like her, just as hard as she was? Would it matter if I tried to fight it?
If I only knew more about myself, more about my origins, I thought. Maybe, just maybe, mine were different from hers and from Brianna’s, and that was what accounted for my feelings. Maybe this was why Mrs. Fennel and Daddy wouldn’t tell me very much about myself. Maybe they were afraid of how I would feel or react if I knew.
I sat in my room for a while, just thinking about it all, and then I went out to the living room, expecting to see Daddy, hoping, now that I was older and closer to the maturity he expected, he would tell me more. I wouldn’t let him tell me to be patient. If I had to, I would beg him to be more forthcoming. He wasn’t there, but I heard Mrs. Fennel in the kitchen and went in to ask her if he was home.
“No. He won’t be back until morning,” she said. There was no point in asking her where he had gone or why. She wouldn’t tell me. She would act as if she didn’t hear me. I stood there for a moment, thinking, and then turned to return to my room. But I paused at the bottom of the stairway. I looked up and wondered if I dared. I could hear Mrs. Fennel still in the kitchen. Quietly, my heart pounding, I walked up the stairs.
Normally, it wasn’t often that any of us were in Daddy’s bedroom even in our other homes. Besides a bathroom in the hallway on the second floor, there was Mrs. Fennel’s bedroom. She always slept near him. Her bedroom and his had en suite bathrooms. The hallway bathroom was there for the guest bedroom that had been incorporated into Daddy’s before we moved here. The wall between them had been removed, and this grand suite had been constructed.
The flooring of Daddy’s entire suite was a very soft, fluffy white carpet. The walls were covered in velvet with black trim. His bed was a dark cherry wood with a headboard that had what he told us was his family crest embossed. It looked like a crown wrapped around a shape that resembled a human heart.
“Don’t ask me to tell you exactly what it means,” he told us. “It’s so old that no one really remembers, but it is striking, isn’t it?”
His suite had double dark cherry-wood doors, both lightly embossed with the same family crest. I once told him I thought it meant “the king of love.” He liked that very much and told everyone who visited what I had said.
“She’s so imaginative,” he said, and then shrugged and added, “Who knows? Maybe she’s right. Even if she isn’t, I like it, ‘the king of love.’”
It always brought laughter and smiles and pats on the head to me whenever Daddy told his friends. Naturally, both Marla and Ava were jealous.
There were many artifacts in Daddy’s room, very old portraits of relatives in gilded frames, ivory carvings from the Far East, framed scripts or letters written in Gaelic and some Slavic dialects, beautiful jeweled boxes, statuary from Greece and Italy in wall niches, some old clocks, wall tapestries from the Middle Ages created in France and England, and a marble table on which were many interesting things he had collected or had been given through the years—lockets, small pearl-handle knives, and, strangely enough, some bones encased in glass. He never spoke of them, and I never asked him about them, but we all understood they were the bones of his ancestors.
A part of his suite was a sitting area furnished with nineteenth-century French settees, foot rests, tables, and embroidered chairs. Daddy had a very valuable collection of original recordings of great opera singers as well as popular American, English, French, and Italian singers. When he was relaxing in his room, he was content to play those rather than use the tapes and MP3 players we girls had, even though the sound was scratchy. It was his way of recapturing some sweet memory or another.
The other pieces of furniture in the bedroom matched the bed. There was a large chandelier above the bed. He had bought it in France at some auction and claimed it had once hung in Marie Antoinette’s bedroom.
“I tell any of the women who’ve slept here to eat cake,” he said, joking about Marie Antoinette’s famous response when told the people were starving and had no bread. “Let them eat cake,” she supposedly said. “I so admire anyone who will not permit the misery around us to interfere with his or her pleasure,” Daddy said.
I opened the doors slowly, as silently as I could, and stood there for a few moments, just looking at everything. As always, the suite was pristine, not a spot of dust on anything. The chandelier was dimly lit, even though it was still quite bright outside, and the sunlight streaked through the open curtains, making crystals glitter.
What had brought me up here was the thought that maybe, just maybe, somewhere in his suite, in a drawer, in a box, somewhere, there was something about me, about my origins. Just contemplating going into Daddy’s room without his permission was terrifying, but here I was, driven by this overwhelming need to know myself better.
I took off my shoes so I would leave no trace on his immaculate rug. Even so, I was convinced Daddy would enter his suite and know I had been there. No matter how careful I was, he would know. I had to risk it. I took a deep breath and crossed into the suite.
As if it sensed someone there, a clock in the sitting area bonged the hour just as I entered. I froze in place and then slowly looked around the bedroom. Where would I begin to look? Mrs. Fennel kept Daddy’s dresser drawers so neat. Just moving a pair of socks seemed forbidden. I couldn’t imagine him keeping any paperwork under clothes, anyway. Why would he hide it like that? He had no fear of anyone going through his things, least of all me, I thought. But where would he keep papers? He had no office up here, no file cabinets.
I continued to circle the room, not touching anything. I didn’t think he’d leave anything out in the open, even though he would not expect any of us to come in here without his permission. And even if he had, Mrs. Fennel would certainly put it in its proper place. Just one look at this suite would tell anyone that it was kept as reverently as a shrine.
My gaze went to his closet. I knew he had a large walk-in with all of his clothes neatly arranged, but I recalled that toward the rear was a small desk and a chair against a wall mirror.
I started toward it but thought I heard footsteps in the hallway and hesitated, my heart pounding. I waited, and the footsteps died away in the opposite direction. That was surely Mrs. Fennel going to her own bedroom. I had to be sure not to make the slightest sound.
As quietly as I could, I opened the closet door and entered. For a few moments, I stood there studying the small desk. It had two drawers, but both had locks. I tried them anyway and discovered they were locked. This was probably a futile venture, I thought. He surely carried the key to the drawers on him always. Nevertheless, I looked around the closet and focused on his velvet robe. He wore it practically every day. It was worth a try. I searched the deep pockets and felt the keys on a small ring. Excited, I hurried back to the desk to try them, and they fit.
Still, I hesitated. If he realized I had opened these drawers, I would have no possible excuse. I couldn’t say I had come looking for him to tell him something or bring him something. Anyway, Daddy could look into my eyes and know when I was lying. Why worry about it now? I had come this far, risked this much. There was nothing to do but look. Even if I retreated, he would know I had com
e this far. If he was going to be angry at me, it might as well be for something worthwhile, I thought. I would tell him the truth, tell him how much I needed to know about my origins. Maybe he would understand, I decided, and opened the first drawer.
I was surprised. The drawer was filled with pictures of beautiful women. Why would Daddy keep pictures of women? From the clothing and the hairstyles, I could tell that some of these women had lived years and years ago. There were even some sepia photographs that suggested the late nineteenth century. Daddy was in none of the pictures with any of the women, but I knew each of them must have meant something special to him, or he wouldn’t have kept their photographs. I sifted through them slowly, studying each one. Then it occurred to me to look on the backs. There were only first names. I sifted through a few: Alexandra, Tia, Penelope, Thalia, Leah, and Kyla. How unique some of these names were, as unique as mine and Ava’s, I thought, and looked at some others. I paused when I saw Brianna.
Daddy knew a woman named Brianna? I stared at her picture. She looked a lot like my oldest sister. From her style, I thought she probably was someone Daddy had met in the ’70s. I turned over the next picture and froze. The name here was Ava. Was this Ava’s mother, Sophia? These names, I realized, were not the names of the women but the names of their daughters. With trembling fingers, I turned over the next picture and stared at Lorelei. Daddy knew who my mother was? But… I had thought I came from an orphanage.
I stared at the woman who was very possibly my mother. Did I want her to be? Was I seeing resemblances that weren’t really there? There was only one more picture. I lifted it slowly. It was a more shocking discovery than the picture of the woman who was possibly my mother. It was a picture of Brianna. Why? I turned it over slowly, the answer unfolding in the darkest part of my brain even before I read the name Marla. For a moment, I thought I couldn’t breathe. My lungs were filled with burning hot air. Did this mean Brianna was Marla’s mother?
I separated the picture of the woman who might be my mother from the rest and dropped them back into the drawer as close to the way they had been as I could. Then I closed the drawer, locking it again.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture I held in my hand. Questions exploded in my mind. What was her name? Where did she come from? Why did Daddy have her picture and the pictures of the other women? Did she die, or did she simply give me up to an orphanage?
Dare I open the second drawer? Maybe the answers to some of these questions were in there, especially something about my father. I had to look, but I was trembling so much I couldn’t get the key properly into the lock and dropped it. I held my breath. Had Mrs. Fennel heard that? Would she be charging in here at any moment? I waited nearly a full minute, but she didn’t come.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried again, this time opening the drawer. There was a very old-looking, cloth-bound book in it and nothing else. I plucked it out very carefully and opened it slowly. It reeked of age, the pages yellow and fragile. I was afraid to turn any, but I did.
The words were written in perfect script, the first pages done with what was probably one of Daddy’s quill fountain pens. Each page contained one of the names I had seen on the backs of the photographs. Under the names were dates and addresses. There was a physical description of each as well, hair and eye color, length and weight, and any particular birthmarks.
I had a birthmark just under my left breast. It wasn’t quite round and looked more like an unfinished circle. Still turning the pages delicately, I found the page with my name on it and quickly went to the birthmark. It was mine; this was my page. I looked at the address: Lost Angels, An Infant Sanctuary, 8 Dunning Road, Heartsport, Oregon.
Was this where I came from, and was this woman my real mother? I looked back at Ava’s picture. She had the same address in her small biography, Lost Angels. Brianna did as well, and so did Marla. Before Brianna, a girl named Raine had as her address of origin New Creation Home for Foundlings. It was in Ukraine. Flipping back, I found homes in Russia, France, India, Thailand. Carefully, I closed the book and set it back in the drawer. Then I closed the drawer softly, relocked it, and returned the keys to Daddy’s velvet robe.
My discoveries didn’t make me feel better or explain why I felt so different from Ava. Instead, they created more mystery, dropped me deeper into the well of secrecy from which we all drank. Why was I always told my parents were unknown if my mother was known? Did this mean my father was known, too?
How did all of this fit the story I had been told and, to my knowledge, Ava had been told? Ava had been told that Daddy had fallen in love with her mother and had died in childbirth, as would any normal human woman who carried his child. Did Ava know of this book and these pictures? Should I tell Ava what I had discovered? Wouldn’t she tell Mrs. Fennel, if not Daddy? Wouldn’t I be in very big trouble then? How would I handle the burden of carrying this secret, knowing what I had discovered? Was I as bad at hiding my thoughts as Ava claimed? In no time at all, Mrs. Fennel would know what I had discovered, and Daddy would know soon afterward. Would they see my foray into his suite and into the closet and desk drawers as a kind of betrayal?
As quietly and as softly as I had come up the stairway, I descended. When I reached the bottom, I hesitated. I had a cold feeling at the back of my neck telling me someone was behind me, but when I turned to look, I saw no one, not Mrs. Fennel or my sisters and certainly not Daddy. He wasn’t home, but it really felt as if something was following me. Maybe he was able to leave his spirit here to watch over his things. I hurried on to my room and quickly shut the door behind me. Then I went immediately to my desk, and on a pad, I wrote the address of the orphanage from which I had been taken so I would not forget it.
After that, I sat on my bed and stared at the picture of the woman who could be my mother, looking again for any resemblances between us and trying to figure out what she was like from the way she held her head, from her eyes and her mouth. She looked happy in this picture. Had she been with my father when it was taken? Had I been born yet? What did her voice sound like, her laugh? How could she leave me behind? What if she saw me now? Would she recognize me?
I had gone upstairs, snuck into Daddy’s suite in order to satisfy my desperate need to know more about myself, and all I had done was create more mystery, more dark places. It was like unwrapping one of those boxes I dreamed would be under a Christmas tree and finding only another wrapped box. Frustrated, I put my mother’s picture inside my English lit textbook and set it aside on my desk. Then I went to my bedroom window and looked out.
Twilight was passing into night. A cloudless sky was beginning to reveal the brighter stars. A tiny cyclone of emotions was spinning up from the pit of my stomach. I felt myself begin to breathe faster and harder as my heart went into a gallop.
When Daddy had swooped down on Mark Daniels just outside this window, I had seen the fear and terror in Mark’s reddened eyes. He had resembled a child struggling against a powerful adult. Before he was swallowed up in the darkness, he had turned toward me, and for a fleeting moment, he once again looked like the Mark Daniels who had charmed me at school, who had tempted that part of me that longed to be like everyone else. Had he been pleading for my help?
But I saw his fangs again, too, and a wave of rage overtook any sadness I had felt. Something hard and muscular unfolded and awoke in me. I hadn’t admitted it to myself until this very moment, but I had had the urge to go through that window and help Daddy destroy what Mark had become. It had flowed through me with such heat I thought my skin had begun to melt.
And then later, after it was over, when I had finally closed my eyes again, I had sunk into my bed like a body in a coffin, reaching up to pull the lid down over myself and shut out the world outside.
It struck me that, like Daddy and Ava and Brianna, I was welcoming the darkness. I was no longer afraid of the darkness. The darkness had become my friend, too. It made me think of the most important question of all.
&nbs
p; That question still echoed down the long corridor of my sleep and into the morning light and still reverberated and haunted me, which I feared it might do forever and ever. Even now, perhaps more than ever before, because of the mystery I had begun to unravel, I could hear it clearly. Only now, I heard it in a voice unlike my own, an older female voice, but one with a sweet and concerned tone, a loving voice, asking more questions.
Who are you, Lorelei?
Really.
Who are you?
And what are you becoming?
12
Who Are You, Lorelei?
If Daddy knew I had gone up to his suite, he didn’t come down in the morning to confront me about it. Mrs. Fennel said nothing to me, either. Only Ava seemed to sense something different about me. I could see it in the way her eyes followed me about this morning, how thoughtful and studied she was. Suspicion fell from her eyes like tears. Unfortunately for me, this was the one morning she had an early class, so she was there at breakfast.
“What’s wrong with you today?” she asked me.
“Nothing. I’m just a little tired, I guess.”
“We don’t get a little tired,” she said. “You have no reason to be tired at all, Lorelei. I hope you’re not still thinking about Buddy.”
“Who’s Buddy?” Marla asked.
“Never mind,” Ava told her. “Well?”
“No,” I said, but I was sure it wasn’t firm enough of a no.
“Right,” she said out of the corner of her mouth reserved for skepticism. “You let me be the one who thinks about him.”
Her words were like tiny knives sticking into my stomach. I avoided her eyes and hurried Marla along so we could leave for school, but my mind was never free of the thoughts she had deposited there.
“What’s Ava talking about? Who is Buddy? Why does she want you not to think about him?” Marla asked. “I thought we were sisters. Why are you keeping secrets from me?”