Annabelle held her daughter close and walked into the church with purpose, her head held high. This was not a defeat, she reminded herself, this was coming home. She had waited until the last of the stragglers had gone inside to make sure that no one would try and talk to her. She was slightly surprised, but also expecting it when her usual spot was empty, even after she hadn’t attended in years.
It was only once she sat down and placed Margaret on her lap that she allowed herself to look up, just a quick glance, barely a second, to see if he was there. As soon as she lifted her head, her eyes locked on his, and she had to turn away. That little moment was enough to make the emotions rush back, and the tears threatened to overwhelm her. Whether out of habit or simple inattention, when turning to avoid Gabriel, her eyes rested on Embry, who looked so happy to see her that she had to turn away from him as well.
Annabelle could feel eyes on her during the entire service, with the hairs on the back of her neck sticking up, but she managed to convince herself that it wasn’t them; the boys she had loved. She knew that the entire congregation had reason to be staring at her, gossiping about how she had returned after five years, without a husband, but with a daughter. They would be wondering what happened to bring her back, why she left in the first place, if there ever was a husband, if he deserted her, died or was coming with the rest of their household.
When the service ended and people made their way outside the church, Annabelle followed Father Brown to the side of the altar.
“I was surprised when you asked to see me, Miss Owens,” he said, eying Margaret, waiting for her to correct him on her name.
“It’s Mrs. Hathorne now,” she assured him, noticing that he exhaled and smiled, the relief obvious on his face.
“Your letter mentioned a baptism?” he asked.
“Yes, for Margaret,” she agreed, looking down at the sleeping child, who smiled when her mother kissed her forehead.
“This has not yet been done?” Father Brown inquired, worried about what kind of heathen his parishioner had married. She had perhaps left town, but a shepherd never gave up on his flock.
“Yes, she has, of course,” Annabelle assured him.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re asking of me.”
“There were some rumors about the priest in the town where we were raising Margaret. I would hate to think my child would not…”
“Of course,” he understood, cutting her off, not wanting to hear about any rumors that would tarnish the reputation of the church. It was enough to have rumors of witchcraft floating around, he didn’t want to dignify them with a denial, or even admit to their existence. “Will your husband be joining us?”
“I’m afraid he is no longer of this world,” she said, bringing her hand to her heart.
“I am glad you are turning to God for solace in your time of mourning. The baptism can be as soon as next Sunday.”
“I appreciate it, Father,” Annabelle said before making her way out of the church. A few women had stayed to eavesdrop on the conversation, and others were waiting to speak to the priest as well, but most people had gone back to their fields, or Sunday activities. She knew better than to expect that Gabriel and Embry would have gone home after she returned to town without so much as a word to either of them.
Embry was to the right of the door, playing with his niece and nephews as if he hadn’t a care in the world, though he glanced up almost as soon as she walked out, and smiled. He kept playing with the children, but it would be rude if she didn’t go see him now, and no matter how things had ended when she left, he was still one of her closest friends.
“You’re like a vision after so long in the dark,” he said dramatically after whispering something to his niece once Annabelle was in front of him.
“You haven’t changed at all.” She had been nervous about seeing them again. The warm smile Embry offered made her want nothing more than to let him take her in his arms and tell her everything would work out. Embry was so optimistic that he would believe it, and she would be forced to do the same.
“You have,” he said. “I mean, you’re as beautiful as ever, but this little lady and I have yet to be introduced.”
“Margaret,” she smiled. “My daughter and the absolute love of my life.”
Embry nodded, then said, “She’s beautiful,” but looked at Annabelle in a way that made her heart beat faster than normal.
He continued to smile at her, and she got the feeling he could keep at it all day, but she could feel herself blushing. She could only imagine what her mother would say if she could see her. Of course, her mother wouldn’t have approved with the direction she took the conversation in either. “I’m sorry I left,” she told him, hoping he understood how truly she meant it.
“We don’t have to get into that,” he assured her, but he looked away, and she knew it was because she had hurt him, and he didn’t want her to see that.
“I have felt terrible about it. I should have explained myself and…”
“I wouldn’t do well to pine over a married woman anyhow.” He resumed his smiling, but there was a question to the statement.
“A widow,” she corrected him a moment before realizing life here would be so much easier if she had said her husband was on a ship back to Europe or some excuse that left her unavailable.
“Then we might effectively have some talking to do.” The happiness this brought him nearly broke her heart, but she couldn’t bear to mislead him either.
“I would love to have you and Gabriel over for some tea this afternoon, but you must understand that Margaret is my priority.”
“As it should be,” he assured her, but not in a way that implied he understood her meaning. “And I would love to join you for tea this afternoon. Although I’m afraid Gabriel might not be so inclined.” He nodded to a spot behind her, so she turned around and saw a young woman openly flirting with Gabriel under the watchful eye of who must be her mother. Her heart literally stopped as she watched them, or at least it felt like it did. Gabriel was the perfect gentleman, smiling and making her laugh, this young girl who was smitten with him, but Annabelle consoled herself by deciding that the smile did not reach his eyes. Those beautiful brown eyes that she was convinced followed her the moment she turned away.
“He can bring his friend if he likes. It’s simply an afternoon among my oldest and most beloved friends.” Annabelle hoped she managed a polite smile, but every time she heard that girl laugh, it felt like a knife was being twisted around inside her chest, eviscerating her heart.
I woke up with a start, a feeling of fear and heartbreak overwhelming me. I’d been having a dream that felt so real, but I knew I wasn’t me. It was like I was experiencing it from inside the person it was happening to. This wasn’t the first time. While I had long ago resigned myself to them, I now knew that Sam and his parents were wrong to tell me they were just dreams, nothing to concern myself with. The dreams were memories. Not mine, of course, but my ancestors’. I used to think it was my brain revisiting the stories Grams had told me; elaborate masquerade balls, romantic entanglements and European adventures. Given everything I found out yesterday, I knew I was visiting Annabelle’s memory. They had always been so vivid and exhilarating, but this time the memory wasn’t so pleasant.
I turned to the spot where Gabriel had spent the night and only saw the blanket and pillow, neatly folded as if they hadn’t been used. I brought them inside, then stepped onto the balcony, knowing he wouldn’t be too far.
This was one of my favorite spots on the plantation. It was high enough that you could see everything. If I went to the left side, I could see the meadow leading to the creek, with the little row boat I always begged to go out on. I had convinced Sam to take me out once, but I spent the whole time telling him about the scene in the Notebook with all of the swans. He spent his time laughing at me, until the rain came down in buckets, like in the movie. He swore, which he wasn’t supposed to do in front of me, but it only made me laugh harder while he tried to row us back to the dock. We were both soaking wet. He told me I would have to do the rowing next time, but we never went out again.
In front, all you could see were trees. Big, weeping willows I used to associate with Pocahontas. For years after Grams died I would go out there and talk to the biggest one I could find, pretending that she was talking back. Embry found me once. I knew Grams wasn’t really in the tree, but I wasn’t ready for him to tell me that. Luckily, he was the type of grown up who understood those things, so he sat with me and pretended he could hear her too. By the end of it, I was wondering if maybe she actually was in the tree. Embry also used to pretend he could see our manor from the balcony, even though it was at the other end of the forest. I thought he had way better eyesight than I did. I would test him, asking what color the curtains were, how many windows…he would squint really hard as if he was trying to see further, then would answer the question. I was amazed by him. It never occurred to me that he had been coming to the manor for years, and knew these details about it, just like I did.
The view to my right held less pleasant memories, but the cemetery was still beautiful. I vaguely remembered my grandmother bringing me there to see my mother’s grave, but after she died, Mrs. Boyd only brought me there once or twice, saying I could pay my respects without having to spend the day in a cemetery. Still, every time I found myself in this house, I would come out here and look upon the big white marble statues of angels and saints. Even from my balcony, I knew exactly which one was my mother’s, and my grandmother’s, but I didn’t know most of the others. It was our family plot though, so they were all from the long line of women I came from.
Most cultures value male offspring, putting so much stock into heirs that would carry on the family name. In my family, whether by choice or by design, we were all women. I couldn’t tell you how far back it went, but so much as I could tell, it was only ever the daughters who went on to continue the line, keeping the name of Owens and passing it on through generations. The only men who had tombstones in our cemetery were either their husbands or their sons who died in infancy, sometimes a little older, but never having children of their own. I tried to ask about it, to see if there was a reason or if we were a long-lasting fluke in nature, but the closest I got was Mrs. Boyd telling me the women in my family were stronger than most men. Considering how all the women I grew up with were buried in that cemetery, I wasn’t sure how accurate she was.
It didn’t surprise me that the cemetery was where I spotted Gabriel, standing solemnly in front of one of its oldest tombstones. I had followed him to it once and asked him who Annabelle was. I was maybe eight, and it hadn’t occurred to me that it was the woman my doll was named after. That was when I found out that if I wanted to know about the past I could ask Embry, but never Gabriel. He was upset that I asked, shocked that I didn’t know, and looked at me in a way that made me feel like I had no right to even utter her name. That should have tipped me off that when he said he was an old friend of the family, he meant long before my grandmother, but I never expected him to be from the 1600s like Annabelle.
Gabriel had come to me that night and apologized, stiffly, making me think Embry was the one who told him that I was just a child who didn’t know any better and that he should make amends. It was a long time before I would ask him anything else.
I had packed some clothes, but I knew the closet here was stocked. We stayed at the plantation when Embry came every summer, to give Sam and Deanna a break from me. I quickly changed into a blue polka dot halter dress and tried to wrestle my curls into a bun before going to see Gabriel. He was still standing in front of Annabelle’s tombstone.
Her name was starting to fade, but the crescent moon carved into the stone on top of it was as clear as day. Even with my hair in a bun it was still long enough, and the elastic low enough, that you couldn’t see my birthmark. He hadn’t mentioned it when he was going on about freckles last night, but I got the impression he knew a lot more than he was sharing with me. Under the faded name were the years she lived, 1664-1692, and a golden plaque to cover where it used to say she was a criminal who was burnt at the stake. It now read, “Beloved mother and dearest friend, my heart is yours until we meet again.”
“When was the plaque added?” I asked, fishing for information. I had always assumed the plaque was put there by someone who loved her, like her husband, who meant that he would be with her once he died. Now, with all the information I was learning, I got the impression Gabriel added it. He probably believed that she was going to come back to him some day, and they would be together in this world. Just pick up where they left off. Except Embry liked to hang out by the tombstone as well. It wasn’t exactly going to work for the both of them, but I guess you wouldn’t dwell on how she could only come back to one of them when there were bigger obstacles in the way. Like how she had been dead for centuries.
“You shouldn’t be out in the open like this,” Gabriel warned, turning away from the stone and walking to the opening in the wrought-iron fence, knowing I would follow even though he didn’t so much as glance in my direction.
“We would hear if there was anyone within a mile of this place,” I reminded him, looking around and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, only hearing animals and leaves dancing in the wind. Even squirrels would have sent the birds into a flying frenzy.
“If we heard them, would you have time to run to the house, get inside and lock yourself into the bunker before he got to you?” he asked, like he trusted the ultra-modern security system about as much as he trusted my athletic abilities. From what I could tell, the plantation house was safer than the White House. Still, Gabriel sounded like he trusted the trees and secret hiding places better.
I hadn’t seen the remodeling yet, but ‘the bunker’ used to be a huge room in the basement that was made of some incredibly strong metal and installed generations ago as a bomb shelter. It also had all kinds of religious symbols and protective drawings on every inch of it, which Embry had told me were blessed. As a child, I thought Embry was teasing. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if the pope himself had blessed the metal sheets. I accidentally locked myself in it once, and although it took less than 20 minutes for someone to let me out, I still thought of the bunker as more of a tomb than a safe haven. Hopefully the danger would never come close enough for me to have to go in it.
“You haven’t been back in a while, but I was on the track team this year,” I tried for some of the banter we had in the past, but his face was a mask, emotionless.
A few summers ago, Embry would have smiled and asked “You?”, teasing me for my lack of athleticism, while Gabriel would have sat there, pretending not to listen or care, with a smile spreading, until we would finally get him to participate. Today, all he managed was, “Get inside and try to figure out how to let me into the house, but not Control or your bedroom. I’ll make sure no one has breached the perimeter.”
“Be careful,” I warned him as he set off. He walked around and made sure no one could get close, but anything with the perimeter was also code for spending hours in the woods. Either to be alone with his thoughts, or to get away from me, I couldn’t be entirely sure.
I went back to the house and finally took a look at the renovations that had been done. Most of the rooms looked the same, albeit with a tiny black computer screen, except for what used to be an empty office. It now looked like the command station for a space launch. I assumed this was the ‘command’ Gabriel had warned me not to give him access to.
It took me a while to find the manual for the system, mostly because I had expected it to be a book instead of a computer file. My biggest issue was figuring out the passwords, which seemed to have been chosen by Sam, as well as coaxing myself into the pin prick on my finger to confirm my DNA. The ocular scan, my fingerprint and all of these security measures were absurd. I still wasn’t sure the entire thing wasn’t an elaborate and expensive prank.
Once I figured out how to give other people access to specific rooms, I made the Control room and my bedroom off-limits to anyone but me, no matter what. Then I went to the kitchen to see what food I had to work with. The fridge was full of water with some coffee and Gatorade, while the pantry had a whole lot of canned goods and granola bars. It would do for now, but one of us had to go to the store.
I opened a can of fruit salad and went to wait for Gabriel on the porch. I was eating the last spoonful when he showed up, his face not revealing much, so there probably hadn’t been any sign of Embry.
“I figured out how to let you in. I need some of your blood to give you access to the house, then your fingerprints and an ocular scan to get you past the foyer,” I said offhandedly, giving him the second fruit salad I’d brought out. “It’s not bad,” I told him when he looked at it with confusion.
“I’ll have to get groceries,” he said, surprising me by sitting beside me on the porch swing.
“I can make you a list. I got a lot better at cooking since the oatmeal.” I once made him the most pasty, chunky combination of oats, milk and god knows what. I was eight at the time, so he couldn’t hold it against me. “Clara says my mac and cheese is the best she has ever had.” I noticed a small smile creep across his face before he remembered to hide it. “I was thinking, if you keep acting like you’re mad at me and pretending you don’t care, then I won’t be able to tell if ever he does take over you, but if you’re nice and we go back to our friendly banter, then I’ll realize that it’s not you when you start being mean,” I suggested, hoping I had found a way to use the threat of my safety in order to con him into being nicer to me. Or at least to acknowledge me when I happened to be in the same room as him.
“Or it might be easier if you don’t get close to me, either way,” he said, getting up although he was nowhere near done his fruit salad.
“How come it’s always one step forward, ten steps back with you?” I asked, getting upset instead of being quiet and letting him go, like I usually would have done. I didn’t generally like confrontation, as you could tell from my escaping prom through a bathroom window. Plus, Embry was usually there to fight my battles for me.
“Lucy, why are you so bent on being friends? I’m not Embry,” he said, half self-deprecating, half to hurt me.
“No, but if you’re going to keep acting like this, then maybe I would rather you get controlled. He might at least pretend to be nice.” I wasn’t entirely sure why I was so mad at him. He wasn’t being as distant as yesterday, and this was how he always acted. Gabriel usually hung around while saying nothing, but Embry would talk. If you sit around people having a conversation long enough, you can’t help but participate every once in a while.
After ‘lunch’, I programmed Gabriel into the house. I enjoyed stabbing his finger to get DNA more than I should, especially when he disappeared to ‘secure the perimeter’ as soon as I was done. I got a book from the library and spent the rest of the day reading on the balcony, which was as close to reading in the field as Gabriel was going to let me.