Take my hand, dear sister, and fill the world with your light.
Melynda Laine
December 21, 1922
“Meridian, can’t you tell me while we wait for Tony to get here?” Tens sat on the couch with his wood chunks, whittling a hamster-sized firefly.
I shook my head, not pausing to answer him with words. It was right here. I tucked a Post-it note between the pages of Auntie’s journal.
Thunder boomed, closer this time. Lightning lit the sky, making me jump.
“Are we supposed to get a storm?” I looked at Tens.
“I’ll check.” He flipped open the laptop and peered at the screen.
I went back to reading the spidery script in the Fenestra journal. Veils. Memories. “Oh no.” Tens’s voice broke my concentration.
“What?”
“There are three big storms heading straight for Marion County. That’s us.”
The roof vibrated. It sounded like someone was dumping buckets of golf balls down on us.
Custos whined, and we got up and went to the window.
Huge ice pellets blanketed the ground in a layer of white. Suddenly, more thunder rocked the place. Lightning flashed almost instantaneously. The lights flickered.
Tens grabbed the laptop and kept reading. “There’s a tornado warning.”
“Tornadoes? What the hell do we do for a tornado?” Portland had storms, lots of wind, some ice and snow, the earthquake possibility, and tsunami warnings, but the closest I’d ever gotten to a tornado was on TV.
Headlights cut across the cottage windows and for the first time I realized how dark the world was.
“That’s Tony,” I said.
Tens grabbed a rhinestone-and-daisy umbrella from by the door and rushed out to meet him.
They came back in as rain poured in sheets from every direction, washing ice chunks along the gutters and melting them off the paths.
I grabbed towels. Thirty seconds out in the storm and they were drenched.
Dripping wet, with ice pellets frozen in his hair, Tony took a towel from me. “I came as quickly as I could. You said it was important. I haven’t heard more from Josiah.” Tony hung his tweed suit coat on the back of a chair and sat at the table. “What’s the text?”
“This is my family’s journal,” I said.
“It’s old.” He didn’t try to touch it, but I held it out to him in invitation. He took it with gingerly fingers. “I should be wearing gloves.”
“It’s not an artifact. More like a working document.”
“Still.” He unfolded reading glasses to peer more closely at the writing.
I appreciated his willingness to accept what he was told and take what was given.
“Is this about your grandfather?” Tony asked Tens.
“No,” I answered. “It’s about a girl named Prunella. But really it’s about Juliet Ambrose.”
He sat up and leaned toward me with excitement. “Juliet? You know her? How is she?”
Tens raised his eyebrows and gave me his lopsided grin of appreciation. “You figured it out.”
I nodded, my whole body vibrating with excitement.
Tens asked Tony, “What was the name of your children’s home?”
“Saint Emiliani’s. Please tell me, do you know this girl? Where is she? Is she okay? Can I see her? Have you heard from Roshana?”
Tens put the pieces together. “That’s it.” He asked Tony, “Want some whiskey in your tea for this story?”
I giggled. “Seriously?”
“Auntie said whiskey made the impossible possible.” Tens shrugged.
Tony slapped his thigh. “No spirits, just tell me what you know. If you had any idea how I’ve looked for her, you wouldn’t keep me waiting.”
I began to tell Tony what we knew about Juliet.
Tens made tea, and while the storm raged around us I told the story, leaving nothing out. It wasn’t much.
“Prunella was my great-aunt Meridian’s cousin. She was a nurse too. She wasn’t a Fenestra but knew about my auntie’s ability because she nearly died in 1943. She made it to the window and then turned back. Her heart restarted and she went on to live another forty years. However, because she knew too much and might endanger her family, a Sangre angel came to her and veiled her history. He took away her connections and started her over in another part of the world. He warned that if she ever saw Auntie again, she’d remember everything about her life.”
“You think Juliet doesn’t remember her mother or me? Or her first few years of life, because she was in danger?”
“That’s exactly what I believe. And I think you are the key to unlocking her memories. It’s the only way to get her to know.”
“But what if she does know and she thinks we let her live in that hell without helping? I couldn’t live with myself.”
“I don’t know. We came as soon as we were told—I hope that counts for something.” I shrugged. I didn’t know if she could forgive and move forward, but it was our best shot.
“Let’s go to her. Now.” Tony stood and started for the door. “We need to find her and tell her. I can’t bear thinking she might have it all wrong.”
I stayed seated. “I know.” We had to plan carefully. We had to understand how to lift the veil. We couldn’t risk making everything worse.
Tony paced. “Her mother loved her. She died protecting her.”
I nodded as Joi burst through the cottage door and storm sirens began to vibrate the town around us. “Come on, all, we have to get into the storm cellar. There’s a twister five miles away that’s headed for us.”
I grabbed the journal and the quilt. Tens grabbed the laptop and me.
As we ran to the store’s cellar, wind tore at us and branches flew by. I heard glass cracking as parked cars took a beating from the elements. The sky was a swirling mass of grays and greens and blacks. We zigzagged around branches and airborne lawn ornaments.
My stomach dropped as we scrambled down into the cellar.
Please let Juliet be safe.