Legacy of Secrets

His phrasing replicated her accusation of the previous day, and the gleam in his eye told her he’d done so deliberately. All right, enough was enough. Neala returned his bold appraisal, though the weapon strapped to his side intimidated by its sheer presence. On the other hand, the bizarre prescience she’d experienced in Miss Isabella’s parlor returned in greater force, the one where Mr. Faulkner very much reminded her of Adrian. Her brother also used to cover his unhappy restlessness with hurtful words and a facade of hatefulness. “Mr. Faulkner, it’s plain that for some reason you don’t like me very much. It’s not necessary for me to understand why, but I’d like to. Miss Isabella’s fond of saying that a few bruises on an apple don’t mean the entire fruit’s gone completely bad. It just means that—”

“I’m well acquainted with the concept, and its application.” He ran a hand through his hair, took a long breath. A faint glimmer of humor washed through his eyes. “Miss Shaw, you look like a squirrel’s nest.”

Neala self-consciously lifted a hand to the unruly locks of hair dangling around her face and neck. “My hair has a mind of its own, especially when the humidity is high. But it’s rude of you to remark on it, Mr. Faulkner. Didn’t your mother teach you better manners?”

“My mother taught me many things, including manners. I’ve spent the past fifteen years trying to forget every one of her…lessons.”

The rancor in his voice sent a chill along Neala’s spine. “I better return to the school,” she began with forced cheeriness. “Three hours is the limit for Saturday free time on your own, unless you’re on the school grounds within sight of the house.” She lifted her hand to cup the whistle and took a steadying breath. “I have no idea why you’ve chosen to think the worst about me, nor do I particularly care to defend myself against someone whose mind is closed to reasoning. But for your information, Mr. Faulkner, I came out here in order to find evidence of that hunter—not to ‘plant’ it, as you accused me of.”

“Didn’t find any, did you? I wondered how long you planned to wander around.”

“In a war, spying is a hanging offense.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’re not at war, Miss Shaw.”

“Aren’t we?” Neala retorted quietly. She turned her back and retrieved her notebook and pencil. “I’m going now, Mr. Faulkner. You can either follow along or choose your own path. Either way, you’ve made your feelings toward me obvious. I’d appreciate it if you’d ignore me in the same manner I plan to ignore you.”

He frowned, then abruptly swiveled on his heel and hurled the second pinecone into the trees. “You understand nothing about my feelings, Miss Shaw. Toward you or anything else. If I’m wrong about you, I apologize. If I’m not—” the pause was loaded with thinly veiled threat “—and you cause my aunt or her school any suffering at all, even a moment’s concern, you’ll not be able to run far enough or long enough. I’ll find you, and you’ll think my behavior today saintlike by comparison.”

“I…see.” Neala tapped her pencil against her lips in a vain attempt to hide the smile threatening to burst free. Oh, but the relief flooding her insides was a heady sensation, the urge to reassure Miss Isabella’s thunderous nephew impossible to ignore. “Mr. Faulkner, I think you’re a lion with the heart of a kitten. Bless you for trying to protect Miss Isabella and the Academy.”

She lost the battle with her smile. “At least I finally understand the source of your anger, misguided though it was. After all, yesterday I did try to wallop you with a tree branch. I know you don’t believe me, but someone really was shooting out here in the woods yesterday. And when the bullet hits the tree trunk inches from my nose, I have to conclude that—albeit by mistake—they were shooting at me. I’ll let the matter drop, however, since it’s obvious I’ve been unable to produce any tangible proof.” She shrugged. “You’ve also helped me realize that my actions might cause Miss Isabella more concern—of course, you know she doesn’t ‘worry!’ I…Well, I’ve grown very fond of your aunt. Ever since my parents’ deaths, I suppose I’ve come to regard her as—”

She stopped, belatedly aware that the hue of Mr. Faulkner’s tanned face had turned a deep shade of red, and a muscle twitched the corner of his mouth. Ninny, she scolded herself. Few men were comfortable with sentimentality. “I’ll hush,” she murmured, then impulsively reached across to lay her hand on his forearm. “Don’t worry, Mr. Faulkner. I know God is watching over Miss Isabella every breath of every day.”

Mr. Faulkner snarled an ill-tempered curse. Then, without another word, he turned his back and strode rapidly into the woods, disappearing within seconds beneath the trees.

Neala remained a few moments longer, watching until she realized she must look like a moon-eyed girl gazing after her sweetheart. Rubbish, she thought. Idiotic, as well, gazing after a man who had just blistered the air with invectives. By the time she found her path back to the school moments later, however, she was forced to admit that loneliness was even harder to bear, after meeting a man like Grayson Faulkner.

Chapter Seven

May, 1890

Two weeks later, after classes on a lazy Thursday afternoon, Neala and Abigail decided to spend their free Saturday hiking down to the Shenandoah River. A picnic on the riverbank would be their reward for the muscle-stretching trek down the steep cliff. To be sure, a well-marked path had been carved out by some Chilton ancestor over a century earlier; more recently Liam had hammered out handholds on some of the steeper sections. The hike posed little danger as long as the hikers exercised due diligence.

“We’re all of us adult women,” Miss Isabella lectured new students. “Therefore I ‘restrict the restrictions’ here at the Academy, because I expect each of you to exhibit common sense in all your choices. Since fresh air and healthy exercise offer an excellent venue with which to strengthen our individual godly temples, it is my hope that all of you feel free to explore the five hundred acres surrounding the Academy. Carefully. Good sense is a gift from our Lord. Expend it wisely, my dears, and try to limit your nonsense to games of croquet, badminton and the like.”

“I enjoy Miss Isabella’s sense of humor,” Abby said around a mouthful of oatmeal cookie. “Did you hear her earlier today, pleading with Mr. Pepperell to stop talking to the tomatoes because she’s afraid we’ll end up with such a bumper crop the house might slide off the cliff from the weight?”

Neala looked up from the list of supplies she was writing down in her tablet. “’Tis very wry, is it not?” she agreed. “I remember when I first arrived I never knew when she was serious, or merely teasing. Um…shall we take lemonade in our canteens, or sassafras tea?”

“Better stick with tea. I don’t believe we have many lemons in the springhouse right now.”

Neala dutifully added tea to their list, and they spent several congenial moments discussing other particulars. Then Abby took a deep breath and began fiddling with the eyelet edging of her shirtwaist. “Neala?” she asked, her voice softer. “Are you…I mean, do you still…” She grimaced, her gaze touching on Neala’s, then shifting to some place that bespoke of a pain more vast than the universe. “I had another dream last night,” she finished in a rush. “It wasn’t a nightmare—I don’t have those as much anymore. But I was with my family, and it was so real…” Her hand reached out blindly and Neala grabbed it, wrapping reassuring fingers around it. “I didn’t want to wake up, Neala. I didn’t want to wake up, because then I would have to accept all over again that they’re gone, and I’m not. I’m still here, scarred and disfigured and…and alone. I mean, alone because I know I’ll never marry.”

“Oh, Abby…” Neala swallowed hard, her own throat tightening against tears. “I understand. Sometimes I still think I need to tell Grandfather, or Mum…” Her voice trailed away. “But I do understand, completely,” she finished. “Your heart sort of jerks when all of a sudden you remember they’re gone. And it hurts so bad it’s hard to breathe.”

“At least your brother is still alive, even if you never see him again. Oh—I’m sorry, Neala. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Truly I didn’t.”

“I know.” Neala squeezed her hand once more and released it. They both sat back in the grass and smiled at each other. “Sometimes I dream that Adrian returns to Charlottesville, buys back our home, then finds me…” She stopped with a deprecatory grimace.

“Perhaps someday he will.”

“Not likely.” Neala chewed her lip for a moment, then waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll always love Adrian, but I know I need to stop weaving fanciful tales that will never happen. Miss Isabella reminds me at least twice a week that I need to learn to accept how people are, instead of trying to nicely bully them into what I think they ought to be. I know she’s right, but it’s difficult.”

She lifted her face toward the sky, soaking up the sunshine. “God planted a yearning in me for everybody in the world to get along, I suppose. But I must have a really hard head underneath all these wretched curls, because I keep trying despite the futility of it. My brother used to get so annoyed with me…”

Abby reached across to tug one of the infernal curling strands that was forever escaping the pins. “I love your hair. I wish mine had all that bounce and shine.”

“Well, I’ve always admired yours because it’s straight.”

“What about Jocelyn’s? Have you ever seen such a beautiful shade of red? She’s very private, have you noticed? Even when I compliment her hair, she just gives me this sad smile. I wish she’d share her story.”

“I’m sure she will, one day. Perhaps she’s been able to follow Miss Isabella’s advice better than the rest of us. ‘Talking about the past can’t redo it. We waste the present, and bore the listener…’”

“‘…Because we all have a different past, and must walk a different path to overcome it,’” Abby continued, quoting one of their headmistress’s most oft-repeated homilies.

They both laughed. Miss Isabella had a quote for everything—and never hesitated to trot an appropriate one out for a listener.

Neala pulled an annoying curl away from her face and wound it around her finger. “Well, I’ll probably never accept that my brother’s dead, but I have accepted that he…that he abandoned me.” There. She’d finally stated the words aloud. “That’s why I was allowed to come here. Miss Isabella decided I was enough of an orphan.” She shrugged. “In all but the strictest sense, I am. I’ve heard nothing from my brother in over a year now.”

“We both should remember that all of us here are only orphaned in bloodlines,” Abby reminded her gently. “We have a home now, remember. And sisters?”

With a determined wave of her hand, Neala banished the hovering wisps of grief. “Absolutely. And now that I’ve come to know him, I might claim Liam as an uncle despite him being an Irishman instead of a Scot.” They laughed again, and scrambled to their feet. “Come on, let’s go inspect the kitchen and make sure our choice of picnic supplies is available.”

“Don’t forget to post our names on the list so everyone knows where we are. We may never have found your hunter, but when Nan and Alice climbed down to the river last week, they happened onto a pair of day-trippers, and I heard yesterday that someone else spotted either a hiker or a hunter—or was it some kind of animal?—on the edge of the grounds.”

They commenced strolling across the grass as they talked. “The view over the river, toward the mountains, is breathtaking. With the Colonial Highway just at the bottom of the hill, I can easily imagine how a weary traveler would decide to break his journey, wander about. Sometimes I think I can almost hear God’s voice in the river water, or the wind in the trees before a rain.”

Abby only shrugged. Unlike Neala, her friend’s faith in a loving God remained cautious, at times indifferent. Neala might not understand completely, but her imagination was vivid enough to realize that anyone’s faith might be damaged beyond repair, when God allowed your entire family to burn to death.

Saturday morning dawned clear but chilly. A spring storm had swept through the previous night, followed by a refreshing northwest wind that plunged temperatures back toward February instead of May. Due to the chill, Abby and Neala decided to wear their cloaks, despite the awareness that it would hinder their progress down the cliff.

“But I’d rather watch my step a little more carefully than fall ill with ague,” Neala cheerfully stated as she slung the cloak over her shoulders. “Besides, I’ve had this cloak since I was a child, and it’s short enough not to trip me up.”

Abby glanced ruefully down. Her own cloak covered all but the tips of her boots. “The pastor’s wife gave this one to me several years ago, before I came here. She was taller than I am, but I was grateful to have a cloak at all.”

“Hmm. I have an idea,” Neala announced, fingers flying as she dumped shoulder satchel and canteen, then proceeded to unbutton her cloak. “We’ll switch. I’m taller than you are, so my cloak will fit you better. Yours won’t hang down to the ground, so neither one of us will have to worry about tripping.”

“Neala, I didn’t mean…”

“I know. But I do. So hurry up. We have to be back by three, remember.”

Forty minutes later they paused for breath, giggling at each other because a strong wind had forced them to pull the cloaks’ hoods over their heads and Neala announced they looked like a pair of phantoms floating down the cliff.

“Does add a bit of drama to our outing, doesn’t it?” Abby said, giving a little shiver. “The wind creates all these rustling sounds, but we can’t see anything much to the side, or behind us. There might be a bear about to pounce, or a wolf who mistakes one of us for Red Riding Hood.”

“We’ll wallop ’em with our walking sticks—oh, fiddle-faddle. My shoelace caught on these briars. Here—I’ll sit on this rock and untangle it.”

“Be careful. Those thorns are vicious. Want me to help?”

“I’ve got it. Why don’t you go on ahead? This is the section where we have to go single file anyway. I’ll be along in two shakes of a flea’s whisker.”

Abby nodded agreeably, and a moment later disappeared around a jutting boulder the size of a house. Neala only faintly heard the sound of her boots scraping over the stones. She hurriedly yanked at the laces, jerked when a thorn stabbed through her glove. Then her fumbling efforts caused the laces to knot. Several moments had evaporated by the time she retied her boots and set off after Abby. Impatient with the delay, Neala had to resist the urge to leap down the cliff like a mountain goat instead of exhibiting the common sense Miss Isabella prized so highly.

“Abby? Here I come!” she called, just as a gust of wind buffeted her back and shoulders. From somewhere above she heard a crunching, grating sound, like stone grinding against stone. Neala tossed her head in a vain effort to clear wisps of hair out of her eyes, at the same time fumbling for one of the handholds Liam had carved. Drat this wind, but it was difficult to see, between her wretched hair and the hood. “This wind is dread—”

An explosion of sound, as if a giant had just wrested one of the cliff boulders loose and hurled it over the side of the mountain, kicked the word back down her throat.

The path! Abby! Neala’s heart lurched, pounded in sickening hard beats as she scrambled, slipping and reckless, down the trail, ripping her glove, tearing fingernails as she desperately fought to keep her balance on the steep, rock-infested path.

“Abby! Answer me! Abby! Did you see—” Gasping, she skidded to a trembling halt. “Father in heaven…Jesus, blessed Lord, help me.” The agonized prayer died as Neala froze, not wanting to believe.

Abby lay sprawled in an unmoving heap on the only level part of the trail, her body completely covered by the rippling folds of Neala’s cloak. All around her lay chunks of shattered stone. As though from a great distance Neala heard a faint splash—the remains of the falling boulder hurling itself into the river.

She didn’t remember rushing to Abigail’s side, didn’t remember much of anything but the sound of roaring in her ears as she knelt beside her friend and with shaking hands pulled the cloak away from Abby’s head. When Abby stirred, then moaned, breath and sound and color spewed through Neala in a flood tide. She gasped Abby’s name, tears leaking from her eyes as she gently, carefully turned her over and stuffed Abby’s cloak beneath her head. Sluggish blood oozed from a gash just above the other woman’s eyebrow, but after a frantic search Neala found no other signs of blood, no other evidence of injury or a broken bone. Praise be to heaven above, but apparently she’d only suffered a glancing blow.

Abby’s hand jerked, and her eyes fluttered open. She blinked several times, then winced. “N-Neala? Did…I…What happened?”

“Shh…You’ll be all right. You’re alive…Thank You, Lord! Oh, Abby…you’re alive.” One hiccupping sob escaped before Neala managed to throttle the wild emotion clamoring inside. Tenderly she laid her hand against her friend’s chalk-white cheek. “The Lord worked overtime today, dearest. Somewhere above us, a boulder dislodged and fell. Probably loosened from all the rain we’ve been having.” She struggled to catch a breath. “You s-seem to have been in its way. But you’re alive. I don’t know what I would have done…I couldn’t have borne it, Abby…If you’d waited with me instead of going ahead…”

Abby’s cold hand crept across to brush Neala’s. “Do…hush,” she whispered, her voice clear but weak. “I’m just glad it didn’t…squash me like a bug.” A faint smile barely lifted the corners of her mouth. “But I think—I think you better…blow the whistle?”

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