The Art of Inheriting Secrets(107)

“It’s a mess right now. I don’t know.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I need to look at the book my mother illustrated. If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course. Come in. Can I get you a cup of tea?”

“Please. And . . . I’m sorry; do you have any biscuits or anything? I’ve just realized I haven’t eaten since yesterday sometime.”

“Oh, my dear, my dear.” She hugged me, sat me at the table in a room cheery with plants and paintings. Before I even really settled, she produced a plate of nut breads and scones and a pot of creamy butter. “Don’t wait. I’ll just go find the book, but you must eat.”

I slathered the bread with butter and devoured it so fast that I got the hiccups, which made me laugh even in my current mood. Waiting for them to subside, I leaned against the wall and took a long, slow, deep breath. My phone buzzed with a text, and I glanced at it. Samir said, My father wants to speak with you as soon as he can.

I’m at Helen’s. Will come by soon.

Helen returned with a tray and the book under her arm. “I’ll pour,” she said. “You can have a look.”

I opened the book and leafed through it slowly, looking at every frame, in all the details, for anything I might have missed. In the border was a second story, something she was known to do, and I followed that intently. A little rabbit, down in a hole, covered with a tiny checkered blanket, while aboveground, a monster stomped by, bellowing, while a girl hid behind a tree. The rabbit in a forest, shivering as the wolf grabbed the girl and held her high in the air. More of that, fear and stalking, and the last scene, a dead monster by a pool and a girl with an ax in her hand nearby. The rabbit shivered at her foot.

Helen placed a mug of tea before me. “Is it true they found the girl’s body?”

I nodded, touching the girl with the ax. “And probably my uncle’s body too.”

“Oh, dear. I hadn’t heard that part.”

“Why did she come back here? What does she want me to understand? Why didn’t she just let this whole thing go?”

“I can’t answer those questions. They’re yours to understand.” She patted my hand. “Drink your tea, and have a scone. That will help.”

In spite of my frustration, I smiled. “I’m going to leave England just to avoid becoming as big as a house.”

“Really? I was thinking you looked well, as if you’ve trimmed up a bit.”

I raised my eyebrows and sank my teeth into the perfectly crumbly, exquisitely slathered scone. “It won’t last.”

I left the book with Helen, knowing I could get another if I needed it, and walked to the apartment above Coriander. The sky was lightening, and I looked back to see if I could glimpse Rosemere, to see if I could discern the damage at this distance, but the angle was wrong.

The kitchen was quiet—and I knocked at the bottom of the stairs. “Hello?”

Samir appeared. “Come up. He’s quite anxious to talk to you.”

“Is he all right?”

“I can’t tell.” He looked at me closely. “How are you?”

I shrugged. “No idea.” I paused. “I’m almost certain that my mother must have killed her brother.”

His expression did not change. He only nodded, touching the small of my back as I passed into the apartment.

Harshad sat at the table near the kitchen, a cup of tea before him. A window was open slightly to the breeze, which rustled a light curtain. The air smelled of ginger. “Olivia,” he said. The sorrow that lived on his brow had fallen to circles below his eyes, turned down the corners of his mouth. He looked ten years older. “I’m glad you could come. Please, sit down. Would you like tea? My wife makes a lovely chai.”

“Yes, please,” I said and glanced toward the kitchen. “Hello, Mrs. Malakar.”

“Hello.” She did not look at me, only busied herself with the cup and pot.

“Are you all right, Mr. Malakar?”

“Well, it is no surprise, is it?” He sighed. “We have always known she was dead.”

“Knowing and having actual proof are very different.”

“Yes,” he said.

Mrs. Malakar gave me a cup of milky tea, and I sipped it. Peppery, gingery, sweet. Not quite the same as Samir’s and I shot him a glance. “Bracing,” I said.

He winked.

“Olivia,” Harshad said, touching my arm across the wrist, as each of his children had done at moments of crisis. “Your mother did not come to see me when she was here this summer, though I knew she was here.”

My body leaned forward.

“She came to me before she left here, when she was young. When we were young.” His hands rested heavily in his lap, and his shoulders were bent with a heavy burden.

I spoke quietly. “You don’t have to say, if you don’t want to.”

“I do.” He looked at his hands, wiped one palm against the other. “We always knew there was something wrong with Roger. He did terrible things for no reason—caught a bird and locked it in a shed so that it died.”

I flinched.

“Yes.” His face showed the pain such a thing roused in him. “Things like that.”

“Did he abuse my mother?”

“He was cruel to her in a hundred ways. A thousand, but I don’t know about . . . the other. I hope that was not true. She was a very unhappy girl as it was.”