Page 11 of Unbroken
“Don’t disturb the baby—I can see my own way out.” Standing, her shrunken frame didn’t reach five feet in height, forcing her to bend her neck to smile up at Ves. “It was so good to meet you, young man. And you as well, Mr. Rath.”
She hobbled out, leaving behind the faint scent of lavender. “She seems nice,” Ves said, though privately he hoped she didn’t visit often in the afternoon or evening, when Noct was here and would have to hide.
“She was such a dear when she saw I’d been crying.” Bonnie sighed and tucked the crumpled letter into her apron.
“I’m sorry about Jeremy,” Ves offered. “At least you still have two husbands left.”
Bonnie looked at him incredulously. “That’s not…never mind.”
“And you were lecturing me about handling things delicately?” Sebastian asked. Turning to his sister, he said, “Jeremy was a cad. Lying, going behind your back—you’re better off without him.”
“I know.” She sagged. “But Helen and Tommy, even the other children…I don’t want them to feel like his leaving was their fault. The least he could have done was send letters to them, reassuring them of his love, perhaps even arranging to meet away from the house. Instead, he tells me he’s not coming back to Widdershins and to forget he ever existed. As if that were possible.”
Privately, Ves wondered if the children were better off without their father…but his perspective was badly warped from his own upbringing. Jeremy had many faults, but he wasn’t an outright monster.
“He’ll come to regret it,” Sebastian predicted. “Not that it helps now. What can we do?”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you.” She looked to Ves. “Can you take Clara for a moment? She’s been fussy today.”
“Of course.” Ves slipped off his jacket and let out his tentacles. Taking Clara in his human arms, he picked up her pacifier in one tentacle. The baby responded to being dislodged from her mother by turning red in the face, working her way up to a shriek, so he offered her the pacifier.
Bonnie rose. “Let’s walk outside—I’ve been sitting for long enough to get stiff, and need to move around.”
“Of course.” Sebastian exchanged a concerned look with Ves, then trailed his sister outside.
The green backyard remained cool despite the angry glare of the sun. What had been a small garden before Noct moved in now overflowed with tomatoes, peas, corn, and squash. Bees hummed lazily around the flowers, their bodies dusted gold with pollen. It reminded Sebastian a bit of the massive flowers in Penelope Tubbs’s garden, though this vegetation was of normal size. Verdant rather than swollen.
Bonnie plucked a ripe tomato as they passed by. “I’m not looking forward to when Noct moves out. My poor garden will have to rely on me again.”
“No one is leaving anytime soon,” he assured her. “Not until the Books are contained and the School of Night is out of our lives.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” She stopped beside a sycamore tree, peering up into its high branches. A bird sang from somewhere amidst the thick leaves. “You said one of them—the School of Night—killed Mother.”
“Yes.” Sebastian took off his glasses and scrubbed his eyes. “The Book of Flesh showed me a glimpse.”
“And which one of our illustrious ancestors was that?”
“Thaddeus Hollowell.”
“God.” She shuddered. “And to think, he—his Book—was shut away in our house the whole time we were growing up. Just inches away from where we played, where we slept. What was Mother thinking? Or Great-Uncle Thomas?”
“I suspect neither of them wanted to sell the house with the Book inside.” He shook his head. “If I’d become a bookbinder like Mother wanted…”
“It shouldn’t have mattered! She should have told us.” Bonnie’s hands clenched. “We had the right to know.”
No doubt Mother had believed she was doing the correct thing, keeping a dangerous secret close. She’d done the same mental calculus as he had when deciding not to tell Mr. Tubbs any more than absolutely necessary. “As Shakespeare said, ‘Two may keep counsel, putting one away.’ Mother didn’t want to take the risk. It’s easy to judge in hindsight, but I truly believe she thought she was keeping us safe.”
“Well, she was wrong.” Bonnie leaned her back against the tree trunk and looked at him. “What happened the night she died?”
Now it was Sebastian’s turn to stare at the tree. A squirrel made its way along the branches, jumping easily from one to the next, pausing now and again to scratch or investigate further inside the dense growth.
“I wish I could tell you,” he said at last. “I only know the fragment the Book showed me.”
“Then tell me that part.”
The Binding scars on his arm seemed to sing with pain as he cast his mind back to the moment the Book of Flesh was Bound to him. “I saw her in the sitting room. Holding the Book. The electricity was out—you remember the blizzard that day—so she’d lit a kerosene lantern. She wasn’t alone.”
His breath thickened in his throat, and he blinked back tears. If only he’d been there. “I couldn’t see who she was with, but I heard their voice. A woman’s voice.”
