wildflowers growing madly up to his chest. Everything hurt.
Sometimes he could ignore the pain, and sometimes the pain shut
out the rest of the world.
He was unsurprised when a woman, tall and beautiful, stopped
in front of him, a parasol shielding her from the sun.
“Hello, Charles,” she said, smiling sweetly.
He squinted up at her. “Constance, I presume?”
She laughed, a lower sound than he’d expected. “Delighted to
finally make your acquaintance. How are you?”
He shrugged. He didn’t feel threatened or scared. In fact, right
now, he felt nearly invincible. “Dying. You?”
She settled into the grass next to him, her skirts pooling out
around her. “Not dying.”
“I don’t suppose you’re going to be kidnapping me for nefarious
purposes right now? There are a couple of things I’d like to do
first, if you don’t mind.”
“By all means. We’re not ready yet. But you’re a remarkable
child, aren’t you?” She leaned closer, and Charles could see her face
clearly. She looked young, face unlined, but there was something
tired in her eyes. She reminded him of Alden in that way, that
strange sense that her youth was a lie. “I wonder. I think I could
offer you the moon and you’d politely turn me down.” She sighed
again, picking a flower and tucking it into his collar. “If we could
all find the peace you have, the world would be a better place.”
“It’s very easy,” Charles said, waving a hand wearily. His arm
felt as though it weighed a million pounds. “Just realize that, no
matter what you do, things are out of your control. Voilà! Peace!”
She took his hand and leaned close, then kissed his cheek. Her
lips were cold against his skin. “Alas, dear one, I think I prefer
turmoil and trauma and long life. See you soon.”
He watched as she walked away, and then he closed his eyes to
rest for the walk back to the boardinghouse. He had a feeling he
didn’t have much time left, and there were several very important
things to do.
Late May, 1949
fifteen
M
innie sat alone in the kitchen for some time
after her mother , Thomas, and Charles had
LEFT. When Charles returned, she had her elbows on
the table, resting her chin on her fists.
“Arthur’s family history is the most dramatic story I’ve ever
heard,” she said, “and it doesn’t delight me one bit. It makes my
stomach hurt.”
Charles nodded in sympathy. “Has Thom found him?”
Minnie shrugged, dropping her hands and slumping in her
chair. She was having a hard time focusing enough to answer
Charles’s questions. Her mind was spinning. “I doubt it. Not if
Arthur doesn’t want to be found. And even if Thomas does cor-
ner him, Arthur won’t say anything.”
Arthur. Who is not my brother.
Minnie couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry now about the
feelings she’d harbored since the day she’d first met him. She’d
flirted with everyone, kissed any boy who’d wanted to kiss her, but
it had never meant more than a warm friendship or a happy
moment, because there was only ever Arthur in the back, front,
and center of her mind.
I’ve hated myself so long for feeling this way. How can it be
okay now?
She’d often daydreamed of getting this exact news, and
how she’d throw herself into Arthur’s arms upon receiving
it. He’d realize he’d always been in love with her, too. There would
be a lavish wedding on a dramatic cliff overlooking the ocean, and
perhaps an epilogue of the sweetly spun decades to follow.
Loving Arthur was no longer a wicked-but-safe secret that she
could never, ever tell. If she was allowed to love him, it also meant
he was allowed to love her. Or not love her. And that second option
made her feel so hollow and aching she didn’t know what to do
about it.
This was not a book, or a story. It was her life, and she knew
perfectly well from the changes in Cora and the heavy, slow way
her mother moved since her father died that life was not overly
fond of delivering happy endings.
She looked up at Charles, who had gotten paler even in the
short time they’d been at the boardinghouse. He seemed thin-
ner as well, his cheekbones and jaw standing out in sharp
relief. She realized with a start that he had wriggled into a place
in her heart. None of her other flirtations had managed to get
that far.
Perhaps she was merely a coward, but Charles was safe. She
knew how a love story with him would end, unlike the ever-
unknowable Arthur. She couldn’t let anything happen to Charles.
She wouldn’t let anyone hurt him.
Including me.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m not worried.” He shrugged, toying with the teaspoon left
on the table.
“But Arthur said they’d kill you!”
Charles leaned forward, giving her a conspiratorial grin.
“What do I care? I’m already dying.”
She felt his words like needles in her chest. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. Thom pretends like it isn’t, but I don’t mind. At first
I was angry, but then I figured, why spend my last few months
bitter and angry over something I can’t change? Besides, I have no
regrets about coming here. This is the perfect summer.”
His eyes sparked with so much life as he grinned at her that
she couldn’t, wouldn’t accept that he would ever die. She stood so
fast her chair clattered to the ground. Rounding the table, she
kissed him on the cheek and pulled him into a hug. “I won’t let
you go anywhere. And neither will Thomas.”
“Well, that’s settled, then.”
She could hear the teasing laughter in his voice, but she didn’t
care. If Arthur terrified her now, Charles was the most comforting
thing in her life, and she loved him for it.
“I have something for you,” he said.
Minnie released him, pulling her chair right next to his and
sitting back down. “If it’s a secret, I think for once I don’t want it.”
He laughed. “No secret. Here.” He reached into his pocket
and pulled out a locket. On a gold chain, twisted like a delicate
rope, the pendant swung and glittered. It was oval, filigreed, the
pattern accented by stones that Minnie was quite sure were dia-
monds. She had never seen a more beautiful necklace.
“It was my mother’s,” Charles said, lifting it over Minnie’s
head and pulling her hair free of the chain so the cool metal rested
against her neck.
Her hand hovered just above it, afraid to touch something so
beautiful and precious. “I can’t take this.”
“You aren’t taking it. I’m giving it to you. My mother wanted
me to be happy, and you make me happy. So I want you to have it.”
She looked up at her friend, her eyes brimming with tears.
She wouldn’t let anything happen to him. She couldn’t. And if
Arthur wouldn’t help keep Charles safe . . .
“I have something for you, too,” she whispered.
“A secret?” he asked, voice still light, as though they were
playing.
“Yes. A very big secret. One that’s not mine to give.”
He frowned, puzzled, just as Thomas burst back into the
kitchen with a stormy glower. “I can’t find him anywhere.”
Minnie stood, holding out her hand for Charles. Her heart felt
heavy with the sadness of hope and betrayal. “I think I know
where we can get some answers.”
She led them out the back door, stopping at the small garden-
ing shed and taking a shovel. “You’ll have to do it,” she said,
handing it to Thomas.
He looked at the shovel warily. “Do what?”
“Dig up Arthur’s secrets.” Her traitorous toes dragging, she led
them to the trees behind the house, right to the spot where Arthur
had buried his mysterious case on his first night here.
He’d always tried not to be seen. She’d always seen him.
And now, to protect Charles, she’d given up a secret she
thought she’d forever carry out of love for Arthur. Thomas started
digging, and Minnie realized whatever was there, she didn’t want
to know. Not this way.
She turned and went straight back to the house, passing Cora
on the way.
“What are you doing?” Cora asked.
Minnie waved in the direction of the tree. “Go see for yourself.”
Without waiting to find out what her sister did, Minnie
stomped into the house. If she were Arthur and she didn’t want to
be found . . .
She took the back stairs, then opened a door in the hall to the
narrow, hidden set of stairs that led to the attic. Bypassing Arthur’s
room, the only finished one up there, she turned and crawled
through a narrow space into the open, empty expanse of the rest of
the attic.
Arthur was leaning against the wall next to the window, pro-
file illuminated.
Minnie’s heart hurt her so much she didn’t know what to do
with it, other than pull it straight out and beg him to take it
from her.
“You’re not my brother,” she whispered.
“Hmm?” Arthur looked up at her, his expression troubled and
distant.
“Why did you let me think you were my brother?”
He was silent for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. She
thought she caught a moment of hope, of joy in his face, but it
was quickly replaced with sadness. Then, finally, he said, “It was
easier.”
“For who? It wasn’t easier for me! All this time I’ve hated
myself for how I feel about you! I’ve felt so wicked and so vile, and
still I loved you! But it wasn’t — it isn’t — we could . . .” She
trailed off, the air between them desperate and heavy with the
words she wanted him to say.
“We can’t.”
“Is it Cora? Do you love Cora?”
He stood and walked over to her, so close she couldn’t stand it,
couldn’t breathe.
“Of course I love her. Like I love you. And your mother. You
three are all I have.” His voice was calm, carefully paced and toned.
“I can’t love you like that.”
Minnie took a step back, eyes narrowed. “You can’t, or you
don’t?” The smallest twitch in expression shaped his eyes. It was a
shift that only she, who had devoted so much time to studying
him, would have caught.
“I don’t,” he whispered.
He was lying, and for some reason that hurt her more than if
the words had been the truth.
Southern Mexico
Day of the Dead Celebration
November 2, 1963
sixteen
C
ora peered down at the case now sitting on the
floor in Thomas and charles's room . It was wrong
to be doing this, prying into Arthur’s secrets. She would
have liked nothing more than to ponder her relief at discovering he
was not her half brother. But for some reason that information
made him feel even more unknowable.
She was scared, and she hated that Arthur was part of what she
was afraid of. There were too many other things to be frightened
of without adding someone she trusted to the list. He would
understand. Eventually.
So she wiped the remaining dirt of the case’s grave on her
apron and waited while Thomas fiddled with the latches.
Charles flopped onto his bed and closed his eyes, and for a
moment Cora was more troubled by being in a room alone with
the two boys than she was by betraying Arthur.
“We can leave the door open, if you’d like,” Thomas said. His
acknowledgment of her discomfort was enough to alleviate it, and
she knelt next to him, smiling grimly.
The case popped open and they both looked up, locking
gazes. Before she realized what she was doing, her fingers rested
against his cheek. His eyes widened in surprise and she blushed,
dropping her hand into the case and hastily pulling out the
first item.
It was a portrait. The paint was oil, thick and textured, the
weight of the portrait hinting at age. It had been torn and frayed
though the paint was cracked and slightly warped, the image
was instantly recognizable. Cora narrowed her eyes in disbelief.
“Is that . . . ?”
Thomas leaned forward and let out a whispered epithet.
“Alden,” she said, her stomach clenching as Thomas con-
firmed it with a nod.
“I’m really tired of that man,” Charles said from the bed, his
voice sleepy and unconcerned.
“Keep going,” Cora said, setting the portrait carefully to the
side and then wiping her fingers, which felt oily and stained with
Alden’s image.
Thomas pulled out a leather-bound notebook filled with loose
papers. He cracked it open and Cora crawled to sit next to him.
The writing was odd, sometimes gouged into the paper, some-
times running together to near illegibility as though the author
feared he’d run out of time.
Page after page of it, Thomas flipping through them until he
stopped on a list of names. “Here now,” he whispered, then pulled
a piece of paper out of his vest pocket, unfolding and smoothing
it. “Looks like someone was keeping tabs on just what this Ladon
Vitae was up to.”
The names on the two lists frequently matched, but the book
had far more details. Kidnapping, blackmail, conspiracies . . .
“Does that say Napoleon?” Thomas asked, squinting in disbe-
lief at the book.
“Are they after him, too?” Charles shifted in bed, pulling a
pillow over his head so his voice was muffled. “Someone ought to
tell them he’s quite dead.”
“How do we fight this?” Thomas leaned back, fear and exhaus-
tion written onto his face.
It hurt Cora to see him like that, to be unable to fix it. She
needed to fix it. She looked back at the book, her eyes watering,
fixed on
the term Blackmail underlined twice next to a name she
didn’t recognize.
And then she had an idea.
Cora handed a stack of parcels to Annie O’Connell, who was
making the weekly delivery to the post. “Thank you.”
Annie nodded, turning her head to shrug the thanks off. She
was pleasant and quiet and did her work well. It made Cora
sad most of the time, seeing how easily the role she played to help
her mother was filled by someone else. But right now she had
plenty of other worries to fill her mind. Annie was welcome to the
dusting.
She wanted to watch until Annie reached the end of the lane,
but it was important not to draw attention to what she was doing
until it was too late for anyone to stop it. She could work in secret,
too. So Cora turned and went back inside, toward the sitting room
where she could hear Thomas’s restless playing.
She was nearly there when a voice behind her made her freeze.
“Excuse me,” Alden said.
Cora turned, her expression carefully neutral. He couldn’t
know what she knew. “Yes?”
“I believe someone broke into my room.”
“Have you spoken with my mother about it? She’ll want to
know so she can help rectify the situation.”
He leaned closer, face above hers, and she resisted the urge to
shrink away. She couldn’t shake the image of the oil painting
superimposed onto his actual features. She took a large, deter-
mined step backward, increasing the distance between them.
His mouth twisted into a smirk. “I haven’t spoken to your
mother, no. I thought perhaps you’d know something about it. Or
maybe one of your friends.”
“I assure you, sir, we hold ourselves to the strictest standards
here. I can personally vouch for the staff. Perhaps during maid
service some of your belongings were shifted. Is anything missing?”
“Nothing irreplaceable. Come with me; I’ll do an inventory
and you can take note.” He held out his arm.
“I’ll call for my mother.”
Before she could move, he closed the distance between them,