Garden of Bone: Book 6, page 5
Next, he pulled out another set of lab results.
"Bone sampling, too?" she asked.
"Of course. We know where she started. We need to know where she ended up."
That was important, Eleri understood. There was far too often an assumption that a body had died near where it was found. But that was just conjecture, and often a bad one. Had the person lived there for a long time? Traveled a great distance to get there? Had they been alive in this location for long—or at all?
This specimen was found in New Orleans and clearly—from the isotopes in her teeth—she had grown from a very young age—from birth to around age ten or so—in one particular biome. It stretched from Ohio to Nebraska and down into Oklahoma. It was a large biome. They’d not gotten lucky and hit one of the smaller ones. That happened, she knew.
"She was here for a while," he said. "Look, these are your isotopes for the New Orleans area and these are your isotopes in her bones."
"Wow!" Eleri hadn’t meant to say it out loud. It wasn’t common for her to be dumbfounded by evidence. But nothing about this was common for her—not the bones, not the location, and not the fact that her gut had been so wrong.
As a trained scientist, she was used to numerical surprises. But this one? This had been big.
She peeled her gloves, running her fingers down the numbers as each isotope was reported in. Then she looked at Almasi again. "What are we at now?"
"We don't have anything else definitive. Do you want to try doing a forensic odont match with the five dental records?”
So they sat with their heads together over a clean table surface on one side of the room. He had already taken X-rays of the teeth and the skull, angling the film in a variety of ways, attempting to match up as many of the X-rays taken from the five possible samples as he could.
Together they ruled out four and decided one was a match. The age between the dental records of children and the time of death made it difficult. Baby teeth had been lost; adult teeth had come in. But Eleri and Agent Almasi found more than fifteen points of corroboration and no rule-out options on one set of X-rays.
They declared the body a match to Mackenzie Burke from Nebraska. Her family had reported her missing just the year before Emmaline.
Eleri's heart had sunk. The location was so different, though other pieces of the two cases were the same. She couldn't reconcile the two abductions, nor could she tell herself that they definitely belonged together. The lack of conclusion was frustrating.
So she decided it was time to take herself out of the equation for the day, before she said or did something dumb. Standing, she thanked Almasi for his work and for letting her horn in on it. As she stood near the table with the bones laid out, she looked up at him. Not paying attention, her hand came to rest on the arm bones.
This time her fingers were ungloved. As she touched the ulna, the air spun around her. A rank odor crawled through her sinuses. Her vision sparkled at the edges, and Almasi disappeared in front of her as Emmaline appeared.
"Eleri," Emmaline whispered as she reached out for her older sister.
9
Eleri lay awake in her bed that night. She'd recovered from the shock of touching the bones with her bare hands.
She'd used gloves at first, as had Agent Almasi, simply so as not to contaminate anything should it be needed for evidence later. It had been a mistake to stand, talk, and wave her hands around, letting them eventually flutter down onto what she’d thought was the edge of the table. The metal lip at the borders of the body tray turned up, and she’d meant to lightly rest her hand there. But Eleri hadn’t been looking. She’d let her fingertips land on the radius and ulna she'd been examining before.
Though she wanted to believe that she'd handled the shock well, she wasn’t certain she’d achieved it. Agent Almasi had looked at her strangely.
"Agent Eames, are you okay?"
She'd said, "Yes." But it was a lie.
She wasn’t okay at all. She was shocked both at the vision and at the return of her sister. Though she often saw things in odd ways, Eleri hadn't seen Emmaline in a while. Her sister usually came to her at night, in dreams, told her things she needed to know. She even helped her solve cases, sometimes.
As a ten-year-old child, when her sister had first appeared to her, she'd had no information. She’d not known what to do with the vision, or even that it was a vision. Ever logical, she’d thought it was just a dream. There was no reason to believe otherwise. She’d dismissed the whole thing as wishful thinking.
It was probably a good thing, looking back. Who would have believed her anyway? She’d later told her mother of her stark belief, saying directly to her, "Emmaline is alive."
Her mother had simply replied, "Of course she is, and we'll find her. We'll bring her home."
Those had been the days when her mother had run around frantically, worked with the FBI, handed over Emmaline's hairbrush and blanket and any beloved object that might contain fingerprints. She had worked tirelessly, doing everything she could to help her daughter return home. But slowly, their mother had faded into a shell of who she had been. She’d become the smiling, certainly-just-fine, brittle woman she was now.
Nathalie Beaumont had been raised here in Grandmere's house. The only clue to her parentage was the last name, Beaumont, although it was entirely possible Emmaline Remy had pulled the name out of thin air and written it on her daughter's birth certificate. No one was willing to put something like that past the first Emmaline. The Beaumonts had many wealthy branches of the family in New Orleans, but a handful of poor relations, too. It could have been a real clue—or it could have been a joke. They still didn’t know.
When the first Emmaline had abandoned her daughter with Grandmere, she had not stayed long enough to let her mother in on any secrets of Nathalie's conception or heritage. There was only what was obvious—the baby looked part white. Emmaline had been dark as night, like Grandmere. Nathalie was paler, though whether that swayed her decisions, Eleri still didn’t know. What she did know was that her mother had decided she was a blue blood.
"No idea where that notion came from," Grandmere always said. But Nathalie had done well for herself. She'd met and married Thomas Hale Eames, descendant of both Virginia first families and Massachusetts first families, owner of one massive trust fund, and the eldest son from a line of eldest sons.
Nathalie and Thomas had a beach house at FoxHaven. They had a farm in Virginia with a name—Bell Point Farm. And they had Patton Hall—their main residence—in Kentucky. It was from Patton Hall that Emmaline had disappeared.
The girls had been out riding and their instructor was watching them take turns cantering around the field and working over tiny jumps that he'd had installed for that purpose. It had been Emmaline's turn, since Eleri had just gotten her notes from her own trip around the training course.
“Heels down. Back straight. You’re letting him pull to the right,” Keith had told her. Eleri could still hear the words, as though they were saved on an audio file to this day. His vocal tone and inflection were forever seared into her mind.
After Eleri had nodded and accepted her corrections—what else could she do?—they had both turned toward the edge of the woods where Emmaline was supposed to be waiting.
But the younger sister and her horse were both gone. For a good thirty minutes to an hour, no one had panicked. It would be just like Emmaline to turn and ride off through the woods when no one was paying attention to her. She'd been eight that day. Eleri ten. Neither had been especially mature, but what did anyone expect? They were children.
They were children taking riding lessons. Both girls understood riding was something they should do, but neither girl had any particular love for the sport. They loved horses and they liked riding, but posting just so when trotting the horse and taking the jumps had not been anything either child had deemed necessary for her life.
Even today, Eleri was proud to say, "I can ride a horse. I can jump and I can do barrel turns," but that was all the skill seemed worth. Emmaline, at first, had hated the jumps but though she'd eventually gotten used to it and had even gotten better at it. But her dislike of jumping had seemed the obvious reason she wasn’t waiting her turn. Keith, the trainer, only had her train over the smaller obstacles—but he and Eleri had initially believed that Emmaline simply hadn't wanted to jump her horse that day and had turned and cantered off through the woods.
Eleri and her teacher had entered the trail exactly where they presumed that Emmaline had gone. Thirty minutes later, when they’d found no trace of the younger Eames girl, Keith had turned Eleri around and sent her back to the house. The man was not willing to let Emmaline stay outside alone, and he seemed still convinced—despite Eleri's growing worry—that Emmaline would soon be found.
Even at ten years old, Eleri had known to trust her gut. And her gut had told her that her sister hadn’t just run off to avoid a practice. Unfortunately, it would take Eleri almost twenty more years, and a stint in a mental hospital, before she would find anyone else to believe her instincts as she did.
With Eleri not speaking her fears, the family tried to believe their younger daughter would turn up playing in a stream, hopefully having remembered to ground tie her horse or lop the reins around a branch. Her pale riding pants, black boots, tailored jacket, and matching helmet should have been easy to find in the woods. Hell, the horse should have been easy to find in the woods. But she and Keith had seen no trace of Emmaline or her mount.
Even now, Eleri remembered that frantic ride home. Her teacher had shown no outward signs, that she could recall, of panic or real fear—but Eleri had begun to feel them herself. She'd ridden not to the stables, but right up to the back door of the house, where she’d hopped off the horse, barely remembering to tie the reins to the railing, and had run frantically inside.
Her mother had scolded her for coming in the house in her riding boots and asked her why she was there when she should be at her lesson. Eleri, though she'd known she would get in trouble, had told Nathalie that Keith was still looking for Emmaline.
Her mother had frowned. It hadn't registered. A ten-year-old's panic didn't mean much in the adult world, and Eleri had wished she was tall enough to shake her mother by the shoulders. "Emmaline is missing, Mother!"
Still, her mother, ever the calm, cool, collected, mainline blue blood—even if she wasn't one—had looked at her older daughter and said, "I'm sure she's fine. Where is your instructor?”"
“He’s still looking for Emmaline. He didn’t come back because he didn't want to stop looking.”
Her mother had frowned again, and she'd asked, "Well, just how long has your sister been gone?"
As though Eleri would say, "Five or ten minutes," and everything would be okay.
"Almost an hour, mother." The lessons were two hours, too long by at least half for children of their age, but her mother hadn't thought of that. She'd told them, "Buck up, pay attention, and get your lessons in." Eleri had tried.
That day was the last time she'd ever seen her little sister, outside of her own dreams. She was twelve before Emmaline appeared again. That night, she'd recognized her sister and had spoken with her, and woke up feeling better. She felt for the first time, that Emmaline must be alive.
It wasn't until the next night, as she was falling asleep thinking of her sister, that a realization startled her. In her dream, Emmaline had not looked quite like the picture she remembered.
That Emmaline had been eight. This Emmaline looked a little older.
Eleri had known by then that she was good with hunches, that she was a finder of lost items. Her mother had even asked her several times to help her locate lost objects. Nathalie said, "I don't know what it is, Eleri, but things always seem to turn up when you help me."
Eleri knew what it was. It was that somehow she would know where the missing thing was and she would ask her mother a handful of questions. The first time, she'd asked only one question, directing her mother exactly to the missing keys. Her mother had frowned and looked at her a little sideways, with a certain suspicion in her gaze.
After that, Eleri asked three questions about locations that she knew for certain would not turn up the missing item before asking about the spot where it would be found. Aside from being able to see her sister in her dreams sometimes, her intuition had seemed nothing more than a parlor trick. It was only in the past year or so that Eleri had begun to find out exactly what she possessed, what ran in her blood, what Grandmere had passed down to her two great-granddaughters, passed through the original Emmaline and then through Nathalie Beaumont Eames—whether Nathalie knew it or not.
Eleri felt the jury was out on her mother. Over the months after Emmaline had disappeared, Nathalie had slowly gone downhill. She’d faded away, from the fierce mama bear who was certain her daughter would be returned soon to the cold shell of a socialite who believed that somehow, sometime in the future, Emmaline would come home.
Though they'd eventually found her horse, they'd never found the girl. And now Eleri lay in bed at Grandmere's and slipped under into sleep, hoping to see her sister again.
10
Despite the fact that she'd fallen asleep thinking of her sister and the day of her sister's disappearance, Emmaline did not show up in Eleri's dreams that night, nor did any clues to her personal “case” for finding her sister. She'd spent the next day with Grandmere, both in the kitchen, cooking, and also waiting around in the living room while Grandmere met with one client after another at the tiny table in the kitchen. The space afforded little in the way of privacy, but Eleri seemed to be the only one who cared.
"It’s going to be a heavy day," Grandmere had warned her that morning.
Eleri had nodded in reply before realizing she didn’t know if her great-grandmother referred to an influx of clients, the weather, or something else that Eleri hadn’t counted on.
Times were harder here since the hurricane, Grandmere liked to point out. Eleri thought of that storm as something that had happened far in the past. Although the devastation still showed, Hurricane Katrina had come and gone long ago. Perhaps in Grandmere's long, long life, it was not so great a distance.
At first, Eleri had sat in the living room with her e-reader, waiting while clients came through. She curled up with her feet tucked under her, trying to read her book and not listen in on Grandmere's conversations with the people who came, but that had proved impossible.
One woman felt her husband was cheating and wanted a way to find out.
The woman offered to pay for whatever spells or help could be offered, but Grandmere was having none of that. She’d simply held the woman’s hands and said, "I can already tell, you are correct. He is. If you follow him, you'll see."
No money had exchanged hands that time. Eleri discovered that was often the case. Grandmere had probably earned less actual cash in her lifetime than Eleri earned in a year. She paid for most of her life through barter, trade, and Lord knew what. In many cases, Eleri saw people appear and leave with no apparent method of compensating Grandmere in any way for the effort she put forth, and—as Eleri saw that day—it was effort. Though spry, her great-grandmother was old. Eleri didn't even know the woman's true age, only that she was at least in her nineties. She might have been over one-hundred.
When the parade of clients had gone for the day, Grandmere made her way around the house, walking boldly into the bedroom where Eleri stayed. From the hallway, she visually followed most of Grandmere’s progress through the small house. She watched as the older woman went into the room and heard her in the closet. The rustling of plastic store bags told Eleri her great-grandmother was searching in the bag of fabric scraps, but she emerged with something that was definitely not fabric. Eleri wished now that she’d followed and looked.
Grandmere seemed unconcerned by her great-granddaughter’s surprise. She pulled herbs from the other room, where they hung drying in the closets and along the walls. In the kitchen, she boiled pots of water, burned candles, and chanted prayers. Eleri heard her invoke the name of gods that Grandmere had prayed to for decades.
After a while of listening to Grandmere work in the kitchen, Eleri had gotten up from the couch and gone into her bedroom. She decided to search through the bag of fabric scraps herself.
It was shoved into the back of the closet, and this time when she pulled it out, it was much heavier than she had expected. She shouldn't have been surprised. As she pawed her way through it, she found hand-stitched, white cotton dolls. They didn’t have faces painted on them, but some features were clear in the way they had been stitched.
Another bag, shoved down under the fabric scraps, held other bags with smooth sticks and crystals and even bones. Eleri frowned as she pulled out the crinkly plastic, and the pieces inside had rattled as she picked them up. She'd worried Grandmere might find her digging in here, but it was past time she knew about her own heritage, past time she knew what she really was.
Donovan had shaken her foundations when he pointed out pieces of her past that she'd never known. He'd simply paid attention to the ancestors in the paintings at Bell Point Farm. The canvases had hung there since before Eleri was born, looking down from the farm's white plaster, several-hundred-year-old walls.
Eleri—on her father's side—was both a Hale and an Eames. She was literally the great-great-granddaughter of the witches that could not be burned in Salem. That had been a shock. In turn, Donovan had been shocked at her surprise. These ancestors had stared down at her for her whole childhood. Engraved, brass plaques were bolted to the bottom of each one, stating their names, but Eleri had paid no attention. Donovan had put together the look and feel of the portraits along with the dates and names, and had gone online to look up information. Eleri had just known them as her ancestors. She'd thought nothing of it.
