The Light of the World, page 22
She didn’t know how to say what else had happened. She certainly couldn’t say that Liv had dropped two huge information bombs onto her and kissed her before running off clad in brooding mystery. Al wouldn’t understand anything but the last bit. She had to tell him, though, because it wasn’t fair to leave him in the dark.
She slumped down in her chair. She had no idea how to tell Al that Theo had been down there in the cavern, that Theo had smashed the trunk. Liv knew more than she was letting on.
Liv kissed me.
It didn’t make sense. Why would it be Liv’s choice to allow Theo time to get close to whatever was contained within that box? How could she know what was in there in the first place?
Why did she kiss me?
“Like, just up and bounced?” Al asked. “That’s not really like her.”
“I know,” Eva replied.
She kissed me and she left me.
There was no use thinking about it anymore. Not until she could get Liv alone and make her explain. She stood up and reached for the box, without gloves and not really caring that she was touching these old documents without them. Her mind was on other things.
The first document she pulled out was a list of names, ones that she did not recognize from her grandmother’s diaries. She stared down at the writing. It was similar to the line scratched in pencil at the back of the July diary. This was all in ink, beautiful calligraphy across a dirty, mud-streaked page.
Eva’s fingers shook as she picked up one letter from among all the rest. It was sealed, but the address was unmistakable.
An unsent letter.
Addressed to her grandmother.
Eva sat down in a hurry and wondered if this was what Liv had seen and what had made her leave. But why run away from the answers?
Her hands were shaking, and the envelope felt so flimsy and insignificant. Al was still leaning against the doorway, looking confused. “Wait, shouldn’t Dad be down here?” he asked.
Eva shook her head, the letter almost shaking in her palms. “This is addressed to my grandmother. It was never sent.”
“Then open it,” Al urged. “Pretty sure it’s legal to open letters addressed to people who’ve passed, anyway.”
Moving carefully so as not to disturb the contents, Eva slid a finger under the ancient seal on the back and felt it pull under her finger, splitting open easily as she moved her finger down the paper. There were several pages inside, and Eva pulled them out gingerly, unfurling them and setting them straight.
The writing was faded, but unmistakably the same as the writing had been on the back of her grandmother’s diary.
November 15, 1925
Dearest Mary,
I do not know how to write this letter to you and have you understand the depths to which it wounds my soul to put pen to paper. I fear that I will never possess the courage to send it to you. I hope you will forgive me, one day.
I have told you more than once that what we have together is a love as great as all the ages. It is as forbidden as all the great stories of old. Yet I have had you in a way that would make most men weep for what they can never possess. You are my beauty, my star. You are everything and all that I have ever wanted in life.
Yet I know that I cannot have you.
I have told you of my duty and the task set before me. You are my one person, the one soul to whom I can divulge this knowledge. You were supposed to be forever.
The seekers have found me and I must flee this place. I do not know where I will go, or if I will live long enough to see my legacy passed on. All I know is that I must go, and you cannot come with me.
We were supposed to be forever, Mary. We were supposed to be the two that ended this cycle of living and dying. Nothing I was taught told me what to do in the event of falling in love. You’ve told me many times that that is something we cannot have. We do have it, though. We have it over and over again, as life could have passed us by in an instant, and I would look only at you.
You are my sun, my moon, my stars, and I must leave you broken and alone until the end of your days, for the light in your world truly will go out at my absence. I am certain of that.
Do not weep for me, Mary. I am just a passing shadow across the glorious plain of your life. You will stand someday atop the highest peak in the land, and you will shout my name to the wind, and maybe then I will find you once again.
Until then, know that the light is with you always. It will never go out, and I may never die.
Wren
“They found her and she had to run,” Eva breathed. Liv had to run.
Al had crossed the room and she held out the letter to him with shaking hands. He took it gently and read it quickly, his brow furrowing as he scratched with one finger at the back of his head in between the locks of his hair.
“They found her and she had to run.”
“Who are ‘they’?” Al asked. His eyes flew over the letter and Eva watched as they grew wider and wider. “Dang, Eva.” He set the letter down. The whites of his eyes seemed to pop in the relative gloom of the workroom. Unable to help herself, she smiled. This was their answer, even though her heart felt as if it were being ripped into a million pieces.
Liv had known something about this from the start and yet she’d stayed with them for some reason, and led Al and Eva down into that cavern. Why did she do that?
Eva’s head hurt at the implications.
The seekers—whoever they were—had come after Wren. She had a secret, and that secret had driven her away from Mary. She knew about the room full of light under the city, and it was supposed to keep her safe. That place had felt nothing like a sanctuary to Eva.
So, how was Wren connected to the light of the world? Was she the light of the world?
“I know,” she replied. Her voice felt like sandpaper at her throat. All the secrets were slowly tumbling out. Eva couldn’t contain them, and now Al knew as well. Secrets upon secrets, lies upon lies.
Theo was right all along—there was something more to her grandmother’s story.
“We should show my dad, this is a huge break,” Al said. His face fell, but then he added, “Look, I know what I told you is bad, but he’ll want to know this. It’s good for both of you. It gives a concrete reason why Wren disappeared from your Gran’s life.”
Eva nodded, staring down at the envelope in her hands. It felt thick, as though there was something else tucked inside. She flipped the envelope open and peered inside.
There was another folded sheet of paper. Eva tipped the envelope over and let it fall into her palm.
Al’s boots thudded up the stairs, but the sound was far away, like a scene from under water.
Inside a tissue sleeve was a photograph of two girls who looked impossibly young. They were sitting side by side on a bench in what could only be Central Park. The taller of the two had light-colored hair, whereas the shorter and slightly younger-looking one could have been Eva if the photograph were not so old. She had brown hair cropped short and blowing in a breeze. It was combed absolutely straight, except for the corners that were flipping up, frizzing.
“Gran.” Her voice was hushed, reverent.
They were dressed in short dresses and wore hats that cast their faces into shadow, but Eva recognized the little upturn in her grandmother’s nose even here. She stared down at the photograph, drinking in the blonde hair, the high cheekbones and carefully painted lips of the girl who could only be Catherine Monroe. She was leaning against Mary with her arm around her shoulders, and their heads were inclined together in a pose that spoke of the intimacy of their relationship. It was a tender, beautiful moment captured forever.
A protective urge came over Eva. She stood and hurriedly crossed to the door, her fingers sliding the photograph back into its protective sleeve. She tucked the photograph into her jacket pocket. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t want Theo or Al to see it. Not just yet. Not before she showed it to Liv. Not before she decided if she wanted to show it to Liv.
“You found a letter?” Theo bustled into the room.
“Yeah,” she said. “Come see!”
Theo didn’t even bother to ask where Liv had gone. He pulled on his archival gloves and greedily began reading the letter. Eva could see the triumph grow across his face as he took in Wren’s final goodbye. This would be his proof, now and forever, and Eva knew that she would never get that letter back.
“This is it, Eva.” Theo’s hands were shaking as he held the letter between them. His eyes were wide and so wild with excitement that Eva couldn’t help but wince she watched him. She’d never seen a man come face to face with what had been called his white whale before. “This is the final piece to the puzzle.”
He turned to Al, who shrugged. “Good for you, Dad,” he offered. Eva could only guess at how times they’d been in this position in the past, Theo happily chattering that he’d found the secret he’d always been looking for, and Al indifferent by wayside.
Was it even the final piece to the puzzle? Eva wondered. There was so much more that they didn’t yet know. What the purpose of the light of the world truly was seemed to hang in the balance. Was it the sort of thing where it was just there, a constant, a light that had shown the way to many over the years? The questions grew and grew, and the most important one still remained, etched upon the very fabric of Eva’s being.
Why did Liv leave? Eva’s thoughts were racing.
Theo pulled Liv’s notes toward himself and made another notion. “This is Catherine Monroe’s pronouncement, her one slip-up in all her cloak and dagger; this is the one thing that she messed up with. And this is going to give us our answer.”
Theo sounded so triumphant that Eva felt her blood pressure spike. She folded her arms over her chest and glared at him from her position by the door. “It’s a farewell letter that was never sent, not a confession.”
Pointing at her with the back of his pen, Theo shook his head. “That is because it is both, but it is a confession first of all.”
“I don’t think it is.” Eva’s tone grew more insistent. She could not believe him. That letter was so sad, so horribly depressing, a love letter and goodbye, and he was treating it like a smoking gun! “These are the last words that we know that Catherine Monroe wrote, and it’s a goodbye.” She felt her hands start to clench into fists, feeling the very weight of all that her grandmother had suffered through coming back to stare her dead in the face. “If… If she’d received this letter, maybe things would be different.”
Waving a hand dismissively, Theo went back to his notes. “That may be the case, Eva,” he began, scribbling away, “but that’s in the past. We can’t change it now. All we can do is go forward and try to understand what it was that Catherine Monroe probably died for.”
Eva wrapped her arms around herself and sighed. She should have known better than to trust him. He was clearly out only for himself now. He’d been bitten by the bug, and his pursuit of the light of the world wasn’t going to end until he’d faced failure once more.
Defiantly, Eva shoved the diary back into her bag and grabbed her coat from the back of the door. “I’m going home.” No one was looking at her, but she said it anyway. She turned on her heel and ignored Theo’s calls for her to leave the diary behind so that he could compare it to the events described in the letter.
Just thinking about all the suffering her grandmother could have avoided if she had received that letter was making Eva’s head spin. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. She could have had a chance at happiness. She did have a chance at happiness and someone had chased Wren away.
If her grandmother had been able to love Wren, would she have had children? Would she have brought Eva’s father into the world? Would I even be here? It was a stupid, pointless exercise. The past was written. It couldn’t be undone. Eva hated that. She wanted her grandmother to have had a chance for happiness more than anything. She didn’t care that circumstances had made that impossible.
Eva swiped moodily at the tears. She was upset and the night was bitterly cold. The chill settled into her bones as she hurried across the street and uptown toward her grandmother’s apartment.
She wanted Liv, she wanted Al, but most of all, she wanted to tell her grandmother why. Her grandmother was dead. She would never know the truth now.
The apartment was silent. It smelled of fresh plaster.
Eva pulled the carefully wrapped photograph from her pocket. Two people in love stared back at her in that charming ’20s style. It was a memory of a time and place that had cut Mary so deeply that the wound festered for a lifetime.
Eva pulled the July diary from her bag and settled down into the couch. The tears fell freely now. Her grandmother had lost this girl, and no one could ever tell her where Wren had gone.
“Wren loved you,” Eva said to the diary as she flipped to the right page. She sniffed. “She loved you and she wanted the entire world to see it.”
July 25, 1925
Wren came to see me today bearing the most hilarious story about a gentleman who got thrown out of a Yanks game for trying to get Babe Ruth to sign his baseball. He was going to sell it to the highest bidder he could find, and had already placed the newspaper notice, Wren explained, and the bull had figured it out and had gotten word to the boys down at the ball field and he’d been given the bum’s rush.
I don’t know why this was so funny to me, but it was. A foolish man trying to make a buck has its moments of charm, I suppose.
We were sitting reading Judith’s newspaper in my room when she told me all of this, prancing around the room excitedly and practically shaking with mirth. She’d heard the story from one of the ad girls she works with, apparently, who’d heard it from some gossipy vamp on the corner. It sounds like Wren’s workplace is a total hen party.
This is the first time she’s ever talked about her work. The first time she’s opened up about that aspect of herself. You could have knocked me over with a feather I was so shocked by the honesty.
I told Wren what I thought of her workplace and she threw her head back and laughed some more, cackling madly as she proceeded to do impressions of every single one of the girls she works with.
Somewhere in the middle, she and I got very close together. I could look into her eyes and see the flecks of gold and green in them. She is so very pretty, even in the candle light of my bedroom long after dark.
Wren leaned in, as we were sitting next to each other, a smile on her face, and kissed me.
It was wet and had too many teeth and tongues involved for my liking, but it felt like nothing I’d ever felt before. And I wanted her to do it again. She seemed fearful, as I told her again and again that it was all right. She would not touch me again until after she crawled out the window to head down the fire escape ladder to the street below us. She touched my hand and my cheek then, and I would have begged her to touch me more, but the windows above and below us were open to catch the breeze and I didn’t dare speak.
Chapter 20
The Guardian
Bang, bang, bang.
Eva pushed herself forward, scrambling away from the creeping darkness. Her feet sank into the mire. Her fingers clawed through the mud. The girl with no face was just behind her. Her pace was sedate, even, and calm despite Eva’s frantic movements. Every time Eva looked over her shoulder, she was exactly the same distance away, never any nearer or farther.
Her lips burned with the memory of the kiss. It warmed her gut, twisting and settling between her legs. She wanted another.
“You are a seeker,” the girl said in Liv’s voice. It rattled in her throat like the wind caught on a loosely latched door. “You seek the light of the world.”
Eva sank to her knees. “No, I don’t! I want nothing to do with it!”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The girl with no face now stood before her. Her expression was impassive. Liv’s features slid into view on her face. Eva opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She was on her knees before this powerful entity, supplicant and surrendered, half-buried in mud.
“You seek the light of the world.”
“No.” Eva sobbed the word. Fingers like ice caressed her cheek. “I don’t want it. I’ve seen what it does.”
Lips breathed death on Eva’s cheek, on her lips. “Run,” the creature said. “Run while you still can.”
Bang, bang, bang.
Eva awoke with a start. Her sheets were twisted around her ankles and her heart was racing. A thin sheen of sweat covered her skin and it took a moment for her half-awake mind to realize that the sounds that filtered into the edges of her dreams were not part of the dream at all.
Someone was knocking on her door. Eva grunted and rolled over, trying to bundle herself back into the warmth of her covers. It was probably a salesperson. They’d go away eventually.
The panic of the moment before was gone. Exhaustion threatened to claim her once more, but the knocking grew more insistent.
“Go away,” she muttered. It was just after seven in the morning. No one should be knocking this early. She couldn’t think straight, her thoughts like a slog through molasses.
More knocking. Eva let out a frustrated groan, threw back her quilt and reached off the side of the bed for her pants.
Grumbling to herself and still half asleep, Eva pulled on as much clothing as she could. She was halfway into the living room before she was dressed. Her baggy sweats covered her feet and her oversized cardigan that she’d pulled over her sweaty chest was practically falling off one of her shoulders as she stumbled toward the door. It was too early to bother with a bra, so whoever it was would just have to deal. She tugged her cardigan shut and held it in place, squinting through the peephole on the door. It took a moment for her to find the sweet spot, but when she did, she let out a surprised squeak.
Liv was standing awkwardly in the hallway outside the door. Her hands were plunged into the pockets of her ratty army jacket and a thick gray scarf was wrapped tightly around her neck. She looked nervous and uncomfortable. Her hair hung limply around her face and it looked as though she’d been out in the rain.
