Yearning, page 5
“True.” Slowly pivoting on her seat to face Darian,
Samantha looked at her with eyes wide enough to show the
white all the way around them. “This…I have come across
similar writings, as I said, but only in scattered documents
with no obvious connection between them. This…this book.”
She swallowed and shook her head. “I have no words. It’s
been my obsession, you could say, to find something that
might shine a light on the discrepancies in our town’s past.”
Samantha spoke quietly, as if she’d forgotten where she
was.
“Discrepancies? You mentioned that before.” Darian
frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Oh. Right.” Squaring her shoulders, Samantha cast a
longing look at the old journal. “Of course, I can’t know that
this book is the document I’ve hoped to find for years, or if
very much is written beyond this first spread, but—what are
you doing?”
Darian, who wasn’t much for waiting to find things out, or
as reverent about old books as the woman next to her, had
just put her finger in between the pages and now pushed
about ten of them open. The book obediently flipped open,
sending some dust whirling. “That should answer that. More
writing and—a date!”
“You could have broken it.” Samantha growled but leaned
over the book again. “Don’t do that again.”
“All right.” Darian scooted closer. “Some of the strange
symbols, and then…January the twenty-eighth, in the year
1776.” She gaped. “Holy shit.”’
“God.” Samantha covered her mouth, her hand unsteady.
“1776.”
“Pretty old. I’ll be more careful.” Feeling guilty at how
she’d flipped the pages, she kept her hands well away from
the book.
“The Elder Council has introduced a new law that forbids
us to dress in uniform, or any of our old garments. I can see
the reason for these rules but do not agree with the severity
of the punishment for the ones who wish to live according to
our old ways in the privacy of their homes.”
Samantha leaned back in the chair, making it squeak.
“Uniforms?” She rubbed her temples. “This is so much new
information at once, my brain’s overheating.” She smiled
faintly. “This book, combined with your mystery in the
basement, is staggering.”
Darian nodded. “It sure is. So, you’ve been researching
Dennamore’s history, and this is the first time you’ve found
anything this detailed?”
“Exactly.” Samantha gripped Darian’s hand and
squeezed it. “Will you help me? I mean, with the journal. You
did offer to be my secretary.” She looked hopefully at
Darian.
Darian returned the squeeze gently. “Absolutely. This is
like catnip to a detective, you know.” She grinned.
“Girls!” Gran’s surprisingly strong voice carried from the
hallway downstairs. “Dinner’s ready.”
“Coming, Gran!” Darian looked at the book. “Something
important though. We can’t keep anything from Gran. If
there’s anything I know about Camilla Tennen, it is the
futility of trying to be sneaky. I learned that the hard way as
a teenager. And, after all, it’s her book.”
“It is.” Samantha nodded solemnly. “And another thing
that may sound odd to you. We shouldn’t be too obvious
about it with anyone but your grandmother. One reason I’ve
found it difficult to do my research is that some on the Elder
Council are not exactly keen on it. I wouldn’t be surprised if
they keep old documents or journals out of the public
record.”
“Like this one?” Darian tilted her head. “It sounded like
on that first page that this person, whatever their name is,
had good reason way back when to keep it on the down-low
as well. Interesting.”
“It sure is. Mind if I use your shirt to cover the book until
next time?” Samantha held up the rather dusty shirt.
“Go ahead. I’ll just pop into my room and get another
one. Don’t think Gran will appreciate me being quite this
informal at the dinner table when we have a guest.”
Grinning, Darian enjoyed how Samantha’s cheeks briefly
turned a faint pink.
Darian dashed over to her room and pulled on another
long-sleeve shirt, this one cobalt blue, and then joined
Samantha in the hallway. As they walked to the dining room
where the ornate oak table was set with a crisp white linen
tablecloth and matching napkins, Darian could tell that
Samantha was preoccupied, and who could blame her. The
strange discovery in the basement together with the ancient
journal were almost too much to take in. When Darian took
her seat next to her grandmother and across from
Samantha, she realized that right this instant she felt more
alive than she ever had chasing criminals in LA.
CHAPTER THREE
Samantha thought Camilla Tennen looked every bit the
matriarch, as well as the Hollywood-conditioned glam
queen, where she presided at the head of the dining table. It
didn’t matter that the table was old, and quite sturdy, or
that the rug had seen better days. The charismatic woman
managed to give the impression that she sat on a throne,
benevolently regarding her subjects. If it hadn’t been for the
fact that Camilla exuded warmth and brilliance, the woman
could have been considered arrogant.
“A journal, you say?” Camilla asked as she forked a piece
of asparagus on her plate with some difficulty. “I was hardly
in that room as a young girl, because it smelled of moldy old
books. Who knew I’d become a writer myself?” She
shrugged.
“Not moldy,” Samantha said after swallowing the
excellently prepared salmon. “Musty, perhaps.”
“Either way, I loathed the smell.” Camilla crinkled her
nose. “What’s so special about this journal? Who kept it?”
“We don’t know that yet,” Darian said. “They wrote about
wanting to form a family with their Gai’usto.”
“Gai’usto?” Camilla raised her eyebrows. “What sort of
name is that?”
“No idea.” Samantha sipped her chardonnay. “Slavic,
maybe? Or Mediterranean?”
“I never knew we had any Slavic ancestors, but I can’t
say the topic came up much when I was young.” Looking
absentminded, Camilla put down her fork and rubbed her
knuckles. “My parents’ names were British enough—Richard
and Alison Wells.” She smiled faintly. “I took my husband’s
last name when we got married.”
“I’m psyched about delving into the mystery.” Darian
grinned and waved her fork in a circle. “Considering the wall
in the basement, we have a proper mystery on our hands.
Or a mystery combined with some riddles, as half the
journal seemed to consist of these strange symbols. Perhaps
our ancestors were heavily into cyphers? Or code!”
“In the seventeen-hundreds? I imagine they were more
heavily into surviving,” Samantha said, unable to hide her
smile. Something about Darian was disarming, even if she
could be a flirt and a heartbreaker.
“Hey. Once darkness fell and they barricaded the doors
to keep bears and wolves out, who knows? I can just picture
them sitting in their log cabins, making up puzzles to keep
from going insane.” Darian chuckled.
Camilla took the linen napkin from her lap and delicately
dabbed her lips. “As much as I can envision your vivid
description, Darian, I want to know what you meant by the
wall in the basement.”
“Oh, right.” Darian used her napkin as well, though with
more efficiency than delicacy. “We were so excited about
the journal, we forgot to tell you.” She recounted the
oddities in the basement to her grandmother. “Once I’ve
had the carpenter make sure the stairs are safe, because
right now they’re a bit on the creaky side, I’ll help you
downstairs, Gran. You’ll get a kick out of the old furnace.
Looks like something from one of your scary movies. Good
thing I don’t frighten easily.”
“A very good thing.” Camilla smiled, but Samantha
thought she saw something sad in the tension around her
blue eyes. “And I appreciate you being cautious with me, but
don’t overdo it.” She flicked her napkin toward Darian
before putting it down.
Darian merely smiled at Camilla. “Are you kidding me? I
know who’s the queen around here.”
This comment erased whatever sadness Samantha
thought she might have picked up in Camilla’s eyes.
Laughing, she leaned back in her chair. “I don’t know about
you girls, but I’m ready for some dessert and coffee, or
perhaps Samantha prefers tea? Why don’t we return to the
parlor? No, no,” she said to Darian, shaking her head.
“Before you object to the old furniture, Brandon placed extra
cushions on them, just for you.” She winked at Samantha,
who quickly bit her lip to hide yet another smile.
“Oh, great.” Darian muttered, but she got up from her
chair to assist Camilla, who waved her away.
“I’m doing much better.” A barely-there frown showed up
between Camilla’s eyebrows, but that seemed to be all it
took for Darian to stop hovering.
They returned to the parlor, where Samantha’s gaze kept
being drawn between the abundant bookshelves that Darian
had called “the surplus” earlier and Darian’s lithe body as
she helped a bald, burly man pull in a delicate brass cart
from the kitchen area. Samantha had briefly said hello to
the man, not quite sure if he was merely the cook, or also a
butler, and a chauffeur, and perhaps a bodyguard as well,
for Camilla. His voice was remarkably soft and low, but it
was obvious that his bulk consisted of all muscle and little
fat. It was impossible to judge his age or his ethnicity.
Models would kill for his smooth, clear complexion. A few
wrinkles around the eyes suggested he did smile on
occasion. He was younger than Camilla, but by how much?
Fifteen, twenty years? Samantha chastised herself for
always being so prone to compartmentalize people when it
came to their statistics. She wasn’t being judgmental—she
knew herself well enough to realize that fact—but she did
want to make the world easier to understand. Everything in
its place and so on. Her tendency could take ridiculous
turns; of this she was well aware.
“Thank you, Brandon. You’re off duty now,” Camilla said,
her voice holding something close to tenderness. “You’re
working far too many hours as it is.”
“Hardly, Camilla.” Brandon smiled quickly, showing off
perfect white teeth. “Even so, good night, all. Nice to make
your acquaintance, Ms. Pike.”
“Samantha. Please.”
“Thank you, Samantha. I’m Brandon Reyes but call me
Brandon.”
“Thank you. So much easier to be on a first-name basis,”
Samantha said.
He made a small bow and returned toward the kitchen
area.
“Now, where were we?” Darian asked as she poured their
hot beverages.
“The basement. Or in the journal.” Camilla locked her
gaze on Samantha. “As fascinating as all that is, I want to
hear about Samantha. Are you a born-and-bred Dennamore
girl?”
Put on the spot, Samantha held her mug tight. “I am. I
left only for the years it took me to earn my master’s degree
in library and information. Once I had that in the bag, I
returned here. I suppose my yearning came even before I
left.”
“Excuse me? Your yearning?” Darian put her coffee mug
down.
“Oh. Right.” Willing herself to relax, now that they were
perhaps moving to more general topics rather than her life,
Samantha nodded. “It’s probably nothing more than a
coincidence, but according to popular belief, especially
among the older generations, Dennamore has a pull on the
people who move away. I don’t know if that theory is even
quantifiable, but most people who move away for college,
work, or for any other reason, really, return at one point.
Like you, Camilla. There are even records of it in Old papers
in the town hall basement contain references to it, calling it
the yearning.”
“Wait. That kid at the library. The young guy. He
wondered if I was a returnee. Is that the same thing?”
Darian looked back and forth between Samantha and
Camilla.
“Carl. Yes. It’s related. A returnee is what you become
when you’ve heeded the yearning and returned to
Dennamore.” Samantha enjoyed the surprised look on the
others’ faces a little too much. Pulling herself together, she
shook her head. “A self-fulfilled prophecy. You have a longing
for home. That’s not uncommon. You know from your early
age about the yearning, so when you miss your family and
friends, you can easily interpret it a little too easily as the
much-talked-about yearning.”
“My yearning started eight years ago, right about when I
turned sixty-seven. At first, I thought it was because I was
nearing retirement age. But now that you mention the
yearning, I remember people talking about it in the sixties,
when I was a teenager. It’s quite a phenomenon if it still
goes on.”
“Hey, hold on, hold on.” Darian raised both her hands,
palms forward. “If you’d forgotten about the yearning, and
you still experienced it when you were sixty-seven and
onward…how can it be a self-fulfilling prophecy? And even if
you might have remembered on some subconscious level, I
felt the damn overpowering urge to come with you, to see
where we come from—and I’ve never been here!”
“But you love your grandmother, and it’s natural to take
an interest in one’s background. That’s what I love to
research, so I know that feeling well.” Samantha tried to
keep Darian from reading too much into things.
“True.” Darian didn’t seem entirely convinced. “And if I
hadn’t just come across the freaking wall, seen the
enormous basement under the library at Town Hall, and
found a journal from the seventeen hundreds, I might have
been able to brush it off.” Darian tapped her chin. “The
thing is, I just made detective a year ago, and it has always
been my dream. Then nine months ago, three months after I
got my detective badge, I get what can only be described as
a damn yearning to go with Gran to Dennamore, which you
can barely see on the map.”
Samantha didn’t know how to respond to that statement.
When Darian put it like that, it sounded compelling to her as
well.
“What I know,” Camilla said and fumbled a bit with her
dessert fork before placing a piece of the cheesecake in her
mouth. After swallowing, she hummed and then continued
talking. “Is that the two of you look like you’re dying to
figure out more about our ancestry in this town, as well as
what’s going on in our basement…and whatever Darian
found odd about the basement in the town hall.”
Samantha had to concede. “So true. I’m grateful to have
Darian join in. She’ll look at it from a completely different
viewpoint…Oh! I forgot. I had a greeting for you, Camilla. I
ran into Geoff Walker on my way over to your house. He
remembers you fondly and told me to say hello from him.”
“Geoff Walker?” Camilla frowned for a moment but then
lit up. “Young Geoff. Yes. Yes! I remember him well. He and I
went to school together. What is he up to these days?”
“He’s the former chief of police. Some of us still think of
him that way, even if Chief Billings has held the job for a few
years.” Samantha placed her tea mug on the side table.
“Nowadays, Chief Walker enjoys photography more than
anything else. He reminded me that the Lake Light Festival
is taking place soon. It’s only a week from now. I hope you
both can attend. It’s quite something.”
Camilla brightened. “I remember those from when I was
young. They’re beautiful, and they always happen on the
same days, every year.”
“Oh, God. Is that another mystery I need to factor in?”
Darian groaned, but she winked at Samantha.
