The Secrets Amongst the Cypress, page 1
The Secrets Amongst the Cypress
The House of Crimson & Clover Volume X
Sarah M. Cradit
Copyright © 2016 Sarah M. Cradit
All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, at “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Sarah M. Cradit
Editing by Kathy Lapeyre
* * *
First Edition
ISBN-10: 1539461971
ISBN-13: 978-1539461975
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Publisher Contact:
sarah@sarahmcradit.com
www.sarahmcradit.com
Contents
Also by Sarah M. Cradit
Prologue
Day One
1. 1- Jacob
2. 2- Amelia
3. 3- Jacob
4. 4- Amelia
Day Two
5. 5- Jacob
6. 6- Amelia
7. 7- Ophélie
8. 8- Jacob
9. 9- Amelia
10. 10- Amelia
11. 11- Jacob
Day Three
12. 12- Ophélie
13. 13- Amelia
14. 14- Jacob
15. 15- Amelia
16. 16- Ophélie
17. 17- Jacob
Day Four
18. 18- Amelia
19. 19- Ophélie
20. 21- Jacob
Day Five
21. 21- Amelia
22. 22- Jacob
23. 23- Amelia
24. 24- Ophélie
25. 25- Amelia
Day Six
26. 26- Jacob
27. 27- Amelia
28. 28- Jacob
29. 29- Amelia
30. 30- Ophélie
31. 31- Jacob
32. 32- Amelia
Day Seven
33. 33- Jacob
34. 34- Ophélie
35. 35- Anasofiya
36. 36- Amelia
37. 37- Anasofiya
Day Eight
38. 38- Amelia
Day Fifteen
39. 39- Finnegan
40. 40-Jacob
Day Seventeen
41. 41- Finnegan
42. 42- Anasofiya
43. Epilogue
Within the Garden of Twilight Excerpt
Also by Sarah M. Cradit
Empyrean & Quinlan
Crimson & Clover Connections
About the Author
Also by Sarah M. Cradit
Kingdom of the White Sea Cycle
The Kingless Crown
The Broken Realm
The Hidden Kingdom
THE SAGA OF CRIMSON & CLOVER
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The House of Crimson and Clover Series
The Storm and the Darkness
Shattered
The Illusions of Eventide
Bound
Midnight Dynasty
Asunder
Empire of Shadows
Myths of Midwinter
The Hinterland Veil
The Secrets Amongst the Cypress
Within the Garden of Twilight
House of Dusk, House of Dawn
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Midnight Dynasty Series
A Tempest of Discovery
A Storm of Revelations
A Torrent of Deceit
and more
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The Seven Series
1970
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1980
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Vampires of the Merovingi Series
The Island
and more
* * *
The Dusk Trilogy
St. Charles at Dusk: The Story of Oz and Adrienne
Flourish: The Story of Anne Fontaine
Banshee: The Story of Giselle Deschanel
* * *
Crimson & Clover Stories
Surrender: The Story of Oz and Ana
Shame: The Story of Jonathan St. Andrews
Fire & Ice: The Story of Remy & Fleur
Dark Blessing: The Landry Triplets
Pandora's Box: The Story of Jasper & Pandora
The Menagerie: Oriana’s Den of Iniquities
A Band of Heather: The Story of Colleen and Noah
The Ephemeral: The Story of Autumn & Gabriel
Bayou’s Edge: The Landry Triplets
For more information, and exciting bonus material, visit www.sarahmcradit.com
For Holly
My Muse
“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
* * *
“He was part of my dream, of course -- but then I was part of his dream, too.”
* * *
Lewis Carroll
Prologue
Amelia
Outside the safe house, screams escalated, filling the air with terror. The smell of burning—bitter, not the comforting scent of a camp fire—traveled toward them, though their eyes couldn’t see the source of the flames.
Farjhem is burning, Amelia realized, pressing her face into Jacob’s chest as he focused on pulling them out of the danger. She prayed Holger would find his own escape, and forgive them for not keeping their promise and staying.
“Hold on,” Jacob whispered, as his grip tightened and the air around them went from still and pungent to the sensation of being whirled through a vacuum canister. Her skin stretched tight against her bones, as if it might peel from her frame if the gust grew any stronger.
Amelia dared not open her eyes. What remained of her lucidity might float away with the swirling wind.
The gust stopped. The smell of fire faded to the pleasant scent of saffron and other exotic spices.
“Open your eyes. Blanca. Look!”
Amelia did as Jacob asked. She backed slowly away from his arms, taking in the sweeping view of Ophélie from Brigitte’s Garden. The topiary and flora were low to the ground.
“I don’t know how, but I got us home,” Jacob said in awe as he knelt down, taking a handful of earth in his hand. The dirt sifted through his fingers.
Amelia frowned, glancing toward the Big House, and the missing Belvedere. It was a feature added later, not built with the house. Turning left, she saw the fresh coat of ivory paint on the newly constructed garçonierre.
“Not... exactly,” she replied, as she added together the visual cues. “Jacob, I think—”
“The birthday festivities are starting!” a young blonde woman in a low-necked, corseted evening dress declared, sashaying toward them. Her skirt rustled over the top of the cage underneath.
Standing before them, the young girl scrunched her browse in perplexed study. “Why, look at you. Are you a guest of my father’s?”
Jacob gaped, speechless, his gaze traveling between both women.
“Ah… uh, yes,” Amelia asserted, tucking her shaking hand behind her. “We—”
The woman’s face lit up. She clasped her hands together. “Oh! You must be from London!” She artlessly fingered the stitching on Amelia’s riding coat. “Tell me, is this the current fashion for ladies?” Not waiting for a response, her words continued to rush forth in an excited gale. “My brothers brought me the finest corsets from Paris when they went on their Grand Tour. They completely neglected London!”
“A shame,” Amelia said with a polite smile, biting her tongue to hide her disorientation… and her decidedly different accent. She hadn’t realized how much the dialect had changed over the last century-and-a-half.
“Come, gather inside! You can tell me all about London after the dance, when the men break for cigars and brandy.”
“Yes, thank you,” Amelia said pleasantly. Then the young girl turned, with a practiced motion, lifting her skirts as she made her way back toward the Big House.
“Don’t recognize her?” Amelia asked her husband, still staring down the path toward the house. “I thought you were an expert on the Deschanels.”
“It can’t be.” His jaw went slowly slack.
“Oh, it is. That’s Ophélie, and today is apparently her birthday. The place isn’t crawling with Union soldiers so I’d guess this is before the war... which puts us around 1859 or 1860, judging from her age.”
“Jesus,” Jacob whispered, rubbing his face with the edge of his palms.
“Actually, I think it’s the goddess you should be appealing to right about now,” Amelia mumbled with a half-smile. Her face creased in concentration as her mind struggled to catch up with everything around them.
Jacob was too stunned to tease back. “What do we do?”
“When you closed your eyes and asked for the help getting us here, did you specifically wish to take us home?”
“Not really. What I asked was to get us out of danger.” He scratched his head. “I didn’t t
hink that far ahead. I should have focused on somewhere specific. Should we try again?”
Amelia looked toward her family’s plantation and beyond, toward the river, teeming with commerce. Brimming with life full of hope, before war would tear it apart.
With all her heart, she wished she could go back to her own moments of peace, before her world was torn in two.
But her scars were her own, as Ophelie’s would be hers. All Amelia’s family owned their hurts, bravely and with a resolve that defined them.
“No. We were sent here for a reason,” she said after a considerate pause. Everything that happened up to this point has been for a reason. From the moment we stepped on to the plane, to the child I refused to have but was given anyway, despite our precautions. Given, and then taken. Even Baldur’s vicious attack has significance.
“What could be the bloody reason for this?” Jacob’s incredulous eyes scanned the garden and the slave cabins in the distance, still inhabited by those they were built for.
“Hell if I know, Donnelly,” Amelia replied, her sigh as confused as her thoughts. “But I suppose we’ll find out.”
She held her arm out and Jacob took it, with a lazy, slow smile. “The situations we find ourselves in, Blanca.”
Indeed. Things great and terrible, Amelia thought. But at least together.
“Síoraíocht, Mo mhíle stór,” Jacob whispered, as they made their way toward the future past.
* * *
Finnegan
One Week Later
Anasofiya’s heart was a series of dark tunnels, despair painting the walls in haphazard patterns. Finn would meander those halls for the rest of his days, scrub clean the pain, warming her from the inside out.
As she stood before him, hand laced with her son’s, ready for their next adventure, Finn no longer feared the road ahead or the forks in it. The past might haunt her, but he would be her light in the yawning darkness.
“Are we ready?” Finn asked his son and wife, linking his hands in theirs to complete the circle.
“We are,” Ana replied.
“Affirmative,” Aleksandr chimed in.
Finn smiled thinking about the two halves of his heart, the only true purpose he’d ever known other than navigating the endless sea. Around him, they stood, and would always stand. “I have no guarantee this will work, but this is Aleksei’s idea, so it has to be a good one, right?” He winked at his son.
Aleksandr blushed and lowered his gaze. “Amelia and Jacob have been gone for, what, a week or two? They could be anywhere, even if they came here first.”
“We’ll keep trying until we find them,” Anasofiya said with confidence. “However long that may be. A vow is a vow. And Amelia is my cousin.”
Forbia barked and circled their feet. For the first time since his reunion with Ana, Finn felt the knot in his heart re-form. “I’m so sorry, girl. Wolves don’t really blend in. We’ll be back soon, I promise. Jon will watch over you.”
At the mention of Jon, Ana flinched but said nothing. Whatever she was thinking—whatever Finn, too, was considering about that matter—would need to wait until their return.
For now, they had a more pressing matter.
Finn’s eyes closed.
He couldn’t remember meeting Jacob more than briefly, but Amelia’s was a face he could never forget, proof of the strength in the Deschanel genetics; it was Ana’s face, painted with less pain and framed with a halo of white gold.
All right, Goddess. You brought us here, and these are your guiding words. So show me the way. Wherever Amelia and Jacob are, we need to be there as well.
* * *
The world launched into a dozen somersaults.
* * *
Perpetual motion carried Aleksandr forward, knocking both his parents over onto their backs. They landed in grass. Overhead, the sky was edged in purple, welcoming the first whispers of dusk.
“Sorry,” Aleksandr said with a shy grin and rolling off to the ground. “That happened faster than last time.”
Finn sat up to gather his bearings. Anasofiya was a step ahead of him, both in maneuvering off the turf and in her recognition of the surroundings.
“It can’t be…”
Aleksandr’s eyes brightened, and he sprang to his feet. “No way!”
Finn’s vision cleared, and he examined his surroundings. The looming Big House came into view. All around them the familiar live oaks stood sentry, though they appeared smaller, or perhaps trimmed.
“Ophélie,” he mused, pushing himself off the ground. “I’ll be damned. We came home.”
“Not exactly,” Ana replied in wonder, meandering off ahead. “This is Ophélie, yes, but look at the height of the levee. You can see the river at ground level. Usually, we can only see it from the third floor. And the oaks, Finn, see how much smaller they are? They’ve only recently been planted. The grass hasn’t even grown around the roots yet.”
“Check out the size of those boats!” Aleksandr pointed toward the Mississippi, where two steamships passed in transit.
“What year is this do you think?” Finn asked, gaping wide-mouthed at the fresh white paint on the plantation home. And that garçonierre… still bore the shine of new construction.
“Before the war, maybe,” Ana replied, lost in thought. “I guess it depends on who opens the door when we knock, right?”
“You really think that’s a good idea?”
“I don’t believe we came here to be spectators,” she answered.
Aleksandr studied his clothes and grimaced. “We’re really not dressed for this. Like, at all.”
“We’ll say we’re cousins from the Low Countries,” Ana said. “Or descendants of the Habsburgs. They had their hands in every house of Europe. It would take years to disprove us.”
“You’re enjoying this when you should be crapping your pants,” Finn accused.
“If the alternative to enjoyment is shitting myself, I’ll choose a good time any day, thank you,” she teased.
God, how he wanted to take her in his arms and crush her in a never-ending hug. To see her smile, her lips tilted at the corners on the verge of a laugh… he could admit it now since she was back and safe. He had half expected to never see either again.
“Earth to Poseidon,” Ana said. “We doing this?”
“I love you,” Finn said, unable to help himself. “Both of you. So damn much.”
Ana regarded him from the short distance, and she was, for a moment, the beautiful mystery girl living next door on the island in Maine with the shy, unsure smile as she ran toward him down the coastline, book clutched to her chest.
And then she was in his arms, Aleksandr right behind her. All was right. All was okay. The world had stitched the broken seams, and the fabric had its stretch back.
“This is love,” she whispered, pressing her lips against his neck.
“This, right here,” Finn replied, planting his feet firmly in the soil.
